Christmas is coming!

Well, I finally finished making all my Christmas cards and got them in the post! What a marathon that was but I did enjoy it all the same. Lets just hope that the recipients like their cards.

If you've never checked out the Time for Crafting website (http://www.timeforcrafting.co.uk/) then I suggest you give it a look. Sara has created a fantastic website for crafty people and we also have an online magazine which you have to subscribe to but it is very reasonable and you get some great templates and inspiration.

This is a card I made for my recently married cousin and her husband for their first christmas together. I used the template from TFC and cut it on my Craftrobo (Sara provides both craft robo and ordinary pdf templates). It is a beautiful concertina card and in real life is very sparkly but it is difficult to see on the photo. I put it through my cuttlebug to get the snowflake embossing and then swiped it all over with versamark and then sprinkled holographic embossing powder over it and heated to get the twinkly, snowy effect which came out quite well, you may be able to see it a bit better on the second photo. I added a bit of interest using my gorgeous Lumiere paints and then some blue glitter glue on the top edges of the letters.




I have no idea when I shall get to post again but I am aiming to start putting something on here at least once a week when we get into 2009 - time permitting, lol :) In the meantime, I wish you and yours

A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR

What we've been doing in the garden this weekend

This weekend we have been hard at work in the garden re-vamping the pond area which had got very overgrown and untidy. I have posted several pics of the work as it progressed and it's amazing to think we did all of this in one day - I would add that besides me and hubby, we had help from my parents and a man with a digger! When it's completely finished there will be a lovely herbacious border, a gravel garden and two new seating areas. Big thanks to my mum who designed the plans for the work and bought me some lovely plants to start off with :)

There are of course loads more pics but I didn't was to bore you with them all, lol.

I've been busy again!

First here are a couple of cards I made recently, the first was for my Uncle's birthday and is on cream card and DL sized. I used a lovely Judikins four-sided stamp called Kew Gardens which came from a friend on the Time for Crafting Forum. I stamped the images with Timber Brown Staz-on and then watercoloured the images. I used brown ribbon behind them and a small green ribbon bow in the corner. The sentiment is a rub-on.


This card wasn't made for anyone in particular, I was just experimenting with colour tinting textured card and layering rubber stamp images. I quite like the effect and it could be used for any number of occasions so this is one for my card storage box!

Because I now have so many ATC's I decided to make a storage box for them from an old cereal packet cut down and covered with pretty papers. All I had to do was make a lid for it!

Finally I just couldn't resist having another play with the stampbord and lumiere paints, this is a tiny piece just 1" square but I thought it would make a lovely hanging charm on a card or ATC.

More Stampbord

I have done another couple of pieces of stampbord. For the orangy coloured one I used shades of yellow and orange inkpads, stamped a flower design on it with black versafine ink and then heat embossed the top with clear embossing powder. On the blue one I used a combination of blue inks and blue lumiere paint which I stamped with a thistle design in black versafine again but this time I glazed it with crystal lacquer. I think I will probably either use these as toppers on cards or for atc's.

Stampbord

Woohooooooooooooooooo!

I love stampbord, it's so great! Just got a pack of assorted shapes and had my first play and its great - I stamped a butterfly image onto 4 small 1" square pieces and then clear embossed them, now i have 4 pieces each with a piece of the butterfly on, a bit like a very simple puzzle really. I plan to use them on an atc (or maybe another altered puzzle piece) and will post it up on here when I have finished it.

Even more stuff

Well, I have been busy crafting again and made even more stuff :) I did another altered puzzle piece in red, black and gold which I really like, you can see the sparkly effect better in real life!


I've also make a couple of cards using some lovely new rubber stamps I bought recently. The first one is a Serendipity stamp from Joanna Sheens website and the second card uses a Stampin Up one from the Summer by the Sea collection which came from the Time for Crafting website. I coloured them both in with watercolour pencils and a waterbrush.

Some more stuff at last !

Well, I'm sure you will be pleased to know that I have not dropped off the face of the earth, just had so many things to fit in recently (including a bad back) that I have got behind with my crafting. Here are a few things I have made recently. I really love doing the puzzle pieces, they are such fun and I have really enjoyed experimenting with different techniques too. These pieces are quite large, about 4" x 4" so plenty of room, I have got some much smaller ones to do which will be a lot more challenging I think. I've got an altered book in the pipeline too but that is a long term project which I have only just begun!

The Cute Cat atc was made for the swap on the Time for Crafting forum which I host but was discarded because I made some other ones which I liked better. I still like this one though, it's such a cute kitten image.

These are the three atc's I used for the swap. I was really pleased with them and particularly like the vellum pockets. The vellum I used is covered in loads of sparkly dots but unfortunatly they dont show up in the photo. The stamp used is one from Paper Artsy which I think goes really well on atc's as it is just the right size.

Something at last !!!

At last I have felt like crafting again :)

Inspiration came to me when I found this old jigsaw of my son's, that and seeing other peoples clever ideas with jigsaw pieces too. As I needed to do an oriental piece for a challenge on the TFC forum I decided to have a go. Quite pleased with the results too :) I have made it so it will hang on a wall as I thought it would look good hanging up in my craftroom :)

Still not made anthing!!!

Well, still not made anything but thats because I seem to have lost my inspiration and everything I have tried has ended up in the bin LOL. Crafters block I suppose you could call it! On a positive note I have now started my OU course which I am loving :) it's really interesting and I got such a sense of achievement when I made my first webpage! Nine more weeks of it to go so who knows what I shall be able to produce by the end of it!

I did some some lovely pictures of the blossom in the garden as it looked so pretty in the morning sunshine the other day.

What .... no crafting!!!

I haven't made anything crafty for ages, mainly for two reasons, I've been doing my DH's paperwok and end of year books which is soooooo boring and I have also been playing this game which will remain nameless but at least one person knows what it is (don't you Celine?) LOL. This weekend I'm hoping to make a whole load of stuff and catch up with atc's and gothic arches which I haven't done for at least a week. I've also got this idea for something which I want to try but I'm not saying anything in case it goes completely wrong!!!

Linda (a lovely lady in New Zealand) posted me some "inchies" so I am going to have a play with them too so hopefully on Monday morning I will have something to show for my weekends work :)

Anyway, first things first! Tidy the craftroom so I can actually start making something LOL

Some stuff!

Here are some of the things I have been making this week (in between playing WoW!). I've been playing with my Bind it All which is soooo useful, making some notebooks and also made a couple of cards too. Not much else to report but have an idea for making boxes which I plan to try at the weekend.

Modified Card!

Having just realised it's my sisters birthday in just a couple of days I was wondering what sort of card to make for her! However, inspiration struck me and I just 'modified' a card I made for the 'Spring' challenge we did a while back on TFC. It's the sort of design she will really like and I just changed the wording so it became a birthday card. Cheating a bit I know but it is an impressive card because of its size - its A4!!! Going to cost me a fortune to post to her!

This month I will also needs cards for my cousin, my brother, my son and an anniversary card for my DH - looks like it's going to be a busy month cardwise LOL

Cute and funny!

I saw this on a facebook page and it made me smile and believe me, I needed something to do that today!

Gothic Arch Challenge

Its Gothic Arch time again and this weeks theme 'Asian' was set by Linda M. Now I really love the oriental style and thought that this challenge would be a doddle but no, I just couldn't get the look I wanted at all! I tried two or three different designs before finally settling on this one. Although you can't see it very clearly the background was stamped with a large cherry blossom stamp using versamark ink and then heat embossing with clear embossing powder, then I dabbed a couple of shades of blue ink over it and when dry, buffed the image so the image stood out glossy white against the blue shades. The beautiful girl is an image I found on the internet one night and the wording I did on the computer. I finished it off with a small panel which shows the same design as the background stamp I used. At first I felt it might be a bit sparse but the more I look at it the more I like it as it is, it shows the beauty of the geisha as she sits in contemplation! Hope you like it people :)

Fab Friday ATC Challenge

This time Leonie has set the challenge theme as 'A small thing of greatness'. Her ATC on this theme is absolutely wonderful and started me thinking about people who really make a difference! With this in mind I thought about all the people who have inspired me and who have actually 'made a difference' and I came up with Sir David Attenborough who is a truly remarkable man in my opinion. I wanted some words which summed him up and were along the lines of the theme so I hunted through some books until I came up with a quote by the polish-born american writer and humorist, Leo Rostin.

The purpose of life is to matter - to count,

to stand for something, to have it make

some difference that we lived at all.

I feel that these words really fit the man and the theme. I have kept with the sepia/vintage colouring as I am really enjoying using these colours at the moment. I printed the verse using an old-style typewriter font onto plain paper, tore round the edges and inked them with brown ink. Although it is difficult to see, there is a strip of torn paper down the right hand of the atc which has an acetate overlay of a watch. I found a photo of Sir David by googling him and again, I tore around the edge and inked it with brown. After I stuck everything down I went all around the atc with the same brown to give it an aged look.

Papertake Weekly Challenge - Sketch

This week's challenge was using a layout sketch provided by Katharina. This is the first 'sketch' card I have done and I quite enjoyed working within the confines of a brief. I decided to carry on using the same type of colours as I used for the arch I made in the previous post and the rubber stamp I used is from the Stampin Up, Lovely as a Tree set, I purchased from Sara at Time for Crafting. The button was just one from my bits box. Hope you like it!

Gothic Arch Challenge

This weeks theme was 'Heritage'. I used a piece of background paper from a Vintage Memories book, rubbed the edges with a nail file and then inked them, I also repeat stamped a leaf stamp all over in a medium brown. The photograph is one of my great-grandparents taken in the late 60's I think! which I have ripped and then inked around the edges to give a feeling of age. The wording was done on the computer and again, ripped and inked to age it. The big H is a wooden one which I just inked over with a couple of different shades of brown. I enjoyed this theme and it was nice to have an opportunity to look through some old photo's (for which I must make some scrapbook pages) which haven't seen the light of day for a while!

A4 sized Card!

I decided to go completely mad and make a full size A4 card for the spring card challenge on the TFC forum as I have been wanting to try one for a while now and this was a perfect opportunity. I used downloads from the Prima Hybrid site, very pretty packs called Enchanted Garden and Flying Above It All. I re-sized and fiddled about with the images and printed out onto pearlescent paper which I stuck to the card. I used my Kwik-Thread to thread my beads onto the ribbon and did the wording on the computer too using the same colours as the graphics. I then stuck tiny pearlescent beads to the centres of the flowers to make them stand out a little better. Quite different to my usual style but not too bad LOL. I don't know whether I would make many more of these big cards but it was fun doing this one.

Arty Girlz Weekly Challenge

This weeks challenge had the theme of 'doodling' but as I am useless with a pen and my doodling tends to look like a spider with inky feet has walked across the page I have used the computer to do my doodling for me. I used a swirly image from one of DAISIE Company's packs and recoloured it, then I copied it over and over again to create my 'doodles'. The wording is from the Stampin Up set, Sincere Salutations which I stamped with Versamark and embossed with silver embossing powder. The little dragonfly is actually a silver charm but it loks gold on here for some reason! I hope this type of doodling is acceptable for the challenge.

Fab Friday ATC Challenge

This week Leonie set the theme of 'Time'. Mine is probably a bit predictable but as soon as I saw the theme I knew exactly what I was going to do. A while ago I bought some gorgeous Chapel Road Art Stamps from Canada. The one I used is from the set called 'Rock Artishapes' and I stamped it onto gold card four times but completely off-centre each time so you get the whole stamp but broken into section. I stamped it once more onto cream hammered card and cut out the clock face and the wording. I edged the clockface with a dark brown inkpad to lift it into the foreground. I then used some wings which I stuck behind the wording to portray the image that 'time flies'. The wings came from a download from the Enchanted Garden download from Prima Hybrid which I made smaller using Serif PagePlus (my favourite dtp program). I am pleased with the final effect and happy that the colours are how I hoped they would be.

Gothic Arch Challenge

This weeks Gothic Arch challenge theme was Celtic. It took me a while to decide what to do and then I ended up making two of them - I just couldn't decide which one to post so I posted both of them LOL. I used Stampin Up stamps (Lovely as a Tree set which I purchased from Sara at Time for Crafting) for both of them. On the second one I used some embellishments I made a while ago using Friendly Plastic which I think look quite effective. I think that the second one is my favourite, I love the dragon on it!

Craft Club Fun!

Last night was our monthly craft club meeting and our lovely organiser Lindsay decided that it would be great to do an Easter challenge and as soon as she saw the lovely little treat boxes I had made (thank you Anne from the Time for Crafting forum for the instructions on how to make them) she thought they would be a fun thing for us to do and...........she would buy the mini eggs to fill them with! How could I refuse LOL. I made up a load of blank ones all ready with the DST, all the ladies had to do was decorate them. They really seemed to enjoy this and there was lots of giggling and laughing with only one or two minor mishaps with the sticking down of the ends!

Leonie's ATC Challenge

Here is my take on Leonie's challenge of "Beautiful & Bright". Beautiful background, bright man!

Apologies for the flash flare on the photo but hey, its a bright spot!

Decoupaged Birds!

Yesterday I really felt like cutting up something!!! Rather than just cut up random pieces of paper I decided to do some decoupage. I chose a fairly simple image from a Creative Paper Crafts CD, sort of shabby chic meets american quilts (LOL). Added some wording using the computer and DTP to try and use the same colouring and this is what I came up with!

Gothic Arch Challenge

This weeks challege was 'Transitions' and I have been struggling with this all week, have discarded countless ideas and filed a couple of my attempts in the 'round bin' in the corner of my craft room LOL. Anyway, today I finally came up with a concept for this that I am happy with. Hopefully you get will the idea of it just from the image but if not, the left is an 'idea' of hell and the right heaven, in the middle at the top is chocolate ...... get it now? LOL

The beautiful images are actually fractals which I found on a wonderful website, they are free to use and as soon as I saw them I knew what I was going to do so it was a good job I decided to 'waste' some time on the internet this morning LOL again! I have put a link to the site under my favourites so you can go and see all this wonderful art for yourselves.

Anniversary Card

Just finished a bookatrix Anniversary Card for our neighbours, it came out very well and they loved it, thank goodness LOL. The only problem I had was putting it in the box, the card ended up deeper than the box so I had to add some inserts to the box to make it deeper for the card!

I used my Cuttlebug to cut the letters out of some lovely red holographic card and then did a few flowers too just to decorate. The only problem I have with the letters is how to stick them on! In the end I ran them through my Xyron 250 but it did leave slightly sticky edges so to get round that I sprinkled over some clear glitter which looked great as well as eliminating the sticky areas. I also used my Cuttlebug to emboss the flower pattern on the top pages and I gently chalked over the flowers just to make them stand out a bit more. The little flowers came from my local stationers (bit of luck spotting them) and the rest was just bits and pieces I had in my stash! All in all, this is probably the best bookatrix I have managed so its obviously true, the more you do, the better you get LOL