Quirky Crafts challenge time again

The challenge set by Diane is Flourishes and Embossing, and our sponsor is Robyn's Fetish.

This gorgeous image from our sponsor is called Flights of Fancy, and I printed it on acetate then die cut it and a piece of patterned glitter card and joined the two with star eyelets. I cut a Nesties large label and used a Sizzix embossing folder to emboss the Black Magic Cordinations paper, which I then sanded. That was mounted on a rectangle of embossed silver card and metallic blue card blank I folded myself. I die cut flourishes with Sizzlets, and punched the corners of the silver card with a Kreaxions punch. I haven't added a sentiment yet.

Here is Sooty after yet another blood test sporting a green bandage and shaved tummy from the scans, poor thing.

Engagement card

I was commissioned to make a personalised engagement card and here it is.

 You can't really tell but the gorgeous purple card has an embossed pattern of flowers and leaves all over it. All shapes cut with Spellbinders Nestabilties, and border punched with Martha Stewart deep border punch. Words stamped and heat embossed in silver. Couple stamp is by One Rubber Room, Crackerjack Palace. I had the idea of the two hearts, the top one stamped with the word Love, which is  Rubaddubadoo stamp as is the On Your Engagement sentiment. The names are stamped with Stamps Away alphabet stamps but now some are missing sadly, I hope I find them. The heart underneath is stamped with the date of the engagement using Stamps Away alphabet stamps.

The ribbon was a length I found in my ribbon organiser and is now all gone, and I wish I knew where it was from as I would like some more. It took a lot of work to end up with the finished product and a lot of trial stamping and cutting to get here but finally it all came together beautifully and congratulations to Bethany and Ollie, I hope you liked your card!

Red Hat Society

Yes - another Quirky Challenge starts today, and it involves red hats!

Our Sponsor is Robyn's Fetish, and this image is called A Hunting We Will Go. I think it is good for a boy's card. I coloured the image with Promarkers, and die cut it and the mats with Nestabilities, added We R Memory Keepers Big Snaps with the Cropadile to the corners of striped green vellum and a greeting by Hero Arts. It looks out of focus on Blogger but wasn't before. So hop on over to Quirky Crafts to see what the rest of the team have done, it is worth it to see some lovely examples.

Now on the room sort out front, it is going well but there is a lot to do before it can truly be called tidy for 5 minutes, but here are the new shelves in place ready to fill. I have actually filled them now so need new photos, but I am still sorting and rearranging stuff and had a trip to HobbyCraft for more Really Useful boxes, and might need a couple more yet. But things are better in my eyes, and will continue to improve.

 

trapped in craft room, send chocolate

O.K. Confession time, I am a messy crafter, or just messy! My once lovely tidy craft room following the purchase of two Ikea bookcase pictured below, has become full of "stuff" again. and I have the opportunity of two free bookcases which are not Ikea so don't quite match either in colour or depth. They are actually deeper. I thought about it and decided that I could try one and see what it looks like, and then I could maybe get this room into a proper work room. 

The Ikea chair (you can just see one arm above) in the middle of my room is covered in stash right now, and quite frankly is in the way, I am reluctant to get rid of it because it is so good to sit on - but I can't remember the last time I sat on it! It is shoved over close to the mess and I had to pick my way through the tiny path between the mess and the chair to get here!

Are you shocked yet? I am behind this lot, well not at the time this was taken as I was taking it! I moved all of this out of the space next to my nice tidy shelves to make a space for the new shelves to go into, that leaves me with a bit of a problem as the green and purple crates are full of stuff relating to the knitting machine. The knitting machine you may remember used to sit where the shelves are covered in stuff, and with so much stuff on the floor in front of it I couldn't get near it. That was put away and into an upstairs cupboard which is a tad full. So I need to work out where I am going to put the crates or what is in them, or force myself to get rid of some of it to the charity shop. I keep thinking I will one day use the knitting machine again, and even if I did pluck up the courage to sell it I wouldn't get a lot for it and the crates and trunks of yarn, books, accessories etc that I have for it. The Really Useful tower which is made of two smaller towers was also in the space, so had to move, and then I found that it wasn't up to the weight of boxes and one wheel had buckled. The plan is the boxes will fit on the new shelves, and the tower will go. If I get rid of the chair too I can walk to all of my storage and get what I need. The other wall has a cupboard with lots of Lidl blue and grey drawer sets on top, then boxes of stuff on top again, and next to that a paper sorter which is staying, and more drawers on top and more stuff on top again, then a blue plastic drawer tower. The idea is that if I moved the paper sorter/organiser next to the work bench, and maybe get rid of the blue plastic tower and cupboard (that might go upstairs) I can get the second shelf unit in and tidy up all the stuff there. I might need more Really Useful boxes I feel.

Ikea bookcases, they look tidy now I have moved all the rubbish out of the way to get the new shelves in.

What's on your workbench Monday - EEEK!

More stuff I put in the dining room until I get the shelves, himself asked if it was for throwing out, how dare he, I need those folders for more UM stamps not yet sorted and catalogued!

So I cleared a path to where the shelves are to go, but when we tried to get them in between rain showers, I couldn't lift my end so we had to leave it for now, hopefully we will have reinforcements tomorrow! I have stacks of empty boxes for altering and packaging I guess it could go for the sake of tidyness, maybe..... I also have lots of packing I am keeping in case I sell any stuff which I am slowly doing on Facebook, problem is I am buying more than I sell! I hope that if I can be ruthless it will be more conducive to crafty productivity if it is tidy and I gain a space in the middle of the room again!

Christening card

A lady at work commissioned me to make a christening card, and here is the result. It took ages to finish as I kept taking bits in to show her and see if she was happy before assembling the finished card. The main stumbling block was getting all the wording in, and I couldn't find a christening stamp in my collection. So I had the idea of putting the words "on your Christening" and the date, which was a requirement, in the little Sizzix die cut prayer book, to which I added a ribbon, between the two layers, which matches the ribbon with the hearts on. The image is Sugar Nellie and I think it is one of the Gorgeous Girls, might even have been a charity stamp. It was the one that came to mind when I was asked for this card for this 1 year old girl. 

I tried die cutting the name at first, but then the customer asked for all three Christian names so I decided the best thing was to stamp them under the image, the letters are Stamps Away, the Granddaughter stamp is from a Papermania Family set and all the lettering is stamped using Versacolour ink and heat embossed with clear embossing powder. The image is coloured with Promarkers, and die cut with Nestabilities. The lattice heart is punched with a Martha Stewart punch. Various ribbons some from Ribbon Oasis. Inside the card we took a while to come up with the finished personalised verse which is printed on pale pink marbled vellum type paper. I rounded the corners to finish it off. The customer was very happy with it and now I need to fill her next order for an engagement card.

Poor Doggy

Poor Sooty is not at all well. I thought there was something wrong, though I was the only one who did, he had a problem where he was busting to pee in the middle of the night and again early morning, and a few accidents (we won't talk about the bed incident ). To me he seemed very subdued, laying on the settee after Shaun had gone to work and not dashing back upstairs with Alfie. So I took him to the vet, that resulted in him having blood and urine tests, and the results show possible Cushings disease. Then he had to go in for scans and xrays, and had his tummy shaved, and was due another test.On the day they found a nasty looking spiky bladder stone and his liver is enlarged but no visible sign of tumour. They didn't do the blood test, by now he needs two blood tests, and he had to go back on Thursday. So took another day off, but his shaved "bits" were bothering him, he kept sitting down and licking furiously and it looked a bit red and swollen down there. On the morning of the test Sooty was being sick in the early hours, only bile, and had the runs too. So he couldn't stay in for the tests and we came away with two different medicines. I mentioned the licking and the swelling and asked if the stone could have moved, but the vet I saw didn't examine him there and just asked if he could pee O.K. which he could. By the next day he clearly had a bad infection down there so back to the vet, who prescribed cream and if that didn't work antibiotic tablets but as a last resort as they could skew the blood test results, and this fetching pink lampshade. That is supposed to stop him from licking, however I might as well take it off because he can still lick perfectly well! He is booked in to have his blood tests tomorrow, and possibly more scans Tuesday (will have to check on that as it was a different vet and maybe he had those already, I hope so as we don't do pet insurance and this is racking up towards £1,000 especially as he might have an operation to remove the stone, depending on the outcome of the blood tests, if he has Cushings he apparently won't heal - that makes me fear the worst).

The numbers game

Yes it is another Quirky Challenge, and you just need to include numbers on your make.

I used Chef Luigi and two sentiments from our sponsor this time: Digital Delights by Louby Loo. My numbers and the large sentiment are die cut with Sizzix dies, and I added the numbers to the top of the cake.The other sentiment is cut with Nestabilities circle and scalloped circle dies. I coloured the sentiments red and Luigi is coloured with Promakers.  Added Gingham ribbons from Crafty Ribbons and a Bowdabra made bow.