Hello Friends,

First of all, thank you all for your lovely comments over on Sam's blog on Tuesday...it was sad for it to be the last one for a while, but family comes first and I know Sam will love having time with her daughter, new baby and husband. It was a very hard decision for her, but not one she's in any danger of regretting I suspect.

I have no idea where the time is going at the moment, all I seem to be thinking about is  our volunteering event on Monday at work, so have had little time to craft and what time I have had has mostly been grabbing some time out in the craft barn or at the sewing machine making decorations for Christmas and Autumn...we also have the second of our August workshops tonight. The groups are making a pop up box  card, but if you recall, no one on either mine or Amy's group actually finished their cards last time.

Box cards can be time consuming, so I have done some of the stamping for them in the hope it helps to speed things up and hopefully we'll have some photos to share tomorrow!

I'm sorry I have been slow to get around your blogs this week and it will no doubt be tomorrow before I get to look at them again, as I have scheduled this post...so apologies!

Today I am sharing another box card that I  have made for a wedding are going to next week, I made a similar one for a wedding Tom's parents went to recently and apparently the couple were thrilled with it..phew! 

I used Sissix dies for the flowers, Spellbinders Classic Hearts,  Spellbinders Papillon and Twisted Hearts M-Bossability folder for the embossing . The 'Wedding Day' stamp is a Creative Expressions stamp and the  Mr & Mrs is from Stamps by Chloe.   I heat embossed them both in silver. To finish I added some tulle and ribbon and a sparkly button.

As with most couples now they want money or gift cards for presents, so I made a gift card/money/cheque holder for the back of the card, with a flap and tulle to hold it together.

That's all for today, thank you so much for stopping by!

Love and Hugs

Carole X

Wedding card - Wednesday 21st May 2014

Good morning Friends, 

I hope you are all having a great week and this morning the sun is shining again! Before I start, I want to say a big thank you for your comments yesterday and especially to those of you who took the time to hop over to Sam's blog and leave a message too..I know going through blogs and looking at all our creations and posting comments takes quite a bit of  time, but it really meant a great deal...thank you!

  Today's card is a wedding card I was asked to make recently...

Although the colour looks 'lilac' in the photo, it is in fact soft pink! I got my Pan Pastels down from the shelf and dusted the box as I hadn't used them in a long time. I only have one set of colours (pinks!) and maybe that's why, because they really are lovely to use for colouring and creating backgrounds.

This is an 8x8 card and for my base layer I embossed white card using the Sue Wilson Heart Lattice folder. I then cut the card at the bottom and  used an edger die to create the layers, colouring the bottom layer.

The dies used are from Sue Wilson's Californian Collection: Background die, and San Francisco; the sentiment is computer generated. I used Spellbinders  Blooms 4 for the flower and the leaf die is from Sue Wilson's Faux Quilled Leaves set.

To finish off I added and organza bow, doubled with a white twine bow and gem. I also decorated the inside and guess what? Forgot to photograph it!


Thank you so much for stopping by today,

Love and Hugs,
Carole X

Wedding card - Monday 19th August

Good Morning Friends,

Thank you for visiting today! I really thought I had posted this card, but I've checked back and can't find it, so here it is! Apologies if you have seen it before :)

This was a commission card I made earlier this year: it's an 8x8 card matted and layered in blue and white. I used Spellbinders lables 24 and one a die from Venetian Motifs, cut in half to reach all four sides and layered with another die from this set. I used a Martha Stewart punch for the border and layered over  a sheet of card embossed with the the Heart Lattice folder designed by Sue Wilson for Creative Expressions.

I am almost at the end of the commissions I took before I decided to take a 'holiday' from it - and a good job I did with the back and hen problems! I have also been busy with a few other projects over the weekend - some presents for my family in the US(which I am going to post on here whilst I am over there) and I've been having a play with some ice resin, making a few pieces of jewellery - it's drying out, so not ready to post yet! The resin was one of two remaining items I bought at Ally Pally in April and hadn't yet used...I'm intending to use the other one in the next few weeks, so watch this space!

Before I go I wanted to share with you a couple of photos...Penny gave us a cause for concern again Saturday as she has more egg laying problems and the others were trying to peck her. We couldn't leave her in with them, so yet again she spent the night in the kitchen!  She was fine again this morning but laid another soft egg during the night and because it broke, she was all sticky, so I had to bath her...she's had lots of washes over the past few weeks and loves it. We have never had another hen that would let you fuss with her as she does. As she was so wet, I decided that she had to be dried or they might be tempted to peck again. People who show hens bath and dry them, so why shouldn't I? Anyway, we had the hairdryer on slow and cool and she loved it! All's well with them all at the moment by the way!

Tom with Penny

A little 'coiffure'!

That's all for now, thanks for stopping by!

Love and Hugs,
Carole X

Wedding Day - Sunday 21st July

Good Morning Friends,

I hope you are having a lovely weekend and enjoying the sunshine..thank you for your comments on my Tag Book yesterday, which I really appreciated. I saw from Facebook last night that Christine had a great day at her shop and raised lots of money for the Ronald MacDonald House charity.

We had a super day in Cardiff yesterday, enjoying the atmosphere by the water at Mermaid Quay and lunch outside on the terrace of a quay front restaurant..it was gorgeous!

Today's card is a wedding card I made recently as a commission: the lilac printed background paper is Damask by PInk Petticoat; I matted and layered this with white. lilac and mirri card, finishing with white card embossed with the Sue Wilson lattice hearts folder.

The 'To Have and to Hold' was typed, as were the names. The flowers are all made from a Britannia Rose die, except I didn't actually make some of them into roses, choosing to layer instead. To finish off I inked them and the edges of the sentiment with Milled Lavender. 

That's it, a quick post from me today! Happy Sunday all,

Love,
Carole X

White Wedding - Saturday 29th June

Hello Blog Friends,

I can't believe I am blogging after mid-night and I have to go into work in the morning - a pretty odd one though, it's 'Thank You Soldier' Day at the Library and I'm helping with some card-making activities for children. I think (hope) they will have teachers/parents with them to actually craft and I'm just there for moral support - mostly for the main organiser of the event, one of my colleagues, Paul! I spent an hour or so yesterday morning die-cutting various shapes, such as stars with my Cricut for the kids to use...yes I finally got a new blade for my little machine and it's working again!

As you may have noticed, after yesterday's indecision..and believe me at 6pm last night I had decided to do nothing with the blog and just see what happened...I even replied to Christine's comment saying this, I now have a Blog Lovin follow button on my blog. All because there was nothing on TV and I was playing about with the iPad! In the end I decided there was nothing to lose by actually signing up with both Blog Lovin and Feedly! I do actually prefer the way Feedly looks and will probably use that one more, both were very easy to migrate to (especially Feedly), but I'm blowed if I could find my ID on that one to add a button to my blog, so more investigation there necessary over the weekend!

Today's card is a commission that one of my librarian friends gave me a lot of time to think about and hence I was pretty pleased with the final card and so was she...

This is an 8x8 card: I used white card as the base layer and rounded the corners, then I pierced it all around the edge using my Tim Holz ruler and a pokey tool. I then cut a smaller layer, which I embossed with the Sue Wilson Lattice Hearts die, which I ran through my Grand Calibur. I then spritzed this card with Cosmic Shimmer Pearl Mist - not that you can see it on the photo!

The side border was created with a Martha Stewart punch: all my Spellbinder border dies are very ornate and I wanted something a little simpler because I was creating quite a fussy centre piece.

The centre was made using a die from Venetian Motifs, which I die-cut twice and cut each piece in half to frame the label on which I'd typed the sentiment. I made the tiny flowers from the medium Britannia Rose die (I have Sharon to blame for me now owning this die!).

I added a white ribbon to the centre of the border and then decorated with little pearl beads and added a bow, pins and a dazzler.

That's it for today - hope you all have a great Saturday!

Love,

Carole X

White Wedding - Thursday 2nd May

Hello Friends,

Thank you for visiting my blog and leaving your comments...I was relieved that I wasn't the only one who came into blogging not know what I was doing...it's been  a very steep learning curve over the last few years and I as I mentioned to someone at our social media surgery on Tuesday, it does get quite 'addictive' and you have to be careful it doesn't get in the way of the reason we're here..because we love to craft! However, where else could you really make so many lovely like-minded friends and share ideas and creations!

Talking of social media, Tuesday was a really good day at work, our expert Paul spent the day giving one to one advice about all types of social networking to local groups and I was doing a lot of tweeting from my desk to provide examples. It was a long and tiring day, but at the end of it, we felt as if we had accomplished a lot.

Today's card is my Design Team  card for this month's new Emergency Crafters Challenge, the theme for which is WEDDINGS, so if you would like to take part, just  hop over for the deets!

This is an 8x8 card, which I started by creating a background using one of Sue Wilson's new embossing folders from Creative Expressions. This is the heart lattice and was one of my purchases at Ally Pally. It really does give a defined, crisp impression and I've used it quite a bit over the past few weeks. 

The circle is from the Spellbinders Grand Stately Circles set and in the centre I stamped this pretty wreath from Stamps by Chloe. It's really hard to see in the photo, but I added little cosmic shimmer pearl drops to finish off. The greeting is also a stamp by Chloe, die cut on Spellbinders Standard Circles Large. Around the edges of the card I added snippets from a die in the Spellbinders Venetian Motifs set and again added pearl drops.

Aside from a DT card, this was also made as a commission, the only alteration being that I typed the names of the couple and die cut on the small circle on the front.

Thanks for stopping by,

Love, Carole X