LIM - Shades of Grey

It has been a while since I took part in a Less Is More challenge, but here goes...

On to this months colour challenge. This week we want to see...

Now you don't need to use fifty shades but we would like to see a minimum of two shades on your creations this week. Don't forget that all important white (or grey space).

For this card I used a Woodware image of an owl, coloured with 3 shades of grey ProMarkers (Warm Grey 1, 2 & 3).  The mat was cut from white card stock and shaded with 'Pumice Stone' Distress Ink.

As this little guy looks a bit sad & under the weather I want to find a 'Get Well Soon' sentiment to add.

Owls & Birds

This weekend was spent at Newark Air Museum for the event called Cockpitfest (a gathering of aircraft cockpits and other displays).

As usual it was a great weekend, and the weather improved for Sunday :) which was a very big bonus.

I had very quickly been working on creating a number of pads and post-it-note pads featuring the Stampin' Up punches 'Build a Bird' & 'Build a Owl'. The good news is that due to the size of the pads I was able to use a lot of scraps to create both the owls & birds, many of the pad covers were also created using part sheets of card from my bits box.

From Monday through to Thursday last week I was working like a mad thing.  However in the end it was worth it.

This is what they looked like sat on the table Saturday morning...

I just love all of the bright colours.  The Post-it-note pads sold better than the pads, but I was still pleased.  I now need to make some more before our next event :)

Happy Crafting.

WOYWW - 12 June 2013

It has been a while since I last joined in a Whats On Your Workdesk Wednesday... if you are not sure what I am talking about have a look at the Stamping Ground blog to find out more.

As for my desk this week here it is...

Earlier this week I had used my Stampin Up 'Build a Bird' punch to create a number of little birds, I then cut 1 3/4" circles for them to sit on.

I have been meaning to have a go at creating Post-It-Note holders for a while, and finally got stared.  Once the birds were created I cut card to match the co loured pads (purchased in a block of 4 colours from Asda).

This is what the 8 Post-It-Note holders looked like when finished.  All I now need to do is to put them into bags ready for an event at the weekend at Newark Air Museum where DH & I will be with out Owls.

Time for a spring clean

This weekend I have been home alone as DH is back in hospital again.  This time it is good news as they have operated and all of the Kidney stones are now gone.  He should be back home again in the next couple of days.

Well... while he was away I went to the Sincerely Yours Show at Lincoln on Sunday. I was really very good and managed to keep to my shopping list (well nearly!!) - However when I got home I decided that before I got out all of my new goodies, I really need to have a tidy and sort to make some room.

So after a while I ended up with a pile of craft staff (some of it brand new and never used) that had been sitting around for ages.  I decided to put most of these bits on eBay, after all it will mean that I have a bit more money to buy more crafty stuff :)

If you want to have a look what I found and give any of it a new home please feel free to have a look at my eBay shop (which can be found HERE).

Happy Crafting :)

LiM - Dogs

This week for Less is More the topic is...

This week is theme week at Less Is More and we hope you enjoy the choice.  We know you will come up with some fabulous creations.  We want to see cards with

 

Cats and/or Dogs 

 

We want to see cards with your favourite pet or both. We know you will all use your imagination.  Here are our cards for this week.

 

I ended up creating 2 cards, 1 with a Cat and the other with a Dog.  So here is the 2nd post featuring the Dog...

 

Using a Little Claire Design topper and red/white bakers twine.  The Hello sentiment is from Lily of the Valley stamp set.

 

LiM - Cats

This week for Less is More the topic is...

This week is theme week at Less Is More and we hope you enjoy the choice.  We know you will come up with some fabulous creations.  We want to see cards with

 

Cats and/or Dogs 

 

We want to see cards with your favourite pet or both. We know you will all use your imagination.  Here are our cards for this week.

 

I ended up creating 2 cards, 1 with a Cat and the other with a Dog.  So here is the Cat first...

 

The image was from a paper stack free with a magazine, coloured with my ProMarkers.

 

A-Z of Me

As I mentioned in a previous blog post (which can be seen HERE) I had completed the pages of a 6x6" album titled "A - Z of Me".

Although 26 layouts were hard work to plan, part of me did enjoy it.  When it came to putting the layouts together I did not really think that I would be able to complete all 26 in 1 day, but I did!

All in all I am pleased with the album and have a couple of layouts that are really special & I love so much, see the bottom of this post to find out which ones :)

My layouts will be going with all of the other A-Z albums to a crop on Saturday, those attending will get chance to vote for their favorite.  I will let you know how my album gets on.

In the mean time I did promise to post the photos of the finished 12x12" pages (with 4 smaller pages to each 12x12 page).  I completed the title page and the last page last night so here they are hot off the press.

Page 1

Page 2

Page 3

Page 4

Page 5

Page 6

Page 7

Page 8

My special layouts are:

• Anxiety - When I look back at how I was 20-25 years ago I would not have believed how my life was going to turn out
• Ufo - It took several attempts to get the journalling right, but I love the look of this page
• You Are To Me - DH asked if he could write the words to describe what I mean to him, I did mean to get him to sign the journalling

1 Stamp, but 2 very different cards

I was given this Owl stamp from Crafty Individuals by a friend and just could not wait to use it.

To see how it came out I stamped 2 images, the first in Black and the second in Brown.  I then used each image to create a card.

Birthday Cards

A friend recently had her 40th Birthday and I wanted to make a special card. In the end I used a stamp from  Imagination Crafts.

I stamped the image onto white tissue paper and then scrunched it up (this did not feel like a good thing to be doing - but I did it).  I then flattened out the image and cut a piece of white paper to go behind the image.  I covered the paper with photo clue and added my tissue paper, after drying with my heat gun I inked the edges with the 'Dusty Concord' distress inks.

The card was finished off with a Happy Birthday sentiment (from Stampin Up) cut with the Window Punch.  I also used the Stampin Up Butterfly punch and added a bit of bling & the number 40.

While I had this stamp out I decided to use it again to create a second card...

This time I used gold embossing powder, the edge of the image was inked with 'Rusty Hinge' distressing ink and each of the butterflies was given a hint of colour using 'Stormy Sky' and 'Fired Brick'.

I was really pleased with both cards, and really must remember to use this stamp again.

National Scrapbook Day 2013

Saturday seems a very long time away now, and it is only Tuesday! However I did promise to include some pictures of our National Scrapbooking Day crop on 4th May, so here goes...

First of all I must say that the SkelliScrapers had set ourselves a challenge - Create a A-Z album (6x6) for any topic of your choice.

Preparation could be done before 4 May, but you could not assemble any pages in advance.  You had from the 4th May to 18 May to complete your album.  Each of us paid £1 to take part and on Saturday 18 May all albums would be judged (at another groups crop) and the winner would get the prize money.

The challenge was set back in Feb/March so we had plenty of time for planning - I had decided that I would create a A-Z of ME.

My planning consisted on creating a A4 folder with a sheet for each letter, working out what each letter would stand for and what I wanted to include in the journalling.  For each letter I had printed out the journalling and cut it to shape (using my Labels 7 die set), cut out the letters required using a 'Go Kreate' alphabet die.  I also sorted out what background paper I wanted to use, printed any photos, cut any matts & sorted out what embellishments to use.

The good news with this album is that I have been able to use 6x6 paper pads I already had sitting on the shelf along with odd scraps - in total I only used about 4 x A4 pieces of card stock :)

All I had to do on the day was to pull everything together.  Despite this I was not expecting to have completed all 26 layouts in 6 hours - after all that would mean approx 1 layout every 14 minutes!!!

Here are a few photos taken on the day:

Organisation in action - This is the page for 'F' my Title letters, journalling, photos, matts and embellishments are all in the money bag for safe keeping.

Naomi, Ann & Sue F

Sue H & Emma

 We all made good progress with our albums, here was the last letter I completed on the day:

YES, I managed to complete all 26 layouts - and we stopped for a lunch break!

My planning payed off, all I have left to do now is create a title page.  As these 6x6 layouts are going to be part of my "Book of Me" 4 of the alphabet layouts have been mounted onto a 12x12 page.

I will be taking photos of the 12x12 pages, I have not got around to it yet, but I will post them here once I  have.

National Scrapbook Day

It is finally here, and I am going to be scrapping all day!!!!!

Photos will be posted during the weekend - Happy Scrapping :)

Organising my Stampin Up stamp sets

I am normally an organised person, this being the case I have tried several ways of storing my clear stamps and up to now had them in A5 poly pockets in a box.  But this was not really working as I could not see them, even after I created a 'Stamp Catalogue' I would forget to look at it or update it when I got new stamps.

So when I saw this video from Dawns Stamping Studio (click HERE), about storing the Stampin Up stamps, I started thinking (you could probably smell the smoke from where you are)... I could use the same idea for my other stamps (or the ones I use the most).

Here is the box from the Papillon Potpourri stamp set...

The 'image' of the stamp is stuck to the outside of the case, so that when the stamps are put away they each sit over their image.

This also means that when you remove a stamp it is easy to see where it goes back again.

I hope this is useful and I will let you know how I get on with this method of storing my stamps over time.

Happy Crafting.

On a card making roll...

On Saturday I felt like creating some cards, so I sat down and before I knew it I had made the grand total of 8!!!

2 of them were for the 'Less is More' challenge, you can see them HERE.

Here are the other 6...

Created with some paper from a free magazine paper pack, Stampin Up Butterfly & sentiment.  very quick and simple but I do like it.

This one was also using the Stampin up Butterfly and punch (I stamped the image then used the whole from  the butterfly stamp to sponge through), the sentiment was from the Bitty Banners set.

Guess what.... more butterflies :)

A change from butterflies, this time one of the Tree stamps from the 'Lovely as a Tree' set.  

More butterflies, this time I stamped the sentiment onto card and then used the butterfly punch to frame it.

The only Stampin up items on this layout is the sentiment, it is one of my favorites at the moment..."Everything will be okay in the end, If it isn't okay, it isn't the end." (from the 'Pursuit of Happiness' stamp set).

As you can see I had a bit of a Stampin Up session (I do just Love their foam dimensionals!!) I was feeling guilty that I had brought a number of stamp sets & the butterfly punch but had not used them.  Now I am really glad that I decided to buy them, as I think they will get used quite a bit :)

Less is More - Sketch

I has been a long while since I entered a card into the Less is More challenge, and today I have 2!!

As soon as I looked at the sketch for this weeks challenge I knew that I wanted to do something, but did not really know what.

This week we have a sketch for you drawn by Jen.
It's simplicity itself, so to add a little constraint, we ask that the card stays in this orientation.  Remember we still want to see plenty of white space.

So with a couple of hours to spare I sat down at my craft table and set to work...

Created with a scrap of patterned paper left on the desk, the Stampin Up Butterfly Punch (with stamp from the Papillon Potpourri set) & sentiment from the Itty Bitty Banners set (cut with the Bitty Banners framelits)

Also created with a scrap of patterned paper left on the desk, the Stampin Up Butterfly Punch (with stamp from the Papillon Potpourri set) the ribbon was a small piece from my Ribbon bag.

I have decided that I LOVE this butterfly stamp set & punch!!!! In total I end up making 8 cards in one go, I will add these to my blog tomorrow.

Preparation...

On Saturday 4th May it is National Scrapbook Day and this year the Skeliscrappers are meeting for the day.

I don't normally attend the weekend crops, so I am looking forward to a whole day of scrapping. However, a challenge has been set - Create a 6"x6" mini album with the title of A-Z.

After much thought I decided to create a A-Z of Me.

Over the last few weeks I have bee planning the pages, I will be mounting 4 6x6 pages on 1 12x12 page, this will form part of my larger "Book Of Me".

This evening I had some time to do a bit more planning and I have now sorted out background papers, alphabets and some embellishments.

So far every page has a polly pocket in a folder, in each pocket is the Journalling, pictures, papers and anything else I though might be used on each page.

As part of the challenge is that we can't start putting the pages together until the 4th, I hope to have all of the photos, titles and journaling cut out in advance. After all I will have 26 layouts to complete in 1 day!!!

I will be ready... I hope!

My 'Goodies' have arrived...

Now I remember what I ordered :)

All I need now is some time to play!

Surprise...

Don't you just love surprises??

On the 3rd of April our local Scrapping Group had a Stampin' Up evening and I spent a bit of money (but I was really very good and did not spend too much!).

Today Naomi should be dropping off my bag of goodies :)  as for the Surprise...

Well I have forgotten what I ordered!!!!!

Easter Basket

I wanted to make an Easter Basket to carry some 'Golden Eggs' as a gift.  It was one of those times when you knew what you wanted to create... but at the same time you didn't (does that make sense???).

I tried a couple of basket designs, but they did not look right, in the end I settled on this design, made from a single piece of cardstock (I think it was 7.5 inch x 7.5 inch).  I was first shown this design by a Stampin' Up Demonstrator (and used her version as a template).

Each of the sides are decorated by Candi flowers, created using a Woodware punch and Card Candi.  I then drew a stem and added leaves cut from a Memory Box die.

I thought that I had taken a picture of each side (they were all different) only I now find that I have 2 photos of one side and I'm missing a side :(

And from the top... just to tease you with the chocolate :)

The good news with this basket was that I did not have to buy any cardstock - I just used bits from my stash... Great News :)

Badger Theatre Card

I have fallen in love with the Theatre Card style (taken from one of the Hougie Board books).

This time I created a Thank You card using the Badgers from the Meadows Edge CD from Design House. 

The 'Thanks so Much' sentiment stamp has come out funny on the photo as I went over the text with my glitter pen.

Birthday Card

It was a friends birthday today, and I decided to make a special card. I found instructions for a 'Theatre Card' in one of the Hougie Board books and decided to give it a go. When the card was finished I was pleased with the way it looked.

Due to the thickness of the finished card I had to make a box for the card to go in, again I found instructions for a 'Jewellery Box'.

I have attached 3 pictures, one of the card in the box, followed by the open box and finally the card on its own.