Sunday Scraps - Layouts 4&5/2019 - Ailsa Craig & That's My Hat

Hello Everyone

This is a scheduled post because I'm taking a holiday from crafting for a few days. I thought, in my absence, I'd share a couple of layouts that were made earlier in the year.

This page was made using just a few scraps of leftover patterned papers on a background of plain pink cardstock. The photos are of Ailsa Craig, the tiny uninhabited island, uninhabited but for birds and seals, that lies just off our shores. It's where all the stone used in the making of curling stones is quarried. 

Another page made with leftover scraps but this time the background is patterned paper. The photo of my granddaughter after she'd pinched my rain hat was taken a few years ago. She had her 16th birthday this week and I suspect she wouldn't be seen dead in that hat now!

That's it for today but I'm planning to schedule another post for tomorrow.

Hope you've had a wonderful weekend.

Two Cards to Add to the Christmas Count

Hello Everyone ...

... and happy Saturday to you all. Just a couple more Christmas cards to share.

The topper for this one is recycled from a card received several Christmases ago. I've matted it on to several layers of cardstock and decorated it with a recycled greeting and toning enamel dots.

Sorry for how lopsided this one looks - blame the cameraman (woman)! The silver topper was embossed with a folder that was a gift with an issue of Creativity Magazine a very long time ago. The tree was decorated with gems in pinks and purples and then matted on to purple cardstock. The base card is covered in a patterned paper from a Kate Knight Christmas collection paper stack. The greeting on this card is also recycled.

Two quick and easy cards. My favourite has got to be the one with the birds because it's almost identical to the sight I can see from my windows most days in winter. When they fluff their feathers up to keep warm they just look so very cute.

Take care everyone and I hope you are enjoying the weekend so far.

Rudolph Day Cards

Morning Everyone,

It's not too late to share these cards made for this month's Rudolph Day challenge hosted by our lovely Maureen at Scraps of Life by Scrappymo!

I've upcycled a couple of cards received for Christmas 2016!

To make this one all I did was trim the topper down and edge it with silver - I drew a line using a ruler and an embossing pen, added the silver powder and heat embossed it to create the edging. The background is one of my Gelli plate prints stamped with snowflakes and embossed with the same silver powder.

This card was made in much the same way but this time I stamped snowflakes on both the trimmed topper and the background and added a few pink enamel dots for embellishment.

Supplies used:
- white card bases
- the Christmas card toppers
- the Gelli plate prints
- stamps -  from 'Santa Claus is Coming to Town' set and  Inkadinkado 94646 
- Versamark ink pad and American Crafts embossing pen
- Heat It Up embossing powder

That's it for Rudolph Day this month.

Take care everyone.

What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday - Week 525

Good Morning Everyone,

Whizzday again and it's another special WOYWW day too. One of our Deskers is having an especially important birthday today ... it ends in zero ... so Happy Birthday, Helen! Have an especially wonderful WOYWW!!!

Now, on to what's on my desk today.

Piles - and they are multiplying! There's the usual right back looking much as it ever does but the front!!! I've been busy making cards for birthdays - I have a lot of those in June - and Rudolph Day so stuff has simply accumulated as I pulled out bits and pieces to use. And, of course, it's all too much. The little tray to the left contains some tools of the trade - Versamark, stamps, embossing powder, etc.

From last week - the caddy finally finished. So pleased with it - very useful for carrying stuff to crops, etc.

Made this quick and easy book bag for my little great-grandson who turned four this week.

Look at the happy mail the postman has brought me.

Just in time for this post. Can't wait to try these out but it will have to wait. We're off on our travels again this weekend. To North Yorkshire this time - there's a steam railway the EM just has to take a trip on.

The book bit and I'm sharing two light holiday reads this week.

'The Bookshop On The Shore' by Jenny Colgan. What could be more romantic than to escape to the Scottish Highlands, where a tiny mobile bookshop parks on the edge of Loch Ness. Zoe is a single London based mother of Hari, her adorable four-year old son - perfect in every way except he doesn't speak. London is too expensive and Zoe despairing when her landlord raises her rent, takes the opportunity to take on two part-time jobs, one as the bookseller and the other as a nanny to three unruly children. It's a fun read about finding a place that feels like home..

Felicity Hayes-McCoy's 'The Library at the Edge of the World' is a feel-good novel set in Southern Ireland. Another one with books at it's heart and, again, it's about the importance of belonging - of finding a place where you belong. Hanna drives a mobile library through the Irish countryside but yearns for the life she once had in London. That was before her marriage breakdown forced her to return home to Ireland and her sharp-tongued harridan of a mother. Then the threatened closure of the library has Hanna putting up a fight and in doing so she finds the life she has been searching for.


Right, I should get off now. The EM is treating me to brunch - not lunch, I didn't have breakfast this morning so brunch it is. I'll be back later to check out your desks.

Take care everyone and I hope you enjoy the week ahead.

In A Vase On Monday - The Mellow Yellows

Hello Everyone

Somebody opened the floodgates here today and we've had torrential rain, with thunder and lightening thrown in for good measure. So you might just spot a raindrop or two on the foliage in my vase.

I asked my husband to cut a few of his climbing roses, 'Arthur Bell', happily before the heavens opened, and he very kindly obliged. It is claimed that this climber grows to fifteen feet (5m) but I think that's a miscalculation - ours is now way past that height despite hubby cutting it down, by a lot, every year.

It's a stunning golden yellow rose with a powerful scent which, if it wasn't for the height, makes it the perfect cut flower.

Tucked away and almost hidden from sight is a couple of tiny roses, rosa xanthina 'Canary Bird'. I first spotted this rose whilst on holiday on the Isle of Wight where it was being grown as a standard. I thought the single, bright yellow flowers, were delightful but it was the fern-like foliage that really caught my - very different from every other rose in my garden. Of course, I had to have one but ours is not grown as a standard, instead it is rambling along our fence and through a honeysuckle which also has yellow flowers.

For foliage, I've added lady's mantle, alchemilla mollis, and myrtle, Myrtus apiculata 'Glanleam Gold'.

As you might guess from the name, this should be a variegated shrub - gold and green variegated - but parts have reverted to just dark green. I will cut out the reverted stems eventually but, for now, I'm happy to pick it as it is to use in my arrangements.

Linking this post to Cathy's meme In A Vase On Monday on Rambling in the Garden and joining with many others who share whatever they have found to put in a vase this week. If you have filled a vase today I'm sure you would be very welcome to join in too.

Christmas Card Club - Card 13/2019 - Christmas Flowers

Evening Everyone,

Apologies for the lateness of this post - I've been totally hooked on the tennis at Queens this week and couldn't drag myself away from the two finals on today. In my defence I did do some colouring whilst parked in front of the TV for this fortnight's Christmas Card Club challenge - the theme set for us by Kate, aka Culliesocks, is Christmas Flowers.

Recently, on YouTube, I've discovered a very talented cardmaker, Ruth of Artful Stampin, and I've been especially inspired by her method of making 'one sheet wonder' cards that I hadn't seen before.

So, I had a go and these four cards are the result. This was my first attempt at Ruth's method and the result is anything but perfect but I thoroughly enjoyed the process.

Supplies used:

• 1 x sheet of Neenah Solar White smooth cardstock 
• Stamps taken from a variety of sources - the poinsettia and the greenery is from the Winter Collection by Penny Black; the sprigs of holly from Scenic Stamps Woodland Cottage set; the red berries are another Penny Black stamp, Winter Berries; the snowflakes are from Santa Claus is coming to town and the greeting is from an old, but much loved, magazine freebie which might be entitled Believe in the Magic of Christmas
• Inks - Versafine Olympia Green and Crimson Red; Archival Ink Jet Black
• Versamark and Gold embossing powder for the poinsettias and sprigs of holly
• ProMarkers - a variety of reds, greens and yellows
• 2 x sheets of dark green A4  cardstock, trimmed to create 4 card bases

That's it for CCC today but I hope you will pop over to see what my teammates have created for Kate's challenge today - you'll find a list of their names and links on my right sidebar - they are always so much more creative than me.

Take care everyone and I hope the week ahead is a good one for you.

Friday Smiles

Hello Everyone,

Happy Friday to you all. It's been another week where I haven't been much further than the supermarket so there's not a lot to share with Annie's Friday Smiles - just a few photos from the garden again.

My lovely 'Elena' rose - it's beautifully scented and if you look closely you can see a wee insect having a sniff.

Clematis 'Niobe' - I fell for this clematis many years ago on a visit to Haddon Hall in the Peak District. It's a lovely old mansion house from the middle ages with an equally lovely old walled garden that is full of beautiful clematis and roses - my idea of heaven!

Cranesbills, so called because the shape of the way the seedheads - they are beak-like that, when ripe, suddenly spring open and disperse the seed a fair old distance . This hardy geranium not only makes very good ground cover, keeps the weeds down, but is very attractive to bees.

That's it for me this week.Plenty to smile about. Hope you have had a very happy week too with much to make you smile. And if you have, do join in with Annie's Friday Smile meme over on A Stitch In Time.

Take care everyone and have a wonderful weekend. 

What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday - Week 524

Good Morning WOYWWers,

Happy Wednesday to you all.Yes, it's time to show and tell over at Julia's place, the Stamping Ground, again and I have no idea where the last week has gone - it has just whizzed by! Anyway, here's what's on my desk this morning.

There's a birthday card in the making. It's been quite a while since I did any colouring with my markers so I'm a bit rusty. The plan is to use the last bit of the Gelli plate print I've been working with these last few days. I've cleaned my desk too - a deep scrub was well overdue! 

Another project I've been working on this week is this UFO.

Another project, the designer calls it a Catch All Caddy, abandoned when the EM's health took a dive last year. I've found it a complicated pattern to follow but it's almost done, at last!

This is my latest sofa project.

Socks again. I'm using sock yarn brought back from our recent holiday in the Peak District. 

The danger of sewing is that it involves some very sharp tools.

At the same time as trimming fabric, I managed to trim my thumb too. 

I thought you might like to see another photo of the black elder growing just outside my window. 

It's stunning. In fact, I've never seen it look so good. It's just too distracting - the birds and the bees love it too. 

And finally, the book bit is back.

Not to be confused with the film of the same name, 'The Bumblebee Flies Anyway' by Kate Bradbury is a  lovely memoir of the author's experience of transforming a neglected backyard in Brighton into a beautiful wildlife garden. However, all the time she was clearing, digging and planting with wildlife friendly plants she was aware that her neighbours were doing quite the opposite by decking and paving over their gardens. I really enjoyed this book and now feel justified for leaving the weeds in my garden be. 

Thanks for dropping in, take care and have a wonderful WOYWW day.

Mixed Media Backgrounds - Part 2 - Bluebell Card

Morning Everyone,

I can't believe that it's taken me this long to follow up on Part 1 of my experiments with mixed media. I simply forgot! Indeed, I've made a couple of projects with those backgrounds since then - see here, here and here. So, I think it's time I got caught up by sharing how I made this card for the UKPC May Swap. 

The background is a piece from a Gelli plate print which was made using the plate.

This one is quite old now and though it is no longer pristine looking it's still in very good condition and fit for purpose.

Other items I used are a brayer, for smoothing the paint over the plate, and a variety of little tools, plastic cutlery, an old comb, bottle top and a Vicki Boutin art wedge, that I use for marking out patterns on the surface of the paint.

To make this particular print I began by putting dots of of acrylic paint - a mix of pastel shades, Maggie Holmes mint and blue,  Wilko white and Heidi Swapp's Hot Pink metallic texture paste - randomly on the plate, then smoothed it over with the brayer before using the art wedge, etc., to create surface pattern. Then, very quickly before the paint dried, the print was lifted off the plate.

 To make the card I used the following:

A piece of the Gelli plate print, cardstock in two shades of blue, the bluebell mask from That Special Touch Masks and the word 'Imagine', stamped in black, from Sarntangles stamp set.

With a stencil brush and a variety of inks, in shades of blues, greens and pink, the floral image was created over the background. Then, to add a bit of sparkle, Stickles,  pink, blue and rock candy, and blue Nuvo crystal drops was added to the bluebells and the butterfly.

To finish the card the topper was simply matted and layered on to the two shades of blue cardstock then adhered to the front of a white card base.

I can't think why I'd forgotten how much fun it is to make your own backgrounds, especially with the Gelli plate and paints. Messy but great fun. It's just another of the many tools that I've tucked away in an effort to keep this room tidy. Trouble is, to be tucked away is to be forgotten. And there's a lot forgotten in this craft space. Wonder what I'll unearth next.

Take care and have a wonderful day.

In A Vase On Monday - Wildflowers

Hello Everyone,

Happy Monday to you all. Wandering round the garden deciding what to cut and bring indoors is becoming much more difficult. Wherever I looked today there were so many roses and clematis in bloom I felt spoiled for choice. So being a contrary Mary, and because of their fleeting beauty, I picked a bunch of wildflowers - a complete contrast to last week's vase.

Can they still be called wildflowers when they are all grown in a garden. The red campion (Silene dioica), and oxeye daisies (Leucanthemum vulgare), come from the tiny wildflower patch and the lupins 'Gallery Blue', foxgloves (Digitalis purpurea) and cranesbill (Geranium × cantabrigiense 'Biokovo') are growing here and there in the borders. The whippy tendrils are from the Golden Hop (Humulus Lupulus 'Aureus').

Red campion and a cream coloured foxglove.

Oxeye daisy 

Lupin 'Gallery Blue' and Cranesbill

Pink foxglove

As I do quite often, I put the vase on the brick wall before taking the photos. I find the light is better there. It didn't take long for this bee to discover the flowers ...

 ... well, he wasn't to know they weren't growing there.

Linking this post to Cathy's meme In A Vase On Monday on Rambling in the Garden and joining with many others who share whatever they have found to put in a vase this week. If you have filled a vase today I'm sure you would be very welcome to join in too.