Embossable Christmas Workshop

Thursday 22nd October - morning at the Glitterpot with Jackie Huckstepp.

Yep, 2nd day running and another workshop at the Glitterpot. This time with Jackie using Crafts Too embossing folders and another selection of designer papers, punches, dies and embellishments.  Again, I'm not sure of the DP used but guess it's not really important as long as you can find what you like.

Ingredients

Embossing folders - Crafts Too: Noel,  Christmas Greetings & Cuttlebug: Swiss Dots

Core'dinations card for embossing/distressing

Nestabilities Labels One

Punches - Selection of snowflakes, corner rounder

Gems, ribbon, stickles, brads

DP - Noel card, Echo Park.

Enjoy!!

 

Christmas Flowers Workshop.

Wednesday 21st October - with Jane Gill at the Glitterpot

Getting a bit behind with my posting. Life keeps getting in the way! This workshop was an all day one and was based around the Woodware Christmas Flower combination punch (Jane's design). We made one card and matching tag in the morning and the same in the afternoon. I'm unsure of the ingredients of these cards but a selection of designer papers, nesties, Martha Stewart punches and stamps were also used.

Ingredients (as much as I remember)

Woodware super duper Christmas flower combination

Martha Stewart punches - Modern Garland & Lattice (although any would do)

Scallop circle and plain circle nesties.

Stamps - Merry, Merry Christmas from Woodware Rocket Christmas & Penny Black Christmas Text

Papers - Basic Grey

Stickles & Liquid pearls.

Enjoy!!

A commissioned card.

Eldest son's future in-laws celebrate their Ruby Wedding Anniversary at the end of October and I was asked to make a card for them but the card had to incorporate Cyprus in one way or another as it was their favourite place. Now, I don't usually take commissions. If anyone wants one of my cards they either select from those I have already made or they take what I make them but, in this instance, I thought I'd give it a go. Wish I hadn't but ... it seems the card was a success. Well, at least it was liked by son and future daughter-in-law.

I have to thank a friend, Debs, for giving me the inspiration for the design of the card as I cased the card she sent me and hubby for our Silver Wedding last weekend.

The Cypriot flag, in a heart, was found on t'internet and I printed it off onto shrink plastic, coloured the heart (which was white), punched a couple of holes for ribbon and shrank it all down. The idea was for it to 'dangle' but it wouldn't so it got stuck on instead! Perhaps one hole with jump rings and dangled from the bow might have been better but didn't think of that until it was too late (like now - *lol*). Not sure I like the ribbon across the top either but again ... too late. Have to say, I was given enough notice as I was asked back in April if I'd make a card and finally made it on Wednesday this week. It was collected today and will be wending it's way over to Cyprus, next Wednesday, where the family will be celebrating the anniversary so, once again, all left to the last minute - ooops!

Ingredients:

Linen card for card blank, matting and layering, greeting and embossing.

Red holographic card for matting and layering

Satin ribbon from stash

Cuttlebug embossing folders, Divine Swirls and Wedding

Shrink plastic (frosted, although would have been better in white I think)

Computer generated greeting

Red gems from stash

Enjoy!!

 

Crafter's House Party - Thank you #3

The last of the selection of thank you cards. I was sooo lucky and they're all full of inspiration for me.

Enjoy!!

Crafter's House Party - Thank you #2

Here's a few more of the beautiful thank you cards I received at the end of the House Party weekend. Just as much a variety as with the shoebox cards but there's a theme running through these - *LOL*  D'yer get the idea that I like owls????

Enjoy!!

Another anniversary card.

... for mine and hubby's Silver Wedding anniversary - today! Yep, 25 years today and it's a 2nd marriage for me, 3rd for him. We must both have got it right this time but who knows what's round the corner. In the meantime this is a scheduled post as we should be away on a weekend jaunt to 'celebrate' the occasion. It's not quite what I'd envisaged as a celebration but it's better than nowt so making the most of it ... hopefully *LOL*

Here's the card I made for him. Not the best and not sure I actually like it but as I left it so late to make it, it was either go with it or go and buy one (it has been known *hehe*).  It's a mixture of stamps and peeloffs and I also stamped and decorated the insert.

Ingredients:

Mega oval nesties, scalloped & plain for matting/layering

Silver mirri board

Pearlescent card for DL card blank and layering

Woodware Wedding Anniversaries

See D's Celebration Messages stamp set (insert)

An assortment of Rubber Stamp Tapestry stamps from Love, Noel & Joy

Anita's peeloffs

Silver ink pad and various red & greens for RST stamps.

Enjoy!!

 

Crafter's House Party - Thank you #1

My shoebox card makings will resume once I've finished the ones still to show.  Not had time to do them yet but in the meantime here are a few of the thank you cards I received at the end of the House Party weekend.  The partially hidden one was from Kaz and she really excelled herself with all the cutting and foiling on the lettering etc. but it was excellent.  Not sure which shop - or car boot - she got it from but she really put herself out there to find it - *lol*!  Only joking Kaz, it was still very much appreciated :0)

The ladies were extremely generous with their thank you as they paid for both of my therapy sessions and gave me vouchers to spend at the Glitterpot. I wish they hadn't done anything as my thank you was seeing everyone enjoying themselves and it all passing off successfully but I am very grateful for what they did do. I thoroughly enjoyed my massage and reiki sessions and spending the Glitterpot vouchers. All were such hard work .... NOT!

Enjoy!!

Crafter's House Party 2010 - #5

A bit of a change. Two projects that weren't cards. One was part of the shoebox packs, the other wasn't.

Kaz's card.

Well, Kaz decided on something completely different - a wall-hanging calendar, or potential photo 'frame'.  This was made using coasters, DP, flowers, ribbons and a blag of flat-backed pearls from Trace and ... I love it!  Don't think anything else needs to be said about it really.  Picture speaks for itself.

Anne-Marie's project.

This was an extra and not part of the shoebox card collection.  Anne-Marie kindly offered to show us how to make a necklace, bracelet and earring set.  I'd never made any jewellery before and loved doing this.  So far I've resisted buying a starter kit and some beads but for how long ... who knows!  Necklace has a toggle fastening and is strung onto tigertail.  The bracelet is on special elastic and the earrings are on wire.  The beads are black seed beads and black/clear crackle beads.

Enjoy!!
 

Crafter's House Party 2010 - #4

... and some more of the shoebox cards!

Kim's card.

Another stunning card due to it's simplicity.  Kim gave us a stamped image as a focal point.  I believe it was an ArtKure stamp.  The snow was glittered where needed.  Apertures were cut using nestabilities and the aperture for the greeting was punched using the SU window punch.  Cuttlebug swiss dots embossing folder with dots sanded to distress and then all layered together using foam pads (dimensionals) to raise the apertures away from the base card and stamped image.

Susan's card.

Susan gave us a card made using the largest of the Spellbinders Mega Curved Rectangle for the card blank and a smaller one for the layering, which was coloured using a blending tool and inks.  The flowers and the Friends stamp were from the SU Vintage Vogue stamp set and the dragonfly was a Papermania punch & emboss with a few gems for some bling to its body.  The flower centres were glittered card candy from Craftwork Cards.

Enjoy!!

Christmas Cookies Workshop

Friday 8th October - afternoon session with Jane Gill.

More Hero Arts stamps but this time teamed up with shrink plastic on one card - watercolours and wobbly eyes for the other.

Ingredients:

Hero Arts Santa Owl

Hero Arts Small Snowman

White Shrinkles (shrink plastic)

Designer paper

Bazzill cardstock

Stickles

Woodware mini bells

Wobbly eyes

Assorted greeting stamps

Punches and nesties for the shrinkles shapes.

Enjoy!!
 

Christmas with Hero Arts Workshop.

Friday 8th October - morning with Jane Gill at the Glitterpot.

Hero Arts stamps and acetate. 2 very different cards using the same main stamp.

Ingredients:
Hero Arts Clings small fancy reindeer
Hero Arts Clings Hanging Trees
Acetate for aperture.
Square nestie for cutting window.
Selection of designer papers and Bazzill cardstock.
Stickles.
Nailheads
Ribbon


Enjoy!!
 

Crafter's House Party 2010 - #3

Yet another couple from the House Party weekend. You can really see now, the variety of cards that we got using the shoebox cards. idea.

Anne-Marie's card.

Anne-Marie based her card around a stamp.  Beautiful lime green backing paper adhered to an A6 card blank.  The backing paper had a pink distressed look to it and that pink was highlighted with the butterflies and trim.  A simple stamped greeting, a few crystal gems and a bit of lime green Stickles brought it all together.



Carolyn's card.

Carolyn's card was simple and elegant.  I love this one and it was so easy to put together.  A bit of DP, a bit of ribbon, some tiny candy (hand punched) and a simple stamped image and greeting, all matted and layered onto coordinating card. I added the gold gem to the top of the tree when I got home, just as a finishing touch, but I loved it without as well.  Think I'll be using this idea a lot ... for many events.

Enjoy!!
 

An Anniversary.

Today is my friend Cally's wedding anniversary. I think she told me that her and Gary had been married 17 years this year. Doesn't seem possible as I remember her 'eloping' all those years ago when she was a mere slip of a girl - *lol* She had a very quiet wedding as they went to Gretna Green to get married and it was only them and a couple of friends as witnesses. She was still mourning the death of her Mum and didn't feel right with a big 'do' so decided to keep it simple but hey ... mine was simple to and I shall be celebrating (?) my Silver Wedding next weekend. We had a few more guests than 2 as we had my sons (it was my 2nd marriage) and what family we had at the time present, so we had a grand total of 10, including us, for the wedding and wedding lunch after. I did the big white thing first time round. Which did I prefer? The second one. Far more intimate and meaningful.

Anyway, here's the card I made to give to Cally and Gary to mark their anniversary. Picture isn't too good due to poor light but the card is actually a really crisp white and the golds are more vibrant.  The quilted effect was created by scoring diagonally at half inch intervals using my ScorPal.  I'm leaning back towards smaller cards.  We made a lot of smaller cards during the House Party weekend and they were so effective .... and I'm finding it easier to come up with ideas for the smaller size.  Strange how things go around.

Ingredients:

A6 Papermania white card blank.

Papermania ribbon

Rubber Stamp Tapestry Love set

Various ink cubes from stash - reddy pink, dark & light olive green

Brilliance gold ink pad for lettering

Dark & light gold pearlescent chalks (round edge of shape)

Spellbinders Labels Ten die

SU slot punch

Small heart shaped crystal gems

Enjoy!!

 

Crafter's House Party 2010 - #2

Here's another couple of the shoebox cards made at the House Party weekend.

Jackie's card.

Jackie chose a very feminine envelope style card.  This card I took home to complete as the stamps available for the sentiment weren't my cup of tea and I knew I had just the one I wanted to use at home so, the insert was left to finish at home.  I do know that the flowers and leaves were from Fred She Said .... and the stamp is an Impression Obsession wood mounted one.

This card was flat and had no way of standing on it's own although some people managed to make it so that it opened in the standard way so that the envelope effect was the front of the card.  I've added a 'stand' to the back of this one.  Just a triangular piece of card scored in the relevant place and adhered to the back.  It flattens for putting into an envelope.

JanR's card.

Jan's card was so simple to do but how effective is this?  The backing card was scored diagonally at 1inch intervals.  The backing medallion is the Spellbinders Lotus Shapeability medallion and the tag was made from a scalloped circle.  Don't know where the image came from but it's coloured with Copics and Stickles were used to bling the snow.  Glitterati bling was used at the intesections of the scored lines but I've just noticed that one has dropped off.  May be in the polybag but otherwise I've got to find some and Mr Google hasn't been of much help in finding it.  Perhaps Jan, if you read this, you can point me in the right direction?

Enjoy!!

Crafter's House Party 2010 - #1

A couple of weekends ago .... heaven's, is it that long ago already? .... me and a group of my crafty friends met up for a long weekend at Upper Rectory Farm Cottages in Appleby Magna. The idea was that we would spend some time crafting, some time chilling outside, in whatever way, if weather allowed and then there was the pampering for those that wanted it.

This year we lengthened the stay by a night as last year we decided 3 nights was too short so a 4 night weekend with lots of crafting, and some pampering, was enjoyed by 15 of us. There should have been 16 but unfortunately one, Debs, was too ill to come. Sadly Debs was the friend who ended up in hospital, as an emergency, last year so she still hasn't been able to enjoy one of these weekends :0(   Toni and Trace were both delayed until the following day due to family commitments and emergencies but did manage to join us at different times on the Friday.

Our choice of crafting this year was a suggestion put forward by Toni. Shoebox cards!  The advantage of shoebox cards was that everybody would contribute something towards the weekend (instead of it being down to just a few) and it also meant that there wouldn't be loads of 'stuff' carted that wasn't going to be used. 

So, what's a shoebox card?  Each person (or those that want to take part) designs and makes a sample card then makes up however many individual packs, with all the items needed to make that same card. It doesn't have to be complicated and neither does each pack have to be identical in colour - as long as the original style of card can be made with what's in the pack the colour doesn't matter. What a good idea it turned out to be. Everybody participated so it meant we had 16 different - and very different - cards to make (Debs sent her packs out to everybody when we all returned home).  It was never intended for all the cards to be made over the weekend but that some would be taken home. Unfortunately the weather didn't play ball for outside activity. It was bright and sunny most of the time but it was bitterly cold and quite windy so crafting it was! I think everybody got all 15 cards made over the 3 days with some leaving bits 'to finish' at home ... including myself.

Anyways, here's a couple of the cards made and there will be more to follow. No 'ingredient' list 'cos no idea what was used in most but the ideas are brilliant!

Cally's card. 

Cally's idea was  based on a card that we made at a workshop with Melanie Heaton, from Bramwells, when we went to the Doncaster Summer Crafting event in July (still to blog about that one!).  Loved it then and love this one as well.  It's a tiny easel card, no more than 4x4" square but I think it's really effective.

Greta's card.

Greta gave us a choice.  Her card was a Squeezy card but she provided card as well so that we could either make it as intended or make it as a standard decoupage.  I did neither!  I'd never made a squeezy card before so wanted to do that element but I didn't feel it was 'firm' enough so ... I made it up as originally intended then matt and layered it onto an A6 card blank.  Note how this design was targetted to me (in fact the pack had my name on it - lol!) - she knows my fascination with owls, as do most of my friends which will become clear in a later post - *hehe*

Enjoy!!

 

Think I know ...

... why I seem to have lost the will to blog at the moment! Shit happens!

My life seems to be full of highs and lows and has been for a while. The trouble seems to be there's more lows than highs and, although I feel I should be recording everything, I just can't seem to bring myself to do so. I guess losing the will to blog, or to do anything if I'm honest, is better than losing the will to live but ...

I try to push the bad stuff to the back of my mind but it's increasingly coming to the fore and there just doesn't seem to be much I can do to stop it. Circumstances - or people - won't let it.

Had a lovely weekend away with friends last weekend, although there were the odd niggles there that took the gloss off for me. Perhaps I was being a bit over sensitive but I know I let them (the niggles) show a few times and I shouldn't have done but then why should I pretend everything is sweet if it's not! Came home with some sort of bug which has laid me low and hence not in the best frame of mind then along comes that shit that spoils everything. Seems the weekend was sandwiched by shit really so perhaps that's why I found niggles which I might not have noticed otherwise. I don't know. Don't know much about anything at the moment, just totally confused, upset, angry, disappointed and up at silly o'clock in the morning because I can't sleep for it all going round in my head. Mind you - I might be getting a few answers ... or not ... so perhaps it's not such a bad thing.

Seems the only time I blog now is when there's something that I need to write down to get it off my chest, even if it's all a bit cryptic!

Thanks for dropping by .....

I've not ...

... given up, it just seems that way!

I've been busy organising my little crafting space, decanting rubber stamps into CD and DVD cases to improve my storage (which involves putting some onto Eazimount) and then cataloguing them, along with punches, dies and folders. I've also been putting finishing touches to the organising of the House Party, which is fast approaching, and running around with Dad things ... just generally been quite busy. When I've had time that I could have blogged, I've not had the incentive to do so. I've updated Crafty Bits as I've had stuff to put on there but I've a lot to prep for this blog to be able to update it. Reckon I should put some dedicated time aside for a few weeks to get it back on track but ... do I want to?

I'm thinking that the time, or the need for 2 seperate blogs, is now past. I never intended there to be 2 in the first place but circumstances seemed to dictate the general direction that this one took - which was away from the more crafting based one I'd intended. Well, that's not strictly true. It was supposed to be a good mix of craft and personal bits. It's just the personal bits took a much higher profile from a very early stage of this blog and I made the decision to have it as my personal 'diary' and opened another for the crafty stuff. 2 now seem a bit irrelevant but ... I'm not yet at a stage where I can craft on a regular basis to give a good mix as originally intended.

I think that the dilemma I've now got is partly the reason why I've lost the incentive to update this blog but ... if I can get butt into gear and start updating perhaps, just perhaps, it might return! If I decide to close one/amalgamate the 2 - which one should I keep and which one should close? I like Ramblings. I like my header, I like the colour scheme and it was my first. I also like Crafty Bits but somehow I don't seem to have the attachment to that one that I have to Ramblings. If I could get the layout on Ramblings looking like the layout on Crafty Bits I'd have an easy decision but I can't. I've tried and it just doesn't work for some reason.

Ho-hum - more ponderings. In meantime I think it's time I went back to bed to try for some sleep. It's 05:16 in the morning and I've been up since just after 3. Yep, I'm still having the odd bad night - just not as many of them!

Thanks for dropping by .....
 

Birthday cards.

Two birthdays this week. Youngest grandson was 2 yesterday and a future step-grandson was 13 on Tuesday. Little one was easy enough to do. I'd bought a Kanban kit from QVC a few months ago. Don't normally go in for kits as I don't really relate to them as crafting. A bit of sticking and matting and layering and they're done. Doesn't do it for me unfortunately however I could see a use for this kit - Kanban Wobblers - because of the novelty value for kids of all ages. As Zac is a little monkey there was only one I could do ....

I made an acetate 'spring' to attach his head (lesson learnt from making the elephant earlier in year) and it is far more secure although it's not quite as 'wobbly'.  I curved the arms so they stood out from the body a way and curved the bow tie to give it dimension.  I then found my stash of wobbly eyes so added those over the printed eye. Trimmed the rocker so there wasn't as much 'spare' overhanging the edge, age added with peeloffs - job done!  Dont know what little Zac really thought of it 'cos he opened Great-Grandad's card, which was shop bought and had a teddy on it, and spent the next 15 minutes walking round with that repeating, like a broken record, 'oh look'!  Well, he is only 2 ... bless!

I don't really know the future step-grandson and have no idea what interests he has. When I see his Mum he's usually with his Dad so, although we do see him on occasion, it's not often. He seems a nice lad though and we have to recognise he exists so a quick phone call to eldest and it's football! Tottenham Hotspur to be exact. Just hope I got it right. Not heard to the contrary ....

Ingredients:

Textured card blank from stash

SU backing papers (offcuts from my stash),

Spellbinders Ribbon Tags Trio, Classic circles & scalloped circles for sentiment and rosette,

Pictures of strip from t'internet

Computer generated sentiments

Enjoy!!