Friday, 25 May 2012

Round-Up of Queries and Book Giveaway Winner

Good Evening Everyone.

It was 88°F/31°C in our back garden this afternoon - for me that's melting point.  I hope you are all enduring enjoying equally hot weather wherever you are.

Of course, it's too nice to be indoors for too long ... got to soak up those vitamin D enriched rays whilst we can ... I just hope it lasts through to the end of our upcoming holiday. All this heat does mean one thing for sure, there's not a lot going on in the craft space, so I thought I'd do something different today.

I've had a few comments recently that have included a query on something I've posted. Usually I try to answer any questions directly to the person concerned, but today I thought I'd round up a few here instead, working on the principle that if it interests one person it may well interest others too.

So, in no particular order, here we go:

Q1.  Concerns these poppies that appeared on a Country Diary card on 6th May.


Mrs A of It's an Alien Life, asked, "Did you make the poppies yourself?

Sadly, no. I don't think I could - they are so beautiful! They were left over from a Remembrance Day project made last year and were purchased from Wild Orchid Crafts - you can find them here.

Q2. came from Kay, 505whimsygirl when she saw this collage of flowers, using snaps of flowers and plants that are blooming in my garden at the moment.


Kay's question is, "Is that a columbine that I see? If so, that is the Colorado state flower."

Well, as you can see from the above photos, Kay, you definitely saw columbines in the collage, two different varieties. The blue and white one is an Alpine variety, Aquilegia flabellata Ministar, so it doesn't grow more than about 6" in height, and the other is Lime Frost - a gorgeous tall purple flowering plant with striking lime green leaves - a real favourite.

Q3 was not so much a question as an observation and request made by Mrs A on seeing the tent card below:


Here's what Mrs A said, "Every time I make a tent card shape it slips down! Must be doing something wrong. Any tips?

Now, I don't really have any tips beyond always using a good weight of cardstock for the base and using a bone folder on the crease but Sandra H, Nanagramps Craft Design, had a very helpful suggestion:

"a little tip, bend both ends about 1/4" ... is effective."

That rounds off the queries for now.

Now to the book giveaway. You may remember that I wanted to pass on my copy of Sweethaven Summer by Courtney Walsh in a recent post.


There were four folk interested and in time honoured tradition I put each name on a strip of paper, screwed it up before dropping it into one of my favourite cream jugs, empty of course, then asked the EM if he would kindly do the honours - here's the draw in photo form:






And the name out of the jug is:

Asia King (aka Joanna K), Under a Creative Spell.

Joanna, please contact me by email - ellie.worthington@sky.com - with a note of your snail mail details, and I'll be delighted to post the book to you as soon as possible. Happy reading :)

Joanna said that, once she has read the book, she will be happy to pass it on to anyone who is interested ... I can see this being a book that does the rounds of blogland before it ends up in a charity shop :))

I wonder how many of you have been watching the coverage of the Chelsea Flower Show. I've been to a few flower shows over the years but never to Chelsea, much as I would have loved to - came close to it one year, but for a reason that now escapes me had to give it a miss, sigh.

However, I've thoroughly enjoyed watching  the BBC coverage ... so many beautiful gardens this year and plenty of gold medal winners. The 1950s style The Caravan Club garden, Celebration of Caravanning; the Muum, Korean Air, The Dowager Viscountess Rothermere, gardenlink, Quiet Time: DMZ Forbidden Garden; and Chris Beardshaw's, Furzey Gardens are among my favourites.

Okay, that's me done for this evening. I think it's cool enough to wander through to the craft space and maybe create a little something :)

Happy crafting,





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Wednesday, 23 May 2012

WOYWW 155 - late again ...

... due to there being the right kind of sun :)

Hello WOYWWErs, Followers and Everyone Else,

Yes, the sun is blazing down here in Ayrshire and I am so tempted away from the craft space ... so much so, you will see that there's not much to show on my desk this morning. Want to join in with the weekly desk reveal, all you have to do is hop over to Julia's place, the Stamping Ground, and feel free to go on a grand snoop around the other workdesks, I use this term loosely because it could just as easily be the workfloor, of a fair few crafters from around the world.


This is the right side of my desk. There's a WIP deliberately concealed under the pile of pretty paper, ribbons, gems and paper flowers - to be revealed at a later date ... I can be such a tease :)  The container of ribbon and trim bits and pieces is out for a reason ... I have an idea, bubbling away in the old grey matter, of how I could use these up in a few projects. I've been doing a bit of scoring which is why the Hougie board is still out on the desk. Not much really to show so here's a shot of the left side of the desk.


This seems to have evolved into the tool side of the desk with a few punches looking like ducks in a row. It's just so handy to have them there that I rarely get round to putting them away. And then there is the usual arsenal - the dish of scissors, the box of adhesives, my selection of rulers, the glass dish I keep the current wet wipe in plus other odds and ends - a role of labels, pencil and pen, a plastic container with my 'handmade for you' labels ready to stick on the back of cards and a couple of stray bits of leftover card. I didn't notice the post office receipt until after I downloaded the snap - too late to remove it and take another, methinks :)

Now, I did mention the sun, didn't I? Well, yesterday it was so hot that the EM decided we should just take off and drive down the coast. We ended up in Portpatrick, down in Galloway - it was beautiful. We enjoyed a picnic lunch just sitting looking out to sea and then wandered around the harbour. There's this wee bric-a-brac shop there that we always have a browse round. It's had a bit of a face-lift recently.


Isn't it cute. I love the sheep 'drinking' at the trough :) They had a huge range of vintage posters for sale ... all lined up against the wall. For anyone who is or ever has been the parent of teenager(s), or for anyone who is parent to an apprentice teenager, I thought I'd leave you with a close-up of this one poster which gave me reason to chuckle.


Julia has asked us to keep our posts brief, so I do apologise for the length of this one but just had to let you see these snaps.

I'm off now to have my lunch out in the garden ... well, I did say it was sunny, didn't I? ... but I will be back in an hour or so to begin hopping around Julia's list and pop into to see as many of you as I can.

In the meantime, I wish you all, including my newest followers, a very happy WOYWW.

See you later and happy crafting,






Monday, 21 May 2012

The Pink Panther says MiaoW! - Handy Hippo Monday

Morning Everyone,

A tad late but happy Handy Hippo Monday to you all - I have been having a terrible time with blogger this morning. Trying to put this post together has been a nightmare ... for some reason the edit bar keeps disappearing! So if there are any spelling mistakes, please do forgive ... I can't find the spell check button!?!?

This week's share features another fabulous Penny Black Stickeroo.


It's a fun card, the base of which is a pretty striped cardstock from Nitwits and a polka dots cardstock, again from Nitwits, provides the base to the topper together with the delightful and cheery pink cat. Coordinating stickers from Penny Black’s Whiskers and Tails Stickeroos have been used to embellish the card . A floral paper from Wild Rose Studio’s Spring Fling paper pack has been used for matting, instead of the more usual cardstock, and also for the small heart embellishment.

As usual materials used for this project are available from Handy Hippo and if you would like to make the same project then simply click on the magic button below and it will take you directly to a shopping cart that contains everything you would need to make it. Once there, you can simply and easily remove any of the items that you already have in your craft stash. 


It’s easy to add to your basket any other purchase that you might like and if something is temporarily out of stock you can request to be emailed once it is back in stock.

This card couldn't be simpler to make - here's how:

  • Card base made from the striped card trimmed to measure 11" x 5½" and folded to create a 5½" square
  • Edge punch a strip of the green polka-dot card 5½" x 2" to give a scalloped edge
  • Edge punch a strip of white card 5½" x 1½" to create a lacy heart finish
  • Adhere the white strip to the top of the green strip and then wrap a length of ribbon along the top edge, adhering it securely to the back. 
  • Adhere the resulting decorative band to the card approximately 2½" from the bottom. 
  • Trim the pink polka-dot card to 4" x 3¼" and the DP to measure approximately 1/8" wider all round.  Round the corners of both pieces with a corner punch and mat the two together.
  • Adhere the cat Stickeroo to the centre of the pink polka dot piece, adding the 'MiaoW!' sticker to the top left corner. 
  • Using silicone gel to create dimension, adhere the topper to the front of the card - placing it over to the left as seen in the photograph.
  • Finally, add the finishing touches - use a small length of the ribbon to create a faux bow; adhere a pink button to the bottom left of the topper; mat a Stickeroo heart shape to small piece of the DP, trim round it and adhere, with silicone gel to create dimension, to the bottom right corner of the card; punch five small hearts from the DP and adhere one to the top left corner and the other four to the inside of the card, as see here in the photo:







And that is my Handy Hippo project again for another week. Hope you like it and will be tempted to take a look at the Penny Black Stickeroos that are in stock - they are proving to be a very useful part of my crafting arsenal, especially when I want to make something quick and easy.


I'm now off to grab me a cuppa and go sit in my little garden for five minutes - it's not as sunny as yesterday but it is still lovely out there. 


I wish you all a wonderful day and hope that you find plenty of crafting time.


Happy Crafting,