Chalk Painted bench - June 24th 2015

Hello Friends,

I didn't have to go to work today, but decided that instead of craft I would get up to date on the computer...so I have now (hopefully) caught up with all your blogs as well as downloaded all my photos from last week!

The weather outside is beautiful and I would like to be out in the craft barn - but - (bear with me here!) I have to 'hide' inside from the hens! I haven't gone crazy..one of the neighbours is having a fence replaced and it's a very long area, so I have to keep the hens in their run until they're done. If the girls know I'm home, they'll want to come out and will get quite persistent. Drat that  they had to do it the one day this week I'm home!!!

Anyway.....when we were away last week we had a nice time visiting a couple of  little 'vintage/shabby chic' shops that specialise in selling Annie Sloan paint (you probably know my now that it's my favourite!),...well in short it was everything AS: paint, restored furniture,workshops....! I knew the shops were there, so I'd waited to get my hands on a couple of her new stencils and when I came home I set to work on a few paint projects....

I picked this storage box up really cheaply last week and should have got a couple of them. 

I painted the outside using  AS Old Ochre Chalk Paint, waxed it and then sanded it a little at the edges to reveal some of the wood beneath. This is an ideal size for storing my little pots of AS paint. I then stencilled the hands on the outside using .....

Next for the bench...this bench sits in our porch, it's not meant as a seat (although it can be sat upon) and it was made by my Father in Law to my design about 10 years ago. I use it to display seasonal flowers, Easter, Halloween and Christmas decs etc.

 It needed a paint anyway, so I used the Old Ochre: it only needed one coat and then I used  flower and bird stencils to decorate. I didn't stencil all the seat back as it tends to get hidden by plants and other decorations during the year anyway.

 I also stencilled the flower on the side of the box...

Before I go, I will share a few photos from last week...I'm not going to share too many(if there are  animals and birds in sight, I take hundreds!!!)  and I'll spread them across the next few posts, but on Monday last week we visited two of my favourite places, The Cotswold Falconry Centre (which is where I did my intro to Falconry training day a few years ago) and Batsford Arboretum next door - we are members of a larger Arboretum close to us and we also get entry into Batsford with our membership...and I prefer Batsford ...

Here are some photos of the Birds of Prey...I love them all, but during the displays the vultures are so entertaining, the way they interact with each other, just like a scene from the Jungle Book!

Bald Eagle

Bateleur Eagle

This owl decided to sit on my handbag!

Kestrel

Tom had urged me to book for a refesher session, but I never got around to it - I still got to fly  this adorable little owl though :)

I had to include this shot that Tom took as the owl swooped towards him :)

Vultures, I could watch them all day, they are so comical

Golden Eagle

These are just a few of the photos I took, I'll share some more from the week on Friday...and be warned, there will be more birds..not hawks, but more birds!

Meanwhile thank you for stopping by and leaving a comment, always very much appreciated,

Love and Hugs,

Carole X

Father's Day - June 21st 2015

Hello Friends!

Well didn't we just pick the best week of weather to have a holiday in this Country!!!!! We had the best time..we are so lucky to live right on the edge of the Cotswolds..my favourite part of England and we don't have to go far to be right in it's heart, enjoying it's beauty. We have had such a 'full' week that I haven't even downloaded my photos yet, but I will share a few later in the week....Christine, if you read this...I did look out for you when we were in Stow :)

I haven't looked at a computer or iPad screen for more than a few moments for a week and it's been great, so relaxing...but I had to pop on here to share my Father's Day makes and to let you know that I will be catching up with your current posts later on.

Thank you for your comments on my Wedding project for Fran and Alex...last week I had a few messages via Facebook from friends of theirs asking me to make one, but I had to say no. It just took so long.... once I had started it I almost regretted it as it was fiddly and ever evolving, so it was truly a 'one off'....

And so to my Father's Day card and gift box: sadly I lost my own dear Dad many years ago, when I was barely out of my 20's and there were still so many chats to have and questions to ask, but luckily I have a wonderful Father-n-Law. Toni is a typical Italian, likes cars, football and good food and wine!  He also enjoys DIY and gardening, so today usually means a suitable gift card and some Prosecco for a toast. I made the card when we did our Father's Day craft workshop, but I also made a gift box.

I made the box using  black heavy card and the Sizzix mini bag die by Eileen Hull and I also made a carrying handle for the back, with some extra card and die cut a circle in the centre using Spellbinders Classic Circles.  Before putting the box together I ran through the die-cutting machine with an M-Bossabilities folder. I then rubbed it all over with silver gilding wax for an industrial look.

I made the little gift card holder for putting inside the  bag using grey card and a Sizzix Notebook Cover embossing folder,which I also rubbed with silver wax. To finish I tied with black twine, secured with a brad.

The stamps are from Visible Image.

Thank you for stopping by,  I will catch up with you all later and back to work tomorrow so will probably not be posting again until Wednesday!

Love and Hugs,

Carole X

Wedding Musical Box - Sunday 14th June

Hello Friends,

Yesterday was our friends'  daughter Francesca's wedding and it's time to share a project I made a few weeks ago for Fran and her now husband, Alex. 

I mentioned this project I mentioned in a post a few weeks ago...it took me about 10 crafting hours at various times to complete, if not more, but they loved it so it was worth it.

It started off as a simple exploding box with a musical element, but turned into a much larger project...a case of getting carried away! I apologise in advance for a very photo-heavy post...

First of all, the complete closed box. I used a lot of dies, so I'm not going to list them but if any of you would like to know about any specific die, please let me know.

The square top box is made using  Eileen Hull's  Scoreboards ATB die, but I made the smaller box myself, together with the lid. Once I had made the boxes, but before constructing them, I used an MBossability folder with a heart pattern for texture. I die cut shapes for each side and added floral and sentiment details.

I also die cut the same shapes, cut them in half and made a decorative lid, embossed with roses and decorated with die cut roses. The one part I seem to have not photographed is the top of the lid - the couple is placed in a bed of roses.

The Exploding box

The ATB part of the project opens into an exploding box. I added another die cut of the couple in the centre, surrounded by roses. The wedding cake sentiment stamp, I got some years ago when I went to a Stampin' Up party and apart from the 'bride and groom' die cut, the words on the other sides are my own, computer generated.

As you can see in one of the photos, there is a handle at the side of the box...this conceals a little mechanical music box, which plays the Wedding March


PHOTOGRAPH THE MUSIC BOX

Once I'd made the box, I had to make a box for it...it had to be quite a large box, so I drew the template myself and made it up - fortunately in all worked first time

I also decorated a bag for the box and gift...

Below is a photo of it in its gift box at the wedding yesterday, I think if they had taken it out it would have been handled a lot, Alex (the groom) told me that some people thought it had been bought in a shop...nice complement.

It was a beautiful day, it rained but didn't spoil a thing - even though the service was partially in the open. The venue, Matara, near Tetbury was beautiful, truly idyllic. The couple smiled and laughed all day long - they met on a school bus when they were 14 and now eleven years on are husband and wife. Francesca's parents are two of our best friends, the first time we met Fran she was a premature baby and now a beautiful young woman in all ways. Her sister, who was her Maid of Honour is equally as beautiful and is our God-daughter...here are a few photos

Francesca & Alex

With our friends, Sharon & Massimo, the bride's parents

Natalie

with my best friend and love of my life,  Tom

 Thank you so much for stopping by, I am going to be 'missing' for most of this week, Tom and I have booked into an hotel at Stow on the Wold and we are going to spend the time just chilling in the Country-side, visiting some 'bird' reserves and walking, plus a table is booked in one of our favourite restaurants in Stow. The 'girls' are in their 'holiday home' at the bird farm and we are back on Thursday. I'm dipping out of social media altogether over the next few days.

I'll be back later in the week,

Love and Hugs,

Carole Z X

New Arrival - Tuesday 9th June 2015

Hello Friends!

A quick and scheduled post today...we have an event at work so hopefully everyone will turn up!

We recently had a new addition to some of my family in San Francisco...a little boy  named Linus!

I knew they were expecting a boy, so made the cards well in advance, I had to make one for the parents, Grandparents and Great Grandma...

The first one is  for the parents, Matt and Megan...the colour of the pram isn't as bright as the photo seems to suggest! I made a hanging frame card.

This card was made for Matt's parents, Sandy is my cousin...I hand-stitched around the edge

 This card was for my auntie Dottie, who is now a Great Grandma...

I used the Tonic pop up card die that we used in a recent workshop to add another image inside. I left it blank so I could write a note to my auntie

All the stamps used are from LOTV and were coloured with Promarkers


Thank you so much for stopping by and have a lovely day!

Love and Hugs
Carole X

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