Friday 31 July 2015

Leaving Card–We’re Going To Miss You.

This card is A5 in size and is made by simply scoring and then folding an A4 sheet of white linen effect card in half.
Wooooooooooof ………looking at this card/picture now, this card is so uncharacteristically over the top for me, talk about overkill, but, if you can’t be over the top when a colleague leaves work, when can you?  I made a set of five leaving cards for work before I left (!?!?!?), and this is the third, so  I apologise that there are still another two to come!  I really need to work my through my vast box of adhesive alphabets and these cards seemed to be an ideal way to help do it.
Anyway, once I had sorted out the various word plaques, mat and layering them on various matching colours, I started to arrange them, and as you can see from the size of some of the letters I have had to do some very careful unpeeling and overlapping in order to make the “word plaques” fit, perhaps, one day, I will get them to fit together first time, without all this fiddle fart!!!
To bring the design together I have used massive“overkill” with layered, medium sized, punched flowers and foliage, in purple Bazzill card, with turquoise flat backed gems in the centres plus a bit of faux stitching and strategically placed groups of three dots drawn with a black fine liner pen.
A little over the top for me, but I think it works.

Monday 27 July 2015

Glass Beach - Recycled By The Ocean.

My sister Jan sent me this article ….. and now I need to add another place in the world I “NEED” to go …….
11In the early 1900s, Fort Bragg, California, residents threw their household  garbage over the cliffs above what is now Glass Beach. It is hard to imagine this happening today, but back then people dumped all kindsof refuse straight into the ocean, including old cars, and their household garbage,which of course included lots of glass.
8Beginning in 1949, the area around Glass Beach became a public dump, and locals referred to it as The Dumps. Sometimes fires were lit to reduce the size of the trash pile (up to 30 feet high).However in 1967, the city leaders closed the area. Various clean-up programs were undertaken through the years to try to correct the damage, but without success.
9Over the next 30 years the pounding waves cleaned the beach,  by breaking down everything but glass and pottery. The pounding waves washed the trash up and down, back and forth. Tons of polished, broken glass were created by the pounding surf. These smoothened, coloured glass particles then settled along the sea shore in millions, and so a magnificent beach was formed. The name was changed from, The Dump to what we currently know as, The Glass Beach.
imagesThe sea glass that was created is the product of a very long and interesting process. It can take anywhere from 10 to 30 years to make sea glass, the name for any piece of glass that finds its way to the ocean and tumbles around in the water long enough to frost and smooth its surface.
1Once it makes its way into the ocean, the glass is broken up into shards and is tumbled around in the water, where sand and other rocks act like sandpaper to smooth out its rough edges. Sometimes as the sea glass is passed through fire, it becomes fire glass, the rarest of sea glass with certain inclusions, just like precious gems.
2In 1998, the private owner of the property determined that Glass Beach should belong to the public and, in 2002, it became part of MacKerricher State Park, open to the public. Within a period of a few years the Glass Beach won fame, attracting a large number of tourists every year.
6
Way back in time, people wanted to dump their glass products on this shore;
Now they would try to get one of these pieces to take home as a souvenir. It is ironic but true that where once it was illegal to dispose the glass on the shore,It now is a crime to remove it. Visiting the Glass Beach today is a unique experience.What makes it even more remarkable, are the sounds produced by the glass pebbles. As they are being washed away by the gentle waves.
7For years, the water beat against the different kinds of trash being dumped. Glass, household appliances and even motor parts were discarded on the beach. The waves and weather conditions wore down the overwhelming amount of garbage in the water, creating millions of beautiful smooth rocks.
images (1)
It was a disgusting dump due to our carelessness, but nature corrected what humans ruined. The beach’s moniker was soon changed from The Dump to The Glass Beach, a more attractive name for the now-beautiful beach. The Glass Beach and the surrounded twenty acres were purchased by the California State Park system and were incorporated into MacKerricher State Park. The miraculous beach was finally under the protection of the state.
It’s hard to believe the short-sighted mistakes we were making that could have potentially ruined this beautiful spot. But thanks to natural processes, the ocean transformed the trash into the sea glass. Each colour gem on the beach has its own story. The ruby red glass stones are typically from old car tail-lights. Then, the sapphire rocks are the remnants of broken apothecary bottles.
The beach at Fort Bragg isn’t the only glass beach in the world, as strange and beautiful as it is. There are other places in the world where Mother Nature put a stop to our foolishness.

Friday 24 July 2015

Dinosaur Nine Square Card

These cards measure 5ins x 5ins and are made using a white linen effect hand cut blank.
I think that I may have finally come to the end of my supply of puffy dinosaur stickers, although I think, somewhere, I still have  a few much larger 3D ones that also need using up.
I am not 100%, but I am pretty sure these stickers came from Accessorize.  I used to be such a fan of their stickers, but over time they have become more expensive, and no longer offer the value per pack as they used to for card making. I still look, but they would have to be exceptional for me to get my purse out. 
I’ve kept things simple, cutting the background squares from scraps of Bazzill card using my X-Cut 1in scalloped square punch. The squares were then  glued onto a 3in white panel mat and layered onto silver.
Although the stickers are self adhesive I sometimes find that it helps to put a touch of glue to the back of them to secure them a little more strongly.

Monday 20 July 2015

Tim Holtz Inspired Charm Bracelet ….. Work In Progress.

Marc sent me Volume III of Tim Holtz’s A Compendium of Curiosities a while back. As you know I aspire to creating something as beautiful as Tim from one of his books/ideas,  but in my eyes I just can’t get things right …… to me they look like I have copied them ….. which I know I have, if you know what I mean, but they don’t feel/look like I “made” them!?????
…… but this picture of a selection of Tim’s charms inspired me to have another go!
I had an old antique effect bracelet and antique effect jump rings and boxes and boxes of bits ….. so I took two old, wooden bingo markers (the 58 being my year of birth and the 22 being the date) and drilled a hole through them using my electric modellers drill and then attached them to the bracelet using the jump rings.  I did exactly the same to the wooden scrabble piece (H for my name) and that’s where I have left it for now, as this will be a work in progress.
I am thinking, (which I should have done before I put them on the bracelet) of putting a small piece of small patterned paper on the back of all of them with some Glossy Accents and then adding another very small embellishment. I have a tiny compass that I think will be perfect, but am not planning the other charms too much, I want to find pieces when I am going through my boxes looking for something completely different and then see where it goes…….. so watch this space.

Friday 17 July 2015

Mini 50th Birthday Card/Book

This mini book measures 6cms x 6cms.  It came in a pack of three, but so many years ago I forget who made them or how much I paid, sorry!
I featured a similar birthday card/book a week or so ago, but it was a bit of an experiment and very plain, as I said at the time ……
….. but now I have had another go for a friends 50th birthday.



Again, I took letters from the different sheets from my mahoooosive box of alphabets.
….. and then added Paperchase “Birthday Bunting” stickers (£1) ….
…… and other small plastic stickers that I have to add a little more “something”
….. perhaps a little samey, but the theme is there.

Monday 13 July 2015

Frilly Faux Patchwork Cards

These cards measure 5ins x 5ins and are made using a white linen effect, hand cut card blank. 
The dimensional stickers on these cards came from K & Company many moons ago…….
…… I loved them, but they never seemed to go with anything, one on its own was never enough,  but now I am on my mission to downsize, they had to be used, and in the end I decided “oh… bung four together and see what happens”,  to make a patchwork, hoping, with fingers tightly crossed, that it wouldn’t be too much.
I think I got away with it, pulling it together by adding extra mat and layering using palest green, white and raspberry coloured card.  The centre panel measures 3ins square and then the larger one 4.25ins square.
It’s amazing how realistic the print is these stickers/embellishments, is, even I found myself running my fingers over them a couple of times to double check .

Friday 10 July 2015

You Have to Kiss A Lot Of Frogs Card

This card measure 5ins x 5ins and are made using a white linen effect, hand cut card blank. 
I loved doing this card, it looks deceptively simple but sorting out the positioning and size of the writing (all my own fair hand) was a bit of a ****** and took several attempts!
I mixed the mediums, something I usually don’t like doing, but the metal frog embellishment and the 3D shiny plastic castle sticker (both in my stash box for years and years) really came together, I think it was because both had a glossy finish to them.  Just a bit of faux stitching and a flourish for the castle path finish the card!  However, looking at it with fresh eyes, if I were to do it again, I would add a tiny bit of translucent micro glitter along the path, just to add a little extra magic, and perhaps even a bit on the frogs trunks!

Monday 6 July 2015

Father’s Day Card

This card is A5 in size and was made using a white linen effect, hand cut card blank.
A bit late now ….. as it’s after the event, but this is the card I made for my Father In Law for Father’s Day.
It all came together without too much planning, the word panels, for once, fitted the card without any undoing and re-trimming.  It was also an excuse to try and use up a just a few more self adhesive letters from  my huge box of alphabets. I am just going to keep on mixing and matching them on big cards until eventually all the vowels are gone and then, I guess, that’s when I will have to start cutting letters I have run out of out on my Silhouette, which as I always say …… I really should use more!!!
I also thought I would use my under used corrugated card to give the card a more rufty tufty feel, plus added depth and texture, which was then further mat and layered on brown card as I like an edge!
I don’t usually like mixing my mediums on a card like this, but on this occasion the foam tools worked,  which also meant that a half used packet of embellishments was finally used up …….
…… so bonus there!

Friday 3 July 2015

Lollipop Card

This card measures 4ins x 6ins and is made using a white, linen effect hand cut card blank.
I am not at all sure about this card!!! I love the lolly embellishment, but it seems lost in a sea of unnecessary mat, layering and doodling!!! There has got to be a better way!
I fell in love with these lolly embellishments as soon as I saw them, umpteen million years ago, but despite getting them out an equal umpteen million times I just haven’t come up with an effective way to use them ……. so any suggestions much appreciated, all answers on a postcard please!!