Celebrating a life

My Brother Russell would have been celebrating his 52nd Birthday today so I thought I would celebrate his life by adding one of my favorite photograph of him to share with you all.

Russell was 17 years old, in the prime of his life and I was 10 years old, he longed for a career in the Navy from starting his teens and that is what he had, he served in the Merchant Navy and loved every minute of it.

We actually got along famously which is unusual for brothers and sisters even with the age gap between us, I was a very difficult child with a temper like you wouldn't believe yet Russell always had time for me and I would tag along by his side.

His letters home were amazing and he would describe everything he saw on his journey's to the point you felt like you were there with him.

Then came the devastating news that Russell had been lost at sea 50 miles from the coast of South Africa, they searched for days but he was never found.

Our beautiful Son, Brother, Friend was gone from our lives without a trace, our hearts tore in pain of losing him.

I still when thinking of him have that voice in my head that says "wouldn't it be lovely if he just walked up the garden path and knocked at the door" (sigh)

Love you Russell, be safe in the arms of our Dad.

Teal and Chocolate - Poppy

I used Stampin Up patterned paper (to the nines) and the stamp set Remember by Papertrey Ink to make the card.

I love chocolate and teal colours together. This shot doesn't show up to well the embossed top of the cream card but a close up further down the page does so please scroll down.

Attention to detail...

The top of the card that I stamped on was embossed using the paisley Cuttlebug folder I distressed around the endges of the top cards then tied around the ribbon and knotted it through a button to finish,

I stamped the poppy twice, cut one out then added it with a dimentioal dot to make it pop.

Two Jill

I used soft shades when using the promarkers to colour the image I tried to match with the pretty papers and satin ribbon.

I used the Martha Stewart Flourish edger punch at each side of the image.

Attention to detail...

Soft colours work really well on toddler images don't be afraid of leaving white parts when shading.

Keeping all of the colours matching

Love You - Shy Valentine Nessa

Shy Valentine Nessa is a digi stamp drawn by Mo Manning you can find her here.

I coloured her with Promarkers and then cut around her.

White base card layered with a cm smaller deep red, the hearts (nestabilities) scalloped white and plain deep red card, layered and a white ribbon tied around, I glued a few clear iridescent hearts at opposite corners and wrote the wording on the bottom right corner then finished by adding 3 flat back pearls.

Attention to detail...

Arghhhh black hair, I got this result using Promarkers, black, ice grey 5, ice grey 3 and a bit of the ink essentials white gel pen.

Don't be afraid to add your own hand writing to the front of a card, it adds character.

Valentines Day is Coming - Free Downloads

Its only 1 Month to Valentines Day so I thought I'd better get designing and spreading a little love of my own to you wonderful crafters to help you all on your way to making the cards for the event, it is my way of showing how much I appreciate all of the support you give me here at my blog, the comments you all leave really make my day.

Thank you.

You are free to use my sheets for personal use but please do not share, alter, claim them as your own or sell them, instead link back to my blog for people to download them.

They are copyright protected.

Just click on the images and this will bring them to full size on your screen then save it to your computer.

The sheet will print to a normal size A4 sheet, once saved to your computer double click on the file then from the top menu on your computer click, file then print this will then print out the image