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Monday 30 April 2012

A mouse lived in a greenhouse in old Amsterdam...don't look if you are nervous about mice

oh, that was a windmill in Old Amsterdam!
Well my little mousey was in the greenhouse, I went looking for bird seed to feed the garden visitors, and to my surprise I could see a little mouse, sitting cleaning its whiskers inside an empty poly tub - with the lid on!
 I think it is a Harvest Mouse, I hope that is what it is. It had been there a while, look at the condensation inside the tub, and all the droppings!


 Just a couple more mug shots, and then away you can go back to the field next door.

Just one more question: how did you get in there and close the lid after you? Must be Supermousie!

Sunday 22 April 2012

Quirky Animal Challenge

   

Our Quirky paper engineer Diane set us a wiper card challenge this time round, with a layout or 3d project for non card makers.


This is my first ever wiper card, and I have to say it was pretty easy once I had watched the video at SCS a few times! I wanted to have a horse and pop up horse shoe, as the surprise element. I used Inkadinkado A Horse of Course, and a Quickutz horse shoe. The paper is My Mind's Eye and was free with a magazine. I stitched the edges in teal and used teal ric rac from Crafty Ribbons, I also used some mini buttons in shades of teal. I used a Martha Stewart punch for the side panel piece.

I don't have a Scorpal or Martha Stewart, or Hougie board (I have a few smaller boards with not so many grooves), but I have found I can do what Ineed to do more accurately with my Fiskars rotary trimmer and the scoring blade.
I haven't added a sentiment yet, this could be a birthday card or good luck card, and there could be another sentiment in the middle of the horse shoe.

To see more examples and enter your Animal Antics projects at Quirky Crafts Challenges hop on over now and you could be in the top three and win a prize voucher from Digital Delights.

Challenges entered:
Animal Antics at Paper Play Challenges (Thursday weekly)



Do you believe in love at first sight?


Well - I had an email from Crafters Companion which showed me three new stamps by Sheena Douglas, and wham - love at first sight!

Here is one of them, who could resist?

Stamped with Memento in Cocoa, coloured with Promarkers, edges inked with Cats Eye chalk ink pad, die cut with Spellbinders Nestabilities. The embossed tree is a Crafts Too embossing folder, ribbon is from Crafty Ribbons, and the sentiment is a Stampabilities stamp. Finally I added some Bling Bling gems to the cow's crown.

Challenges entered:
Sir Stampalot April Challenge: Happy Birthday (and birthday blog hop)


Thursday 12 April 2012

A Man's World

I made this card a while back, but didn't get to finish it due to the flu. I finally finished and photographed it.
 As soon as we made this type of card for a challenge I thought of this English Paper Company paper which was perfect for this. Front of card - busy man, gardening, BBQ, DIY. Sentiments are by Debbi Moore (the square Happy Birthday) from an A4 clear stamp set of Birthday sentiments. The seed packet stamp is from a small set by Personal Impressions, all small garden type stamps.
I tried to get the inside paper more focused and this is the best I could manage.

Inside the card - man sleeping, so tired after all his efforts, does it remind you of anyone? It certainly rings true here!

I have entered this card in the following challenges:
Joanna Sheen - It's a Man's World (of course) April challenge.

Sunday 8 April 2012

Happy Easter Sunday and new challenge day

It is my turn to set the challenge at Quirky Crafts and in honour of my soon to be born Grandson, I called it a Quirky Happy Event.

This card is made using two images from the challenge sponsor: Stitchy Bear Stamps, called Baby Sleeping and Toy Bunny. I paper Pieced my images with blue and white gingham, you have to use gingham in any form, and added novelty buttons - another must. The theme is either a soon to be happy event or a new baby. The background paper is by Dovecraft, the nursery rhyme ribbon was from Crafty Ribbons I think. Die cuts by Spellbinders, and coloured with Hero Arts Shadow ink. The gingham paper is some from a pick an mix merchant, I think Payper Box, and it is strange with a backing that looks almost waterproof.
I may manage another example soon, there is one more image to be shown that the DT didn't use.

To see more wonderful examples, see the full details and to join in with the possibility of winning a $10 voucher from Stitchy, hop on over to the Quirky Crafts Challenge blog.

This card is not what I started out making, I was going to make my first ever word book cut out by the ecraft, and use several images and sentiments, and I cut the card book but then came to cut the paper letters to decorate it. Well - I bought the ecraft when they first arrived over here, and at first there were a lot of teething problems, then there were software updates and it seemed to sort the problems out. Still I didn't really use my new toy, I tried it out a couple of times, wanted to design on it and just didn't get round to it when I was working full time.

Recently I decided that there are so many good cutting files out there to buy that I would buy a few and get started with those, then when I got more confident decide on some new software and get designing. The problems started when I tried cutting paper, it tore, it got all rucked up, it was terrible! So I thought I would check out the Craftwell site and there are some great video tutorials there now that weren't around when I first got the machine and one was on cutting paper. So I watched it and tried again, with a little more success, I needed to add a "mat" or stabliser in the form of a piece of card and change the tab settings. My file with letters A and B partly worked, both letters were cut out but the centres of the B were not. Then I turned the paper and tried on the unused part, disasterous effect, the paper all screwed up and got into a mess.

So I watched the video again, and saw that the paper was not the full width of the card mat, so I trimmed my paper to make it narrower. Now it feeds in perfectly and out again, and the ecraft traces the letters but doesn't cut them one little bit, oh dear. I posted for help on the forum and then started thinking what else I could make, and this was after waking yesterday with small migraine that became a large migraine and one I couldn't shake off all day despite taking co-codamols and trying to sleep which was impossible, we had a houseful for the weekend, and there was just too much noise even after they all went out in the afternoon, just as I was getting off to sleep (and I really needed to sleep to shake it) the phone rang and woke me up!

At least today my migraine was gone, maybe I should have gone for the Zapain right away yesterday but I feel so awful after I have taken them.

We had a lovely big family barbeque on Friday afternoon, the sun had gone by then unfortunately but everyone sat out in their coats and all enjoyed it. Today we had a nice roast lunch and mid afternoon all of our visitors departed leaving us alone again. So after making my card ready for the challenge we took the dogs out round the fields for a long walk.

I have entered this card in the Kaboodles Doodles Monday challenge - New Life

Tuesday 3 April 2012

Remember When....


This is not my usual thing, I bought a couple of kits on impulse due to them being a bargain price I couldn't resist and I hate cutting out lots of bits! I decided to make a couple of cards up for my brother and father's birthdays, I only took a photo of this one. The kit is Remember When and it is from La Pashe, drawn by the very talented Jak Heath. There was a lot of detail to the woman's skirt and she is behind the bar which make me think that maybe I was supposed to use an aperture card, but then there is no bottom half to the wall behind the bar......