Eat, Drink & Be Merry

How cute is this paper? Its from Cosmo Cricket Garden Variety. The day I found out I could purchase it digitally was pretty much the highlight of my year! I used it as the basis for this card for a person whom I know likes food & cooking.

I printed the Graphics Fairy image on tissue paper, layered it over the Cosmo Cricket ‘tossed salad’ and artfully(!) tore it. I then sponged some old paper Distress Ink around the edges - which somehow makes the tracing paper seem more translucent, I think its an illusion – and then spent a very long time fiddling with a shrink plastic, only to end up printing the sentiment on paper and mod podge-ing it to resultant tag. A lot of faffing but a pleasing result!

Daylight, How Novel!

I sat down at my desk today and thought, wow I’m actually sitting here in the daylight! Unfortunately that was after 2pm on a thoroughly miserable day so it wasn’t long before I was switching the light on! I wanted to share this card with you, a request that I found quite difficult at first but I think it turned out ok in the end:

 

I was mostly impressed with these foam letters that I’ve had for ever and can rarely find a project they will suit but in this case I tried heat embossing them (I covered the surface in Versamark first) and I quite like the effect!

And in case you’re wondering what I did all morning, behold:

Festive or what?! Hmph!

A Stampin’ Up! Christmas!

      

Pop over to the blog of the incredibly talented Loraine to check out the details of these three gorgeous cards made with Stampin’ Up products. Finger crossed Santa brings me some £moolah to enable me to have another spending spree after Christmas!

Tis The Season

Would you like to see some more of my Christmas offerings? No? Well tough!
  
This cut-out was created on Robocop (among much cussing) and layered over some of last years Funky Hand paper. (I think I saw the idea on the Papercrafts Connection website but I can’t be sure).
The turquoise creation is the ‘Dasher’ stamp from Stampin’ Up repeatedly stamped in Versamark over a piece of aqua card. I printed the sentiment onto a strip of vellum and wrapped that around the card before layering it onto a card blank covered in a freebie paper from Design House Digital.
  
And these two were created with the last of my gilding flakes that I picked up at the NEC almost two years ago. I love this stuff and may well have to procure myself some more. On the right hand card, I followed the example that I saw created on the NEC stand by covering the negative of the black silhouette – cut by Robocop – in soap before placing it down on the Woodware double sided adhesive sheet and covering the space left with the gilding flakes. Then I lifted the mask and covered the ‘sky’ with black glitter. Pretty cool, huh?

Flying High

I recently succumbed to a Hero Arts digikit sale on Two Peas and purchased the ‘Ode To Steampunk’ kit, with the intention that it would help me with my masculine cards. This card was created by printing the map overlay directly onto kraft card and the airplane and my custom text onto tracing paper which I tore and glued to the kraft. It seemed a lil flat so I inked the edges with old paper Distress Ink and over-stamped in the same ink with a Prima text stamp and then finished the card with air mail bakers twine and a stamped metal… um thing with the recipients name. I like it much more now, hope my uncle does!

WOYWW 126

Morning WOYWWers, r we well?

Last time I joined your party, I was preparing for my first ever craft fair and I think… it… went… ok…! It wasn’t earth shattering but it wasn’t as boring as I thought it might be!

Since then, I’m afraid I’ve hardly done anything! As my desk is testament:

I’ve been a naughty jodpea, I’ve been buying this week – now I just need to actually use the stuff! And yes that is a pair of orange tights  - make your own jokes!

If you look back at my last few posts you can see a selection of the things I made for the fair - n there’s more to come! (Is that a threat or a promise?!)

Shine & Shadow

Some more examples of the work I completed for the fair. I know I don’t really use my alcohol inks to their full potential but man, I love the effect of them on miri card! I had some of these cards lined up on the desk while I was making them and when they caught the light from the window they really shone!

I do intend to make some more of these so if anyone has any suggestions on a ‘skyline’ to use, I’m all ears…!

Happy Halloween!

Here’s wishing you a ghoulishy good Monday!! Meet Mike:

All The Fun Of The Fair

I seem to start every post with "wow, hasn't it been a long time since I posted?" so who wants to break with tradition? I genuinely haven't posted this month as October has proved to be the most manic month of the year... jus when I was planning me some hols too!

Yesterday was my first ever craft fair, at Essington Fruit Farm near Wolverhampton. The magnificent Loraine accompanied me, to hold my hand (and split the tea bill!) and I actually sold a few things. It wasn't a ground breaking day but it wasn't as bad as I was imagining. I just need to work on my people skills!

The illustrious Mrs Dunnit requested that I share some sneak peeks last week but I’m afraid I am not even a lil bit that organised but I did work my wobbly backside off to get enough stock together so how bout a series of here’s what I made earlier shots? I’m afraid there will be liberal showings of the C word but it IS two months tomorrow!!

The sleigh bells sentiment is a Waltzingmouse stamp and I can’t look at it without singing the song so I thought I could make a series of cards based around the lyrics – clever or cheesy?

WOYWW - Slow n steady wins the race

I'm conscious of how often I use the word bombsite but I really do have a talent for making a mess. Last month or so I've been furiously attempting to fill up my stocks in preparation for my first craft fair next month but I seem to have slowed down considerably in the last week! I also have mutiny on the craft robo front, he's chewing up almost everything at the mo, wasting card left, right n centre :( So after two hours in here last night I only produced one card but I'd better not show it to u cos it is still only September and some of you might get an attack of the vapours!

Kiss Me Quick

I'm so glad Lucy Abrams has picked up her blogging again as I find her work so inspirational and she stops me feeling guilty bout using computer generated embellishments (I dunno, somehow it feels like a cop-out but I think I owe this all-consuming hobby to the digital crafting world so go figure!)

She made clever use of a recent Hero Arts digikit release that was actually autumn themed (I.e leaves) but she went down the xmas route instead and created this:

Which I thought was such a great idea I literally ran home (well ok maybe not literally!) and made these tags:

The 'berries' are homemade card candy using scrap card with liberally applied versamark and pearl embossing powder stuck down with rolled up glue dots. There are five of them tied together here, thats not a huge ribbon embellishment!

Knees Up

Not only have I not been blogging lately, it seems I haven’t actually photographed any of my creations! So here’s a quick post about a get well soon card commissioned by my main customer for a knee operation patient:

It took a bit of faffing (and swearing at the printer) but I was pretty chuffed with how Robo Cop cut these crutches out in the end… and look how CAS it is!!

Christmas In July

Edited to add: Yes I did make these in July, somehow this post never got uploaded, oops!

I heard a DJ exclaiming over the ridiculousness of shops and restaurants already looking toward Christmas, taking bookings putting out merchandise etc. I was very tempted to text in and explain that in papercrafting circles Christmas in July is pretty much a staple and I’m afraid I’ve kind of jumped on the bandwagon this year as it dawned on me not so long ago that, as December is one of the busiest months in our family for birthdays and how much effort it takes to craft on the dark wintery nights, perhaps some forward planning would be sensible…? Yes you heard it sensible! Who’d’ve thought it? Am I getting old? Mostly I was inspired by this layout which I pinched from Therese Calvird at Lostinpaper:

which just shouted out to be recreated with snowflakes so I made these:

with my new Waltzingmouse stamps. Am I finally succumbing to a stamping addiction cos I really wanna go back and buy some of their frame sets… even tho I don’t own any nesties or even a manual die cutter!

Poppies & Gladioli

The Daring Cardmakers dare this week is the birth flowers for the month of August – poppies & gladioli. Here’s my card:

The paper is from a country diary paper pack and I cut the poppy centres out on Robo Cop. I’m pretty pleased with it but I have no idea how I’m gonna package it!!

Happy Birthday Lisa!

So yday was Lisa Sparkle’s bday and I couldn’t leave it any longer to post the pic’s of wot I made her cos I’m well proud! Without wanting to give too much away it was a special bday so I had to put some effort in to and I decided quite a while ago to make an exploding box:

The larger stickers where 29p from Home Bargains (gotta love that shop!) and I made the smaller letters myself with clear self adhesive paper from Crafty Computer Paper.

Remove the lid and ta da!

All the Alice In Wonderland characters are by The Octopode Factory – I was looking for an excuse to buy them and lo and behold I found one, so thanks Lise!.

 

I stuck with my original sentiment of “Its not what’s on the outside, its what’s on the inside that counts” which I decided was fitting for  Alice’s boredom of the outside world versus the craziness down the rabbit hole.

 

I created the chequerboard with some offcut red rubber in black n then I went a filled a few in with Versamark n various embossing powders.

 

Hope u like it n HAPPY BIRTHDAY CUS!

 

Going Round In Circles

This was a card that begged to be made, springing fully formed from my mind even down to the font to be used (Arial Rounded). I think I've seen the design somewhere else but I don't know where so I'm not deliberately not crediting someone, I promise!

I'm hoping it fits the CAS regulations of the Less Is More challenge which this week is circles, with emphasis on the plural. Well to my mind theres at least four on this card so...!

WOYWW 111 - The Aftermath

Seriously, I hate deadlines. For most people deadlines make them concentrate, buckle down and give their all. Me? Its brings out the queen of procrastination in me - "I'll get on with that important task... just let me sit down n have a cup of tea & a biscuit first..." So two weeks ago, it was panic stations cos I was behind in the wedding preparations and I hadn't ordered 'this' and 'that' was floating somewhere in royal-mail world... and now? I think bereft is a good word! I've got nothing to do! No motivation! July & August are quiet months by our family standards - altho the wondrous Lisa Sparkle has a bday coming up... I can tell you that, right? - and I'm bursting with ideas but I've got no oompf it seems! Hence the bomb site of my desk and the debris of half finished projects:

Oh well, stop whining n pull ur finger out, girl. Mr Mojo can't be far away and he always comes home in the end!

Happy WOYWW everyone, n no I haven't eaten all those sweets yet!

WOYWW 110 – What Of Your Windy Wedding?

Hmm, yeah ok I could’ve done better there but I do intend to make this post all about THE wedding and it was a fairly windy day. This is gonna be picture heavy, guys, if thats no good for your browser, please look away now!

Now before you get all excited, it wasn’t my wedding – in fact it wasn’t even a member of my sprawling family, I commented to my friend that it would be the my first day out in a loooonnnng time where I wouldn’t be referred to as Aunty Jody!! – it was the long awaited wedding of a good friend of mine who let me bully her into making things for it! You may remember I asked your advice on the invites all those many moons ago, finally settling on this design (below,left):


The theme of the cupcakes came from the happy couple’s decision to go for a stack of cupcakes rather than a traditional tiered cake.
I sourced a number of images while I was making the samples and they plumped for a similar design for the order of service booklets (above, right) …I wonder if anyone noticed?!

We toyed with the idea of making cupcake shaped favours for the tables but in the end economy won out and she stuck to organza bags filled with sweets. The tables also had gorgeous Victorian style sweet jars filled with traditional sweets which lent their names to identifying the tables:

And there was a fair bit of bartering going on between the tables too!

Sticking to the theme of sweets – and its not the first time I’ve been told I’m hard to buy for -  look what was delivered on the Friday before the big day. A complete surprise, I was so chuffed:

and in return, my gift to them was born from an idea of recycling the extraneous materials I’d collected during the make but ended up being made from scratch with the help of Robo Cop (right). I also made the table plan and the name cards (complete with the individuals menu choice on the reverse which proved handy!) but of course I forgot to photograph them so I’ll leave u with some shots from the day…

The Happy Couple	The Bride & Her Maids
Me & My Plus One, lol	The Bride & Me

Thanks for looking & happy WOYWW!