Little Fairy

Morning all,

How is everyone today? the rain has finally arrived here, well more like mist to be honest. Yesterday saw me attend training for the start of the job on Sunday... ironic seen as i've worked two seasons before and could quote health and safety legislation in my sleep, but there you have it. It was good catching up with other returners and starting to learn some of the new staff..... it also helped to learn that i'm not the only one utterly struggling to settle down into full time, permenant work due to the recession. But anyway, onto happier things, like today's card which uses my fabulous new LOTV stamp that I got at the NEC hobbycraft show last week. I've wanted this little darling for a while and she's so much fun to work with.

I took inspiration from Creative Inspirations sketch challenge this week and added a few flourishes. The papers are all from stash and so old I can't remember what make they are. I added a little bit of organza ribbon which I picked up at the show and some coordinating buttons from stash to finish off the desgin. Pearls and stickles on the wings and everything coloured with promarkers.

I hope you like it. I would like to also enter this into Passion for Promarkers - Ribbon and Buttons and Lilis Little Fairies - Anything Goes

Until next time, happy crafting!

Butterflies!

Morning all,

Another glorious day here, this morning I want to share another of the cards I made yesterday - appologies now for the rim shine on the photo, I need a filter for my lense and as yet have failed to buy one, but I don't think it intrudes too badly with the image.

Totally unlike anythink i've ever made before it's just a very simple, butterfly bonaza! I scored the light blue base card on my hougie board (and got it utterly wrong on two occassions before this one) and the butterflies are from a MS punch. Ribbon and gems from stock and there you have it.

I'd like to enter it into The Pink Elephants Challenge this week of Butterflies

Until next time, thanks for stopping by and happy crafting!

Everyday holds the possibility of a Miracle

Afternoon all,

Well isn't the weather glorious? I'm loving it! this is my kind of weather - hot but  not sticky, a dry heat....mmmmm :D

It's also got almost no breeze which means I've been able to craft outside, which is a rare treat and I took inspiration from the great outdoors for this card:

I used my new, fabulous Indigo Blue stamps and used Tim Holz, Broken China for the blue - I'm new to the whole distress ink game so it's far from perfect but hey.

Just a very clean and simple card to share with, I'll be back tomorrow with another creation - shocking! lol!

Until then, I'd like to enter this into the following challenges:
Crafty Catz - Spring is in the air
Stampin for the Weekend - Anything Goes
Simon Says - Anything Goes

Thanks for stopping by and happy crafting!

Disaster! appeal.....

Well, maybe disaster is overkill but i'm not a happy bunny with myself. At the weekend I backed my laptop up and handed it over to my brother to reinstall as it's seriously needed some tender loving care for a long while now. Anyway, I thought I'd backed up my internet favourites bar too, but I didn't check it, just assuming it was all fine and dandy, only it really wasn't and I've lost the links to everything - including all my favourite crafting suppliers and digi stamp shops. Grrr!

I've started to re-save them again but for the life of me I can't even think what half of them are called..... talk about loosing your marbles! so here's my appeal, can anyone suggest websites I might have had? or websites you think I should have?

No doubt by the time I leave the NEC on thursday I will have gathered many new companies but it's just bugging me that I can't think who i've lost.....

Until next time, happy crafting!

Easter Greetings

 Evening all,

Just a quick card to share with you all this evening. I've been itching to play with this stamp since I got it about a month ago from Joanna Sheen, but I needed a new block as I didn't have one big enough and times just not been on my side to get one. However, my lovely mummy picked one up for me this weekend and I finally got to play!

I really wanted to make some easter cards this year that were about the true meaning of the season but for ages I couldn't find a stamp I liked and then, like answering my prayers, Heartfelt Creations came out with this:

Isn't it beautiful? I just love it. I've kept the card really simple and embossed a line half a centimetre in from the edge then stamped the design onto the card, then stamped the cross and a second flower onto white cardstock and coloured them in with my promarkers. Cut and layered, with a gem in the centre and finished with my whisper pens on the scroll work and a delicate yellow ribbon, from Joanna Sheen's spring bundle.

I just need to do the inners and then half a dozen of these will be heading to friends and family with easter blessings.

I would like to enter this into Joanna Sheen's challenge for the month which is Spring or Easter and Dream Valley who also have the theme of Easter

Thanks for stopping by and happy crafting!

Mother's Day Card

Afternoon all,

I'm back with my mother's day card today - it's fairly simple and very yellow, but I hope mum likes it. I took inspiration for the layout from last weeks Mojo Monday sketch that I failed to enter, but I liked it so much I really wanted to do something with it.

I wish I could remember what make this stamp is, but I can't - sorry! I stamped it twice, coloured the image with promarkers and cut and mounted it directly onto the base image. I have actually, since photographing this, glossed the flower to make it stand out. The ribbon and pearls are from stash. The papers are my minds eye and the sentiment is from a freebie pack I got with a magazine.

I would like to enter this into the following challenges:
Crafty Catz - Mother's Day
Allsorts - Say it with flowers
Passion for Promarkers - Yellow and Pearls
Creative Inspirations - Something for Mum

Thanks for stopping by and happy crafting!

Superduper Birthday Boy!

Evening all,

Sorry I've been MIA again, between Soho during the day and what feels like an endless list of chores to do of an evening I haven't really had chance to sit down and create, let alone catch up on the blogs. I promise I'm trying to make up for it tonight and over the next few nights as well.

In the meantime, I did have to sit and craft on Sunday as I needed to make a birthday card to get it in the post for my little cousins birthday on Friday. Once again Mo's fabulous image of Superduper boy came out for a play and I tried it on a new style of folded card that I've never done before. Whilst I like the effect, I think in future I might try and make it a little bit bigger if I can.



I coloured the image with pencils, again (i'm too much of a whimpt to try and do this type of shading with promarkers!) and used the fabulous paper from My Minds Eye paper pad, again. In fact, basically - other than the fact its a different shape card, it's the same materials as the one I made my dad, which can be found here.

I would like to enter this into two challenges:

CRAFT - inspired by a song (Hero, by Enrique Iglesias)
DP2 - Try something new (new style of folded card)

Thanks for stopping by and I promise I'll update again, much sooner! Until next time, happy crafting!

 
http://mosdigitalchallenge.blogspot.com/

Voluntary Work

Hello one and all!

I am alive - ish.... lol! it's been a strange few days to top off a strange few weeks, but today I am here to finally talk about the voluntary work i'm doing that I mentioned in my last post.

For the last couple of weeks I've been at Soho House Museum in Birmingham, the home of the industrial father of Brum - Matthew Boulton. Now, i've worked for the site for two seasons (2009 and 2011) and I love it. The house is so welcoming and the history, truly incredible. So when I started to get cabin fever from job hunting I got in touch with the debuty curator to ask if I could come back and do some volunteering with them - conservation cleaning, research and the like.

Little did I know that I would not only be able to do that, but also be in the midst of their redevlopment work at the site as well. The vistor centre is finally getting a much needed facelift and in the process, a new gallery space is going to be created - which in turn has meant that the gallery rooms of the house have been removed and the spaces returned to two more historical rooms! phew!

It's been great though - not only have I been able to assist the team on the site to gut the old gallery space (nothing quite like a hammer and crowbar to make you feel like a rebel!) but it's also enabled me to pull out all the old site history and indulge in my favourite past time, research!

Amongst manyof the tasks that i've been doing, one of the key areas is the re-write of the information panels in the historic rooms and the drafting of new panels in the two new spaces. Although these are still far from being completed, its been incredible learning even more about the site and its development, redevelopment and numerous uses post Boulton family - and here I was thinking I had a fairly good grasp on things! ooops!

But as I carry on and do more research, it becomes even clearer to me the importance of Matthew Boulton, not only on the city of Birmingham but on England in the 18th Century. If only more people cared enough to learn about him - maybe the site wouldn't want for visitors and maybe, just maybe, we could rekindle his name across the country. I can but dream.

Until next time (hopefully being typed without so many cuts and bruises!) take care and happy crafting

A Travelling Journal

 Evening everyone!

Ok, you can pick yourselves up off the floor, I am alive - I've just been incredibly busy doing voluntary work of late. Infact, I'm still doing it and it's all very exciting and interesting - but I'll do a post on just that in the near future. The other exciting(ish) news that I have is that I finally have work! hurrah! i'm going back to Birmingham Community Museums for the season - but this year I won't be working for the city council, I'll be working for the UK largest Museum Trust. Birmingham Museum Trust will consist of the community museums, the Museum and Art Gallery as well as Birmingham's Science Museum, ThinkTank.

But enough of the boring stuff. I just wanted to share a quick project with you. Whilst browsing the eighteen25 blog the other day I came across the most fabulous idea. A travelling journal. Not a travel journal, but a journal to share with friends and family who are spread far and wide. Now, I guess many of you are like me and have friends who live up and down the country (or even possibly abroad) and you don't get to see them as often as you'd like and probably don't speak to them as often as you should. Well now you can send them your latest news in a journal that you post from person to person:

This was such an easy make. It's a cheap hardback notebook from Wilkinson's, covered with some old scrapbooking paper. I added a coordinating ribbon band and then printed out the label which the girls over at eighteen25 designed. I cut a second house and foam mounted it and added some glitter around the edge of the label and there you have it!

I'll shortly be sending this on to my friend Charlie down in Dorset, then from there it'll go to London and our friend Heather before heading over to Cardiff to see Sarah and then back to me. I can't wait to see how this goes and I'll keep you updated when it comes back to me in about a months time.

Until next time, take care and Happy Crafting!