Rainy Days and Crafting

The "summer" seems to be flying by with incessant rain but rainy days make good crafting days!  I was really lucky and won the May Do-craft prize and received a huge parcel full of Wellington stash, lots of papers, toppers, etc. 

Then yesterday needed inspiration to made a different type of card and found myself looking at Ruth Hamilton's http://apassionforcards.blogspot.co.uk/p/tonic-studios.html

I love this little card.  I don't think mine is quite up to Ruth's standard but I was pleased with it!

Used a white linen card blank
Papermania "brick wall" embossing folder edged with pink
Frame cut with X-cut square die
Papers from stash including window box
Flowers cut with two small punches


Now a few of my Wellington cards which I really enjoyed making.  Really good to give to our menfolk but I am going to attempt to make a "girly" card with Wellington some time soon.

FIRST POST THIS SUMMER

No time for blogging yet again.  Been so busy with work, home and holidays.  Then catching up with making cards for friends and relatives as well as experimenting in my craft room. 

Had a brilliant holiday at the end of May with Shelley, my sister, in Weymouth, Dorset.  We were fortunate in that we had the most beautiful sunny week and the temperature reached 26 degrees!  Never stopped raining since we got back home. 

A couple of photos here of Weymouth Quayside and Weymouth beach

Since getting home I have been busy back at work and household tasks but didn't take me long to get my "craft" head back on.  I made a wedding card for my friend Anne's sister and was really pleased with it.  Here it is:

Black card mounted on to square white card blank.
Me to You embossing folder mounted.
2 hearts die cut - one sparkly black and 1 plain white card on to silver heart.
Cut out neckline on black heart, added bow, flower and gems.
Added gems and flowers on to white heart.
Circular Little Claire sentiment and white bow from stash.


Father's Day arrived and I made a shirt card for my son to give to his dad:

Black card mounted on to square white card blank.
Mounted grey check paper on to black card
Added rubert stamped shirt, added red tie and gems
Stamped sentiment, coloured in red.
Grey candy added.



This next card I made using a embossing folder and a die cut flower which I have had for ages but could not decide what kind of card to make.  I experimented by die cutting the flower out of pink vellum and adding glitter which seems really effective.  I then embossed on white card, mounted on to pink card, on to an A6 Papermania scalloped card blank.  Added pink vellum butterflies, gems, a dragonfly charm and sentiment printed on to Safmat.

Spellbinders Shapeability Anemone flower.
Marianne embossing folder.
Martha Stewart butterfly punch. 


I have made several other cards and ATCs and have also been a busy bee tidying my craft room which is looking much better on the surface but still needs some more organising.

No blogging for a while - been very busy at work and also we had a few days away in Blackpool.  We enjoyed freak weather - very sunny and warm considering it was the end of March and Blackpool looks so different in the sunshine.   A couple of photos below show a fabulous sunset which we saw every evening and Blackpool tower with a blue sky in the background.

Blackpool Sunset

Blackpool Tower

March 2012

Came back home to "normal" weather - cold, raining, windy but also back to crafting.  Here are a couple of Easter cards I made - one for my friend Anne and another for her mother. 

Made with free papers and images from Simply Cards and Papercraft magazine.  The papers are from Nitwit Spring Whimsy collection.  For the first card the backing paper was a scrap piece of paper from stash.  Also used flowers, scalloped circular die cut and candi from stash. 

The second card was made with free papers as above and just added Happy Easter sentiment stamped on to card and also added gems. 

On return from Blackpool I had to make a Pearl Wedding Anniversary card for a work colleague (had completely forgotten until the day before).  Here it is.  Again I used scraps of paper, die cuts ribbon and pearls in my stash

Cafe Culture

Not much blogging recently (or crafting for that matter) as I have been busy with work and family.  However, I have had time to go through my stamps in an attempt to organise my craft room.  I found a wooden stamp which I bought from Hobby Craft about 2 years ago.  I did use it once when I first bought it but as I was very new to colouring it didn't turn out very well so gave up on it.  So, I got out the Pro Markers last week and made 2 birthday cards with it.

I used a backing paper given free with a magazine andsome embossed white paperwhich again I found.  I think I borrowed the embossing folder from my friend Anne and I'm afraid I can't remember the name of the folder.  I really must begin to make a note of what I do when I do it!!  At least I have used up bits and pieces of paper just lying around!  

The backing paper on this one belong to a set of free papers in a magazine a few months ago (again I found this while organising my room). 

I do love this image - it makes me wish I was the lady, just done some shopping and sat outside a cafe, drinking coffee and watching the world go by.



Artist Trading Cards

As I said in my previous post I have started to make ATCs once again.  I did start a couple of years ago and did take part in a few "swaps" and then card making took over.  I have joined a Swap Group at the request of Lisa from "Swap A Smile" and really enjoying making ATCs once again. 

I made this with a freebie stamp from Quick Cards magazine using Promarkers to colour the image.  I coloured the background with Memento Bamboo Leaves stamp pad, just roughly brushed over the card.  I then added the image and stamped the sentiment. 

This is an ATC I made for a swap, the theme being January Snow.  I used my own photo of a Robin, cut down to ATC size, added a punched border top and bottom, added flat silver gems and stamped sentiment. 

The next few ATCs are some favourite ones I made for swaps a couple of years ago

Happy New Year 2012

My very first post of 2012.   Had a very quiet Christmas and New Year, no work, not doing much at home and not even doing much crafting.  However, I did make a birthday card on New Year's Eve and so this is my first card of 2012.

I used a free stamp from Cardmaking and Papercrafts (I think), coloured with water pencils.  Stamped on to a die cut card and mounted on to striped paper, then on to Papermania card blank.  Added ribbon and embellishments. 

I have also started to create ATCs again and am really enjoying this.  I joined Swap A Smile group and now swapped 2 ATCs.  

Recycled Christmas Cards

Been very busy for the past few weeks with work, home, seeing friends and so on.  I was asked by a friend to make half a dozen Christmas cards some with a religious theme.  I really couldn't find a stamp to use even though I have boxes of them.  In the end my friend Anne helped me out by giving me some images cut out of last year's Christmas cards.  Instead of using them as they were I scanned them into the computer, touched them up and cropped them, then printed out a few. 

I used the above three images for 3 cards.  I also used up quite a few "left over" bits of backing paper from my "scrap" box so felt I had done my bit for the recycling cause. 

These are the finished cards

I was really pleased with the cards even though I had not created the image.  It was still good fun matching them up with papers and embellishments.