10 Feb - More exciting News!

No card from me today, been really busy this week! BUT, over at the Polkadoodles challenge today we are all about lovey dovey hearts and there is a lovely digi up for grabs all free, free, free so get on over there pronto!

I do have some really exciting news though and I'm still getting over the shock - I found out yesterday that Polkadoodles has been nominated in the Craft Business Trade awards as Best UK Manufacturer! Woohoo! This is amazing news, I had no idea until someone gave me a heads up about it! We are up against Personal Impressions, Sizzix and Woodware who are all really big hitting companies so I'm truly flattered that enough people know who we are and what we do to have nominated us up there in the top 4! In fact, I'm still reeling about the whole thing. I guess sometimes you just get caught up in your own little universe so much you sometimes need a reality check - and what a nice one it is too! I don't think we'll win but quite honestly I really don't care, I consider it a real achievement to be on the same platform as the other 3 brands up there and it means a lot that these nominations have also come from the UK trade - I think we all want to be recognised by our peers at some time for the work we do, don't we. Of course, I've said it before and I will again a million times - we are nothing without our lovely customers and that is YOU, so a huge thanks to you all for helping us reach this point. Right, I'm welling up now *sniff*. Have a great weekend everyone!

Craft Stamper Feb issue

I am very lucky to be asked to contribute to Craft Stamper magazine occasionally and I'd totally forgotten about this project until someone told me they'd seen it!
The gallery this month is all about Home and whatever your interpretation of that is, so here's mine, sorry if you find it boring that I use these stamps over and over again but I just don't tire of them, I have to say...

The sentiment is one i found online and as I didn't have anything else around me at the time I just quickly typed it up in Word and then cut the words out - I do this a lot when I don't have the right stamp to hand and need a quick sentiment, I love putting them all criss crossy at jaunty angles...

I coloured the images with a mixture of Promarkers and Flexmarkers and then also added some Wink of Stella sparkles to the lights. Again my camera has washed it out a little, I think it looks much nicer in the magazine, there's much more depth to the colouring.

If by some chance you've never seen the stamps before, they are from my Neighbours range and you can find them here on the Polkadoodles website. 

Exciting news!

Hi everyone! I have exciting news today!
I don't get much 'me' time to craft for me these days as I'm always so busy making samples for Polkadoodles and everything else, but I am determined to make time for my own crafting this year, I'm particularly fed up of never having a card when I need one LOL! It's really important that you don't become stale with creativity and when you work with your hobby sometimes you can get in a rut, especially if you only craft with one particular type of product. Much as I love my own designs I also love loads of other designers' work too and Elisabeth Bell is truly one of my favourite designers on the planet, she just evokes my memories of childhood with her gorgeous images.Last year we started to stock the gorgeous Belles n Whistles range of Elisabeth's designs and I adore them so much but she also has her own exclusive digi range too. Anyway my news is that the girls on the Digibells team have kindly asked me to join them as a Guest Designer until April and I am sooo pleased!! I consider this a great honour as the girls on the team are such talented designers so it's extremely exciting and make sure you follow the Digibells blog, it's great for inspiration! I'd just like to wish Wendy and Rosie a big well done for making the GDT spot too, looking forward to seeing these girls work, the whole team is just fab!
So today is my first official GDT post!  So here we go...

This gorgeous image is called I Love You This Much. To me she looks like she has the wind running through her hair and is just full of joie de vivre! I coloured her with a mix of Pro and Flexmarkers and wanted to get some lovely soft blending to make her look all vintagey and shabby chic (cant you just tell I am in such a craze of this right now!). I used one of my Grand Nesties and an Ironwork nestie for the message, then finished off with Marianne's flourishes which are some of my favourites I have to say. The Papers are from Pretty Sweet (again, groan! sorry but I have a big pile to hand which just seem to suit everything I'm making right now!) 

The actual card shape is a parentheses (brackets) shaped card which I folded in half, I adore this shape right now. I added stickles for some sparkles and that's it!
So don't forget to head on over to the Elisabeth Bell digishop where you can pickup this image for a snippety snip!
bbs xx

Swoon...

Mine.

All mine.
Minnie, move over girlfriend, you have nothing on me!
; )