JustAng's card

This is the card I made for the wonderful JustAng's birthday.

 I "met" JustAng through DoCrafts, she's such a great lady - always willing to help others, design banners (such as the one on my blog) & to share her fab drawings too etc. Thanks Angie

I seem to be using this image a lot recently - probably to make it seem more summery, & as it will be out of season very soon, sorry if you've seen too much of it lately.

I bought some Nellie Snellen dies the other week, so naurally enough, I had to play with them. They are lovely, & cut such a detailed frame.

Kate Knight papers

Tilda - coloured with Promarkers, glazed with Anita's 3D gloss

Ribbon & button from stash

SU Sentiment heat embossed

Small flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts & large ones from stash

Detail of Tilda, frames & flowers.

tfl, & for any comments you may wish to leave

Worry over, so normal crafting can be resumed

I was playing around with my nesties the other day (ok, I confess, I'd just bought a set of inverted scallops), & I cut some shapes out of various colours, then put them together. The colours seemed to lend themselves to me colouring in Tilda in the same bright summery colours. I then decided to keep the background fairly monochromatic, just adding a piece of silver holgram ribbon which I had wanted to use, but hadn't yet found the right project. I thought these flowers by Wild Orchid Crafts were the perfect finishing touch.

Hope you like my card, it's another of those which I have no idea how it will end up when I start it!

Here's a closer view of Tilda

tfl, & for any comments you may care to leave

Missing Updated :-)

We are getting really worried. Our beautiful 2 yr old cat Mia has gone missing.

She hates rain & always comes in at night, so I had a really bad feeling when she didn't come in with that torrential rain last night. I am hoping that she has got herself shut in somewhere. I have registered her as lost with Petlog, delivered flyers to all the houses in the roads surounding us (quite wide radius). Some local shops have put up flyers for us, & the vets too. All we can do now, is to continue to look for her & hope that she comes home very soon. Petlog said that she has not been found yet, & thankfully I have not found her on any verges. Please keep your fingers crossed. The not knowing is awful.

UPDATE

Thank you so much Margaret & Willie. I am SO SO pleased to say that Mia is now home .

So much for putting all those flyers through people's doors, even those living nearby didn't look in their properties for her ( well a few wonderful people did). 20 minutes ago, the lady who lives behind us heard Mia in her garage & rang me.

Poor little thing was petrified, her heart was going like crazy. She has had a good meal, & is now looking to go out (dislikes using a litter tray, & is probably bursting), but we are not letting her out tonight! Even the dog is pleased to see her & we are now playing ball with her, & generally making a fuss of her. Tomorrow, I shall ring Petlog, vets, Police etc.

Thank you so much for your support & encouragement.

Beach days

Well, we've enjoyed 2 days of displays at the air festival, but unfortunately the cloud base was too low today, & most of the display had to be cancelled for safety reasons. We're hoping that the weather will be kind for the last day tomorrow.

Here's a card, which reflects how the great British summer should be like in August!

Whiif of Joy stamp watercoloured with watercolour pencils, then glazed.

DoCrafts papers.

Footprints punch by Dovecraft

Backing card from stash

Here's a closer view of the image.

tfl, & for any comments you may care to leave.

Blog award received

Wow, I was stunned to receive this beautiful award from Vicky today

The only condition of receiving this lovely award is to pass it on to 7 favourite blogs. It was very hard choosing just 7, but here goes ( in no particular order!)

1. Kay (Incy)

2. Angie (justang)

3. Jennie (Jenikay)

4. Messi Jessi

5. Caroljenks

6.Jennifer

7. Aunty Sue

Where's our summer gone?

Ok, please own up if you have it - we want our summer back.

We are going to be spending a few days with guests for the Air Festival, so I shall be making picnics for 9 people most days I think! (better start baking tomorrow) But, so we are not cold & damp (& the air festival has a good display too), we need some good weather back again. Please keep anything & everything crossed.

It seems such a shame that we had such great weather when the children were at school, but now that they're on holiday it's not been that great really. 

Anyway, here is my offering for today.

Tilda watercoloured with pencils, glazed with Anita's 3D gloss

My Mind's Eye papers (& a scrap from stash)

Frames cut with Nesties.

Ribbon from Crafty Ribbons.

Flowers from Wild Orchid Crafts (coloured wtih Promarkers), & from stash.

tfl, & for any comments you may wish to leave

Wine Labels

I've seen these flower labels on bottles of Blossom Hill wine, & decided that there had to be a use for them, so I carefully peeled it off, put it on some white card & cut it out. I decided to use it on this card which I sent to a DoCrafter (hope she likes it)

Tilda coloured with watercolour pencils, then glazed with Anita's 3D gloss. Backing paper free from magazine, stripy card is DCWV. Ribbon from the Fun in the Sun range from Crafty Ribbons.

tfl & for any comments you may care to leave

Surfer Edwin experiment.

This card was inspired by, & based on a card I saw in the Magnolia magazine,

 but it took me a while to work out how to do it.

The photo below is the one I tried first. I placed Edwin on the right, then realised that he then hid the boat, so that's why I made the one above with him on the left. Personally, I think it looks more balanced with Edwin on the left.

I stamped Edwin directly onto the card front, marked where the nestability needed to go, then cut out the edge of Edwin & used the out of frame technique so that he stayed attached to the body of the card

Images coloured with watercolour pencils, Edwin was glazed with Anita's 3D gloss. Edge of aperture dabbed with ink, front of card sponged with ink.

Sentiment is Whiff of Joy. Edwin & beach scene are Magnolia stamps.

tfl & for any comments you may wish to leave.

Mosaic Tilda experiment

I was trying out a technique that I'd seen in a tutorial (can be found here), but I don't know that I am very happy with the result. Maybe it's that the image is not the right one for this technique.

I would appreciate your thoughts. Somehow (however I did it), I also got the mosaic part over at least one of Tilda's eyes too! Apologies for the photo (used my mobile - I didn't know it had a flash on it lol)

Image stamped on watercolour paper, & watercoloured. Then mosaic technique used. Papers are Bazzil & Kate Knight, both distressed so they are more in keeping with the aged effect of the mosaic. Card was inked with Distress inks, & stamped randomly using a flourish stamp.

Right, I must get to sleep now. I have a great book to finish, & after only 3 hours sleep last night I am very tired - my cat brought me another baby rat from the nest she has found in the field, but she doesn't kill her presents to me. Unfortunately, she drops them on the floor for me to appreciate! In the early hours of this morning, she put the well nourished baby rat on the floor by my bed! 2 hours later, after finally cornering it I managed to trap & kill the very unwelcome present. Suppose I should be grateful that she leaves them on the floor, not on me (urgh thought)

tfl, & for your thoughts on this card.

EuroDisney

Wow! What can I say? This was our first ever trip to Disney, and we had a fab time. The Fantillusion parade was an amzing sight to behold.

My daughter had a wonderful time, she told me that she knew the characters were people dressed up ...................except for Eeyore, he IS real!

What a bun fight to get close to Woody! Absolute bedlam, but we managed it, just before he had to return to the float.

We would love to return again. I even went on rides I would never dare do before, I was SO apprehensive while in the queue, but so glad I did afterwards.

Cats & dogs

Life has been rather hectic of late. Who said this is a holiday?

I now have a mild blister on my thumb after catching up with the enormous backload of ironing (3 1/2 hours!!!! - I had really let it slip), & I have done as many chores as possible

Mia is now feeling much better. However, I am not so impresssed that she can go out again as she seems to have found a rats nest in the field near us, & has brought me a (fortunately dead) baby rat on 3 consecutive days this week.Yuk.

Who said cats & dogs can't be friends?

This is Mia (about a year ago) with our dog Shadow (very unoriginal, but he's black & he follows me!)

Whenever she passes him, she always stops to rub round him awwwww.

Mia loves this box, & enjoyed curling up in it every evening last winter.

This is Tigger (I know, another unoriginal name). It was taken a couple of days before he died (age 4), & I can now see just how much weight he lost (very quickly) by looking at how loose his collar is.

RIP Tigger.

I won't be able to craft this week as we are having our first holiday in 4 years. We are off to visit a certain mouse (much nicer than baby rats lol) & his friends in Disneyland (another first) Paris for a few days this week, so won't be here again for a few days, but will catch up with all your fab blogs again when I return.