Happy New Year & Birthday Celebrations

Happy New Year Everyone - I hope 2017 proves to be a good one for you all.

New Year's Day is always extra special for us as it is our great-granddaughter Rhian's birthday.

Today this little poppet is six years old! Time sure flies and this little one is growing up far too fast.

Have a wonderful day, Rhian.

And I hope you all have an equally wonderful day too. It's a dry, bright, sunny day here so we're off on a trip up the coast to Largs.

Take care and stay safe and have fun.

My Travel Notes - Birthday Card

Hello Everyone

I hope this finds you all well and enjoying whatever weather has been chucked at you, wherever you are. For the record it's dull and threatening rain here in Ayrshire. This has got to be the quickest post in history today - I have some packing to do! The card I'm sharing was made for my son, Alun, on his 46th birthday.

Like his sister's dream of owning a VW Campervan - see Sunday's Snippet post, Alun has his dreams and this plane is something like one of them. At the moment he flies a microlight but hopes to change it for something a bit more substantial ... his mum would be pleased with that too. Flying around in a flimsy looking machine that is powered by what sounds like a lawn mower engine doesn't fill me with confidence!

How I made it:
- I began by making the topper. The Molly Bloom image was stamped on to white watercolour paper using Stazon Jet Black Ink. Actually this was my second attempt - I really fluffed up the first by using the wrong ink pad! I then watercoloured it, using the illustration on the stamp packaging as a guide, with Spectrum Aqua markers.

- Next, I trimmed it down and matted it on to a layer of gold card and another of light turquoise - both pieces found in the snippet mountain. 

- The base, a 6" square Kraft one, was covered in a sheet taken from Papermania's All Aboard 6x6 paper pad. A band made from a scrap length of gold card and a strip trimmed from another sheet of patterned paper, edges inked with Vintage Photo distress ink, was then attached across the middle of the card.

- The words and tag were cut from another two sheets from the same paper pad, edges inked with the Vintage Photo, and adhered, sort of randomly, on the base paper. 

- The topper was then adhered to the card, slightly off-centre to allow the design on the paper to be seen.

- The final touches were to add the Dekromount die-cut word, son, coloured with one of the Aqua markers (Buttercup) already used in the colouring of the stamped image, and write 'Happy Birthday' with a Pigma Micron 03 black pen on the banner flying from the plane. 

I'm submitting this card to the following challenges:

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 190 - snippets of gold and light turquoise cardstock used.

Seize the Birthday - Anything that Flies!

Addicted to Stamps Challenge Blog - Challenge #158 - Holiday

And the reason why I'm packing ... I'm sure you're dying to know! I'm off to the Flower Show at Southport this weekend, by car not microlight!, and I'm so looking forward to it. I've got my fingers crossed that the showers forecast will skip the where we will be just for the day ... a little bit of sunshine would be good too but maybe that's asking for a bit too much :)

Of course, I wish fair weather for you wherever you are this weekend too :)

Birthday Hugs - the last snippets card of 2013

Good Morning Everyone

Just popping in with what is sure to be my last visit in 2013 to Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 105 with a little card I've made for a sweet wee girl who will be three years old on New Year's Day.

Materials used:

- White 4.75"square card base

- I used a selection of papers from Pebbles Sunny Side 6x6 paper pad. One sheet, the pink gingham, was used to cover the front surface of the card. Three sheets, one floral patterned, one pink chevron and a teal polka dot were chopped trimmed into squares, rectangles and strips and edged with a Rose Pink ProMarker. I then juggled the pieces on the front until I was happy with the arrangement before sticking them down.

- To make and colour the topper I stamped, with Memento Tuxedo Black ink on to a snippet of smooth white card, Docrafts Forever Friends Gift stamp which I coloured with ProMarkers. The bear is coloured with Satin, Oatmeal, Sandstone - he looks a tad pale in the photo but much healthier in real life :) For the present the bear is carrying I picked out colours from the patterned -Cool Aqua, Duck Egg, Rose Pink and Pastel Yellow. The whole image is outlined with Ice Grey 1. 

- Once coloured, the topper was cut out using a die from Spellbinders Labels Nine set and my trusty Cuttlebug. I then traced the die on to a snippet of smooth pink card and cut around it to create a faux Spellbinder label for matting. 

- The greeting was made in a similar way using the Sending Hugs stamp from Wild Rose Studio Love Circles but this time the stamp was cut out and the matting was punched to create a 1.5" circle.

- For the final touch to the front I chose two Teresa Collins Summer Stories enamel dots and the tiniest scrap of turquoise patterned ribbon. I've simply knotted the ribbon because I find it nigh impossible to make a bow I'm happy with when it has a pattern, as this one does, on one side only. 

- Inside is decorated with leftover strips of the paper and stamped with a birthday greeting from Hero Arts Classic Messages.

The storms have abated, albeit temporarily, and at the time of typing it's dry outside.  There's a couple of guys working on clearing our gutters ... we will now be able to stand on the front doorstep in the rain and get soaked :)

Hope it's good wherever you are too and it has been a happy Monday for you all.

Take care and stay safe.

Le Romantique 40th Birthday Card

Hello Everyone,

I hope you all had a lovely weekend, no matter what the weather/temperature was wherever you are. The first week of August is a busy one for me as there are three family birthdays to celebrate in the first 10 days - making a lot of cards to get together. First up is my daughter - 40 this year - so here's the card I made.

I've been hording this pad of Graphic45, Le Romantique paper for forever... but I couldn't think of anything more special for Juli's card.  The Kraft base card and envelope are from Papermania. The base DP I embossed with pink flourishes and then layered a strip of co-ordinating DP which has been distressed and inked with TH Spun Sugar.  The strip of pink Coredinations card was put through the embossing machine, sanded and inked with Vintage Photo. The lovely stamp from Crafty Individuals was stamped with TH Vintage Photo DI, the butterflies and flowers are painted in Spun Sugar, and matted on to pink and brown cardstock. The flowers were made with the aid of Mariane Creatables dies. The Celebrate greeting is embossed onto cream pearlescent card, edges inked and matted onto some of the pink Coredinations card. The numbers were stamped twice; first onto the pink card and embossed in pink, second, onto cardboard to provide a strong base - they were then adhered together and, so that they would pop out even more, fixed to the card with dimensional squares. Butterflies and ribbon came from stash. There is a decorated insert, embossed pink '40's and butterflies on a lot of white, but I had trouble photographing it - the camera had problems focusing on the expanse of white :( I also gave the back and the envelope (just seen in the pic) the pink butterfly treatment.

And here's my beautiful daughter looking fabulous at 40 and having a great time on Saturday. The rain didn't stay away for her barbecue party but that didn't stop everyone having a wonderful time. The barbecue was put under an awning where the men took charge of the cooking, and a great job they did too. Juli's second son, Josh the chef, made her a delicious birthday cake and his sister, Jenny, brought along a huge chocolate cake too - so there was lots of candles and blowing out to be done! We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves - it was just so lovely to be with all the family - even my baby great-granddaughter was there enjoying all the attention :)

As I said, there's three birthdays at the beginning of August so I have a couple more cards to show - I'll be posting these later.

In the meantime, I hope you have wonderful day and I wish you happy crafting,