A very good and fruitful week

 

Hope everyones Christmas plans are coming together nicely. I finally got around to sorting most of the presents this week after a trip into Birmingham with my daughter.We had a lovely day out even though both of us were feeling a bit under the weather. I still have a number of Christmas cards to get done but I'm hoping to get them finished this weekend.
I have had a pretty good week all in all actually. Last Saturday went to the Free Radio Live gig at the LG arena and saw Ollie Murs, Ed Sheeran and many more. Then the trip to Birmingham and a night out with my best friends last night. To round it off I am going to a Christmas concert this evening to see my daughter in law playing violin in the orchestra.
Right then enough of my hectic social life lol!
Here are a couple of cards I made last month and a canvas I decorated just for fun

 

 
This first card I made for our nephew using Clarity Hot air balloon stamp and clouds stencil

 

 This second one I made for my B.I.L.'s 80th birthday

 The clock and buttons were cut using spellbinders die and everything else came from my stash.

 

 

 I painted the stencil with acrylic paint, over stamped with texture stamps and edged it with some brass embossing powder

The large flower was created using a rubber stamp and the smaller ones are from the Craftwork Cards Vogue collection.The butterfly was diecut using a spellbinders die as were the flourishes and corners.

 

 

Well that's about it from me today except to say I am feeling rather relieved now this morning as I managed to book 1D tickets for Jessica. I hate booking tickets as it is so stressful!!

 

Have a good weekend

 

Pat xx



Gorjuss Girl

 

Haven't been able to find much time for blogging lately but I have managed to make a few cards and will share some with you today.

 

This first card I made for my gorgeous granddaughter Jessica who is 15 years old today and aptly I used a Gorjuss Girl stamp. Jessica loves the GG's and so was thrilled with the card.

It is a pop up box mounted onto a card.

 

This next card I made for my daughter's birthday which was back in October. I coloured the card for the panels with Distress inks and stamped the images with perfect medium and white embossing powder. For the circles I dipped a bottle and pen lid into the perfect medium and used to stamp and embossed with white embossing powder.

 

 

My daughter celebrates her wedding anniversary two days before her birthday and this is the flower box card I made for her and her husband. I used various flower stamps and die cut flourishes. The paper is Laura Ashley.

 

 

Until the next time

Thank you for visiting

 

Pat xxx



Lazy rainy day

 

 

Well as it's such a miserable morning here in the West Midlands I decided to do a bit of housekeeping on the old computer. Well the TV licence had to be paid and of course then I got sidetracked looking at crafty stuff, as you do!!

 

So while I'm about thought I would share a card I made for my dear friend Ann last month. Somehow I forgot to share it at the time but better late than never. Ann did receive it on time though.

 

 

I know it's a box but it does fold flat to become a "card".

I love making these cards and they are far easier to make than they look but so pretty. If you look back I think I posted some simple instructions on an earlier post. Funnily enough it was a miserable day weather wise that day too he he!

I based the colour combination around some beautiful paper I came across in my stash and I think it worked well. The large flower is a stamp, coloured with copics, I picked up reduced a while ago and the pink ones are cut using a Sue Wilson die. The butterfly is a spellbinder.

Well it's looking like a day crafting if the rain doesn't stop but that's no hardship. Hopefully if will improve tomorrow so that we can attend the Cheese & Pickle Festival at Coughton Court in Warwickshire.

Until the next time

Love

Pat xx



Golden

Hope you have been enjoying the lovely September weather, I have. We managed to visit a few National Trust properties over the last couple of weeks which has been lovely. We are so lucky to have such beautiful houses and gardens quite local to us. On Saturday we decided at the last minute to go back to Attingham Park in Shropshire and were so pleased we did. There was a horse and carriage parade and shire horse demonstrations which was a nice surprise. Next weekend we are hoping to go to Coughton Court in Warwickshire for their Cheese & Pickle Festival which sounds great to me being a cheese lover.

 

Anyway today I have three cards to share.

The first one as you can see is for a very special Anniversary for a good friend and her hubby.

For the swirls I used an Imagination crafts stencil and their sparkle medium. The heart stamp is one I bought years ago when my dear and lovely friend Jayne Nestorenko demonstrated it on C&C. It has come in very useful over the years.

 

 

 

This one is for a special ladies birthday. Backgrounds created using various distress inks and random texture stamping. The main image is an Indigo Blu stamp.

 

 

Finally a simple little card for an extra special man to show him my support. It doesn't show too well on the picture but all the card has been embossed. The stars have been cut from some card that I created by embossing and colouring with Distress.

 

 

Well that's about it from me at the moment.

Hope to be back soon

Best wishes

Pat xx



September?

 

Pleased to say the weather has taken a turn for the better but a shame it waited until the children went back to school. Elliot started senior school today and Jessica is now in year ten and preparing for her GCSE's.

 

I have been trying to get some outside jobs done the last couple of days and hopefully I will be able to cross them all of the list this week.

Anyway here are a s few cards I made during the last week.

 

The first one is a Michael Powell stamp

 

 

The background of this one is Distress ink randomly applied and outlined with black.

 

 

A selection of dies used on this one. The flowers are Sue Wilson and the others are spellbinders

 

 

finally for this one I used am Imagination mask and glitter medium

 



 

Until next time

Pat xx



Another Bug!

 

Two cards to share with you today.

 

The first I made for our niece's wedding anniversary.

 

 

The backing panel was created when I was embossing and colouring some card for the mirror project. The stamped image is a Clarity cut out using a spellbinder die. The banner is Lala land.

 

This next card I made for our SIL Stuart's birthday. I used the Robert Addams camper van die again. I love this die, it's so realistic when put together

 

 

Thanks for stopping by

Best wished

Pat xx



Back to reality

 

 

We spent a lovely holiday last week in sunny Felpham in Sussex.

We had a gorgeous house right on the seafront with fabulous views. It was lovely to get up in the morning and enjoy an early cuppa looking out on the beach and sea.

Anyway it's back to reality this week but I've managed to get the washing and ironing out the way. Yeah!!

 

 

Last Sunday was my son's 2nd wedding anniversary (where has the time gone?) and here is the card I gave the happy couple before they jetted of to celebrate in style in Dubai and Mauritius. Don't know why they didn't come to Felpham with us lol!

 

The frame was cut with a Cheery Lyne die and the corners cut with a Martha Stuart punch

 

While I'm here I thought I'd just share a mirror that I decorated.

I was inspired by the super talented Karen Clare's work but used materials I had to hand rather than what Karen had chosen to use.

 

 

 

I glued random pieces of embossed white card to a black Ikea mirror and then coloured them with various colours of Distress Inks. I then used a distress ink tool to apply Black Soot DI ink over the embossing and added some gilding wax to give a lovely sheen. The hearts, keys and buttons are Spellbinder die cuts and the words cut on the Slice and coloured with the same DI. The black frame is the Cheery Lynn one again. It now has pride of place on my bedroom wall and looks great.

 

Happy crafting

Pat xx

Perfect crafting weather

 

 

Haven't been doing much crafting lately but today with all this rain it is the perfect day to get back in the craft room. I was asked earlier in the week to make a card for a 14 year old girl and here it is.

 

 

In reality the green is more lime and zingy but that's cameras for you (well maybe it's me!)

I chose the paper first from a lovely pad I picked up in T K Max and matched the copics  to colour the birthday stamp. I love the Lala land pennant and use it any chance I can.

Happy crafting one and all

Pat xx



Got the bug!

 

 Decided to do a bit of blogging now Wimbledon is over. I really enjoyed todays final and although I had predicted Federer to win I must say I think the best man did win. Lovely day for it too.
A couple of weeks ago I bought the Robert Addams camper van die when it came back in stock. My daughter and her husband are VW fans so I knew the die would come in useful for Stuart's birthday in August and also for John's brothers birthday on Tuesday. He and his wife have a lovely Motorhome but the first one they had several years ago was a Camper Van so I thought the die would be perfect.
 

So this is my BIL's card. I printed off a section of a map of Scotland as this is where they spend a lot of time in their Motorhome. The die has lots of little fiddly bits to it but if you have patience the result is well worth the effort. I love it.  I spent a couple of days cutting out several to use at a later date. Some are plain colours like this one but I also cut some out of lovely floral papers and they look really cool. When I've made them up into cards I'll put some photos on here.

 

 

 

The one below is a lovely stamp which I coloured with copics and then added the details with a white and black pen. I also have a very similar but fancier stamp to this which I think I have posted pics of previously. I love these stamps because you can stamp a few up then sit and colour them  at your leisure in a variety lovely colour combinations. It is easy then to design the cards as you don't need to add much by way of embellishments to achieve a lovely result. Perfect for when your mojo's gone walkabout.

 

 

Thank you for visiting me today and have a good crafty week.

 

Pat xxx

Box of flowers

 

 

Well as it's such a miserable day weather wise I'm here getting things sorted on the computer which I don't seem to find much time for lately, apart from a bit of facebook and even less twitter. Not completely savvy with twitter but I give it a go every now and then.

I managed to order a lovely Camper Van die from Joanna Sheen's shop this morning so I am looking forward to having a play with that when it comes. I've got a couple of cards to make for people that I know the Camper Van will be perfect for.

 

The card I am going to share today is one of the flowers in a box ones that seem to be popular at the moment. I made it for Mom's 91st birthday that she celebrated on Tuesday. I used some Laura Ashley papers which I had in my stash and coloured some of the flowers with copics to match.

 

 

Quite simple to create really but very effective especially as they fold flat for posting.

Take an oblong piece of card scored into 4 equal sections along the length plus a 2cm section to create a flap to join the box. Then score in half along the width. If you want the top sections to be shorter adjust the score line. Cut away the top section of the 2cm flap and cut down the score line on the top sections. Glue the flap to create the box. You need to cut 2 or 3 narrow strips to fit the inside of the box in order to attach the flowers or whatever you want in the box. Use acetate strips fixed to some of the embellishments to enable them to stand proud.

Now what to do with the rest of the day? Tackle the mountain of ironing or do a bit of crafting?I think you know what I'll decide!!

Bye for now

Pat xx

 



Blue sky and sunshine!

 

Hello dear friends, hope everyone is enjoying the lovely sunshine today and making the most of the bank holiday.

I'm of to Cheltenham for the Jazz festival on Monday with my lovely daughter Justine. We will be seeing Curtis Stigers who is  Justine's equivalent to Jessica's One Direction. Actually I think Justine is more obsessed than Jessica. We will be meeting up with some other Stigers fans, Jan and Eileen for the first time so it's going to be fun all the way. I'm really looking forward to the break as it hasn't been the best of weeks with John having a few more health issues to deal with poor love.

Anyway it was John's birthday last month so I thought I would share the card I made for him with you. It's the lovely Clarity Stamps Hot Air Balloon and cloud stencil. I love blue/brown colour combination so was more than happy with how it turned out.

 

 

Thanks for stopping by

 

Pat xx



Happy Easter

 

 

Happy Easter everyone!

 

I have spent this afternoon crafting, creating a Golden Wedding card that was commisioned . It involved using a lot of gilding flakes, which I love, but  always get in a bit of a mess with.

 

 

Pretty much self explanatory. Gilding flakes, Spellbinder dies, A4 embossing folder.

 

Right well now I'm off to do a bit of colouring while watching the box, not that there is much worth watching tonight.

So bye for now

Pat xx



A moment of Clarity

 

 

Here are three cards I've designed since I was last here.

For this first one I used Distress inks and stencils for the background and edged the swirls with a black micron pen. The stamp is by Clarity Stamps and coloured with DI's

 

 

For the second one I used the Clarity stamps balloons on a background created using the Clarity cloud stencil and Distress Ink. I stamped the large balloon directly onto the background then stamped and cut another layer to give a rounded 3 dimensional look .I added stickles to the swirls on the balloon but it doesn't show on the photo.

 

 

More Clarity stamps used on this next one. Used the Letterbox set for the banner and the ferns and bunnies (well hares really) from another set.

 

Well that's about it from me today. Hope to see you again  soon.

 

Pat xx



A selection

 

 

Here are a selection of cards that I have created since I was last here

 

For this double fold card I used Clarity Stamp's Toadstool & Elf coloured with copics.

 

 

For this next one I used a Tilda paperkit that I picked up in TK Max at a bargain £1.99

I don't usually do kits but have enjoyed using some lately for a quick craft fix.

 

Another using the Tilda kit

 

I used the Indigo Blu Clematis stamp on a Distress ink and stencil background

 

This last one is using my very favourite JOFY stamps coloured with copics with a distress inked background

 

 

A combination of the Clarity and JOFY stamps coloured with copics on a DI background

 

I have been keeping off the computer lately due to headaches hence the lack of blogging.

So thank you for stopping by my rather neglected blog.

Pat xx



Distressed!

 

 

Today I am going to share with you an embossed panel I created. I haven't made it into a card as I was just trying out an idea which I hope to use in a future project.

 

 

I dry embossed pieces of white card using various embossing folders, cut them into various sizes to create a random pattern then stuck them down onto another piece of card. I then randomly coloured the piece using DI, Tumbled glass, peeled paint, antique linen and frayed burlap. I then used some Creative Expressions gilding wax to give a lovely shine (which doesn't show on the photo). For the centre panel I stamped the JOFY image and added circled by dipping the end of a pen into the Versafine ink pad. Added ribbon from my stash.

 

Pat

xxx

 



Birthday Pair

 

 

Today is my son Jonathan's birthday and  his wife Elizabeth's too. Unusual for husband and wife to share a birthday but very nice to be able to celebrate together.

 

So here are the cards I made for them. Easy to guess who's is who's.

 

I was inspired by a card I found on Pinterest for Jonathan's. Just had to do it as he is a real ale fan.

The background papers are Basic Grey which I have had for quite a while now.

 

 

 

Elizabeths card was made using a Prima Doll stamp and I just love these dolls. They are perfect for paper piecing which I really enjoy. I created the background paper myself using distress inks and various texture stamps. This image is perfect for Liz with her high heels and pretty dress.

 

 

 

By now they should have opened their presents and have probably tucked in to the Gower Cottage Brownies which we had delivered for them. Hope they remember to keep me one so that I can see if they live up to their reputation.

 

Well as always thank you for visiting

 

Pat xx

 



"Sun"day!!

 

Well it's been a lovely sunny day here in the West Midlands of the UK which is a refreshing change from all that wind and rain. Hope the sun has had it's hat on where you are too.

 

Thought I would stop by and share some cards I created using Craftwork Cards Vogue collection. I don't usually go for printed sets like this but have really enjoyed a bit of cutting and sticking. You can't help but create lovely cards as the designs are just gorgeous.

 

Sorry about the first one taken in bad light.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hope you have a good week

 

Pat xx

 



Up up and away.......

 

 

Last Saturday I went to another of Maria Simms workshops and had a great day.

We got to work with the brayer which was good as I definately need more practice and we did some kiss stamping. We used the beautiful hot air balloon stamp by Clarity Stamp and it is just gorgeous. We even got to make butterflys using the same stamp and I'm sure there are plenty more possibilties.

 

For this first one we used one of Clarity's masks for the trees

 

 

 

Here are the butterflys we cut from the balloon. The background was brayered and then stencilled over.

 

 

We brayered onto Clarity card for this one and then just stamped the images in black.

 

 

 

Feeling inspired I decided to get the brayer out again this week and here is the result. Apologies for the rubbish picture.

 

 

I hope you are managing to keep safe and dry in this horrid weather.

Thank you for visiting

Pat xx

 



Sue's Card

 

 

Today's card is one I did for my neighbour Sue's 50th birthday.

 

 

 

The background was made using distress inks overstamped with various texture stamps and embossed on the Calibre .  The numbers where cut on my slice and edged with stickles. The border cut with a Martha Stuart punch.

 

Thanks for stopping by

 

Pat xx



What's going on!

 

 

 

I know "what is happening?" you ask, she's blogging again!

 

This card started off as one thing in my head and ended up something quite  different which is often the case with me. The toadstool stamp is Stampasaurus and the cute little pixie is a Clarity stamp which I got at Matria Simms workshop in December. The dies are Spellbinders labels 20 and a flourish set which Ican't remember the name of. The larger die is Go Kreate. I'm sure you can recognise the embossing folder as the extremely popular Tied Together.

 

 

 

Well it looks like the sun is considering making an appearance so I guess we'll have a ride out later and maybe we'll find a craft store somewhere.

 

My lovely daughter and granddaughter are off to see Union J tonight with Jessica's friend Lily and her Mom. Don't know who are the most excited the Moms or the girls. Think the girls are going to disown  their Moms and I can't say as I blame them having been to a 1D concert with them last year and I'll say no more.

 

Hope you have a good weekend

Thanks for visiting

Pat xx

 

Back again.

Here is a small selection of cards that I made at the end of 2013

The first one I made for my Granddaughter Jessica's birthday in November. She plays guitar and so I thought this Kenny K image would be perfect and I just had to include her  favourite bands didn't I?

This next one was made for a friends wedding in November. The image is a Michael Powell design and the letters and bunting are a la Barbara Gray.

It was my daughters birthday in October and this is the card I made for her. I saw these stamps in Craft Stamper mag and just had to get them. I masked the lady image and then stamped the days of the week. The dress is paper pieced and the rest has been colured with copics. I highlighted the Saturday with glitter as that was the day of her birthday.

I used the same image for these next three card which are all on the same theme.

Well hope you liked this small selection from the end of 2013 while I was missing.

Thanks for looking

Pat xx