The Road Less Traveled - a swap card

Happy Monday,

A bit late I know, but I hope your Monday has been a good one.

We have had a tremendous downpour here, the rivers and streams are in spate and the road nearby was flooded for a time but it has cleared now. Other parts of Scotland have also been even more badly affected by the wet stuff, so I hope everyone in Scotland reading this has escaped the worst of the flooding.

Recently I've posted a few projects that were using up the bits and bobs left over from a swap card I'd made. Well, the card has now been received so I can reveal it here.

The challenge for the swap was to incorporate dots and/or spots and as you can see I've used an white embossed square card with lots of dots (Papermania) as the base and added two toppers - one with even more dots - some created with bubble-wrap and paint and the others with a stamp from Stampin' Up - Dot, Dot, Dot - VersaMark and silver mica powder. The paint used is Adirondack paint dauber Juniper and Pebeo Bermuda). When dry this was overstamped with pine trees in a dark green ink (Versafine Olympic Green). The embossed edging is more of my homemade 'frantage' using several colours of embossing powders (UTEE Platinum, Papermania white and silver, WOW Blueberry Regular) with a couple of shades of glitter( iridescent white and pale blue glitter) sprinkled in to the mix.

The sentiment is a Robert Frost quote that means a lot to me personally and I was delighted to find that Our Daily Bread had created a stamp of it. It has been stamped in the dark green ink and heat embossed with clear powder. I've edged the topper with some of the silver embossing powder and even sprinkled some 'frantage' style over the top.

The stamping on the inside and back uses the second generation of ink, i.e. I've inked the stamp, stamped once on copy paper and then again on to the card, not wanting it to be too pronounced.

The ribbon is American seam binding from Ribbon Carousel and the aqua rainbow drops are from Crafty Notions.

As I type, I can see the EM out in the garden replenishing the seeds in the feeders and trays. He is taking heed of Monty Don who mentioned in the last episode of Gardener's World that once you start to feed the birds you have got to keep it up. This is, as he explained, because our feathered friends expend a lot of energy simply flying to the feeders so if there's no food there it takes them a long time to recover, especially if they have to fly around looking for another source of food.

I've been to our health clinic this morning going through my annual glucose tolerance trial test. For those of you who don't know what this entails, and may be curious, this test requires that I fast from 9pm the night before, have a blood sample taken early morning then drink a glass and a half of glucose powder dissolved in water  ... yuk! I then have to sit in the waiting room for 2 hours - 2 whole hours of inactivity - using no energy at all - bored out of my skull!!! - before having another blood sample taken. All I can say, thank goodness it's over for another year :)

I'm off now to the craft space ... the Scrapbook Remix course has got me on a roll. There's an almost completed scrap page on the desk - just the title to add and then I can take a photo. I'm never going to be the fastest of scrappers but I'm certainly speeding up as a result of what I'm learning.

If you've got this far, thanks for sticking with me and getting through my ramblings.

I wish you a good evening and happy crafting,

Serenity - card using up just one snippet of 12 x 12 paper

Hi Everyone

Well, a better day here this afternoon, though it poured down earlier and yesterday was so bad it was a write-off. Hope you are enjoying better weather wherever you are.

I have a quick and easy card to share with you today - the eagle-eyed among you might have spotted it on my desk on Wednesday. It was made from bits and bobs leftover from a scrapping session.

I've used a basic white square-shaped card but rounded the bottom corners just for a change. The leftover piece of  patterned paper had  some distressed edging in an aqua shade so I emphasised the colour by  inking each edge with Peacock Feathers distress ink - love this gorgeous shade :)

The collection includes a page of stickers which has this strip of circle trim on it. A length of it has been used already on a scrap layout and the rest was perfect as a trim on this card.

The topper is also from the collection - cut from a page - and I have absolutely no idea what the characters mean ... I just hope it's something beautiful, and that I have it the right way up :))

Materials used:
Square white card; corner rounder; black cardstock for matting; leftovers from BoBunny Serenity Collection; Tim Holtz DI, Peacock Feathers; Turquoise seam binding from Ribbon Carousel; Craftwork Cards Vintage Berries red candi

I'm submitting this card to the following challenges:

Challenges 4 Everybody #6 - Anything Goes
365 Cards - Day 246 - Say It With Flair
and I can't use snippets and not pop over to Di's Snippet Challenge :)

Time for a cuppa, I think, and then I'll hunker down in the craft space for a bit of scrapping - which means there will be even more leftovers and snippets to put to good use :)

I wish you all a wonderful weekend, take care and happy crafting,

Christening Card and Box ... plus more than a few photos from the Christening

Hello Everyone,

Ah, Monday and back to reality ... I hope you all had a lovely weekend and that today is turning out too badly either.

Arihanna Macie Louise 

30 September 2012

Despite the horrible weather yesterday, the Christening made the day a wonderful one. As well as the Christening of two babies, both our Arihanna and another little boy named Alexander, it was also Harvest Thanksgiving making for an altogether lovely service. Arihanna behaved impeccably throughout - even when the minister carried her all around the church to introduce her to the entire congregation!

Here's the card, with the matching box, I made for the occasion.

The image is another LOTV cute square. I still had, tucked away in the snippets drawer, some of the card I coloured using the shaving foam technique back in January last year - click here for an explanation - and it made perfect matting for the image.

The tiny pink Marianne roses need a special mention as they were included in the goodie bag Rita surprised me with at out recent meeting. Rita, I hope your pleased at the use I found for them :)

The greeting, sentiment and little prayer inside were all computer generated.

Materials used:
Square ivory card base
Cardstock: off-cuts of two shades of smooth pink and white cardstock, the shaving foam coloured card; snippet of pink coredinations card, embossed with tulips - Creative Expressions Tulips mask 
Paper from Prima's Madeline 6x6 paper stack
Punches: Martha Stewart Butterflies edge punch; Stampin' Up oval punch
Flower cluster: China roses die-cut from pink felt with a Marianne set of dies and the tiny Marianne's roses in two shades of pink 
Pink satin ribbon from stash and the narrow pink/white stripe rose from Ribbon Carousel
Flat-backed pearls in various sizes from stash
The white card box is also from stash, bought so long ago I've, unfortunately, forgotten the source

The party afterwards was a real gathering of family and friends - well over 100 folk attended  - and Arihanna seemed to enjoy the whole event. She didn't seem to mind being picked up and hugged by all and sundry and posed prettily for loads of photos. Here's a few taken over the day.

With her adoring great-uncle, the EM

With her big cousin, my daughter Juli

With her equally adoring great-aunt 

Rhian, my great-granddaughter, totally transfixed by the balloons

I thought I'd leave you with this shot of baby Alexander's father wearing highland dress because his kilt is very special - the pleats have been beautifully set in such a way that they depict the Scottish Saltire.

If you got this far, many thanks for sticking with me and I hope you enjoyed the photos as much as we enjoyed being able to take them - more photos to scrap one day :)

Take care all and happy crafting,

Cat in the Bag - another case of recycling

Hi Everyone,

I trust you are all well and looking forward to a weekend of fun and frolics.

I've got my fingers crossed for Sunday but the weather forecast is not too promising ... shame, as it would be appropriate for the sun to shine on Arihanna's Christening day. Nevertheless, I'm sure it's going to be a lovely service ... she is sharing her day with another baby, a wee boy named Alexander. I'm itching with anticipation :))

Another quickish share for you today ... like the last few, this card was made in a crafting flurry before my last episode of non-productiveness. You could say I'm drip-feeding them to you now while I get back to full crafting mode again :))

And it's another image from the front of a birthday card which I liked enough to die-cut and use as a topper for this card ... my cat loves to nose around inside shopping bags :) 

That double bow was the very devil to tie - I had to tweak and fiddle with it for ages and even now I'm not entirely happy with the result. 

Materials used: 

Kraft card trimmed and folded to create a card measuring 8" x 5½" 

Snippets of two coordinating papers for matting and layering - the strip for the band is from  Graphic45, Le Romantique but the one used for backing is a mystery 

Snippets of cardstock, oval-shaped dies, scallop-edged decorative scissors  for matting and layering 

The recycled topper

Ribbons: a length of brown/white stitched ribbon and two lengths of orange striped ribbon, from Ribbon Carousel ... one piece for the double bow

Embellishments:  a silk tassel; four Prima flowers in various shades and sizes; one Papermania gem brad

Once again I've managed to use a bunch of snippets so I'll be trotting over to Di's Sunday Snippets #39 with this card ... I'm keen to see how the treehouse build is progressing :))

That's me for this evening, I'm off to add some journaling to a double-page layout and that will be it finished. After that, I have a box to make for the Christening card and when that's done I'm hoping to catch up with some scrap layouts that are on the to-do list. 

A recent sort through my photos highlighted just how many I have -  hundreds, maybe even thousands - and therefore how many there are to scrap ... and that was only the printed ones, there's the digital stock still to be printed out - hundreds more! I think I have to accept that even if I live to be a hundred it will not be long enough to scrap them all. I think I need a plan ... suggestions welcome :))

Wishing you all a great weekend, a good night and happy crafting, of course.

Christmas Cards For A Couple featuring Rose and Alfie

Hi Everyone,

I hope you've all had a lovely day with lots of crafting.

The painting continues so I'm still holed up in the craft space ... because of the fumes I even resorted to eating lunch up here today ... such a hardship :))

As you can see I've been busy. It's not like me to do this, but I have used all the toppers on a sheet and made five cards altogether. It all started with Hazel's challenge, CHNC Challenge # 87, to make a card for a couple. I spotted Rose and Alfie on a visit to the craft centre on Sunday and thought they would be perfect for the challenge and make a nice addition to my Christmas card drawer - after all I have a few couples to send cards to and two of the toppers, the ones with a snowman, would even be suitable to send to a child.

Here are the cards individually.

Card #1

Card #2

Card #3

Card #4

Card #5

Whilst the basic materials are all the same, the papers and embellishments are all different ... I'd find it nigh impossible to make five identical cards and take my hat of to all those of you who make hundreds of identical cards, e.g. wedding invites, etc. This is the nearest I'll ever get to that.

Materials used:
For all cards:
Card Bases: white scalloped-edged cards - the smaller ones measure 5"x5" square and the larger are 8¼"x5½"
Toppers: Kanban Rose and Alfie Christmas Toppers
Other materials:
Card #1: Kanban Snowflakes and Swirls Mirri card; gold mirri card; gold ribbon; green heart-shaped gems and green flat-backed gems; iridescent glitter
Card #2: Docrafts Papermania Noel 12"x12" paper pack; snippet of smooth white card; Spellbinders Regal embossing folder; gold peel-off edging; gold cord; gold flat-backed gems; iridescent glitter
Card #3: Docrafts Papermania Tree/Stripe Patterned Xmas Paper; red/gold printed ribbon; chipboard greeting from Papermania Noel collection; red flat-backed gems; iridescent glitter
Card #4: Kanban Bouquet Stripes Green card; gold mirri card; snippet of ivory pearlescent card; snowflake embossing folder; Spellbinders poinsettia die set; snippets of two shades of gold and green/white polka dotted card; green patterned ribbon from Ribbon Carousel; Docrafts green gem brads; green card candi; iridescent glitter
Card #5: Docrafts Papermania Noel 12"x12" paper pack; gold mirri card; polka dot embossing folder; gold and red organza ribbons; chipboard embellishments and greeting from Papermania Noel collection; gold card candi

I have managed to use quite a lot of snippets in making cards 2, 4 & 5 - most of them from my boxes of bits from test driving embossing folders and the mammoth die-cutting session I had lately ... I do like it when a plan comes together ... making them suitable for submission to Di's Snippet Challenge #35 - my third visit to the playground this week :)

That's me done for the day ... it's been a long one and I'm more than ready for my bed.

Take care wherever you are and thanks for looking.

Happy crafting,

Welcome Little One

Afternoon All,

It's been a day for pottering in the garden - still warm but hazy and not anything like as sunny as yesterday.

I've just managed to soak myself filling the watering can - some pots needed emergency treatment after the dry spell we've been enjoying and my hand slipped as I held it under the tap ... just as well it's warm outside :)

Here's a card I've been meaning to share for a while now. It's a card in a pretty colour combination of pink and Kraft made to welcome a new baby.

The whitewash Core'dinations card was embossed with polka dots - love polka dots :) - and then sanded. A border of coral scalloped edged paper was stamped with a floral border and white ink, then embossed with white embossing powder, was adhered to the bottom of the embossed card. all the edges were inked with an ink pad of a coral shade.

The little bib and the dummy (soother), from a Basic Grey stamp set, were stamped in coral on to Kraft card. The bib was then put through the Cuttlebug using a Nestabilities die. The greeting comes as two separate stamps in the set and have just been stamped together to get the flowing affect. A beautiful satin ribbon and some peachy coloured pearls finish the front.

The banner stamp used on the insert is from the same Basic Grey stamp set. These sets are tiny but they do have a lot of very useful little stamps in them.

Materials used: 

Kraft card base and snippets of Kraft cardstock for toppers

Core'dinations sandable whitewash cardstock, Cuttlebug, Papermania Mini Polka Embossing Folder and sanding block 

Snippet of Pink Paisley Spring Jubilee 6x6 stack for border, Versacolour ink pad, 80white and  Docrafts Embossing Powder Seafoam White

Stamp sets - V&A Museum Flower Border & Basic Grey sta 2323 (Welcome Little One) 

Colourbox chalk, Rose Coral

Spellbinders Nestabilities Splendid Circles

Ribbon Carousel's wide pink satin ribbon and Kanban pink pearls

Too late  it occurred to me that I should have put the bib topper on the top left corner, instead of the right, for a more balanced look ... next time I'll get it right!

I'm off to the craft space now - I have a partially completed card on the desk and several other bits of inked up card to do something with, hopefully before tea-time. 

I hope you are all having a great weekend so far and enjoying some good weather too.

Happy crafting,

True Beauty

Evening All,

Well, we are waiting impatiently for the Olympics opening ceremony. I been tuning in and out all day, listening to the ringing of the bells and some of the commentary ... what a build up!

I started to write up about this card several days ago and had to abandon it for other things but at last I've found time to post it.

I love heavily patterned paper ... I buy it, admire it, stroke it and then just put it away. Lovely though they are the patterns are difficult to use. However, on my trips around blogland I spotted someone else also trying to tackle this problem and her solution was to stamp over the paper and make a real feature of it as I have done here ... I neglected to take a note of the person concerned, so if you recognise your hand on my card, please contact me so I can give you the credit you are due.

The paper I've used is from the Prima Madeline 6"x6" paper stack, and it is gorgeous. The topper, love the sentiment, is from the same stack. The butterfly was a present from a lovely crafter, Chris ... many thanks. I've covered it with glitter glue and added tiny white pearls to decorate.

The inside.

The back.

Materials used:
Square white base card
Prima Madeline 6"x6" paper stack
Coordinations cardstock - Tim Holtz Milled Lavender
Stamps from Inkylicious: Rose Sauvage; Simply Script
Ink pads: Tim Holtz Milled Lavender; Memento Tuxedo Black
White card with punched edge trim - bought ready-made last year from ebay
Tools: Scalloped edge punch; scalloped edge round punch; straight edge round punch; tiny scallop edging scissors
Die cut butterflies from my friend, Chris
Embellishments: Wild Orchid Crafts - mauve & cream roses, white cherry blossom and black crystal sprays; Ribbon Carousel - baker's twine; tiny paper and satin roses, white and black adhesive backed pearls - all from stash.

There's been no basking in the sunshine here today ... we've had rain, lots of it and it's breezy ... so not been tempted out into the garden at all.

I'm off to a new craft shop I've only recently discovered tomorrow - it's at Cardwell's Garden Centre near Gourock. There's going to be a cardmaking demonstration from Sheila Halliwell of Docrafts and, as the EM is on the hunt for a Rowan tree, we are taking a trip up ... no doubt I might just find that one or two crafty items may slip into my basket :)

Whatever happened to my vow to use up what I had before buying new!?!? I'm still making a real effort to use up stash, but I simply cannot resist acquiring new goodies - the Prima paper used on this card is a case in point. I suppose I did well to last into the sixth month :))

Right, I'm off for a cuppa, have a good evening everyone.

Happy crafting,

Snowy Park - CHNC Challenge 82

Evening Everyone,

I trust you are all well and I guess many of you are already following the Olympics ... it would be hard to escape the TV coverage as it seems to be on any time I've switched on today.

Because my computer broke down earlier this week, I've been busy in the craft space and have completed a few quick and easy projects. First, this is the card I've made for Hazel's CHNC Challenge 82 ... she asks this week that we make a monochrome project.

I opted to use mainly various tones of one colour with white rather than the black/white option, just for a change.

I inked up the stamp with two shades of green before stamping on white card and then added iridescent glitter. Even though it looks black in the photographs, that is green mirri card that the image is matted onto. The same goes for the ribbon ... it's a lovely deep shade of green. The card really does look better in the flesh, so to speak ... the camera may not lie, but it does fail to show the truth at times :))

Materials list:
Square white card base
Cosmo Cricket DP, Sweater Weather
Cuttlebug Snowflakes embossing folder
Penny Black Snowy Park stamp
Papermania ink cubes in two shades of green
Smooth white card for stamping and embossing , green mirri card for matting, iridescent glitter and glue pen; narrow dark green satin ribbon; white card candi - all from stash

After I completed the card I was sitting staring at the inked up stamp, thinking I should clean all that green ink off, when it occurred to me that I could try a technique I've seen Sheena Douglas demoing - overstamping.

To do this, I spritzed the water over the ink and then stamped it on to white card. Once this had dried and I'd cleaned the stamp, I stamped over the image again but this time with black ink. Here's the result.

Instead of glitter, this time I've used Crystal Stickles to decorate the image. The beautiful embossed card and the die-cut leaf spray came in a fabulous RAK from my Docrafts friend, Chris Lee - many thanks Chris.

Once again, it does look much better in real life ... hopefully you can see the hint of green through the black in this close-up.

Materials list: 

Base card, backing paper, white card and green mirri for topper, stamp, green ink cubes, all as for the first card
White embossed card, Tied Together
Die-cut leaf spray
Memento Tuxedo Black ink pad;
Wide check ribbon, Ribbon Carousel
Crystal Stickles, Papermania green glitter brad and white pearls in three sizes - from stash

The backing paper used in both cards is from a piece leftover from last year, or it could even be the year before that, and the white card for the stamped images was rescued from the oblivion of the snippet drawer, making both cards perfect for submitting it to Di's Snippet Challenge - 30 :) 

There's more to share but I'll save that for tomorrow ... it's late and I should be heading up to bed and the land of nod.

I'm looking forward to watching the Olympics opening ceremony tomorrow, that's for sure. The EM, at 73, says he remembers the last Olympics staged in the UK. He was about 11 years old at the time and had to go to the local cinema to see the filmed highlights ... in black and white! He's dead chuffed to be seeing the Olympics in the UK again, and this time in full colour and high definition :)

Now, I'm really off to bed, The Boss woke me at 5.30 this morning, desperate to be let out ... it's been a long, long day.

Edited Note: Sandra over at Stamping For Pleasure has told me I can enter these cards for her July Rudolph Day challenge, and as I intended to but forgot, I'm submitting them now :)

Goodnight All,

Snowman - A Challenge Card

Hi Everyone,

Well, it's been a lovely day here in the west of Scotland, I hope it has been as nice for all of you. We made the most of it by going for a drive along the coast.

Which is why I'm so late in sharing this card.

This week, Hazel has chosen snowmen as her CHNC Challenge 80 theme ... I'm not sure that this LOTV character qualifies ... I think that it's not a snowman but a snowbear :)

Like many of you I suspect, I have plenty of 6"x6" paper stacks in my stash, which is all very well if I want to make a card of measuring that size or smaller. However, it's not so good when planning a larger card like this one which measures 7¾" x 5½".

 To overcome this wee disadvantage I added a decorative trim, made up of strips of the DP, down the left side, and I think it worked quite well, especially as all the papers coordinate beautifully even though I've chosen them from two different stacks.

I recycled the back of one of the cards we received at Christmas to make a base mat for the front of the card ... figuring that, as it isn't going to be seen when the card is completed, it doesn't matter that it's not new card I'm working with.

The sentiment is on one of the design papers, I just punched it out using an oval punch and matted it on to a scalloped oval punched from a contrasting paper. All the edges are distressed with TH's vintage photo.

The double bow ... seam binding spritzed with water and scrunched ... was added separately, using glue gel to stick it down.

Materials used:

- Smooth white card trimmed to measure 7¾" x 11" - scored and folded in half to form the card
- A piece of white card, recycled, measuring 7¾" x 5½" - this is the base mat for front of the card
- Design Papers: Memory Box's Mistletoe 6"x6" paper stack; Paper Cellar's Traditional Christmas 6"x6" paper stack
- Ink pad: Tim Holtz Distress Ink, Vintage Photo
- Lili of the Valley (LOTV) Cute Squares, Christmas Animals - Decorations
- Tools: Oval punches - scalloped and straight edged
- Embellishments (all from stash): Flowersoft, Polar White; White Iridescent Glitter; Ribbon Carousel's white bobble trim; Wild Orchid Craft's seam binding, Camel Hair, red button (Dovecraft), red pearls (Kanban) gold cord (Meiflower)

I've completed the first ATC using the inky messes I made earlier this week - scroll down to the WOYWW post to see what I'm talking about. I'll do a post sometime tomorrow to let you see how it came out.

I'll also be back tomorrow with some fabulous photos of today's outing - we did visit somewhere pretty amazing!

It's late and I'm off to bed now. In the meantime, I hope you are all well and I wish you a lovely day tomorrow.

Happy crafting,