Mmm...Cupcakes + Dandelion and Daisy Note Cards

Good Afternoon to you all,

Hope you had a great weekend and Monday hasn't come as too much of a shock to the system. I was up during the night cleaning up after The Boss. She's bothered with hairballs every now and again :( So I'm not firing on all cylinders today. In fact, I've spent too much time vegging out in front of the TV watching C&C's Paper Clinic. Still, I did learn something new so the day hasn't been entirely wasted.

Anyway on to the cards - I actually made these last week but didn't get round to posting them but I'm working my way down my 'to-do' list so here they are now. Both cards are simple little note cards - I use lots of note cards - and, keeping to my intention to use up my horde of stash before treating myself to any more, they are made using materials I've had forever :)

Firstly, another card using my shaving foam marbled paper:

This time I've used the marbled paper as a frame for the embossed centrepiece.

The cupcake toppers have been in my stash for eons so it was time I found a use for them.

Materials used:
Mint green pearlescent card for base; handmade marbled card using shaving foam and Cosmic Shimmers; embossing folder and greeting stamp free with Creativity Magazine; insert made from digital paper, Simply Dots by Bearly Mine Design, digitally punched and printed on to plain white copy paper; toppers, flat-backed pearls and gems from stash.

The second card is made from a 3 page freebie I downloaded from I can't remember where exactly!
Edited note: this Daisy and Dandelion decoupage download was from the Docrafts site (thanks Hazel for the reminder)

Materials used: Daisy and Dandelion freebie which included one decoupage sheet and two co-ordinating design papers. Other materials used: Kraft card stock for base; paw printed tape; Woodware border punch for lilac trim; white copy paper for insert.

The decoupage was easy to cut out and assemble - well, it would have to be for me because I find it painful handling scissors for too long so try to avoid decoupage but this was cute and I thought the images appealing.

Now, back to my 'to-do' list which seems to be extensive today - sigh!

Frillie Millies Pudding Card

Good Evening to you all,

I hope you are all well and ready to enjoy your weekend.

A quick post tonight. This is the Christmas card for the 4th week of the year - so far, so good - I'm keeping up with my intention to make one a week. For this one I chose a digi stamp from Pink Petticoat, Frillie Millies Pudding. I had it all ready and coloured in from last year, just didn't use it then. I knew I had the perfect paper in a Nitwit digital collection called 'Cookin' Cookies Too', Cookin in Ivory and Enjoy in Brown.

Frillie Millie is coloured with Promarkers and blinged up with red glitter. I cut a ribbon with the Enjoy paper and edged with white faux stitching. The corner decoration is made up of red satin ribbon, holly leaves punched with an X-cut embossing punch from a spare piece of green paper and then given the red glitter treatment. The red rosebuds are from  Wild Orchid Crafts and the last thing added were the green and red flat-backed pearls (more bling).

The inside and back are decorated with offcuts of the paper.

I plan to enter this for the following challenges:

My Crafty Outlook's Christmas Challenge   - theme - let's see some bling.

Snoflake's Christmas Card Challenge on Docrafts.
I said would be quick - I have a cup of tea getting cold so I'm off to get it.

Valentine Card

Good Afternoon

This must be a record for me - three times in one day. I've just managed to photograph the first card made using the marbled cardstock I made on Sunday using the shaving foam technique.

Materials used:

• rose coloured pearlescent cardstock for base
• the marbled card in shades of pink & green
• green gingham chipboard frame
• green gingham heart-shaped topper and gingham edged insert created on PC using Basic Grey's 'Carlie' digital paper from the 'Oh Baby Girl' Collection
• embellishments: pink heart-shaped toppers from The Works and pink & green ribbon from Funky Scrapbook Barn

Sticking to my resolve to use up some of the stash I've got before buying any more I finally found a use for this chipboard frame. I bought it in a collection when I was making a scrapbook layout, used everything else but not this frame but I thought it would look really good with the pink and green of the marbled paper.

The pink heart shaped toppers were a cheap find some time ago at The Works but really pretty and a perfect match.

The insert and the heart shaped greeting were made using My Craft Studio's graphic programme and Basic Grey's digital paper. The ribbon is gorgeous, green on one side and pink on the other - not sure it shows up too well in the photograph.

Apologies, especially to Ciara, if my photographs are dark but it is dark here in Scotland today (and most days, if I'm honest) - even with the lights on. I shall have to look into the possibilities of investing in a daylight lamp. It would be nice if some kind person would run a course or tutorial on how to photograph cards because I'm useless at it :(


I'm at the reading group tonight so won't get much more crafting done today. We are reading 'A Fine Balance' by Rohinton Mistry. It's a thick book, a very thick book, but it's proving to be very good. It's a family saga, set in India in the middle of the 20th century, the period after the British left and in a time of great political unrest for the country. I'm only half-way through - I did say it was a big book - but I have to finish it because I want to know what happens to the people in it - I'm well and truly drawn into their story. 

Hope you like this card - it's a departure from my usual style, no stamp, no colouring, very little paper, no ink, though I did sand the edges of the frame to distress it a bit. I'm not even sure I like to rely so heavily on toppers for effect - my fingers are too clean :)

Bye for now
Elizabeth

Floral Fantasies Candy Share Out

Hi Everyone

A quick post this but thought you might be interested in this month's candy over at Brenda's blog Floral Fantasies. There's a link on my sidebar for anyone interested. It's a bumper collection of crafty goodies so she is 'spreading the love' by splitting it four ways this time.

I'd also like to extend a big welcome to Wipso and Glenda, my two new followers - welcome aboard. 

Back to checking out the WOYWWers now.

What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday - Week 86

Good Morning to you all,

Messy, messy, messy desk this morning - it looks like a bomb has hit it : (  There's some serious tidying up to be done later but not until after my first cup of tea!

So what can you see today, Well, there's a couple of cards I've been making using the shaving foam marbled card I made earlier this week. For those who haven't yet seen what I've been up with shaving foam you can see it here on Sunday's post. My sister, Margaret, who used to help out at a playgroup many years ago, tells me that she used to let the children puddle about in shaving foam so it's a fact, I've entered my second childhood!!!

Seems I've developed the 'shove to the side' technique used by many crafters because there is a pile of paper, marbled card and cut out decoupage to the right. and that isn't even showing what's underneath. You can also see the Versamark, white embossing powder, stamp on acrylic block with greeting still attached (cleaned, just not put away yet in the pack of freebie stamps it came from.)

Under the pack of stamps is my bargain find for the week - a 6 canvas board pack bought locally for £1.99! They are already double gesso primed so ready for action. Beside them is a cute Stamptivity stamp I got at the bargain price of £1.50 from eBay. It's an elf carrying a pile of books and as a bit of a bibliophile myself, read thwarted lady librarian, I just could not resist it.

To the left is my box of bling (not used, but thought I might add some to the card in process at the front.) On top of that is a box of chipboard pieces, again not used. Stacked up beside that is a pile of rubber stamps waiting to be put away, notebooks waiting to be altered and a pack of calendars waiting to be used up before it's 2012  - it's all waiting, waiting, waiting : (  And just behind there's my mug holder of sticky tapes - yes, I saw it on someone else's blog and thought it was a great idea so picked the holder up in a bargain store for a couple of pounds.

Finally, there's a disc of digital stuff which came free with a magazine - it's out for a reason. My sister, Margaret, has just asked me to make a wedding card for her - you could say this was my first (unpaid) commission : ) Margaret has MS and is now confined to a wheelchair. Her physiotherapist is marrying her ambulance driver on Sunday - really short notice. So the disc is there because it has some wedding paper on it which might be suitable for the card.

Keeping going with the work space reveal thing I've been featuring on WOYWW over the last few weeks, here is a picture of the first drawer in a lovely wee chest Margaret gave me some time ago to keep my crafty stuff in.

Sorry about the light but the chest is underneath my worktop where it is quite dark. In this drawer I keep my collection of stamp pads, stickles, glitter, embossing powder, sponges, and oil cloths which I use to protect my worktop when I'm doing messy, inky stuff.

Right, now for that cup of tea, and then I'll be back to try to make my way round the workdesks of all you WOYWWers. I did try very hard to get round you all last week but failed miserably - life just got in the way. However, with 160 plus on the link I think I did really well visiting the number I did. If you somehow stumbled on this post and haven't a clue what I'm blethering on about please take a trip over to our noble leader Julia's blog, Stampin Ground, and discover for yourself the world of workdesks, dining tables, cubby holes, studios, etc., revealed for our vicarious pleasure and delectation.

Bye for now
Elizabeth

Love Blog Award

Hi Everybody

I’m blushing – I’ve been tagged with the Love Blog

Nicky of Stiggys Cards, lovely lady that she is, has very kindly awarded me this accolade.

Thank you so much Nicky.

There are a couple of conditions for the award – explanation and instructions follow:

You have been TAGGED and want to participate? Then create a post where you post the 'LOVE BLOG' image.

You should also blog the person’s link that gave you the award and inform her/him that you accept the award.

You can then choose 3 - 5 favourite blogs which you also link in your post, then each blogger will inform you that they have been tagged.

Dear bloggers:
The aim of this action is that we bring unknown, good blogs to light, so I would ask you not to blog fellow bloggers that already have 3,000 followers. As always, the hardest part is to pick who to pass this on to, there are so many bloggers I could give it to, so . . .

Coops

Hazel

Jackie

Jean

Mandy

you have been awarded the

Sorry I couldn't choose more of you lovely blogging friends. Rules say 5 :(

Bye for now,
Elizabeth

Shaving Foam Method for Creating Marbled Effect Tutorial

Hello everyone,

The mention I made in a recent post to shaving foam has whetted the appetite of some of you so I feel I have to explain . . . nay, show you what I have been doing.  I thought it best if I took you step-by-step through this method of creating colourful backgrounds.

Materials used:

·         Can of spray shaving foam – any cheap make will do fine (I got the one I used from a Pound Shop)

·         Shimmer or Mica mist – I used Cosmic Shimmer Mist – in a variety of colours

·         White cardstock – mine was cut to approximately A6 size (6”x4”) or to fit your container

·         A container deep enough to prevent the sprays from marking your worktop – I used a small plastic tray measuring 9”x7”, part of a Christmas gift of shortbread!

·         Roll of kitchen paper

Method:

Step 1

Spray the shaving foam evenly over the tray.

Step 2

Spray first colour of shimmer mist (I used Twilight Black) in patches onto the foam, then the second colour (Meadow Lush) filling in the gaps.

Step 3

Take a pencil shaped object, I used the wrong end of a paint brush, and stroke/swirl through the foam. It will look something like this:

Step 4

Place your card on top of the foam and press down gently.

Step 5

Lift the paper off and taking the kitchen paper wipe off the foam. Ta da! The card will look like this:

And that is about it – all that’s left to do is leave the card to dry and use it to make a project.

However, if, like me, you are a tad generous when spraying the foam on the tray you can go on to do what I did. Being frugal and loathe to wash the foam away  I thought I would add a bit more colour – this time Lava Red – doesn’t that look yummy J I then followed through steps 3 & 4 again.

This time I remembered to take a second piece of card and put it on top of the already foam covered card like this:

After doing this you will then have two pieces of card looking like this before cleaning off with kitchen paper.

I was able to try another colour (Purple Violet) before the foam was exhausted and here is the six pieces of card I ended up with.

An added bonus is the card smells gorgeous!!

I hope you found this, my first attempt at a tutorial, clear and easy to follow but if I haven't explained something clearly enough or I've missed out an essential step out please do not hesitate to contact me. 

Now to decide what I'm going to do with all this pretty card.

Bye for now,

Elizabeth

Wild Poppies Card

Good evening to you all,

This is for all of you, especially Neet, who wanted to see the finished card that I featured in my WOYWW post this week.

As I said on that post I did not have all the materials suggested by Barbara Grey in her tutorial for this card but I think I've done a creditable substitution job : ) This is the second attempt at the stamping - I was not happy with my first stab at it. This I'm much happier with.

Materials used:

Card:

• White card for base
• Stampin Up Crumb Cake for matting
• Create & Craft A5 Textured Card in Red for matting.
• Clarity Stamp Wild Poppies
• Sheena Douglass A Little Bit Sketchy 2 Optimism (sentiment)
• Memento Tuxedo Black ink pad
• Krylon 18kt Gold Leafing pen

Insert:

• My Craft Studio Professional
• White copy paper 80gsm
• Nitwit Collections digital Cookin' Cookies Too - Red Striped

I made masks from a post-it pad and used Barbara's technique of ink, stamp and stamp again to get the effect that some poppies are in the foreground and some further back. It was a bit tricky working out the spacing of the pieces after cutting it up but I got there in the end and I think the edging with the gold pen just finishes them perfectly.

I just made a fairly simple insert and was lucky to find that I had digital paper already on my PC that picked up the red/brown/gold colours used in the card. And, I don't know what I'd do without the graphics programme in My Craft Studio - I was able to digitally punch a strip from the paper and use it to decorate the insert.

I've been experimenting with shaving foam and Cosmic Shimmer Mists today to marble some card. It worked out very well and some of the results are lovely. I'm hoping to make a card using some of the card later and maybe it will feature on a later post.

That's me lot for today and thanks for reading. If you wish to leave a comment it will be much appreciated as I love to hear from and you and enjoy receiving feedback.

Bye for now.
Elizabeth

Marriage in the Movies Exhibition

Good Morning

Well, I hope it is by the time you see this because I'm going to attempt to schedule this post and as I've never done this before it could all go pear-shaped on me.

I promised you something special and here it is. This gorgeous jewel encrusted bodice is part of a wedding dress exhibited by the National Museum of Costume, Shambellie House, New Abbey, last year. We are lucky to have this wonderful museum located practically on our doorstep here in Scotland, in a beautiful location near Dumfries.

Also near is the Sweetheart Abbey in New Abbey which seemed really appropriate the day DH and I took a trip to see the exhibition of wedding dresses entitled Marriage in the Movies. The lavish costumes had been worn by some of the best-known brides from TV and film, including Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park and Howards End.  The dresses were so beautiful they quite literally took my breath away - DH is often happy to attest to that, saying it's a first for me : )

One of these dresses was worn by Keira Knightley but I'm sorry to say I can't remember which. They were all truly stunning and the work that had gone into to making them just for the 'silver screen' was amazing. For example, the embroidery on this bodice:

And they all seemed to have such tiny wastes, though some of the feet were quite big - definitely 20th century size shoes!

Sadly the exhibition ended in October but there are other very interesting exhibits. Each room of the house portrays a different era. The clothes are depicted in authentic surroundings too. My favourite was the 1940s room - probably because it most reminded me of my childhood in the 1950s - clothes hadn't really altered that much and furniture, etc., certainly had not - it was the utility age, a time of 'make do and mend'..

Apparently this dress was made in 1942 by a lady from my home town, Edinburgh, from furnishing fabric because she was going to a wedding and had nothing to wear - sounds familiar even today. So it wasn't just Maria in the 'Sound of Music' who took to wearing curtains during the war : )

A lovely surprise was that in the grounds there is also a walled garden that has been rescued by an amazing woman who spends most of each day there with just her dog for company. The garden is absolutely beautiful. I took a ton of photographs and I intend incorporating some of them into a scrapbook page some day, much as I intend to do the same with the costume photographs. And, as I said earlier, the Sweetheart Abbey is nearby and I photographed that too so they should really go into a layout as well. Lots of projects to keep me going for quite some time.

It was a brilliant day and the trip was well worth doing and we can't wait for it to open again after the winter break. I hope you like these photos - I thought some of you might appreciate the embroidery work as it is so beautiful.

Now for the hard part - the scheduling :)

Bye for now
Elizabeth

Edit at 9.22am 22.1.11 - Well, my scheduling did not work - back to the drawing board I think!!!

Blue Christmas Tree - Week 3 Christmas Card

Good Evening Everyone

Keeping true to my resolve to make a Christmas card a week I have just completed this for Week 3.

Materials used:

• Cardstock: White for base, silver embossed card for matting
• Design Paper: Decorative Christmas Trees from Making Cards The Nancy Watt Collection - topper from same collection
• Embellishments: 1" (2.5cm) wide white organza ribbon; blue & crystal gems; silver hologram glitter and iridescent glitter

The photographs are not good - taken just a couple of hours ago under unnatural light - but this turned out to be a very pretty card. The fold back shortfall type card is something new for me and actually quite easy to make once I got started - my Hougie board came in very useful once again. The blue/silver/white combination is gorgeous and the bling on the topper is sparkling.

I plan to enter this for the following challenges:

My Crafty Outlook's Christmas Challenge (if I'm on time)  - theme Snowy Trees Scene - I think I just scrape through on this one because they are snowy white trees.

Snoflake's Christmas Card Challenge on Docrafts.

I think I will leave you with a photo of Bonnie supervising me while I work.

As you can see she has completely recovered from her recent surgery and is now as bossy as ever.

Must rush to link this with the challenges before the deadline but I will be back tomorrow with what I think is something rather special.

Bye for now
Elizabeth

What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday - Week 85

Good Morning All,

Yippee, it's getting lighter earlier in the morning - I noticed this morning when I was taking snaps of my workspace that there was daylight outside and it was still only 8.15am! Two photographs for you this morning - I'm feeling generous : )

So far it's not been a very productive week but last night I started on the second of Barbara Grey's (Clarity Stamp) tutorials using this lovely Wild Poppies stamp. Needless to say, I was not happy with my first attempt so I'm ready to have another shot at it today - I've got a second piece of design paper prepared. It looked a simple enough exercise but there is more to this stamping lark than meets the eye : (

I did not have all the required materials but, as usual, I improvised! The main missing ingredients in this picture is the design paper from K & Co and Adirondack ink pad in Red Pepper so I've substituted the paper with Basic Grey Ambrosia, it's similar looking, and the Cranberry ink pad. Oh, and I had to substitute the sentiment stamp as I don't have the particular Clarity stamp for that either. I'm getting good at substituting and I think that the Sheena Douglass sentiment, Optimism is A Breath of Fresh Air, is just as appropriate.

And this is a rare glimpse of my paper stash. Most of it is stored by colour rather than make but I there are a couple of exceptions. Christmas themed papers are kept in a separate plastic 12 x 12 folder, as is fancy card, i.e. glittery, mirror, etc. There is also a Papermania folder up there with Henbury Lane Poinsettia and another holding black, white and Kraft coloured 12 x 12 card - I like to keep these basic colours together, and there is another holding just the Swiss Dot 12 x 12 card for the same reason. The rest of the boxes are filled with coloured cardstock, off-cuts and scraps, stickers and templates and masks. All very tidy and accessible.


So what else can you see? The Quality Street box, just visible on top, is empty of chocolates (sigh) but now holds fabric - fat quarters for card making. To the very right is my collection of scrapbooking and cardmaking books and below the shelf you can just see the boxes into which I have sorted the recycled bits from Christmas cards.

Now, if you have got this far and are wondering what this is all about, then I suggest you pop over the our noble leader, Julia Dunnit's blog Stampin Ground where you will discover a world of workspaces, desks, cubbie holes, and so much more of some incredibly talented crafters and, if you have not already 'dunnit' you can join in too : )

Now I'm off to take a look at what you are all doing today.

Bye for now
Elizabeth

Tiny Valentine

Good morning to you all,

Just one tiny card measuring just 3" x 3" to show you this morning.

I caught up with Kristina Kwerner's Make a Card Monday, aka starofmay, on YouTube yesterday and on an impulse made this quick and easy card loosely based on her design. Kristina's simple, clean, unfussy style is one that I have admired for some time. You can see the original card, as Kristina intended it to look, on her blog at http://www.kwernerdesign.com/blog/?p=4755

Materials used:

• Cardstock: Stampin Up Crumb Cake measuring 3" x 6" for base, off-cuts and recycled strips of card for trim
• Stamps: Alphabet letters (unknown make but wood mounted set, Ladybug Crafts It's Only Words 2, Stamps Away Useful Words
• Ink pads: Versamark pad, Versafine Crimson Red
• Docrafts Papermania embossing powder in Seafoam White
• Embellishments: Inksentials Opaque White pen, The Ribbon Girl red/white baker's twin, Quickie Glue pen; Iridescent glitter

I had to substitute everything but the white pen and the base card. The card I used for the trim came from my off-cuts and recycling stash - some red, glittery, embossed trim I had already punched out with my Martha Stewart punch and backed it with some gold embossed card recycled from a card received this Christmas. I think I captured the essence, if not the actual design - well, you work with what you've got, don't you : )

That's it for now - it's a lovely bright day here with sunshine so the beach is calling me.

See you later,
Elizabeth

Springtime in the Garden

Good Afternoon,

No new projects to show you today - I haven't been well enough to spend any time in my craftspace yesterday and today. Very frustrating as I have a 101 things I want to be doing but to cheer me up and bring a little Spring into your lives here is one of the first scrapbook pages I made featuring flowers and plants from my garden.

I particularly associate the colours blue and yellow with Spring so I chose to highlight these colours in this page but what really stands out now is the fresh, almost acid green, of the foliage at that time of the year. I think I have mentioned before that my favourite flower is the poppy but the aquilegia in the central photograph comes a very close second. It's an early flowering alpine variety  and I wait with impatient and eager anticipation to see the first bloom every year. 

The flowers and flourish were plain white die cuts which I coated with crushed velvet with  pretty blue brads added to the flowers. The title letters were printed using a standard font on my pc, glued to card before cutting out and then stuck down with dimensional foam squares. It's really a very simple page showing of the photographs from my garden.

Looking at it now I can see that I could have done a better job of distressing the edges - it does look more dobbed than distressed!!! I made this page in May last year so I can see that I have really learned a lot in a relatively short period - 9 months ago I was a complete newcomer to the crafting world.

That's my offering for today - now I'm off to take some more painkillers and hopefully I will be back fighting fit tomorrow.

Bye for now
Elizabeth

Christmas Fairy Calendar Card + Winter Bough Christmas Card

Good Evening All,

Two cards for you tonight. The first is a calendar card.

I have made this quick and easy card for the My Crafty Outlook's Christmas Challenge. The remit this week was to use either a freebie or something recycled. I chose to use four freebies for this card - all three stamps and the gorgeous purple and silver handmade paper. I don't do things by half!!

Materials used:

• Cardstock: White card for base, silver mirror card
• Paper: Woodland Folk A5 paper pack - used as a mat for fairy image
• Stamps: Christmas Fairy free from Cardmaking & Papercraft (coloured with Promarkers), Seasons Greetings freebie from Let's Get Crafting Issue 26, Happy New Year, Fiskars - a recent candy win from Sarah - both stamped in Versamark and embossed with Heat It Up silver embossing powder
• Embellishments: Anita's lilac/silver ribbon, silver snowflake trim, lilac gems
• Calendar

Close up of Christmas Fairy image

Side view of card

Back view

The back of the stamped image looks pretty because of the matting paper used.



The second card, Winter Bough,  was bit more complicated to make and is for the Snoflake's Christmas Card Challenge on Docrafts.

Materials used:

• Cardstock - white for base, black & green for matting & Claritystamp white matt-coated A6 postcard (for inking and stamping)
• Design paper - Cosmo Cricket Sweater Weather (green/white) & Ribbonbox (black/white)
• Stamp - Penny Black Winter Bough
• Ink pad - Big & Juicy Mountain Meadow & Memories dye pad in black
• Embellishments - green/gold printed ribbon, Papermania A Silent Night Epoxy brads, green/black ribbon flower from stash.

Close up of inking and stamp

Close up of ribbon greeting and flower

Holly brads

This is the same technique (fast becoming one of my favourites) used for the Naked Tree card shown in previous post, masking of an area with post-its and inking with two colours from the Big & Juicy Mountain Meadow pad. The Penny Black Winter Bough stamp

Inside decoration (back similarly decorated)

Hope you like today's efforts - they are quite different styles of cards. I've already got someone in mind for the calender card - I have to because it's for 2011 and we are already 14 days into the new year : )

That's me almost finished for this evening and then it will be back to the book that is big enough to choke an elephant - see previous post!

Bye for now,

Elizabeth