Sunday Snippets - Week 135

Hi Everyone,

I planned to post this earlier but the day has just run away from me somehow!

I hope you have all had a wonderful weekend.

It's just a little card, 4" square, that uses up all sorts of bits, bobs and snippets for Pixie's Snippets Playground. The topper is the leftover piece, the 'waste', after I'd die-cut the fern from Tattered Lace Lavish Blooms Leaves set, from grey card, backed on to white card and then layered on to dark blue Core'dinations. I distressed the edges of the Core'dinations with an emery board to reveal the Kraft core. The base has been embossed with a border from Cuttlebug Just My Type set. The embellishments, a scrap of tartan ribbon and a bright red enamel dot, are from stash.

I almost threw the 'waste' piece away until it occurred to me that it could look quite good with a backing of white card.

The card came together very quickly once I decided on the layout and pulled out the materials from the snippet drawer. In fact, choosing what colour of enamel dot to use took the most time ... there's a lot of colours in the tartan ribbon to choose from :)

The weather has finally broken here. We've had rain all day ... great for the garden, makes sleeping easier, but bad for The Boss. She hates the rain, won't go out in it at all, so she's had cabin fever all day!

I hope you've had a wonderful weekend and I wish you a good week ahead.

Happy Crafting,

Wise Owl - A Challenge Card

Evening/Morning All

This is the second of the posts that I neglected to publish ... call it a senior moment!!! As you might guess from the intro it was written up on Sunday, holiday's end.

Well, that's the decs down and packed away for another year ... Christmas is officially over at our house and I'm sorry it's all over - only another 354 days to the next one! I've really enjoyed the holiday this year despite, or perhaps because of, being without wheels! But now that it's all over, I'm actually finding some time to do some crafting! Now that is something to be happy about :)

It's a wee while since I submitted anything to Jill's Craft Challenge over on the Docrafts site, but I couldn't resist this week's which is based on this sketch.

Once again I've dipped into my Pollyanna Pickering kit for the topper, greetings and papers ... love this owl image and the black/white polka dotted paper.

I created the circular topper by cutting two circles of patterned paper using the two largest dies from X-cut's Nesting Circle set and then layering them off-centre to ensure that the image would not be covered by the flower embellishment - the base of which was cut using the middle die in X-cut's Nesting Bloom set.

Materials used:

• 6"square Kraft card base
• Pollyanna Pickering topper, greetings and papers
• Docrafts Vintage Notes fabric tape and crochet flower
• Docrafts X-Cut Nesting Dies, Circles and Bloom
• black ProMarker - for edging papers
• embellishments -  amber crystal gems; buttons from stash

I'd better call this a day, the Boss is being very vocal. Nagging, in fact! She thinks I should be in bed so she can curl up beside me for the night. You wouldn't think that she's slept most of the day already ... the rain has kept her indoors (again this was written on Sunday when it did rain) with nothing better to do than nap and dream of spring I think :)

Take care and stay safe and have a marvellous Monday.

Hugs SWALK ... plus some news from Casa Worthington

Afternoon Everyone,

I hope your Saturday has been a good one so far. We are enjoying some autumn sunshine here - very nice.

I've been super busy so I've only a quick and simple card to share with you.

Once again, the materials for this card came from that pile of stash to use up that's lying on the corner of my desk.  The little lady hugging her kitten was stamped some time last year, or maybe it was the year before, so no chance of me remembering which ProMarkers I used to colour her in. Similarly, the papers were printed off from the SWALK CD all that time ago, and then forgotten, sigh!

I think, I hope, I've redeemed myself by finally making a card with a little help from my Cuttlebug, a circle die to cut out the topper and a new set of flower dies from Marianne, tiny but cute. I've added a touch of Glossy Accents to the eyes of both her and the kitten, and just a touch to the kitten's nose ... I think you can spot the gloss in the photo.

Materials:

• square white fancy-edged card base
• papers printed from SWALK Papercrafting CD
• Hugs stamp from the SWALK Stamp Collection stamped on to smooth white card and coloured with ProMarkers
• Docraft's CartUs Circles die and Marianne Collectables Flower die set
• lilac/white Baker's twine
• Glossy accents on eyes and kitten's nose
• gems for embellishment

Now for the news mentioned in the title. It's simply that we are moving house. And, as this might cause some disruption to normal service, I thought it best to let you know. 

We had intended to stay in this house forever but the garden has proved our undoing. We love our garden but it's steep and there is a flight of steps to negotiate just to get to the bins - not good for two arthritics like ourselves. It's taken a year of searching for somewhere more suitable, somewhere with the garden on one level, but happily we've found just the place. It's a red-brick semi with a decent sized sized garden with no steps to climb. It needs some work done to it, the central heating has to be replaced, a new kitchen, the bathroom converted to a shower-room, and new floors throughout, etc., etc., but it should be ready to move into by mid-November. 

We started packing just this week and already I'm beginning to panic! What to throw out, what to keep back 'til the last minute, and where to put all the boxes ... I hate moving house!!! 

On the plus side, it's exciting planning the decor, looking at wallpapers and paint colours. I'm not sure if it is the crafting industry that is dictating what is trendy or what, but look as these wallpaper samples I picked up from our local DIY shop ... postcards, newsprint, and birds and blossoms.  Even if they never go up on a wall, they will certainly find a place in my crafting stash :))

Right, it's time for a break, dinner and a nice cup of tea. 

Take care everyone and happy crafting,

Stamping with Marker Pens

Hi Everyone,

Like I said in my last post, I was off to test out my new Memento Dual Marker pens, by Tsukineko, and after a little practice this is what I've done!

The secret is in the 'huffing' ... another new term and technique for me to add to my crafting dictionary :) Here's how I made the card.

- Taking two pens, Bamboo Leaves (green) and Lady Bug (red), the first step was to ink up the holly corner flourish, from Anita's Magical Christmas stamp set, by 'painting' with the 'brush' tip, each pen has two tips, one a brush tip and the other a fine tip, carefully selecting green for the leaves and stems and red for the berries. 

- The next step was to 'huff' or breathe on the stamp to reactivate any ink which has dried during the process and then quickly stamp, first in one corner then, after re-inking, the second corner of the white card base. The process was again repeated for one corner on the inside of the card - and also the centre of the back.

- For the topper the sentiment, from Docrafts Penelope & Percy Christmas Greetings stamp set, was coloured and stamped onto a snippet of smooth white card in the same way. It was then run through the Cuttlebug cutting it with a Spellbinder Label Twenty-five die then sponged around the edges using Tim Holtz distress ink, Festive Berries. The red mat, made from yet another snippet, was created by tracing round the Spellbinder label die and cutting it out by hand. 

- The final touch was to add a bit of sparkle with Stickles - Xmas Red on the 'berries' in the corner flourish, and Crystal along the top of the word, Merry - and then a few of Anita's red gems to two of the corners. 

I'd like to submit this card to the following:

Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge 123 - let's get sentimental

Craftyhazelnut's Challenge Extra for May - which, as ever, is anything goes

Jingle Bells - Merry & Bright

and, of course, Pixie's Crafty Snippets - Week 71 - where there's always fun and games to be had just so long as we hand in our snippets homework on time :)

Now, who would have thought that at my age I would have so much fun playing with colouring pens ... just proves I'm just a big kid at heart :))

And, finally, a weather update for Ayr - today we've had just about everything the weatherman can throw at us - sun, wind, a temperature drop (more like a thud) and rain - no snow though, so that's a blessing. Right now, 7pm, the sun is shining and the birds are happily singing away ... I think they are relieved the rain has stopped too!

I'm off to do a bit of blog hopping for an hour or so before joining the EM to watch a new police drama that looks promising.

Hope you all have an enjoyable evening and a lovely weekend.

Happy crafting,

Scrapbook Remix - Prompt #6

Hi Everyone,

And a very warm welcome to my newest followers, Robin and Tina - hope you continue to enjoy my little blog.

I've several layouts to share with you - all inspired by Prompt #6 of Shimelle's course.

The first is entitled Retro Girl and features one of my favourite snaps of my middle granddaughter, Jolene, taken in 2005 when she was only five years old.

Apart from the strips of polka-dotted pattern, and the base paper which is from Panduro Tilda Party collection,  all the papers are from Papermania's Happy Days collection, chosen because the Baker Boy hat Jolene is wearing took me back to the sixties, when I was a teenager and this style of hat was very much in fashion. The bottle top embellishments were punched from one of the papers. The fabric flowers are also from Papermania - I've had them for a year or so - it was nice to finally find a use for them.

There is a large corner image on the Garden Party print which I felt did not work with the photograph so I've covered it up with the stack of Happy Days papers, you would never know it's there.

The second layout, Waiting to Meet Santa, shows a nervous and apprehensive Shari-Ann outside Santa's grotto, not too sure she really wanted to meet the big man in the red suit and white beard. That was in 2008 when she was tiny ... now she has no worries about meeting Santa.

None of the papers used are Christmas papers but because I've used a traditional colour combination of red, white and green, the effect is Christmassy.

The papers are SEI White Elegance, Daisy Bucket Playful Petals (the red polka dot) and Basic Grey Hello Luscious (the red and green strip). I've also been inspired to get out the Cuttlebug and die cut some holly and circles, and some stamps to make a few festive embellishments, e.g. the pile of packages is a stamped image coloured with ProMarkers, as is the Joy embellishment and the sentiment.

The final page from this prompt is Smiling for the Camera featuring the Boss who clearly thinks she is a Cheshire cat. I've never known a cat to smile before :)

One of my favourite colour combinations is pink and brown and, as my cat is a very dainty, girly cat, that's the colour mix I decided to go with for this page. The base print is a 'b' side from Papermania's Happy Days collection - the 'a' side has very pretty doilies scattered all over it, not what I was looking for. At the back of the many layers is a piece of printed vellum - Owls and Swirls from a Nancy Watt Collection. I've found it difficult to handle vellum - never know how to fix it so that the adhesive doesn't show but Shimelle has a video on YouTube that helped me overcome that problem. All the other papers are bits - some ancient - from my scrap pile and the embellishments are handmade using punches/dies and the letters are from American Crafts (Darling) and BoBunny (Ambrosia).

And for those folks that have been enquiring, I did indeed find some really useful type boxes that now are home to my scraps and so far it's making it easier for me to pull just what I'm looking for. I've devised a system that I think is the best solution for me and hopefully speeds up the scrapping process. For example, most of the strips and scraps on the last layout came out of these new scrap boxes. I've forgotten to take a photo, and it's a bit late tonight (just turned midnight), but I will try to remember tomorrow and post a piccie for you to see. 

As it is so late, and I was up very early this morning for no better reason than I couldn't sleep, I'd better get myself to bed - at my great age I need all the beauty sleep I can get.

Take care all and happy crafting,

WOYWW Wk 168 - What's On Your Desk Wednesday

Hello WOYWWers, Followers and All,

Late to the party today - no real excuse, just running late.

Not much to show today but here it is for your delectation.

Actually, it's a rare sighting of the other worktop as I dare not show you my workdesk - it's tooooo shameful!

Yesterday I was tidying up and I got a bit distracted, ended up die-cutting quite a chunk of my card snippets.  So what you see is an array of dies spread around the Cuttlebug, some of the plates and the tan mat, my trusty scissors and Ottlite - wouldn't be without either - a tile I use for watercolouring, various pots and tubs of buttons, card candi and gems, cocktail sticks, a huge pot of clear embossing powder and, just visible, a tube of dew drops. Oh, and those bits of lilac sticking to the edge of the worktop - that is low-tack tape for keeping the dies in position.

That's it - brief as required by our head desk keeper, Julia. Interested, intrigued and don't know what WOYWW is all about, you can find out more by visiting Julia at the Stamping Ground - enjoy the experience!

Last week was a much interrupted week so apologies to those of you I didn't manage to visit. Hope to do better this week. In fact, I'm starting my snooping visiting now :)

Happy WOYWW,

Christmas Alphabet - E for Embossing

I'm late posting this card tonight ... I just don't know where the time has gone today.

There's two different forms of embossing on this card. There's heat embossing ... a piece of leftover matte gold card, stamped with VersaMark and then embossed with gold powder ... and there's machine embossing on to make the greeting topper - on the last shred of the gold card. Note to self: pick up some more sheets from the craft shop soon.

After the greeting topper was embossed, it was trimmed before it was hot glued on to the ribbon bow. Love this gorgeous red and gold ribbon, bought from a local shop that sells all sorts of beautiful trims. The stickpin was made using several small gold beads and a large red one, all  from old costume jewellery threaded and glued to a heart-topped pin from Wild Orchid Crafts.

The insert is a digital paper form a Crafter's Companion CD-ROM ... this particular design was intended to be printed as notepaper, but I liked the faded centre panel framed with the holly pattern so much I thought it would make a great insert for this card. After importing it into a graphics programme I was able to tweak the size to fit perfectly.

Similarly, I tweaked it again to make a panel for the back too.

Materials used:

• Cardstock: Piece of white card measuring 6.5" x 10" folded in half to form card base; piece of gold matte card, 6.5" x 5" stamping & embossing, and a smaller piece,  measuring 2.5" square for greeting
• Stamp: Penny Black, Winter Bough; VersaMark ink pad; Heat It Up Gold Embossing Powder
• Machine embossing: Cuttlebug All-in-One folder and Twinkle plate for greeting & topper
• Digital Paper: Crafter's Companion CD-ROM, Vintage Christmas; My Craft Studio Professional; white copy paper for printing
• Gold printed red ribbon, Heart-shape topped pin from Wild Orchid Crafts, red and gold beads, from stash

That's the letter E done with ... never tried embossing gold on gold before but really like the effect so that's one to remember for another time. And, a bonus, I've used up some scraps of card and ribbon, not to mention recycled some ole beads. So I think this is one to submit to:

 

Jules Crafty Snippet Challenge - Week 41

 

Now to finish the F card, almost done, and tomorrow it will be the letter G ... now how can that be interpreted ... I'll have to put on my thinking cap :)

 

Happy crafting,

 

 

 

 

 

Embossed Box Card - Week 10 Christmas Card

Hello Everyone,

After my wee spell of being MIA, I'm back and I eased myself into things with this Christmas box card. I've incorporated some embossed blue pearlescent card from the Cuttlebug session recorded on WOYWW -Week 89 here - I knew it would come in useful at some point : )

The pre-cut box card template was stamped with snowflakes on all sides except the back using VersaMark and then brushed with pale blue Perfect Pearls. The circle of embossed pearlescent card was adhered to the inside of the box.

Likewise a piece of acetate with the greeting stamped in black was fixed to the inside of the front aperture before the box was made up and glued together.  The front was finished off with peel-offs and some candy.  This was a quick and easy card to make - the fiddliest bit was putting the box together :)

Materials used:

• Cardstock: Papermania Aperture Box Card Kit for base; a piece of pale blue pearlescent card already embossed with the Snowflakes folder from stash
• Stamps: Anita's Clear Stamp set - Magical Christmas from Docrafts
• Ink pads: VersaMark; Stazon, Jet Black
• Powder: Ranger Perfect Pearls, Interference Blue
• Embellishments: Blue Christmas baubles & silver peel-offs by Docrafts, blue card candy from Craftworks

As usual I hope to submit this card the following two challenges:

• Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge #10  - embossing to be incorporated in card
• Snoflakes Christmas Card Challenge on Docrafts.

I haven't completed the stamp catalogue I started recently.  In fact, I haven't done much of anything but I'm feeling well enough now to get back to crafting and it's the weekend - lots of lovely crafting time ahead : )

I'm off now to try to catch up on visiting my fellow WOYWWers, so here's wishing you all a wonderful weekend.

Happy crafting.

What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday - Week 89

Good Morning Everyone,

I trust you are all well this morning and enjoying life wherever you are in the world. Here in my own particular little patch in South Ayrshire, Scotland, it's almost like Spring and after yesterday's horrible, windy and dreary weather that's refreshing.  Many thanks to all who visited here last week. I started out well enough visiting many of you but then something radical happened to the list which threw me completely - the numerical order changed and as I'm dyslexic I got completely lost! So apologies to those of you I missed.

So what's on my desk today? Well, as you can see it's pretty much as I left it last night when I was experimenting with embossing folders. Late on I decided to put each of my small folder collection through the Cuttlebug to catalogue them. After that it just seemed pointless putting them all away again so I started to play with little bits of cardstock. I've now got a wee stock of ready embossed card to use on projects. You can see the drawer filled with off-cuts/scraps of card that I can't bear to throw away because it 'might just come in useful one day'. Well, it did last night : )

The blue card resting against my chicken cupboard (or chook cupboard as RosC would call it) is a piece of core'dinations which came free with the V&A Hanoverian folder from Docrafts. There was even a small piece of sandpaper to rub down the card once it was embossed! The effect is really very nice.

And then there is my new Ottlite. The Estate Manager treated me to this recently because 'my eyes are dim, I cannot see' as well as I used to and he took pity on me. The Ottlite casts a light like daylight over quite a wide area, certainly wide enough for me to work in, so I can now do my colouring wherever I want as this little beauty is portable.

I see this morning you can see my wire basket which is jam packed full of 6"x6" and A5 paper garnered over the year - I keep it there handy for card making. There's also a couple of plastic cartons, one has a stock of even tinier pieces of cardstock, useful for stamping greetings on or testing out colours, and the other contains stamped images waiting to be coloured in. In the background is all the bits and pieces I consider vital and so can't bear to put away.

If you have stumbled on this blog by happy accident and are now wondering what all this WOYWW is all about please pop over to the Stamping Ground blog here where the Keeper of Desks, Julia, has a lovely list of bloggers willing to show it all in the name of crafting. It's well worth the time taken as you just never know what you might find. Last WOYWW day I discovered Sandy of Keepsake Crafts who makes brilliant flowers from zips and due to the interest shown by some of us she has very kindly posted a tutorial here. Now, after seeing these on sample cards on TV but with no demo on how it was done, I did try to make them myself but I just wasn't pleased with the result so a big 'Thank You, to Sandy for this tutorial.

Right, I'm off for my first cup of tea before I do anything more.

Week 6 Christmas Card featuring Noelle Bearing Gifts

Good Afternoon to Everyone,

This little beauty didn't make it into the Alphabet Series - you may remember my struggles last year to complete the 26 cards before Christmas. So when Hazel of Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge (CHCC) challenged us to use something digital in our card this week, Noelle Bearing Gifts from Mo's Digital Pencil seemed perfect for the job, especially as she was already printed off and coloured in with Promarkers.  Here she is in close-up:

Cute or what? She now has the addition of iridescent glitter on her hat and coat - well, a girl can never have too much glitter. She's been matted and layered onto white card embossed on my Cuttlebug and a dark red card. The trees on the design paper from Docrafts - Papermania's Festive Frolic 6x6 collection -went well with her coat I thought. The embellishments came from my stash - if I remember rightly the red label was bought at WH Smith, and the red/white bakers twine from The Ribbon Girl. The back and inside got the usual decorative treatment and the greeting is recycled  - yes, still doing my bit for the planet!



Materials used:
1. Cardstock: white for base and embossing; red for matting
2. Design Paper: Papermania's Festive Frolics from Docrafts
3. Image: Digital stamp, Noelle Bearing Gifts from Mo's Digital Pencil coloured with Promarkers and blinged up with iridescent glitter.
4. Embellishments: red/white bakers twine from the Ribbon Girl; recycled greeting, red label, gift box topper from stash.

These photographs were taken at night with the assistance of my new Ottlite - a present from my DH who took pity on me when he saw I was struggling to take photographs in the poor winter light. Love this lamp - it's portable so I can take it with me wherever I go - brilliant!

Despite having the stamp all coloured up and waiting I didn't finish the card in time for Hazel's challenge this week but I've put it in as my Week 6 entry to Snowflake's Christmas Card challenge on Docrafts. 

I've still got the finishing touches to put to the wedding tag I started at the beginning of the week but hope to complete today and I did make a birthday card for my wee grandson who will be twelve the day after Valentine's Day but I won't post any photos of it until after his birthday - he sometimes takes a peek at gran's blog.

Time for a cup of tea I think.

E for Eve (Christmas Eve)

I've been trying to write up this post all day but it's been one interruption after another so the day has almost ended and here I am just getting down to it now. And to make matters worse, with the A-Z challenge on Docrafts, I'm like the cow's tale, all behind :(

So here is the E card at last:

For a change I decided not to use a stamp, digi, acrylic or rubber, but to use instead the Beatrix Potter download from Cardmaking and Papercraft. This is really intended to be used for a box card but I decided that the background scenes and the decoupage trees would be ideal for my purpose.  I used the fourth verse of the poem, 'Twas the Night before Christmas', because it suited the snowy scene perfectly and printed the verse on to white card, then run it through the Cuttlebug to emboss with Ice Crystals. I finished it of by chalking the edges and the surface blue.

I used two different organza ribbons to decorate, a white one and a blue patterned one. And it wouldn't be a card made by me if it didn't have something on the inside and the back.
Inside:

Back:



Both are decorated with strips of the BP paper together with the trees and everything is finished off with a dusting of iridescent glitter.

The F card (almost sounds rude doesn't it?) is completed and photographed, I just have to choose and crop the best shots and then I will publish it.

So bye for now
Elizabeth

Whats on Your Workdesk Wednesday

Here we are at another WOYWW and I'm running late today. For anyone who has not discovered what this is about pop over to Julia's blog Stamping Ground and discover a world of work desks - there's nothing like a good snoop around other people's desks and see what they are up to. Saying that, here's mine:

After I finished posting the cards I had made over the last couple of days yesterday I rewarded myself with a session playing with my Cuttlebug. I've had it for a few months now but not done much with it so I really wanted to experiment and I had all the leaves collected recently on the Woodland Walk (see Saturday's post for photos). Confession time: the leaves collected on Saturday had dried to a crisp because I left them too long so I had to nip up to the Woodland Walk and collect some more - a great excuse to get out in the fresh air! Anyway, new leaves collected and you can see the result.

I tried embossing on three types of card, white, gold mirror and a more matte gold card . The embossing showed up best on gold mirror but it doesn't photograph well so no close-ups to show you but you can see them on the left of the photo. It also showed up well on the matte gold:

I discovered that you need leaves with a very well defined texture - holly leaves were the best, with sycamore the next best. Others were very disappointing. Also after the leaves have been through once or twice they loose their texture anyway and have to be tossed. The results on white card were initially disappointing - the embossing was too subtle. However, when I took distressing ink to the card they perked up considerably and the effects were much more usable. For example here is the holly leaf distressed with Tim Holtz's Shabby Shutters.

And a sycamore leaf distress with Adirondack Noel



And leaves that really didn't emboss well but made an interesting card distressed with TH's Weathered Wood.

I think this will make a great tag.

And just because the Cuttlebug was out and I was in the mood I tried a few other embossing projects I had in mind. Here is a piece of lace on the matt gold paper - not perfect but worth trying again with other lace.

This last is a border. I like putting borders on my cards and dressing them up with lace and ribbons, I also love, love, love Swiss dots (there has got to be a name for this condition!) and, though I haven't managed to acquire the Swiss dot embossing folder yet, I do have a border folder. I decided to try to combine the embossed border with my lace punch and here is the result.

Love it - I think this will look great on a card.

That's my desk this morning but before I take off on a trip round everyone else desks I'd like to warmly welcome my new followers - my husband thinks this is hilarious, me with followers! - and thank everyone who left their kind and much appreciated comments since last week - it is all appreciated. I'd also like to say that I did visit all the desks over the week, albeit I didn't get to the last few until yesterday, but I did not, unfortunately, find the time to leave a comment on all. However, please be assured I enjoyed visiting every and each one.

Bye for now
Elizabeth

It's a Cracker

As promised here's the completed cracker shaped card made for the Tilda challenge on Docrafts - it's Incy's  this week:

Materials used:

• White card stock measuring 8" x 8" - fold in half and cut out to shape of cracker - I used the Crafters Companion embossing board as my template.
• Patterned paper - 'Ho Ho Ho' from my stash, sorry I've forgotten make and where purchased!
• Stamp - Christmas Tilda coloured in Promarkers
• Embellishments - white scalloped diecut - put through the Cuttlebug and embossed with the Ice Crystals folder; Woodware's Fluffy Stuff; Papermania's silver glitter; Crystal Stickles; green organza ribbon (from my stash).

Close up of Tilda:

I edged Tilda's hat and all round the diecut with Fluffy Stuff, shook a little fairy dust over it - well silver glitter actually - and really like how it turned out.

Onto the next project - not decided what that is yet.

Bye for now
Elizabeth