Making An Easter Nest!

Whilst I'm still without wheels and my mojo is alive and kicking at the moment, I disappeared into my craft room yesterday to get a card idea from my head and onto card...so to speak :0)

Using the delightful Easter photo inspiration at Jay Gees Nook and the fab sketch at Retro Sketches I decided to go with a springtime Easter card.... oh and it's another for Less is More too :0)

Easter time, to me, symbolises the changes taking place in our own back gardens and new life in the animal kingdom so a clutch of speckled eggs in a twiggy nest is what I really wanted to make and I had just the Memory Box die in mind....
.

I started by cutting the Memory Box Grapevine Wreath die

and then cut it into suitable size sections making sure to give the cut ends  realistic twiggy slant

and when layered up in a nest shape it looks really effective... glueing it was a lot easier than you imagine with strategically placed dots of wet glue on the wider areas of the twigs .... now I know how the birds do it *wink* :0)

I punched out three eggs, with an ancient punch that Ive had for ages, and used repositionable tape to glue them to my craft mat before sponging them with Aqua Mist and Sea Breeze VersaMagic. The speckles are added lightly with a very open density sponge in Rich Cocoa Memento.

The wood grain panel is embossed using a PTI impression plate, the speckled card was a great find in my stash for the rustic feel and just had to be teamed up with the hessian strip...... even the sewing machine has had another outing for this card..... can you tell I'm so pleased with it??

Seems a timely moment to remind you that the current Springtime Challenge at St Luke's Charity Card Challenge ends mid-day Saturday so you still have time to link your cards up for the chance to win a set of Waltzing Mouse Stamps and help a great cause too...hop over and take a look for yourself :0)

 

Here are Arielle's Sketch and Judith's photo inspiration board, whilst over at Less is More this fits in with Embossing, Spring and Off Centre.

Right that's quite enough from me, phew what a long post but it's mostly pictures so hopefully you didn't mind :0)

Thanks for looking

Jenny x

Rainbow Stripes

Good morning.
Another long absence! Not sure why, life just happens like that and this week the kids are off from school and  the calendar is filling up so I'm especially glad the snow is finally thawing, I must admit I've had enough of it now especially when night-time temperatures dip to minus double figures too!!
This weeks challenge at Less is More is to use stripes and it's one layer week too so extra thinking time is required.
My stripes have been inspired by the pretty colours on the photo inspiration at Jay Gees Nook, aren't those pictures just gorgeous... not to mention the pile of washi tape in the centre photo :0)
So with pretty colours and stripes it had to be a rainbow which went perfectly with this sentiment from inkadinkado......

 The cloud and sun are Lawn Fawn stamps and I made the rainbow with part of a clear border stamp that I shaped on an acrylic block. I was able to use my brilliance ink pads for the rainbow, they're some of the first pads I bought but are still nice and juicy!
Well today is my blogs first birthday and I have to say what a fun year it has been, I've met and made lots of crafty blog pals whilst enjoying exploring the clean and simple genre of card making, which has become a more comfortable style for me :0) Now I haven't had a giveaway on my blog for ages so I thought I would mark my first blogversary and going over 200 followers a few weeks back with a little blog candy...... look out for that post later this week :0)
I'm actually writing this on Blogsy whilst waiting at the garage for the car to be checked over, It's been temperamental at starting when the engine is warm which is not a reliable car in my book and with a long journey to do this week it needed checking out!
As for Blogsy, I've been having a play and watching lots of You Tube tutorials and it's a really good app.... just needs some practice that's all. I've managed to do links in this post and insert photos via a Picasa web album, well I hope I have!,  the only couple of downsides for me is you're not able to preview your post on your blog so I can't check photo size etc and the choice of fonts doesn't contain the one I use on blogger but this might be something that's easily resolved with further investigation :0)
Right I'm going to post this now..... here goes and thanks for looking, if you can!
Jenny x

All About RED

Welcome to the second Lawn fawn Blog Hop and welcome to my crafty blog if you haven't visited before, it's lovely to have you here :)
The theme of the hop is 'All about Red' and you should have arrived here from  Kelly's blog, the complete list of participants can be found on the Lawnscaping blog in case you get lost along the way :)

The hop runs for the whole weekend so you have lots of time to take in the wonderful projects and maybe win a prize too just by leaving a comment on each blog, our sponsors are  Mold Muse, Whisker Graphics and of course Lawn Fawn :)

So onto my Red makes and I have a card which follows a red and white theme by using the snowflakes from Frosties to make my own styled 'Faux Washi tape'  with tissue paper and double sided sticky tape using this tutorial here. I stamped and fussy cut two snowflakes to stack as an embellishment for the sentiment and added some glitter dust too, hope you like it..... (sorry about the photo quality still having issues with my settings!!)

Not content with just a card I decided to have a go at making a Christmas cracker which also doubles as a place setting for the Christmas dinner table ( I only had chance to make one, but I'll be sure to make the rest before Christmas) I followed this tutorial here and found it really simple to do

The cute little bunny is so sweet to work with and place in a snowy scene...do you see I used the small branch from 'Ornate Ornaments' to make a fir tree :)

So I've tried to keep it short and sweet for you, it's a busy time of the year!, and now it's time to head on over to Erin's blog, I'm sure there will be an awesome project waiting to greet you there :)
Remember, to start the hop from the beginning or see what amazing prizes are up for grabs then head over to the Lawnscaping blog :)

I'm entering the cracker into this weeks ColourQ challenge and the card into Jay Gees Nook photo inspiration :)

Thanks for joining in the hop and Here's wishing you....... a Happy and Peaceful Christmas :)

Jenny X

Dotty or Spotty?

When does a dot become a spot? I have no idea but I do like polka dots so the challenge at Less is More this week is right up my street! We have to include them on our card and keep it a clean and simple design.

I've also been meaning to play along with the pretty inspiration photo board at Jay Gees Nook this month so here goes both challenges together...

I love the picture of the sofa on the inspiration board because the soft pastel cushions look amazing against the neutral material ..... needless to say it wouldn't stay that colour in our house!!
I've used a digi image, papers and sentiment on this card, the only stamp is the a.muse oval, I thought the chair looked cosy enough for a get well soon card :)

I'm also entering this into the 'Free for All' challenge at Wee Memories this week

So it's half term this week although Hannah has arranged a weeks work experience in London so I'm still up at the crack of dawn making packed lunches and surprisingly so was James this morning too!!! Typical I have to drag him out of bed school mornings but when he can lay in he's up and as bright as a button!......it's going to be a long day until the workers return home :)

Thanks for looking X

A sort of CASE???

Hiya Everyone,

This card is for the photo inspiration challenge over at Jay Gees Nook which is a wonderful montage of items in shades of purple and the smart welly boot in the centre just had to be part of my card !

... and whilst looking through my well thumbed copy of Stamp It magazine I saw this card by Meg Craig which I had also seen on her blog Corgi Creations here , I really love all Meg's creations and I just had to use this same design ......

Megs Wonderful card



My dubious CASE

I say dubious because I don't know how similar it has to be to call it a CASE??

The sentiment didn't look right in the white space at the bottom so I've left it as that...white space .... and put the sentiment at the top, that's what I'm not sure about!

The wellies are from a PTI set called Green Thumb and I've used the masking method to get them one behind the other, the clouds are cut using a MFT die-namics die and the white panel is stamped with the Hero Arts Envelope Pattern Bkgd stamp ... oh and the sentiment is from the same stamp set, love that saying , it's almost as good as Billy Connolly's quip "There's no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothes!"

Well thanks for looking today, I have one scheduled post for this weekend as we are away camping and my mojo seems to have gone ahead of me on holiday this week! Must be the stress of finding and organising equipment that we haven't used for a few years and have packed and unpacked in a house move since !!!

I will hopefully return refreshed, but knowing us and camping , a bit soggy!

I have just returned with Hannah from collecting her exam results and she has two A's for Biology and Psychology at AS level and  an A for Maths at A level (she's taking double maths which is in effect taking two A levels in two years instead of one). We are so proud of her, she's one smart cookie :)

Catch you next week with some photos of our weekend, bye X