Long time no see

Surprise!

First of all, sincere apologies for my absence. 2012 was a very mixed year for me. My mojo went awol & it's been very hard for me to be creative. Last summer, I celebrated a milestone birthday, which was brilliant - I had a fantastic time partying with family & friends. I'd also put my foot down & insisted on a holiday (since we hadn't had a holiday in 7 years - so we did something I've wanted to do for many,  many years and went on a Kenyan safari. My youngest two came with me while my eldest opted to house/dog/cat sit. We had an absolutely amazing time, and I would so love to go again - though Tanzania inc Ngorongoro crater would be my choice next time.

Then it all went downhill

Ten days after coming home, I became ill. It started with the worst sore throat I've ever had, then proper flu-like symptoms, temperature, a constant, severe, dry cough, severe breathlessness, severe nightsweats - the works. I was tested for Malaria ( thankfully negative), after a week I was given antibiotics as I'd developed a chest infection. My heart rate was very fast, with chest pains, & I ended up in hospital for a day. No one seemed to know what was wrong with me. I've still got extreme fatigue, muscle pains, headaches, and intermittent blurred vision (making cards is hard when my eyesight is bad - & it's making me low), plus I've had episodes of dropping things, and one day wasn't able to hold a pen. 

I haven't been well enough to work since September, and I've had enough of feeling ill. I've been referred to the neurologists at the hospital, but the first available appointment isn't until April - I hope they know what's wrong with me. For now, I have to rest (don't I know it if I do too much, even meeting friends for coffee tires me out), that means no reading, sudoku, tv etc, I can listen to music, and watch the world go by, surprisingly (because I don't feel great), I'm not bored. When I'm feeling better, I hope to get back into blogging & blog hopping For now, I'm not able to spend much time on the pc, so I do what I have to, but not much else :-(

Anyway, it is my neighbour's 50th today, he's a retained firefighter - & loves to play cricket, so this is what I came up with for him.

I thought this great Kenny K image would be the ideal one for him, I found some paper in my stash with what would pass for cricket balls, so made a border out of them. I inked up a gears embossing folder & embossed some cardstock, then used distress inks to add more depth, finishing with swiping a black soot distress pad over the raised areas of the cogs, and inking up the edge of the image.

The image was coloured with Flexmarkers, & I used a silver Promarker for the reflective parts of the uniform. The raised "cog" is actually punched using a SU flower punch, then inked & triple embossed - I pierced a hole in it prior to embossing it so that I could use the brad to attach it.

Sentiments were punched out using SU punches

Tfl, and for any comments you may wish to leave.

Did I succeed in the challenge I was set?

Last night I was asked if I could make a nappy cake. I've made a few of these, but then I was told that the person wanted the nappy cake made to resemble a pram! Well, my first port of call was Google, then I watched a video on You Tube (where would we be without modern technology these days)

This was my first attempt at a pram shaped nappy cake. I'm not terribly happy with the corners, there are safety pins securing the blanket, but I don't want to risk damaging the blanket by securing it more tightly either. 

There is a sock either side of the rabbit, tucked under the arms.

I hope the lady who asked for it likes what I've made - if not, I must hope that it sells at the Christmas fayre I'm hoping to have a table at

Tfl, & for any comments you may care to leave

Purple & Silver wedding

I recently made a card which a colleague saw & then asked me to make her a similar one

First Edition designer paper, silver & purple mirri card. Embossing folders used for lower half of card & on 1 heart. Ribbon from Crafty Ribbons, EK success punch (from Craft Obsessions) used on spine area 

Detail of hearts. Promarker used to colour pearls. Ribbon (cut from clothes) coloured with Promarker. 

(Apologies for reflection of my hand)

Most flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts, stems twisted around a cocktail stick

Tfl, & for any comments you may care to leave

Old Time Dance

I've been doing a spot of scrapbooking recently, and have finally uploaded some of the photos from my camera. I don't have many photos of my family, but my uncle kindly gave me a couple which I copied in order to scrap them. 

This page is of my Grandma & Grandpa who were Old Time Dance champions. They were renowned for their skill and taught many pupils in Wiltshire and the surrounding area.

The layout I followed had a vintage theme which fitted perfectly with the age of this photo. All papers and embellishments used are by Stampin' Up. I also made a small pocket to put some hidden journalling in. 

The seam binding ribbons were made using a fab tutorial by Jo Dumbleton, her video tutorial can be found on this page

Tfl, & for any comments you may care to leave. Until next time..........

It's been a long time

Sorry for my prolonged absence, I have been lacking inspiration on a grand scale, so gave myself a break in the hope that I would be inspired again soon. Work is getting in the way when I do have an idea, & by the time I get home, I'm often too exhausted to do anything much. I'm hoping to get back to blogging on a more regular basis again now though. 

I'm starting to upload the cards I have made over the last few months, nothing fancy, it's been more of a case of "I have to make a card - oh help, what can I do?" lol

I made this card for a very talented cardmaker's 21st, you can find Natalie's inspirational blog here

Gorgeous papers by Bo Bunny (I do love Bo Bunny papers) & I chose these specifically for the door & the keys on them.Strip of musical notes paper from stash, coloured with Distress Inks. Kenny K image coloured with Promarkers. Mat cut with nesties, stamped image cut out with nesties, using "out of the frame" technique, a tutorial can be found here.

Flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts 

Ribbon was given to me by a friend (shoulder ribbon from some clothes she'd bought)

The key is from a necklace I bought in a shop which had a number of keys in it, & I confess they were the only reason I bought the necklace lol.

Must go now as I have to make a card for my nephew - his birthday is tomorrow! (oops)

Tfl, & for any comments you may care to leave

Pearl anniversary

I wanted to make an anniversary card for a friend & her husband who are celebrating their pearl anniversary. Sandra loves to use pearls on her creations, so that was another reason why they were an essential element in this card.

Papers are Basic Grey, with a wooden heart & ticket was made from a stamp & die set by die-namics (you can find the set here). Papermania pearls

Image is by Lily of the Valley, coloured with Promarkers.

Tfl, & for any comments you may care to leave

Field of wheat

Whilst surfing the net the other day, I came across a You Tube tutorial which inspired me to make this card. I made the card several days after watching the tutorial, so didn't follow the tutorial faithfully, but instead used it as a source of inspiration

Items used for the card:

Coated cardstock. Hero Arts stamp Silhouette Grass 55316

Stampin Up inks in: So Saffron, More Mustard, Riding Hood Red, Close to Cocoa, and Chocolate Chip. Versafine black ink, White gel pen for highlights on the wheat. Black gel pen for birds.

Ribbon donated to me by a friend (cut from her clothes lol)

Closer detail of the card

This will be for my sister's birthday 

(I'm fairly confident she won't see this before her birthday as she is so busy lol)

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

Shades of blue

Unfortunately I've caught a stomach bug. I can't believe it, especially so soon after returning to work. I didn't want to take any time off sick, even more so as we're so short staffed at work, but I couldn't go in and pass it onto anyone else, besides which, I still can't face the thought of food. Hence why I am utilising this time and thought I could post another card I have made over the summer.

I made this as a friendship card for the lovely Kerry, whose blog can be found here

As usually happens with me, the finished card turned out very differently from the one I had planned. It was going to be a fairly simple card in shades of blue, but turned out as a generous & varied selection of blue elements as I found so many things I wanted to incorporate into the card!

I took my inspiration from the lovely Papermania Capsule collection papers, and used SU ink (think I used Not Quite Navy), stamps by Stampin' Up and PaperArtsy, & Papermania brads. SU punch used for scalloped edge on paper & for label tag that the bird is on.

Close up of some of the detail. The flowers were handcut - after making the card, I managed to buy the punch which will simplify things in the future. 

Detail from a different angle, I really like the PaperArtsy hinge & sentiment stamps I used here.

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

Advent box project

I do apologise for my long absence in blogging. I had completely lost all my inspiration in crafting and blogging, so I took a complete break. Inspiration is still lacking, but I have started to make a few things again now. This is a project I started when I met up with a group of crafting friends in Bristol (we have such a lot of fun and laughter when we get together)

I know it's a little early for Christmas, but I'm pleased I made it, and so glad it is now finished.  

I wasn't sure how I wanted to decorate it, then I found these nostalgic papers (which I'd pondered on how to use for several years now) 

The handles are different from how I had first imagined them as I was going to use eyelets & tie the ribbon behind them, but the fact I didn't have quite enough eyelets turned out to be a good thing as I quite like the way the brads look like rivets 

I think my youngest likes the idea of her advent box - but I bet she'll like it even more when the boxes are filled and she can empty them each day!lol 

Thank you for looking, and for any comments you may care to leave

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside

Hope all is well with you all. Life has been dealing me a series of events recently. I have been so tired as a result, and have struggled to have any creative sessions, the ideas just don't seem to be flowing at the moment. Ho hum, things will get better soon (I hope!) I hope that "what goes around, comes around" happens, and the sooner the better. I know things happen for a reason, just I can't see the reason at the moment.

My youngest daughter (like me) is fascinated by beach huts, & would like to spend some time using one - we have now been lucky enough to have agreed a weeks rent of one in the summer, so I hope the weather will be good that week. It made sense for me to make my daughter's birthday card in the same vein, I used this lovely Little Claire's room with a view stamp The border was cut using a X Cut die.

Here's the detail of the lady in the beach hut.

Images coloured with Promarkers

The sentiment stamp which is part of the set.

MS punch around the page punches used on the mats.

I'm off to do a bit of blog hopping before my eyes shut

Tfl, & for any comments you may care to leave

21st. Celebrations, cake, jiving - and a card

Wow! What a fantastic time we had at my eldset's 21st party (I finally got to bed at 3.30am!). We were so lucky that family and friends (some of whom we hadn't seen for many years due to house moves) joined us for the evening, some of them travelled long distances and booked into local accommodaion for the party. My daughter was upset that several friends decided not to come on the night, and went to another party instead, but the people who matter were there, and I think she learnt a few things about some of her so called "friends", it's a hard lesson to learn though.

One of my work colleagues made the cake, she has met my daughter a few times, & I told her that my daughter likes red, her Ka, her bed(!) & has lots of cushions on her bed. Her hair was blond - until she dyed it the other week. It took me a few minutes to realise how busty (like my daughter) my friend had made the figure lol.

My daughter has recently taken up mojive, & really enjoys it, here she is dancing the night away with one of her friends that she dances with, they had us captivated with their dancing. My sister gave her some new dance shoes on the night, which she was thrilled with, put them on straight away and started dancing :-) How fortunate too that she chose to wear her red dress on the night too.

Finally, here is the card I made for my youngest to give to her sister for her birthday. I found this beautiful black diamante ribbon a short while ago. It was quite big, so the only way to get it to fit onto the card was to use it from corner to corner of the card. I used a square of black card & applied small gems to it to make the 21, then glazed it with Anita's 3D glue to ensure the gems stayed in place. Tatty Ted stamp coloured with Promarkers, matted onto black card, gems applied to corners. Papermania monochrome paper, flowers & brads to secure flowers. 

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

Eldest's 21st, how time flies!

Where do the years go? Today is my eldest's 21st. It doesn't seem two minutes since I first held her in my arms. Photos capture such special memories, so here are a couple of photos of her when she was little. I made the smocked dress for her 1st birthday, I'd never done any dressmaking before, and taught myself how to do it from a book, I now realise that smocking as a first attempt was quite a challenge - I loved that dress. My daughter has been teased lots of times over the years over the pouting photo - I realise now she was practising the "look"! 

              Now look at the beautiful young woman she has become (here with my youngest, last month)

Onto the card I made her. Kenny K stamp, heat embossed, coloured with Promarkers. Matted with card stock, backing papers are Basic Grey (think Boxer), edged with gold leafing pen - also used for the numerals. Red is her favourite colour, hence why I chose these colours.

I was really quite pleased with how I had achieved the shading on the characters face, so have put it here in a close up too. My daughter loves her ipod, so I thought this was a very appropriate image to use for her card.

Well, I'm off to see what my daughter would like to do today, and will return to do some bloghopping later on. Have fun everyone.

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

Beach huts

Sorry I haven't been around for a while. As some of you know,things have been somewhat difficult for me of late, and I have also been feeling quite unwell. However, I have nearly finished a fairly hefty dose of two different antibiotics, so hope to be painfree soon.

Right, onto this card.

I bought a delightful set of Little Claires polymer stamps when I went to Alexandra Palace in April, I adore spending time at the beach, so this set called out to me to buy it. For this card I repeat stamped the image three times.

Images & background coloured with Promarkers.

I folded the A4 card at various places with mountains and valley folds  (can't for the life of me think what the measurements were now) so that the card would stand on it's short side with the images adhered to the front section to give a 3D effect to the scene.

I stamped the interior of the beach hut seperately and stuck it behind the centre beach hut, after cutting open the doors of the beach hut & folding them back, to give the view of the interior of the beach hut.

Here's the interior of the beach hut.

This card went to a lovely lady, Sandra (aka Annette from DC) for her birthday

Tfl, and for any coments you may care to leave

Splash

I have been scrapping some old photos of a holiday to Gran Canaria

All of my children loved spending time in the pool, this is my youngest, she was having such fun, repeatedly jumping off the same spot into the pool. I combined three pictures to make it seem as if it was a single sequence of one jump. Very simple layout, so the emphasis is on the photos. Backing paper is Stamping Up. Flowers from a stem of artificial flowers, coloured with a Promarker. Chipboard letters edged with a Promarker, and the same cardstock used on them as I used as mats for the photos. Water droplets cut freehand with scissors

tfl, & for any comments you may care to leave

Fairy Dreams

I made this for the lovely Angiebabe's birthday (from DC forum)

Angie loves heavily embellished cards, &  I struggle to embelish my cards like the gorgeous cards she makes, so decided not to atempt what she does, but I did try to work outside of my own comfort zone, using one of the fab new stamps I got when I went to Ally Pally the other week.

Linda Ravenscroft stamp (Pisces, from Creative Expressions), heat embossed & coloured with Promarkers. Anita's 3D gloss & glamour dust to wings. MS punch around the page used for mats. Charms from Mei Flower. Lace from stash Dovecraft papers.

Here's the whole card.

Tfl, & for any comments you may care to leave

Retirement card #3

Well, I've been weeding my front garden for 2 1/2 hours, finally finished & decided it was time for some "me time" now. I'd like to get some of the back garden weeded out this week too, but will have to see how my back holds out.

I thought I had already posted this card which I made for a colleague's retiremment, but realised I hadn't.

My colleague loves to travel & has visited some amazing places, so I thought this would be an apt card for her (not that I think she is ever late to catch her plane though)

Easel card using 4 Magnolia stamps, coloured with Promarkers

Card candy from Craftwork cards

Kate Knight papers

Closer detail of both parts of the card

Tfl, & also for any comments you may care to leave

Hopefully blogging reinstated

Many, many apologies for my prolonged absence from blogland. I had been having problems with someone I had considered to be a friend who had been watching my movements, both physically and via this blog and the DoCrafts forum. I felt like a prisoner in my own home, unable to do anything - not  a nice feeling at all.

 I think she was trying to live her life through me which is very sad, but very claustrophobic for me - she didn't like the fact that I have other friends, and got very upset when I saw other friends, or did things with my own children :-(  I am hoping that the situation has now resolved, the person concerned is aware that I know what they were doing & how I felt about it. Time will no doubt tell if she has ceased or not. The behaviour of this person also made me feel quite low, and I had no inspriation to craft. I now want to craft again, but inspiration is slow in returning, but my mojo will return & I'll get there (hopefully soon). Anyway, onto the first card I've made in weeks.

My youngest needed a card for a friend's birthday. Sugar Nellie image, heat embossed, coloured with Promarkers. Kate Knight paper, sentiment from Craft Stamper, ribbon from Crafty Ribbons (bought a while back now)

Tfl, & for any comments you may care to leave

Stitched Up!

I made this scrapbook page for a friend of mine for her 50th birthday. Angela made a scrapbook album for her Mum's 80th, so I thought it would be nice if she had a page for herself to remind her of some of our evenings. We and a group of friends meet regularly and have an evening of crafting, usually cross stitch, but some of us will also knit, quilt, do the mending, sew names into uniforms etc - or just put the world to rights lol. We always have a great evening, which also involves some refreshments & chatting too - hence the journalling which highlights some of the activities we enjoy as a group.

Journalling is stained with "Old Paper" distress ink and edged with a brown distress ink.

Both the photos were taken at our Christmas get togethers over the last 2 years, but I didn't want it to be a Christmas themed page, & because Angela is going on a celebratory Caribbean cruise soon, I wanted it to  include bright flowers.

I thought this was the ideal title for the page since it reflects how we all first met.

I cross stitched the title, then using backstitch, stitched it onto the page.

I used a sew easy tool to indent holes to sew through. I joined 2 different papers together, and I picked out 2 contrasting colours from the papers to tie the whole page together. (I love the brown Quick Quotes paper - it looks like the flowers on it are embossed)

I stitched around the outside of the flowers for added interest and to draw the page together further.

I cut around the flowers to overlap the photos - on the lower photo the flower is actually covering up an area where there were distracting areas on the photos (flare from lights)

tfl, and for any comments you may care to leave

So thrilled for my youngest

My youngest decided she wanted to try out for our town's Carnival Princess. She was so thrilled to be selected! She said she was asked if her room was tidy (what a joke!), so she told them it was "a work in progress"! Ummm, yes, I think good  intentions are there, but it's a perpetual work in progress as something else always prevents her getting it finished. lol

Oh, in case you wondered, my daughter is the one on the right in the stripy top

tfl, & for any comments you may care to leave