Time for a little bit of Quirkyness.

 The challenge as set by Caro is ABC, or anything but a card! So time to make those quirky items like ATCs, altered items, boxes, bookmarks, and I, like a few of the DT, went for bookmarks but the bookmarks are all different! Our sponsor this time is Robyn's Fetish and we used lots of images from the NEW Back to School range, I used Bookworm and the ruler from the accessories pack to make my first bookmark, and Don't Rain on my Parade for my second bookmark. Both are coloured with Promarkers and die cut with Nesties. I decided to laminate them to keep them nice, that is when I noticed a mistake - whoops, it will have to stay there now!  I punched a hole and set an eyelet and added a tassle to each, though the cord could do with being a little longer.

My second effort was an altered plastic tub into a pencil storage tub, and I used the Crayons from the school accessory pack coloured with Promarkers again and with sticky back ribbons and kraft card. Looks like I took the photo of the wrong side of the tub, whoops again! So hop on over to Quirky Crafts to see what else the DT made, and who won the last challenge!

60th Birthday card

The stamp was one I found for sale on Crafters Bring and Buy on Facebook, but is available from Joanna Sheen. I had to have it, my SIL has the same dog and a little cat so it was perfect. I was a little disappointed that there was more fine detail on the picture with the stamp than the actual stamp. I coloured the image with Promarkers and Trias. I used some Kate Knight papers that were free with a magazine. The letters and numbers were cut with Sizzix Originals Shadow Box dies, with dark pink metallic shadow and paper letters. I decided to sew the paper on the front, this turned out to be a mistake as the size of the card (c4) was too big for my little pink sewing machine, probably the "big" machine would have managed it, so the stitching is very wobbly! There is a die cut horse in the bottom corner, it is hard to see and I should have made it lighter card. Susan is also not straight! My husband thought the horse was a hippo! Happy Birthday is from a Hero Arts clear set, and was stamped in gold Brilliance and embossed with gold EP. Finally I added some blooms and a gem. I think they are all Prima, but I am not certain. Inside I added two more panels of the paper. We went out for a lovely meal at Loch Fyne to celebrate the birthday, and there was a fantastic looking cake which was made by a friend of the family who does sugarcraft.

Parrot talk

This is another image from Stitchy Bear Stamps, which I added late to the Flourishes and Embossing challenge. I love parrots, I used to want to own one and I had parrot earrings and knitted a parrot cardigan on the knitting machine, the cardigan is still around though I don't wear it now and it probably is too small now!
The image was coloured with Trias and my printer decided to print on my best stamping card which normally doesn't feed through so it coloured beautifully apart from the fact that the new Trias come with a much finer fine nib which is so much easier for intricate images. The printer refused to repeat that trick, so I guess I am stuck with thin card! I cut the parrot and mat out with Nestabilties, the Sizzix flourishes are decorated with Prima Flowers.

The pale blue background is embossed with a Cuttlebug embossing folder then ink brushed over it, and the Hero Arts sentiment is heat embossed with gold EP.

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.

It's Very Puzzling....

and I don't mean the torrential rain and Autumnal conditions here in the U.K. "Summer"!

What I am talking about is the new Quirky Challenge set by me over at Quirky Crafts Challenge blog. I want you to use jigsaw pieces, in any way you like, either real ones (charity shops are great for getting puzzles for very little) or die cut puzzles or pieces or inchie puzzles. Hop on over to the blog to see some great examples.

I have had this giant piece for a long time, Deanne (Quirky Boots) sent the DT one each when she was still around, and I haven't ever got round to altering it. So this was the ideal opportunity. I managed to find it which was a good start, then had to decide what to do with it. I knew I was using the Tree of Circles image from our sponsor The Stamping Boutique. This is what I did:

1. Sanded the shiny picture side of the piece with fine sandpaper.

2. Painted it with white Gesso (you could go right to step 3) and allowed it to dry.

3. Painted over the Gesso with white acrylic with a touch of blue blended in and again allowed it to dry, this was too pale so....

4. I used two different blue alcohol inks and some pearl blender and applied that using a felt pad and applicator handle, also applied plenty to my fingers in the process.

5. While the Gesso and Acrylic paint was drying I coloured the image using my Koh-I- Noor Progresso woodless coloured pencils for the first time, mainly because they leapt off the shelf and hit the floor when I reached for the Trias, and this was quite an intricate image to colour and I find it easier with pencils. These pencils are blendable with Sansador and can be used with Prisma Color pencils too. I think they are very vibrant which I what I wanted. I went over the colours with some paper blending stumps and Sansador, I had trouble finding my stumps and had to open a new pack.

6. When the acrylic paint was dry I found a pretty stamp to stamp the background with Stazon ink. The stamp I used is by Inkadinkado and is a wood mounted corner flourish stamp with a couple of birds on it, I don't know the name of the image.

7. Got out the old Krylon gold pen and went round the edges.

8. Cut out a large and smaller image, and worked out where to place them then I used Decopatch to stick them to the piece and to go over the whole thing to seal it, that stuff dries very quickly compared to the Gesso and acrylic, which was good for me! 

9. I felt it needed more, I added a Kan Ban metal tag, using a gem brad, and then some matching Papermania  adhesive gems to the trees.

10. Still needed more, so the pack of mother of pearl buttons I found in my hand were threaded through with green wire and added.

11. Finally I went over the edges of the image where they met the edge of the piece with Krylon gold pen, and I punched a hole in the top and added a loop of ribbon to hang the finished piece, and that's all there is too it!

I might see if I can get a better photo, looks a bit out of focus one side, or maybe the Decopatch was still a little wet! This was so much fun, and I am really pleased with the result so I will have to go hunt for more big jigsaws at the charity (thrift) shops, unless I can cut them out on the eCraft.

This is a little late being posted, we were out for the day yesterday at my Son and Daughter-in-Law's house, taking my Mother-in-Law to see it for the first time, and we had a lovely lunch out and a busy day with lots of travelling, I was too tired to blog last night.

Hop on over to Quirky Crafts and have a go, you could win some lovely Summer Holiday ribbons or some digi's from our two lovely sponsors: Crafty Ribbons and The Stamping Boutique.

Now I have spotted a few challenges I can enter, so here goes:

Paperplay - Things with Wings, there are birds in the image and background

Paperkutz - The Skies the Limit

Cute Card Thursday - Going round in circles

Lollipop Crafts - Anything goes

Stamping for the Weekend - Wings and Things

My Time to Craft - Bird Watcher (not sure if non cards are allowed though)

Sympathy card

One of my customers asked me for sympathy cards, I don't have a lot of stash for this but I have this very beautiful sentiment stamp.

I stamped this in brown Versacolour and heat embossed with clear EP, on blue card. I then cut this out with Nestabilties rectangles, mounted it on a dark brown rectangle and then a scalloped blue one. The card blank is the same brown card. I found some perfect ribbon by Crafty Ribbons, I used most of it so I must go and order some more (and a few other things methinks!). I made the bow with my Bowdabra and added a Nellie Snellen punched and embossed butterfly in the same blue card. I added a pale blue insert to finish. The customer said it was very tasteful. The stamp is from Crackerbox Palace.

Challenge time at Quirky Crafts

Challenge 14 over at Quirky Crafts is no patterned paper - make your own background. Our sponsor is Stitchy Bear Digital stamps. The image is from our sponsor and is called Butterfly Love. I coloured her with Promarkers and added glitter glue to her wings. She is perched on a Sizzix die cut flower called fringed bloom which is fastened with a brad. The background is made with Cordinations embossed with a Cuttlebug folder and sanded lightly. The greeting is an Elzybells stamp, and I added Prima blooms to the Nestabilties die cut shape. Finally I added ribbon by Crafty Ribbon and the bow is made with the Bowdabra. There are some more great DT examples over at Quirky.

I just had to enter this in the One Stitch at a time challenge which is use a Digi.

Happy Birthday to Moo

It is my dear Daughter in Law's birthday on Monday, I can post this because she got the card today! Vanessa loves cows, so I got my herd of cow stamps out and chose this one. The stamp and greeting stamp are both by Penny Black, image is called Moo Birthday, really great fun I think. I die cut the image and mat with Nestabilties large labels and kept it simple as Vanessa likes it that way. Pink metallic card and plain pink card by Payper Box.I coloured the image with Promarkers.

Happy Birthday Vanessa!

Happy Birthday Richard

Its my son's birthday and he loves surfing, so when I saw these Elzybells stamps in the clearance sale I thought of Richard and got them. The boy is a UM rubber stamp, the images inside (below) and the sentiments are from a clear Elzybells set.

 Happy Birthday is I think a Hero Arts clear stamp, die cut with Nesties, and letters are Sizzix Lindsay's alphabet? 

I had some cute flip flops to finish it off, and a starfish bead and a piece of rafia to pull the card up. Images coloured with Promarkers. Ink is Memento.

I have entered the card in the following challenges:

Papertake Weekly - Here comes the Sun

Moving along with the times - Inspired by a song, my song is Surfing USA by the Beach Boys

My time to craft - Xtra image

One Stop Craft Challenge - Use Stickers, mine are the flip flops

Pollycraft - Travel/Holidays

I love Promarkers - anything goes.

Quirky Crafts challenge time again

Challenge 13 over at Quirky Crafts is a recipe grid by Lyn. We are lucky to have two sponsors this time, Crafty Ribbons and Robyn's Fetish and I used an image and papers from Robyn's Fetish with some Crafty Ribbon's ribbon.

The image is coloured with promarkers and cut with Nestabilities and I heat embossed a Debbi Moore greeting. I used Stickles on the dragonfly wings, and I added flower brads so I have ticked off the boxes: Digital Image, Pink and Blue, Three papers, Ribbon or Lace, 4 brads or candi, Embossing and 5 flowers (three in the image and 4 brads actually makes 7). There are other elements to pick from the grid, you only need to pick three to enter the challenge and win some great prizes.

Happy Father's day to all the dads out there, we had a lovely family roast lunch with my boys and girls and our combined parents today, and we finished the day with a lovely long walk, longer than I have attempted for a long time. I hope you all had a lovely day whatever you were doing.

Under the Sea, very Quirky!

O.K. I know I am late again with my DT card for Quirky Crafts, the challenge started on Sunday! We got to use these great Under the Sea images from our lovely sponsor who is Digital Delights by Louby Loo, and the winner of this challenge gets three images of choice. I used Under the Sea background, Clam, Whale and the sentiment shown, you can buy this as a set and get even more images. Hop on over to Quirky Crafts blog to see a mermaid and some gorgeous examples, everyone loved the images so there are lots! The frame is a Sizzix die cut.

I decided to colour my images with mica/glimmer paints for a change, to make them shimmer like water though I doubt that shows up in the photo.

PC blues

I really thought my PC was going to die last week, for months it has been playing up, not booting up and having to be reset 6 times before starting (though some days booting fine, then fine for weeks then not for days or weeks), blue screens of death messages (and this is Windows 7), losing the spare drive, losing sound......
So I bought an external drive, thought would back everything up before it died completely. I hadn't done anything with it by the time my Son and Daughter in law came for a visit home last weekend, and luckily for me my son decided to help and backed everything up before reinstalling Windows. Now the PC boots up every time, still can't see the second (old) drive which might have failed, and still have no sound at all.

He did reinstall a lot for me, wasn't here long either. There are lots of other programs that I had to find and install, and as I have needed them it has been a hunt for either the disk, download, licence key or instructions. I have a lot to get through yet, I had a letter to type and document to scan, so had to install the printer, scanner and Office. Then I needed my photo programs, it is a new challenge tomorrow and I had lots of lovely GDs photos to load on, not to mention I need to make my effort and get it on. In order for me to make my effort I now need to load the desk top publishing software,and get the key to make it work.

Anyway I have lots of new photos, some of which I have got on to the PC, but I want to add a "watermark" before I let them loose on the internet, there are a lot of lovely people out there but a lot of no so honest ones too! Before I can watermark them I need to find out how to do that in Photoshop Elements.

I still have no sound as I said, so I need to try and work out what to do to sort that out and I might buy an new bigger hard drive to fit internally, and replace the old one that may be dead, if it isn't the drive the motherboard could be on the way out.

Quirky challenge two sketches

The lovely Spyder Lyn set us two sketches for this challenge, you can choose which one or you can do both.

There are great sketches so why don't you have a go and enter over at Quirky Crafts this time, you could win a great prize or join us as a guest designer - or both!

Our Sponsor this time is The Cutting Cafe, and you can win three sets of digital images, yes 3 sets! The sets are HUGE, they have so much included. I used the One Spring Day set for all images and the sentiment on this card, I also used some Papermania paper, quite an old design but pretty. I coloured the images with Promarkers and added some 3D glaze to the raindrops and puddles. The set has so many images and sentiments and there are ready coloured versions as well as non coloured versions that you can colour yourself. Also the round sentiments are sized to work with Nestabilities, perfect! I also used Making Memories brads, and a Cuttlebug die to cut the corner, and a Martha Stewart punch for the "lace". I used Nestabilties to cut the central image and the scalloped mat.

Hop on over to Quirky Crafts blog to see what the design team did with this set and the second totally different set provided by our sponsor.