Happy Anniversary

to my sister, Tracy and brother in law, Martin.

By the time this card was finished, the light had gone & the next two days that followed were black and full of rain. I didn't think I would ever get a photo of the card before it had to be posted off. What you will not be able to see is that the 3 butterflies are glued on with silicone so their wings are raised in flight. This had to be taken under artificial lights & I'm lucky the colour came out right!!

I used Heidi Swapp heart stamp & Webster's Pages Butterflies. Masked them, then using Shabby Shutters, Peeled Paint, Tumbled Glass, Broken China, Victorian Velvet & Fired Brick distress inks I watercoloured over the music stamped background. I used Smokey Grey Versafine for the music. I then stamped & cut out the butterflies again, inked them & glued them on.

ATC Swap

I have agreed to take part in an ATC swap with Penny. Mine have been made & posted off to America. I know they have reached their destination safely and while I can't share them with you yet, I can show you the card I made to send them with.

I made this card using Faded Jeans, Aged Mahogany, Antique Linen & Vintage Photo Distress Inks. I stamped with Paperbag Studios Silences stamp & my other images were from the TH sets Fairytale Frenzy and Visual Artistry.I used my favourite lemon juice & bleach techniques then in some of the bleached areas I gently inked over in Victorian Velvet, Wild Honey & Tumbled Glass Distress Inks.

Forum Birthday

Over on the private forum for the SSG's, it is time for another birthday. It only seems five minutes since I last posted about her birthday, but it Ang's birthday again. Where has the year gone!! I kept the card simple black & white. Threaded black ribbon through the punched holes. Bird stamp from a set by Dovecraft. Greeting from a set by Papermania.

On The Craft Table

I have been working away since Wednesday on Christmas cards. I can't share the completed ones with you as they are designs that will be sent to my craft forum friends and family and as these people read my blog I don't want them getting a sneak preview!!

However, I have decided to make a selection to sell at work and below is a picture of my craft table. I have spent two full hours just creating all these elements to go on the cards. It might be next weekend before they are ready to be shown.

The large blank stars at the top of the picture are a suprise for a few friends.

The small stars & circles have all been die cut. I have stamped them with script & music stamps & inked with the two distress inks. The coloured swirls have been die cut from patterned paper.

I'm just taking a break with a well earned mug of tea, then its back to punching out the tiny circles for another set of cards for some other friends!!

Hope you are all having a productive weekend.

Autumn Has Arrived!

What an awful day it has been today! I don't think it has really been light, it has rained all day. So I quickly got done all the chores I needed to do & after putting fresh clean bedding on and putting up all the winter curtains, I settled down to make some more Christmas Cards :0)

I started on Wednesday and so far I have 25 made!

Now it is getting dark and I have lit all my candles.

Today is Carrie's birthday, but I am not able to share her card with you just yet.

I hope she is having a wonderful day, followed by another one tomorrow because as we all know,

it is the weekend, Whoop!!!

I hope everyone is having a warm weekend, whatever you are up to!!

A Commissioned Card

I was asked by a colleague at work to make a wedding card for his neighbours. He chose this design from some of my past creations. I first made this card on 7th September 2006 and I made it again in September 2011. But, me being me, I vamped it up a bit :0)

I honestly have to say I prefer this version far more than the original

Calendar Pages

Last year I made a perpetual calendar for my desk at the office. I realised this morning that I only ever blogged the pictures up to July/August and then promptly forgot about the last four months. So here are my pages for September and October. I love looking at this every day on my desk, it reminds me of who I am when I'm bogged down under paperwork.

Papers are Studio Calico and Bo Bunny.

Stamps are Paperbag Studios and Crafty Individuals.

Thank You Card

This card has been made to send to the lovely people my sister Tracy & I rented the Gite from during our stay in France. They were wonderful hosts & I hope to see them again one day soon.
I copied this design from the top of my layout further down the blog.
Materials Used;
Prima Documentary Stamp
Scrap of Basic Grey Basics Paper
Scrap of old book paper
Martha Stewart Edger Punch - Doily Lace
White card
Spun Sugar Distress Ink
Antique Linen Distress Ink
Big Shot with Swiss Dot Embossing Folder
Birds on Wire Stamp - CI287
Papermania white flowers overstamped with script
Papermania silver half crystal
Tim Holtz- Visual Artistry (birds in top corner)

Just a note.. stamp Papermania

All paper scraps were hand stitched together with white thread

Happy Birthday, Marion

I made this card for my friend Marion. She is also my ex colleague as we worked together for almost 14 years at an Insurance Brokers which was quite a small family firm.

The paper is from Basic Grey, Basics white pack which I oversprayed with Glimmer Mist Coffee Shop and my own mix of Mustard Seed distress re-inker & Perfect Pearls Gold. Stamps are Paperbag Studio (I masked the two girls before spraying) the small bees are Jo Capper-Sandon for Stampotique. Friends quote is Innovative Stamp Creations.

Some Photos of My Holiday in France

This is the Gite we rented for the week in a small hamlet called La Marchaderie, Saint Mathieu.

This is the breathtakingly beautiful Brantome Abbey
The equally beautiful Chateau Montbrun (my favourite photo)

This was a statue in a memorial garden in Nontron.

I really wish I could work out how to put the correct French symbols on the photos!!!

I took lots of pictures but these are some of my absolute favourites and there was I thinking my camera wasn't really up to the trip!!
It was such a beautiful holiday!!

Queen Bee

For several years now, I have been going for full body massages every month at my favourite Beautician Hayley. Well, this week the salon re opened as Queen Bee. Hayley has now extended the salon to include a hairdressing section and her new business partner is a lifelong friend, Jenny. All the pink is gone and a new colour and name regins. As today is my first appointment as a Queen Bee client, I made the card below to wish the ladies success with the new joint venture.

The front of card is made with my Score Pal. Stamps used are Tim Holtz (Mini Crown) PaperBag Studios (Large Crown) Honeycomb (is actually chicken wire from Poultry Pantry set by TweetyJill)

Bee by my friend Jo Capper-Sandon.

The back of the card is a Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen Venaissance design.
I hope the ladies like the card, it is close in colour to the new appointment cards.

Finally... a Layout!!!

It's only been a year & 7 months since I last created a layout, but I have finally found the mojo. Mind you, France was so beautiful, I took 350 photos of buildings, flowers, doors, trees and monuments in the hope that I would have at least 200 good photos at the end. I fell in love with a 3 storey apartment in a town called Brantome over the border from us in Perigord Vert, Dordogne.

I could really imagine myself living there and so it was the obvious first photo to try & scrap.

Here is a close up of the top left corner embellishment which I sewed by hand and the journalling section with pretty pebble (Prima)

This is the completed page, I printed the photo twice and turned the second version into a blue tint. I made all the backing papers myself using white card, distress inks & texture folders in my big shot.
Materials;
Alcohol inks: Denim/ Stream/ Cloudy Blue (inked strips)
Distress inks: Chipped Sapphire/ Faded Jeans/ Tumbled Glass
Texture Folders: Swiss Dots/ TH Wood Grain
Border Punches: Fiskars/ Martha Stewart
Stamps: Stampers Anonymous/ Crafty Individuals
Rub On: (live/love/laugh) Fancy Pants
Flower: Prima (Old Studio Calico Kit)
Title: stickers from stash - forgotten make.

Unfortunately, I am unable to work out how to type with the correct characters on the french words!

Just Playing

with inks and stamps today. It really is the best way to relax and find new ways to use the products you have in your stash. I have mixed distress re-inkers with perfect pearls, scrapbook paper and some stamps to create something a bit different from the usual stuff I tend to make. I do tend to make things and then forget to try out other stuff!!

I first stamped the Sun & Moon (Paperartsy) onto the Basic Grey Basics paper - Ballot. Then I mixed up my two mini mists. The first one is Broken China re-inker with Interference Blue Perfect Pearls. The second is just Shabby Shutters re-inker & water. I masked the main image & spritzed over the two inks allowing them to mix a tiny bit. I then dried them with the heat gun. I ironed the piece on the reverse to flatten so that I could add a few background stamps (Paperbag Studios script & buttons from Delight Plate). I then stamped 4 stars (Studio Calico) onto the Ballot paper & using Chipped Sapphire & Forest Moss I coloured them. I attached them to the main piece using blue staples & then glued it to the front of a card blank.

Unfortunately the camera batteries are all flat so I had to take the photo with my mobile phone. I'm not certain it does the true colours justice and you can't really see the glorious shimmer of the blue.

Final Minibook Pages

page 20

page 25
inside back cover

back cover

I am home from France today and will be spending time catching up with forum friends and uploading photos from my camera. Catch you soon :0)

Back Home

I am now back home from my holiday in France. We visited the Limousin region & rented a Gite in a small hamlet called La Marchaderie, just outside of a place called St Mathieu, which is right on the Dordogne border. We flew from Newcastle airport on Saturday 3rd September to Limoges and returned on Saturday 10th. I came back from Newcastle this afternoon. I have tons to do & am back at work on Tuesday!!! We had an amazing time the temperature was around 25c everyday rising to 27c. I had to wear quite a lot of sunblock with having very fair skin but it was heaven. I will have photos to show but I have over 350 to edit first!!!!! It was my first ever flight as we went by hovercraft when I was 5 years old. I have not been out of the country since so it has been a real treat for me. I have seen some outstanding countryside and amazing chateaus. The whole place was laid back and relaxed, I have never slept so well.

More Minibook Pages

page 11

pages 13 & 14
page 15

This format did prove a bit hard to do so the book I am making for 2010 - 2011 is in a smaller more graphic style.

Minibook of Books 2009-2010

I started reading a lot when I began commuting to work and came up withe idea of a minibook of books. Firstly so I could record what I read & how many but secondly so I could make something!! This book begins December 2009 and ends December 2010. (I am now making another for Dec 2010 - Dec 2011, but they are mostly read at home)

Front Cover - using distress inks

inside front cover and first page
page 6

I have tried to match my papers & stamped images to the covers of the books where ever possible. I will blog some more pages soon. (These blog posts are all scheduled posts because as you read this I am in France :0) on holiday)

"Sacre Coeur" Grunge

I made this one using the other half of the same background in the post below. I added the same numbers as I did below but added a bridge piece & The Sacre Coeur, both from my Paris Postcards set. I partucularly love how the "burnt" lemon juice adds great texture to this piece.

"Family" Grunge

Here is another grungy background I made using the wrinkle free distress ink technique. I wanted it grungy & black with bleach & lemon juice but then I softened it up by using part of one of my favourite Paperbag Studios stamps. The other stamps are from my Tim Holtz set.

BookMark

Here is a bookmark I made for my sister to take to France with us. I used off cuts from a background I made & added a touch of blecahing & lemon Juice. She fell in love with my quotes tag book so though this would suit her down to the ground.

"Dream"

Here is a piece of art I created on Monday. I started out with a background made blending Faded Jeans, Dusty Concorde, Spiced Marmalade and Peeled Paint distress inks. Then I inked around the edges in Antique Linen. I stamped my main image, Botanical Script (Tin Can Mail Collection by Inkadinkado) in Archival Black ink then bleached out some of the colour from the leaves and Hydrangea blossoms & the butterfly.

Once dry I stamped in my words DREAM and BELIEVE both by Crafty Individuals. The corner butterfly image is from the minature people & places book 1 which I transfered onto the design using clear sellotape to make the design more translucent. I added the border stamp detail along with a butterfly & circle design saying what a wonderful word (all 3 by Crafty Individuals)
As a final touch I painted in some of the blossoms using Artists Acrylic Ultramarine Blue paint and I added Artists Acrylic Gold paint to the leaves and also lightly dry-brushed the same gold over the word BELIEVE to highlight it.

At first I though this design looked rather "messy" but the more I see it the more I love it. No idea at this stage what I will do with it, but I think it would look great as a focal image on an altered notebook! Preferably a blank Kraft one :0)

The Final Inspirational Tag

This one was made using Basic Grey Basics White paper in a spot design & I've inked over Pumice Stone & Bundled Sage distress ink. The girl is my favourite CI image (& reminds me of myself as a small child)so naturally I felt she should feature with this quote along with a butterfly from my Cavallini & Co. set.

And of course, I thought this Tim Holtz quote stamp, the most perfect quote of all with which to end the book. I added bits of the swirl floral from the set to add detail top & bottom.
I plan to join them all together & take a final picture of them all bound.
I had great fun with this & hope to make another soon.

Another Tag

This next tag was made using shades of green then after splashing water on I mopped up the excess with kitchen towel. The small leaf stamp is another free CS design.

The reverse of the above tag was run through my Big Shot using the brick wall TH texture folder. I then ran some black archival ink over the design along with Fired Brick distress ink. I cut the bird & cage from Basic Grey basic white paper & inked it with Weathered Wood distress ink.

At last...

another tag from my inspirational quote tag book. However I uploaded them the right way round but then the bottom pic disappeared & I have had to upload again!!!!

This is the reverse of the tag below, I used the same colours but instead of Scattered Straw, I used Mustard Seed. I also used the lemon juice technique to age the design as my first attempt was using a brown mist & a brown ink pad & both looked over the top.

The design I thought, was very apt for the quote. I used Fired Brick & Spiced Marmalade for the background blending a touch of Scattered Straw near the middle.

Stamps used are Paperbag Studio & a free CS stamp.
It is so good to be able to print again!!

Get Well, Katie!

My friend and colleague, Katie has just been in hospital to have her tonsils out. She is in a lot of pain and so I sent her a handmade piece of love to cheer her up.

Wrinkle free distress background using Faded Jeans/Wild Honey/Aged Mahogany. Stamps TH Fairytale Frenzy & Urban Tapestry. I also added patches of heated lemon juice for that gorgeous aged look and took areas of colour out with bleach as in the designs in the posts below.

Using up Scraps

I decided to make a test piece for the card I made Penny, in the post below. Afterwards I wasn't really sure what to do with it as it only measured 5x3ins.

Then I came upon this idea
Here's a close up because try as I might, I could not get a photo of it actually hanging!
I'm now working on the rest of my tag book of quotes

What is it they say...?

ideas (& men) are like buses, nothing for hours, then two come at once lol....

Well I had to get my act together to make a few get well cards, the first is below the second is half created on my table. The two cards below this are versions I decided weren't quite right..

The first card is a get well message for my forum friend, Penny. It is made using the wrinkle distress background technique with a few spritzes of perfect pearls for some shimmer. Followed by overstamping in Archival black ink using TH Urban Tapestry. Finally having decided to go back to basics where ever possible, I gave the "lemon juice & bleaching" techniques another whirl. Its funny how you forget how to do things until something jogs your memory such as the lastest issue of Craft Stamper jogged mine. I used to love bleach, but simply forgot to use it as new products came on the market & just had to be played with.

These other two cards were made using Adirondack dye pads but although I like them both, neither seemed quite suitable for what I wanted to "say" IYKWIM.
Oh, I just have to tell you before I go, I finally got sorted with a new printer yesterday!!! It is the same make as the last one but just a different model & only requires two ink cartridges which are recycleable (added bonus as I donate all mine to the RSPB) Having done a quick calculation, my old printer was nearly 5 years old, cost just £44 and was used practically every day, so I think I had my money's worth. Nothing is made to last endlessly these days.

Nothing I've Made to Show!

Since my printer broke down, I have nothing creative to show! I didn't realise how much I used it for general photo prints & generating text. I have looked around & while a replacement is relatively cheap, the number of cartridges they require are vast. As I found out last time, the two I used to need were over £50 every 3 months, a printer in line with the one I currently have requires 5 cartridges!!!!! I broke out in a sweat just thinking of the cost to fill it.

So, until I return from my holiday in France, I will not be looking to obtain another just yet.

Here instead are photos of the gorgeous Butterfly Clock I purchased in Warkworth, Northumberland back in Easter, when I stayed with my sister.

Face

Left Side

Right Side


Back

Top

My sister came to stay with me two weeks ago. We have a lovely day with our dad, then later that evening an uninsured, drunk driver hit her Audi while it was parked outside my flat. He was arrrested straight away & the only way she could get home was on the back of a recovery truck! We had got together to plan our forthcoming trip to France.

As the company I work for insures her, we got the ball rolling straight away, but the car still has not been repaired. He should appear in court next week, but it won't pay for her damage.

It makes me utterly sick!!!! As an insurer, I see this everyday & these people just seem to keep on getting away with it while the rest of the country has to pay the increased cost.