Sad, and happy memories.......

Evening again, to all my lovely followers, hope you've all had a good week so far, and are now looking forward to the long weekend.

We have been up North this week for a family funeral.......my lovely sister-in-laws mam, Elsie,  died last week, at the grand old age of 101, she was quite a character.  Before we moved to Wiltshire, we had many great family gatherings at our house for various occasions.....My lovely mam and Elsie would have pride of place on their own sofa, sitting whispering, critisising and picking faults with everyone in the room.....they thought we couldn't hear them of course, but it made us laugh all the more....they were like a comedy double act!  I have so many happy memories of those times. My bro & sis-in-law have been married 50 years in September, so I've known Elsie for about 53 years.......RIP, a lovely lady  xx

 

Until tomorrow.......xx

It's 'Twinchie' time........

Evening everyone, hope you've all had a fab day.....This weather is amazing, and my new 'toy', is certainly getting a good 'airing'.....Alan and I have been 'cruising' 3 days this week, and we just happen to tie it in with lunch in a lovely country pub.   Well, as Alan says 'we're only here once and life isn't a rehersal', blah, blah, blah, so who am I to argue when he offers to take me for lunch.

Anyway, inbetween all these trips out, I've been making a few 'Twinchies', as I promised in my last post.

Our new blog,  'Show Us Your Twinchies' goes 'live' on Friday 1st June and we hope lots of you will follow us over the coming weeks......more about the 'launch' later in the week x

It took some serious thinking to get started on the twinchies,  a 2 inch square seems such a small area to do a piece of art, but once I got started, I was fine. (I think)

I know I need better pics than these, will take some more tomorrow x

    
I'm sure they'll get better as I go on, as I know they're quite amateurish at the moment.....Please let me know what you think of them....(honest opinions) xxx  ....until then......

To 'mat' or not to 'mat'......that is the question!

Evening everyone, and a very warm welcome to all my new members.......whoohoo 115 at the last count, this blogging malarkey is great!

Well, I have some exciting news to tell you tonight, our brand new blog is being launched on Friday June 1st.

This will be a challenge blog for TWINCHIES.....and if you haven't a clue what a twinchie is, check back over the weekend  for more details. (I will be making a few to blog over the next couple of days )

I've had a strange week so far..... not much crafting as I've been into college, working quite a bit, so I'm just showing a couple of very quick cards tonight. And when I say quick, I mean very, very quick, less than 5 minutes to be precise!
I need your help deciding whether to 'mat' or not.....both very easy and simple to do, but I like simple now and then :)

I ran the card through the printer,
scored, folded and trimmed to make a 5.5" square.
Stamped the design , coloured the leaves and added 5 red gems......simples!

This one took about 2 minutes longer, just the extra time to mat onto red mirri card.
Can't make up my mind which one I like most. If I'm doing simple, then I think it should be very simple.
What do you think??

An extreme change from my last card, don't you agree?


Hopefully be back tomorrow night with a 'twinchie', but until then, enjoy the sun, I certainly will xx

Back..........eventually!

Hello everyone.....I'm back, after a whole week, and can't believe where the time has gone.    Every night I started to blog, and then got side-tracked to other things and before I knew, it was too late.

Anyway, here is a card I made yesterday....it's one of 3 I've made for a customer to choose from. This person bought a few cards off me in March and the people she sent them to contacted me with new orders, so I was very pleased. 

She could not choose between duck-egg blue or pink for this order, so I incorpoated both!

Hope you like it.

I'd like to thanks everyone for the wonderful comments on previous posts......they are always appreciated and I love reading them.

Catch you all tomorrow x

A garden full of mannequins.................

Evening everyone......and what a beautiful evening it is too, for a change. Welcome to my new followers and thanks so much for popping by to see what I've been up to.
I would like to say a huge 'Thank You' to Mimi Dibble and her blog, for featuring me and my last creation.....you can find the article on Mimi's blog
http://thescrapinator5000.weebly.com
  
Well, what a really busy week it's been in my little craft room, 45 cards made so far. Lots of 'batch' cards and a special order for a new customer, which I'm showing you now.  This customer phoned one day, after receiving one of my cards and asked for a special card to be made for a female aquaintance for her 50th birthday.......He gave me a few 'themes' to choose from ...... shoes (she has over 200 pairs apparently), handbags, at least 40, cupcakes etc etc....the list was looooonnnnnng. This lady also has a garden full of mannequins, (!) soooooo here is what I came up with........

I started with an 8" x 8" scalloped card, which a swiped over in 3 directions with Tattered Rose distress inkpad.
I then stamped and heat embossed the background and edges (used loads of embossing powder-Cosmic Shimmer, of course).
The mannequin stamps are from Creative Expressions too (who else?  I love their products! )



 Here is a close-up of one of the embossed corners .
The ribbon is my lovely metallic wired stuff, but it's
running low....eeeeek!
Freshwater pearls are from my jewellery stash.

I decided not to put number 50 on, as it would spoil the 'shabby chic' effect.  I haven't even put Happy Birthday, as I couldn't find a spare inch.... haha

Well, what do you think?    Please leave a comment, I love reading them xxx 

It's Alan's birthday tomorrow so I might be late posting tomorrow night, until then......x

I'm entering this card in the 'DECOUPAGE' challenge at        http://www.craftybloggersnetwork.blogspot.co.uk/

My second tag....

Hi everyone, welcome back to my blog. Only one more follower needed to reach 100, so if you're reading this, and you're not a follower, well maybe you'd be so nice as to join .......please.

Just wanted to show you my second tag before I do something with it, although not sure what.  

I read in a mag that you should always look on your desk after finishing a project as you never know what you'll find.  I always have a clean piece of copier paper on mine, to work on, and when I checked , it was covered in different coloured inks and shapes. This is what I've made this tag with, so it's technically a recycled project.

 All I did was fill in a couple of gaps and cut some leaves and flowers from the 'waste' and voila!  

 

Please let me know what you think of it.

Until tomorrow........

Birds, Butterflies and Cows........

Hi everyone.....Hope you've all had a great weekend, and the weather has been kind to you. It certainly wasn't the washout that we'd been led to believe.

Because it was so nice yesterday, Alan and I had a little run-out in my new car, and actually had the top down....I felt like a celebrity haha. I'll show you a pic at the end of this post.

I've made some 'batch' cards over the past 2 days, for a customer. I never do 2 cards the same, so it was strange making 6 of each one.....but what the customer wants, the customer gets! 

 

The birds were all different colours with matching feathers.....I also varied the sentiment and placement of the branch and leaves.

The cow cards were done as 3 birthday and 3 new home.

The butterflies were all cut with different papers, and I used different dies on 2 of them.

All were made with 'linen' effect base-card, as I have absolutely loads of this. I always seem to use 'hammered' card so thought I'd have a change.

Anyway, below is a pic of my new car.....well, not new, of course, but different. 

It's our Summer toy!

Would love to hear your comments about the cards, hope you've enjoyed looking at my blog,

catch you all tomorrow xx

Shabby Chic....or OTT

Hello everyone, hope you've enjoyed the start of the bank holiday weekend.   The weather is going to pick up.......I hope :)   

We've not much planned however....(might sneak a bit of crafting in though, if Alan wants to potter in the garage)

I've had a busy day cardmaking, and really enjoyed doing the card below....it did take a long time, ( I started it yesterday ) so couldn't make these to sell at craft fairs and I don't think my customers would understand the idea of it really.

I'm not sure this creation would be classed as 'shabby chic' or just 'over the top' , maybe you could enlighten me  :)

I've used a lot of new stamps here, from LOTV, and Inkylicious......all the stamped images were heat embossed with Cosmic Shimmer embossing powders (my favourites) , the leaf flourish is from Marianne dies.  I've also used some gorgeous 'wire' ribbon, which stays in place when ruched, a scrap of crochet lace, and some freshwater pearls from my jewellery making supplies.  The small Spellbinder hearts were cut from.........wait for it.......a tomato puree tube!!

I cut the top and bottom off an empty tube, then sliced up the side and opened it out....very carefully!

I then laid the piece of tin on a tea-towel and rolled it, with a rolling pin. ( it's the only thing my rolling pin gets used for ! )The finished product goes through the die-cutter fabulously, with all make of dies, the only problem being that we can't use tomato puree quick enough to keep up with my demand!

Why not give it a try?

Hope you've enjoyed looking tonight, please leave a comment if you have.

Back tomorrow xx

Merry Christmas..........

Hi everyone, here we are again with another evening post. 

It's been an awful day again...rain, rain, and more rain.......where the heck is it all coming from? Looks like it might be a bank holiday full of crafting, 'cos I doubt if we'll get out anywhere. The lads and their friends are going surfing to Croyde, so I hope they get some sun at least.

Well, yesterday I got an order of new stamps from Inkylicious, and I just had to have a little play with them.  They seemed to scream 'Christmas', so......... I did a few Christmas cards!   I also made a 'shabby' card today, but with the incessant rain and grey skies, it got too dark to photograph, so you'll have to wait until tomorrow to see it. Must admit I'm quite pleased with it though :)

Before I go, I'd just like to thank everyone who has commented on my creations over the past few days....the number of comments is steadily rising and yesterdays post has received 29 so far......I'm amazed. 

This was a five minute card....stamped, glittered, job done!

New stamp with Spellbinder Persian dies

Please dont forget to pop over to the Cards Galore challenge at  http://cardsgalorechallenges.blogspot.co.uk/

and stick in an entry  (or two) xx

New Challenge

Evening all, hope you've had a good Wednesday.  

I've been nice and cosy in my craft room all day.......heaven!

Tonight's card is my very first  creation for the Design Team of   http://cardsgalorechallenges.blogspot.co.uk/    The new challenge for May went 'live' today and this month it's all about 'inspiration'........Who inspires you and why!

My card was inspired by Sue Wilson from Creative Expressions, and the fabulous Spellbinders dies.........the fantastic creations she comes up with are amazing.  The only problem is, my bank account is now severely depleted because of all the Spellbinders I've been forced to buy....and of course, I really needed them!

However, I don't just stop at Spellbinders....any dies will do, from any company, I'm not fussy, I just LOVE dies!

The above card was made with an 'embossabilities' folder, Sue's lattice design border, a Spellbinders butterfly, Memory Box leaf flourish, X-Cut flowers, and lastly a Spellbinders label die, (think it's no.24).......So you see, I love to mix and match :)

Please pop over to the challenge blog, there must be someone or something that inspires your

cardmaking.

That's all for tonight, please leave a comment if you've enjoyed looking, AND I only need 4 more followers to reach 100 whoohoo. xx

More flowery things.......

Evening everyone, and welcome to my 5 new followers today....whoohoo, only 8 more needed for 100   :0

Well, after a very wet day, and a good drenching when I took Finn out, it's now a glorious evening. Clear bue skies and lovely sunshine....unbelievable!

Because it was wet outside, I went into my craft room again, and made a few more flowery cards...need loads more female cards to replenish the stock boxes. I'm sure I'll sicken myself of making flowers, but until then, what do you think of these?

These flowers were made with the remains of the      wrapping paper, from last weeks posts, and I used Xcut dies with Spellbinders leaves. The sentiment is from LOTV.

I always liked the dramatic effect of black, white and red. These flowers were from a Sizzix bigz die, with the same leaves as above and another LOTV sentiment.








                            Hope you've enjoyed looking, please leave a comment if you have xx
                                                        Catch you all tomorrow xx