At Last!

I finally got some time for me! Not a lot of time, and not a huge project, but it feels good to have finally made something again.... a card for my youngest DDs birthday in a couple of weeks

She may be all "grown up" but she still loves Peter Rabbit so I used a puffy sticker of him on the card, the rest is Fairy Flora background papers and graphic 45 stamps.  Unfortunately the camera flash bounced off the sticker so you can't see it.  Here it is on it's own but very blurry! My camera skills leave much to be desired!

Anyway. it's great to make something again after such a long time.  Hope everyone is having a good weekend.

Interlude

For some reason I couldn't get going on Tag 5 today, my t!m mojo went missing :(  Instead I made a birthday card that I have been putting off for a while.  Inspiration struck and I set to work putting it all together:

I did all the stamping (PaperArtsy Hot Picks) in Aged Mahogany DI, Coffee and Jet Black Archival, and was quite pleased with the result.  The background paper is a sort of linen colour and the colours really went well together.  Stuck the lace trim on the bottom, mounted the whole thing onto the card blank, inked up the Birthday Wishes stamp with Aged Mahogany and stamped it.... UPSIDE DOWN!!!!  It looked beautiful, except for the greeting being up the wrong way :o
Did some quick thinking and cut a nestie label from the left over background paper, stamped again onto that (the right way up!) and mounted that over the mistake.  Only problem then was it covered part of the top of the thistle, so I rummaged through my stash and found some Prima flowerage in a suitable colour and stuck that in the right place.  Phew! I don't think anyone will notice, as long as you guys promise not to tell!

Where have I been?

I've no idea! Turning the clocks back seems to have stolen my life, I have no clue what has happened to the past week.  Anyway, last post I promised to report back "on Sunday" on the 2 Scrap Ladies card marathon.  I didn't say which Sunday though, did I?!  So here I am, a week late. 

I had a really good time, met Julia in person which was fab, and Lunch Lady Jan's cakes and lunch were superb.  Made a total of 17 cards which you can see here and genenerally had a creative, chatty, great time with lots of lovely people.  I also feel a lot more confident about making cards now.

Apart from wondering what time it is this week (always seems to be at least one clock in the house that doesn't get altered every time and sits there waiting to confuse everyone!) I have been continuing with the Art Heart Healing course (button over on the right) which is free and absolutely fantastic.  Tam is really not skimping on the content on this course even though it is free, and I recommend it to everyone. Seriously, try it! 

Week 2 was to image transfer a photo of myself as a young child.  Yep, that is and yes, they did have cameras way back then!  Then we wrote some good wishes for ourselves and collaged these on to the page.  This was done in an altered board book rather than in our art journals like the first week.

Week 3 was in the same board book on the next page to make Whimsey characters and collage them into a scene.  Not too happy with this.  I think kitty may be covered up with something else, and I may play around with it some more, but it's done for now.

So, I am up to date for the next lesson which goes up tomorrow.  Not going to have much time to do it though because I am off to another conference with work, this time in Bournemouth, from Tuesday to Thursday. Yuck!  Still, after that things might settle down a bit, and I might even get around to taking some leave, YAY!

Have a good week everyone.

Purple Haze

Mr Blogger has not been playing nicely lately!  For the past couple of days he has been telling me "service unavailable" whenever I try to get to my dashboard or when I try to comment on anyone elses blog.  He seems to have let me get to my dashboard today on my third attempt, so maybe this post will appear!
Went to The Craft Barn Extravaganza yesterday and blew lots of dosh (I really shouldn't be let anywhere near stash with money in my purse!).  One of the things I bought was a Spellbinder butterfly die which you can see here.  After watching the demo for Viva Papersoft I had to have some, so got a couple of colours as well as a paper pen and applicators.  I played with those earlier and made this card... yes, another card!

I've also used some Inca Gold on this card, which was another purchase yesterday (got three pots). I wish they would sell it in smaller pots because it goes a long way and there are so many gorgeous colours that it would be easier on the old bank balance if the pots were half the size at least!
I had a list, which I stuck to in so far as I bought what was on the list... but then I made a few impulse purchases as well, including the Graphic 45 Steampunk Debutante paper pad... well how could I resist?  I had Hot Pick 1006 on my list, but I got 1009 instead, because I wanted that too and that one was ready mounted whereas the 1006 was only in unmounted and I hate, loathe and detest mounting stamps!
I bumped into Alison watching Beatrice demoing Katzelcraft stamps, and had a lovely chat with Helen over a cup of tea.  Jo Firth Young was demoing the Letterpress and was suprising unjetlagged after her trip to New York. Was a great day, despite the weather, although my bank manager is probably not of the same opinion!
Anyway, the big news of the week/year/century is obviously that Tim Holtz is coming to teach a class in the UK, courtesy of Artsy Crafts.  Big dilema for me.  Apart from the fact that paying for this now is nigh on impossible, although I could find the dosh at a pinch, if I did go to the event in February then that would be it for the year in terms of retreats, so I wouldn't be able to do a full Artsy Crafts weekend as well.  Now, I am in awe of Tim Holtz and his techniques but.... do I sacrifice a full weekend of Lin and Leandra and their amazing team for 4 hours worth of Tim?  Having given it a lot of thought, I had to consider is Tim a better teacher than Lin or Leandra.  In my opinion, not really.  He may be as good, but not better.  Having attended Artsy Crafts events and seen lots of videos and step-by-steps on the web of Tim's techniques, I think Lin and Leandra can do what he does (though maybe not the skiing down mountains, saving the world type stuff that Linda E attributes to him, lol).  I also love his stamps and his projects are amazing but... I also love Leandra's stamps and both Lin and Leandra produce amazing projects too.  At the end of the day, I think Lin and Leandra's stuff has the edge for me.  Again, this is just my opinion and my personal taste, but I prefer the stuff that l!n and THE Leandra Franiche produce over the stuff by Tim ...... don't shoot me!!  So, while I congratulate Lin and Leandra on the amazing coup of getting Tim over here to teach a class, and I am sure lots of crafters here in the UK thank them from the bottom of their hearts, I am going to save my pennies for the amazing Artsy Crafts weekend in May and pass on Sir Tim of Holtz.... which I am sure won't have the slightest impact on him, lol, and I hope everyone who manages to get a ticket  to the February events has an amazing time (I'm sure you will). I, on the other hand, will look forward to an equally amazing time in May :)  Good luck for everyone at 8pm tomorrow when the tickets go up for grabs!!

Another Card!

I'm getting in to this card lark now.  This one is for my older DD, her birthday is two weeks after my younger DD's (there is only 11.5 months difference in ages between them, so for two weeks each year they are the same age!)

I took a white glittery card blank (not sure why I have those, must have been drunk when I bought them!) and matted some black card and then some blue mirror card (obviously purchased on the same alcoholic spending spree as the card blanks!).  I'm improving on the matting slightly too since buying myself one of those clear rulers with a metal strip and markings on them (no, not the one by Sir t!m, but similar).  I then made a sparkly, grungy background by dabbing some Brilliance inks onto my craft mat, spritzing them with water then plonking (technical term) some white card onto the wet ink, drying, then plonking some more.  The frame is, I think, a Maya Road one, painted with crackle paint then, when that was dry I rubbed on some walnut stain DI and then some gold wax.  I used a Crafty Individuals background paper with butterflies on in the frame then stuck that on to the card as well as the pink and brown butterflies which are from a haberdashery dept somewhere.  The chipboard butterfly is again Maya Road.  I painted it with viva precious metal paint then stuck on lots of bling.
Hope everyone is having a great Easter.  I'm looking forward to Ally Pally on Saturday where I shall head for the LB Crafts stand and pull faces at Ms Linda E :)

I made a card!

This is the first time I've ever made a card I am pleased with!  I hardly ever make cards as I am really, really bad at it.  Anyway, after seeing all the gorgeous cards Helen makes I was inspired to try again as it's my DD's birthday coming up soon.

The background is from a Crafty Individuals backgrounds book and has lots of lovely grungy colours in it.  I smooshed some brilliance inks onto my craft sheet, spritzed them with water then dipped a chipboard word and some grungepaper into the wet inks.  I stamped a Studio 490 butterfly onto the grunge and cut them out, used some gems for the bodies then stuck them on around a Prima flower.  I covered a K&Co "thinking of you on your birthday" ticket with rock candy crackle paint then swiped some cosmic shimmer mists over it when it was dry.  I used rock candy stickles on the word, and coloured a crown (she is my princess, lol) with a gold krylon pen and then put some antique linen stickles over the top of that.  It's all very sparkly and I like how it looks.

Another year over

In fact, a whole decade.  I was thinking about this last night and, all in all, it's been a pretty lousy 10 years really.  

In 2000 things got bad and then went downhill from there.  Won't bore anyone with all the gory details but a few highlights were losing my grandmother, my father and my mother and getting cancer.

Anyway, here we are at the dawn of a new decade and hopefully the teens will be a darn sight better than the noughties!

I am now 50 (and a half) so when I saw Scrapdolly's new project I thought "that's for me" so I'm joining in the 52 in 10 adventure which you can check out here  

I'm also intrigued by Ali Edward's One Little Word (details here ) so I'm going to give that try too.  It sounds pretty much like an affirmation but with a crafty twist so it should be good for me.  I just need to decide on a word.... better make sure it isn't procrastinate I guess! lol.  I'm thinking along the lines of relax/chill/let go/let it be/peace.  Better make my mind up soon!!

Right, enough of the navel gazing!  Back on the craft front, a first for me for Christmas 2009 was making a card.  I don't make cards, never done one, but DDs wanted me to make one for them.  To get some inspiration I hopped on over to Hels blog because I just love her stuff and I rummaged around in her old postings.  I found this and thought "I have that stamp, I'll give it a go" so I did.  Not as good as Hels, but it'll pass:

I brayered a background with a Twighlight brilliance ink pad then stamped the reindeer on in black archival ink.  I masked him and stamped the snowflakes with embossing ink then embossed in silver.  I gave him a bit of a glitz with some rock candy stickles and matted (badly I know, I am dyscutlic) onto black cardstock then stuck it onto a white glittery card blank.  The reason I did the greeting separately was because I didn't think about it properly and had no room for it on the main bit - either that or it was for artistic reasons, you decide!  Anyway, I stamped the greeting and embossed with holographic embossing powder to make it all sparkly then used some cut & dry foam with the Twighlight pad to match the main background.  There was a bit of a big space at the bottom where the greeting should have gone but, because of the above stated reason, there wasn't enough room for it.  So, I dug out a cute ickle polar bear felt thingy and stuck that on and a bit of tinsely holly stuff went on the reindeer itself because you can never have enough tat or tinsel at Christmas is my motto.

Happy New Year everyone x