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