Thoughts Of Summer

I hope you've all had a lovely weekend and enjoyed your extra hour in bed.


It's been a wet and windy weekend here and although we did venture out it wasn't for long. Freya needed some winter boots so we had a drive over to Ilkley, at least we knew we could get a lovely cup of coffee at the same time, a must when we go shopping anywhere. She now has a very nice pair of boots and the cats have a big box to sleep in!!!


Both afternoons were spent crafting, a real luxury and I managed to finish a mini book I've been working on for a few days now. I've always been taken with word books, but not the cost of a template to make them, well I am from Yorkshire!!!! so I printed off some large letters from the computer, worked out the measurements for the pages and hey presto, with a bit of time and effort I've made a book of a holiday in Lake Garda we had quite a few years ago now, it was before I started Scrapbooking so there wasn't the wealth of photos to choose from, but I had plenty to complete my project.


The letters were painted with H20's and the swirls stamped with Walnut Stain distress ink which was also sponged around the edges so that they looked a little bit 3D. The first page had a cuttlebugged cover which had been sprayed with glimmer mists.


The main bp was Rouge de Garance, Jardin Secret. They are much brighter papers than I would usually choose but they matched the colours of Italy well. Each page was edged with a swirl and the embellishments were all chipboard, painted with H20's and Cosmic Shimmer watercolours which can be painted on really thickly to get a lovely shimmer.


Although the initial printing of the letters and working out the page sizes was time consuming I think it's been far more satisfying to complete something from start to finish and also I haven't spent even 1p, everything I've used was already in my stash or handmade!!!

Thank you for visiting and all the lovely comments you leave me. I appreciate them so much.

Beautiful Autumn Colours

I hope your weekend was a good one and the weather was kind to you. It was glorious here. I just had to take some photos of this lovely new rose I planted a few months ago. It was from the bargain basket of our local DIY store and when I went out yesterday it was looking lovely in the late afternoon sunshine. Just shows you don't have to spend a fortune to get beautiful flowers.

The Autumn colours are beginning to look their best at the moment here, although it'll be a few more weeks before the trees provide that dazzling display that sets this time of the year alive and the lovely weather we've been having helps to make up for the dismal Summer. I love the mellowness of Autumn although I don't like the nights drawing in and the cold mornings!!

So many challenges seem to have an Autumn theme at the minute so I thought I'd get two in in one go again with another tag. Tuesday Taggers have the theme of "Shades of Autumn" and By The Cute and Girly's theme is "Autumn Glory".


My resolution of not buying craft things and using what I have seems to have slipped rather badly at the minute and I just had to give in and buy the beautiful Diamante Delights Elusive Images themeplate I've had my eye on for years, which is what I've used for this tag.


The flower was stamped out three times and painted with H20's, glitter was added and then it was decoupaged. I blended various colours of ink onto the tag and randomly stamped with various Heidi Grace stamps to create a background and then drew on the stitches with a brown gel pen.

Thank you for visiting and I hope your Monday is going well. I must apologise for not visiting all your lovely blogs lately. Spare time just seems incredibly short at the minute. I will try and get round them in the next few days. I don't want to miss out on anything!!

Peacocks Galore

Hi there

Thanks for all your lovely comments-the decorating is going well, but STILL not finished. As I've said before we are not fast workers in this house. At the moment we are all high on paint fumes, but at least the weather has kept fine, if a bit breezy so the windows and doors are all open and the smell is slowly disappearing. Maybe by the weekend the new wallpaper will be on!!

I've managed a bit of crafting before falling into bed at night. Both these cards have been made using the Artylicious Peacock Party CD.

I printed the feather toppers onto card and then painted over them with H20's to give them a shimmer.

The black card was mounted onto gold mirricard and a backing paper from the CD and I finished off with black peel off corners and gold organza ribbon.

The pale card used backing paper from another Artylicious CD-I think it was Filligree Fusion- it was one I printed awhile ago and was sitting in my craft box- and green organza ribbon.

I am a lazy crafter and make cards without greetings most times so that they can be used for any occasion and added last minute when I decide to send them.

Well I'm going back to pondering over a layout I'm doing of the spring flowers. It's one of those that is just not working at the moment. Hopefully I'll get it sorted out soon so that I can Blog it!!

A COMPLETED CARD AT LAST

Well after a weekend of snatched crafting I have at last completed my Mothers Day cards. I always seem to struggle with card making and they take me ages whereas I can do Scrapbook Layouts quickly, not sure why this is. Anyway, I took the inspiration for these cards from the latest edition of Do Crafts Creativity magazine.

I stamped the flowers with gold Brilliance ink and clear embossed them. They were then painted with Twinkling H20's, which gives a lovely pearlescent effect. The greeting was made with coloured peel offs. I then matted the 4 squares (each one being 4cm) on dark green card and then the whole onto the Distress inked backing papers I made previously.

I hope both my Mum & Mum in Law like the finished result.