Everything Floral - Sunday 7th June 2015

Hello Friends,

I am being such a bad blogger at the moment...well.... crafting time is limited and should be fun, that's why most of us do it - right? It's my relaxation time and at the moment in the time I have available to me, I feel the need to craft more than blog ...does that make sense? I'm a pretty slow crafter anyway, I could never post every day like some of you!

Blogging means getting on the computer and tapping away and I'm doing a lot of that at work at the moment - we have events to plan and posters and leaflets to design, so I hope you understand my reluctance to get back on the computer at home? It's the same if I am on Facebook with you...that and twitter take a back seat at the moment, because myself and a volunteer have really up'd the organisation's social media prescence, hence I've had enough by the end of the day!

Now for a confession: having said all of the above,  I have had the computer, iPad and iphone to hand all weekend...lol...I got quite 'hooked' on #fledgewatch yesterday! You may by now be wondering what I'm talking about, especially if you a) live outside the UK and b)don't watch the TV show 'Springwatch" (for those of you who don't live here, it's  seasonal wildlife programme that is shown live on BBC for 3 weeks, Spring, Autumn & Winter).....well.... news on twitter was that the blue tits in their nest box were about to fledge yesterday morning, so the dedicated nest box cam was all atwitter:). When I had the iPad on all through breakfast and kept checking my phone (website & twitter) when we were out...well Tom first of all thought I'd gone mad and then he got hooked too...lol..well the ten little lovelies finally left the nest this morning and we did see eight of them make their way into the big wide world, the last two waited another 2 hours!

We've been in the garden all day, both here and at Tom's parents... I came inside to watch Countryfile only to find it had been shifted to an earlier slot by the flipping Grand Prix, groan groan and thrice groan!!!!

Anyway...back to craft...of course if I didn't waffle on so much when I do get on here it would help!

Today's post is a CASE'd card...three versions in fact!

I found this card whilst surfing Pinterest:

 I bought this stamp the last time we were over in the USA and have used it a few times for really quick cards.  The stamp is Everything Flower by Hero Arts. I really like the  three panelled effect in Darlene's card and I think I will adapt this design in the future when using this stamp, but this time I wanted to make a few 'quick-ish' cards for my box of personal cards to use and the other element of this card I really liked was the vellum strip with the sentiment, so this what I have done on my cards....

 I coloured each card using my Chameleon pens and also Promarkers and chose three different colour schemes.

I stamped each sentiment  - they are from a set by Stamps Away - on to vellum and heat embossed with clear embossing powder. I mounted the stamped card on to black card and then fixed the vellum strip with brads, before fixing the the front of the card blank. I made the blank myself to fit the 5.5 x 4.5 inch panel.

Hope you all have a good week ahead...I am really hoping the good weather lasts a while...we have a wedding to go to on Saturday and then we have a week off work, spending Saturday to Wednesday, not too far away from us in the Cotswolds, just for some R & R ...later this week I will share the wedding musical box I made for the couple.

Thanks so much for visiting!

Love and Hugs,
Carole X

Crazy Birds #2 - Friday 29th May 2015

Hello Friends,

Hope you've all had a good week! Thank you for all your comments on the sewing card...my volunteer loved it and was sure her friend would too.

Today I'm sharing another card made with Tim Holz Crazy Bird stamps and I'm going to make this my contribution to this week's Sunday Stamper Challenge (week #357) from Hels Sheridan - deets here

I haven't had a chance to take part for a while because I've been so busy, but this week's theme is 'anything goes' so no excuses.

I have managed to get some crafting done this week...there are a lot of birthdays amongst family and friends coming up, plus one of my American family is about to have a baby (fortunately I know the sex so could get on with the cards!), so I've wanted to get everything made in plenty of time, especially as we have a week's holiday coming up soon.

This is a 7x7 card, I made the splattered background with a mixture of  Dylusions inks and coloured the birds with both Chameleon and Promarker pens. I then cut them out and mounted them on the card with 3d foam tape.

I cut the little word tiles using the tiniest of dies from my Spellbinders Classic Squares set and add the letter by hand. I did the same inside, mounting them inside a Spellbinders Word Bubble die.

 Finally I stamped the birds on the envelope and coloured them, first of all placing some card inside the envelope to prevent the ink bleeding all the way through.

Thank you so much for stopping by and have a lovely weekend y'all!

Love and Hugs,

Carole X

Birthday Wishes - All Sewn Up! - Sunday 24th May 2015

Hello Friends,

I hope you are all having a lovely weekend...the weather here yesterday was beautiful and we spent the afternoon in the garden with the hens..I took a few photos and have posted them at the end.....I even put in a bit of time in the Craft shed.

You may remember that I said I had decided to stop taking commissions - I've been doing them  for a  long time and was getting a lot of requests - but - they all take so much time! I did decide however, that I would still make them for a few long time special  customers as long as they give me a lot of notice and they have been very good about that.

This one was a request from one of my office volunteers, for her friend who loves sewing and has just bought a new machine.

The card is 7x7, with a blue base layer. The blue papers are by Pink Petticoat and the little floral piece was taken from my bits box, so I'm afraid I can't remember where it originated.  I pierced around the edges of each piece and then stitched by hand.

I had some embossed card (Spellbinders hearts MBossability) left from another project, so I decided to use this to die cut the sewing machine, which is a Sizzix die..as are the cotton reels. I wound string around one cotton reel and some tape measure ribbon that was in my ribbon box.

To finish I tied  crushed ribbon around the bottom half of the card and added a button, twine and two pins.

I really enjoyed making this card...it was a really enjoyable 'theme' as I enjoy craft sewing too.

Here are the photos of our 'girls'...

"Now what mischief can we get up to next?"

"We don't want to get near that noisy thing on OUR grass!"

"I'm getting a good view from up here Cara"

"Hah, another pot to explore,wonder what goodies I'll find in here?"

'Hurry up Tilda, they're watching us"

A little frog popped his head up to see what's going on

Tilda, looking to see what she can dig up next! What she does best

Cara posing - what she does best!

Thank you so much for stopping by, I'll be back next week - enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Love and Hugs,

Carole X

Secret Garden - Thursday 21st May 2015

Hello Friends,

I'm sharing a project today, that I made with the latest Eileen Hull Art with Heart Challenge in mind...this month the topic is mixed media art. I decided to make a plaque, but one that stands rather than hangs, so I started with a square piece of wood, which I coated with white gesso as a primer.

Next I used a Stamps Away honeycomb stencil and stencilled a background using green paint and a sponge. I wanted this to be really light, barely visible, so I made sure the paint was almost dry before stencilling.

I then used a leaf stamp from Lavinia stamps and stamped a border across the top and either side, I used Versafine ink in Spanish Moss.

I stamped the sentiment  (from a Jofy stamp set by Paperartsy) and gave it a raised effect by heat embossing using clear powder. I also stamped flowers across the bottom, which I also heat embossed and then coloured with Promarkers. This stamp was a free stamp from Crafty Individuals.

To finish I added dragonflies stamped on acetate and then heat embossed with glitter powder (just for a bit of sparkle) and some tiny beads.

The idea behind the project is that the gate opens to reveal the 'secret' garden behind.

The front:

To make this I used a heavy weight card and die cut the fence using Eileen Hull's Garden Gate Album die. I coloured this with diluted Walnut Stain distress ink and then I used assorted flower dies to create the flower garden. For the flower stamens I used tiny seed beads.

Just a bit of summer fun!


Thank you so much for stopping by!

Art with Heart Challenge, May ; Mixed Media May-Hem


Love and Hugs
Carole X

Sporty Guy Card - Monday 18th May 2015

Hello Friends,

Thank you for all your comments on my blog on Saturday, they really did mean a lot to me....hope you all  had a good weekend?  We made the most of some nice weather..Saturday we went to Tetbury to shop, drink coffee and get some plants from a market plantsman we've used regularly over many years...lovely guy. Tom's parents have gone off to Italy to see the family, so we had Tom's brother over yesterday afternoon and Tom made his gorgeous pizzas for our meal. Aside from that we spent a good deal of time coaxing the 'girls'  to use a new feeder, cage mounted, closable, all mod cons (!)...tey don't like change but accepted it in the end!

Today I'm sharing the card I designed for my group of ladies to make at last week's Out of the Blue craft class, plus the cards they made.

We were using a classic sports car stamp, background stamps and sentiment stamps from Visible Image...we have made some more 'involved' cards lately and some had struggled to finish, so I wanted to create something that I thought they would like and that I knew they could finish comfortably in the time...they all said they loved it and were so pleased to have finished, especially a couple of ladies who haven't been crafting so long, plus it was a nice change to make a guy card!

I made two versions of my card, one for Father's Day and one Birthday, for those who didn't want to make a Father's Day card (all but one!)

 The card is 7x7 and mat and layered in silver and black. I then took a white layer and chequered background die, which I stamped using London Fog Versafine ink. The stamp is a lot smaller than the card, so repeat stamping was needed, but easy to match up.

For the top white layer I created a splattered background by mixing some brushed pewter distress paint, with a little silver-black ink, spritzed with water and then picked up on a toothbrush...those little brushes you get on a plane do have their uses! All you do is run your finger across the bristles to create the splatter. I love this effect, none of the ladies had tried it before and really enjoyed it and loved the effect.

The sentiment was then stamped across the bottom. The car was stamped separately and then cut out. I coloured it with Promarkers and then gave it a coat of watered down mica powder for a sheen. On the Father's Day card, I picked up a mica with a gold tint by mistake, but in reality it doesn't have such a colour tint as the photo would have you believe.

To finish off, I stamped a tyre mark along a strip of card using the grey ink, again the design is repeated stamping. I mat and layers on black card and added screw effect brads and die cut cogs, tied with black twine. The metal brads were copper in colour, so I coated them with brushed pewter distress paint.

I also decided on a pop of colour by making the seats red.

Here are some of the cards made by the group:

They all did such fabulous work, don't you agree?

I made some more cards using these stamps and will share them later. Thanks so much for stopping by and have a happy Monday...I'm in work today and it looks like a wet walk there!

Love and Hugs
Carole X

Nicecrane DT - Stationery set - Saturday 16th May 2015

Hello Friends,

I can't believe that once again it's been well over a week since I last wrote a post or visited any of your blogs! What can I say? There just seems to be so much going on at the moment that although I've managed to craft, I'm afraid blogging is having to take a bit of a back seat. We've had a busy time at work. Charities and community groups are always reliant on funding and grants and April sees the start of a new year (or a new three year contract as far as the charity I work for is concerned) and with a new government and local Councils there will be new faces and policies to get used to and  it is time to start planning again and looking around for more grants to apply for...but it's all good 'busy', I enjoy it.

I did manage to get around your blogs tonight - if my iPad didn't freeze every time  I go on blogger I could keep up with all your blogs in the evenings, but I'm afraid anything to do with blogger on my iPad drives me to the verge of madness - every time I make a mistake and try to go back it freezes...aaargh! I think my iPad is just getting old (like me, lol!)

By the time we get home, cook, eat and spent any daylight left having some relaxing time with the hens, all I want to do is relax by the TV with Tom. I can't just watch TV, so I surf Pinterest to my heart's content - the iPad is great for that, just not blogger! To those of you I'm friends on Facebook with, I've been missing from there too...the truth is, I do quite a bit of social media at work, I'm on the computer all day and it's the last place I want to be at home...at the moment anyway.

Anyway, I am waffling too much...and I will be making sure I blog more often from now - back to crafts! Today I'm sharing a stationery set I made for Nicecrane Designs as my Design Team project this month. For this set, I used the 'So Fun & Cute Dogs' set of digital images as shown below

I used all the images in my set...they really are cute!

The set consists of a 7x7 base card with a selection of mini note cards, envelopes and tags. I made the stationery holder using a card blank. I took some  ivory heavier weight linen effect card and used a 'Stamps Away' stencil and bundled sage distress ink to create the same background on 4 pieces of A4, which I then cut to size.

First of all I die cut four squares to cover the  front, insides and  back of the card. I then took some green card from my stash, used a Martha Stewart edger punch along one edge and placed across the front. I die cut the printed image using another square die (I used Spellbinders Classic Squares), added some twine and adhered to the front.

 For the inside I made two wallets for one side and a closing envelope for the other side. I decided to add a small image to one side of the lower wall, which I matted and layered on to a square made from the free card I used on the front. I also added a calendar (a printable from the internet) and die cut a clipboard top using Tom Holz Alterations Clipboard top die.

I made the envelope with plain card and mat and layered with the stencilled card. To finish I attached two button brads from my stash (K&Co) .

The mini cards are very simple, just using images from the set on little card blanks.

 I made some tags using left over stencilled card, green card and some of the images.

These are just a few of the many images available at Nicecrane...just click the link to have a look!

ttp://nicecranedesigns.com

Thank you so much for stopping by, I'll endeavour to be here more frequently!

Love and Hugs
Carole X

Those Crazy Ol' Birds #1 - Sunday 3rd May 2015

Hello Friends,

Thank you for stopping by! I'm was so pleased with your comments for the Sneakers card, which was a really fun card to make. 

I think I finally got around all your blogs yesterday....I'm sorry my visits are sporadic with quick comments lately, my valued (but too little!) craft time seems to be increasingly spent on time-consuming projects at the moment...and it be honest, I'm loving it. I just really enjoy taking a lot of time over something. The projects I made for the Eileen Hull post recently really brought that home to me.

This week I have made just one 'card' in three craft sessions, one of which was almost a whole day! Yes you did read that correctly... in truth it's not exactly a card - more a musical exploding box card, made for a wedding we are going to next month.

The bride is the eldest daughter of very good friends and they are a lovely couple, so I wanted to create something extra special...we are seeing her parents today and as it is virtually impossible to post, I wanted to hand it over to them. I will share it with you soon....

I've also been working on a couple of cards for other people; I  still keep getting asked for commissions, but I made the decision last year to not accept any more: I've been doing them for so many years and they take a lot of time, when I would rather be making projects that I really want to make. I used to tell myself that they were good for me because I was designing cards that were, well not exactly out of my comfort zone, but not what I would otherwise have made, but in truth I was finding that I was making so many cards for other people, that my own cards for birthdays etc ended up being very rushed. 

I do have a couple of 'customers' who have always given me a list of cards for the year and I agreed to carry on making for them, otherwise I have strangely found it very empowering to be true to myself and say sorry, but I can't do it!

Fun with Crazy Birds....

Last weekend I received a belated birthday present: Tim Holz's Crazy Birds stamps -  and before I started on the wedding project I made some craft time to play with them, so I made a card with each of the stamps in the set and here is the  first one...they are so quirky and funny, I love them!

 This is a shaker card...I used some lilac/mauve card for the base and inked the edges using Seedless Preserves distress ink. I then took some purple (with a hint of turquoise) patterned paper from stash. The paper was given free with a magazine quite some time ago and was in my 'must use up' box! I tore the edges and added this to the base card. I made the shaker from the same card as the base card and die cut using Spellbinders Classic Rectangles. I used little pink seed beads for the fill.

The flower is made using Spellbinders Carnation Creations, multi-layered and with a button and white twine for the centre. The edges were dusted with Seedless Preserves.

I coloured the bird with a mixture of Chameleon pens and Promarkers and decorated the envelope to match. To finish I die-cut 'Hello' with a Spellbinders D-Lite die.

 That's all for today, I hope you are all having a super Bank Holiday weekend(if you are in UK of course, but a super weekend to all!)...we had Friday off so spent the day in Cirencester, yesterday we had a mooch around Tetbury...the fields around here are all carpeted in yellow from the rapeseed plants, absolutely beautiful! Today we are seeing our friends and tomorrow, may be a trip to Bath, I am still looking for something to wear to the wedding!

Love and Hugs,
Carole X