Enjoying the weather....

Hello all you lovely Bloggers. I hope you are all well and have enjoyed the beautiful weather we have again been blessed with over the last few days.

I have to apologise yet again for being a Bad Blogger. We have all been on Holiday this week, not literally but no work or school so we've been out and about enjoying ourselves most of the week so it's felt like being on holiday.


We had a lovely day in Knaresborough, which is so local to us but always has a holiday feel and enjoyed a leisurely lunch alfresco at the side of the river. The following day we went to Scarborough. The traffic was a nightmare and the journey took twice as long as it should both ways but it was all worthwhile. We enjoyed the Sealife centre wondering at the alien like jellyfish and the graceful Seahorses. Isn't nature wonderful!! The weather was so beautiful we spent the rest of the day on the beach exploring the rock pools, paddling and eating ice cream. Simple pleasures!!


I made a Wedding card for a friend who got married last weekend and thought it fitted the bill for this week's challenge at Tuesday Taggers which is texture. They are being sponsored by Tanda Stamps so it's definitely worth checking out.


I like the white on white look so tried mixing together two cuttlebugged designs and just added a touch of silver. The heart stamp has been in my box for years and never been inked up. It has no name on so was probably a bargain buy at some time. I silver embossed it and the sentiment, which is from Dawn Bibby.

Thanks for stopping by. I shall try to catch up with all your lovely blogs over the next few days to check out all the inspirational things I've missed out on.

Handbags and Gladrags

That's the theme of this weeks challenge on Tuesday Taggers. I'm not a Handbag or Gladrag kind of girl. Anyone who knows me always says that plants and craft stash are my handbags and gladrags!!


Anyway, I thought I'd have a go at this one as I have a slinky dress stamp that rarely sees the light of day, not sure why as it's lovely. I stamped it onto glitter paper, cut it out and stuck a fluffy pink feather behind and mounted it all on dark card to show the feather off.


The BP was cuttlebugged with ink rubbed over, one of my favourite techniques and cut into two circles. A pink peel off handbag and some stickles were added as finishing touches.

Thanks for a great challenge girls.

I hope you are all having a lovely weekend, the weather's not been too bad here and I even managed a few hours in the garden today. The tender plants need bringing into the greenhouse but I am fast running out of room!!

Thank you as always for stopping by and the wonderful comments you leave. I always appreciate them. For those who asked, this year's cake is still in the planning stage. I promise I'll blog it once it's done.

Embossing In A Power Cut!!

I got home from doing my shopping last Thursday to find we had a power cut. I don't know about you but you don't realise how much you use power until it's not there.

I threw my shopping in the fridge and freezer as quick as I could so that the doors were not open too long, made a sandwich and thought I can't sit in silence and eat it so I went hunting for my battery travel speakers and hooked up my Ipod. Music, great!!!!

I then decided I'd make a birthday card for my blogging friend Lynne and it was all going really well, one of those cards that just flowed, which is rare for me. I stamped out the birds, applied the embossing powder, got out the heat gun and then...........how do I plug this in I thought!!!! Now what do I do. Think Think Think. Mmmm I wonder if I can emboss it on the gas ring. After hunting round for a lighter to light the gas, I put the smallest ring on the lowest setting and held the card over and hey presto the powder melted. I did keep checking I wasn't setting fire to the other side!!!! Just shows what you can do when you have to!!


Anyway, this is the end result. The birds (from Crafty Individuals) were stamped onto moonglow spritzed card and embossed with clear powder. I stamped the hearts onto a scrap of card I'd used to wipe up some overspraying of glimmer mist from another project. These were cut out, decoupaged and glossy accents applied.


The cuttlebugged background had matching colourbox inks swipped over and I must say I was quite pleased with the results. The greeting was from a Kay Carley Flitters and Flutters stamp set.

Thankfully the power came back on after about three hours so I could have a much need cuppa!!

I hope you all had a lovely weekend and I hope you enjoyed your special day Lynne.

Thank you as always for visiting.

For The Love Of Grunge!!

What a week.

People always say to me, oh you must have so much free time now you don't go out to work!! If only they knew. I think I'm far busier now than when I did work everyday and you don't clock off and relax at 5pm either. Not that I'm complaining, I love being at home, but this week has been mad.

I was a parent helper on Wednesday taking 50 children to the theatre in Bradford to see The Gruffolo which was fantastic. The kids loved it and joined in heartily and I think the grown ups enjoyed it just as much. It was so cleverly done, full of humour and catchy songs. We then went to the park for a picnic and a walk. The weather was cloudy but it stayed fine so was a lovely day out and the kids are great fun. I love helping out but it's really tiring. I was asleep in front of the telly by 8pm!!!!

Yesterday was a visit to the dentist, shopping and Parents Evening. I'm glad all thats over. Teachers (apologises to all you teachers out there) have a knack at making you feel inadequate as a parent sometimes. It may be partly down to the fact that Freya goes to the same school as I did many moons ago and some of the same teachers are still there. You never loose that feeling of being a lesser being I suppose.

Then to cap it all, we had to call the TV repair man out, we have a very fetching pink line down the middle of our TV and when he came this morning he said it has to be taken away to see if they can repair it which means we're back to watching a portable for a week. We don't watch it that much but I love my Strictly Come Dancing and it'll be weird to watch it on a a little TV. Still we'll manage, it's hardly a problem in the scheme of things.

Oh dear, I do seem to have had a moan this morning, I'm so sorry, some of you are having really difficult days I know so I have nothing to complain about.

So down to crafty things!! I've just discovered the fantastic grungeboard. What wonderful stuff. There is no limit to what you can do with it and it feels and smells just like leather.

I've started off with having a go at making some jewellery with it, inspired by the watch straps Sheena Douglas made on Create and Craft some weeks ago and these are the results.


The circles were cut using Nestabilities. They didn't cut right through so I finished off with a craft knife but you still end up with a perfect circle which is impossible to get with scissors. I embossed them with the swirls folder and then spritzed with glimmer mist and over sprayed with gold spray to get a lovely sheen. The swirls were highlighted with a matching gel pen. You can play to your hearts content, it was great fun. I punched a hole with a crop o dile and attached a brad to strengthen the hole.


For this one I drew round one of the leaf designs on the Elusive Images Diamante Delights sheet, cut it out, embossed and sprayed it in the same way.


The last ones were stamped with the same stamp and then inked with distress ink. I then overstamped the design and embossed to get a bit of a shine. The green one had copper cosmic shimmer sprayed on it.

I like the rougher surface of these, they look like leather in real life.

I have played with other things but I'll save these for another day. I've rambled on enough today and I don't want to bore you to tears.

Thanks as always for visiting and have a great weekend whatever you are doing.

Where Does The Time Go!!

I can't believe it's Thursday already. Where are the weeks going, I really don't know, sometimes I wish they'd slow down just a bit.

I'd better get on with this post otherwise it'll be Monday again and I won't have done it!

Firstly I'd just like to say a huge thank you for all the lovely comments I've had recently. I love reading them and they are always full of such wonderful encouragement. The crafty blogland community is a lovely place to belong too.

It was my best friend's Wedding Anniversay back in September and this was the card I made for her.


Those trusty Inkadinkadoo mindscapes stamps again. I just love them. This time I inked them with the Muted Moods set of Colorbox inks which are beautiful. The image was clear embossed. The BP is an offcut of pink paper in my scrap box which was cuttlebugged and some darker pink ink wiped over to highlight the embossing. The blue BP was off cuts of Basic Grey.

The flowers were darkened with the same inks to match and some stickles and gems added.

I really must try using some of the sketches out there to alter my style. When I look back at my cards, they all tend to be laid out the same. It must be time for a change.

Thank you for visiting and I hope your week is going well.

Some Scrapbooking At Last

I've been a really bad blogger lately, please forgive me. For once, I've done more crafting than blogging. I thought it was about time to dedicate some serious time to all the things I want to do and I've had a lot of cards to make for various occasions which have kept me busy. I will show you those at a later time.


The other reason has been this gorgeous weather we've been having. After the poor summer and the impending winter I've been spending every spare minute in my garden trying to get things sorted out and just enjoying being in it. It's looked a mess all though the rain but with the warm sunshine everything has suddenly come good and it's looking great at the minute. There are still bits left to do but we have got a bin strike on here at the minute and my garden bin and compost bin are full to overflowing and so there's nowhere to put anymore for the time being. At least the rubbish bin has been emptied and that's more than a lot of people have had so I'm not grumbling!


So what have I been doing with all this crafting time. Well, my scrapbooking mojo has finally returned thank goodness, it's been absent for awhile and I hate it, scrapbooking is my real relaxation time, and this is the first page I've made in ages.


I've grown chillies for the first time this year and they are so pretty I had to take some photos of them. The colours are great and the papers picked them up perfectly. I mixed Basic Grey BP with some cuttlebugged Coredinations that was then sanded back.


The embellishments were cut out of Imagination Project paper I've had for ages and it lent itself to being used for journalling on too. The title was cut from two different Sissix alphabets using Coredinations pearl and matt card. A bit of vellum and some gems finished things off.

Thanks for visiting and I hope you have a great weekend whatever the weather.

Framed

I hope your week is going well so far. I just want to know where the sunshine is they promised us from today onwards. It's been cold and grey here but dry so I suppose we need to be grateful for that!

On our crafty trip to Harrogate the other week, amongst all the lovely things we saw that provided bags of inspiration, the one that stuck in my mind was on the Once Upon A stamp stand where they had made decorative frames by putting different shaped Nestabilities together. They were fantastic and another use for these wonderful must have craft items. My sister took some photos for me for future reference but I had to have a go as soon as I got home, so these are from memory.


The first one was sprayed with turquoise, meadow green and gold glimmer mists. The green layers were cuttlebugged with the textile folder and denim distress ink rubbed over to highlight the embossing which was then used to stamp the swirls on the turquoise layer and then clear embossed. I then dipped the edge of each layer in clear ink and gold embossed to give a random frame.


The dragonfly was stamped on acetate twice and cut out with stickles added. I then cut out just the wings on the second one and attached them with silicone glue. Two holes were put through the top with the crop o dile and brads added and gold wire put through to create a hanger.


The second was layered up in the opposite way with the scalloped square as the base and the red layers were run through the cuttlebug. I used Candy Apple Red and Suede Glimmer mists and ran Walnut ink distress ink around all the edges and used it to stamp the swirls. The flower was sprayed with gold glimmer mist and the gems added. As usual with glimmer mists the photos don't do the glimmer justice, they really do sparkle.


Now I've got my hands on the photos I shall have another go but I think the sky's the limit with these, you could do anything, the only problem is it makes you want lots of new shapes to play with.

Before I sign off tonight I'd just like to send my blogging friend Brenda lots of love for her surgery tomorrow. My thoughts are with you Brenda.

Thanks as always for visiting.

Experimenting

We've had a lovely sunny couple of days here, after a wet wet Saturday so it's been nice to get back in the garden although I have a real slug problem this year. All my seed grown Cosmos and Dahlias have been eaten to stalks so the colour that should be in the border now is sadly lacking. I will have to have a rethink for next year, but that is gardening for you, nothing stands still and there is always something to do.

We are on countdown for our Holidays now. I am not a clever blogger and don't yet know how to schedule posts to appear when I am not here, note to self to learn this for next time, so when my blog goes quiet, you will know what has happened.


I thought I would should you a card I made last week experimenting with moonglow mica powder. I saw Dawn Bibby do this technique on QVC recently and wanted to give it a go.

Versmark was applied to the whole piece of dark card and the powder randomly applied and then my stamp, Autumn Leaves Fine and Dandy again, was inked with versamark and stamped onto the powder removing it to create a negative.

The background card was stamped with the same image and pigment powder was applied to cuttlebugged embossed card and I used this for the strip at each side. The words were from Elusive Images.

Thank you for visiting.

Dots and Swirls

This weeks Dragonsdream TIO challenge is Pink swirls and dots to celebrate the anniversary of the moon landing and the eclipse earlier in the week.

Because it's been such a wet start to the summer holidays here we haven't been out much so decided to do some crafting yesterday afternoon and Freya asked if she could make a tag too, so we have two entries this week.

Both were cuttlebugged with the swirls folder and then sprayed with pink shades of glimmer mist, Freya had three and mine had two. I think hers probably came out best to show up the embossing. (Freya's is the one below)


She then stamped a creative expressions swirl down the centre and finished off with some star and dot brads.

(Mine is the one below) I stamped round the edge with a different creative expression swirl using pink and crimson brilliance inks. Different sized holes were punched with my crop o dile and glitter paper stuck behind with the holes outlined to make them stand out a bit and I then added different sized brads for two different types of dots.
I'd lost the embossing by this time so I tried to highlight it a bit with brushed out felt tip.


I have to be honest and say I'm not sure about the end result but the moon's surface is a mishmash so it probably works ok for what it is supposed to represent.

Freya thoroughly enjoyed joining in the challenge and I'm sure it probably won't be the last time during the summer. It made for a nice afternoon of crafting together.

By the way, those of you waiting for cake pics. I will post them after the weekend when the recipients have had time to see and eat them!!!!

Mass Production

Just a quick post tonight. It's that time of year again when cards are needed for those hard working, long suffering teachers. I help out in school so I see all the work that goes on behind the scenes and we are lucky that we have a wonderful Primary school where all the teachers are friendly and welcoming and make you feel included. Although I only go in one day a week I still feel a part of things which is so nice.

Freya has had two class teachers this year who job share. It has worked really well and she has had a great year, there is also a classroom assistant and another lady who takes them for handwriting and reading so plenty of cards are needed.

It was a wet morning here so I got the trusty cuttlebug out and unfortunately I'm not imaginative enough to come up with different cards when they are needed quickly so I mass produced and they will all get the same.

I rubbed some chalk inks over the design, matted onto some free BP that came with a scrapbook magazine, added some organza ribbon and an artylicious greeting and hey presto they were done.

Treasures

Before I start today I must just say thank you to all my lovely readers for the comments you left about the cake in the last post. I was blown away by them. You gave me an idea for a future post with your comments about the sugar roses looking real. I am just about to start some more for a wedding cake for the end of July and they are really easy to make so I shall take some photos as I do them and show you all so you can be amazing your friends and families by trying them for yourselves!!

I also forgot to say, the lady whose cake I mentioned can be seen here. If you like cakes it's definitely worth a look.

Now back to crafty things. The theme for this weeks Tag It On challenge was "Treasures". What did we consider to be treasures in our lives? That was the brief and the tag had to contain at least one stamp as usual.

Mmmm long thoughts on this on. Family obviously was my first treasure, but that was hard to represent so I decided on my garden and flowers which as most of you know are my other passions (along with crafting).

I started on a tag and stamped some flowers and was merrily bowling along when I suddenly looked and it was so similar to other things I had done I stopped and began to think again. Doing flowers and nature was just too easy, I need a challenge so I rethought and this is what I ended up with.

The tag was run through the cuttlebug using the agapanthus folder which I had pre inked with colourbox chalk. This represented my flowers. I added the little gems for interest and the butterflies for a bit more nature. I then stamped on the words which all mean something to me.

-I treasure my memories of lots of things, people dear who are no longer here, happy holidays and events and just little things that make me smile.

-I treasure the Joy I find in my family, my crafting, the lovely countryside we live in or just hearing a favourite song on the radio.

-I love my lovely hubby and beautiful daughter and all my family very much and treasure them all.

-And lastly I treasure the dreams for the future, we all need to dream!!

Once again Frankie challenged us very well.

Sucess At Last

I hope you have all had the glorious sunshine we have had today, it was so warm we even had our lunch in the garden. A perfect end to a lovely week, although it'll be really hard to get back to normal tomorrow with work and school.

After hours of pondering and then giving up and re pondering after asking for Blog land help my computer whizz of a husband has just solved my comments picture puzzle in about 30 seconds. Don't you just hate it when that happens. He's a star when it comes to sorting out technical things.

I didn't have my comments section on a separate page and now I do the pictures appear as if by magic-Hurray!!!!

My cards tonight are yet more cuttlebug creations. I shall bore you to death with these.

For the first one I inked my folder with the Marvy Blending Blox shades of sunset ink and ran it through the cuttlebug once for a dark impression and then spritzed the ink that was left on the folder with water and embossed again and this was the result, a lovely pale hint of ink.

I stuck pink gems in the middle of the flowers, inked the backing card with a color box peony ink and stamped the wording in the same colour to tie in.

The second one was for my sister's 12th Wedding Anniversary, which is today so I can post it now, although I'm not sure whether she reads my blog or not.

The heart and greeting was swiped after embossing with brilliance ink pearlescent orchid, which I also used to ink the background card to match and I stuck tiny pink gems on the swirls.

The ribbon was from DCWV. By the way, it is stuck on straight although it looks wonky. My polka dots were not quite straight, but this was my 3rd attempt at getting them straight and so they were near enough!!!!

Hope you have a good Monday.

A Little Bit Of Heaven

Today, not only has the sun been shining but we have had a lovely day out in my favouritest place. Perfect.

We have been up to The Lakes, to Ambleside, which is just under 2 hours from here, so not a bad run and one we try to do as often as we can. I just love it up there, the hills, the lakes and the lovely views in every direction. It was not too busy today and the Rhododendrons were just coming into flower and there was blossom everywhere you looked, just beautiful. I took lots of photos, we had a yummy lunch and I had a lovely laze in the sun while Freya and her Dad played football in Borrans Park.

I feel too sleepy after all that fresh air to do much crafting tonight but I did finish some cards yesterday so I thought I'd show you one of those.

I have at last mastered the correct side to ink a Cuttlebug folder thanks to some tips from my blog friends and have done lots of playing about with various colours and inks. This card was made with the colorbox cats eyes browns stack. I just wiped various colours on and got quite a nice combination. It went well with the DCWV glitter stack paper which I cut into strips and used with mirricard. The flowers are from Papermania which are held together with a brad from my craft box.

Colorbox are one of my favorite inks and while browsing tonight I found a lovely blog with some wonderful candy to give away, a huge multicolour ink pad which is totally gorgeous (take a look at the piccy on my sidebar). If you love inks it is definitely worth checking out on Dorothy's blog here.

Flower Power

We got up to an absolutely beautiful day here, clear blue skies and warm spring sunshine. You could almost see the flowers opening. I took my mug of tea out and sat in the garden this afternoon and it was bliss to feel warm sun on your face. I hope it was as good where you are.

Well back to crafty things.

I managed another cuttlebugging card, this time using the build a flower embossing folder and dies. I thought just using 3 petals looks a bit like a tulip so I wiped pink brilliance ink over and then used pink gems to create a stalk. The background is sprayed with Amaryllis Burgundy Starburst stain which leaves a lovely gold sheen when it dries and then I stamped a butterfly all over with crimson brilliance ink and used that again for the greeting.

I seem to be a bit cuttlebug obsessed at the minute. I think it must be time for a change!

A Card At Last

Well I've finally got my act together and produced a card with my cuttlebugging-told you I was a slow worker. Cards do not come naturally!!

For some reason I could not get my brain into gear and work out how to colour the embossing folder so that it left the embossed bit white like you clever people have done-----so I cheated and painted the background with Key lime glimmer mist. Well I ended up with the same result, just took a bit longer.

With the swirls I wiped over a Marvy Shades of Green Blending Blox ink pad.

The words were from my trusty Artylicious Inspirations themeplate and then I just used some green organza ribbon and gem stones as embellishments.

I shall have another go at colouring the actual embossing folder and see if I can unblock my mental block!!

SPRING CARDS

With all this lovely weather about it really makes you feel like using lovely light, bright spring colours doesn't it?

We've been having a Cuttlebug session for the last few nights. My Daughter has been making Mother's Day cards for both her Grandmas, so when my help was not required I had a play and ended up with 2 cards made from the same embossed card.

I used my favourite folder which is Stylized Flowers, and painted the image with glimmer mists, Key Lime Pie and Peach Delight. I don't use orange very much so it was nice to have a change.

I put non specific greetings on both of them so that I've always got that emergency card for any event I've forgotten. The top one was from the Artylicious Inspirations themeplate and the matting was gold mirri card which hasn't come out very well on the image. The bottom one was at bit from the "You" Embossing Folder that I just rubbed ink over and cut out.

Two cards in one night, not bad for a slow coach like me!

CUTTLEBUGGING

Well I think I'm slowly getting the hang of this blogging lark. I'm learning something new everyday about how to do things and there is some great help out there from other bloggers.

It's also really exciting to find people are actually reading my posts. I feel I have officially joined the blogging community now.

What with all this time spent on the computer my crafting has suffered lately. I have started some new scrapbook layouts but have nothing finished to include today so I thought I would show you the card I made for my lovely husband for Valentine's Day.





I was given a Cuttlebug for Christmas and just love it, there is so much you can do with it, I have barely scratched the surface yet but one of things I enjoy doing is embossing and then gently wiping an ink pad over to highlight the embossing, which is what I did with one of these hearts. The other was embossed gold mirricard, both using the D'vine Swirl embossing folder.

I stamped & gold embossed the white band with my favourite Heidi Grace stamps and this was matted with more gold mirricard. I then stamped around the edge of the card with a chestnut Whispers ink pad which gives a lovely soft image. The same ink was then wiped around the edges to blend everything together. The greeting was stamped from the Artylicious sentiments theme plate.

I was pleased with how it turned out and more importantly my Hubby thought it was lovely, which at the end of the day was all that mattered.

By changing the sentiments I think it would make a nice Wedding or Anniversary card.