Who ate all the pies?

At our twice yearly visit to "the cottage" we had a play with paperclay and made some delightful birdies. Mine looks as though he's eaten all the pies.

His cute scarf was knit by the kindly Jane on a pair of cocktail sticks of all things! Gail said he needed goggles but he looks perfect to me. He's a lovely limey green so that he can stand in my new kitchen (when it's finished). If you want to see more birdies and stuff we made at the cottage click on Gail's link.
You an get your paper clay from 3DJean. Let us know what you make with your paper clay.
Thanks for popping by.

This is the reason

why there has been nothing going on on this blog.
 First I went here... amazing............... the atmosphere unbelievable.

Then I visited Ross in Aberdeen and spent a lovely sunny Saturday in Stonehaven sitting on the harbour side enjoying  the local mussels.

Next we turned this

 
into this

We built this house in 1989 and I found this message behind one of the cupboards

Can't remember Stumpy!!!!
I have managed a bit of crafting in between all this mayhem.

Some boxes
A friend's engagement card

Congratulations Hannah & Hugh

And finally I managed to have a play day with Jean Hardy at Crafty Individuals where we got messy with her new masks.

So now you know why it's been so long.
Thanks for dropping by

Tap Tap

At a Crafty Individuals workshop recently we were messing about with TAP or transfer artist paper. You stamp your image onto the paper colour in with your preferred colouring medium and then iron your image onto fabric. Now this is the sort of of ironing I enjoy lol.

                                                       a little gift bag

                                            a matching card

 The backgrounds were made by sticking strips of patterned paper onto a piece of card, spritzed with inks and then calmed down with a white spray.

I tried out the Distress Markers. now those of you who follow my ramblings know that I'm not a confident colourer but I'm going to eat my words and say...........................................I LOVE THEM!!! and yes I've bought them. 

Just popped in for a cuppa

You never know what will happen when you pop into the World of Stuff aka Gail's. I only stopped by for a cup of tea and I came home with this.

By the time the kettle had boiled I had covered the chipboard shape with paper from "the bit box". A bit of stamping, paper pleating and colouring with my one copic (skin tone) and hey presto one door hanger.
  I just love my crafty friends

Free Blog candy from Crafty Individuals

Jean's giving away a very generous bundle of Crafty Individuals goodies so click here to check it out

Show me the pictures

Sometimes when I'm flicking through my reading list I just want to see the pictures. I don't mean that the accompanying stories aren't interesting or well written it's just that ...... I just want to look at the pictures. So here's my pictures. You're clever you'll be able to work out how I made them and if not email me.

                                                            Vintage pocket card

                                                       Father's Day step card

                                                                   another

                                                   Free standing pop up card

                                                                    sandwich card

                                                               Tealight card

                                                                      inside
Hope you enjoyed the picture show. Thanks for popping by.

Father's Day cards

It's almost that time again when crafters have to start digging deep for ideas for the dreaded "men's cards". I don't know why  but most cardmakers struggle with cards for our men folk. I have a double whammy as 12 days after Father's Day it's my husband's birthday. I haven't started on his cards yet but I have made a couple of cards for my hairdresser. the first is a nice easy step card and  I've coloured the LOTV image with watercolour pencils.

This one is made with one of my favourite papers by Pion which you can get at 3djean. These papers are fabulous, double sided and some of the sheets are quartered, which is ideal for me as I like to make square cards.    

 My latest fad is to decorate the inside of my cards to match. The butterflies, watch and stamp are on the reverse of one of the Pion sheets.

Ok so I've made a start now I just need to make my husband's card .... .....but first a cup of tea and a slice of cake.
Thanks for popping by.

What's in a number?

Numbers ...you either love them or hate them. For some maths is a whole new language. At school I quite liked maths but only the simple stuff, adding, subtracting, tables etc not algebra, common fractions, We don't use maths so much now, I mean can you remember the last time you were stood at the supermarket conveyor belt and mentally estimated how much you had spent no you just hand over your card and pay the bill. Even small purchases are not calculated just hand over a fiver the cashier will give you the right change(hopefully) once the till has told her how much. But for some maths is a key part of their lives and for my eldest son his job evolves around equations and formula as a research technologist so when it was his birthday last week I knew exactly which card I was going to make.

 The image is from Crafty Individuals mounted onto My Minds Eye Kraft Fun day paper.
Kraft card is so useful for mens cards.
Happy Birthday Ross hope your lottery numbers come up soon.

First try at jewellery making

This month's glue and stick project was a necklace. Not your pretty delicate sort more chunky steampunky kind of thing. I really enjoyed making this and to be honest it's not finished(nothing new there). I think it will live on my window sill and I'll continue to add to it when I find some more bits and bobs.

 I've used cut down rulers, jigsaw pieces, mini dominoes, broken earings

The centre piece is a silver badge with a shrink plastic clock face

Stamp board square with a Crafty Individuals image.

A chipboard heart made by sticking several chipboard hearts together to get a really chunky heart.
As you can see plenty of spaces for me to fill.

Shine a light

A friend found this template to make a tealight card. and I just had to make one. The instructions are here.
It's like anything, the first one takes ages to make and sometimes you need to hide a few mistakes but after that you can be on a roll.

Then another

So if you need a little gift why not give it a try.

Home Sweet Home

Just a quick card for my niece who has moved into her new home.

Thanks for popping by.

Sandwich anyone?

I saw this design on my friend Jo's blog . She designed this sandwich board card and she kindly shared the instructions. The insert dangles and it was so simple to make. I can see that this will a popular design this year.

So easy to make. You can use any size card. Just make sure the fold is at the top.
Make a slit 1cm in from each edge. This will hold the insert. Cut out your aperture and decorate the front of your card.
Cut your insert the same size as the front of the card and punch out a decorative edge. This edge will form the tab that hangs through the slit. 

 Now trim the edges of the insert by 1cn on each edge. DO NOT cut into the punched edge or your insert will not hang on the fold of your card DOH. When finished the insert will be T shaped.

 Decorate your insert.  If you are planning to put any depth on your insert such as decoupage or 3d foam then you need to slide the insert through the fold frst.

These gorgeous papers are from3Djean
Just love this design hope you do too.

A Sister is a special person

Especially mine. Our Mum died over 40 years ago and my sister has been like a mother to me.
She's the one who always sees the bright side of things. She's always ready for a shopping day or a cup of coffee (and cake) Sh e's lent me her car, her home and the odd £10 note lol. She often tells me how excited she was when I was born as she had two brothers and she wanted a sister. She's always there for me. So when it's a special persons birthday you need a special card and here's mine.

Happy Birthday Margaret my special sister.

Oh boy

Like many of you I struggle with men/boys cards but this one came to me in a flash. It was inspired by Joanne's article in the Craft Stamper. She made some lovely tent cards with a hidden messsage. It was the tent shape that got me thinking. I've made tent cards before but I've always stuck the concertina base inside the card. I didn't see that you could use the fold that was already on your card to form the concertina. Strange how people see things that you miss but that's what's so good about crafting. Someone (not usually me!) is always thinking outside the box. Anyway I had a go at this quicker method and made this.

 Colouring courtesy of my Distress Inks.
Then I thought I'd have a go at making one with a pull out message but I forgot to photo the message so you will just have to believe me when I say the butterfly pulls up and says "with love" .....honest.

And then another

and another

and then I stopped otherwise I would have a campsite full!!

Back to my roots

I don't do this often enough...getting inky. I love making my own backgrounds but I'm usually in a rush and just reach out for a 6x6 pad of paper. But this time I spent a while brayering Distress ink onto white card until ......it was white no longer. Then I've overstamped with a range of stamps, Tim Holtz and Crafty Individuals. The card is grandly called a Tri Fold Cascade.  It took a bit of time to make but I'm really pleased with the result.

 

Thanks for dropping by.