Window Box card (2) - Tuesday 21st July 2015

Hello Friends,

I hope you all had a good weekend, ours was very busy but so enjoyable...Saturday Tom and I worked from 1pm to 9pm making the holes in the ground for the pergola. We had a special tool but we kept hitting large stones and had to dig 8 holes, each 20 inches! Sunday Tom's dad and brother helped him put it up, the weather was just right  and his Mum and I were on lunch duty and there to help if needed. 

They started at 10am and finished at 7pm (with aa half hour lunch), so an hour later we were treating them to a pub meal for their help. We are really pleased with it now, we have to start adding the plants, but in time I am sure it will look like it's been there forever!

I did promise a hen story, so here it is...the weekend before we had to prepare the area for the pergola and this involved moving a little bush that the hens used as a little hideaway. When we started to dig it up, Tilda was in laying her egg but Cara got quite visibly 'annoyed' with us and actually sat herself under the bush and would not move! Every time I picked her up, she went straight back! By the time Tilda emerged from the nest box, we had removed and replanted it but she was looking all over for it. Needless to say they have ignored it where it's planted and found another favourite spot!

 Above is Cara after we had trimmed away at the bush before digging it up, wondering what had happened to it and below is Tilda the next day, still looking for it!

Here are the pergola photos...

and finally some craft....

A few weeks ago I made a window box card for my friend, using the Sizzix die by Eileen Hull...Lynda loved it, so I made one with a different colour palette for my Mum in Law's birthday earlier this month....

 I made an insert from card, with slits to display the flowers

 This time instead of a wood effect for the box, I embossed the front using a swirly heart folder

 I didn't need a box for Lynda's card as it fitted the box with her present that I was positing, but this time I made a simple acetate front box.

Thank you for stopping by, I promise a few shorter posts after this one! Hope you all have a lovely day, I'm off to work now!

Love and Hugs

Carole X

What a Hoot! - Saturday 18th July 2015

Hello Friends,

I finally caught up with all your posts yesterday, I don't think there has been a time I have blogged less since I arrived here about 4 years ago...the only reasons are just so little time at the moment -and- I really need to learn to write shorter posts with less waffle....hmmm!

Before anything else I would like to welcome my new follower Helen R, thank you so much for following along Helen...I'm really sorry, but when I click on my followers list at the moment I just get a weird box pop up, so please let me know if you have a blog too. I've also noticed I have a few more bloglovin followers, so welcome to you too!

 I've been outside a lot lately: the weather has been mostly lovely, too nice to spend time at my computer! We have been doing a lot of work in the garden and this weekend are enlisting the help of some of Tom's family to help erect a new and pretty large pergola...gosh it will be like a barn raising :) We've been so busy, I haven't even had much time to spend in my little garden craft retreat this year!

Next month we are having a conservatory fitted(so no holiday last year because of the new kitchen and none again this year,ah well will be worth it...) and as I'm home more than Tom - and live close to work, it will be mostly me 'project managing' it, lol...it's quite a big space, so will add a good sized extra room to the house. I"m looking forward to it, but they have said that from start to finish it will be about a month and then we have walls to paint and have to wait another month before we can have the floor laid...and of course it has to be furnished...so it will be October before it's complete. It's been fun though, because as it's going to be large enough for a comfy seating area and our dining table, I've been making a mood board on Pinterest and am looking forward to the 'interior design' part of it, including plenty of Annie Sloaning :)...I just hate using blogger on the iPad but I can sit in front of the TV and Pin to my heart's content!

Last week and next week I'm in the office more than usual: we have a 17 year old IT student volunteering with us for a couple of weeks and he's been doing some excellent work and also this week I had my first outing with the Hawk and Owl Trust and it was great!

There was also another 'newbie' volunteer, who we had actually placed through the Volunteer Centre I manage, so it was nice to see Joanne and she had a good time too. We went out with a group of 6 experienced volunteers and visited 3 farms where they have barn and tawny owl boxes sited. The aim was to check each box to see if it had been or was being used. As we approached one box, a barn owl flew out. Apparently it is very unusual to actually see a bird, so we were extra lucky on our first day. When the guy inspected the box, there was one owl chick inside and one egg. The chick was quite an advance age, so although owls do hatch their eggs in stages it was unlikely the last egg would hatch.

This is me being taught how to use a nest box cover. When inspecting boxes, a couple of group members approach and cover the entry hole with this instrument. This stops any bird inside from flying out. It's really heavy and quite tricky to place and you hold it there whilst one of the others climbs the ladder to check the box, no owls in this one though.

We were out about 4 hours and when I got home I'd intended to craft, but instead I went out in the garden and pottered with the hens, it was such a gorgeous day and after a morning of walking around farms I just wanted to stay outdoors!

If you're still with me...here is the craft part..

I'm sticking to owls for this post..this was my project for our craft group a last week...we made a hanger but I made this one so that it could easily be turned into a card, which is what I have done and shown below.

I've seen quite a lot of this type of artwork about lately, not stamped as these are, but having a similar printed effect. I deliberately left the tree plain and coloured the flowers with promarkers using a simple block colouring method, so it looks printed. The owl is the Mr Owl stamp by Sam Poole and is paper pieced.

This is the hanging decoration the group made: they all seemed to enjoy it, some hadn't done any paper piecing before or masking stamped images, which created the background, so it was fun for them to try these techniques.

For the tree I used a grand deckled oval Spellbinder die on white card, which I backed with blue card. I used the same Stampendous floral stamp set  as for the bookmark in my previous post, using the masking technique to overlay the images. I then inked the edges with salty ocean distress ink. For the tree, I simply drew it freehand and cut out in brown card. I've made a few cards, which will be in future posts, where I added markings to the trunk, but I wanted to leave this one 'clean' .

Here's one of the cards I made...I made about four of the decorations, so can make them all into cards! I just used plain linen effect blue card on a 7x7 blank and only slightly inked the edges with salty ocean distress ink.

 Well that's it (if you're still here...sorry it's so long and I still have quite a comical and poignant hen story to share, but we'll leave that for another day, I have a pergola to help put up!)

Thank you so much for stopping by and for leaving a comment! I will catch up with you all tonight after a day in the garden.

Love and Hugs,
Carole X

'O' is for Owl - Wednesday 8th July 2015

Hello Friends,

Well another week has passed and I hope you are still enjoying the fine weather (most of the time) too?

Most of Saturday was spent in the garden, working hard! We were 'helped, by the hens and it was lovely, Sunday we spent with our friends whose daughter's wedding we were at a few weeks ago, catching up on all the post wedding news.

Because I only get certain times for crafting during the week (my choice mostly, I've come to realise there are so many more things to enjoy as well), at least not blogging so much means I have a nice little back log of creations to keep me going for a while!

Today, I want  to share a small project, ahead of a  few bigger ones on the same theme,  which I'll share over the next few  posts.

We only have one craft workshop in July, so Amy and I decided to have a change and get the group to make something other than a card, such as a wall hanging. Tomorrow I will show you my project for them, but for today a little bookmark I made with some left over card.

We've been using the cute owl stamp by Sam Poole this month and I have made quite a few projects with it for ideas, so you will be seeing a lot of him...

I'll explain the stamping technique in my larger project tomorrow, but I drew and cut out the tree free hand. I wanted this project have very much a 'printed' effect, so used block colouring with promarkers and very little inking, just at the edges...more of a 'clean' look.

Mr Owl is paper-pieced.

I placed the bookmark in this book for a reason - other than I'm reading it for the second time - in my last post, I mentioned that I had joined a local volunteer group?

My job is to help people volunteer, I used to volunteer a lot and apart from the occasional one off 'event', always with animals. When I lived close to the centre of Bristol, there was no shortage of animal based volunteering and I spent about 10 years helping at the Riding for the Disabled school, as horses are my big love. Now I live in a small town, surrounded by rural countryside, surprisingly animal groups are virtually zilch. But for a while now I have been thinking about the local Hawk and Owl Trust, goodness knows we've passed quite a few people to them as volunteers.

So last week I put my name down and I'm now waiting for my first trip out... they survey local farmland, working with farmers and local Councils to preserve habitats for mostly kestrels and barn owls. They also take part in local community events, which eventually I'd like to help with. I am so in awe of these beautiful birds and am always reading about them, so I am really looking forward to finding out more.

One of the projects  I made using the  Mr Owl stamp, also features the photos I took at the falconry centre a few weeks ago, I'll be posting that soon.

Many thanks for stopping by, I really appreciate your comments,

Love and Hugs

Carole X

The Wiz....Friday 3rd July 2015

Hello Friends!

Hope you are all well and those of you in the UK didn't get over-heated on  Wednesday, I was supposed to be at a work event and then I had the chance to take part in a working morning with a volunteer group  I've joined....the event got cancelled and by then it was too late to go out with the group. I'll tell you more about the group in a future post...but it is nothing to do with craft...it's conservation and a certain type of wildlife.

In the end I was quite pleased to be home....I shared my time between a few hours in the craft room and several more out in the 'craft shed'...by the afternoon the hens were panting, especially the youngest one. I put extra water all over the place in shady spots and gave  them cucumber and melon, which cooled them down a bit, otherwise they found shady areas under trees in  the garden and led down. By the evening they were fine. I've not seen them get that hot before, there is lots of shade so plenty of places to hide.

Wizard of Oz cards

It occurred to me that I haven't shared the project my group of ladies did at our last workshop. This was our annual special one for the local Chipping Sodbury Festival and the theme this year was 'Musicals', so we decided to use some Visible Image stamps and make a card with a Wizard of Oz theme..

This was the card my group made...an easel card featuring the Dorothy, red shoes and sentiment stamps.

I used a polka dot mask on the top layer, ran through the embossing machine, inked it with  Vintage Photo distress ink and then used Promarkers to colour the dots as a 'nod' to the rainbow.

I stamped the image, dusted with clear embossing powder and heat embossed and they drew a cloud shape, cut out and inked with  salty ocean distress ink.

As I don't own a brick road stamp, I decided to use to brick wall mask: I inked it through with a mix of wild honey and mustard seed distress inks, cut into a winding road shape and inked the edges with vintage photo.

I coloured Dorothy using my Intense pencils and cut her out. For the flowers I used a punch. I stamped the shoes on to matt metallic silver card using versamark ink and heat embossed with red glitter.

  All the ladies said they really enjoyed making it...

I thought I may as well show you the other demo cards I'd made in the same post...

The first one just uses the shoes, decorated in the same way as above. It's a CAS card, just using the gingham we associate with Dorothy's dress.

I think the next one is may favourite except for the road....I couldn't get the mask to look right with the scene, so I used a path from my Lavinia Stamps collection (it is yellower in reality than the photo) and it's okay, but not really what we associate with the movie. I used Promarkers to colour Dorothy on this one  and made the little 'hills' in the grass using masks made from paper. The grass stamp is by Stampscapes and the tree with hearts is  by Dreamees.

It wasn't until I had put it all together and looked at it that I realised I'd forgotten the rainbow! Then I painted one in using the watercolour pencils, but the card wouldn't take the water, so it looked messy...I had no choice but to take a scrap of watercolour card, paint the rainbow on that and fix it over my splodgy mess!!

Before I finish today, I want to say that I had a lovely surprise when I logged on yesterday...one of my long time and lovely blog friends, Sandee Sentiff has decided to do a weekly shout out for those followers who leave regular comments and I was her first choice. Sandee is an artist, with a big heart and great inspiration, do pop over and have a look at her beautiful creations.

http://inthehillsofnorthcarolina.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/weekly-shout-out-goes-to-carole.html

Thank you very much for stopping by, I always appreciate your visits!

Love and Hugs

Carole X

Crazy Birds #3 - Monday 29th June;;

Hello Friends,

Hoping you all had a good weekend! Today has been a hot one  again here - we have a really small office and even with the window and door open it got hot except when we caught the breeze!

Thank you for all your lovely comments about my window box card - my friend Lynda was thrilled with it, it was her birthday yesterday and we and a good 'cross Country' phone chat. Look out for another of these cards in the next week or so, I decided to make one for my Mum-in-law's birthday.

Today's card is another one of those Tim Holz Crazy Birds stamps.....

 This time more of a guy card.  I mat and layered white and black card on to a 7x7 blank, but I rubbed metallic gold Decoart paint into the white layers using a sponge, leaving some of the white to show through for a more grungy effect.

I stamped the image, coloured it with my Inktense pencils and then cut it out.

For the background I used gold Cosmic Shimmer Vintage Mist spray and once I had finished, I adhered the cut out bird on to the card.

Whilst rummaging through my boxes of craft stuff I came across a few of those self adhesive greetings that I'd had for years, so as it was gold I thought 'what the heck!' and used it.

Here is another photo of the finished card with  the envelope, which I also decorated.

Whilst on the subject of birds, a couple more photos from our little holiday..this time Birdland, at Bourton on the Water...I hadn't been in a good few years and it has changed a lot: I took loads of photos as you can image, but I thought I would just post these penguins, because everyone loves penguins, don't they? We arrived really early so they were all preening to make themselves beautiful for the visitors...the ones in the photo below were standing under running water, taking a shower :)

This one came right up to us and started playing with the flowers

Here I am, just about to enter their new exhibit that is of course Jurassic Park themed

That's all for today folks, thanks so much for stopping by!

Love and Hugs,
Carole X

Summer Window Box - June 25th 2015

Hello Friends,

Thank you for your comments about my stencilled bench yesterday...it was nice to get home from being away, the weather was still beautiful and to get outside and paint! I was dying to use those stencils. The tiny shop, which is called the Applestore and is on the same land as the arboretum and falconry was a real vintage/shabby chic treasure. I had a lovely chat with the owner, who has found some beautiful furniture and household items to give the Annie Sloan treatment.

If you saw my post yesterday you'll know I was in hiding (lol)...well the fence guys hadn't completely  finished our neighbour's fence by the time they left at 4.30, but one of the men knocked on the back door to say that they would put a temporary panel in so the hens could come out...I had managed to fool them (the hens) into thinking I was out all day and they had been very quiet,  but they heard me talking to him and started getting excited and clucking, thank goodness I could let them out...cheeky girls! But I did feel sorry for them to be in their run on such a nice day, when I was at home.

Today's post is a 3D card that I made for my bestie from school days, Lynda, who now lives in Cumbria and is a horticulturalist. She opened her garden under the "Ulverston in Bloom' scheme last weekend and sent me some beautiful photos, it's been a while since we last got up there to visit.

I always try and make some sort of floral card, but this time I got slightly carried away, so it had to be posted in a box with her present!

I used Eileen Hull's Window Box die by Sizzix for the card. I die cut the window panel twice and layered some acetate in between the panels. 

For the window box, I wanted to make it look like a weathered wooden panel by scoring the card and then rubbing grey ink over it, I used Memento: London Fog. I should have made the panels longer as it looks more like bricks, but I didn't notice until I had taken the photo,  which was odd and too late! I'll know next time!

I then die cut an assortment of flowers, most of them Sizzix dies...Sizzix recently had a mega sale and I did get quite a few floral dies for £2-£3 each... but a few others are included - Spellbinders and Britannia and the roses were made from a die I got free with a magazine. I thought I would give it a try instead of one of my other rose dies and I really liked it, very easy to use. There is no make on it, so I guess it was made specially.

For this to stand up, I made a little stand for the back. To finish I cut a plant label die and stamped Happy Birthday - I did also cut the larger label from the set to write our greeting on. I decided not to add a drape or other window dressing, but instead to use a floral flourish die to frame the window with the roses.

Dies used:

Sizzix Window Box die, Eileen Hull

Sizzix Bloom & Plant Markers, Eileen Hull

Sizzix Susan's Garden Lilac

Sizzix Susan's Garden Forsythia

Spellbinders Blooms Four

Spellbinders Sprigs

Britannia Multi Flower

Free rose die

I'd like to enter this in the June 'Art with Heart Challenge' 

The theme is Summer Fun and I had a lot of fun making this!

Thanks for stopping by, I'll be back tomorrow with more photos.

Love and Hugs

Carole X

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