Apologies

Thank you for all the lovely comments I have received recently and I'm sorry to any one who has looked in that there is nothing new. I've had four operations in the last 5 weeks and my crafting has been put on hold.
Hopefully I'll be up and about soon!
Hope everyone has a lovely Christmas.
xxx

Here's one I made earlier!

Well, I was feeling under the weather and have spent the last 3 weeks in hospital. Unable to craft at the moment, but I thought I would put up the last couple of cards I managed to do.
The first one was for the Crafty Cardmakers challenge last week which has now finished. Please have a look at this weeks recycle challenge which i'm really upset at missing as I had half finished my project. Hopefully I can get it done when I'm up and about again.

For this challenge we had to use only brown, cream and pink. I stamped and coloured a LOTV fairy with promarkers, card from my stash and flowers from Wild Orchid Crafts.

I enjoyed doing this card so much I made a similar, larger card for my friend's birthday.

 Same stamp with lace and a handmade butterfly and silver filigree corners. I'm afraid my photography leaves a lot to be desired and the colours look a little washed out. Another thing to improve on when I feel better.

Hoping it won't be too long before I can get crafting again!

October Blues

Been rather under the weather recently and not had the energy to get crafty, but it's my friends 50th birthday this week so I dragged myself from my sick bed to make this card for her. Her favourite colour is green hence the green dress!

I have used a Sugar Nellie stamp coloured with PM's, pearls, ribbon and some flowers from Wild Orchid Crafts. Hope she likes it!

Also, for a chance to win some great blog candy, check out The Paper Princess. Lovely stamps, thank you P4W.

Back to my sick bed now!!

Craft Cardmakers Design Team

Exciting news! I am made up to have been invited on to the Crafty Cardmakers design team and would like to thank everyone for all your lovely comments.
Me thinks I'll have to pull my finger out now!

Crafty Cardmakers

Crafty Cardmakers are having a design team call, so I thought I'd take the plunge and have a go!

The first card is on the theme of new beginnings.

The next 3 cards are a bit of a mixed bag. The first one is a card I have made for my nephew. It's a Penny Black stamp and I love colouring with promarkers, so I really enjoyed making this one.

The next one is a wall hanging using a picture of my Grandmother. The picture frame is made from card which has been embossed in gold and stamped into. The background has been stamped and edged with german scrap. I finished it off with some lace, flowers and pearls. This is my favourite recent make - but it might be for sentimental reasons! 

My third selection has also appeared in a previous post and reflects the style of the majority of my stamps. The background was embossed with cogs and clocks and coloured with alcohol inks. I added clock cogs which were fixed with screw brads. It was finished with some Tim Holtz stamps and mounted on kraft card.

 So that's my four entries, all different, but I like to try something new!

Altered Wooden House

I have finally got around to finishing my wooden house, I seem to have been doing it forever!
It's my first use of distress stains and tissue paper. I applied the distress stain first and then used Mod Podge to adhere the tissue paper (gorgeous 7 Gypsies paper with birds and cages) and seal it.
There are various items on the shelves and some may look rather odd, but they are personal bits and pieces I have had for a long time. The half a crown was given to me by my Granddad.

The little book and the butterflies were made from grunge paper. I'm very fond of my butterfly die at the moment and they seem to be cropping up on everything I do. I have coloured them with distress inks and embossed them in gold. The brass plate was coloured with alcohol ink and glossy accents.

I seem to keep moving things around in it every day, so it could look completely different next month!

I have entered this into the Happy Daze Little black dress challenge.



I also managed to finish another wall hanging. This one has a picture of my Dad's mother, taken around 1911, so now I have one of both my Grandmothers.

I made the picture frame from card which I embossed with gold and stamped into and added some lace and pearls. I don't think the photo has picked up the background stamping very well, but it's flowers and leaves in antique linen distress ink. Oh, and I added another grunge butterfly!

Wall Hanging

Not got a lot done this last few weeks as life got in the way, but I managed to make this little wall hanging.

It started out as just 2 butterflies as I wanted to try out my new Movers and Shapers die and grew from there! I stamped and embossed the centre image and coloured with promarkers and made some flowers for the corner. I then edged it in white lace which I used Antique Linen distress ink on to, hopefully make it a little more vintage looking.
Now I need to make some birthday cards - rather quickly!

Odds and Ends

 Decided to use up some odds and ends of paper that were too small for cards and too nice to throw away, so I covered this small box. Left over metal beads were used to make the feet. I dusted walnut distress ink on the edges and covered with gel medium - which was then re-covered with Spray and shine as the medium was causing the lid to stick!

 This  is a present for my Mum. It is a photo of her mother, the only one we have of her (I used a copy of course). So I hope she will like it

My attempt at brayering! I was made up when I saw this Blake verse stamp by Clarity as it's always been one of my favourites.

This is one of the first cards I made and my first use of alcohol inks, so I have a soft spot for it.

And finally a wedding gift tag, I saw a really cool new way (new for me anyway) to make roses and had to use them on something.

Promarker Practice!

 Still practising with my promarkers in the hope that one day I'll produce a masterpiece. Meantime, here are some I made earlier!

The first 3 are Polka Doodles stamps including a Christmas scene using only grey promarkers - my attempt at copying Nikky Hall's lovely card.

A Sarah Kay stamp made for a friends birthday.(It looks a bit washed out on the photo, camera playing up!)

Just playing with these really and trying to make my own background papers. The leaves were a Craft Stamper freebie, stamped with Distress ink and coloured with promarkers.

Finally a Joanna Sheen badger, complete with added wellies!

Paint Fusion

 The wonderfully talented Sheena Douglas is back on Create and Craft at the end of this week and she is giving away some blog candy, a full set of new paint fusion stamps and DVD. For a chance to win bob over to her blog here
I have loved all Sheena's paint fusion range up to now and can't wait to see the new stamps!
So, I thought I would take this opportunity to post some of my creations. Two wall hangings and a gift tag.

Still practising......................

Birthday cards

The dreaded card for a man! I never know where to start with these, so, I pinched ideas for here there and everywhere. Thank you to everyone for the inspiration.
This is the largest card I've ever made and it's on 8 x 8 kraft card. I've used card from My Minds Eye and Tim Holtz stamps The embossed square has been coloured with alcohol inks in caramel, gold and pesto and attached with some screw brads, as were the clock parts (I even managed to line them up so that if you turn one they all turn!). The card was finished off with some copper german scrap coloured gold with alcohol ink and a pair of tiny brass wings.

This was made for a friend who wanted a card for a work colleague. I used a Sarah Kay stamp coloured with Promarkers  and attached some seam binding. The ribbon seems to be hiding the green glass beads hanging from the bow!!

Exploding Box

I've wanted to make an exploding box for ages and finally managed it last weekend. It started out as a bit of a play around and ended up as a wedding box for my brother. I have just used white card and I covered each side with an embossed square and the odd pearl here and there!

The outer sides I used a Martha Stewart punch on and a bit of embossing.

Inside the box I added some (more) roses and feathers and now need to work out where to put my message. I might do this on a small card in between the feathers and with any luck they might find it!!!

Martha Stewart punch again on the lid and a few dangly pearls and it was finished - this has got to be the longest I have spent making a card!

Roses

My brothers wedding is taking place at the end of this month and I foolishly said I would do the buffet, the table decorations and favours!! The theme for the tables is pink and cream roses so, rather than go out and buy them - as that just wouldn't be crafty, I got out my Tattered Florals die and made them, 90 in total, using Bazzill Bling card stock.
It was very time consuming but rewarding when I looked at them piled up ready to go!

Well, ready to go - or not!

With the help of my very good, and probably very fed up friend, we glued them in to place and stood up to admire our handiwork. Great, then one fell off - then another, and another.

The problem was trying to glue paper to glass quickly as there aren't enough hours in the day to hold each rose in place until the glue dried.

Fast forward to 3 days and several different glues later, success with Pinflair glue gel.

They aren't finished yet, but this is how they are looking now:

Hopefully when they are finished they will be filled with glass beads (the kind that go in flower vases) and a tea light, battery operated to comply with fire regs.

Just hoping that my brother and his wife will like them, think it will be quite some time before I feel the need to make roses again!!!

My first blog

Having spent the last couple of days setting up my blog I've now got to start posting!
I discovered rubber stamping about 12 months ago and seem to spend most of my time stamping, colouring in and cutting out - never actually seem to get around to making anything. Hopefully this will encourage me to finish things off!

These are a few things I have managed to complete recently.

A card for my Mum, Crafty Individuals CI-065 stamped onto mount board and embossed and coloured with promarkers.

A small plaque with Tim Holtz stamps.

This is a Father's Day card, using a Creative Expressions tree stamp and a Marianne corner die.

A plaque using Crafty Individuals stamp CI-273 and various scraps of patterned paper.

This card was made with Graphic 45 papers, Tim Holtz stamp and I made the background with a V&A floral stamp.