Romantique

I had friday off work and had planned to spend the day with Anita. Although we had plenty of projects to fill our crafting time together, we saw Laura Dennisons Romanitique box and just had to have a go, all thoughts of other intentions were instantly dismissed.

We had some lovely new papers to play with, Anita chose Making memories Je t'adore and I used these yummy Capella papers by Basic Grey.

I made the pearly swirls from self adhesive pearls and the flowers are all an eclectic mix from my ever growing flower stash, the crochet ones all coming from Anita who made them all herself - thanks hon xxx - the book plate is by Basic Grey. Butterfly is a chipboard one from K and Co.

The knob is one I received as part of my christmas gifts from my sweet friend Nicki - thanks hon xxx

The inside all prettied up with complimentary papers

I couldn't resist adding some ribbon and lace, this bow at the back helps hide the seam.

Finally a close up of the flowers - have you guessed I love my flowers ! Also, you can detect from the photo that we have been having some lovely and much appreciated sunshine in our neck of the woods. I have not shed any layers yet but like a sunflower I did turn in admiration and enjoyed the warming glow.

Saturday saw me playing with my inks, creating backgrounds, which ended up becoming little atc's. The colours I ended up using reminded me of each of the seasons so the embellishments reflect that theme.

Spring - I used double embossing on the diamond background and shades of green ( shabby shutters and peeled paint over old paper ) I over stamped in Olive Stazon. The butterfly was made by and sent to me as a little gift by my sweet friend Paulien - thanks honey xxx

Summer - I again used the double embossing technique and used pinky shades of ink (tattered rose, worn lipstick and dusty concord) The butterfly is another little beauty from Paulien.

Autumn - The background layer was inked in brushed corduroy and stamped in close to cocoa (stampin' up) The tag was made by inking up an embossing folder with walnut stain before running it through my Cuttlebug and then the whole thing was inked again ( old paper, scattered straw and vintage photo) finally I rubbed it with some rock candy stickles. The flower and leaves were dipped in versamark and embossed with gold. The springs were little off cuts of craft wire I twisted into coils ( I wrap them around my pokey tool and then carefully slide them off - teasing them into the shape I require)

Winter - Tag was painted with Golden medium and the tissue paper was 'wrinkled' over it, I edged with a little broken china and faded jeans distress inks and added some snowflakes ( Marianne design) which were glittered with stickles. Finally I added a little picket fence crackle paint in the bottom corner which was coated in rock candy distress stickles once it was dry. 

All inks used were Tim Holtz distress inks aside from Close to cocoa which is made by Stampin' Up.

Punked !

I have been playing with one of my new border punches

The butterfly was stamped onto patterned paper, handcut and then adorned with pearls and Stickles

The ribbon was a gift from my dear friend Anita, thanks hon

Next are my Steampunk ATC's for the Stampman swap this month, thanks for the cool theme ladies

The cogs are Gadget Gears by Tim Holtz, they have been die-cut, inked and coated in UTEE. Other metal doodads are from my toolbox and stash, the little white flowers are metal from a pair of ear-rings I saw in a charity shop, they were never intended for my ears ( far too Bet Lynch for my taste lol) but lovely as embellishments for crafty stuff.

The larger metal flowers are Tim Holtz and the watch parts are all from old watches kindly given to me by mum, dad and grandad

A massive thankyou to Deidre for my beautiful flowers, she brought them into the shop and they immediately made me smile, thankyou honey, they are like a little ray of sunshine.

I have been given the following award by the ever lovely Sandra, thankyou honey

 

I now need to reveal something unusual about myself and then pass this along to 8  deserving bloggers

Ok  - for the unusual part - I hate having my hair cut, whilst most women enjoy pampering sessions and having their tresses caressed and teased into lush looking styles, the whole process leaves me cold and I put it off as long as I possibly can, to me it seems a completely unnecessary expense, I would much rather buy something cute for the kids or splash out on some new crafting goodies - Tim holtz will always beat John Frieda to my cash lol

And I am passing the award along to

 Anita   

 Nicki 

Paulien

Helena

 Chanelle 

 Cheryl

 Paula

Anne

 Also my lovely friend Nicki has posted a pay-it-forward challenge on her blog, here is how it goes :

  

 Pay it forward for creative people!! --

I promise to send something handmade to the first 5 people who leave a comment on this post. You must in turn, promise to post this and send something you made to the first 5 people who reply. It must be sent within sometime during 2011. It can be anything you have made - Card, Postcard, Atc, etc.

So if you would like something handmade from me, post a comment and the first five will receive something in the post in the next couple of weeks, I will contact you for your address.

Biscuits and cakes and wine - oh my !!!

Some quick cards I made yesterday afternoon

I must apologise for the shocking state of my photos lately, my camera is broken and I have been using my iphone. Now don't get me wrong, I love my iphone, after all, it gave me Angry Birds - but photos, it just does funky things to colours and they are always a bit blurry, so you may need to use your imagination a little, just until I get my new camera.

The floral background has been stamped in Bundled Sage

These following atc's are ones I created for an international swap I have joined, the theme was squares, you can't tell but the tiny middle square has been coated in Glossy accents giving it a lovely shiny 'tile' effect. I masked the askew square and inked in black soot. The stamp I used was a cube one by Judikins.

I enjoyed a lovely afternoon crafting and chatting with Anita and Margaret ( although I must admit we did far more chatting than crafting)

I have a couple of thankyous before I sign off

Thankyou for the biscuits Trish, for the bottle of wine Pat, for the gorgeous card Sara and for the cream cake Margaret - what a yummy day I have had xxx

Inchie twinchie spider

The card I made for Neil this Valentines day, I wanted to try a different style to the usual red hearts etc, so I went with a soft romantic feel and this Stampin' Up stamp seemed perfect

I distressed all the edges of the cardstock with the edge of my scissors

I received a not so subtle hint from my guy that he never gets a verse in his cards so this year I made a special effort to find some sweet words to finish the card.

I kept the embellishments natural in appearance to complement the feel of the stamp. The image was coloured in with Polychromos pencils.

This next project is one I completed last year but had requests to see it again, so here it is Anita, I have included some close-ups to give a clearer picture of how each twinchie has been made up. You can click on the images to make them appear larger.

I have created loads of projects with twinchies -  usually on cards or in frames, sometimes I have used them as the focal point of an atc, but, I decided to combine them this time with my favourite craft of all - scrapbooking, and made them into a layout of sorts, or it could be hung on the wall.

Each twinchie has been made up entirely from scratch, some embossed with the Cuttlebug and they have all been inked with the 'direct to paper' technique

I have kept the piece to a limited colour palette to prevent it from becoming too busy

All the embellishments have either been made up from punches, some have been stamped and others are just bits and bobs I have had laying around forever.

I always include hearts in projects like this, those along with words have become quite a signature style for me, not intentionally but it has just happened that way - must be something to do with being a Valentine baby.

Talking of which - I had a lovely birthday yesterday. I spent the day with my wonderful friend Anita, we enjoyed lunch and shopping and as usual a belly full of laughs. Just don't mention county baskets !!!

The rest of the day was spent with my family, we ate a lovely special three course meal at home and then all relaxed together for the evening. Amy had been busy planting little notes wishing me 'happy birthday' all over the house and I was still finding them as I was tidying before bed - bless her xxx

Thankyou to all my family who bought me presents and gave me money to treat myself. Neil bought me a gorgeous bronze Mulberry keyring in the shape of a solid heart as my Valentines treat -  he presented it to me saying that I would always have his heart with me wherever I went - awwwwwwwwwwww !!!

For my birthday he bought me a silver Thomas Sabo charm bracelet, he definitely is a fab gift finder - it was just what I had been secretly wishing for.

I must also say thanks to Anita, Nicki, Trish, Margaret, Chrissie, Victoria, Paulien , Helena and Janet who all bought me such lovely thoughtful gifts and thankyou to everyone who sent me cards, I had such a lovely day, but by far the best part was the news I received today, I can't share it yet as it is a secret but it made me cry with happiness - life is good xxx

Birthday girls

Happy birthday Granny

Today is my grannies 95th birthday - what a special lady she is.

First I have a card for my niece, she will be 13 on Wednesday.

I created the shaped pocket on the front by cutting out a Nestability shape and then trimming it in half before running it through the cuttlebug for an embossed texture. I used two shades of ink to add extra detailing to the embossing.

The pocket in the middle of the card is to hold an itunes gift card. I bought Katie a beautiful manicure and pedicure set as she is really looking after her hands and nails and is turning into quite a girlie girl, but she also loves her ipod touch and let's face it, the gift cards are a little uninspiring.

And so on to Grannie's card.

Inspired by Tim Holtz and his 12 tags of christmas, I wanted to create a 'scroll' as a background behind the sentiment

Finally a few thankyous  - to Margaret who made me a gorgeous card  - thankyou so much - I love it and to Sara for the magazine , to Anita and Nicki for my daily 'happy' texts, to Neil for looking after me this last week and to Dad for manning the shop by himself  for the last 6 days xxx