Happy Birthday to Two Special People

Hello There

 

Well, that weekend went whoosh ...and then it was gone!!  Had an exciting one too as I went to the WOYWW Crop on Saturday.  I will share photos with you on Wednesday.  On Sunday I played Apprentice Beekeeper and pulled off our first small batch of honey for 2015!!

 

Tonight I want to share with you some cards I made last month for two Special People who had birthdays last month within a week of each other.  I used my very new Lavinia Snail stamp.  Well, I was ordering a stamp for one of my Special Friends, so I may as well as take advantage of justifying the postage!!

 

 

The star paper is some from Crate Paper which has been in my stash for several years. 

 

The images were all stamped using Potting Shed Archival ink and I used a selection of DIs including Brushed Corduroy, Gathered Twigs and Walnut Stain.

 

Also NBUS were the sentiment cards which I bought last year on my USA trip.  I have been hanging on to them so I thought it was about time they were used.

 

The little stars were made using my Simon says Stamp die and dark brown card used for matting were all from my Snippets box.

 

I had fun making these and I do love the snail image.

 

As I used some Snippets I shall be popping down the Snippets Playground to see what my fellow playmates have been up to.

 

Thanks for calling by.

 

Hettie

http://pixiescraftyworkshop.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/pixies-snippets-playground-week-177-and.html

Sealed with a Kiss....Layout

Hello there

I have to apologise to my blog for neglecting it for the last few days.  I have been a little under the weather with the lurgy after someone very kindly coughed and sneezed on me last week.  I came home from my Quilting Group on Saturday feeling dreadful and got generally worse.  I am not going into details ok, but I did not get out of bed much until today.  Though I did have a shock when the person concerned phoned me yesterday to apologise!!! 

Anyway, a few weeks ago I promised to share with you a little layout I had done so here it is...

 This is most probably the last layout of my Wedding Album, but note I only said "probably"!!  I have so many photos left still!

 

 

So where do I start?  The background piece is a piece of black cardstock and I took some of my stencils, my old white ink pad and an inkie paddie thing (can't remember what you call them now...made by that Tim chappie!) and swooshed some ink through the stencils, one of which is a NBUS bought from US by Memory Box...the one with butterflies on.

The die cuts are a mixture of some that were kindly sent to me by my Buddy over the water and some from my Tin of Shame.  The TH clock one was originally a wishy washy beige colour when I started.  I smooshed some TH DIs Tea Dye, Gathered Twigs, Brushed Cord, and then rubbed some Treasured gold wax on top.  

The PPs are bits left over from previous layouts so Snippets...yeay!!  The corrugated card is from a package that had arrived a few days before (again inked with some DIs as above.

I put the little birdies on top as a nod to the pair of seagulls we kept seeing on Guernsey where we got engaged.  Now THAT is another story and why there are two seagulls in our bathroom!!

Now the flowers.  The one at the bottom of the clock and the others like it are NBUS and by Prima.  I only used a few as they are soooo nice.  Can you see the little seeds popping out from behind the flower towards my arm?  There are a few of these dotted around and they came out of my Happy Post I received just before Christmas, along with the sparkly heart...Thanks again my Friend.

The other flowers were made up from flowers in my stash, brads in the middle, some of which are years old, sprayed with Glimmer Mists, Perfect Pearls, layered and scrunched up. 

The MS Monarch butterflies came out of the Tin of Shame and there are others that I made using old books and my SU die.  

I wanted a little bit of watch parts in there and I saw a key somewhere when I was gathering things up so thought I would throw that into the mix too along with a NBUS TH card.  I tied the ribbon with a little bit of silver grey ribbon that was actually adorning a present my friend gave me at Christmas.  Waste not and you will want not.  Lace came from Funkie Junkie.  Only a little piece as it is too nice to use all in one go!

The leaves you can see were punched out of Snippet using my MacGill punch and inked up with DIs.

Finally I used my Cricut to die cut the  title which I cut twice to give it a bit of oomph!  Then I smooshed some more wax around and spritzed a little perfect pearls on there. 

Love the layers you can see in these last two photos.  

Hurrah!  You have made it through to the end.  Well done you.  Unless of course you skipped and just looked at the photos!  I don't mind but please leave me a comment to let me know you have been.

I am taking this over to the Playground for a ride on the swings and then cosy in front of the fire.  I am also entering this into Shopping our Stash as they are looking for old brads...mine certainly count as they are ancient!  And I will flutter past the Butterfly Challenge as there are some hexagons on my layout.   Not very often I get to link up with a few challenges!!  Woo hoo!!

Thanks for being patient.  See you all soon.

Hettie

Tour de Chook II - Birthday Cards

Hello There!

Wow another weekend is coming to a close and it is back to work tomorrow.  I am sure they are getting quicker these days.  I hear a little birdie earlier telling me there is only 4 Fridays left until Christmas!  Don't worry I shot it!  We cannot have birdies spreading vicious little rumours like that now can we?

Rightio.  On to today's post.  A friend of mine who I made a Chikkin card earlier this year asked me to make some more for her as she liked them so much so here there are....

A mixture of papers used, most of which were from the Snippets drawer.  I used some leftover from my Mum's Album K&Co on the top card.  The embossed white card was leftover from some cards I made earlier in the year.  I do love this Penny Black stamp which I colour in with my Copics.

These papers I printed on my Silhouette for another project and these bits were waiting in the drawer.  

The Happy Birthday stamp is Hero Arts and the Banner and Flags are Stampin Up.  The Border punch is EK Success.  I hate to think how old the brads are - VOS indeed.

Right then, I am off over to the Snippets Playground to see what everyone has been up to this weekend, if anyone is still up that is.

Have a great week and thanks for calling by.

Hettie

Assorted cards...with NBUS

Hello there

Sunday evening here again and I am waiting for Downton Abbey to start.  Nowt on TV but on BBC 4 there is TOTP 1970s - boy I feel old as Police and Roxanne is playing from 1979!! I was still in Comprehensive then!!!!  Sting looks a little younger too!

Tonight I wanted to share two little cards I made recently, one to send to a friend as a kinda Hello card and the other a birthday card...

I used a NBUS Tim Holtz stamp that my Buddie Kim picked up for me. I stamped it with versamark ink and embossed with WOW white embossing powder.  I blanked out the "Birthday" word to make it non-birthday-have-a-cake kinda card.  The little die heart and star die cuts are made using Snippets and a NBUS Simon Says Stamp die which I collected from Kim recently.

And here is the Birthday one.  The Smile and Enjoy die cuts are NBUS Penny Black dies from Absolutely Everything.  Gosh...Blondie!!!!  I cannot believe I remember her first time round!  Of course she is now Deborah Harry now!  The purple cards I have had forever so they are VOS.

Now I am going to hit myself with a Rhythm Stick and do myself some cocoa and look for my zimmer frame while I go down to the Snippets Playground to see if the Young Ones have cleared up after last night's bonfire!  If they haven't perhaps I will thwack them with my stick!

Have a great week everyone.

Hettie

Scrapbook Tuesday...Tea on Tuesday...T stands for Top Dog!

Hello There

Is it me or are Tuesdays coming round awful quick these days? In fact all days are coming round awful quick to me nowadays!  Does that mean I am getting old I wonder?  Don't answer that if you value our friendship!!

As usual on a Tuesday I am going to share a cuppa with you along with my friend from over the water Elizabeth and her cat Bleubeard.  I am sharing with you a cat mug in fact.  Now anyone who knows me knows that I am not a cat kinda gal.  I am more of a dog lover...careful!   But this mug is kinda special as it was bought for me by Hubby's Aunt who seemed to think I like cats.  It even has my name on it just inside the rim.  Now the desk you can see is in work, as this is my work mug.  However, I have used it for so long I have noticed the glaze is starting to go a little crazy inside so before anything bad happens I thought I should share it with you.  In it is some gorgeous Blackberry and Nettle tea by Twinings.  I don't drink many fruity teas as they tend to smell better than they taste but this one is different.  

Now whilst I may not actually scrapbook at this desk, I quite often doodle scrapbook layouts when I am sitting typing.  It is amazing that sometimes when on a long typing job your mind can wander and think of something else whilst you are typing something work related.  Honest Gov!  So here is the layout I kinda planned out in work...

The little dog is our Sputnik.  She was found in a skip in Cardiff on 30th December 1989.  She was taken to an animal sanctuary where my MIL used to make donations of food.  Hubby and I had collected some too with our shopping so I got coaxed into helping MIL take some over.  And Sputnik came home!

The Christmas season was still with us and we used to call her our little "Christmas Cracker".  She really did rule the roost!  The letters have been cut out of Bazzill using my Cricut.  They were then stamped with Hero Arts holly stamp and embossed with VOS embossing powder...in fact the first one I ever bought!  The rosettes were made using TH dies, and again the spots in the centres were embossed.

The surrounding pieces were from a snippet which I just managed to squeeze all of them out, before deciding to cut into a fresh sheet for the rosettes and letters!  The hearts at the top and bottom are EKSuccess punch.  All inking is DI Gathered Twigs.

The journal says "You came in our lives on 30th December 1989 and left your paw prints on our hearts forever".  The background paper and journal card were MME.  They were an absolute bargain at Hobbycraft...not very often you hear that!  There was no price marked on there so the assistant said name a price.  I said £5 and she agreed it!  It was worth at least double that as there were 12 sheets of pp and a sheet of die cut embellishments!  I have previously paid £1.50 for each sheet!  Shhhhh!  Our secret right?

We should have known here how forceful she would be as she would never look at the camera for you!  The paper for these stars were snippets too from my Christmas album from a year or so ago.  Nearly time to start this year's album!

Well.  That is enough of this layout for you.  My tea is now cold.  Time to think about getting back to working on my desk instead of gassing with you all.

Just enough time to link this post with Elizabeth and the Snippets Playground.  I hope you like the mug Bleubeard.

Thanks for calling by and see ya all later.

Hettie

The Mayflower...Mini Album...

Hello there

Well that weekend went like a flash and ended with a crash bang wallop didn't it?  We had beautiful weather yesterday and Hubby and I were able to do a little more work on my little Trabbi called Hilda before it absolutely tipped it down and has remained so most of today.   Never mind ey!  It gave me chance to have a play in my Craft Room today.

Now some of you know from a previous post that myself, Sandra, Debs and Miss had a meet up in Southampton for lunch.  We all had to be on our best behaviour!  Debs kindly volunteered to pick myself and Sandra up from the train station, however there was an hour between our trains so Debs offered to take me to the Mayflower monument whilst we waited for Sandra's train.  Whilst there we met a gentleman and his wife, and he told us that he was a direct descendant of one of the people named on the monument.  

Of course I had my trusty camera with me and snapped some shots.

Debs had made is all a little W or M (depending what hemisphere you reside in) mini album and I decided I would print my photos out on my Pogo printer (a bit like the old instamatic photos which measure about 2x3") and put them into this album.  The little anchor on the front is my addition.

On the left is the main plaque on the monument which is on the right. Surprisingly there are no signs to let people know this monument is here.

Some close ups of the monument.  The little words are from some VOS K&Co paper which I have cut from a Snippet.

The photo on the left is the view over Southampton from the monument.  I suspect that this looks very much different from that day in 1620 when they embarked on the journey.  The tall ship on the right was passing just as we were walking back to Debs' car.  

This building is where the voyagers would have passed through in order to board the ships.  Yes, there were two....The Mayflower and The Speedwell.  Unfortunately The Speedwell didn't get any further than Plymouth.

The little tags in the album I have used to put factoids on including the date, crew and cargo as well as the firstborn on American soil.

If you are interested about the voyage of The Mayflower there is a book available on Kindle HERE which I very much enjoyed. 

Hopefully the next time I share this little album I will have completed an item on my bucket list which has been near the top for a very long time.  I have wanted to see Plymouth Rock and surrounding area since we studied the Mayflower when I were a lass!  

I am off to take this down to the Snippets Playground as I have been using lots of little Snippets in this book.  I hear Debs is poorly so hopefully knowing I have used her little book may cheer her up a little.

Have a great week.  I am hoping that BT will have sorted our t'internet out so I can visit blogs better this week.

Hettie

Tour de Chook! ...

Hello There

Has anyone been watching all the sports of the Commonwealth or Tour de France recently?  Now as most of you may be able to tell, I am not a real sporty kinda gal, but I have been especially enjoying all the good nature and thrills of the Commonwealth Games.  Aren't the Home Nations doing so well?  And as for Erraid...isn't she just a doll?  Well done.  She is a star in the making!

I thought I would share some cycling cards with you.  You may recall that I made a pink cycling card for a friend to send to her friend recently.  Well the recipient's birthday was last week and she was thrilled by the card I made, so much so that she told the sender not to buy any more cards, but that she was just going to get this one out every year!  Awww bless!

I made some alternative versions to have in hand too...

Don't you just love the washi tape I have used?  It is a NBUS having seen it in a local branch of Wilkinson and fell in love with it.  

The papers and brads are VOs and some bits are Snippets so I off to whizz this over to the Snippets Playground.  The stamp is Penny Black of course, the stamped banners and the "ribbon" as well as the embossing folder are all SU.  All coloured in with Copics.

Thanks for calling by.  I shall give someone a push on the swings if you fancy!

Hettie