A Spring Day! Easter Monday 2012

Morning friends!

I hope you have been having a lovely Easter weekend..the weather here has changed this morning, but for the moment at least, the rain is light and quite refreshing! We have spent a lot of time with family, been to a local Outlet Mall and whilst I would love to be staying home to craft today, I think Tom will be restless as with the change in weather, it's not a good gardening day.

When we have been able to relax at the end of the days over the weekend, we have enjoyed spending time in the garden with our hens. Buffy, our 'old gal' is especially liking a cuddle on my lap before bed nowadays. We have also been enjoying the garden birds: this year seems to be much better than of late with the variety...we have a resident pair of blackbirds and robins. This year they have been joined by Blue Tits, Great Tits, Chaffinches, Green Finches, a pair of sparrows and far fewer thrushes than usual.

My favourites are the robins. I often wonder why this tiny little creature, above all our wild garden birds are so trusting of humans. Both male and female readily feed from my hand and don't just land, take the mealworms and go, but hang about and perch! They have built their nest in a large plant pot and are busily feeding their young. I can't help but be mesmerised by them!

Now to crafts...one of the blogs I follow is Christine Emersons Hope & Chances bog: http://hope-chances.blogspot.co.uk  (see link on left). You know I love Spellbinders and my Grand Calibur and Christine is the only British Spellbinders Design Team member and for good reason..her  cards, projects and page layouts are so inspirational.

A few weeks ago, she posted some lovely Spring photos and asked her followers to send her a photo of a project that inspired us from looking at them. It wasn't a challenge, just a wonderful way for us to share our creations with Christine and her blog followers. The projects are all on her blog today and are lovely.

This is my contribution...

I made a scrapbook page layout for a change from a card, inspired by our recent visit to Adam Henson's Cotswold Farm Park. We are lucky to live on the Southern edge of the Cotswolds and this farm isn't too far from us, so we go when we can. But I especially like it during the Spring, when all the young animals are bouncing around in the fields, or you can seen chicks hatch and if you are there at the right time, a lamb being born. This is a truly magical place for all ages. With this in mind, I wanted to create a kind of 'magical' theme to the page, whilst making it fresh and colourful. I used Serif Craft Artist to create the background and Spellbinders did the rest. Original I was going to include a few of my photos, but I think this little lamb says it all!

I also sent a second project, which has been included in the gallery. This is an Easter Egg bag, totally inspired by one of Christine's projects. I bought the egg to give as a present (it's actually a big fat round sheep) at the Cotswold Farm.

This is simply 2 pieces of A4 card joined together and cut to fit the egg and then decorated with ribbon and Spellbinders die-cuts...easy but definitely effective!

 I hope you enjoy the rest of Easter and thanks for visiting my blog!

Carole X

Easter Chick - Saturday 7th April

Hello and hope you had a lovely Good Friday! 


We had Tom's parents, brother and cousin over for our annual brunch...we had lovely hot cross buns, bagels, I made mini yorkshire puds and chic chip muffins and we had home made bread and lots of other Easter treats...it was a super day!


Today's card is an Easter themed Easel card...featuring the lovely little hen I had free in Craft Stamper magazine a few months ago. I love this little stamp, but I always seem to end up colouring it in the colours of our Bluebelle hen, Buffy.


She's getting on now, she's 5 years old, but although we've had a few vet visits lately and she's slowed down with a sprained leg, she's one tough chick and also very beautiful. I won't explain the makings of the card today, but hope you like it!


Carole X

Happy Easter - Good Friday 2012

Good Morning Friends,


Hope you all have a wonderful Good Friday...we are having family over later this morning for our annual brunch, so I am just grabbing a few minutes between preparations to post this Easter card today..there will be a different one for the next two days.


This card is  a Lilli of the Valley stamp, coloured with promarkers...

The stamp could be for birthdays, Mother's Day, to say sorry...but I figured that the bunnies also lend it to Easter! I cut out the card using a recent Spellbinders buy..Grand Labels 23. I decided it was time to increase my collection of Grand Nesties and I am really pleased with this purchase. I cut the card with the die and also backing paper from stash, which I used as the base. Then I cut the stamped image with the same die and shaded the edges with Spun Sugar distress ink. I added a little lace, flowers and a punched out butterfly to finish. The greeting was typed and die cut using Spellbinders Fancy Tags.


Hope you all have a lovely day...I did so much baking after work yesterday that I'm already worn out, but looking forward to the day!


Carole X

New Baby Boy - Wednesday 4th April

Morning!


Aah my first favourite day of the week...I get to stay home and craft! Today's card, was made for my American cousin, Bree and her husband Jonny, in celebration of the birth of their first child. It really doesn't seem more than two years ago we were over in California celebrating their wedding!


As I write the card is on it's way to Florida, where they now live as Jon's career as a US Coastguard helicopter pilot, means they have to move wherever he is posted. Bree is a true California girl, but I guess their first move to Florida is pretty good!


I'm safe posting it, as I'm sure they won't be looking here...

This is an 8x8 card, covered with blue polkadot paper I printed from DoCrafts Digital Designer - Me to You. I think I have said before, that I do have a lot of craft CDs and they do come in useful, but I use them a lot for papers...there is usually something suitable.


I also printed the matching plain blue, but a smaller layer and using the Tim Holz ruler made tiny stitching holes..to think I used to do this freehand!


I took some of the Coredinations polkadot paper in yellow and die-cut this with Spellbinders Romantic Rectangles. This was primarily my choice for this card because it seemed to fit perfectly with the stamp. The stamp is another Lilli of the Valley, which I clouded with Promarkers and die-cut with a smaller nestie. I used some lace to make a border around the larger die-cut and added the flowers before attaching it all to the card.


Finally I added three miniature polkadot buttons and a double bow with a larger button tied with some embroidery thread.


I was really pleased with the finished card, hope you like it!


Thanks for stopping by,
Carole X

Mouse Celebration - Tuesday 3rd April

Good Morning,


Today's card is another Lill of the Valley stamp and could really be used for any celebration...

I wanted to give it a fresh Spring feel so I kept to light, pastel colours. I really like using yellows at this time of year!


The base card was covered with paper from a 12x12 scrapbook pad in my stash (a Dovecraft pad of pastel colours). Then using my Tim Holz ruler I made tiny stitching holes all around the edge and made faux stitches with a white jelly roll pen. I cut a strip of Coredinations polkadot paper, sanded it and added to the centre front of the card. I then punched 2 strips in white, using a Martha Stewart punch and added this top and bottom.


I die-cut a small die from Teardrop circles on to some of the polkadot card and added a greeting from stash to the front if it.


The image was stamped on coconut white card  and coloured with Promarkers. I do try and keep a list of which ones I use for projects, but last week I was so busy and well, you know how untidy our desks end up, that I just couldn't find the notes!


I die cut using Grand Scalloped Rectangles and lightly shaded around the edge with faded denim distress ink. Polkadot ribbon was added to the centre layer before placing the image at an angle and the final touch was a hint of cosmic sparkle.


Thanks for stopping by and have a good day,
Carole X

Golden Wedding - Monday 2nd April

Morning Bloggers!


Well  I wonder how many others watched Sue Wilson's 6pm show on Create and Craft yesterday, in the garden on their iPad, whilst nursing one of their pet hens?! Well I certainly did! Buffy our 5 year old Bluebelle has been a bit poorly of late and in the fine weather has been enjoying an evening cuddle..she also seemed quite mesmerised by the iPad, bless.


It was quite an eventful afternoon in the garden actually -my husband, Tom whilst sorting out his plant pots inadvertently uncovered the rather large nest our very friendly robins had made and there were young inside! Fortunately he realised before touching it and they were left in peace, with both mum and dad flying back and forth all afternoon and getting some extra mealworm treats (much to the hens' annoyance because they love them to!).


Anyway, on to the card...

Today's card is a variation of yesterdays. Another commission, this one for a Golden Wedding anniversary. I made it in the same way as yesterday, except I omitted the heart circle and added a greeting cut on the Romantic Rectangles die (Spellbinders).


The quote is one of my favourites and I have it in the little book of useful quotes I keep. I have seen it used on a Golden Anniversary card before, so it wasn't an original idea to use it - had I not remembered seeing it,  I may not have looked it up.


It's actually a lyric by Carmine Coppola, who was the father of film director Francis Ford Coppola and was set to music and sung on the soundtrack of Coppola's 1983 film, The Outsiders, by Stevie Wonder. The era of the brat pack was when I really got interested in movies and stars and at the time I was a big brat pack fan!


Thanks for stopping by!
Carole X

Sunday 1st April

Good morning!


I can't believe it's April already and what a lovely end to March we had! I was busy during my week off work, with lots of craft projects, but of course house 'stuff' always gets in the way as well when you are home. I completed a few of my commissions (though not ahead as much as I had hoped) and did some playing with alcohol inks in preparation for a workshop I am helping to teach in a few weeks time..my first proper one and I am really quite excited. I will say more about it, after it has happened!


This card was actually made as a commission for an engagement, but I changed the greeting for the photo in this instance. It was a 'rushed' request, I normally ask for at least 2 weeks, this time I had 2 days!! The person who commissioned it asked for a 'fussy' card, so I hope I've delivered. I've made a similar one since, which I will upload tomorrow, for a Golden Wedding, where I left off the heart circle and I much prefer it. 

 I started off my stamping an Indigo Blu heart stamp with flitterglu and gilding it with  Winter Dawn gilding flakes. The base layer is black card, matted with a layer of white and then I used some pearly quite thick paper from stash to emboss with an M-Bossability.


I then made up three flowers from the Spellbinders Layered Flowers set, a circle from Heart Circles and the stamped heart was cut using Classic Hearts.


The finishing touches were crushed white ribbon, hatpins and matching gems for the flower centres and  a black diamante flourish. The greeting was printed and die cut using Labels Four Small and layered using three sizes of the die.


Holding this card in my hand, I much preferred it to the photo!


Enjoy your Sunday, we are seeing family members and I'm trying to forget I have to leave my craft room and return to work tomorrow!


Carole X