Getting There ….

First of all a huge THANK YOU for all your lovely e-mails over the past two months, they have meant so much to me, you’ll never know. But,  I have to apologise because I may not have replied to all of them and have been slow to answer the ones that I did.  If I let myself,  I could be on the computer all day …. and as is so obvious to me now ……life is too short to do  that!   But trust me every e-mail was carefully read over and over again, most bought a tear to my eye ….. THANK YOU  xxxxx

What I would like to do in the next week or so is to do a post showing you all the lovely handmade cards I received, from so many followers. I think I have only ever made one Sympathy card, undoubtedly the hardest type of card to make, but they were all so beautiful they really need to be shared.So what have I been up to?  Well I have been “learning” myself to paint big things,  proper …….. …….

…… when The Duke’s marine tank was emptied and taken away the room was too bare and it was so obvious that it had gone….

….. so I decided that by changing the whole look of the room its absence would not be quite so noticeable.

The tank was beautiful, but far to complicated for me or Lucy to look after, so some wonderful gentleman from the local Marine Aquarist Club came one night and dismantled it for us, they found homes for all the fish, corals, crabs and anemones …..and I just could not/cannot thank them enough for all they did.  Having seen Andy’s Heath Robinson type set ups they said they only wish that they could have had the chance to met him.

As I said at the start …. life is too short ……  and Lucy and I are making plans ….. Andy so wanted to go to America and be a cowboy, go to a proper rodeo …. and we always dreamed that one day we would go to Monument Valley …..

…… well I might not get there for a little while yet …. but Lucy had told her Dad that she wanted to “do” Las Vegas for her 30th birthday and I know he would have made that dream come true for her ….. but as he can’t do it …. I am just going to have to do it for him …… next August!!!!

One of our very favourite programmes that we always watched together was Pawn Stars, and we always said if we went to Las Vegas that the Pawn Shop would be the first place we would visit …..

Well, it will be one of the first places Lucy and I will visit and I will take one of The Duke's vintage fishing reels or something like that to see what I can get for it .... and then ..... I will "squander" the proceedings with large cocktails, like we always did on holiday ....and  toast The Duke.

The saddest day for me is coming up soon when we take Andy’s ashes to scatter in Brixham … it was about this time last year we were all excited about going to stay at Cockle Cottage ….

….and it was such an idyllic holiday … I just never imagined I would be returning a year later to say my final goodbye to The Duke, I cannot think about it at the moment without crying, but I know when the time comes I will be strong. We will also be taking a donation of about £1,000 down for the Torbay RNLI which would chuff the nuts off Andy no end.

I wanted to find myself something to wear to help me in the knowledge that the emptiness and loneliness I feel at the moment will slowly ebb away … and I found this bracelet on Etsy http://www.etsy.com/listing/97017306/this-too-shall-pass-hand-stamped-14-inch
I also like the story from which the phrase is supposed to come from ….. http://www.wscribe.com/parables/pass.html.

So again thank you all again  …. I am getting there  xxxxx

Baby Girl Cards

Two 5ins x 5ins cards today using Impex Crafts wooden embellishments.  I have so many embellishments some bought on  a whim because they were a bargain  …. so I have put one drawer from my cupboard by my craft desk and I really, really am trying to work my way through it …..

When I looked at the set of embellishments I realised that only the baby and booties could carry a card on their own ……

….. so I made tags with the bib and the heart and put them as a bonus in with the cards in their display bags.

I now just have to work out what to do with the bottle!!

Jewelled Photo Frame

I couldn’t sleep on Saturday night, so rather than waste my time and energy tossing and turning I decided to put my restlessness to good use ……

…. to put together this less is more, what do you mean bling? …. jewel encrusted photo frame!It started with these large flat backed flowers that I have have forever and which really do need to be used up……

….. and an 8” x 6” Poundshop picture frame(£1!!!).

I smothered the frame with a copious amount of PVA glue and placed the large gem flowers first ….

…and then slowly filled the gaps with all the other flat backed bling I have collected or been given over the years .

The gaps became smaller and smaller, as did the gems to fill them with …. until I became quite cross eyed!  I will now carefully wrap the frame in tissue paper to keep until Christmas, as I know just the right person to give it too! And I have another idea ….. for another sleepless night!

Festive Nosey Parkers ........ in July!!!

There’s been a bit of banter in my “chatbox” between Louise and Angie … curious about what Christmas template Linda has recommended me to have a look at ….  what are they like????!!!!!

Linda, knowing how much I love looking for different ways of packaging snowman soup sent me a link to this idea.   Now, bearing in mind just how careful you have to be with copyright re: digital files etc. I thought the best thing to do was send you directly to: www.card-making-downloads.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=996 to see for yourselves. A download of the  file costs £1.80. 

As you know I am very particular about my snowman images, they have to have “just the right face”.  I lost my very favourite Zoe Pearn Little Joys digi file when our computer “died” at Christmas but I have found lots of snowman images that   I may be very tempted to purchase as I get more and more into Christmas …….. http://primsydoodledesigns.net/. It’s only July …. what am I thinking!!!!

Decopatch Radio ….

I did it!

Now what else can I do????

Small Bejewelled Heart Canvas

I made this heart canvas for my friend Sarah’s birthday . Sarah has been so wonderful over the past few weeks I just wanted to make her something more than a card to show her just how much I love her and can’t thank her enough for constantly making me laugh and singing at me, even on the darkest day.

I’ve taken a small 5” x 5” canvas, onto which I have drawn an outline of a heart, then filled it a strong PVA glue and lots and lots of flat backed gems and jewels.  As you can see, nothing changes on this blog …. I was so anxious to get the idea posted the PVA has still quite some time to go before it’s properly dry …….

Three Organza Flower Cards

These cards were experiments after Marc sent me a parcel that included a bag of these very delicate organza flowers.

I’ve tried to keep them as “less is more” as I can, adding only brads and settings to each of the flowers, which were made up of four layers of flowers, some leaf effect ribbon and a scattering of tiny flat backed pearls.

I think my favourite is the top purple one.

Blue Angry Bird Birthday Card

I’ve had another go at punch art, this time to make a Blue Angry Bird topper for a birthday card.

I’ve used a variety of punches, but the shapes need a bit of trimming to get the overall effect right

I also used a picture of the Blue Angry Bird  found on Google for reference .

And hope the photos give you an idea of how I put it all together.

Googly eyes and a little outlining complete the design.

Done and dusted and ready to fly!!

Tom’s Scrapbook

I've featured the scrapbook I made for my daughter a while back, today I thought I would show you the scrapbook I put together for my son, who's 29 now and will probably never forgive me for putting this in the public domain!

 

Scrapbooking isn’t really my thing, layouts are well out of my comfort zone, a bit like Tim Holtz stuff, but perhaps, when I have a bit of time, I might set myself a new scrapbook challenge.

 I think my problem is I don't get into the theme enough and so the layouts are very basic and flat.


But having watched quite a few QVC craft days I should have a bit more idea by now.

Perhaps it's a medium where I need to forget my rule of less is more. By the way, thats me as bridesmaid above, I had to wait till I was thirty for the honour, and then ended up with  my head chopped off in the photo!

Broadway Birthday Card

This card is A5 in size and is made using a blue shimmer effect hand cut blank.

My sister in law asked me to make this card for a friends daughter, the brief was that Charlee had just starred as Arial  in the school production of Footloose and perhaps a Broadway theme with her name up in lights might be a nice idea!  No pressure there then!!

I asked for a photo of Charlee knowing that there are some brilliant photo editing websites where I might be able to find a billboard or something similar to edit the photo into, and I hit the jackpot first time on the site below.

http://www.writeonit.org/

After creating the picture, I edited it further in Paint to get rid of some bits where I wanted to add my own text too, like “Happy Birthday”

Then after printing the picture I mat and layered it onto silver, before sticking it on to an A5 card blank, adding assorted sequin stars and Stampin’Up Dazzling Diamonds micro glitter to give it some Broadway bling!

Why not have a look at the other wonderful things you can do with your pictures to add to cards etc. here, I’m addicted!!

http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/freebies/28-online-photo-editing-websites-to-have-fun-with/

Baby Jar Chandelier

As you know I love candles and night lights and this was an idea I had for Christmas last year but never seemed to have the time to put it all together …. so after my mahooosive craftroom tidy up I  gathered up all the bits I’d bought and decided to finally have a go……I had a circular cooking rack and one of a  pack of three hanging basket chains from Poundland plus some baby food jars given to me by a friend.

The chain fitted onto the cooling tray like a dream, balancing it was easy because the rack was divided into six equal parts.  The rack  also had six feet which is where I thought I could dangle the jars from.

To hang the jars I simply tied a piece of rustic looking string round the top using another piece attached to both sides to form a hanger, I then tied the hanger onto a foot on the rack with yet another piece of string, nothing fancy, I wanted it to look makeshift and a bit rough.

Then on top of the rack I glued seven more jars using E6000 glue (as recommended by Marc) which is really, really strong when dry, six jars went round the edges and one in the middle ….. and that’s it … Fait accompli!!

I couldn’t believe it when it hung perfectly first time and I didn’t have to fiddle and fart about to get it to balance.

Now I know the idea works I can really let my imagination go wild ….. and really fancy things up if/when I make another ….. using wire instead of string ….. using a frosted glass spray on the jars ….. adding beads ….. the world is my really is my lobster!!