Quick Easter Cards

A quick post to show these quick Easter cards I made for my mum, brother and family and sister and family - the bunny image is clip-art, coloured with my lovely Promarkers and the patterned paper is all magazine freebies. So, very cheap as well!

Cutting back

Now that Spring has at last arrived I am trying to get all the cutting back and tidying up done in the garden that we usually start about a month ago but weren't able to with all the snow and then rain. I'm really racing against Nature's clock here, as traditional wisdom says all pruning and cutting back should be done by the end of March, which is on Wednesday! I've done the fruit trees, the Cornus, some roses and other shrubs and made a start on the Siberian Irises, but there is still a lot to do. Looks like good weather for it today, so after lunch I will be out there again with my trusty gloves, shears and secuteurs...

Promarker Love

After reading a thread about these artists marker pens over on UK Scrappers, I just had to get myself some and try them out. Yes, they are expensive, £1.50 - £1.99 each (though I got a good deal on a set and free postage at Angelcrafts), but the quality is wonderful, the colours beautifully vibrant and there is a huge range of colours available. I can see they are very addictive!
Anyway, when they arrived, I spent an enjoyable couple of evenings doing colouring in - I made a couple of Easter cards and then these bookmarks for a swap in my team on UK Scrappers:

Front:




Back:




I don't actually have many outline stamps which are good for colouring, so I have been using clipart images - I read on someone's blog that you can change images to black and white and use them like digital stamps. I have found that not all images work when you make them b+w (well not on my computer anyway), but lots do. Apart from the lampshade, which is a stamp, all the other images on the bookmarks are from clipart. I'm really pleased with how these turned out - and they were such fun to do as well!

Also, please check out my very cute Promarker storage tin in the top photo. Again I "borrowed" someone else's idea - on a thread about storage of the pens, someone had said they used a lunch tin from Paperchase. Well, I just happened to find myself in Paperchase on Tuesday and treated my new Promarkers to this lovely tin!

Papercrafting

Whew! It feels a little strange to be back blogging after such a long break. I'm not sure quite why I stopped at Christmas time - we were away at New Year and then life seemed to be extra busy after that. My knitting projects have also been sadly neglected although I did use my sewing machine intensively for a while to make DD2 two flapper girl dresses for a production of Bugsy Malone she was in at school

I have been back making things this month and last, though - cards and scrapbook layouts!

I have got back into scrapbooking recentlyalmost to the point of obsession. I 've made 7 LOs in the last 3 weeks and have also made quite a few cards. (I've also spent lots of money on scrapbooking stash, but sshh - don't tell anyone!

Here are a few of the LOs I've made recently:


My DD2:






This is about our silver wedding anniversary:





Another nostalgic one about me and DH:






My three:





And this one I just finished this morning, for the monthly challenge over on Sarah's Cards blog:
(the challenge was to use old stash)