Some Art

First off two cards. The first is a Laura Ashley creation to say Thank You to my sister, Tracy & BIL Martin for my Xmas gifts, which we finally got to exchange. Image is PaperArtsy. Flower -CS free stamp.

This second card is also PaperArtsy images. This time the card is for Jo's birthday two weeks ago.

Blogger however refused to upload my tag for Carol so I will have to try again another day!!!

I have been MIA for a while, life is too hectic & all I have been creating other than these bits are things I can't share. I did get my passport last month so can start preparing for my holiday.

Sneak Peeks & Calendar Pages

Firstly I have to say sorry, but as well as comment moderation I have also had to put word verification back on my blog.

Some selfish people out there think it is fine to link from sexual related sites.

I for one will not tolerate it!

Next are two Sneaks for the forthcoming kit from SBK Club.

Keep an eye out for this kit is is very pretty.

Finally, I can show you the first 4 pages of my calendar. Unfortunately it did not photograph well & it is now in use on my desk at the office.

HAPPY EASTER

A card for Marion, an old workmate from the last job I had. Paper is BG Kioshi. A birthday gift :0)

I just added the blossom rub on & the paper flowers with some jewels to give them some sparkle.

Now for my favourite card, my sister, Tracy's Easter card. I bought these stamps specially for it! The floral strip along the bottom is Kioshi Paper Ribbon. The floral brad is from a spring set I picked up a year ago that matched this beautiful paper. I chose the cardstock because it reminded me of birds eggs.

Paperfellows Storytelling Game

Check this out over at SBK Club. You could win this fabulous prize.

Some Art to Share

Hello people, sorry I have been absent a while, life gets in the way as you know. I spent over two hours going round other people's blogs, missing a show I had planned to watch in the process, only to discover people don't read blogs anymore, or at least they don't appear to read mine, so I felt like I had wasted my precious hours! Not something I intend to repeat.

First up is a birthday card for Joanne on our Chrysalis forum. It was Joanne's birthday the day after mine so we had two birthday games in one weekend. I used some gorgeous My Minds Eye paper, Life Stories Antique Flowers. I thought it went well with this stamped paperbag studio's image. The charm is actually a bit of broken bracelet passed to me by my mate Jade, who has her Grandma busy squirrelling these kind of things away for me. The ribbon is from one of Jade's garments & it finished the piece off. I used antique eyelets to match the colours in the card.

This piece is part of the Tag Swap that I am hosting on Chrysalis. The tag is for Carrie and made from fabric backed with felt. I printed the fabric paper with digital scrap paper from Digichick. I stamped my images using Adirondack Dye ink pads & stitched beads to the flowers by hand before fixing to the fabric with spraymount. I printed the girl onto fabric paper & glued her in place. I tried an image transfer but it was rather too bulky. I printed my quote out on vellum.

SBK Club Kit Festival

It was my birthday yesterday and I got some beautiful cards and presents. I spent my day crafting for the next DT kit due after Easter, but today sees the latest kit on sale. The March kit is called Festival and you can buy it at SBK Club. I had a wonderful time with this as you will see below.

This photo was kindly donated by my Scrap Shoppin' Girls Teamie, Anne. All I added to the kit to create my pieces were, staples, eyelets, stamps by Crafty Individuals, Studio Calico and Studio G. The title alphas were over-stamped using Kelly Panacci Clear Damask set. I also used a stampbord square tile for the cover of my 2 inch minibook. Two blossoms stapled together create a bit of interest on the tag below.

This card would be perfect for a spring birthday.


The inspiration for this 2in minibook came from Craft Stamper Magazine, Sept 2009 issue.
I wanted to use these gorgeous stamp sets from Crafty Individuals. CI221 and CI228.

The two pictures below show the book cover & the inside of the book.



Festival Kit Contents.
Bazzill cardstock-Barkely.
Paper; Chatterbox Eclectique Sunny. 7Gypsies Mapenzi,
My Minds Eye Deenas Penny Lane Maggie May "Chloe Wynn" bright moons paper.
Ribbons, blossoms and clips. Alphas-Adornit Yellow Foam.

Galina's Birthday & A Commission

This first card is alcohol ink on acetate for Galina's birthday over on chrysalis forum. I wanted to keep to as few colours as possible & I actually began with the button & worked around it! Image is another of the Paperbag Studio stamps purchased with Xmas gift money from dad :0)

This second card was made based on a scrapbook page I did last year. Krystal one of my work colleagues requested this one to give to a person who has been a friend for a long time hence the "old friends" on the front. The photo was a freebie from Rein.

Materials are all from old Studio Calico kits.

Happy Birthday, Dad!

I made this for Dad using the embossing folder Diamonds in the Rough running it through my big shot with some grey Bazzill cardstock. The image is Crafty Individuals. I like the masculine feel this embossing has. My Dad is semi retired now but seems to go to work even more than he did before. I sent him a text message while waiting for my train home and he texted back to say he was at work and is probably still there as I type!! Well I hope you aren't too late home Dad & you have enjoyed a few pots of tea today :0)

SBK Club DT Sneaks

Just some sneak peeks at what is coming up over on SBK Club I had great fun with this kit.

Card for Chris, Tag for Joanne

Over on the Chrysalis forum, we had another birthday to celebrate. This time the birthday girl was Chris and she got some beautiful cards. I used my spin 'n' splash for this background along with one of my favourtie stamps. I so wish this little girl was available as a stamp as she is just adorable.

This is the next tag that I have made for the tag book swap that I am hosting on Chrysalis. I used an image I have waited an age to be able to buy (thanks go to my Dad for the money he gave me for Christmas). Joanne's theme is Children/Childhood so I used a very old page from a childrens book for my background & Joanne loves purples & blues.

This is the underneath of the main image. I stamped her again on vellum & tore her out before attaching with brads. The top image slides sideways. The lace was inked with distress inks to match the background colour.

My First DT Pieces

When I received my SBK Club DT box, it contained the most recent kit that went on sale last week. I decided to get busy & make some samples. I have managed to create 3 pieces from this one kit & hardly added anything to the kit to make them.

Here are the 3 pieces.

I made this card using some off cuts once my two main projects were finished.

This is my main project, A Little Book of Spring.

Inside the little book.

A layout of Spring.

Materials;

SBK Club Snowdrop Kit.

Additional materials; cardboard box (I used the box the DT stuff came in)

White Lace, Staples,Lined paper, stamps.

Border punch & photographs.

A Page to Share from the Weekend

Well as you can imagine I am still very excited about my DT position especially as I received my first pizza box yesterday with goodies to work with :0) :0)

I had planned to share this page at the weekend, but on Sunday I spent most of the day in bed with a mother of all migraines, which has been in the background for most of this week as well. I always get my migraine attacks in clusters so hoepfully by the end of this week I should feel my old self again. I certainly hope so I am almost out of medication & it costs a small fortune!!

As my February Studio Calico kit arrived last week, I was very eager to open it & play. The papers had me dreaming up a page long before the package arrived from the US. I adore cupcakes, they just look so pretty all iced & gorgeous. So naturally, they went well with February & Valentines' & that kind of thing.

Materials List;

February kit Bakers Dozen.

Cardstock; Adobe - Bazzill & Vanilla- American Crafts.

Patterned Paper; Reverse side of Simplicity Patterns - Fancy Pants

Section cut & label punched from Life Stories Recipe, My Mind's Eye.

Doily border stamp; Studio Calico

Stitches rub ons- Antique White; Hambly

Delicious Felties; Sassafras

Pearls & Crystals Baby Blanket; Prima

Title
"i love" -Quickutz Moxie, (cut from the fancy pants paper)

"Cupcakes" font Market, Microsoft. (inked in Pixie Dust chalk ink.)

I mixed up my own mist spray using watercolour paint & used a paper doily as a mask. I blotted some of the spray with kitchen roll so a bit of the original colour showed through around the edges in a cloud pattern. I used my McGill 3in file tab punch to add detail to my photo. I matted the photo to a piece of plain white printing paper just to lift it from all the background shaeds of pink.

My Scrappy News Revealed

I have been very lucky to have applied and been accepted to do a 6 month term on the Design Team for Scrapbook Kit Club

Check out what I, along with my fellow DT members will be creating over the next 6 months.

I am very excited about this venture!!

Happy Birthday, Hayley

It is my beautician, Hayley's birthday this weekend. I was meant to go for my monthly massage but she is busy celebrating her day with hubby & daughter. She owns the salon & it is a vision of pink prettiness. Hayley's Spa. Naturally I wanted to make her a card as a thank you for all the times I have left her feeling fabulous and as everything is shades of pink, white and cream (the pictures do not do the place justice)I decided a mainly pink colour scheme would be just right. I have used the free Art Journey cover stamp from the latest issue of Craft Stamper (March 2010)to represent girliness. The swirl stamp is also a free cover issue design (Jan 2010) The squares are scraps of inked paper left over from other projects, the dark pink torn vellum gives a strong enough back drop to make each piece stand out.

Exciting Scrappy News & A Tag Challenge

Today I got news of a "Scrappage" nature. It involves me & some pretties to play with. I will tell you really soon what this news is ;0) But, I am really excited & hope it isn't too long before I can spill, the news is bursting out of me :0)

Meanwhile I am busy crafting away with my Minibook of Books and I am also hosting a Tag Book swap over on Chrysalis. It is kind of like a circle journal but the books are tags & we only post out the tags to each other to prevent full books going missing in the post. This is my tag for Penny, her theme "The sea". I built up the foam of the waves using gesso. I am fortunate to be able to see the sea every day on my travels from the train station to the office & despite being afraid of water I am a Piscean & have to be near it, smell it & see it. Bizzare, yeah!!!

New Year, New Album.

This year, my Studio Calico Album will be done 8"x8" as I find it a great workable size. Kicking off with the January kit, Whodunit, I have created a page which covers my plans for the year ahead. I am making a minibook about all the books I read, I have quite a large pile of books to plough through. I also have a very large pile of DVD's to enjoy. I hope to listen to more music and I will be travelling this year with my sister, destination unknown right now, but we are looking into two places we fancy, Copenhagen & Florence.

All in all, it look set to be a pretty exciting time & as my title suggests, I'm Looking Ahead!

Materials List;

January 2010 kit; Whodunit.

Paper;- Basic Grey Origins,Paraffin. Studio Calico, Emporium (Circles down side)

Diecut Stickers;-20% Extra Flashy, Studio Calico (tp journal block & side bracket shape & words)

Bottom journal block & stars, Studio Calico Stamp set.

Title; October Afternoon Mini Market Alphas Teal & Black.

American Crafts Chipboard Thickers, Nutmeg.

Black cardstock & staples.

Apologies to my friends, I will get round all the blogs at some stage this weekend.

The train I travel on for my daily commute almost crashed on Monday evening after an idiot decided he wouldn't wait. The barriers only block half the road so he zig zagged round them straight into the path of our train. We narrowly missed him, but it was quite a shock to the system & made me realise that I have to spend more time doing what I want to do & get organised so that the time spent doing what I have to do is cut down.

We only get one life & I plan to fill mine with good stuff!

Penny's Birthday

Another forum birthday a week ago. This time Penny was the birthday girl.

I used a strip of my all time favourite paper by Making Memories, some fabby Sassafrass Lass border stamps & a Paperbag Studio image. I made my February calendar page similar, but in shades of pink & when I actually get time to sit & take the pictures off my camera I will blog it.

Right now I'm far too busy running around getting things sorted out. I am spending a lot of time reading, especially while I'm on the train every evening which, if you know from the other year I made a promise to myself to do. One of this year's projects will be to make a minibook of the books I read & how I feel about them. But I had better crack on as I have read two titles already this month.

I had also better get moving as I have two more birthday's next week!

Carol's Birthday Card

Well it has been a very difficult week for me trying to get the 32 miles to work everyday & then back again by train with nothing but snow. My days have been very long & cold! I am thrilled its the weekend & now all my chores are done for the day I treated myself to a few hours in front of the telly trying to catch up all I have missed. And of course to recharge my batteries as I am expecting next week to be pretty much more of the same. But at least I can get to work, my sister Tracy has been snowed in her lovely farmhouse since Christmas Day and is beginning to suffer cabin fever!

We had another birthday on the Chrysalis forum last week. I made this for Carol. Scraps of paper from my Studio Calico kits come in hand for cards. Stamp is Serena #2 by Stampsmith.

Birthday card for Deb

I made this card for Deb, one of my Chrysalis forum friends. It was her birthday in December. The front panel is actually cut away & the stripes are the inside of the card. The photo was done in a hurry & so it doesn't show clearly.

The papers are My Mind's Eye, Wild Asparagus. Image (& stamps)from Crafty Individuals (image from the People & Places book 1.) Flower from Studio Calico kit. Metal leaves given to me by my scrapbook friend, Rachel, unknown source. Small brown brad, Papermania. Lace from a market stall, inked with Antique Linen distress ink.

I thought at first it looked too old fashioned, but I loved the Victorian feel to it & the colours of the papers. I inked with Antique Linen distress to age the edges.

Happy Birthday, Martin & Happy 2010!

Today, New Year's Day is my brother in law, Martin's birthday. I'm blogging his card despite the fact that royal mail couldn't get it to him on time despite posting on Tuesday!!! The photo is Martin on his trail bike.

Have a great day!!

Happy New Year to everyone, hope this year brings all your heart desires and lots of creative opportunities. Here is my final page for the Year of Studio Calico 2009 album.

Materials list; December kit 2009- Orchestra.

Jenni Bowlin calendar page from the Dec 08 kit.

Paper; SC Baldwin. BG Eskimo Kisses-Caroling.

Prima screen printed canvas.

SC buttons.

SC stamp-cuckoo clock

Alphas- BG Eskimo kisses.

Ink- Rangers archival.

I had a fabulous time making this album & have plans to make a 2010 album beginning in two weeks when the first kit of the year arrives. I might be doing a larger format this year as this 6in format was hard to do some months.