Stampin' Up

These are the cute little projects we made in this weeks Stampin' Up class on thursday

We used stamps from a set I already had - yippeeee no temptation to buy another set. We created a card and a sweet little box which opens up to reveal ...

Three teeny tiny drawers.

As luck would have it Amy had a friends birthday to buy for this week and had purchased some pieces of jewellery which fit perfectly inside the little boxes, so, not only did I actually finish the project, it is already winging it's way to  it's recipient.

Also on thursday, it was Robbies prom

Looking very grown up

With one of his friends Reece

And with three of his best friends

It doesn't seem two minutes since he was born and now he is on the verge of adulthood.

School has finished and he decided to pursue an apprenticeship, which he secured last month.

If you have little ones, cherish every moment, they grow up in the blink of an eye.

Men !

I am having a little catch up tonight, here are the two cards I made for father's day, the first one being for my dad.

I love this stamped image, it actually has a different sentiment on it, but I overstamped as it wasn't suitable for dad. The picture reminds me of the time him and mum took care of Robbie whilst I stayed in hospital to care for Amy when she was struck down with pneumonia. Poor Amy was in such a terrible state and we nearly lost her. Robbie was only six weeks old and I was still nursing him but he wasn't allowed to stay with me in the hospital. Mum and dad took him home with them, caring for him until I could come home with Amy. They had to bottle feed him, it wasn't an easy time for any of us but I couldn't have got through it without their help, it was hard as Robbie didn't take to the bottle at first, he was tiny anyway and obviously couldn't understand why mum had all of a sudden disappeared, dad laid like the image above with Robbie on his chest every night, soothing him to sleep.

I added verses and quotes to each of the panels on this trifold card, all computer generated.

This second card is also a trifold, and I made this one for my kids to give to Neil.

I used Tim Holtz patterned papers, Hero Arts flowers and Magnolia Stamps for the inside.

I chose an image to represent each of the children and painted them with Distress inks.

May ATC's

 Last months ATC swap did take place on time but I suddenly realised whilst editing photos today that I hadn't shared them on my blog.

Here are the six I made, 5 to swap and one to keep.

The theme was 'flight' and the required colour was silver.

I borrowed a set of Stamps from Anita ( thankyou xxx) they are by Inkadinkadoo, I love the Steampunk style hot air balloon, which I embossed in silver onto patterned paper.

I randomly punched holes into my backing paper and inked with Distress inks, this was then layered onto metallic mesh.

We had some fabulous swaps this month, you can see a selection below.

And the winner was Carole who created this really gorgeous ATC.

Congratulations Carole, don't forget to choose a theme and colour for an upcoming month.

Thankyou as always to all the talented crafters who make the swap such a pleasure to host xxx

This months theme is Jubilee/Street Party and the colour is blue, as chosen by our previous winner Kim, please have your swaps into the shop by the end of the month.

July's theme is Oriental (red and black)

August's theme is Beach (blue)

Gift of Love

A couple of days later than I said but here is my canvas, which I completed this week.

The canvas, lace and ribbon were given to me by Margaret, thankyou xxx This item began as one of our tuesday afternoon projects. I prepared the base with gesso, painted with acrylics and dry brushed with another thin layer of gesso.

The floral mat behind Amy's photo is a piece of Prima packaging.

Letter stickers are by Making Memories and I used a mask by Prima along with Distress inks to create the corner detailing.

Anita lent me the Cuttlebug die to create the border at the bottom, I linked them together and rubbed with bronze wax.

I thoroughly enjoyed getting back to doing some 'just for me' projects, it makes a lovely change from all the classes I have to prepare.

Talking of which, here are this weeks class cards, we created four in the two hours this week.

These are teeny tiny and the patterned paper was handmade with dye and pigment inks, we used punches and die-cut embellishments to finish each card. 

I am finally caught up with all the housework, laundry, gardening and class preparations, after our week away, the camping stuff has all been cleaned organised and placed back in the loft ( which has also been cleared out and cleaned  - yes saddo that I am swept out the loft)

So I have some time to spend preparing some new classes, we will be restarting the saturday workshops very shortly, I have been inundated with requests for mini books and altered art and have several ideas for these and other projects cluttering my head, watch this space, details to come soon.

Last weeks class cards

I was aiming for some 'young' cards last week, so went with bright colours and a fun style.

Both images were coloured with Tim Holtz Distress inks, all papers were Bo Bunny.

I also have my circle journal pages from last month to share.

The background was created with Gesso, acrylic paints, inks and stencilling

And the accompanying tag

We have had a fabulous afternoon crafting in our Tuesday afternoon group. Margaret brought us all  a canvas last week, which we started, but, as always ended up doing more chatting and laughing than crafting.

We almost finished the projects today but we all still had a couple of finishing touches to add. Mine should be ready to share tomorrow, along with this weeks class cards.

I must be the only person in the world right now who is going to settle down this evening with Stephen King and not one of the Shades of Grey books. I have to admit one mention of them in class today ( not by me) and the whole class fell into chaos, I think everyones minds were on things other than cardmaking, and I don't think the hot flushes in the room were caused by the little bout of sunshine we enjoyed either !

Download 2012

Non-crafting post, please feel free to skip if you have stumbled here looking for crafting inspiration, that will follow tomorrow, also, faint hearted and mud shy look away now !

Also, please forgive any spelling or grammatical errors - I am still in the midst of festival fog.

The reason for my recent lack of blogging is our trip to the Download Rock Festival - Donington Park

For five days we had this view of Castle Donington from our tent

And yes it was wet ( Neil is in the middle of this picture wearing shorts which he bravely  madly kept on for the whole of the festival)

And very, very muddy ( AJ is trudging through The Village here in MY lovely pink Hunters - no losing him in a crowd !) and yes that really is a double decker bus parked in the middle of the quagmire.

Just for you Little Pat ( you said you needed to see pics of THE boots)

Day one

Day three

Day five

Note - no boots were harmed in the making of this blog, they are now cleaner than day one and fully polished ready for next year !

AJ throwing the horns ( not really pulling of the badass, rock star growl on this one)

My two handsome boys ( none of Amy I am afraid, she was far too camera shy)

And the reasons we went ......

My favourite three acts of the 138 who appeared were, in no particular order

Slash -  the hat, the hair, the guitar, oh my !

Dropkick Murphys - as mad as a box of frogs but one of the most fun bands I have ever witnessed.

And the legends that are Metallica ( Saturdays headliners) - you would struggle to find a more professional and awe-inspiring band, their performance was truly special.

The Prodigy headlined Friday, we missed the first part of their set as we wanted to see Slash, what we did see was fantastic but we will always remember Neil's version of one of their biggest hits in the tent afterwards, complete with his own little four speed light show !

Black Sabbath headlined Sunday and it was a once in a lifetime opportunity for us I think, but, to be perfectly honest, whilst their back catalogue is definitely one to be immensely proud of, and the band were amazing, Ozzy my darling we love you dearly, but I personally think your singing days are done. 

And that was it for another year, I am praying for Andy Copping to choose Rammstein to headline Saturday next year and would dearly love to see Airbourne and Volbeat there again, Bonafide I think would go down well too, only 364 more days to go to do it all over again.

Sweet treats

Good evening, I hope you have all been enjoying the lovely weather today, it certainly has been a gorgeous day.

It was YeeTing's Stampin' Up class today and we made these two stunning cards, we all used stamps from the Apothecary Art set and I must admit, they truly are a joy to work with.

First up a tent fold aperture card

And this second card opened up like a folded gatefold, we made the ribbon rosettes too.

Thankyou once again for a lovely class YeeTing

Next up I have a super quick card that I put together last night with one of Tracy's toppers, you can see more of her lovely designs over at Cardmakers Delights, HERE.

I have to admit I normally like to stamp my images but these toppers are such lovely quality and a great idea for when you have little time or for when you are not in the mood to stamp and colour.

Thanks again Tracy.

I will bid you goodnight as I need to put the finishing touches to tomorrows scrapbooking class.

I may be back with some before and after photos over the weekend. As most of my family and friends know I have been working hard at the gym, I have taken up jogging and have also managed to lose over two stone in weight. I still have a way to go but I thought it might be encouraging to share how much progress I have made, still plucking up the courage to share though as the 'before's' are very scary ! I am not sure blog land is ready for such a fright !

Friends are flowers

As promised ( albeit a day later than promised) here are my journal pages and tag that I created for Lynn's circle journal.

The lettering was handcut from patterned paper, some of which I had altered with pen detailing or stamping

The flowers were stamped in acrylic paint and then painted in three different shades, the sentiment stamp on the tag above is a Tim Holtz one that I stamped in black archival ink and then highlighted with a white gel pen

A close up of the yummy texture of the acrylic paint, the background was created with a first layer of spray inks, which was dry-brushed with gesso, then glimmer misted in mocha, then I used a mask to create the hexagon detailing with chocolate ink and finally the diamond pattern was stamped in black ink, before the flowers were painted and the lettering was added. I finished with some tiny mulberry flowers with liquid pearl centres.

Next up I have this weeks two class cards, we made a multi-layered flower on this first card and I taught everyone how make a double looped bow.

And on this weeks second card, we used a pretty Marianne design basket filled with flowers.

And thats it for tonight, tomorrow is Stampin' Up and YeeTing has some beautiful cards planned so I will be back tomorrow to share those.

Framed

This first creation I have to share with you this evening is one of our tuesday afternoon projects.

It was Linda's turn to inspire us and she chose this cute little wooden shadow frame from one of the local cheapie shops, we all completed slightly different designs but we all worked along the same principle with sixteen little squares all approximately an inch square in size.

And a little bit closer, lots of teeny tiny embellishments.

Also I have a class card to share, this has been lurking in a file on my Mac for a few weeks, my filing is abysmal, I keep finding unshared crafting items, I think I am more or less caught up, you can catch a couple more of my class cards over on the 'Its a Creative World' blog tomorrow as it is my turn to share a little creativity.

The image was painted with Tim Holtz distress inks, papers are by We R Memory Keepers and the balloons were made with a Woodware punch, sentiment is Stampin' Up.

And that's all for tonight, I will be back tomorrow with my most recent pages from my circle journal.

Happy anniversary me old china

Today is mine and Neil's 20 year wedding anniversary

Happy anniversary sweetheart xxx

This is the card I made for him

The design is one taught in YeeTings last class at the shop, I loved the style and colours and knew Neil would too, I altered just a couple of details for it to suit the occasion and of course added a romantic verse inside.

This is the little pile of gifts I woke up to this morning after a long lie-in ( and yes the photo is bad, the lighting is poor and they are all piled on my duvet, very cosy but not conducive to a great photo !)

All these squishy little delights contained clothing from Fat Face, my fave brand of casual wear

This is far more than I was expecting as I had already received my official anniversary gift which was this little beauty

Yes I have been totally and utterly spoiled, Neil gave me my ipad early so I have already been playing with it for a few weeks and I certainly didn't expect anything else.

And then, just as I was about to get out of bed and start my day, he presented me with this gorgeous little box

A stunning pendant with my initial by Theo Fennell

I am so happy with all my lovely gifts but by far the best thing was realising that through many, many ups and downs, lots of life changes and upheavals, I have had my soul mate by my side.

Life has not always been easy

Sometimes life has been bloody hard

Sometimes we have not agreed

Sometimes we have cried

Sometimes we have struggled

Sometimes we have been lost

But ...

Always we have talked

Always we have shared

Always we have done things together

Always we have loved

As Neil wrote in my card, here is to the next 20 years !

I love you completely and utterly sweetheart,with the whole of my heart

Thankyou for always being there, my rock, my heart - my soulmate xxx