Thank You Card ... flower made from punched heart shapes

Evening Folks

I'm this late this evening because  I've had a busy day ... I watched Barbara Gray's demos on TV this morning, visited the family in the afternoon, and just had to watch Dancing on Ice this evening ... it's all go, isn't it :))

However, I did manage to finish off this wee card I started making yesterday. It is wee too, just 4" square and the papers are from the same pile of Papermania snippets - again!  I promise I'll move on to something different for my next project :)   The flower is made up from 9 tiny punched hearts, glued on to a circle of  card, edged with glitter glue then topped with a 3/4" punched daisy flower and a button tied with bakers' twine. The flower is a variation on the late, and sadly missed, Sarah Lawrence's designs featured in this month's Craft Stamper - so simple yet inexpensive to make.

Because it is such a small card, I've confined the decoration of the inside to a few tiny punched daisy flowers.

And there's a sweet row of little daisies on the back too.

Materials used:

- white cardstock measuring 8" x 4" folded in half to form a 4" square card.
- black cardstock measuring 4" square
- Docrafts Papermania Henbury Lane Poinsettia paper snippets
- black fine tip pen for faux stitching
- punches: 1" heart shape; 3/4" daisy
- crystal glitter glue
- buttons from Dovecraft Back to Basics Christmas selection
- red/white bakers' twine from Ribbonbox
- Crafty Stamps 'Thank You' stamp
- Inks: Memento, Tuxedo Black; Tim Holtz DI, Black Soot

I'm entering this into a couple of challenges, firstly, because it's a snippet card:

Pixie's Crafty Snippets Challenge No. 2  - Di's first week as the snippet playground inspector has been a resounding success with lots of lovely entries to keep her busy.

The second challenge is down to Di too - in her snippet post she mentioned the following challenge:

 Fat Pages With Attitude Challenge #4 - 'Anything Goes'  The Fat Pages requirement is that the card is only 4" square - perfect as my card is exactly that.

That's me for tonight. I trust you are all well and have had a lovely weekend - the kids are back to school tomorrow which should give some of you more crafting time :))

Happy Crafting,

New Year, New Look + Birthday Girl card

Afternoon Everyone,

What a day it's been - the gales have been atrocious all night and most of the day but things do seem to be calming down a bit now.  Tuesday is our rubbish collection day so the bins were out overnight ... well, the courtyard out front was a picture of devastation this morning ... bins overturned and rubbish blowing around all over the place ... what a mess! Once again the garden has been hit and we've lost a couple of garden ornaments ... those that had escaped the gales of 8th December.  However, it could have been worse judging by the news reports ... apparently the wind was at it's worst on the east coast, reaching speeds of 102 mph!! The EM, taking advantage of the lull, is about to go out with his litter-picker ... it's a horrible job but someone has to do it!!

On to better things ... here's the card I made for my little granddaughter's first birthday. Very girly and, and as you can see, in the ubiquitous pink!!! I've been waiting for an excuse to use this cute LOTV image - bought last last spring at the craft show!  It's not obvious in the photograph but I've gone round the edge of the image with glitter glue. Because the card is intended for a baby, and remembering that babies put just about everything in their mouths, I've steered clear of embellishments that could be injurious, e.g. brads, stickpins, gems.

The insert was created digitally, printed out and then stamped with this fab Penny Black stamp sourced from Handy Hippo which reads:

a teeny, tiny wish ...

         for a great big,

               wonderful birthday!

Materials used:

Cardstock: Papermania Textured Card, Deep Pink
DP & Greeting: Quite Contrary Summer Papers Pack
Digital Paper: Bearly Mine Designs, Simply Dots
Topper: LOTV Cute Squares, Babies
Stamp: Penny Black, Birthday Wishes
Ink pads: Memento, London Fog & Angel Pink
Tools: Border Punch, scalloped edge; 3/4" tiny flower
Embellishments: Organza ribbon, pink; Craft Creative glitter number; crystal glitter glue; pale green card candi; Poppy's Cabin heart-shaped doily

Breaking the habit of a lifetime, the decorations are down, packed away and back up in the attic already. Sad isn't it? But, we really didn't have many out anyway. Because the EM, still in pain and discomfort from his accident, wasn't able to reach up and hang the decs there wasn't all that much to miss ... although it was sad to see the tree stripped of it's finery. Never mind, it's only 357 days till next Christmas :))

And in keeping with the new year, new look, the blog has had a makeover. What do you think? The autumnal shades of brown, orange and olive green are my favourites and because I'm into family history and heritage scrapbooking I thought the family motif quite appropriate ... it might remind me to spend more time scrapbooking the family photographs :) Hmm, yes, I live in hope!

I'll be back later with the canvas I altered to be hung in Rhian's bedroom ... pink, of course!

Okay, time for tea ... when is it not for me :)

More Tree Decorations

Afternoon Folks

Happy to report that the weather has improved here ... the wind has died down, no snow to be seen, and the birds have come out to play again. I believe there's been a snowfall down in the Borders - hope it isn't too bad for those of you down there.

Between working on all the other stuff that has to be done at this time of the year I've managed to pop into the craft space now and again and make more tree decorations for family and friends.  Aren't they pretty? I've had a great time raiding my stash for ribbons and embellishments - and I've plundered the snippet pile too. The backs are also decorated so using up more snippets - as long as a piece was big enough to punch with either the 3" circle or the 2.5" scalloped circle punch it was suitable to use. I've even decorated a couple of them with lace and more ribbon to give a more vintage look to them.

Here's a close-up of the one with buttons. I got the idea for this one when Jules, Always With a Heart, made a card featuring a garland made up of an awful lot of buttons - you can see her card here. Jules took her inspiration from a tag featured on the Hero Arts blog -  you can see it here - and advised us never to copy someone else's work because it took so long to place all those buttons, etc. to her satisfaction. Needless to say, I took no notice of her advice because I liked the effect she achieved. However, I did simplify things by using only buttons -  all from Dovecrafts, Back To Basics Christmas pack. I love the colour mix, very festive looking and perfect to give to my little great-granddaughter - it's her first Christmas this year. I plan to make her a different one each year so that eventually she should have quite a collection to decorate the tree each year.

And talking about Jules, more snippets have been used so I think they are perfect to submit for Jules' Crafty Snippet Challenge - Wks 48 & 49

According to the news this is the busiest day for retailers in the year - so I suspect many of you have been out doing the last of the Christmas shopping today. I hope you were successful and found everything you were looking for and now that it's all over you will be able to put your feet up and take some time out.

For me, that's getting settled down to watch the final of Strictly this evening. Although, I almost had no television at all this week. Sky TV went down midweek, and we were not the only ones so the engineers are working flat out to get round everyone - the earliest they could come to us is tomorrow, Sunday - too late!!! Help! The EM to the rescue - of he went in search of an aerial for Freeview, set it up and, voila, this Cinderella will get to see the ball :))

Right, I'm off to continue with the present wrapping - typing up this post is simply my way of procrastinating :) I'm good at that - I've dusted the lounge furniture, cleaned the back door (the Boss leaves scuff marks scratching to get in), filled a bowl with potpourri, dust mopped the lounge floor, and so on. Yes, definitely and expert and putting off jobs I'm not keen on :(

Maybe I should make a cup of tea first before I get stuck in again :))

Have a wonderful weekend everyone and happy crafting (if you can find the time),

Christmas Alphabet - V for Vintage

Hi,

As promised I'm back.

This could just as easily have been C for Cuddles :) Not that Santa would be allowed to cuddle children anymore, or dandle them on his knee like the one in this old postcard is doing. This is another gorgeous sheet of Bo Bunny paper, this time depicting old Christmas postcards, and all it needs is some lace, ribbon, pearls  and a greeting and, voila, you have your card. The pretty pearl swirls were leftovers from a scrapbook layout. In fact, apart from the DP, all the other materials were from that never ending scrap pile!

The insert is just some white copy paper with a decorative edge punched out of it. The colour of the base may seem a bit odd, grey, but I think it suits the vintage colours in the DP very well.

The trimmings from the piece of DP used on the front of the card is now the trim on the back - I try not to waste a thing and I still have a mountain of snippets to get through ...sigh ... as if I didn't enjoy challenging myself to do something with them :)

Materials list:

• Cardstock: Papermania Textured Cardstock - grey (base) & green (mat)
• Design Paper: Bo Bunny 12" Noel Postcards
• Stamps: Digital Greeting from Sentiments 4 You
• Punches: Stampin' Up scalloped oval; X-Cut 4cm border punch
• Sundries: white copy paper for insert; Double-sided green/pink satin ribbon & Prima Say It Pearls Swirls from Funky Farm Scrapbook Barn; Marianne ecru vintage lace

Having used so many bits and bobs of leftovers again, I think this is another card for Jules Crafty Snippet Challenge - Week 45

I'll be back tomorrow with another couple of alphabet cards, but right now I'm off to think about the last two cards in the series, Y and Z ... not easy.

In the meantime, I bid you all a good night and happy crafting.

A4 Scrapping - Some Old Layouts

Good evening to you all,

I've been talking with a new buddy over on Docrafts - hi Jane - about scrapping, and in particular the different layout sizes there are, including A4. This does not appear to be a popular size page now but, as we get into the digital way of things, especially as there are many more CDs Roms becoming readily available, it could well become so. And, with the printers most of us own, the largest size of paper we can print is A4.

Oddly, when I first started making scrap pages, a few years ago now, I bought an A4 sized ring bound album just to practice with - I have absolutely no idea why!  I bought a magazine or two and they contained free papers, some cardstock, some ready-made scrapping embellishments and die-cuts, glue and scissors. That was about it, my total scrapping arsenal : ) Needless to say, most of my pages are simply not print worthy - well, I really hadn't a clue!!

The Cool Summer Time page above uses just one photo - a favourite taken of my daughter's two youngest having fun at the seaside. The backing paper was free, the yellow corrugated paper I used to represent sand is from a cheap pack bought at The Works and the die cuts came in a pack from my local craft shop.

This two photo layout uses yet more free paper and records the EM on his first trip to America. As you can see, he was really taken with this Boston police car. To fit the two photos in I went for portrait instead of landscape orientation. And, I made full use of some travel stickers bought from the local craft shop. I hadn't discovered the joys of Internet shopping, TV shopping channels and YouTube yet!!

This last layout is one lifted from one of the magazines. I thought it was a fun topic, very current at the time of making because it was in the national newspapers that a supermarket manager had actually banned a woman shopper from wearing them! I can see that I had purchased my first punch to make the flower, discovered buttons and discovered that my PC wasn't just for business - I could use it to print out the title letters : )

So there we are. A few of my first attempts at scrapping - well, we all have to start somewhere. I was still working full time then so had little time to craft. It was a stuttering start and it wasn't until I retired, had more time, converted my office to the craft space, had read a great deal more books and magazines, and became an avid watcher of demos on YouTube, that I moved on the 12" x 12" pages. And the rest, as they say, is history : )

Hope you enjoyed this wee trawl through my personal crafting history. If it has encouraged some of you to think that you might also like to have a bash at producing A4 layouts then I'm sure you will enjoy the challenge.

Happy crafting,

William's Baby Page

Good Evening,

A bit of a late post tonight but I've just completed the scrap layout that was lying on my work desk for yesterday morning's WOYWW post. I thought you might like to see the finished page. The page size is to fit an 8" x 8" album, and I've just discovered that it is a great size to be working with as long as it's kept relatively uncluttered. The background paper came from the Papermania Mini Scrapbook Kit - the one that was part of my prize after winning Clare's Challenge a few week's ago. The photo's are cropped scans of snaps that included me and my sister, Margaret, holding William just after he was born 22 years ago. Which is why they are a bit blurry - I'd have had better photographs taken if I'd known then that I was going to scrap them one day : )

The other baby is one from Lili of the Valley's Cute Squares - I thought it went well with the other embellishments including that gorgeous puffy satin flower that I picked up from The Works - a real bargain buy, a pack of 4 for £1. The yellow square die cut was an ebay purchase, the supplier, Ladybird Gardens Nursery. 

The stamp for the journalling is from Papermania's Tweet set. Not a lot of journalling, just the bare details.  Not everyone appreciates a lot of journalling so I'm keeping it to the minimum for this album.

I used Crafter's Companion's SWALK CD to create the title letters, just tweaked the colour till I was happy with it and then printed out onto some light card before cutting out. Love the little polka dots. The whole page is adhered to a backing of white card to strengthen it.

Materials used:

• Cardstock: Create & Craft A4 White Card, 200gsm
• Design Paper: Papermania Mini Scrapbook Kit - baby boy
• Stamps: Papermania's Tweet set, stamped up with Adirondack Earthtones, Stonewashed ink pad
• CD: Crafter's Companion's SWALK to create the title letters
• Embellishments: Lili of the Valley's Cute Squares, Babies; square yellow die cut from Ladybird Gardens Nursery; puffed lemon satin flower from The Works; the two tiny blue flowers from my stash

Next layout I'll be working on is of William in his first year, he was a really cute baby so I'm looking forward to planning that. In the meantime, I'm off to bed to read for a while and I'll leave you with the words of Scarlet O'Hara, 'tomorrow is another day.'

Happy crafting,