Sewing Themed Card

This card measures 5ins x 5ins and is the sort of card I would love to get.

I’ve covered the front of the card with a dressmaking themed paper from my Papermania A5 Bookprint paper pack. I’ve then added another paper that I thought looked  “retro” (and reminded me of my summer school uniform from way back when!).  The other bits and pieces include a length of tape measure type ribbon, tiny red ric rac braid, a Craftwork Cards circle sentiment and butterflies from a pack of K & Co. 3D embellishments that Dianne in Florida sent me from Michaels.

Awful Cupcake Card …. Acceptable Cupcake Card!

The cards in this post measure 5ins x 5ins and are made using a white linen effect hand cut card blank.
I made this card first………

…. but when I started to blog it and looked at the picture properly I realised it was total pants, everything was wrong with it, what was I thinking? So I went back to the drawing board, got my Nestabilities out and started again. I don’t use my BigShot enough, it’s on a shelf with other things piled on top, and I’m just too lazy to get it down to use it!!  

However, I now realise that it should be moved permanently to the table adjoining  my  craft desk because using a scalloped square die cut has completely transformed the card.

The cupcake was from a pack of six from The Range.  I’m always attracted to small cute stickers, but often, in the clear light of day they are a devil to use, mainly due to their size and being quite hard to match up to use with other embellishments. It’s a lesson I should have learned by now!

Bind It All Birthday Book

I don’t make many of these little Bind It All books because they make me use an awful lot of brain power plus a lot of time to put together, this one over six hours, not including a box.

However this was for a very special friend of my sister and so it was a pleasure.  A book usually starts off with a long list of things about the person …so that I have plenty of scope and themes to work on  (though I don’t use everything) and, if I am lucky, a few pictures too.

I think of it as a bit like writing a story and gradually it all comes together.

….. and I try make it as funny as I can …. it can be a bit tricky, but as I have met Chris myself this was a doddle as she has a very similar sense of humour to me…… daft!

I’ll let the rest of the pictures tell the story …….

I tell you what,  my brain really ached when I had finished!

Wellington Boot Card

I’ve had a pack of five wellington boot card blanks for more  years than I care to remember, going back to the days when  wellies only came in black and green!!!

But they HAD to be used ….. as they were always in the way in my drawer!

I made a template, omitting the grips of the boot, cutting it out in a floral buzzcraft paper to cover the front of the card.  I then coloured the grips with a matching Promarker.  To add dimension I added a top to the boot, and a side tag with a button, sticking them down with foam backed pads. And more clutter …. finally bites the dust!!

A Rose By Any Other Name …..

This card measures 5ins x 5ins and is made using white linen effect card.

I’ve used  K & Co adhesive dimensional stickers sent to me from Florida by Dianne (a wonderful follower of both my blogs)

I particularly love K & Co packaging because usually the advertising bumpf/backing sheets can be cut down, then mat and layered   as I have done here.  The dragonflies are brass charms that I have had for ages and found on e-bay.

Driving Test Card

This card measures 5ins x 5ins and is made with a handcut white linen effect card blank

I gave a card the same as this to my niece to “celebrate” her first driving lesson on her 17th birthday.
The L plates are table confetti found in a lot of card shops and the foam car was part of a mahoosive pack of assorted sized cars and signs from a 99p Shop in Wolverhampton.

Musical Gift Card

Sometimes charms are beautiful but as they are also often quite small I find it hard to know where and how to place them for the best effect.

However when I bought a pack of 20 Docrafts Papermania 3ins x 3ins cards and envelopes a while ago I knew that they would be perfect to use with the charms to make small gift cards.

Simply mat and layered on paper from an old music book and gold mirror card plus a bit of faux stitching (though looking at the picture now I don’t really think it needs it) Bob’s your Aunt Fanny!

Newspaper Card for Hairdressers 40th Birthday

This card is A5 is size and is made using white linen effect card.

The brief for this card was 40, hairdresser,Special Friend, likes boozing, curries and holidays!

I think I ticked most of the boxes! The main picture was made up of very simple decoupage layers to give a bit of dimension.   

Paint Colour Chart Tags/Labels

The students at work have been making “Designer” t-shirts and instead of just pinning their names on their work I thought it would be nice to make them some “Designer” tags after spotting a pile of unused paint colour charts on a table.

I did originally cut the charts in half and then into a conventional tag shape, but somehow they didn’t look right, so I just punched a hole in the corner for the thread and left it at that. The names were printed on self adhesive labels, cut to size and then stuck on ….

I am now thinking of Christmas ……. and wonder if I can acquire a small pile charts in  seasonal shades of red and green for gift tags …… hmmmmm!

Docrafts Boofle– Baby Shower Card

This card measures 5ins x 5ins.

Sorry ….. my sense of humour here, made for one of my Heads of Department before she left to have her baby.  I thought Boofle looked as if he  was erm ….. concentrating very hard ……. !!  In the card I have written in large letters “PUSH” ….. all in the best possible taste you understand!!

Ringing In A Few Changes ….

I was getting a bit tired of the look of my old pink blog, the text was far too small and the posts seemed stuck in the middle of the page, with acres of space around them  ….. it was time for a change …. Unfortunately some of the old posts are out of kilter and the pictures no longer centred …. but I think I can live with that as they are all in the past! I have a pile of posts already written in the pipeline which will need to be tweaked so that the pictures are not asquiff … so I have made a rod for my own back really, but hey ho ….. we’ll see how it goes!

Posh Jewelled Gift Tags

I found this old broken bracelet in one of my craft drawers and thought .... hmmm, wonder what they would look like on a gift tag? Because they were quite heavy I realised that they would need a substantial base .... and then I had an Ulrika moment ……  and thought ….  my old faithful wooden dominos ....!!!

But, would you believe the dominoes were a fraction too wide ? .... Then I got to thinking again  …. what about The Dukes tools in the garage?? .... What I needed was a sander ....

And …. I only found this baby sander didn’t I .... but, how shall I put it delicately,  it vibrated so hard, it was quite erm  ...vigorous  and I needed a firm hand to steady it!! However, it did the trick and domino fitted perfectly between the bars either side of the bracelet section.

I stuck the picture side of the domino down on to some gold card and cut round them. Then all I had to do was glue the jewelled section onto the gold side with E6000 glue, and drill a hole for the gift tag thread.  Done and dusted!  They would look luvvvvverrrly on a parcel wrapped in black paper!.

Box Frame Memories …..

While sorting through The Dukes fishing paraphernalia I came across these vintage fish lures (well, that’s what I think they are), I absolutely loved them and put them safe until I was ready …..

So ….. on Tuesday night, after tea,  I started to think about them again  …. and the Ikea Ribba box frame I had bought a little while ago…….

So ……  I got out my E6000 glue, a small square of Carolyn Holt (Paper Adventures) Go Fish Fresh Water Wash paper and set to work ….. it didn’t take me too long to get all the “fish” in the right position.

I’m not sure where the frame is going at the moment but it will be somewhere special.…..

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