Busy Saturday

I had a little kitchen gathering of crafters on Saturday - really enjoyed meeting some new faces and catching up with some old. It turned into a cardmaking session and I managed to make nothing all day - bar sticking one photo to one piece of card but I'm determined to finish al least one LO tonight, so I'll have something to post tomorrow.
In the meantime - oh look how she has grown - where has my baby gone? A little girl has taken her place and a wilful, stubborn and determined girl at that, who is afraid of nothing when she chooses.

quick post

with a couple of cards I managed to get finished. One for the men - Birty Shirt from the Arty Farty template range. I have had this for absolutely ages but never got around to trying it and it's so quick and easy to do and quite effective as well I think.
The other is my fave house mouse stamps again - I used the sketch on this weeks Card Positioning Systems as my jump off point.
Have a great weekend one and all.

at last

A blog post. I did make a dozen cards last week and photographed them all for my gallery and then when I went to upload them, I had somehow broken the memory card. On top of that I seem to have lost my Pink Petticoat folders - I supposedly put them onto my portable storage thingy but there's nothing there. Pants.
On a happy note I have new Crate Papers, House Mouse stamps, KI Memories lacy cardstock, prisma pencils and new chipboard flying home with me! Plus quite a few finished and half finished cards.
I'll be lost when I get home and don't have baby minders on tap but there is a crafty Saturday to look forward to as well - so Friday will be spent unpacking and trying to get my craft stuff together.
So a few cards using house mouse stamps plus the black and white one has a big red flower made using the nestabilities circle dies. I can't find my large embossing tool to do a How to but basically you cut 2 circles from thick handmade paper - fold into quarters to find the centre then cut down every second scallop to within a quarter inch of the centre. This forms the petals. With the wrong side facing, emboss the end of each petal in a circular motion - the petals with start to curl upwards. Emboss a line down the centre of each petal. Now turn the the flower over and emboss the centre of the flower in a circular motion. Repeat with the second flower. Layer on top of each other and pierce a whole through the centre, add a brad et voila. Finished flower.I've used the same technique but with Papermania patterned vellum on the pink flower card.

ribbon flower cards

I've been tying to catch up and sort my bags out after my demo in Limerick in Saturday - I really enjoyed it, the time really flew by and I saw some old faces and plenty of new ones. I just had to turn a demo in Belfast next week as I'm off to visit my mum in Wales for the week - time to chill out, while she spoils dd rotten! Plus I have some new papers to collect I had delivered to her, some ribbons and other bits - she bought a huge scrap pack at Christmas and there is just no way I'll fit it in my luggage this time either, so I'll have to prioritise on what comes back with me - fill dd's buggy with paper and make her walk!
Asked to do a last min wedding card for this evening - so I've used my tried and tested circle card. 2 pretty silver charms and a premade bow with some vellum flowers I demo'ed on Sat and I had it done in no time.
I decided to try and do at least challenge a week - so I joined in with the card positioning systems sketch challenge and the blue ribbon card is my attempt. It is just folded ribbon loops on a card circle, layered onto a second larger circle with the same ribbon loops and a charm in the centre. Cuttlebug embossing folder on white card and then lots of small white Papermania gems to highlight the flower ends. Matted twice and mounted to a card blank.
The second is the same take on the ribbon flower idea on a larger card blank.
tfl

Grab some blog candy here ... http://cazzytime.blogspot.com/ luvvverly set of stamps on offer ... what are you waiting for........

more circle cards

I just love these circles card this week - they are so quick and easy to make. Just layered circles with my X Cut shape cutter and then a nestabilities scalloped circle to add a bit of texture - although X cut have now released a circle edger punch which I'm desperate to get my mitts on. The papers are PM 8by8 paper collections that come in really handy little packs - I love the fact that there is 5 each of each design in the pad - I am a paper hoarder and hate using paper that I don't have another piece of (yes there's a lot of paper stashed around my house). These little pads solve that problem for me. The congratulations card has an Anita's stamped and embossed image of champagne glasses, PM silk flowers and PM adhesive gems. The other is a TUIT card - I googled the verse and cut it with the nestabilities. More Papermania paper - this time the black and white pad, more PM sticky gems, sticky ribbon and tiny designer brads. The flowers are punched with my X Cut flower punch from vellum and then dry embossed to make the petals curl up, with the brad in the centre.
The last one is a small frame made using 2 old beer mats and guess what? The X cut shape cutter. Used the small square template to mark and cut the aperture in the top beer mat and then cut a frame from black card using the smallest square template, which I then embossed with a cuttlebug folder. I cut a second square from black card and embossed it as well for the back of the frame. I used a piece of embossed PM 12 by 12 card to place behind the aperture and used a piece of acetate to cover the aperture opening. The edges of the beermat were painted with a bit of gold acrylic and the black card glued on top, front and back. Bit of ribbon, green prima daisies and sticky Papermania pearls to embellish. I added a photo and sandwiched the two beermats together with some foam tape.
tfl xxx

St Anthony

Where are you? I have spent 2 precious hours that should have been used playing looking for my flipping memory stick. It has vanished (just not toiletways I hope - she is just obssessed with it at the moment!) - I remember picking it up one day and then total blank, I think must have it put it away "somewhere safe" and a decade could pass before I recover it. I had only just put all my papercraft files, templates, pink petticoat etc onto it as my poor computer has been suffering from failing memory - it is desperate need of more RAM and obviously so am I.
Juat giving up.... I made these circle cards yesterday. One is for my aunt's birthday - I was just going send one I'd premade but ended doing this from scratch and liked it so much I made another, just for the heck of it. The circles are cut with the X Cut shape cutter - it is one fab bit of kit. My heart sank when I first saw it in my box of goodies - I had a fiskar's one a couple of years ago and never managed to cut a shape properly, so it languished for months until I was forced to try it before a demo and it was love at first slice. I use it so much now - for cards, frames, scrapbook photos, mini albums, just everything. It makes circles and ovals a doddle and no matter how careful you are, you can't get results like it using scissors.
The scalloped circle is my new nestability die and I ran the patterned paper through the cuttlebug - it adds so much defintion and ooomph to any card.
Right am off to see if the memroy fairy has been...

Yippeee - great start to the day

I hopped onto the SCrapdreamie blog - the new home of the creative forces behind Scrapgenie, scrapbook product distributors and I'd won the scraplift challenge. A fabby Vituri bag is mine, all mine - they are the type of thing I covet but wouldn't buy for myself - so I'm delighted. It was a real last ditch effort on my part - the deadline was midnight and at half past ten I hadn't an idea or a photograph. The whole thing took shape and was completed in an hour - which is unbelievable for me. Normally I sit and dither over a LO for days, even weeks before committing glue to paper - that's why my album is so sparse. I just always think I'll have a better idea, so wait to see what and happens (usually nothing!)- so it's speed scrapping for me from now on, I'm going to try and finsh one quick LO a week! That's speedy compared to my recent output!
http://www.scrapdreamie.typepad.com/ You can see the scraplift and my LO here.
Plan to play for a couple of hours today. Wonderful MIL is taking dd so I can do any last minute prep for my DoCrafts demo tomorrow in Limerick - so it's out with my kit without fear of my eyelets ending up down the toilet again... along with a dolly, a few shape cutter templates and the dog's lead.
I also got a demo on the next DoCrafts loop, more goodies to play with - hurrayyy! It's an overnight stay in Letterkenny! So it's a bit of a slog from here - 5 hours on the coach, which I think will be the handiest way of doing it and a night in the local Travel lodge or similar. Oh the things I'll do for free paper!

trump that

trump that

trump that...

I love the idea of the make your own top trump cards - see links. A whole series devoted to the Magic Roundabout with a "likelihood to have fathered an illegitimate child with Florence" category and appropriate percentile - Dylan 72% Dougal 53% Brian the Snail 84%. A plethora of other ideas spring to mind, featuring assorted celebs and friends but I'd probably be in violation of several laws regarding defamation and slander, so I'll keep my mouth shut before I find myself featured on one - in a "least likely to be invited the party" category.
I have a passion for all things personalised in general - it's partly why I create my own cards and gifts for people - I love to make something unique with a personal angle. Some people might call it twee, I think it's thoughtful and really what's so wrong with twee? Hmm, do you know I've no idea what the dictionary definition of that word is - I must find out.
The Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English tells us:
twee = "affectedly or inappropriately dainty or quaint".
well there we go... it's a word I like the sound of - along with such delights as ooze, zeugma and a real old favourite - mnemonic....
Camels Often Sit Down Carefully; Perhaps Their Joints Creak? Persistent Early Oiling Might Prevent Permanent Rheumatism. and this is a great mnemonic but what for?!?

Oh and yes I do promise to be a good blogger and actually post more often. I'm now an official "working" - yeah! Do Crafts demonstrator - so I've some projects and cards to add.

A Magnolia Christmas

My poor old blog has been a bit neglected this last month. Actually all areas of my online life have been suffering, I've just not found the time to spend anytime on Craft Supplies or any of the other crafty sites that I skip through, my webmail is also suffering but I had to sacrifice the time as I have recently gone back to work (albeit part time) and I'm also involved in organising the Galway Breastfeeding conference in October, which is being held in Gort this year. (See www.breastmates.blogspot.com for more info).
I've been playing with some fabulous new stamps as well, from Magnolia - a Swedish rubber stamp company. I cannot praise them highly enough. They are EZ mounted and have the most wonderful fine line images with shading and depth.(Do you think I like them? NO - I love 'em!) And the characters are sooooo cute too, my fave has to be Tilda with the frog, I thought it would make a fabulously tongue in cheek, "Well his did bulge a bit" card or "I told you he was slimy" card, for when your girlfriends get dumped.....
I've been trying to "go digi" as well and managed a single framed LO of dd with her name on it - thought it looked a bit flat though and added a few odds n ends and a couple of jewels to give it a bit of bling. I have to say I found the digi really challenging, not because the actual format of it is hard but because I kept trying to produce something that simply wasn't me - then I realised, just because the media is different it doesn't mean my style has to be. So I went back to the beginning and stopped trying so hard and a page done in 15 mins!(OK it wont win any prizes but it achieved it's purpose - I've done digital!