WOYWW wk 211- Wednesday 19th June

Good Morning Friends and fellow WOYWWers!

Just a very quick post today as I need to get down to some crafting on my day off! My regular followers will know that I have recently rearranged the workspace in my craft room..I am still waiting on 'reclaiming' the cupboards in the room for craft stash, so am still climbing over boxes..but that's for another day!

This is my WOYWW desk this week..this is the time of the week us crafters get to show what's going on in our craft space..for full deets and to join in click this link to Stamping Ground and host Julia will tell all!

I wanted to show you my little messy desk..this my favourite space away from the computer where I can get inky and messy! I used to have a desk by the window and kept my  art work on the window sill, but I needed to have it on the wall! Do you see the big red heart card holder? Well some of you will recognise your work on here, because except for the three steampunk pieces at the bottom, which are mine, all the other lovely cards were sent to me by my lovely blog friends, plus a Create & Craft prize of a Hels Sheridan original card(the pinwheel).... and aren't they all gorgeous? I had to take a close up so you could see them better...

Thank you all!

The second close up photo shows a box I am currently working on....

Thanks for stopping by and I will drop by some WOYWW desks later!

Love,

Carole X

Shop Windows -Tuesday 18th June

Good Morning Friends,

I wanted to share two quite different shop window cards with you today. This type of card is different from my usual type  - although I am very eclectic in style, I do in general like to get inky and messy and use stamps, but sometimes I have to make quick cards or cards where I don't have suitable stamps or digital images.

Both of these cards were surprisingly quick and easy to make, once cut out..

The first card was made for my friend's teenage son and was a card set downloaded from Carfts-U-Print. All I had to do was print it, cut it and construct it! Once made the card expands at the front to make the shop front and folds flat to post.  I printed it on glossy paper and used acetate behind the window and door.

For the second card, I have to apologise for the photo; by the time I had uploaded it and realised how awful it was the card had been posted. This card is made from a shop front from the Katy Sue, Fabulous Fashion CD. I hadn't bought any CD's in a while, mostly because the ones I have I don't have time to use or just use for backing papers, plus, I use a Mac and most of them don't work quite as well on Mac's; but in the last month I bought the House Mouse one, because I do buy a lot of the stamps and there are some gorgeous digi-stamps on it, plus it's great for quicker House Mouse cards..and this one, which is just gorgeous. The artwork is beautiful, I love all the designs.

This was the first shop front I made using it and I had to make it pretty quickly and post it, so it's not got  as many details as I would add if I had more time.

It works on the same principle as the football shop, but the dress in decoupaged. I also added a hat and bag from the CD, some gems and a ribbon flower, which I made from some left over bits of ribbons. Again I used acetate to back to window. The most time-consuming part of this card is cutting out all the panes. It could be cut out as a whole, or printed again on acetate instead, then the panes would still show. But I don't mind the cutting and it was fairly easy with a sharp knife.

Thanks for stopping by! I really do appreciate all your comments..I loved Jenny's yesterday about wanting to see my stamps..I am a self-confessed stamp-aholic!

Love,

Carole X

Sunday Stampers Week 262 - Monday 17th June

Good Morning Friends!

I hope you all had a super weekend, I didn't get much crafting time, but I did make my Sunday Stampers card nice and early this week! I have a big card-making week ahead, lots of family and friends birthdays and still some commissions before I can start 'enjoying' my sabbatical from them..plus our next craft class. Fortunately it's the bathing belle card we made last time, but with a different group of crafters -however making up all the packs still takes quite a lot of time!

First of all though, I would like to say a big welcome to my new follower Sharon...thank you for joining me in my little corner of blogland Sharon! Do you know, after I got to 50 followers and had the Candi draw, I got up to 55 and have been static there for a while, so it's especially good to see the numbers increase!

This week,  Hels set us the theme of creating a project with 'guys' in the theme, so I went straight for my Sam Poole Sherlock Holmes stamps. I have posted projects here before with them, but hadn't used them in a while.

This is a 6x6 card, starting with a base layer of black. I used a newsprint stamp, also by Sam Poole to create the background on white card and then tied ribbon to one side and added a button.

I stamped the magnifying glass, 'confidential' and Holmes character in black archival and heat embossed with clear powder. After I'd made it, I suddenly had the thought that I'd made a similar one already, but I checked back and if I have, I didn't post it! That's it..simples!

Now..normally I would try and look at your blogs for updates before work, but this morning my links have all disappeared..Yikes! I will try and look after lunch, otherwise lets hope it's resolved itself when I get home tonight!

Happy Monday all,

Love,

Carole X

Farher's Day -Sunday 16th June

Good morning Friends,

Sadly my much loved Dad passed away 25 years ago, way too soon and with so much still to do, so my card is made for my Father-in-law. I get on really well with my inlaws and will look forward to seeing them today!

Toni, Tom's Dad, loves cars, DIY, animals, all sport (especially football) and is a very sociable person. Over the years I have made cards with themes such as motor racing, football, DIY, even Venice (where he comes from), so this year I decided on something very different with this little House Mouse. The card is made from a template I bought at Ally Pally and we've got him a token for his present, which I've put in the drawer.

The papers I've used are from Graphic 45, Secret Garden and the image  is printed from the House Mouse CD. I also  stamped DAD using a Papermania stamp, which I paper-pieced. Sorry about the photo, it's hard to get a good angle on this design!

Not much craft time (f any!) for me this weekend..yesterday's event for people who are retiring was very busy and I was hoarse by the end after talking to lots of people about volunteering and to many colleagues from other charities I rarely get the chance to see face to face..lots of networking and chatting. The weather was very odd outside, rain, sun and very windy, so we were pleased to see so many people.I finished later that expected so we never got to the last day of the Sodbury Festival...today we will be spending some time with Tom's family...now I'm off to catch up on the ironing before we go out...

Thanks for stopping by, I hope all of you celebrating today with husbands and Dads, have a lovely time!

Love,

Carole X

Workshop photos -Saturday 15th June

Good morning Friends,

Our Beatlemania inspired card-making workshop yesterday went really well and along with some of our lovely regular crafters, we welcomed some new ladies to the class ...a short post today, I have to go and help with a volunteer event down at the library this morning, but am hoping to get away in time for Tom & I to dash up to Chipping Sodbury for the carnival procession this afternoon!

Here are the photos from yesterday's workshop...as always I loved the way each one per her own ideas to the card...all such super cards. It wasn't an 'easy' card, there was quite a bit of stamping, embossing plus some die cutting and two of the ladies on my group were new to crafting and hadn't heat embossed before or done much stamping, but they all did a fabulous job! Like-wise with the new crafters on Amy's group.

 These are the  fab cards made by my group:

 I loved how Leanne (above) turned the topper on her card around into a diamond..

That's all for today friends, I seem to have a head filled with designs inspired by song lyrics now...so  may make it a regular feature for one post a month, who knows!

Please see yesterday's post for deets for this card!

Have a great Saturday Friends and thank you so much for stopping by!

Love and Hugs,

Carole X

Love is All You Need -Friday 14th June

Hello Friends

Well here we are on the last day of  Beatlemania week - I hope I'm forgiven for repeating a song title, but this card was made weeks ago and I just HAD to do the pet cards with words from the same song yesterday...hmm there's a song there!

I've loved reading your comments about the Beatles and memories and that seeing the lyrics has made the song repeat in your head all day..me too! Yesterday I couldn't stop humming "all you need is love..." !!!

This afternoon Amy and I have a special workshop and as the theme of the Festival is  The Beatles, we wanted to do something inspired by them, but whilst during Saturday last week the ideas for these cards popped into my head, they were easy cards and we do had to come up with cards that are more group and workshop 'friendly'...

It was when we were at the Craft and Hobby Retail Show at the NEC back in February, chatting to the lovely people at the Crafty Individuals stand and loving all the examples, that Amy spotted the wording on this stamp and I think we decided there and then that we were going to build our class project around it!

I can't tell you how many designs I played with before deciding I liked this one and this is what we decided to go with. Amy was keen that we make a mono card because that is the colour theme of her Beatlemania window display (I saw it Monday evening and it really looks FAB).

To make this Easel Card, I stamped the little stamp many times over 6x6 sized white card and heat embossed.

I matted and layered on black and white, finishing with a white layer, which was cut from the base that I'd embossed with the Lattice Hearts folder.

For the flower I again stamped the wording on thin white card, both sides and then die cut using the Tim Holz Tattered Florals die, finish off with  a button and ribbon.

For the stopper I matted and layered, finishing with the stamped wording that I heat 

embossed with white embossing powder.

I finished off by adding black and white ribbon and two little die cut hearts from Spellbinders Classic Hearts set, the very smallest dies in the set!

Well I hope you've enjoyed my themed week, I know I have - I'll have to do it again some time using songs made famous by another group or singer - any suggestions welcome!

Thanks so much for stopping by and remember - Love is All You Need!

Love and Hugs,

Carole X

All You Need is Love - Thursday 13th June

Good Morning Friends..

Well, we're getting to the end of my Beatlemania week, I'm so thrilled from your comments that you've been enjoying it!

I know that many of us in our little 'community' here have pets, so this one is for all all us animal lovers! I've made three quick cards, chosen our two most popular pets and of course, I had to include hens! So here we go...

 Starting with a dog.. we love our doggie friends don't we? I love this Crafty Individuals stamp and just had to add something British, but psychedelic to match the latter end of the Beatles span. I stamped him and heat embossed with clear embossing powder (I do this so much now when I'm stamping) and I just added a touch of Picked Raspberry ink around the edges to make him stand out. The flag is by Clarity Stamps and comes in two parts to allow stamping in different colour inks. I used it quite a bit last year when we were making all the patriotic celebratory projects. I stamped it in Picked Raspberry and Peacock Feathers. I made the card and sentiments monochrome so the image would really stand out.

 Now on to our kitty's...oddly enough no cat stamps...well I know I have one and a good one too, but could I find it? No! So I printed off and image from  Digital Designer Tulip and Friends and die cut it using Spellbnders Classic Scalloped Circles. I then made a second die cut and put it through the Sue Wilson lattice hearts folder and chose to ink the debossed side for a change. The paper was printed off from one of my Pink Petticoat collections.

And finally, but dearest to my heart of course, little back yard hens or Chooks as they are lovingly known! I'm actually building quite a collection of hen stamps, so if any of you come across any do let me know! However, I bought this stamp before we had even thought of keeping hens, so it must be at least  7 years old -it's a wooden stamp too, I re-found it rummaging in my drawer of wooden ones!

I stamped it four times for each of my little ladies, coloured them as closely as possible (with promarkers) and lined them up in their pecking order!! The straw bales are again from an old stamp, but not a wooden one. It's from a farmyard set by Sam Poole. I stamped it with Scattered Straw and inked it with Wild Honey. I added some raffia and inked the edges of the card.

Just one more Beatlemania card to come! Out of the Blue Craft Club has a special one off workshop tomorrow afternoon as part of the Chipping Sodbury Festival and Amy and I will be taking a card inspired by some Beatles lyrics to the group..so please drop by in the morning for a peek!

Love and Hugs,

Carole X