Fairy Magic

Another fine example of a card that didn’t end up like how it started out:

Clean and simple tho, huh? I’d like to enter it for the CAS-ual Fridays challenge – Pretty In Pink (sorry about the dodgy photo, I promise the fairy’s dress is pink!)

Seems Fishy.

This should be a short post; I saw this gorgeous plate in Matalan:

(there’s still a chance I will go back and buy it) and came home and made this card:

Oh and this one:

I was aiming for a cross between the inimitable CAS style of Aimes (p.s. Happy Birthday, lady) and the out-of-the-box example of Julie Ebersole here.

Not sure of the blue, now, but otherwise I’m pretty happy with it! Whaddya think?

My Name Is Not Brian…

…and I don’t shop at Money Supermarket, but my weekend is turning out to be fairly EPIC!

On Friday, I got to see my favourite comedian of the last 12 months Tim Minchin and thanks to some friends we made in the car park we got to be this close to him with little or no effort on our part:

Plus after a promise of torrential rain at our outdoor picnic/gig, the weather turned out all evening like this:

And then tonight, having already convinced the chief cook and bottle washer to get a takeaway Chinese, I am catching up with my emails and blog roll and lo and behold I get a showCASe mention from the Less Is More challenge blog!

I really don’t ‘do’ less is more or clean and simple in any aspect of my life so this honourable mention is even more astounding. What a shame the queen has already released her honour roll, eh?!

Smokin’!

The first birthday in June is my best friends husband and I always associate him and his bday with a barbecue – even tho its been years and two kids ago, i think, since we celebrated with one! – and this year is no exception! Please be upstanding for a freestanding pop-up card, of which I am most proud:

Above: Popped up in all its glory.

Below left: The back                           Below Right: Folded flat

I originally saw this technique when Loraine made this one and I hunted down the instructions in the Splitcoast Stampers forum and of course added a lil jodpea magic! Please excuse me while I run off and make a toaster one now!
Happy Birthday Mr Mills!

Welcome Lila Grace!

Dear Miss Lila Grace McGuire,

We have never met nor are we likely to, as you live a million miles away ‘across the pond’ but as I stalk, ahem I mean follow your mother on Twitter I feel like I know you all anyway! So I made you a card:

This card did not set out to look like this but as I still had the elements from yesterday’s cards lying around, this is how it ended up!

So congratulations to your uber talented mama & family and welcome to the world, Lila Grace.

p.s. I’m not the only one, there are lots more cards here!

Red, White & Blue!

Who isn’t feeling just a lil bit patriotic right now? Come on, I live in my own lil world and even I’m feeling it! And even if you don’t care, red white & blue is a pretty good colour combination anyway.

Which would explain why Daring Cardmakers and Less Is More have both used them for this weeks challenge!

Luvvley Jub-i-lee!

A Pride Of Peacocks…

Having seen this wonderful card by Cristina on  A Blog Named Hero, I just knew I had to…well go straight out and buy the silhouette file, basically…and a few others while I was at it! And this is my attempt:

The background is a blend of two new (to me, anyway) distress inks; Peacock Feathers & Iced Spruce (u can call off the search, Lise, I treated myself) I bought the reinkers and I may yet live to regret it! I don’t know if you can see but there's a bit of cosmic shimmer thrown in there for good measure too.
And while I was playing about with these die cuts, I tried to see if I could use one as a mask with the flitter glue and gilding flakes… it didn't really work, I think I put too much glue on but then I put the excessively gluey bit of paper to use by adding the gilding flakes directly to it – u like?

Across The Miles

This card was inspired by an earlier card but this time I decided to try and distress an old road atlas (harder than it sounds!). I used the page for this area as the recipient is originally from round here but now lives in Australia – hence the sentiment

Does anybody else have cards...

...that jus dont want to be made? I was so determined to use the inked strip on this card but the other elements took an age to come together!

I works tho, I'm happy with it. Its been a long time since I made a paper flower too!

Con-Grad-Ulations!

 

Not a lot I can say about this card except I absolutely love it and, although the date has passed, it has not actually made it to its intended recipient yet – thru no fault of mine! The colour scheme came about from my printer having a mind of its own, the stripes were meant to be red and were intended for my huts card last month…!

I’d like to enter this for the Daring Cardmakers challenge – Hat Boutique

Feeling a bit sketchy?

I’m not much of a one for sketches, I am often amazed by how people can interpret a series of geometric shapes into a fantastic card but I don’t find they do anything for me… until… My cousin gave me a pile of old mags and I found this article by one of my faves Jo Kill and not only was I inspired to properly try my hand at machine stitching, I’ve since made four cards in the same style:

(of course I only remembered to photograph two!). I’m pleased with this woodgrain, I versamark’d and clear embossed the wood grain stamp onto white card, coloured over it with weathered wood Distress Ink, sliced it up into ‘planks’ and glued it back together onto a backing sheet after roughing up and inking the edges. I let it dry but decided I wasn’t happy with the contrast so I rubbed a white chalk ink pad over the surface to fade the colour out a bit and I like it a lot better! The Stampin’ Up! bird is stamped on a digi paper I altered in Photoshop to resemble a lovely shirt Noel Edmonds was wearing on Deal Or No Deal the other week! Inspiration is everywhere, folks!!

Who Ever Said Wood Grain Had To Be Masculine?

Well actually probably nobody but it sounded good. This is my first creation using my new (Well, new to me) Studio Calico wood grain stamp - I think we will be having many more adventures together!

WOYWW147 – Explosion in a craft factory!

Hello WOYWWers, long time no see! I was plodding away at my bomb site of a desk and I thought “this looks like some of the desks I used to see when I took part in WOYWW!” so I decided to join in this week…

I’m meant to be playing with my haul from the NEC on Sunday but all I seem to be making is a mess! so much so I can’t even find my large… acrylic… block – oh look there it is leaning up against the Scor Buddy! Ha! Moving on…!

Use the link in my sidebar to visit the hub and start the blog hop to some much tidier (and probly much messier too!) desks and Happy Wednesday!

Is It Gonna Blow, Joe?

My best friends eldest boy recently turned four and he is obsessed with dinosaurs and volcanoes – and its taught his mom more than she ever wanted to know about them too!

I knew I wanted to make a pop-up card and I searched out tutorials for a couple of designs but it had to be a volcano, really so I set about working out how to make an eruption!

I’m really pleased with the final effect – and luckily so was Joe!!

Are You My Mummy?

I’ve wanted to make a tent card for ages and I’ve had these horrible oval aperture cards for even longer and suddenly inspiration struck!

I liked the idea of a washing line, altho when I did a bit of research all of the designs seem to be new baby (and we don’t need any more of those in my family thanku very much!). I printed off the papers from my digi stash, the props are made from cocktail sticks, coloured with alcohol inks. Oh and the twine and the cloud stamp are from the Simon Says Stamp kit (sick of that yet?). Cute, huh?

I have a design in mind for another one so I’ll be doing this again but If I were to make it from scratch I would need to make the base wider, it just doesn’t seem in proportion somehow.
p.s. The post title is due to the fact I was watching The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances while cutting the letters out. Complete coincidence I promise!

Sew Unbelievable!

I am not a seamstress! I am not a homemaker, I am not a domestic goddess. I am a little girl with big ideas, zero patience and a “slapdash” approach (that last one courtesy of my A-level Art teacher!) but I have made this:

Yeah, ok as photos go its not much of a reveal but its a purse!

Based loosely on my old ‘coin purse’ (and improving on where I thought it failed me), its made from Crafty Computer Paper’s Printable Cotton, with my favourite design from Cosmo Crickets Garden Variety collection printed on to it. I cut it into A6 portions and sewed all four together to create an outer shell with three compartments. On the advice of various tutorials I tried to cover sheets in clear sticky back plastic but this wasn’t so successful, mainly cos I ran out and also cos it creased summat awful when I turned the project right side out after stitching. So I have a few lessons to keep in mind for mark two but for now I just want to see how long it takes to trash it (as I inevitably will)!

Listen To Your Soul

This paper from My Minds Eye was one of those ‘eureka!’ moments, as soon as I saw the sentiment I knew I wanted to use my tape stamp purchase from a few weeks back. I did try creating a background but I wasn’t happy with the finish so I tried making a charm with the stamp and shrink plastic.
I’m really pleased with the finished card, I didnt really want to put it in the post! Oh and the scallop was cut by RoboCop – I think he loves me again, yay!

On Yer Bike!

Part of the Simon Says Stamp March Kit was a stamp set from My Minds Eye Follow Your Heart collection which included this bike. And lo this lil good luck card was born with a new job starter in mind…

Simon Says Stamp March Card Kit

Happy First Of March! (Oh yes it is!)

I joked about cancelling February (n my ‘big’ bday) but I didn’t have to, it went past in the blink of an eye all by itself!

I’ve been looking at subscribing to one of the many monthly kits that seem to be out there in webland, weighing up the costs of shipping from the US versus the convenience of having my craft shopping done for me.. and I decided to try the Simon Says Stamp kit, compiled by the rather wonderful Kristina Werner. And here it is (only 8 days after dispatch)…

You can see a full list of the contents here so now just watch this space and see if it ignites my mojo over the coming days…

Elegant Grey

I have a real thing for grey (is it my age?) and wanted to use some of this grey ribbon up. I stamped the SU Medallion (thanks Loraine!) in Versamark and sprinkled it with silver embossing powder. This powder is Papermania and its really quite a vibrant, molten silver when its used properly so I firstly brushed some of the powder away with my fingers (how come it brushes off so easily when u don’t actually want it to?!) and then after heat embossing I rubbed not-so-gently at the image with sandpaper. Sounds fairly drastic but I was pleased with the result. I embellished it with some ivory lace and the aforementioned grey ribbon. The cage is part of a set of three I’ve had since last summer and it just seemed to fit the style somehow.