February Flowers - Wednesday's layout finished

Hi Everyone

Hope you are well and gearing up to enjoying the weekend.

I thought I'd let you see the layout I was working on yesterday, now that it's done.

Apologies for the glare coming off one of the sequins - it didn't matter how I tried to photograph this page, there was always a glare coming from somewhere!

The layout is based on another of Shimelle's sketches.

With one or two little differences. For example, I've added two small embellishment clusters, top left and bottom right. Otherwise, the page is as suggested in the sketch. I've only recently discovered how helpful it is to work from a sketch ... can't think why I resisted it for so long :)

Materials used:

Paper - Docrafts Papermania Vintage Notes for the base and photo matting, Crate Paper Neighbourhood Collection, Echo Park This & That Border Strips 

Stamps - American Crafts Dear Lizzy set 

Inks - Momento London Fog, ProMarker Ice Grey 5 

Alphas - BoBunny Weekend Market, Adornit Carolee's Creations Tiny Sunshine 

Embellishments - Studio 490 Wendy Vecchi pink flowers, We R Memory Keepers Aqua washi tape, Turquoise sequins from stash

The photos were taken as we strolled through the garden at Culzean Castle last Sunday. It was a bright, sunny, day - perfect for flower spotting. First, we stopped on the bridge above to look down at the garden and the most heavenly scent of honey drifted up towards us - it was from the viburnum that you see in the top shot. Then down in the garden there was clumps of snowdrops everywhere, always a sign that winter's on its way out. But the biggest surprise was the single African daisy (osteospernum)! As the name suggests this is a flower suited to warmer climes and here it is flowering through out winter - this one has to be as tough as old boots to survive a Scottish winter :)

Time I called it a day ... got a date with the dentist tomorrow. It's just for a check-up but I still have to steel myself for the experience :(

Take care folks and happy crafting,

One Moment In Time - Mini Photo Album

Hi Everyone

Happy Monday to you all - we have dry and cool weather today which is heaps better than the wall-to-wall rain that is the norm. Hope you are enjoying good weather, i.e. for the time of the year, wherever you are and, if it's not so good, as if we need an excuse, then it's perfect crafting weather :))

As you might know, if you've been following my posts, I haven't been able to do much in the way of crafting for several days but, in true Blue Peter tradition, 'here's one I made earlier' - want to know more about Blue Peter and the origin of the phrase, here's a great article published in the The Telegraph. (for non-UK readers, Blue Peter is a famous and much loved childrens' programme.)

To celebrate her birthday in September our friend, Margaret with her husband, Brian, took a coach trip to the Highlands. The pick-up and drop-off point was here in Ayr which gave us the opportunity to meet up and catch up on all our news. I made this mini album in which she could keep her favourite photos from the holiday.

I chose a colour combination of teals, creams and browns with just a touch of green, rust and amber to mirror the colours found in the lochs, hills, glens and forests they would have seen on their trip at that time of the year.

There's four pockets with reversible photo mats - space for eight photos altogether.

To make the album I raided my stash and used a 12"x12" sheet of each of the following - Fancy Pants True Papers collection, True-Blue; The ScrapCake's One Moment In time collection, If You Seize That; Papermania's Boutique Paper Pack. For the matting I chose a 12"x12" sheet of Stampin' Up cardstock, Early Espresso. The trim was punched with one of my two Martha Stewart edge punches - I forget its name. 

The embellishments consist of brown ribbon, Prima flowers, Papermania gem brads, a metal flower brad and   the amber gem flourish from cArt-Us Christmas.

I've made a number of these little albums now and they are always popular with the recipients because they can be slipped easily into a bag/purse, don't weigh a great deal and hold just enough photos to show to folks without boring them rigid :))

I'm off to the docs ... again ... you'd think after my experience on Friday that I deserved a break! This time with a rash all over - I'm itching and scratching, pretty much like a cat does when it's got fleas!!!

Take care and have a great day whatever you are doing. 

Happy crafting,

Baby Ruby's Wall Hanger

Evening Again Folks,

I know, it's not like me but I'm here again. Just trying to catch up on posting since I was absent for a few days last week.

This time I can bring you the wall hanger made for Sarah's new baby, Ruby.

It's a collage of all sorts of peachy/pinky/creamy/white embellishments on a base of pattern paper on cream card. To give the hanger stability, I've adhered it to, you're probably not going to believe this, a piece of floor tiling - the sort that comes with the adhesive already on the back.

Unfortunately I forgot to note the materials used for this project but I can tell you that the papers are from Prima's Romantique 6x6 paper stack. The image is digital and was, I think, downloaded from the Antique Images blog. I did stamp directly on to the patterned paper with a foliage stamp from the Spring Meadow stamp set from Kanban and Adirondack Peach Bellini ink pad, though it isn't all that clear in the photograph.

I used two sizes of cherry blossom punches to make the flowers - and glitter glue has been applied to the larger flowers on the front. The trims and lace, pearls, etc., are all from my stash.

The August tag is coming along nicely, maybe not quite as Timmy envisaged it but then I'm having to improvise like crazy! I have to confess that, apart from some distress ink pads and alcohol inks, I have not been too interested in acquiring TH goodies - and that's despite admiring his work - but this tag might change all that :)

All day it's been pouring with rain, or maybe I should refer to it as 'liquid sunshine' - it is summer after all :)

Right, back to the tag ... the inks should all be dry now.

Take care and happy crafting,

Winged Love ... a Valentine's Day card, of course.

Hello Fellow Bloggers,

I hope you all had a lovely weekend wherever you are and that you are all well. Apologies for being MIA, I've not been crafting recently ... pain stopped play, so rather than the crafting, I've been resting. Luckily, I did manage to complete this card on Thursday last week so thought you might like to see it now.

For my birthday last year I was treated to a Lisa Pace book entitled Delight in the Details, and it is a delight. I love the ideas in the book so much that I thought I would attempt to make something based one of the cards illustrated. Of course, I didn't have any of the materials Lisa used, that goes without saying, so I raided my stash and improvised as usual. Otherwise, the design is very much Lisa's.

The papers base card, a charcoal grey, came from my favourite pack of Papermania textured card ... there's not a lot left in this pack now and I'm going to miss it when it's completely done because it has proved to be very usable. The white/black design paper is from Papermania too but the pink is from My Mind's Eye, Deena's Penny Lane Collection which is trimmed with a scalloped punch ... the trimming is stitched over the black/white paper ... my stitching needs more practice, but, believe me, this is better than previous attempts. All the trims and embellishments are bits and pieces left over from other projects and the handwriting on the little jewellers' tag is mine! The wings are actually a die-cut sticker butterfly cut in half. The ribbons are Anna Griffin.

The insert is a modified paper from Debbi Moore's Shabby Chic CD, Paper Delights. The papers are pdf documents so I used the snapshop facility, converted it to jpeg and imported it into My Crafts Studio to re-size it and digitally punch out the heart shapes. After printing the insert out it was finished off with a scalloped trim to match the front.

The back is simply decorated with a punched heart.

All-in-all, I'm pleased with the completed project, I particularly like the combination of lace and ribbons and the way the insert looked eventually, after a fair bit of tweaking :)

Not one for Pixie's snippets, the papers and cardstock were 'new' ... new, in the sense that it was all sitting in my stash unused and uncut ... but, because of that, it certainly fits in with the principles of Fran's Use-It-Up. It's disgraceful that I've become such a paper hoarder ... I'm ashamed of myself (hanging head in shame) but some paper just seems too beautiful to use :(  However, I am now making inroads and at the same time overcoming my fear of cutting beautiful paper.

Now I'm off to lie down for a bit, after another bad night I need some shuteye ... there's no rest for the wicked :))

Hope to see you later, once I'm feeling my old self again ... hopefully for What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday, if not sooner.

In the meantime, happy crafting,

The Frozen River Ayr + A Baby Card

Hello Everyone,

Just about getting back to normal but it's proving difficult after the excitement of the past couple of days. I just had to share these photos of the River Ayr as it looked when it was frozen over Christmas and New Year.

This photograph was taken from the bridge the A77 goes over. Hundreds of people flocked to see this amazing sight. The temperatures have been as low as -10 degrees here in Ayr over December, so cold river froze. Here you can see that because of fluctuating temperatures ice had broken up further upstream at some point then floated downstream producing this rarely seen phenomenon.

The shards of ice were so packed they built up and formed ice sculptures - a wonderful sight!

Sadly the temperatures have risen and the ice disappeared overnight but it was amazing while it lasted.

Here's the card that I made for the birth of my great-granddaughter.

I tried to keep this card simple and unfussy because I really admire that style of card but I don't think I succeeded. In fact, in the end, I wasn't really very pleased with it although I did like this stamp:

It went well with the ribbon I used. The lovely DP is from the Papermania Summer Bloom pack and I used it to decorate the inside too.

Other materials used:

• Cardstock - pale pink, medium pink & white (for base)
• Stamps - from The Art of Stamping set
• Ink pad - Adirondack Cranberry
• Embellishments - pink Dovecraft Jewel Brad; chipboard (free with Cardmaking & Papercraft magazine) and ribbon from stash.

That's my news for today. I'm now working on a birthday card for my grandson so still unable to start a scrapbook layout I've been yearning to do for some time and there a couple of other projects bubbling away in my head. Hopefully, I'll be able to get to at at least one of these after the birthday card is completed.

Bye for now
Elizabeth

Z is for Zero Degrees or Zipping Through the Snow

Good morning, on this cold and frosty one, to you all,

Yippee! The last card in the Alphabet series is done. Z proved to be, by far, the most difficult letter to design a card around. However, I had to design a card for our 11 year old grandson, Alun, who loves anything to do with speed -  in particular, Formula One racing cars. I couldn't fit racing cars into the Christmas/winter theme somehow but I discovered this racing tobogganer design in the My Craft Studio CD, The Finishing Line, and the idea for this card was born - Z for Zero Degrees or even Z for Zipping Through the Snow!

Materials used: My Craft Studio, The Finishing Line CD, Design 4; white cardstock for base; Gold mirror cardstock; blue pearlescent cardstock; glitter; embellishments - snowflakes; diamante stars, peel-off gold/silver stars.

I printed off the design sheet, re-jigged the background to make an insert large enough for the A5 sized card and using the digital punch created an area for the greeting which was inserted using the text feature. Otherwise, it was simply a case of cutting out, matting, glittering and embellishing.

I thought the greeting that comes on the design sheet most appropriate for the front of the card because one of Alun's favourite words is 'cool' - everything that he approves off is 'cool'.

That's it - the series is over at last. What should have taken only 26 days took far longer for me. I've discovered that I'm a lot slower than many cardmakers, that it takes a lot of time for me to think up a design, gather all the materials together and make the project. I'm never going to be able to whizz through a project but that's okay - I'm not really in a hurry.

Nevertheless, it was a great challenge which had me trying out lots of new equipment, techniques and crafty stuff which I will be able to use in future projects and I can't wait to try other new things in the coming year.

In the meantime, a planned visit to my daughter and her family has had to be postponed due to the snow - she lives further inland and it's worse where she is - so I'm going to amuse myself with a few last minute projects. There are a couple of ideas buzzing around in my head that I'd like to try out and I think, if I have to stay at home, I should seize the day.

DH is on his laptop doing a bit of research into the dates, times and costs for a trip on the Fort William to Mallaig steam train (the Hogwarts's Express I believe). It's one of the items on our 'bucket list', which we are progressively working our way through, and this one is going to be scheduled for late Spring/early Summer.

Hope you are all keeping as warm as you can and enjoying your day.

Bye for now,
Elizabeth

G is for Gifts - and lots of Glitter + a surprise package arrived today

Back on track again now that the excitement after yesterday is over and here is the G card in the Alphabet Series.

Once again I decided to go for something different - this time an easel card, only the second one I've ever attempted :)

Goodness knows why but I decided on a aqua/turquoise/peach colour combo - not particularly Christmassy but the design paper is from the Docrafts Penelope & Percy A5 Paper Pack which is winter themed and that is snowflakes in the background.

The image is another digi from the Digi Stamp Boutique - Birthday Zoe - again, not a particularly Christmas themed image but it fitted in with my 'G for Gifts' theme.

Once again I remembered to list the Promarkers I used:

Skin: Blush, Ivory & Soft Peach
Hair: Burnt Sienna, Caramel & Vanilla
Crown: Pastel Yellow & Ruby
Dress: Soft Peach, Vanilla & the Blender
Gift Boxes: Denim Blue, Pastel Blue, PastelYellow & Ruby
Shoes: Apricot
Shading: Cool Grey 1

As you can see, she got the glitter treatment, and then some; gold, silver, red (Papermania) and blue (bought at Tesco a few years ago for the grandchildren to craft with and not the most satisfactory, the granules are too chunky.)

I didn't do much to the inside of this card - just a simple panel of that lovely spotty paper matted on to turquoise pearlescent card to decorate the back but a bit more decoration to the panel at the front. The sentiment is a stamp that came free with the October edition of Craft Stamper, stamped in Versamark then embossed with gold powder and adhered with foam dimensionals.

Other materials used: Prima Essentials Flights of Fancy flowers, e.line flat-backed pearls brads, brads and ribbon from my stash, origin unknown now.

The lovely lace trim is a Magnolia doily lace strips cut die bought online from Poppy's Cabin. Of course, the card folds flat for posting.

Before I go I have to tell you about the surprise package I received today - I've won a freebie! I make a point of shooting off postcards for any freebies that I fancy when they are offered in a magazine and then promptly forget I have done so - in this case Quick Cards Made Easy magazine, Issue 79. Hence the surprise when this complete set of Series 1 of the SWALK stamps + the disk from Crafters Companion arrived totally unannounced. I think that is the only issue I have :)

Bye for now
Elizabeth

The Poppy Tag

I took advantage of the less than brilliant weather yesterday to work in my craft room yesterday and finally finished the poppy tag I was working on - here it is:

(As usual I ask you to forgive the naff photography.)  On my last post I did about this tag I had got to the point where I had covered the cardboard tag with hand made Cosmic Shimmer card, stamped in black with a stamp that had writing design on it, leaves and ivy tendrils then embossed more leaves with silver. I then stamped the word 'Remember' in black and embossed with clear powder, then stamped the word again underneath. I then distressed around the edges with Tim Holtz ink, Black Soot. The poppy image that I had recently coloured with Aquamarkers, I distressed with TH's Weathered Wood and then edged with gold embossing.

The red and gold lace, black satin ribbon and black beads are from my local haberdashery - I think the lace might be Dovecraft. The poppies and cherry blossom are from Wild Orchid Crafts, as is the green and black crystal sprays.

The ribbon with the word 'remember' on it is from Making Memories and the oak leaves are punched out using an X-cut Botanical Embossing Punch. I've threaded a selection of matching fibres from my stash through the hole at the top.

On the back the only thing I have added are the words 'Lest we Forget' embossed in gold.

I made this tag to commemorate my two great uncles lost in World War II, one in the army the other in the navy. When I'm not crafting I am researching the family history and, sad to say, I knew nothing about either of these uncles until I started looking into the family tree in 2009. They were not talked about by the family - I can only imagine that the loss was too hard to talk about. My great-uncle Robert died in Hong Kong serving with the Royal Scots and is buried there. The other, James, was lost at sea, died in action on HMS Thistle which was torpedoed of the coast of Norway. They were both in their 30s.

The tag now has pride of place here in my craft room.

I'm putting it into the Ooh La La Creations Challenge - Remember, Remember

I made another couple of little cards yesterday but I'll show them in another post.

Bye for now
Elizabeth