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About Me

Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom
My name is Clare I live in Nottinghamshire and work in education supporting students as my full time job but like to make cards, craft and plan as a hobby. I have recently taken up arigurumi crochet, the perfect autumn/winter hobby. I have also decided after a number of years off to pick up my guitar and learn to play again so due to metal strings and crochet hooks the ends of my fingers are slowly toughening up.

Tuesday 28 May 2013

Ratatouille Kitchen Hanger

I'm quite liking these MDF projects.... Decided that it was time for something for me instead of others. The first job was to paint the back and edges of the hanger as I felt it would make the piece look 'finished' once done.... My other half was good enough to do this for me whilst I was at work, bless him.

The image is called "Ratatouille" and is a piece by Krista Smith of Saturated Canary. I love it, mind I love all Krista's images... I coloured her FS1/3, TN1/2, CR8 and some BGR but can't remember which  off the top of my head (sorry). I coloured her eyes grey originally but decided to add a touch of TB1 blue too..





I used some Creative Memories tulip paper I had in my stash to cover the front of the piece and added a strip of red gingham card across with a piece of red grosgrain ribbon. I felt that the image needed a plain background to make it stand out so used a piece of red card to do so. I also cut a red heart out of the same card and added a white one, to which I added my own sentiment "Heart of the Home" because that is what the kitchen is :-)








I made three rolled flowers with the papers, two gingham and one tulip so that they blended with the piece and added a white paper rose from my stash in the top right corner also adding a 'spoon' charm.










I wrapped the stem of a paper rose around a small glass jar which I filled with spaghetti and stuck it in the bottom corner and also made another gingham flower (which I'd used a Dreamees stamp to create the template) to sit against it and threaded another paper rose through it's centre.








All in all, pretty happy with the result. Would love comments please xx

Love n Light

Clare x










Sunday 26 May 2013

Book Worm - Reading Rosie

Here's my final blog for tonight.... I purchased four beech box frames recently and decided that I wished to frame four cards/pictures created from my favourite four (craft) artists at the moment. They are Saturated Canary (I have one of these already courtesy of Rebecca of Berrylicious Cards and it is framed now), Kenny Kiernan, Regan Kubecek and Hayley at Dreamees.

This one is by Hayley at Dreamees and is called Reading Rosie. She's from the Gorgeous Girls cd. I've used spectrum noir pens LV's I think and TB1 for her jeans... The tags come with her and I coloured them to match.


I layered her using card from my stash. It's a plain lilac, a pale sage linen effect card and a pastel pink. I used some paper straw to layer the image square onto the rest of the card. I had purchased a number of flowers from Sally Twinkle's in Mansfield. The buttons however came from my mum's button box which I think I may now have to permanently acquire...lol.

Hope you like her, I do and she'll be going on my wall in the morning (bit late to be knocking picture tacks into the wall).

Love n Light

Clare x

Cosy Night!

Think this should be "Cosy Lap" but you get the idea :-)

You will already have seen this image on a previous blog but it's been waiting for me to convert into a card.  I've used a Sketch for the layout of this card and really pleased with the result here.  The cards were from my card stash and the scrolls were from Dreamees. The fringing is actually paper straw from The Works in Mansfield. I edged one end using a lace cutter.

The card has actually been created for a friend that fell in love with the image when I coloured her and wants it for herself. Hoping she likes it.... (Lucy Hayes).

I will be entering this card into the CLP Sketch Challenge 58 for May.

Love n Light

Clare x

30 card

My niece asked me to make this for a friend after she'd seen my Daisy Dancer card but instead of the dancer (as she didn't look like that!) "30" was required instead. The white leafed scroll was cut using a die I have and I added tags and created the black flower using a cd from Dreamees. One of my favourite companies you will notice....lol


The white square has an original piece of Zentangle (R) on it in Tim Holtz Spun Sugar Distress Pen. I coloured the tags using the same pen.

I love pink and black, I think it's a really effective card.

Love n Light

Clare x

CAS - Clean and Simple

This card was made to go with the door hanger and birdhouse money box previously blogged. The request was just for a card that went with them.  I decided that I would create a very simple card using a leafed scroll die I have which was cut from some Dreamees paper which I printed from one of my cd's and also a flower created using template. The actual card shape was also a template.


Not much to say about this one other than I think the simpleness of it is really effective. What do you think?

Love n Light

Clare x

Collecting Hearts


Hi, sorry been missing for a while. Just realised I hadn't added this image to my blog.  The image is called "Collecting Hearts" and is by Regan Kubecek. You can buy her images at Queen Kat's stamps. They sell a number of rubber stamps and a few of them can also be purchased as digital stamps.  I really do love her work.


I coloured this in spectrum noir pens and matt and layered with card and a heart doily from my stash.  As the image was called "Collecting Hearts" I added a few more to complete the card.

I also created a notebook using the same image and most of the same colours but having mushroom coloured toadstools and used this colour as the base for my layering colour along with a mottled Creative Memories paper which had the same sand colour in it.  I also added a little broderie anglaise ribbon and some bias binding to edge that off.



Hope you like

Love n Light

Clare x

Wednesday 15 May 2013

Nikki Nature


Another card completed yesterday, using Dreamees products which I am so loving at the moment. This one is made using backing paper from the Simply Sweet Double CD from the pastel blue and pastel pink ranges. The design was from the Sketch n Stash Challenge 113.

The image is "Nikki Nature" and I think she looks a sweetie in her spotty wellies... I've used Spectrum Noir pens FS1 & 3 for her skin, TN1, 2 and EB1 for her hair. PP1 for her t-shirt and TB1 (I think) for her dungarees and the ticket. The tickets are part of the image set and I coloured them to match. The flower is also on the cd as an accessory. The scrolls and heart tag also came from Dreamees (told you I liked them) and I distressed them both with Tim Holtz "Spun Sugar" distress ink. I decided it was a little fox sat with her so coloured him in TN2 leaving a little white tip on his brush.

I added a little bit of bias ribbon from my stash threaded through the heart tag just to finish it off.


I will be entering this card into the Sketch and Stash fortnightly challenge.

Hope you like it, would love feedback either in the form of comments or ticking of boxes.... :-)

Love n Light

Clare x

Money Box & Door Hanger

This project was something different for me. I'd made a door hanger at a workshop I attended which I really enjoyed. It was seen my by sister in law who asked me to do her these for a friends birthday, so here you go, what do you think?






Everything apart from the heart banner on these is courtesy of Dreamees, a really friendly family business who are massively enthusiastic about crafting (you can tell I'm a fan....lol).

The papers are on a double cd called "Simply Sweet" and it's full of various coloured backing papers, accessories, card templates, sentiments (it's packed). I used papers from the cd to craft the green and teal flowers and their white rose kit to make my roses.  The mdf birdhouse money box and door hanger were also from them.

The heart banner die is by La La Land and I purchased it from Bunny Zoe's Crafts and it's my favourite die at the moment...

I will be making myself a hanger shortly to go in my kitchen but it'll be along the lines of the kitchen being heart of the home with maybe a Saturated Canary image included.

Please feel free to comment either by ticking boxes or leaving me a comment. Thanks for calling by

I am entering these into the Cute & Girly mid way challenge

Love n Light

Clare x

Tuesday 14 May 2013

Daisy Dancer

I made this card a little while ago but forgot to blog her.

I used black card from my stash and spun sugar card from Tim Holtz purchased at Gemini Crafts, Sutton-in-Ashfield.  to layer up and the white patterned layer I actually Zentangled (R) myself with my spun sugar distress ink pen as I wanted it to match colourwise. I also coloured her dress with this and used my spectrum noir pens for her skin (FS1 & 3) and hair (TN1, 2 and EB1).

The image herself was from the collection "Girls" from Dreamees as were the tags, scrolls and templates for the flowers which I made as per instructions from Carol at Dreamees. The card template shape was also from one of their cd's.

Really enjoyed making this one and hope you like her too.

Please feel free to leave a comment or tick a box. It's always a pleasure to get feedback from other crafters.

Thanks for dropping in

Love n Light

Clare x


Tuesday 7 May 2013

Be so Happy

Made this for a very special Grandma's 80th birthday. Words were more important than images or numbers so here's what I created:

This first image is obviously in the box. Everything on this card apart from the die-cut scrolls came from Dreamees a company run by Hayley Bignall (an ex-student at the school I work in) and her Mum, Carol Bignall. Hayley is a designer of original artwork cd's, stamps and accessories.

I printed papers in pastel green and pastel pink from her Simply Sweet CD for this card. The flowers are made using printed templates and I think look fab!! I decided to cut the flowers leaving a white border (a tip from Hayley) as it really makes the flower pop when it's completed.









 I've taken this photo so you can see the 3D effect of the flowers.











As this card is a wordy one, thought I'd let you see the verse.


I will be entering the card into Totally Gorjuss - Anything Goes with Swirls Challenge
and Pink Gem Designs - Make It Sentimental Challenge
and Divas By Design -Anything Goes Challenge




Thanks for calling by, please let me know what you think of my card either by ticking boxes or leaving a comment.

Love n Light

Clare xx






Sunday 5 May 2013

Me, My Cat & The Moon

Have done a couple of versions of this little beauty and they look totally different. This one was completed and sold virtually on the same day. The other image has yet to be converted into a card but has been reserved already, I promise Lucy I'm on it...

On the completed card I used Spectrum Noir pens as always. FS1 & 3 for the skin LV1 & IB1 for the dress, hat n gloves. Her hair was BG4 and a blender to get the white streaks.

I blended BG1 & 2 for the sky and did the tree in EB1, 2 & 7 trying to get where the moon had highlighted the branches. The cat was coloured in BG8.

I used some stock CM card and papers to matt and layer the image and added a couple of wee pearls in the corners. Really happy with the result.

The second version I've included the photo I took when I'd finished her which shows the colours I used.

Thanks for calling by. Hope you like them. All cards like this are one offs but something similar can be created on request.

Love n Light

Clare xx