Ada's New Game......!

Ada found her new potty yesterday. She thought it was a fab new toy and spent the best part of an hour alternatively sitting on it, carrying it and wearing it like a hat!

She must have done at least twenty circuits of the conservatory in this new endeavour and terrified the cat and the dog!

Tabitha watched disdainfully from her spot on the best dining-chair under the table until she decided there was an escape path, then shot out like a tortoiseshell rocket with a speed that belied her fifteen years!

Izzy just scuttled to wherever Ada wasn't!
Peace descended when her batteries ran out and she collapsed onto my shoulder and kipped like a good'n !
Aaaahh!

Crafts-International

Jude of Dragonfly Crafts has re-furbished her blog and it looks great! She has lots of nice things on there, as I found out when I popped in earlier! She's given my blog an award! How lovely is that?!
I'm chuffed to little mint-balls!
Just click on her name to visit her blog!!
You'll be glad you did because she also has some lovely CANDY!

Max's Eggs-travaganza Game!

Max of Max's Craft Creations, has an egg-citing game for you to play!
Pop over there and play and you could win a fab prize! You won't know eggs-actly what you're going to win until you win it !

Passion For Crafts Blogoversary Candy

Debbie, at Passion for Crafts is celebrating her Blogoversary! And what's more her hit counter has shot over 62,000 hits! That's amazing but not totally surprising as it's a fab blog!

Debbie is offering some very generous candy in honour of this very special occasion, so pop over there and celebrate with her!

Creative Stitches and Hobbycraft Show at Aintree

Phew! Over four hours at the show with my dear SIL Marg and I'm cream crackered! LOL!
It was as usual, very well attended and well-furnished with tables and stalls.



On arrival, I went over to the programme table and was pleasantly surprised by a freebie with my £2:00 programme - a hardback cookery book by Phil Vickery, otherwise known as Mr. Fern Britton. A good start!



Then we managed to meet up with a fellow Trimcraft forum pal, Kaylas Cards (AKA Michaela) and her Mum. We had a chat and a laugh and then on with the serious business of buying.



I didn't think I'd be buying much because anyone who has entered my craft-room knows I'm short of nothing! There are craft-shops out there carrying less stock!
Wrong......



The very first stall in the very first aisle had Inkadinkado clear stamps -oh, how beautiful they are! Scrummy flourishes, butterflies and birds with scroll-y tails.....Mmmmmm! £9.99 a pack of 13 in one and four in the other (different sizes!) - can't wait to use them!



Then I found a stall (Art of Craft) selling Penny Black stamps! I don't usually care for cartoon-cutesy images but I love Penny Black stamps and bought two Hedgehog ones 'Friendly Surprise' and 'Acrobat'. At £8.79 and £9.49 they're a bit small (I didn't see any of the bigger ones) but I'm sure I'll use them!



Further along the walk was 'Little Claire' the other cutesy stamp maker that I like and I bought two great stamps there too.



I was in for a treat on the home run. Keith Fenwick, the artist, was manning his own stall and I'd just missed a masterclass but I did get a signed book for £5.00. I have a couple of his books and they're very instructive.



The pound stall was the next stop. Jewelled brads in amber/oranges and blue/purples, monochrome brads, black glitter glue, small magnets for card closures, and a pack of black card - £5.00.



I've been looking for Versafine black inkpad for ages - found one! £4.50.

Huge thick A5 patterned card block and two toning smaller ones £6.00



A pocket of Copics at £9.99 wasn't a particular bargain, but I've wanted the pastel ones for a few weeks now so I treated myself!



I also found a couple of othre odds & ends I couldn't live without of course....



...and finally, the items I went for - A4 storage boxes. Two of them filled with the small credit-card sized embellishment boxes (...ideal for ATC's...) £6.00.




Not a bad haul! Oh, I know I could probably get it all cheaper on the internet, and usually I do just that, but once a year I go to one of these shows, so I'm gonna enjoy it....!


On a stash-free diet now.........!

Basic Grey Challenge

I'm entering another Challenge! This time it's Basic Grey. I have had these ' Motifica' papers for a very long time and couldn't bring myself to cut into them, they are soooo special.
I still haven't - I used the sample page on the front! Well, I used one of the plain sheets for the greyish mat. And I used one of the tags for the stamped image....is that cheating?LOL!



Materials


Motifica sample sheet

Motifica Chalk plain sheet

Motifica oval tag

Motifica triangular tag

Black A4 cardstock scored & folded in half.

Duck-egg green A5 cardstock

Piece of white/cream card to stamp your image onto.

Small motif icon stamp

22cm airforce grosgrain ribbon

22cm black/white spotty

Copper/bronze brad

Length of copper mettallic thread

Selection of beads to suit

Chalks in brown & ginger

Adirondack 'Ginger' inkpad

Jet Black Staz-On inkpad

Copper ink pad

Rubber stamp to suit

Adhesives of choice including 3D squares.



Method

Trim plain Chalk paper to leave a black border (of base card) of approx 1cm all round.

Trim Duck-egg card to fit Plain Chalk with a 1cm border of the Chalk left showing.
I used a pair of edging scissors for this.

Use the 'Ginger' inkpad to edge the duck-egg card.

Use your icon stamp and the gold inkpad to stamp the duck-egg card all over, making sure you do some half on & half off the card as it always seems to look better.

Take your sample-page scraps (some of which I trimmed with the edging scissors again) and edge them with the 'Ginger' inkpad.

Arrange the sample-page scraps, in a pleasing manner and, using a repositionable adhesive secure them by their middles. The reason for this is that you're now going to be using your chalks just under the edges, like a drop-shadow effect. Once this is done, you can stick them more securely without losing your pattern.

Now take your spotty ribbon and thread it through both of the holes on the oval tag ensuring the tag is centred.

Run a length of ds tape along the back of the ribbon and tag. Also stick some 3D squares on the back of the tag to give depth. Adhere to centre front of duck-egg creation and tuck the ends behind.

Thread beads onto metallic thread, thread through top left hand corner of duck-egg creation and tie off through two small holes. Use brad to 'straddle' these holes and therefore, cover them.

Put this to one side.


Now stamp your image twice. Once onto the triangular tag and once onto your white/cream scrap.
Decoupage the dress from the image on the tag and stick it onto the figure stamped onto the white card. Cut the figure out.
Enhance the stamped image with Marvy & Zig Photo-Twin pens.

Adhere, with 3D squares onto the right-hand side of your matted & layered card.

Done!

May's Birthday Card

Hooray! I can finally add another card to my blog!
It was May's ( /mayjaysmeanderings/) birthday yesterday and she has received my card so I can now upload it!

Very simple card, but using one of my favourite stamps from Penny Black 'Life of the Party'. If you're misguided enough to follow this blog, you may well be bored by the sight of this little chap fairly soon....!

Hope you all like it!
The image was stamped with Adirondak 'Eggplant' and slightly water-blended, then coloured with various pens from Marvy-le-Plume and Zig Photo-Twin, then slightly glittered with Sakura Tiara pens.
This was matted onto deep lilac Stardream card and the whole adhered onto green/lilac spotty paper on a base card of hammered cream.

The 'turn over' on the top left of the spotty layer, is a scrap of K&Co light card (name not known), the ribbon is from a Brenda Pinnock kit and the purple flower from a 79p bunch from Wilkinsons (..and there are loads left too!). Tag is Anna Griffin.

Just love this cat!

Creative Inspirations Challenge

Here's my entry for the Creative Inspirations Challenge.
I hope you all like it as I've always wanted this stamp and only managed to get hold of it this week!
It's such a shame Stamps Happen is no more as I love their stamps and have loads of them, including D.Morgan.




Shells


Materials


Pale peach fleck A4 cardstock scored & folded in half.

Trimmed A5 yellow & pink spotty paper

21cm x 3cm of pink spotty paper by K&Co Tim Coffey's Young Girl collection.

21 cm of 1cm wide satin ribbon in yellow.

21 cm of paper lace.

10cm squ pink slub mat for layering stamped image

8.5 squ piece of Pale peach fleck card for stamped image.

Two shell buttons.

Three flecked blooms.

Three pearl 'drops' for centre of blooms.

24 cms of pink twisted fibre.

1 eyelet brad

'The Shell-picker' by Stamps Happen

Staz-On inkpad in Timber brown

Hero Arts Shadow Inkpad in Sand

Variety of pens for colouring the image.

Five 3D squares

DS tape

Glue-dots



Method

Take the folded A4 and adhere the trimmed yellow/pink spot paper taking care to centre it.



Take the lace and adhere along the yellow ribbon, then the yellow ribbon along the pink spotty paper strip. Edge with the Sand inkpad.
Adhere the resulting strip to the horizontal centre of the card.



Taking your 8.5 cm square, stamp your image with the Staz-On and colour.



I used Marvy-le-plume in brown,dark brown and Rosewood for the hair.
Zig Photo-Twins in Rosewood, Blush Pink and Peach Glow for the skin, shading with Marvy Rosewood and a small spot of Dusky Pink on the cheek.


The dress is in Marvy Daffodil Yellow and shaded with Marvy Yellow


The lace is White Souffle


The ribbons are Marvy Dusky pink shaded with Wine and blended with Zig
Blush Pink, glittering with Tiara Red.


The sand is a mix of Marvy Pale Orange and Zig Peach Glow, Honeycomb and Rosewood, shading with Marvy Rosewood and glittered with Marvy Just Glitter in Gold.



Edge the mat with the Sand inkpad.


Edge your 10cm sq of pink card with the Sand and adhere the image to the
pink mat.


Pierce top left hand corner of pink mat adjoining image and attach brad.


Adhere foam squares to the back of this mat.



Take your pink fibre and your two shell buttons and thread it through the holes.


Adhere the buttons to the top right-hand corner of the image. I used a little Gel-glue for this. Leave to dry for about 20 mins.


When this is dry, adhere evenly spaced toward the right of your yellow/pink spotty paper. Thread the end of the pink fibre through the eyelet of the brad.


Now take your three blooms and adhere them with the glue-dots evenly spaced down the left hand side of it. Pop a pearl-drop in the centre of each.


Finished!

Michael got his official photos back from the promoters of his half-marathon who wanted over £40.00 for not very good pictures -
Mike says mine are far better. I don't think the fact that mine are also free affected his opinion at all....

Coming soon.....!

I haven't forgotten me blog! Honest! I've been busy 'creating' but I can't post 'em yet because I want the recipients to have them first - only fair really!

My baby Ada is back with me after her Easter Hols with Mummy & Daddy,
hence it's midnight before I can get on here! LOL!
As I'm up at 6:00am, I won't be on long but I just thought I'd pop in and tell you a little story.

Our number two son, Michael, popped in yesterday after his cycle ride and was delighted that his little princess (Ada) was actually awake. So he had a happy hour or so playing with her until he decided to carry her about on his shoulders, to which Ada crowed with delight - until he tried to walk under the heavy brass light fitting! Ooops!

She wasn't really hurt, but the sharp underbelly of the offending article scraped across the top of her head and after a moment of shock, she burst into indignant tears and returned to my knee to be inspected.

Satisfied she was, apart from frightening her brain, largely unhurt I plonked a kiss onto her little head and recovering from the initial shock my little, just one year old, granddaughter let rip a tirade of abuse at her Uncle Mikey!

We may not have understood her words, but there was no mistaking her sentiments as she wagged her finger in his direction and gave him a very large piece of her mind! She didn't move from my knee, just gesticulated to her head and then at Mike with this tiny index finger, jabbering away!

She ranted for a good seven minutes and I don't think Uncle Mikey being in hysterics helped her tiny paddy! I just wish I'd have had my phone handy to record it.

It was very, very funny!

Oooooh! What a beautiful day! The sun's shining, the bees are buzzing and the birds are singing.........and the man at the back has chosen it to use a pneumatic drill! No accounting for folks, is there? Off to walk our son Rob's dog now. Simba is a big, daft, handsome blond Labrador, with a waggy tail and a licky tongue which he uses to great effect (...cue bruised thighs and very wet hands...)! Rob & his wife Dani, are down in London this week-end at a fashion show/exhibition, so we have the 'furkid' until Monday. Oh joy! Lots of dog-slobber and hairs! It's not like we're not used to dogs - we've always had a houseful - I'm not finicky - but I've never come across a canine so generous with his DNA as our 'Simple Simon' (..as OH has dubbed the less than bright Simba...)!
Still, he's very affectionate; perhaps, in view of those blond hairs and saliva, one could say a little TOO affectionate!
Hey ho - have to go before the sun runs away! Speak later!

Ada's First Birthday Card

What could be a more appropriate project for my very first blog project?!
It's a very simple design - it's the elements that make it look busy, so please don't be put off making this by thinking it's too hard - it's not, really!

Ada's First Birthday Card.
(I've re-made it, using different 'stash' and put the photos in the frame at the top of the page - couldn't get them to behave any other way!)

Materials
A4 cardstock in colour of choice x1.
A4 patterned paper (a) to suit x1
A4 patterned paper (b) to suit x1
A5 patterned cardstock for front of card. x1
Some small offcuts of acetate or card (colour match to paper b) for hinges.

Alpha letters for name (if wanted and will fit!)
Number ( ditto )
Elements (floral or to taste) x6
Handful of small random elements to suit. (I used K&Co Grand Adhesions - Baby Girl)
Four pieces of border trim

Metal rule
Craft Knife
Scissors
Adhesive of choice.

Method

Score A4 cardstock into thirds (like a gatefold) but fold both end leaves the same way.
Open flat, inside facing worktop.
Score each of the outside leaves in half and fold back on themselves.
Put to one side. Pic1


Now take your patterned A5 which you want on the front of your card.
Ascertain the centre line vertically and cut in halves. I used a large 'wave' pair of edging scissors for this.

Take your main cardstock again, and adhere these patterned pieces to the front flaps so they match together when the card is closed.
(I put one side on first, aligning it with the 'middle' edge fold, then, when the card is closed, you will then be able to use this edge as a guide for the other side.) Pic 2


Don't worry if your upper and lower edges are a little bit out - that's what craft-knives and edging scissors are for...! LOL!
Put to one side.



Take up your A4a of patterned paper.Trim the length to 20cm. This will be the basis for your 'inner'.
Now, you want to fold this too, but remember this is going inside the card and will therefore need to be a couple of mm narrower in the middle section, or it will ruck up!

The middle of the card is roughly 10cm so you want to fold the paper (making sure it's the correct way round!) so the middle section is just under 10cm so say 98mm, but measure your project first - your folding may not be totally precise - whose is? The 'wings' should, therefore, be in the ballpark of 51 mm each.
Pic 3


I don't have any problem using edging scissors but I know a lot of peeps do so it's entirely up to you and your perceived handiness with these weapons of destruction as to whether or not you want to edge your inner or not. I'll continue the description as to my recipe but don't edge the inner paper if you're not sure!

After ensuring the inner fits well, adhere this to the middle third of the cardstock.
Put to one side.

Take your A4b patterned paper and trim this also to 20cm.
Then halve the 20cm to two 10cm pieces.
(I've done it this way, rather than 'thirds' because A4 isn't quite 30cm, so you wouldn't have three 10cm pieces.)


Take the two 10cm pieces and adhere them inside the first and back leaves , so you're covering the base cardstock (white in my case). This bit can be tricky so take care and usea re-positionable adhesive if you have one! I used my Xyron510 with the re-positionable adhesive cartridge.
Pic 4



That's your basic card done. Now for the embellishments!

This card, by it's design, tends to 'spring' open, so you might find this a good time to think about incorporating a fastening of some sort!
Close your card, flatten it. Now let go! See it spring open?
Well, you haven't even got your embellishments in there yet! LOL!

I tied an organza ribbon round the outside middle of my original card but ther are a few different ways you could secure it closed using all kinds of snappers, buttons, brads and ribbons. By thinking about it at this stage, it gives you the opportunity to cover any brads or anchor-points on the back later.

In the inner leaf (where you adhered your patterned paper (b)) we're going to make little hinges on which to stick your embellishments. It's the same principle of pop-ups.

Take up your scraps of card/acetate.
I had three hinges on my original card,two on the right, one on the left, but feel free to do as many or few as you can fit in!
I've left my hinges white so you can see them better but you can match them to your paper b.
They measure approx 1cm x 6cm. Fold in middle then fold back 1cm from each end.

Pic 5 & 6

Now you can decorate the front pages as you like. I've used in the demo a K&Co Tim Coffey design called Young Girl, which is now, unfortunately out of print but I love it! You can, clearly, use anything that takes your fancy.



Inside the card you can, once again, do whatever floats your boat.
In Ada's card I used two die-cut circles, one plain and one scalloped matted onto each other then adhered inside. I wrote a short message on that.
Pic 7

Now the clever bit! (Well, I liked it anyway....)
Rather than cover your lovely papers with a huge matt with all the writing you want to do on it, look at the back view of my Ada's card (not the demo).

On the middle section at the back of Ada's card, you'll see a little package.
I'ts a little letter to Ada, telling her everything I want to say to her now and telling her what she is like right now. How she is walking and chatting away etc. I've written all this on a fairly plain patterned paper and folded it so it fits into a little jacket which I've adhered to the back of the card.
That will stay sealed until Ada is old enough to want to read what her Nanna wanted to say to her.
God willing, I will do one each year for her.
I hope I live to see her read them!

To finish off this masterpiece, you can, if you would like it to be special,
cover the backs of the front leaves to strengthen them and to cover any brads or anchors.
Pic 8


I hope you enjoy this project and if you have a problem either pm me on Trimcraft, e-mail me on eiglas@eiglas.co.uk or just post with contact details and I'll get back to you!


As soon as I work out how, I'll be putting on photos to match the project instructions.

More Rubber...

...Stamps! Addicted? You bet! Before you could say 'Dawn Bibby', I was.
I bought my very first set from Dawn.
It was a set of several little stamps - I still have one - for about £13.00! Really expensive in retrospect. They weren't on polished maple or anything - just this plywood. Now I come to look, they were actually foam stamps stuck onto plywood! Told you - needles, haystacks...! LOL!

Rubber stamps seemed to be much dearer then (must be seven or eight years ago now...) - I know I paid about £10.00 for a Magenta stamp and my Hubby was close to calling for the men with the long-sleeved jacket...!

Well, I became frustrated with the available selection of rubber stamps as they were, then, very American and the slushy sweet sentiments just didn't sit well with the Scouse sense of the verbals! So I set out fo find out how to make my own!

I bought the equipment and started up my own little company - I'll leave you to hazard a guess at the name - and opened a cyber shop on e-bay (...I was all legal and above board and registered with the IR...!)

I just loved running that little business! I made so many friends with whom I still communicate to this day! I'd still be running it but - hey! - real life gets in the way, doesn't it?
In the end, my Hubby & family came first and I came away having never even gone in the red!

Regrets? Not a one!

Greetings Cards....oh yeah....!

I've handmade greetings cards for years, long before it became popular in recent years and before all these fancy products came out but was I thrilled when they did come out!

Wow! Marvy-le-plume pens! Sticky-dots! Vercacolour inkpads and rubber stamps.... Rubber stamps? What were they all about? All that came to my mind was the post office! Y'know, thump thunk!

Then a client, in conversation, mentioned she designed and sold these mysterious things. This was Caroline of CaroLines and her designs were lovely but I was still baffled.
Why? If you wanted a picture, couldn't you just draw it?

I confess to not being the sharpest needle in the haystack and it took me a little while and a new job where a different customer mentioned St. Dawn Bibby. I had never heard of her and my customer was not only gobsmacked she was scandalised! You consider yourself an artist yet you've never seen 'Our Dawn' in action? Dis- graceful!
So, of course, I had to do it, didn't I? I had to go and get cable and find QVC..... I tell you, if that customer had kept her gob shut, I'd be a wealthy woman now!

Greetings, Hello & Welcome.....

...to my very first attempt at a blog!
This silver surfer has, at last, given in and joined the 21st century! I have a website but have been assured a blog is different and very necessary! So here I am!

16th April 2009 - Today...!
It's a very special day for me. It's my baby granddaughter, Ada's, first birthday! And she's so beautiful.....
...oh, don't worry, I'm not going to go off on a self-indulgent monologue about my wonderful family.....well, not yet anyway!

It's Me....!
I've been a crafter all my life. I remember being small, about five or six I think, and having a great urge to create something.
Coming from a poor working class family in Liverpool, England there was no such thing as fancy paper or pens and certainly no scissors worth the name in our house, so I improvised!
I had found the board from an ancient board game that had long-since lost its boot, dog and racing-car shaped companions and there was a piece of plainish wallpaper left over from a previous decoration of the front parlour that my Mum had given me to draw on (...to shut me up!).
I had a small end of bottle amount of brown gum with which I stuck the carefully-torn wallpaper onto the board.
Whilst this dried, I wandered around our garden (we were very lucky - we'd been allocated a council house on a very nice estate with gardens back and front. Mum had almost stalked a man at the council until he gave in and gave her what she wanted!) and collected leaves from all the trees and shrubs out there.
Then I stuck them on the board in, what I believed to be, an attractive fashion and painstakingly labelled them with their names (...gleaned from my aspiring gardener Dad...!).
Hence was simultaneously born my triplet passions of crafting, nature and research!

Enough about Eiglas for now I say!