Workshop Photos - Friday 5th April

Good Morning Friends,

A quick post today - my last day of holiday and full crafting bliss, so lots to do! We had another super paper crafting workshop last night - as you saw from yesterday's post, my group of ladies created a stepper card using the Michael Powell 'Shore thing" beach hut stamp and here are some photos.  Sorry about the quality, I took my little camera last night and the quality? Well I may have well just used my phone!

My group coloured the image with distress inks and all came up with different versions - all of them fabulous! 

I made the card using my Hougie board and I noticed a few of you said yesterday that you have one and hardly use it. I confess to being a bit the same, but when I do use it it really comes into its own and I do find it quite easy to use..much better than the crafters companion one I bought several years ago and is now somewhere at the back of a cupboard! But it's just taste I guess, I'm not trying to be controversial here :) !

As for my hens, I never did find out what spooked them - we have quite a large garden and they all stayed on the other side all day! It was a little windy in the morning and I think it might have been something as simple as a watering can blowing over..but the sun is shining today and they seem to have forgotten all about it!

Love,

Carole X

Summer Stepper - Thursday 4th April

Good Morning Friends!

Well my week off work is moving faster than the speed of light, so much so that time totally surpassed me yesterday and I didn't even get time to share my desk at WOYWW yesterday!

Most of what crafting time I had on Monday was spent designing my card for our next workshop (tonight), Tuesday was spent putting all the packs together and making some more examples of using the stamp (which I'll post on later days). Yesterday I should have been working on commissions, but my mojo seemed to have decided that it was time for a brief holiday too, because I spent two hours staring at my design for a wedding card before putting it aside in lieu of playing with my melt pot again and starting an altered art project I have been yearning to begin!

Today it looks like the hens are going to be keeping me on my toes as something in the garden has spooked the two younger ones (Penny and Lacey) and they won't shut up! Penny actually sounds like a puppy barking, so neighbours probably think we now have a dog! They never make a noise and I can't see what is bothering them, despite having poked and prodded the bushes they are clucking at and Bella and Cara aren't bothered, so it could have been a cat, which I don't think the younger ones have seen, but the older ones will chase off..or maybe a toad if it's not too cold. They hate frogs and toads and we have plenty of them in the summer!

Anyway, I digress....this is the card I came up with for my ladies to make tonight. It's a stepper  card, which I made very easily with my very under-used Hougie board. I've used a Michael Powell beach hut stamp and coloured with distress inks. The emphasis tonight is on the colouring and creating the background,which was made using Cosmic Shimmer Vintage Mist in Egyptian Blue, so everything else is in the packs.

 was amazed that some of you recognised it was me who won the Hels Sheridan original on C&C on Monday! I was thrilled; Hels has been one of my biggest crafting inspirations for a long time. I think I'm quite eclectic in my crafting. I love to try different techniques, using various 'tools', but I'm like Hels (as she said herself), whilst I really admire pretty, feminine cards and I do make them sometimes for commissions, I don't feel they are my best work and not the ones I enjoy making so much..I like 'pretty' meaning vintage, shabby chic, 'arty' and grunge, so I think that's why I admire Hels' work so much. The prize arrived yesterday, which was amazing and it is beautiful, really gorgeous. It was actually on Hel's blog yesterday and here it is for you to see!



Before I go.....thanks to Christine for letting me know that I have also won a goodie bag from LOTV...it's my lucky week by the look of it!

Happy Crafting!
Hugs,
Carole X

Beneath the Sea - Tuesday 2nd April

Good Morning Friends


Sunday Stampers week 251, Emergency Crafters and a win!

 I hope you all had a very happy Easter and the sun managed to make an appearance at some point over the weekend! Although my card is very blue, I am feeling anything  but blue as I have the rest of the week off work - home, just me and the hens (I sent Tom back to the office, lol) and my craft room..gosh these four days to the weekend are going to pass so quickly!

This week for the Sunday Stampers challenge, Hels Sheridan asked us to create a project with the theme of nature. Last week I had a melt pot day and one of the items I created was this sea horse. So Hels, I hope you don't mind if I combine this make for my Sunday Stampers 'offering' with my  design team creation this month for Emergency Crafters, where the theme is nautical,using two shades of blue....

This is a tag/wall hanger, was made using a really large tag that was lurking in my altered art box...it's one of those 'East of India' tags that comes with ribbon or labels and is very substantial in thickness and weight, so I see the packaging as part of the purchase (which I often do) and crying out to be 'beautified'

I used Spellbinders patchwork/mosaic M-Bossability and heavyweight white card to create the background and then inked all over with Broken China distress ink. I had some glittery netting in my stash box for the base layer, then some torn blue vellum and finally I stamped the nautical map from Sam Poole's Nautical Journey stamp set by Creative Expressions. I used broken china again, covered with clear embossing powder and then heat embossed. I then inked all over with the same ink.

The seahorse was made using a mould and some dark blue UTEE, which I melted in my melt pot and poured into the mould.

To finish off I added some rope and a few starfish from my stash box.

And finally...this week on Create and Craft, Hels is bringing the Melt Pot as a four day deal...I sent in a couple of emails and on the second show - I won! The artwork Hels made looks fabulous and I am really excited to have won it! Thanks for pulling out my name Hels...looks like sitting here whispering "Please let it be me" paid off! Lol

Thanks very much for dropping by and hop over to Emergency Crafters or Sunday Stampers  for full  deets of the challenges.

Love,
Carole X

Easter Gifts and Happy Hens - Monday 1st April

Good Morning Friends
....I promise no April Fool's tricks from me today!

As promised yesterday, here are the last few Easter gifts I made...

I photographed the box before wrapping in cellophane..I've been using a deconstructed box that holds pods for our coffee machine as an easy template and have been using some 12x12 card in various yellows, greens and pinks from my stash. For this one I used a stripey card and punched around the edges with a Martha Stewart punch. I created the handle in the same way...added a golden bunny, some other choccie eggs and an egg from each of our girls ....and there  we have a present for Tom's parents and brother, as well as an extra hen egg for cousin Sandra, who is staying with them!

The little favour boxes are examples of table treats for the other guests - each one contains a miniature gold bunny and some little choccie eggs. I also wrapped these in cello bags and tied with yellow ribbon. These boxes are made using Spellbinders Square Bracket Edge Box. They are some I had left from when I bough the kit from Christine Emberson last year, but they were put together and decorated by myself.

This is a close up of the gift box and inside the little favor boxes. I am also showing the little Easter card I made to go with the gift. The stamp is by LOTV, coloured with promarkers and using backing paper from a Nitwit download.

Yesterday we were having such problems with the internet connection that I am sorry if I didn't get to comment on all your blogs...I even got so frustrated that when I uploaded the above photos to my Facebook page in the morning, I actually typed that they were Christmas treats...of course I got wished a Happy Christmas by my friends...oops!

Finally, the hens have been loving the sunshine and are truly full of the joys of Spring at the moment...

Penny

Cara

Bella

Lacey

Bella and Cara are the two 'beak-ball' fans, they will tackle each other until the last grain of corn has been  spilt on to the grass...Penny gives up and comes to me for corn from the hand and Lacey follows her!

Thank you for stopping by and I hope you all have a lovely day,

Love,
Carole X

Happy Easter Day - Sunday 31st March

Good Morning Friends,

Wow..thank you all for your lovely comments on my Hen wall plaque, I was blown away...I think it's the most comments I've had to date! I was so pleased you all liked it. I made it for Sunday Stampers, but apart from the bag a few weeks ago, it was the first 'big' project I have had the chance to create lately that was pure play - just for me and I did enjoy it so much!

I hope you are all enjoying the Easter Weekend and for those of you with snow, that it is starting to disappear. We have been blessed with quite a bit of sunshine, but it doesn't get any warmer! Our brunch was lovely, everyone enjoyed it, so we can tick off another successful festive food gathering :)

Today we are going to Tom's parents' house for another family get together and a traditional Sunday lunch..so I have been making some more baskets..which I will post tomorrow, along with some photos of our hens, as my final Easter offering.

Today though, is one of the Easter cards I made for the craft fair a few weeks ago (it seems much longer). I made just ten, some fun and some more religious, and sold them all, which was great.

This card is made almost entirely with Spellbinder dies: I used Large Decorative Ovals to create the card shape and cut it using a duck egg colour polka dot card from  my 12x12 stash (I think it is by DoCrafts). The crosses were die cut with Crosses Two and it is actually white card for both crosses, but I inked them with weathered wood distress ink and to give them more of a rustic/antiqued look I also used antique linen quite roughly around the edges. The little flowers are from a punch and I cut them showing the reverse side of the same card. I didn't photograph the inside of the card, but it shows the same colours as the little flowers and reads 'Easter Blessings', which was printed from my computer.

I wish you all a very Happy Easter and see you tomorrow!

Hugs,

Carole X

Happy Hens - Sunday Stamper wk 250 - Thursday 28th March

Sunday Stampers week 250 Challenge and a give away!

Good Morning Friends,

Thank you all for visiting and leaving comments, I really do appreciate them all! As some of you saw from my WOYWW post yesterday, I was busy with my melt pot first thing in the morning. I like to make quite a few items  at a time and keep them in a box ready to use..there was a lot of flower dipping yesterday and one of the seahorses is for my next Emergency Crafters DT post for next tuesday. The turquoise seahorse sadly met an abrupt end when it fell off my desk along with  a few heavy items and smashed :( so it's back in the box for re-melting.

Whilst on the subject of the seahorse, a few of you asked me about moulds and what they are - well the ones I am using are basically for clay modelling and are readily available in craft stores. The ones I have, I have had for a while and got from The Stamp Bug, a lovely little country stamp shop, tucked away in the village of Hatherop near Cirencester. They only open Mon-Fri and we are usually near there at weekends, so we wait of their 'open weekends' - but they have a shop online with lots of lovely moulds - visit: http://www.thestampbug.co.uk

And so to my Sunday Stamper project for this week! Hels set us the challenge of adding something shiny to our creations and nowadays at the mention of something shiny I reach for the melting pot. I started out to create a canvas with a Venetian feel and made two casts from a mask and Venetian mascot mould (Lion statue), but then had a complete change of mind, so they are in my box for another time!

Enjoying my morning coffee break, looking at our hens scurrying around the garden and then racing to the back door as soon as they saw I was watching them - in the hope of a grape of blueberry treat - I decided to create something whimsical and light hearted instead and came up with this little scene...

It's a wall hanger featuring our girls..well stamps coloured in their honour! I started off by die cutting the frame with two pieces of decent weight kraft card sandwiched together for extra strength. Then I die cut a slightly smaller shape with polka dot card. The top layer is kraft card, to which added a brick effect mask whilst it was still in the die and then  stained with Picket Fence distress stain. The photo below shows this slightly better.

The hen stamp is by Magnolia. I used Spellbinders Decorative Chateau Gate as the window, which I decorated with dotty paper curtains. The flowers were made using Spiral Blossom One and the little button a cookie cutter - all given the melt pot treatment.

 I hope you like my little bit of fun! There's still time to enter and this week Hels has some goodies to give away - link from above or the photo on my sidebar to the right.

I started this post this morning and am finishing after work..yay I'm on hols for a week now! But before I'm off to make tea, a few days ago I mentioned making baskets to give my two office volunteers - filled with choccie eggs and an egg from each of our 'girls. I forgot to photograph the first one, so here is the one I gave my second volunteer today...

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you all have a lovely Good Friday - the tradition in our family is that Tom and I put on a brunch - so a busy but lovely day for us!

Carole  X

WOYWW wk 199 - Wednesday 27th March

Good Morning Friends and fellow WOYWWers!


A quick post today as I want to squeeze in a lot of crafting on my day off from the office!

Today is the day when courtesy of Julia over at Stamping Ground, we are invited to share the contents of our desks - click the link for all the deers!

This was my desk first thing this morning...

I had already been using  my melt pot to create some little pieces for today's projects and for my 'melt pot makes' box for future use...and that's about it, not very exciting I'm afraid, but I have already created a DT project with the blue seahorse and that will be posted next Tuesday...now I'm off to make a project for this weeks 'Sunday Stampers' ...thanks for stopping by!

Love and Hugs,

Carole X