Cards, cards and more cards

The cards from todays Christmas card class

We stamped and painted House Mouse.

I had booked the class last minute and had been busy all week ( other commitments, journals, classes, atc swaps that needed posting etc and a little late night jaunt to Sheffield midweek, as well as the usual family and work commitments)

So I made all the cards and did all the class prep and instructions after work last night, a little tighter than I usually like to have my deadlines lol, but it did help me to time the class and at least I knew it would be possible for all my ladies to make the cards in the one day.

We used a vintage image on this one, the gorgeous glittery papers are by Making Memories.

Die cutting and embossing, ink and stickles on this next one

We went for a frosty look on this next card and turned a label into hinges, the snowflake border is by Tim Holtz

And this last DL sized card is actually made from envelopes to create a pocket for gift certificates etc, the lantern is a Marianne Design die

We had a great day, lovely company, lovely relaxed atmosphere and some hearty laughs thrown in for good measure

I have a few thankyous to post tonight

Thankyou to Kate for giving Amy and I a lift home, it saved me catching the bus with all my bags and Cuttlebug  xxx

Thankyou to Carol for the box of chocolates earlier in the week xxx

Thankyou to Anita for the gorgeous crocheted flowers and fabulous stamp xxx

Thankyou to Debbie for the loan of the Christmas stamps xxx

Thankyou to Ann for the great big bag of all things inky, painty and alterable - you have no idea how much fun I am going to have with those - my mind is whirring already xxx

Thankyou to all the ladies who helped Amy and I to clear up tonight, especially Trish, who always sneaks out back and washes up pots, clears the tables by stealth and generally keeps the shop looking less like a bomb site during the classes she comes to xxx

I have had a crazy busy week, but it has been absolutely brilliant, I am so lucky to have so many wonderful friends, the hard work and effort is worth every single minute - thankyou all xxx

Friendship is not a big thing - it's a million little things!

Heavy metal

The card I taught this week in class

We did a little painting and a lot of distressing.

And the following three cards are the ones taught by YeeTing in our Stampin,Up class today.

Gorgeous rich colours

And a quick but not so simple card as this one necessitated the use of a stampamajig.

Thankyou for a lovely class YeeTing

The next stampin' Up class will be in a fortnights time, next thursday is parchment with Bonnie.

We had an interesting day yesterday. Neil had bought us all tickets to see Volbeat at Sheffield. We love Volbeat, they played at Download last year and were fantastic live.

Unfortunately AJ wasn't old enough and we were turned away at the door. 

Rather than lose out all round and face a long drive home we decided to split up, Neil took Amy and Rob in to see the band and I found the nearest cinema to keep AJ amused.

This is where I can strongly recommend a handy little app for all you iphone users. Last year we downloaded 'Around me'

 I'd had no need to use mine, but it came into it's own last night. My gigging days in Sheffield are a fair few years back and my memory is not great at the best of times,  I didn't have a clue where all the amenities were.

You open up the app, choose the kind of amenity you are wanting ie bank, restaurant, cinema etc and it finds every single one in the vicinity and lists them with their distance from you.

One click and it gives you a little street map with a starting point and target so you can't get lost, brilliant, I love my little apple appliances.

So the boy and I found our way to the local Odeon and thoroughly enjoyed Real Steel, an entirely different kind of metal than we had been anticipating originally but fab all the same.

Vulcanicity

Another layout for my 'face' book album.

Amy sporting her new hairstyle, she is definitely not one to follow sheeplike, I love the fact my daughter dares to be different and is confident enough to blaze her own trail.

I used mainly scraps on this page, the flowery flourish has been bladed out of a piece of Bo Bunny patterned paper. I am having so much fun completing this album.

Here are the next two pages and tag for the circle journal I am currently involved in. Art journalling has definitely become one of my favourite methods of relaxation. I love the act of starting with a blank space and just playing, seeing where the inky painty mess leads me and then adding some inspiring words, it is all the more special sharing this journey with so many lovely and creative friends .

What ???????? Orange !!!!!!!!! you might think, yes I know ! You haven't stumbled upon the wrong blog. I have been completing the pages with colours and styles I perceive to suit the recipient. This current journal belongs to Marie and she loves bright colours.

As I completed the pages this month -  October, I decided to draw inspiration from the changing foliage, therefore trees became the basis of the quotes and design.The metallic finish you can see above is gold leaf.

The backgrounds were created with a mixture of acrylic paints, Dylusions ink sprays and wax rubs. 

And the back of the tag with information for Marie.

I hope you like your pages hon xxx

Love mini

Some snapshots from the class I taught on saturday.

We made flowers

And added lots of stamping with some lettering and quotes, each of these pages holds a pocket for a tag, I added heart shaped tabs to the top of my tags as my theme was 'love'

Each person chose their own embellishments, stamps, colours and inks, so each book turned out completely unique.

We had a fabulous day, a full class of lovely ladies ( a couple of new faces as well as familiar ones too) resulting in beautiful 'one of a kind'  finished mini books to take home. This was the second sample I made for the class, I wanted to show that it could be used for photos and journalling also.

Of course my photos had to be my favourite subjects

The slide mounts were sanded, inked, embossed and stamped

The papers are all by Melissa Frances

We added texture and dimension with die-cuts, embossing, flowers, ribbon and lace. It is always hard to tell from the photos but the books were quite small, 4 inches square.

I chose to add journalling on my tags, I wanted to document the 'things' my children love right now, I think it will be interesting to look back on in years to come. The backgrounds for these tags were created with masks and a direct to paper inking technique.

 I received a lovely email and couple of text messages from the ladies to say thankyou but honestly I want to thank them for making my saturday such a fun and relaxing day. 

I am busy planning and making cards for this saturdays workshop which is an all day Christmas card workshop, I will be back  in the week with some peeks of the cards we will be making, as always, please telephone the shop if you are interested in a place.

I have also completed a page in my glue book, my circle journal pages and a scrapbook layout this weekend, I will be back tomorrow with a few more pics.

Remember, Remember

Remember this little accordion envelope book from a couple of weeks ago ? I am teaching this on saturday, I have just a couple of places left if anyone is local and interested, please telephone the shop for details. There are more pictures on this post HERE

And here are my contributions to the Stampman ATC swap for next month, the theme is 'Fireworks' ( if you hadn't already guessed)   

Each firework has been painted in various shades of acrylic onto black cardstock. The painted piece was then layered onto some gorgeous starry acetate which my lovely friend Margaret bought me and then layered once again onto plain black cardstock.

 

The sparkle was added with little dots of stickles. These are such a departure from my normal style but fun none the less.

Just before I go to have a play in my glue book and add a layer of painty goodness to my circle journal, I have a huge thankyou to say to Margaret, for the acetate and charms(last week), for the lovely set of ribbons (this week) and for the beautiful white roses on saturday - thankyou thankyou      

thankyou xxx

 Also a happy birthday to Beryl who is 17 plus VAT today and always makes me smile and feel so much happier on a tuesday xxx

Putting the Merry into Christmas and the Glue Book

As promised in yesterday's post, here is one of the images I coloured in, adorning my second Christmas card of the year. My first was completed in January, at this rate I will have a grand total of two cards to be sent out this year !

As mentioned previously I have used a super cute House Mouse stamp, these are such a pleasure to colour in. I used Distress Inks as my preferred colouring medium.

The papers are new in my shop and are by Making Memories - sooooooo lush. I have added Stickles to  both the image and the sentiment plates, all edges have been distressed with a Tim Holtz tool and inked with Frayed Burlap Distress Ink.

Aren't they adorable ? They remind me of my three when they were little and playing with the boxes and wrappings rather than the gifts.

And yes I have started yet another project,  I really can't help myself. This time I was completely inspired by the supremely talented Jean from the Bluebird Paperie

Jean collects all her scraps and odds and ends, totes them in an amazing little leather travel case and compiles her 'gluebook' on the hop ( well in the car whilst waiting for her daughter at various after school clubs etc)

So here is the beginnings of my 'gluebook'. Although mine is not a travelling gluebook, as my journeys are usually short without any waiting time, it makes more sense for me to complete my pages either in a crop or at home, adding bits and bobs ( more to clear my table and eat into that huge pile of oddments that I just cannot bear to part with)

I am challenging myself to complete the pages without procrastinating and fussing. I am just going to collage all manner of printed material, add a little stamping, flat embellishment and the odd wise word here and there.

The book I am using is the last one in a set of three and is a plain Moleskine journal measuring approximately 8x5 inches, the other two journals are currently works in process also, my Circle journal and my copy of circle journal pages.

So, THANKYOU Jean for the inspiration, what a clever and beautiful way to use up those scraps !

Life Book

I have enrolled, I tried to resist, I honestly did, but all to no avail, and I cannot wait for January to roll on round.

My friend Anita and a couple of my new circle journal friends are joining me, are any of my blog readers taking part too ?

I have also decided today that it might be a good idea to make a start on my christmas cards.

 I am busily adding some lush colour to some rather cute House Mouse stamps and have a lovely little pile of  festive finery to embellish the finished cards with.

 So, please excuse me for tonight and I will be back tomorrow with the fruits of my labour.

Be Your Own Kind of Beautiful

You might remember I was invited by Darcy recently to join a group of artists in a circle journal ( more on that further down the post), well I decided that each month as I complete my pages and tags in the journal that has landed upon my craft table, that I would also create duplicate pages in a journal for me to keep as a record of each completed months work. Also, I intend to make an altered art item with the same techniques and theme.

So..... here is the project I completed this month, an eight inch MDF frame

The background is a mixture of gesso, various paints, book pages, stencilling, dry-brushing with acrylics and detailing with water soluble crayons.

The script is hand painted and  the quote is the one I used for the journal pages also.

And here is the double journal page, as you can see  - almost identical. I have created two of these double pages, one for Catherine's book and one for mine.

The butterflies have been coated in Tim Holtz Rock Candy Stickles.

And here is Catherine's tag with a second quote, I aim to add inspirational quotes to each of the journals  following a different theme for each recipient. I will also be trying to bear in mind each persons likes and dislikes, I know Catherine loves blue so there is a fair bit of blue in these pages.

And the back of the tag with my details so Catherine knows who the page has been made by.

The tag for my book will contain Catherines details.

I am so excited to be a part of this fabulous circle of friends, they are such an amazingly talented and genuinely lovely group of ladies.  I am thrilled to be getting to know them all better, so, a massive thankyou to Darcy for introducing me to the group xxx

Also this week we have just completed the RWS September ATC swap, the theme this month was hearts and we were required to use the colour red somewhere on our little works of art.

I used Kraft as a base and distressed a playing card for the background, the border stamp is by Stampin' Up, the butterfly is a vinyl sticker that was gifted to me by my lovely friend Helena - thanks hon xxx

The heart is an Inkadinkadoo stamp and the sentiment is also by Stampin' Up.

Thankyou to everyone who took part this month, we have had a very talented new player for the last two months who has been contributing some fabulous ATC's thankyou Debbie for joining us, can't wait to see what you come up with this month. And another thankyou to Su in France who always makes an extra card just for me so I always have one of hers, thankyou xxx

If any of my blog readers would like to join the group, the guidelines are HERE

and this months swap is HERE, the theme for October is BUTTONS and the requisite colour this time round is IVORY.

One last thing before I go, a huge thankyou to Marlene who bought me a gorgeous bouquet of the sunniest flowers this week, they really did chase away the cooling temperatures and gloomy cloud laden sky, thankyou xxx

Oooops I fibbed,  that wasn't the last thing, I have some really, really exciting news to share very soon ( so exciting I almost forgot lol), I promise to share here first, there needs to be some dotting of 'i's' and crossing of 't's' but I promise as soon as they have been done I will let you all know.