Sunday 31 January 2016

All snippets!

Good Afternoon to You!

My card today was made with nothing but snippets excepts for the gems and the sentiment .

I'm really on a mission to use stuff up this year.  Last year I hardly made a dent although I did try.

This card used up the rose paper which I decided to distress and rub with black soot distress ink.

The image is an old Judikins cube stamp which was stamped onto the pink paper and barely had to be trimmed at all and the diecut image was already cut.  I think it's a Memory Box die but it hasn't been used for a long time.

This card is certainly one to be taken over to Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 214

Friday 29 January 2016

An Oldie for Friday

Good Afternoon Everyone!

First I'd like to give a warm welcome to Sandma who has joined me today.  Her cards are beautiful and well worth a look.

As it's Friday again I'm showing one of my old cards and linking up with Erika on her Snappy Crafts blog.

It doesn't have to be a card, anything old and crafty is fine.  Link with Erika, leave her a comment and she'll visit you too.

I  can't remember when I made this kimono card but it was certainly a long time ago.

I used a template by Wendy Stenton.  She used to be a regular on Create and Craft several years ago, both doing shows with a large variety of her own templates and also demonstrating for The Stamp Man.

I used a red swirly card, washi paper and peel offs for my card.

Have a good weekend Everyone!

Smiles on Friday - Week 155

Happy  Friday to you!

It's the day I link to Annie's blog A Stitch in Time where we share our smiles for the week.

There's great excitment here today - our broadband has always been really slow but yesterday our little village exchange updated us from 6.5 mbs and we're now getting 18.5 mbs.  So now we can watch HD YouTube videos without buffering.

It's hard to believe it's almost February.

I got the feather duster out yesterday for the first time since um.. Christmas!

I suddenly noticed I hadn't taken the strings off the beams.  The beams in this area  have nails on the ends where I tie string each year to hang up most of our Christmas cards.

All the handmade and other special cards stand on the fireplace and a little cupboard on the other side of the room.

I'm trying to decide whether to get out my little stool and cut them down or just leave them till December. I'm sure this year will pass quickly like the last few have and it will soon be Christmas again anyway!  Enjoy your weekend.




Thursday 28 January 2016

SU Owl

Good afternoon and thank you for your visit.

My card today is very similar to the one I posted yesterday using the same papers.

Yesterday's card was my prototype and just really evolved as I was mainly interested in making a card with a different fold

Today I gave it a little more thought and I think I prefer this version with the owl sitting on the branches.  They were made with the SU bird punch.

As the paper was quite flimsy I stuck it to pieces of white card before punching out.

I would like to enter my card into the challenge at Crafty Cardmakers #156 where the theme this time is punches and dies

Happy Crafting Everyone!

Wednesday 27 January 2016

Very Rustic!

Good afternoon on this wet and windy Wednesday.

After watching  You Tube last evening I decided to have a go at a Corner fold card.  I didn't follow the sizes just cut an A6 card and had a go.

It really is a proto type and I had no idea how I was going to decorate it when I began.  I just wanted to have a go at a different type of card.

I used some of those shiny papers that come in magazines.  I don't often use them as they aren't very easy to work with and I have lots of much  nicer papers in my stash.  However they were handy so that's what I used.

 I was very pleased with how it turned out so decided to post it this afternoon.  There were a few rough edges so I did lots of inking round the edges.

  I used my Stampin Up owl punch and even he is punched from scraps of white paper that I just  scribbled onto with Promarkers before punching him out.

 His chest is the back of the card where the Promarker bled through!   I stuck scraps of the paper onto white card to give strength and punched them out and the bow is made from a piece of string that was on the floor of my cabin!!!!   I should probably be ashamed to admit this hehehe!  But I did have fun.

I'm going to pop this over to Pixies Snippets Playground  after making a coffee and also
Crafting From the Heart Challenge 96

WOYWW - 347

Good Afternoon Deskers

I'm joining in again today with our hostess Julia on her Stamping Ground blog where we share what we have on our desks each Wednesday.

It's always fun to have a trip round the world to see what others are doing.

Last night I watched a few You Tube videos and decided to have a play this afternoon and make a different shaped card - well different for me.

This was my desk about 40 minutes ago after I'd almost finished.

I'll be posting my card shortly when I have it resized and ready.

I may be a little late visiting but will get round to as many of you as I can over the next couple of days.

Have a good week everyone.

Monday 25 January 2016

Rudolph Day Challenge

It's hard to believe it's nearly the end of January already.

So - it's time for the first Rudolph Day challenge of the year on Maureen's  Scraps of Life blog.

First I would like to give a very warm welcome to my new follower Swissie.   I do hope you will pop in to see her lovely work.

To make my card I wiped various colours of distress ink on different parts of my craft mat then sprayed with water.  I wiped pieces of white card over  different areas of the mat so that I had a variety of coloured pieces then dried them with my heat gun.  They were cut into pieces to be used for batch making Christmas cards.

I stamped onto the backgrounds using brown ink using a Hero Arts cling stamp then stamped randomly round the edge of each piece with a Versamark ink pad.  I sprinkled on gold embossing powder and heat set it.

I stuck on the trees which were die cut from scraps of white card with a Marianne die then coloured the star with a gold Krylon pen and added some gold twine at the bottom.

The sentiments were all stamped onto strips of the coloured card and I used a versamark pen to gold emboss the edges of each strip.

I would also like to enter this card in the  Pixie's Snippets Playground  Week 213




Sunday 24 January 2016

Snippets Playground - Week 213

Hello and thanks for calling

I really enjoyed making this card and while I had my heat gun  out decided to make a few similar cards in different colours.

I cut the embossed background to size then into strips and mounted onto the pink card.

I made quite a lot of the little flowers from offcut of parchment paper so that I could make a batch of cards.

They were heat embossed onto vellum and fussy cut and I used a Sakura pen to colour the stamens.

The sentiments are from a set by Paula Pascal that I use a great deal and the banner is a Sue Wilson die.

I 'm popping this card over to join in at Pixie's Snippets Playground Week 213

Saturday 23 January 2016

That Daisy Again!

Happy Saturday to you.

Not much to say about this one.  It's another card I made with my Woodware  Daisy stamp.  I love this stamp it really is so versatile.

 This time I used watercolour paper and painted the embossed image with watercolour paints.  The image is black embossed on a piece of torn parchment paper.

I have three new followers to introduce today.

They are Angela   Alison and Jayne.  Thank you all for joining me and welcome!

I've been unable to find you Jayne so if you see this pop back and leave a comment so I can return the visit.


Friday 22 January 2016

An Oldie on Friday

Happy Friday to you,

Today's card is a real oldie.  It's made from a set of decoupage and papers that I bought in the days before there was such a thing as die cut decoupage.

The papers and black card were cut and mounted then the bird was decoupaged and stuck on top.

I added a couple of beads to the gold thread.

I'm linking to Erika's blog Snappy Crafts where she invites us to show a craft piece we made some time ago.

If you join in then leave a comment for Erika and she'll return with a comment for you.


Smiles on Friday - Week 154

Hello and thank you for your visit.

It's Friday again so time to link up with Annie on her Stitch in Time blog where every week she invites us to share happy times from our week.

I have scheduled my post for today as we are going to Cambridge to Aunty Stella's funeral.  She was a very special person and will be sadly missed by us all.

She is actually my hubby's Aunt but as we have been together since we were 15 years old she has been an Aunt to me too.

Now onto my smiles for the week.

I received these two beautiful cards from friends I have got to know through blogging.  What a wonderful way it is to get to know each other and join with people who have similar interest to ourselves.


The first card was from Di who runs The Snippets Playground challenge on her blog Pixie's Crafty Workshop.  If you are a paper crafter it is a really fun place to join in.  The playmates can be a mad bunch but are all very friendly.  It's worth a visit.




My second card is from Sarn who has a wonderful talent for "tangling".

She does some amazing Sarnrangles and even had her own limited edition stamps which are unfortunately no longer available for sale.

Her blog is called Stamping for Pleasure  so do pop in and she her lovely work too.

I hope you all enjoy whatever you have planned for the weekend.

Thursday 21 January 2016

2016 Resolution!

Good Afternoon,

Just a quick post before I pop off to "play" for an hour before starting dinner.

Just to prove I'm sticking to my New Year's resolution and using up old stuff.

Here are a couple of the very quick cards I made yesterday.

  I was using up some of a Hunkydory set which was a  freebie at a craft show a few years ago.  They completed my box of cards which I posted off this morning.

Thank you for your visit.

Tuesday 19 January 2016

For Lily!

Hello and thank you for popping by!

First I'd like to welcome my new follower Tracy who makes some beautiful cards.  I hope you'll have time to visit her blog.

The card I'm showing today was made for my friend who celebrated a Special Birthday on Christmas Day.

She made me laugh when she told me recently that when she was at Primary School the teacher asked the children "Who was born on Christmas Day" - you guessed it.  Lily put up her hand and  proudly told the class  "I was".

This parchment card was made using a Christine Coleman pattern.    I drew the outlines with a black fine liner and coloured the back of the flowers and leaves with Promarkers.

It was the background pricking and embossing and the cutwork which took the longest time to do.

I mounted the card onto some pastel rainbow paper and strengthened it by putting a white card inside.

I would like to enter my card into the Promarkers Challenge Week 329 - Flower Power

Monday 18 January 2016

Blue Butterflies

Good Afternoon,

First I'd like to give a very warm welcome to Lia who has just joined me here.  Do pop over and visit her blog if you have time to see the beautiful work she does.

On Saturday morning my new Fiskars circle pricking templete arrived so I was ken to have a play.

I coloured a scrap of white card with Distress inks using two of my new colours, Mermaid Lagoon and Wilted Violet.  I spritzed with water that had mica powder added then dried with my heatgun and pricked holes of various sizes.

My resolution for the year is to use up old stuff.  I have a sheet of butterfly stickers that are years old so decided to make a card to enter into Mrs A's Butterfly Challenge blog. The theme is I is for Inks.

I chose two butterflies in a colour that matched the panel and stuck them onto scraps of white card and cut them out.  The small piece of ribbon is from my ribbon snippets basket, clear gems which I coloured with peel off pens and the "Thanks" brad which has also been hanging around for several years.

As I've used lots of snippets I'm taking this along to The Snippets Playground Week 212 to join in where Miss Di is this week offering two lovely dies as prizes .


Sunday 17 January 2016

Birdbath

Morning Everyone.

I opened the curtains this morning and we have snow.  It looks very pretty but I'm so glad I don't have to go out today.

I gave this card to a friend for her birthday on Wednesday so can show it now .

I stamped randomly onto the ribbed kraft card and added a snippet of pink ribbon.

The image is from an Inkadinkado set stamped with a black Archival inkpad then heat embossed with clear embossing powder.  The colouring was done with Pro Markers and I put some glitter glue on the water for a bit of sparkle.

The Diecuts are Spellbinders which I won in The Snippets Playground recently.  They are one of my favourite sets which I now use regularly.

The card candi in each corner is some I made myself.  I posted it recently here .

I was pleased with how this card turned out so made a couple with blue ribbon for my charity box.

I'm taking my card over to join in at The Snippet Playground Week 212 and also Ribbon Girl's Challenge - Any Image.


Friday 15 January 2016

Oldie for Friday

Happy Friday to you.

Here is my "Oldie for Friday" where Erika invites us to show an old card or craft item which was made some time ago.

We link with Erika  on her snappy crafts blog   then leave a message and she returns the visit.

This card was made with some of the Papermania Portobello Road stuff which was around a few years ago.

I've still got quite a lot left plus the Union flag embossing folder and a number of stamps.

There is a lot on the news today about the celebrations for the Queen's birthday in June.

Ummm! I think I might be able to keep to my 2016 resolution and use up old stuff.

Thursday 14 January 2016

Black Fairy!

Good Evening!

First I'd like to welcome my two new followers Elizabeth and Kanda. I'm so glad that you've joined me.  I think lots of my blogland friends know you both well.

Just a quick card today.  I've been playing with the Bleeding Tissue technique again.  Something I've not done for a while and believe me I have lots of the tissue to use.  I find it can be used twice so I let it dry after removing it from the card and store it away in yet another little plastic box.

I used a very old brass stencil to rub through using black Archival ink then added a couple of little gems to the centres of her flowers.

I would like to enter this card into the Delicious Doodles Challenge where the theme this time is using left overs and old stash items

Wednesday 13 January 2016

WOYWW Week 345

Morning Deskers,

Another week has passed so I'm linking again with Stamping Ground blog where our hostess Julia invites us to join together and show the world what's on our desks today - even better to have a snoop at other peoples work areas.

I'm making a set of ATCs to be posted off in a few days time, using pieces of an old gardening book for the backgrounds.

I'm going to use the flower  and leaf stamps  and have already cut out the mask I want to use.

I'd cut and embossed four butterflies and coloured them too but decided on a change of plan so won't be using them for this project.

I've got a busy few days ahead so will have to stagger my visiting over the next couple of days.

Hope you enjoy whatever you're doing today.

Tuesday 12 January 2016

Doggie Book

Hello and thanks for visiting today.

These are a few die cuts that were left on my desk from when I was cutting out  tiny dog and rabbits for cards last week.

I had a card sent to me several years ago which I used to make a template from.  So I cut my card from a piece of core card, gave it a bit of a sand down then stuck on the three little dogs which I grounded with pencil lines.

The sentiment is from a Paula Pascal set and was in a box of previously made sentiments that I keep at hand.  I usually stamp extra sentiments as it saves a bit of time.

I cut my inset to fit the shape of the page and drew lines in pencil to look like pages.

It looks a bit bare so I think I shall have to put something on the "spine".

This card will go with others to a dog charity I support.

I'd like to enter my card in the Delicious Doodles Challenge Challenge "leftovers"and also
Pixie's Snippets Playground  Week 211

Monday 11 January 2016

My Second Freehand Zentangle

Morning Everyone,

Some time ago I bought a couple of the packs of Zentangle cards and have been having a go.

This is my second proper attempt - I might feel brave and show the first another day!

Sticking to my new year resolution and using old stuff I dug out an old border punch for the side strip.

I added a little pearl because I thought it looked a bit like a seashell.

I would like to enter this in
The Snippets Play Week 211
Crafting for All Seasons Challenge #117 - monochrome

Sunday 10 January 2016

My Snippets Butterfly

Good Afternoon and I hope your enjoying your weekend.

This card was made a few weeks ago with lots of snippets so I'm taking it over to join in at Di's Snippets Playground Week 211

The background is a page from an old gardening book. I die cut part of a circle and put a piece of paper behind it. The paper is from my stash.

 I used a Memory Box dies for the butterfly.  The top is a scrap of card and the base is cut from some junk mail which was still on my table.  I'd previously used a picture from it for another project.

The little heart was a bit of kraft card which I'd previously stamped on so I put it through my Cuttlebug in an embossing folder and punched out the several hearts.

The sentiment is by Anna Griffin - and I'm still trying to find it!

Have Fun!

Yellow butterfly

Good Morning,

It's a lovely sunny morning here today and so something yellow seems quite appropriate.

First I'd like to give a warm welcome to Nikki who has recently joined me here.  Do pop over to visit Nikki is you have time to have a look at her lovely work.

I made my card yesterday so that I was able to join in with Mrs A's Butterfly Challenge blog.

I cut a piece of white card a little smaller than my A6 card then rubbed the outside with yellow ink before  die cutting it with a Memory Box butterfly.

I used Pumice stone Distress ink to rub through some sequin waste and used a little butterfly from my bits pot.  The sentiment is a Hobby Arts stamp.  I coloured the three clear gems with a black sharpie pen although they don't look shiny in the photo!

The card still looked as if it was missing something so I drew the black squiggly lines round as a border.  I actually wish I hadn't but time was then too short to make another card.
I hope you're enjoying your weekend.

Friday 8 January 2016

An Oldie on Friday

Hello and here I am back again this afternoon with one of my "oldies"

Erika from snappycrafts blog invites us to link with her each Friday where we show one of our old cards or other craft items.  If you join in leave a comment for Erika and she'll return the visit.

My card today was only five years ago although the topper was made some time before that and sat in a box of bits.

I'd  used a Judikins wood mounted stamp to gold emboss onto the shiny orange paper.  I put fine glitter on the bodice and cut out the dress.  I mounted with foam pads onto an oval I'd made using one of the Glitter Girls boards which were very popular at the time.  The oval was rubbed over with metallic rub-ons (now we use gilding wax).

I'm not sure which embossing folder I used and the photo isn't very good.  The sentiment is by Paula Pascal.  I really don't like the way I've mounted it but obviously did five years ago.  I do like that dress though!

Happy Crafting and Thank You for visiting,  Have a good weekend.

Smiles on Friday- Week 152

Happy Friday Everyone!

I hope that you all enjoyed your Christmas.  To those of you I've not spoken to yet this year I'd like to send my best wishes for a very happy and healthy 2016.

As it's Friday again I'm linking up with A Stitch in Time blog where each week Annie invites us to talk about things that have made us smile throughout the week.

Unusually for me I have three pictures to share with you this time.


For New Year we went to stay with our friends in Essex for a few days.  On Friday we went into Chelmsford and this is what we saw in the shopping mall.

Lots of old electrical items had been recycled to make these two dinosaurs.  There were all sorts of  items including old irons, parts of vacuum cleaners and loads of computer keyboards and mice.

The display certainly attracted a lot of attention and amusement.

Christmas dinner

For our monthly village craft club Christmas dinner the twelve of us went out to a local pub.  We had a lovely meal and really enjoyed the evening.

Instead of making twelve cards we all made one which we took along then chose one each from the pile.
I had a lovely surprise when I opened the card that I had chosen.

Angela had made and attached this pretty little mobile phone Angel charm to her card.  I won't be putting it on my phone, which I keep in a little zippy bag.

Instead - I think it will look perfect on the handle of my new  handbag.

Well if you managed to read all my ramblings, well done.  I promise I won't be doing another so long but it was Christmas after all!

Wednesday 6 January 2016

Daisies on Kraft

Thank you so much for popping by.

First I'd like to give a very warm welcome to my two new blogland friends Wendy and Pen.  I'm so glad that you have joined me here.

I don't think Wendy has a blog at the moment but I have just  started following Pen who is quite new to blogging and I know she'd love a visit from you.

This card was made with this Woodware framed Daisy stamp which I stamped with a Versamark inkpad  onto a piece of kraft card then heat embossed with black embossing powder.

I coloured it with Pro markers and added highlights with a white gel pen. I mounted the image onto black card and then a white A6 card.

The sentiment is from Inky Doodles and heat embossed onto a piece of parchment paper.

I'd like to enter this card into the following :-
The Snippets Playground Week 210 and
Creative Inspirations Challenge  #342 - Florals

Post- it holder

Well here's a second post from me today and it's a holder for a post-it pad.

In December I went to a workshop where we used Craftwork Cards materials.  We had a 6 inch pad of Bohemian Dreams paper with matching card candi and die cuts.

With just these supplies plus basic card and adhesives we made several cards.

As you can imagine as well as having quite a lot of the pad left to take come there were also a lot of snippets to.

A couple of days later I made several post- it note holders which I decorated with snippets.

I'd like to pop this over to The Snippets Playground  to join in with the other playmates.

I've just come across a beautiful video that you may enjoy if you  have a soft spot for birds and animals.  Here is the link http://littletreasures-sylvia.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/wonderful-video.html

WOYWW #344

Good Morning Deskers!

I hope that you all had a lovely Christmas, whoever you spent it with and wish you a happy and healthy 2016 with lots of time for crafting fun.

I'm very glad to be back and joining in again at the  Stamping Ground blog where Julia invites us to link up each Wednesday.  Then we can take  a trip round the globe having a look at what's on everybody's work desk.

About a week ago I had a light bulb  moment when it occurred to me that the little XCut hole punch lying there on my desk was the size of Card Candi.

So I'm making candi with scraps of paper.  The cream pieces were punched from a strip of an old greeting card.  I'll use the piece of waste that's left when I get my gelli plate out next.

You can see I've used a small stamp on the blue scrap.  After punching out I emboss on the corner of my pricking mat with the large ended ball tool that is in the plastic box on the left.

The black and gold one in the box is from some wallpaper that was given to me by a friend.
Happy Crafting Everyone!

Monday 4 January 2016

Sing!

Hello Everyone and thank you for stopping by.

I do hope you all enjoyed  your Christmas.  We enjoyed a quiet Christmas and I was able to spend quite a lot of time crafting after the Big Day before we went off to Essex to visit friends for the New Year.

I'd like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy and healthy 2016,

This is one of four cards I made using different gelli plate prints.

I think the sentiment is quite celebratory and works well to welcome in the new year.

Both the image and sentiment are from Visual Images and the music stamp which I added is from an Inky Doodles set of stamps.

I'd like to enter this card in Crafting From the Heart #93

As we didn't get home until yesterday I've not had time to catch up so over the next few days I'll be visiting my blog buddies to see what you've all been doing.

Happy 2016 Everyone!