Just a quickie

Just dropping in to share some notecards I made recently using more CC DeLovely!

DeLovely Oh My!

Just a quick one! I submitted my photo frame and 2 cards I made using CC DeLovely to the Cosmo Cricket Blog and to my delight it is featured today! If you hop over and leave a comment you could win some DeLovely goodies! I'm so happy today, the laborious task of 15 coats of paint on the frame seem worth it now!

Hope you are all having a fabby day! :)

WOYWW - 26/05/10

Howdy! I hope you have all had a good week and are looking forward to a lovely bank holiday weekend? I'm really getting into the spirit of WOYWW and find it gives me something crafty to look forward to in the middle of, what can sometimes be, a pretty mediocre week! Onwards to the desk..

So what can we see today? Lots of Cosmo Cricket Delovely, I fell in love with the bright cheery colours and had to get stuck right in. On the left you can see my pink ribbon and lace jars, a Disneyland bag that is almost 20 years old that contains lace from when I used to make crafty things as a teenager, I think that counts as being vintage doesn't it?

Last week a lovely commenter asked to see a close up picture of my storage drawers:

The unit is a Quickutz Magpie unit, I purchased mine from Home Sense for the bargain price of £9.99, so good in fact that I went back and picked up a second. One set has six of the magpie nesting tins (it's been a pain to try and find another set of 3 to complete the unit) and the other is perfect for storing my promarkers. I have been told that they can be stored upright but I prefer to store mine horizontally, I simply added some white dot stickers coloured with the pen to make it a bit easier when choosing my colours. At some point I would like to paint the units white, they look a bit hefty in black!

I picked this photo frame up from a charity shop this week, it was a murky dark red and black colour when I bought it, I primed the frame, painted a few layers of fuschia pink paint then overlaid this with white acrylic paint. When it was dry I sanded it in some areas and bashed it a little to distress then painted on more of the pink paint and wiped the excess off with a baby wipe. I was so pleased that it came out how I intended. I then added some Cosmo Cricket paper, lace and ribbon, the perfect accompanying gift to the card..

I think that this will be a gift for my niece when she and her family return from living in Canada. I just can't wait for them to arrive, they have been gone for 3 years and I have missed them all so much, hopefully not too long to go now!

Have a great week and a lovely bank holiday weekend!

Poppyseed Crazy

I recently bought some of the new K&Co Poppyseed range and I love it, gorgeous colours, lovely embellishments with a contemporary feel. I couldn't resist and got straight to it!

The paper is from the paper mat pad and the butterflies are from the beautiful heavy cardstock borders pack. The lovely striped velvet ribbon was from Paperchase, it matches perfectly!

The words and butterflies are also from the borders pack.

This one was a bit of an experiment but it came out ok, I love the coloured dymo tape, lends itself perfectly to more retro themed cards.

I can't wait to make some more but that will have to wait, I just received a pack of yumminess called Delovely!

Hope you are all having a good week, thank goodness it's Friday, more craft time!

WOYWW - 19/05/10

I have been hankering for ages after a metal drawer unit my mum has had laying unused at her house and finally she allowed me to whisk it home and fill it with all my bits and bobs! I love it, it holds so much.

I also got straight to work with my label maker so I know what's in each drawer. Here is a peek at my two favourite drawers right now, my inks and my flowers.

Mmmm, I just keep opening the drawers to look at them!

So, on to WOYWDW (Which in my case should be WOYWDT as I had to clear it all away to start a new project tonight) This is a photo of the calm before the storm!

Then this is what it looked like during....

You can see that I managed to pick up a second set of Magpie storage drawers from Home Bargains so I can now use one for promarkers and the others for my nesting tins. I am using a pad of MME glittered paper for my project this week, along with my beloved corner chomper and little bags of bargain flat back pearls.

And this is the result. A set of little thank you cards for my mum to give to her students at the end of their year. I love the pretty mint green against the pink and I love paisley so I am sold! Hope you have all had a great week and I am looking forward to blog hopping to see all the other workspaces out there!

Old Time Anniversary

I am amassing quite a stash of cards in my little card box but I noticed that I have plenty of birthdays and simple sentiments but none that really cover anniversaries. I set right to work making a card and it all started with the rose. If you haven't seen Wendy Vecchi's tutorial, hop on over to have a look, you'll be glad you did, and as she says they are addictive!

I took the basic 5 petal rose and added in a number of individual petals to make a more ruffly rose, instead of using grungepaper as suggested I used MME Wild Asparagus paper. The best tip I can give when using paper, as it is less forgiving than grunge paper, it to cut your petals, then take each individual petal and to screw it up into a ball, flatten it back out and to gently curl it using either your thumbnail or a bone folder, it allows you to curl the petals without hardly any rips and tears. I then inked the edges using cat's eye chalk ink.

 It sat on my desk and I played with it for a good couple of days turning it this way and that before commiting myself to putting it on a card, they are just so pretty! I added a mat of MME paper, stamped a postcard on some cream card using a Prima stamp, distressed it with distress ink to add some age and rounded the corners, I popped the postcard and a tag behind a die cut piece of K&Co paper (I love that paper, I have one and a half sheets left and keep telling myself to just use it up and not hoard it!) I then stamped a clock image using a Hero Arts stamp which I found in the land of bargains known as Home Sense! and dusted it with perfect pearls for a more subtle look.

I sewed some ruffles using MME paper, added it to the card and layered it with some Prima lace and added some gems, buttons, ribbon and a stick pin dyed to match using alcohol inks. The sentiment is from one of my favourite Hero Arts sentiments sets.

The card is quite bulky so needs to be sent in a boxvelope. I love how it turned out, it came out quite vintage-y which is what I was going for, I think I am going to send this to my husband's grandparents for their anniversary this year, they have been together for 63 years and are still very much in love, I only hope that my husband and I are as happy as they are when we have been married for that long!

Happy crafting, looking forward to WOYWDW, hope you consider joining in too!

Sweet New Baby

There are a couple of impending births happening around me, however the parents want to keep the sex a secret so I have made cards that cover me for one of each, thinking about it now I should have made some unisex cards, however I just received my new Hero Arts baby boy and girl stamps so I had to use them in all their stereotypical pink and blue glory :)

I'm also slow to the party but I am also loving kraft card blanks right now, I'm also looking forward to the Basic Grey kraft mix pack, just wish it would start shipping soon! Have a great day :)

More Bee Creative cards from CT

Just another couple of cards from this month's Crafty Templates Bee Creative kit. I used an acetate front for this one with the template flowers and branch, I just added some tissue paper behind the flowers to make them pop a little more.

I like this from the 'Birds on a Wire' template, I simply stitched a border and line, mounted the birds on foam pads and added some little brackets on the edges to pep it up a bit, simple but looks pretty IRL.

Back later this weekend with a few more cards, have a great one!

WOYWDW - 13/05/10

I love looking at all the different work desks on WOYWDW (what's on your work desk wednesday) created by the fabby Julia Dunnitt, I have always wanted to join in, however I have a little problem, I either don't create on a wednesday, I forget to take a photo or I tidy up then realise I should have taken a picture!

This week however I remembered and decided to join in! So what can you see? My lovely new Magpie storage I mentioned a few weeks ago filled with my new collection of Promarkers, it's just perfect! My vintage button jar with all the scrummy buttons that I want to use but prefer to just look at and finally what's actually on m desk. Lots and lots of Carolyn Gavin for K&Co Greenhouse line. I purchased it all when I went to Florida last year and I just love the bold patterns and cute shapes, I managed to pull it all out just to make one card then neatly tidy it away again straight after, I'm a bit of a neat freak.

I have since started another project and there is twice as much mess and I am finding it very hard not to tidy as I go but I am trying to relax and go with the flow! So what's on your work desk?

Happy Birthday Charlie!

It is my good friend's son's birthday next week, I cannot believe how much he has grown from the cute 3 year old to the sassy 10 year old he will be on the 28th of April.

I think I have said before that I am not good when it comes to boy cards so here is my attempt :) I used my new promarkers to colour in the robot and stars. I love using promarkers, streak free finish and so many options. I am finding it hard to find images I like to colour, I am not into magnolia stamps or the cuter images so I think I need to try and draw my own *gulp* the only drawback is I'm not that good an artist!

For some reason the bling cardstock I used for the title looks like it doesn't tie in when photographed but looks much nicer in person.

I didn't manage to create anything card related today but I did embroider a t-shirt for my friend's daughter and made some matching hair clips so I have a small sense of accomplishment!

Have a good week!

Love you more than rainbows-Crafty Templates April

It's that time again :) Had lots of fun with the new Crafty Templates 'Love you more than rainbows' April card kit. Such bright and cheerful colours and lovely embellishments, Leo really knows how to put a kit together.

Here is my first one, and I just love it! I uses squares of paper from the kit and sewed them on in a patchwork style. The bird was from the template and coloured with my new promarkers (love them so much!) Everthing is from the kit except the jewels.

This one uses the apron template and all materials from the kit except the sentiment and jewels. So sweet as an embellishment on a cookbook mini book, or as card for someone who likes to cook!

I love the happy colours in the one. I chose to use the rainbow and card shape template but added paper for the rainbow from a previous kit and AC paper for the background, glitter and stamped sentiment are from my own stash.

Hope you like them! Are you a Crafty Templates subscriber? I would love to see what you create with your kit, please add a link in the comments and I would like to come visit :)

Sweet Talia - Altered Photo Frame

I recently reconnected with a dear friend who lives in the US who I had lost touch with and was delighted to find she had a beautiful 3 year old little girl. As part of a parcel of goodies I am sending to her I altered this photo frame for her daughter's bedroom.

This is the second frame I altered. The first one was a very pretty frame and I had distressed it just how I wanted with pink paint showing under the white and I decided to use crackle glaze, so far so good, I then thought I would rub some pale pink paint over the top and wipe the excess off. BIG mistake, it looked like the frame had a bad case of eczema so I started over again!

I use Crate Paper for the background and letters, lots of lace, velvet ribbon, sizzix die cut swirls on bo bunny paper distressed with distress inks, imaginisce & prima blooms and some vintage millinery flowers all topped off with glitter, gems and pearls.

I love it so much, I just wish I knew some more little girls so I could make more :)

American Crafts and Quickutz Bargains!

I don't usually make stash posts but I had to share some bargains I picked up yesterday and hopefully it helps someone else nab a bargain or two!

I was in my local Home Sense store and found that they had a lot more craft related items. A few months ago I was able to pick up a Doodlebug 12x12 scrapbook for £16.00 complete with paper pack and stickers, this time I found lots of things from pebbles, making memories, doodlebug and american crafts.

I picked up this:

A lovely album with 20 papers, thickers, remarks stickers, flair and chipboard shapes for £14.99 and remarks sticker and flair packs for £2.99 each and each packet had 4 sheets to it.

And this:

Quickutz magpie unit for £9.99 and the magpie nesting boxes for £3.99 a pack, unfortunately they only had 2 packs so I need to look for a third! I only own 1 quickutz die and don't plan on branching out into buying lots more but I though it would be great for storing little embellishments in on my desk. I debated hard in the queue whether I really wanted it but I think I would have kicked myself if I hadn't!

I hope it helps someone pick up a bargain. Hopefully I will be back this week with a home decor project and some cards to share!

Mother's Day Part One

I was inspired by a card in a recent Cards magazine which showed a white embossed damask print which I thought looked so pretty. I decided to give it a go myself but I'm not thrilled with the end result. I think it is missing some stamping at the top and the embossing powder I managed to find didn't give a nice thick white finish like I wanted. I like the flower decoration and my Martha Stewart punched edge but it just doesn't 'do it' for me, however I hope my MIL likes it.


I hope to be back with a part 2 with the card I am making for my mum. Do you have a card you have made that you can share? I'd love to see it!

Easter-y Goodness - Crafty Templates

I love Easter, it's always the sign that spring is here, even though the weather at the moment has hampered the spring flowers, I can't wait for them to come in to bloom. Also, Easter = chocolate, yum yum yum :)

I loved the cute bunny from Crafty Templates this month. I paired him with the adorable Cosmo Cricket Garden Variety papers, carrot themed paper? it was begging to be used with a bunny!

I used him, or should I say her this time on a little mini egg gift bag for a special little girl I know, I just love these Making Memories Cosmopolitan papers, I've had them for a while and love to dig them out now and again for a project, they are just so pretty.

Lastly this little chickadee from the templates, he also worked perfectly with the CC papers! Now I need to get cracking on a Mother's Day card, I made one for my MIL which I'll share tomorrow, I've been pondering on what to do for my mum's card, I think I just need to pull out all my favourite pretty bits and pieces and see what happens :)

Market Fresh!

I was excited to receive my latest parcel of goodies that I had recently ordered, some lovely American Crafts cardstock and stickers, Cosmo Cricket Material Girl and Garden Variety Mini Deck, Elements and Stickers. I set them all out on my desk and decided to work with Garden Variety. They are really lovely papers but as I looked through them I was increasingly perplexed as to how I was going to use them. Carrots? Pea Pods? how would they work? what occasions could I use them for? Fortunately I found inspiration from the elements paper sheet and it kinda went from there, I made the following cards from it and some others which I can share next week but it wasn't the easiest task I've come up against but that's what it's all about isn't it? Trying new things :)

I loved the cheeky little smiley strawberry so pulled out some felt and made this little guy, if I had the patience I would make more as he is so cute!

I loved the little 'flash card' type of cards included on the elements paper and used them on this one with that cute little berry again. I made an aperture and glued acetate inside with some ki memories die cut paper behind, I liked this technique so expect to be bored with more cards featuring the same technique!

Next up is another of the little cards with adorable little pea pods. I am still learning how to stitch on paper and found curved edges a bit of a challenge but I will persevere! I'm loving the Prima lace at the moment, so very pretty.

Now this last one was a bit tricky, a tomato, on a card? Well, I just sat and merrily cut the veggie paper up and stuck it all together and I like him, he's such a jolly little guy!

If you have made any cards using this line I would love to see them! I'm going to try Material Girl next :)

I love it when a plan comes together!

And this is the result of my 'plan'. It doesn't happen that often to me, I envision it in my head and then proceed to become extremely frustrated when I can't translate the idea from my head to the paper! I had been asked to create a card with the specification that it should be for 'A Special Friend' and this is the result.

I had been playing with acetate earlier in the week and liked the idea of the window revealing a tone on tone stamped image background, in this case butterflies using a Stamposaurus stamp. I made a 5x7 card blank from Americam Crafts paper, cut an aperture and adhered the acetate, I then lined the inside with bazzill and decorated the outside with gems, pearls, glitter flourishes and thickers.

Products used - Paper: American Crafts, Bazzill. Stamp: Stamposaurus. Flourish: Sizzix, Pearls: Queen & Co. Gems: Swarovski. Ribbon and Flowers: Etsy. Ink: Versamark. Acetate: Papermania.

I must admit that it will be hard to part with it but I hope the recipient likes it! It's been a strange day here today, sunshine, rain, thunder then sunshine, I did enjoy this view from my craft room today -

I'm so fed up of all this bad weather, I can't wait for spring to arrive! Lots more to share this week, hope you are all enjoying the weekend!

Wedding Day - Caardvarks Challenge

I've decided to enter the Caardvarks challenge this month, and the prize? have your card featured in Cards magazine. I love Cards magazine, beautiful cards, pictures and inspiration.

The theme was 'Wedding'. I used a romantic feeling victorian 'With Love and Devotion' heart, my favourite K&Co buttons paper, MS punches, pearls, gems, tulle and ribbon. I really like it, it's a bit different from what I would normally have designed for a wedding, it did start out in varying shades of cream and white but needed the colour to avoid it looking washed out. I also used german glitter glass which gives a fabulous patina as it ages.

Hey, you never know what will happen but it doesn't hurt to try ;)

Fresh as a Daisy - Crafty Templates

Loving this month's Crafty Templates Fresh as a Daisy card kit. Such lovely spring-y colours using yummy papers from Basic Grey Origins collection among other lovely bits and pieces. Leo creates such lovely kits and some great templates, I really look forward to them dropping on my doormat each month!

I am really sucking at photos just lately, my craft room (or should I be posh and say 'studio') gets some great light but with the crappy weather we have been having they look a little washed out. I promise they are zingy and fresh in real life!

I have some time off over the next couple of weeks so I am looking forward to relaxing and getting plenty of crafting done, I may scrapbook some more, I haven't done that in a little while!

Sweet Baby

I love making baby cards as I always have to try and include a little ducky as often as I can! My husband's friends wife is currently in labour so this card will be winging it's way to them as soon as the little one arrives.

I started playing with scallop cards last week, I'm not keen on the edge at the fold, I think I should be attaching a scallop onto a card blank instead of making a scalloped blank. I've typed scallop so many times now the word has lost all meaning :)

I had to squeeze in a baby girl one, always good to keep a spare handy just in case! Be back later this week to share this month's Crafty Templates kit, it's yummy!