RIP Uncle Roy

It is with great sadness that I have to announce we lost Paul’s Uncle during the early hours of Christmas Eve.

December has been a very busy month with my husband’s Birthday, Christmas parties and from the 20^th a Wedding, a birth, a death and my nephews 16^th Birthday on Christmas Day.

Paul has been suffering with a bad cold over most of this month which unfortunately resulted in him having an epileptic fit so that spoiled a lot of his birthday plans as he was so tired L It really has been a challenge and I know that as a person I have come a long way as I didn’t get depressed or overly upset and that really is something worth celebrating.

However, no matter how busy we have been it all gets knocked into perspective when you are told your Uncle is in hospital and in a very bad way. It was made worse that we could not visit as the hospital was closed due to the Norovirus. We had a call on morning of the 23^rd December to say he was very ill and unlikely to make it. We rushed to the hospital and it was like a ghost town. Normally you have to struggle to park and the hospital is bustling with people visiting and personnel going about their normal working day. We had to wear a plastic apron and rubber gloves before we could go into the ward and only go in one at a time.

This was only the 2^nd time I have seen anyone who was dying and it was really upsetting. When Paul’s Grandad was going he was very peaceful and unfortunately in this case that was not so. It was obvious he was in distress, he had gone blind earlier in the week, could not talk anymore and seemed to be trying to tell us something. I found it very distressing and could only stay in there for a few minutes. We all stayed at the hospital for 3 or 4 hours and then Paul and I went home as there was nothing else that we could do.

We both had sleepless nights and I got up at 3.30am and pottered around on my computer. We found out later that Roy died at 4am on Christmas Eve and thought it was weird how we were both wide awake at the time.

Christmas has been a very subdued affair. I haven’t even put up my Christmas tree this year which is unheard of as I love decorating my tree. For some reason it just seemed like Christmas represented a lot of hassle this year and my heart wasn’t in it. I feel that intuitively a part of me knew something wasn’t ‘right’ this year.

This card I gave to Roy’s partner Sarah who stayed with him right to the end. It had initially been made for one of my team mates on One Stitch At A Time as we all got together to make a digital condolence book for her. It was made quite a while ago but has been on my desk for quite some time. Most of my cards get blogged straight away and then put in a box but this one hadn’t, again very strange……..

Anyhoo this last few days has again put things into perspective. I am living for today, enjoying every minute I can and wearing my ‘best’ clothes instead of saving them to gather dust in a wardrobe as you just never know when your time is up.

Materials Used in this card are as follows:-

Card Size – A5” Square

Image – Sunflower Collage by Gingerloft

Sentiment – Freebie from McMahon Five Designs

Paper – Mariposa Stack by DCWV

Embellishments – Decorative paper strip by Papermania

Tools – Distress Ink pad, Letraset Promarkers & Flexmarkers, Quickuts Cookie Cutter Die

Techniques – Distressing, Diecutting

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges (in Alphabetical Order):-

• Aud Sentiments  – Any Sentiment
• Catch the Bug – Use a Border
• Challenges 4 Everybody #10 – Anything Goes
• Crafts 4 Eternity #103 – Anything Goes
• Delightful Challenges – Anything Goes
• Digital Tuesday – #191 Layers
• Diva’s By Design – #66 Anything Goes
• DL Art Thankful Thursday – Anything Goes
• Flutterby Wednesday - #220 Open Challenge
• Hiding in My Craft Room #77 – Anything But Christmas
• I Love Promarkers - #148 Anything But Square
• Lady Anne’s Stamp Challenge – Anything Goes
• Little Miss Muffet  - #51 Anything Goes
• Make It Monday –  #120 Anything Goes
• My Heart Pieces – Anything Goes
• Outlawz Monday Card – GCC1224 Anything Goes
• Papelitos Challenges – #24 Anything Goes
• Paper Crafting Journey – Anything Goes
• Paper Makeup Digi Makeover – #68 Anything Goes
• Party Time Tuesdays  – #100 Anything Goes
• Pink Elephant  - #180 Anything Goes
• Simon Says Stamp – Anything Goes
• Simply Create – #15 Anything Goes
• Stamp n Doodle – Anything Goes
• Stamping For The Weekend #24 – Anything Goes
• Sweet Stampin’ – Seeing Double (2 Sunflowers)
• Through The Craftroom Door - #50 Anything Goes
• Totally Gorjuss #163 –Easy Does It
• Tuesday Alchemy - #46 Anything Goes

Summer Fence Sympathy

You know how every now and again you make a card that started off as a little spark of imagination and comes out so perfectly it feels like something was guiding you, well this card is one of those.

At I Did It Creations this week they are having a nature challenge and a lot of the weeks they give away a free digi image that you send a request email for. Admittedly I don't always have time to use an image I have requested but this image Summer Fence by Toucan Scraps just seemed like a perfect image for a sympathy card.

I have used a photograph of a sunset at West Super Mare that I took at the end of the pier in February. Both myself and my husband had our camera's and took a sequence of shots whilst the sun was setting in the water and the tide was coming in too. I just love the rich colours in this picture and really wanted to try and incorporate it into a card somehow, this digi seemed like the perfect marriage.

I use a graphics program called Xara and played about with the positioning of the digi. There was a particularly large ripple in the water that provided a great straight line for the bottom of the image to sit on. The sun wasn't quite in the right place so I stretched the picture a little and just kept playing with the sizing of the images until it fit together nicely. The sentiment is a PNG from the Modern Flowers Sympathy set which is a freebie from McMahon Five Design

The base of the card has been covered with a pearlescant embossed paper from Kanban Designs. I matted the image onto dark brown card and used a Martha Stewart punch to add a punched heart border to the bottom.

The ribbon was from a challenge prize I had from One Stop Crafts and for a finishing touch I added a flower grouping made with 2 Flora Doodles fabric flowers, an opened up metal beadcap and a pearl brad.

I am truly delighted with how this card has turned out. No one likes to have to give a sympathy card for obvious reasons but would be a beautiful card for the occasion.

Materials Used in this card are as follows:-

Card Size – A5

Image – Combination of my photograph and Summer Fence by Toucan Scraps

Sentiment – Modern Flowers Sympathy set by McMahon Five Design

Paper – Kanban Crafts

Embellishments – Ribbon from Stash, Flora Doodles fabric flowers, metal beadcap, pearl brad from American Crafts

Tools – Scissors, 3D foam, Martha Stewart Heart doily punch

Techniques – Punching

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges (in Alphabetical Order):-

• 2 Cute Rubber Stamps – Anything Goes
• Bee Crafty #54 - Frames & Borders
• Cardmadfairy’s Digi Days #16 – Add a Flower
• Card Makin’ Mamas #28 – Digi Images or papers
• Catch the Bug – Anything Goes
• Craft Us Crazy #16 – Autumn Colours
• Creations by Gill M #14  - Anything That Flies (bird in digi image)
• Creative Card Crew – Anything Goes
• Cute Card Thursday #180 – Punches
• Delicious Doodles #1 – Fresh Start (used one of my own photos with a digi, 1^st time)
• Frosted Designs Fabulous Friday – Flourishes
• Fun With Shapes & More #91 – Anything Goes
• I Did It Creations #70 – Nature
• Let’s Craft & Create #27 – Blast From the Past (#25 Use a Digi)
• Little Red Wagon #96 – Border Punches
• My Time To Craft #155 – Flowers
• Paper Shelter #29 - Anything Goes
• Patches of Pink #9 – Link Up Party
• Rainbow Lady #168 – Embossing (paper has embossing in it)
• Quirky Crafts #18 – Flourishes & Embossing
• Scrapbook Sisters #50 – Anything Goes
• Secret Crafter #150 – Colours of Autumn
• Sew Many Challenges #66 – Edge Punches
• Simon Says Stamp & Show – Anything Goes
• Stamp Something – September Digi Day
• Whoopsi Daisy – Autumn Colours

CCM #51 Butterflies

Over at Crafty Cardmakers we have a new challenge today which is to feature Butterflies on your project. I know we will get lots of entries for this challenge because butterflies are so popular, especially with me.

As it happens I just visited the Butterfly Farm at Stratford Upon Avon on Saturday. If you like Butterflies and other insects it is a great place to visit as you go into a massive warm green house and there are just hundreds of beautiful butterflies of all types and colours flying around freely and if you are really lucky they sometimes land on you :)

This is me with only 2 of the 4 butterflies that landed on me, I've only ever had 1 before. There was one on my boob too which you can't see in this shot. The weird thing is that I have just one tattoo, a pink and purple butterfly and it is on that shoulder, maybe they knew somehow??

The butterfly farm is my happy place, I come out feeling so calm and serene having witnessed the beauty of these amazing creatures just flittering about without a care in the world. It is the first time I have driven there and it only took an hour, when we used to go on the train before it used to take almost 2 hours so that was a nice bonus.

Anyhoo, sorry for waffling on and back to the card......

The butterflies I have used for this project are a digi coloured with Promarkers and I added some Sakura glitter pen to them but it hasn't photographed very well so may be hard to see. I really liked as it had a small butterfly in the writing too. I have curled the wings and used tiny foam pads to stick down the body only.

I used a sketch for the layout and stuck to a pallete of purples. The main background paper is by DCWV and the spotty paper is an embossed glitter one from My Minds Eye. I have used a toning plain cardstock for matting and these areas are raised on 3D foam. scraps of the cardstock were then punched with a Martha Stewart design to create a double layered 'ribbon'

We would love it if you took part in this challenge over at Crafty Cardmakers. My fellow DT have made some absolutely gorgeous cards with flutterbies and it would be great to see your entries.

We are sponsored by The Stampman and they are offering a prize of a £10 store voucher for one lucky winner so you could even win a prize!

Materials Used in this card are as follows:-

Card Size - A5

Sketch - Midnight Madness #113

Image - Butterfly Breeze by McMahon Five Design

Sentiment - The Basic Sentiments - Raindrop Echo Designs

Paper - DCWV Peeking Posies, My Minds Eye Glitter embossed spotty

Embellishments - Bit of Sakura Glitter pen

Tools - 3d Foam pads, Martha Stewart decorative punch

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges (in Alphabetical order) :-

• 2 Sisters #49 - Anything Goes
• Allsorts #113 - Free & Easy
• Betty Bee's Buzz - Punches
• Clear It Out Tuesday - Anything Goes
• Crafty Creations #128 - Seeing double (2 Butterflies the same)
• Creative Craft Challenges - Lots of Layers
• Digi's With Attitude #32 - Anything Goes
• Do You Stack Up #29 - Things With Wings
• Everybody Art #151 - Dots
• Flutterby Wednesday #163 - Open Theme
• Gingerloft #22 - Make it sparkle
• House That Stamps Built DCC720 - Glitter (on wings)
• Jac-Inks #13 - Monotone
• Little Claire Designs #11 - Things With Wings
• Lollipop Crafts - Anything Goes
• Midnight Madness #113 - Sketch for Layout
• Paper Cutz #101 - Anything Goes
• Phindy's Friday Challenge #64 - Doubling up (2 DP, 2 large butterflies)
• Shelly's Images TTT - Show us What You've Got
• Totally Gorjuss #90 - Punch or Die