Scrap Map - A wedding page

Morning fellow crafters ,


Wasn't the pomp and pageantry spectacular yesterday , a lovely day for the bride and groom . What topped the day of for us was when the Battle of Britain memorial Flight flew in the skies above our little bungalow on there way back to RAF Conningsby , such a lovely roar of the Merlin engines and that unmistakable silhouette on the horizon , it only took them 15 mins to get here from London ....... a bit slower than the jets which passed 5 mins earlier !!


...... So the morning after the Royal wedding and over at Creative Craft world the Saturday sketch is up and the theme is Weddings .

I decided to scrap this photo because I like the different angle of the photo which was taken by a family member when the official photographer was busy snapping away .
The bride and groom are my sister in law and hubbie and our little girlie was a bridesmaid for the first time at their wedding and is in the foreground of this picture , needless to say it was an enjoyable day .
Here are a couple of close ups

This is my last page as Guest Design team member and it's been great joining them each Saturday at sketch launch , thank you Lou and team :)

Thanks for stopping by X

Bring out the bunting

Hello fellow crafters ,

I have a second card for this weeks Less is More 'off centre' challenge and it has a royal party theme .

Are you going to be watching ? We shall be , but not from 8 o'clock in the morning !!! Hope you enjoy the festivities and street parties if you're having or going to one and fingers crossed the weather stays fine for them .

Thanks for taking time to stop by and leave a comment , I really enjoy reading them :)

I've got an Award

Hi everyone ,

Over the weekend I received a Versatile Blogger Award from Karen who is a very creative , talented lady and a busy Mum and Stampin Up demonstrator as well , see her blog here and her SU blog here . Thank you very much Karen :)

                             

To accept this award I have to tell you some facts about myself so here they are -

1.) I'm 6ft tall .
2.) I'm a qualified Veterinary Nurse .
3.) My birthday is the longest day of the year...and I share it with a certain young Prince who's getting married this week .
4.) I've never been on an aeroplane... ever !
5.) I'm a volunteer at my local RSPB reserve .

 I want to pass this award onto these 5 marvellous blogs -

1.) Just add Glue to...   - I love how Diane's Eco ethics carry through in her craft projects :)
2.) Crafting Clare's Paper Moments -  Such an inspirational blog :)
3.) Less is More - this lady makes amazing cards and my inspiration to start a blog :) 
4.) Crafty Musings-  A blog full of amazing cards :)
5.) KingstonMama Crafts - I love this ladies clean and simple crafting style :)

I hope you enjoy visiting  the blogs as much as I do :)

Thanks for stopping by today x

Less is More #11 and Easter Pics

Hi Everyone
Well last day of the Bank Holiday ....... but hang on there's another one next weekend , yay :)


............... so this weeks Less is More challenge is a recipe and it's simply 'off centre' ...... not as simple as you think , you still need to think about balance and composition , hmmmmm .


I decided to use a new digital stamp from Tiffanys doodles here . I loved the clean lines of this image and it lends itself well to paper piecing .

I've printed it once on the card blank and then twice on PP , so I could slightly raise the front of the sofa , and once on red paper for the cushions . The sentiment is generated on the computer ( fonts are '1942 report' and 'journal' both from dafont ) so no stamping at all on this card .

                      Yesterday we had a little egg hunt in our garden , luckily it wasn't as hot as Saturday !
I made a basket for Hannah to use as James wanted to use a white basket we already had so I put my thing cap on after seeing this post from Vicky and came up with this

I printed some pale yellow gingham to decorate it and the scalloped edge is made using a Tim Holtz 'on the edge' die. A Sizzix daisy die and a bow to decorate the handle .


Here's James's basket after the hunt ...... notice the colour grouped eggs .... it couldn't be any other way  :)

He really enjoyed the hunt especially as he found the special egg and egg cup , it took him a while to slow down and look properly  and then he managed to find more than Hannah , I think she let him really :)

Hope you enjoyed your Easter break and thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment , I really appreciate it x

One Layer Weds 50

Evening everybody and Happy Easter ,


I've grabbed some crafting time today to make a card for OLW 50 over on Susan Raihala's blog here . We have to use an old well loved stamp/s that have not seen ink for a while and make a thank you card . Here's my creation

These little stamps are a collection of small cube stamps from Hero Arts ( I think ) , and they allow you to mix blooms , stems and pots to make your own flowers and I've had them for ages . I used to use my marvy pens with them initially but now Mr Holtz has come onto the scene they've had a new lease of life and now I use my own handmade stamp positioner they are easier to use too .

Just thought I'd share these pictures of our local woods that are covered with a carpet of bluebells at the moment .

We went a couple of evenings ago when the weather was so warm  to take the dog out , the sight and smell that greeted us was amazing  in fact the pictures do no justice to it at all . If only they could invent scratch and sniff technology for blog pictures :)


Thanks for stopping by , I'll be back tomorrow with some more pictures of our Easter weekend at home.


Bye for now x

A Patriotic Scrap Map Saturday

Good Morning everyone ,

This weeks scrap map sketch at Creative Craft World is the theme of red ,white and blue as it's St Georges day and in honour of the forthcoming marriage of William and Kate .

My page jumps back to 1978 and the Queens Silver Jubilee street party in our little cul-de-sac .

I was only five and the pictures show me in the fancy dress competition as the Queen of Hearts complete with my plate of real homemade jam tarts . As was many of my clothes from this era , the  costume was all handmade by my mum and she still has many of them today which my two have enjoyed dressing up in over the years as well . I'm pretty sure I won first place , with a costume like that on the Queens Jubilee I suppose it was inevitable really :)

I decided to give the whole LO a distressed vintage look including the hand cut pieces of the patchwork Union Jack , and I added some scruffy sewing too ..... a lot easier than neat sewing !

The bunting is Maya Road chipboard with sticky back canvas layered on top which has been stamped and coloured with chalk ink .

Hop over to the CCW blog to see the sketch and join us in the run up to the big day on Friday .

Thanks for looking and hope you enjoy the rest of the weekend in these barmy temperatures X

Clean and Simple - Monochrome

Hello everyone

This is my card for this weeks clean and simple sketch .

It's a great sketch and I couldn't decide at first what colours to choose before settling on the monochromatic look . A bit of a texture mix too with a flocked brad, black satin paper strip and a pinhole punched paper strip ... yikes what a tongue twister that is !!!!

It's going to be another warm sunny day so whatever you are doing , hope you enjoy it :)
Thanks for stopping by X

A Colour combo 'acetate' card

Hello everyone,

I'm back with another 'Acetate' Less is More card as I felt I needed to endure the problems that fellow Limettes had encountered with this unforgiving piece of stash so I found some embossable acetate and decided to make another card .

Ok so it's only a small piece of acetate but this is "Less is More" right  :)
I stamped with Versamark and then clear embossed on the brown card and then stamped with white ink and clear embossed on the acetate . I cut a circle of the design in acetate and used a Sizzix die to make the blue circle border and attached with thin strips of foam pads to raise it a little . The sentiment are tags are made with a SU punch then it's all mounted onto a white card base .

The colour palette is inspired by Emilie's colour combo for this week

I made a second card but didn't think it was CAS enough and too much acetate showing all the scratches/fingerprints you try and avoid putting on it .....

..... and yes your all right it is difficult to photograph even in a light tent !

That's enough with acetate , not my favourite crafting product at all .

Thank you so much for all your lovely comments on my 'Rattle' card , I think it's my most amount since I started blogging , it means so much to me that people like what I make :)

Right coffee break over , hope you enjoy the rest of this sunny day X

Less is More #11 - Acetate

Morning everyone and yes I'm unusually early this week with my LIM card but when I get an idea I have to see it through to see if it will work .

This week is to use Acetate on , in or as our card . A bit hesitant at first then Chrissie and Mandi got the old cogs working by mentioning using plastic packaging if acetate was not to hand then ..... 'TING' (light bulb moment) I remembered a plastic bubble that had been attached to a piece of card and had some buttons in, that I was saving for just this sort of project .

The shape gave me the idea for a babies rattle as beads would fit perfectly in the space .

I basically cut a circle in my card base with a nestie to fit the bubble through and then used Nestabilitie dies to decorate the edge and make the handle of the rattle . I added a punched strip across the plastic to decorate and a white ribbon on the handle . Behind the plastic bubble I attached a piece of white card that I had stamped polka dots onto and then stamped my sentiment .

I'm sure you can't buy babies rattles like this anymore , health and safety wouldn't let you what with ribbons and beads , in fact this card would probably have to have a safety warning on it too !!!

I wanted to pass on a little tip I've picked up regarding drawing broken borders on cards .
In the photo below are a few templates I've made out of card to place over a card front and draw through when adding a broken border .

It makes it so much easier than using a ruler and possibly getting the measurements wrong .
I've cut card (cereal box card would do) to the same size as the most commonly used card sizes I make , then drawn a border inside at 1.5 cm depth all round and then cut that out with a craft knife .
All you have to do then is place the template over the finished design and hold down whilst you draw round the inside with a pen .
I hope this makes sense and helps people if they are finding a ruler and pen a problem , I know it's not ground-breaking stuff but sometimes the simplest ideas are time savers :)

If you've never heard of the Less is More challenge, pop over to the blog and play along too and become a Limette with us :)

Thanks for looking, I really appreciate your comments X

Easter Time at Scrap Map Saturday

Good morning everyone , don't these Saturdays come round quick :)

The new scrapbook sketch at CCW is here and the theme is Easter .

It just so happens this year we decided to collect some twigs/branches and put them in a vase to decorate them in an Easter theme and the bright eggs are ready for an egg hunt in the garden , they were put away again after the photo so as not to get eaten :)

The bright colours of the egg wrappers inspired me to use some blue cosmic shimmer spritzed onto the Bazzil cardstock . Never tried this before but seeing as my daughter Hannah has just bought some for her 'She Art' canvases I thought I'd borrow some :)

The bright pink flower is made from a strip of satin and I used Karen's tutorial here on the May Arts blog and Karen's own inspirational blog is here . My flower is not quite as full so I added some beads into the centre , you may see that flower again as I like its shabbiness and I need more practice making it .

So hop on over to the CCW blog and see this weeks sketch and others to play along, you can submit pages until the end of the month for any April sketch and they are on the look out for a new Guest Designer for May from this months submissions .

Hope you all enjoy the weekend and thank you for looking and leaving a comment x

Green and Pink - OLW 49

Afternoon peeps ,

One Layer Weds is being hosted by Jennifer Styles this week over on her blog here , and the requirements are green and pink using a stamp that has never seen ink ( you can use other colours in addition to green and pink ).

This stamp is Studio G and cost about 99p if I remember correctly but has never been used until yesterday . The leaf is one from a Judikins cube , I think I've used some of the other leaves but not this one .
I've kept it clean and simple and quite enjoyed making it , this is first attempt too , now that's unusual :)

Thanks for looking , I'll be back Saturday with my LO for Scrap map Saturday .

Less is More #10 - second card

Back so soon I hear you say ....

I'm having a crafty day today and the ideas are flowing . As promised here is my second , more colourful One Layer card for Less is More this week ..... again very much sentiment based .

The sentiments are a set called 'kids quotes - friendly advice' from Inkadinkadoo and the paint pot and brush are from a set of Woodware stamps called DIY .
I've used acrylic paint brushed directly onto the card and then used Stazon to stamp on top of it , then I used the masking technique to stamp the tin behind the paint brush and coloured with promarkers adding acrylic to tin and brush too . The black line gives it the feel of a poster I think so I added dots in the three corners .
At this point I squealed with delight as it looked how I intended it too . It's one of those days when things go right :)

Hope you like it too X

Less is More #10

Morning Everyone ,

It's that time of the week again to make and post my Less is More card for this week. Week 10 is a one layer week with focus on the sentiment .

This is my card , which uses the stamps I was waiting for yesterday and the sentiment is one I found on the computer .  I made the sentiment in Word with this fabulous font called Jellyka Castle's Queen (dafont.com) which looks like it could have been written with a quill .

I wasn't sure whether to add anything else ,  i.e pearls/gems of a touch of glitter on the feathers .... what do you think ?
It's not the most bright , jolly card so I'll probably be back with another submission to cover that angle .

I'm actually enjoying the one layer weeks as it really tests the old creative matter and I'm building a collection of cards that are easy to fit in their envelopes :)
Thanks for looking and taking the time to comment X



Non-floral sympathy card

Hello again , second post today ,

Time is running out for the OLW challenge here so I managed to make my entry this morning .

The requirement is a One Layer Sympathy card without using flowers or tree images so after searching through my stamps I came up with nothing suitable , I've ordered a set of stamps that would be suitable but they have not arrived in time so I decided to use stencils and chalks . I used a nestie to make a stencil and then chalked a dusk skyline , silhouetted hills and then added a few birds , the sentiment is from Stampin Up .
I'm quite pleased how it turned out as the sky colours give the card a tranquil feel and the embossed border frames it nicely ... its surprising what you can produce when the supplies are limited :)

That really is all for today , thanks for looking X

Clean and Simple Butterflies

Hello Peeps ,
I'm back today with a card for the Clean and Simple sketch here and I've followed it quite literally with the use of butterflies . 

I've used my new and first ever butterfly die from 'My favourite Things' and I have to say they are very pretty as you get three different size butterflies on one die so good value too .


The dies are slim metal but do cut through medium weight cardstock and are supposed to go through felt and corkboard too .... I haven't tried this yet though .

The background stamp is Hero Arts 'Ledger' which has seen ink for the first time and the binder edge edge is by an EK success punch , I just love the use of faux or real stationary products in crafting :)

I'm a bit behind with crafty projects so far this week because we had a busy weekend and such glorious weather to be out in . I'm postie stalking today as he is bringing some new stamp sets that I can use on other cards .... I know I said I was going to use old stash for these card challenges but sometimes it just can't be done .

Thanks for looking , I really appreciate your time and comments .
Back Soon X

A playtime page- SMS

Hello Everyone,

It's Saturday so it's not only the start of the weekend, it's also a new sketch to play along with over at Creative Craft World. This week the sketch contains lots of shapes and this is the page I've created as Guest design team member.

I've used my new Echo Park paper pack 'Playtime' as the colours and designs are so bold and great for the sketch.

I've pretty much kept to using papers and stickers from the set apart from 'My Favourite Things' dies, which I used for cutting the buttons and grass.

The children have now broken up from school which is lovely as I don't have to rush out of bed in the mornings and make packed lunches and keep to timetables but give it a few days and the novelty will be wearing thin. Hubby has taken some days off so we can go out or stay around home in the garden, lets hope the weather stays cheery although ,dare I say it, we could do with some rain overnight for the allotment/garden (said cowering in corner).

Thanks for looking and have a great weekend.X

Less is more #9- touch of red

Morning Everyone ,

As the title suggests it's my card for the LIM challenge and I'm a little later than normal this week as I've had to think hard about this one . I like to do something different which is always a challenge and my stamp collection doesn't lend itself to my ideas sometimes .
This card is my second idea but my favourite so it's the one I'm entering .

I've made the lollipops from bakers twine twisted onto a circle of card covered in double sided tape . The sticks are cocktail sticks and the jar is a Quickutz die . I hope I've not used too much red, the bow on the jar was necessary to hide the glue attaching the jar to the card . You can't really make the jar out on the photo .

This second card is pretty much self explanatory really and hopefully still fits the CAS requirements?

Thanks for taking the time to drop by it's lovely to recieve so many comments especially on these challenges , I do try my best to get round to comment on all the other cards , the inspiration is wonderful and so are the cards . X

Sunshine on a rainy day

Morning Everyone ,
Not a great day weather wise but I'm assured it's going to get better so I'm bringing some sunshine on my blog this morning with this card for the clean and simple challenge .

I used my new cloud dies from My Favourite Things and just punched circles from yellow card to make the sun emerging from behind . The cardstock is by Lasting Impressions and I love it but can't find it in the uk anymore .... unless anyone knows any different , please let me know . The base card is Kraft again another favourite at the moment .

Yesterday (in the nice weather) I went on an organised trip to Stour Wood which is an RSPB reserve down near Harwich in Essex . The woodland floor is covered in Wood Anenomes and looks like snow has fallen in the spring .

It's breathtaking and photo's , especially mine, do it no justice really. This site is short lived as they will be finished in a couple of weeks and they also look there best on a sunny day , but then don't we all .

So quite a bright cheery post , lets hope it makes an impact on the weather .
Thanks for looking and all your lovely comments about my Guest design spot with CCW, its lovely to share it with you all . X

Mothers Day

Evening all,

this is a quick photo-less post to say I've had a busy Mothering Sunday out in the garden helping hubbie turn a heap of sandy soil into a raised flower bed at the side of our front garden . What makes it more enjoyable was that we re-used old fence posts and half rails to do it ....too busy for photo's even , I'll have to take some when we plant it up as we ran out of light this evening to do that .
I was treated to a cup of tea in bed this morning with a lovely handmade card , some chocolates and a flowering quince to plant in our transforming garden , the red blossoms look so lovely against the green leaves .
I'm going to cheat now and post this link to my girlies blog as she has blogged pictures of the treats she made me .

Hope you enjoyed your Mothering Sundays too X

Scrap map Saturday- In the allotment

Hi Everyone ,

This is my page for this weeks sketch at Creative Craft World, and this week it's the turn of the boys for a fun page and a great sketch it is too .

Last weekend we started planting potatoes , onion sets and other seeds in our allotment and James was keen to help so I had to get the camera out too . He enjoys helping if it's not too complicated but expects things to grow very quickly .... like overnight !!
I thought I would use the large circle in the sketch to make a large onion half which I have added chalk and stitching too to highlight the rings .

My journalling seed packet replaces one of the photos and I've matted a round photo onto some hessian too . Thought I'd keep it bold and simple this week :)

I have been invited to be Guest Designer this month at CCW and this is my first page for April . I was delighted to be asked and I'm sure I'll enjoy working with Lou and her team .

The sketch challenges are open until the end of the month and they're a friendly team who actually visit you blog and appreciate you taking part so pop over and join in the scrapping fun .

Thanks for looking and leaving any comments , I really appreciate it X