#ThrowbackThursday :: Cute & Cuddly :)

Hello :)

Long time, no blog again... health stuff... life stuff... etc., etc.... I won't bore you all with the details or excuses again!! ;) I'm glad to be back, anyway, and thought I'd get things going again with an idea I had a while ago whilst going through the mountains of photos on my computer... I realised I have a huge number of photos of cards, jewellery and other crafty things from quite a while back which I have never got around to posting and, since I am finding myself with less energy for crafting (cardmaking in particular) at the moment, I thought I would start a little as-and-when series of throwback posts... which I will post on a Thursday and tag with the well known #ThrowbackThursday or #tbt hashtag :) I will still be posting new cards when I can, of course, but I'm hoping this may help me to fill the gaps of time a little ;) 

So... up first in my #tbt series, a little CBS Baby card from about 18 months ago...

It was for my cousin to celebrate the birth of her little girl... I kept it simple as I was having trouble with the old mojo at the time but I ended up loving it :)

A stamped, diecut and watercoloured giraffe, along with an assortment of stamped hearts on the notebook page and two sentiments, all from CBS, and then a sprinkling of diecut hearts and gems was all there was to it... of course, we crafters know nothing is ever as 'simple' as that at the time but, looking back on it now, it seems like should have been!! ;)

I also stamped a few of the hearts on the inside lining papers to prettify it all a little... excuse the slightly grey area between the two hearts on the inside front in the photo above- I stamped the baby's name and birthdate in that gap but blanked it out for my post :)

{The List}

Cardstock - PaperMill Direct - Baby Pink, White Linen and assorted scraps for the hearts

Stamps - Clearly Besotted Stamps - Cute & Cuddly, Baby Love, Many Thanks, Many Messages and Just A Note

Dies - Clearly Besotted Stamps - Cute & Cuddly; Simon Says Stamp - Holiday Shapes and Large Holiday Shapes; MFT - Notebook Edge

Inks - Memento - Rose Bud, Lulu Lavender, Angel Pink and Lilac Posies

Colouring Medium - Watercolour with Brilliance Pearlescent Purple and Pearlescent Orchid

Embossing - Versamark Ink and Crafter's Companion White Embossing Powder

Tools - Heat Gun

Embellishments - Docrafts Anita's - 3mm and 2mm gems

Finishing Touches - Sakura Stardust Pen - Clear

Challenges I'd like to enter: Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge - Anything Goes ; Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes ; Addicted to Stamps and More - Make Your Mark :)

I thought I would also share a pic of the felt heart decoration I made to send with the card with the little one's initial on it... this was my first felt decoration and, while not perfect by any means, I was pretty pleased with how it came out :) I did go on a search for a more solid felt after this though, as this wool/acrylic blend really wasn't very strong for sewing and stuffing... it is lovely and soft though and will get used for less demanding purposes :)

Okay, that's all from me today... I'll hopefully be back before *too* long, though, and will maybe share a few pics from my amazing outing to see the Cherry Blossoms at out local park last week, something that has been a dream through years of living housebound!! :) :) :)

Brrrr... it's cold!! I can help with that...

Hello!! :)

Long time no post again- same old reasons, I'm afraid... my health and life in general have had other plans for me than blogging no matter how much I'd have liked to post!! ;) Anyway, I have still been crafting in my absence, though I have had less time well enough to be at my desk so have been doing a lot of crocheting in bed to keep myself out of mischief... and that's what I thought I'd share with you today...

This piece of soft, snuggly, yarny gorgeousness is the Christmas present I made for Jen this year... a cowl to keep her nice and warm through this horrible winter :)

I taught Jen to crochet earlier this year so it has become yet another shared crafty love to add to the list and when I saw this yarn just after she sent me a Pin of a gorgeous cowl she'd found on Pinterest, I knew I had her Christmas present sorted!! :) The yarn is Stylecraft Weekender in Duck Egg, which I bought from Wool Warehouse, and I used the pattern on the Pin Jen found as a starting point to get the length of my chain right, then just winged the rest of it having been soaking in simple cowl pattern ideas from all around the web for weeks, doing 'half-trebles in the back loop only' to get the ribbed effect til it looked the right size ;) Aside from being super soft and beautifully coloured, this yarn is also Super Chunky so it didn't take too long to work up with my lovely new 10mm hook- these Knit Pro Waves hooks are so comfy and let my hands crochet for longer before the pain forces me to stop (thank you so much to Mel for sending me my first one!!)... I have almost every size now and I love them!! :)

As a little finishing touch, I added a hand stamped tag using one of mine and Jen's favourite metal stamps (another new craft we both became obsessed with last year... I shall share some of my pieces soon-ish, I hope!! ;D) as this was something we had been chatting about :)

I also got my mum to take a quick pic of the cowl on before I wrapped it up as you really can't tell what it looks like folded on my desk!! lol

Well, I hope you liked seeing something different on my blog today... I hope I will be back with more before too long but I really can't say when as I am having a bit of a hard time with headaches and eyestrain/pain at the moment, which is making editing pics and writing posts on the computer tricky :/ I have enjoyed writing this one though, so fingers crossed I can find a way!! :)

Thanks for reading and I hope you are all well and enjoying 2015 so far!! :)

Japanese-style Wood & Vellum Lantern...

Hello again!! :)

How are you all? I hope you had lovely weekends doing something fun... like crafting!! :D Well, I’m back again and so soon, too... but there is a very good reason!! :)

A few weeks ago my lovely friend, Elaine, asked me if I would like to be a guest designer for her fabulous All Crafts Challenge, which she hosts on her blog Craft My Life to give all of us who enjoy making things other than cards a place to share our projects and find inspiration... well, of course, loving my different crafts as I do, I said yes and so here I am today with something very different to share...

This is the ‘proper’ gift I made for my sister’s 18^th birthday and is a Japanese-style lantern using co-ordinating Lili of the Valley Geisha Girls stamps (as I used for her card in my last post)...

It began life as a kit- which I very happily discovered forgotten on my crafty bookcase after much head-scratching and scouring of t’internet for ideas for something extra special and just a bit different that I could make for her!! :) – with six bare-wood pieces (four legs/sides, two square pieces for top and bottom and a plywood base), which I covered in Tim Holtz Distress Stains in Black Soot, for a traditional Japanese black wood look, and Walnut Stain for a bit of warmth. I have to say that I lost count of how many coats I had to give the pieces to get an evenness of colour I was remotely happy with... suffice to say it was an awful lot and the pieces took up residence on my desk for a loooong time as I was doing it!! Then I added a couple of coats of Mod Podge but that still seemed a bit sticky and like the stain might leave marks so I added a coat of Artiste Acrylic Matte Varnish. I honestly thought I had ruined the whole thing several times during this but got away with it in the end... phew!!lol

Then it was on to making the decorative panels. I used some lovely white marble vellum I have had for years to do this and stamped and heat embossed images from the LOTV Japanese Companion stamp sheet for all four sides and then coloured the images on the reverse with Prismacolor pencils and OMS. I took some pics of the colouring just to show how much brighter and stronger the colour looks than on the outside :)

I used a fine detail gold embossing powder with some added gold glitter, masking the house, bridge and tree stamps on the second panel and stamping and embossing in three stages to get a full scene :)

Then it was time to assemble it all... and boy, was that fun... or not!!lol It was actually extremely tricky and even with another pair of hands (thanks, Mum!!) on hand to help, I was not at all convinced I’d manage it for a while... but we got there in the end and this is how it turned out...

I used super-sticky tape to attach the panels (tried the first one with silicone and nearly made an unsalvageable mess!! :S) and silicone to attach all the wood pieces together... to be honest, I can’t even remember now what order things went together in but since it was so much hard work that I doubt I will ever do it again, I can live with that!!lol

This pic gives an idea of the construction with four L-shaped legs and top and bottom which fitted between them, if that makes any sense.

Then all that was left was to add battery-powered LED candle inside... and spend ages taking pics from all the different angles!!lol

A couple of shots with the lights dimmed and the candle ‘lit’... you can’t really get a sense of the light coming through the coloured vellum here but it was quite pretty in real life, especially witht he marble effect on the vellum!! :)

This was a long and rather stressful project, which I suspect I will not try again for a long time to come but I am very happy to say that my sis’ really loved it and I was so happy to have been able to make something so very personal to her passions- the more usual purely selfish enjoyment of the process aside, aren’t those moments of making people feel happy and special what we do all this crafty stuff for?!! Lovely feeling :) 

I’d like to enter this in the following challenges: Inspire Me Fridays - #95 :) : Happy Hour Fridays - 02.08 :)

Okay, so if you have made it to the end of this post- and especially if you actually took the time to read all the way through!!lol- then thank you and well done!! ;D Please do pop over to Elaine’s blog and check out her fabulous All Crafts Challenge for some wonderful inspiration... and if you make anything other than cards- altered or upcycled items, jewellery, fabric or yarn crafts or anything else- then do stop by over there and share it with her and the rest of us!! :) Have a lovely week folks!! :)

LOTV Japanese Birthday for my sis’ 18th... :)

Hello everyone!! :)

My ‘baby’ sister turned 18 in November (where the time went I do not know!!lol) and today I am going to show you the card I made for her...

As some of you who have been following my blog a while may remember from last year’s card, my sis has a fascination with all things Japanese and when I was wracking my lil’ old brain to think up a card that would be truly special for her, I remembered the fab Geisha Girls stamps Lili of the Valley had released a few months previously... and so off I popped for a wee shopping spree as I knew they would be perfect!! :)

I knew I wanted to use my gorgeous Kioshi papers so, after a quick look to choose likely sheets, I settled down to colour the beautiful Aimi with Lantern image with my PMs and FMs... first time I’d done any colouring in ages, colour combos I’d never used before, first time colouring this stamp *and* no time to do-over if it all went horribly wrong after I’d got halfway through... so no pressure on myself there then!! :S lol Luckily, thanks to a spare image (or three!!) to test my colours on first, it actually worked pretty well first time and I was pretty chuffed :) So that was day one... now for a night’s sleep and a rest for my aching neck/back!!lol

Then back again the next day to put image and papers together... I wanted to use this lovely paper with the flowers over one side as my main piece and didn’t think it need too much fuss on it, both because that’s not really my sis’ thing and because the paper is just to pretty to cover up. So I just embellished what was there with glaze, glitter and some stamped Japanese- my sis says Kanji?!l- characters which I gilded with Flitter Glu and flakes... all (except perhaps the glitter, but you just *have* to have glitter, right!?!) to add to the traditional gilded and lacquered oriental feel... :)

I cut the numbers on my electronic cutting machine and layered them on another piece from the Kioshi pad with some more gilded characters for interest...

For the base of my easel I also cut one of my Cherry Blossom border svgs, which I designed last year, to make the stopper. The happy birthday stamp and handwritten ‘sister’ are heat embossed with gold glitter powder as I don’t ever like the look of gilding on fine text stamps. The final touches were just a few punched butterflies dotted around and some pretty blue pearls :)

The List:

• 6x6in Sq. White card blank plus extra panel for easel front
• Geisha Girls Aimi with Lantern stamp from LOTV, stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black and coloured with ProMarkers and FlexMarkers (no list this time as I can't lay my virtual hands on the photo... but if you really want to know something, ask and I'll have another look!!)
• Basic Grey Kioshi paper pad
• Scissor blade (from an old broken pair!!) for distressing edges
• Japanese character stamps from Aspects of Design’s Japanese Plum Blossom stamp plate
• Indigo Blu Flitter Glu and Variegated Green Gilding Flakes from Crafty Notions
• Quickie Glue Pen (for gilding flake detail)
• Diamond Glaze
• Sakura Clear Stardust pen
• Happy Birthday stamp from Penny Black, VersaMark ink and Gold glitter embossing powder
• X-cut label dies
• Electronic cutter for my own design Cherry Blossom border cut-file and numbers (cut from gold pearl card)
• Tiny Butterfly punch from Lakeland years ago
• 3mm Pale Blue Pearls

As I wasn’t going to be seeing my sis’ before her birthday and her main pressies was absolutely not postable (you’ll see why if you stop by next Monday...!!! ;) ), I also made a little gift to pop in the post with her card... a little glass cabochon necklace made with a piece of matching Kioshi paper :)

I added a few coloured beads to the bail on a jump ring for interest and was quite pleased with the pretty way they hung over the heart :)

And a pic of both together :) I was pleased with how they came out... and my sis' loved them too, so smiles all round!! :D

I’d like to enter these in the following challenges (either the card, necklace or both as each challenge allows): Papertake Weekly - Anything Goes :) ; Moving Along with the Times - Only Girls Allowed :) ; Beading Friends Forever - Anything Goes :) ; Inspire Me Fridays - # :) ; Happy Hour Projects Friday Linky Party - 02.08 :)

Thank you so much for popping by today- I truly appreciate the comments people have been kind enough to leave for me and am trying to do better at leaving comments and returning visits just as much as my health/energy allows :) I hope you’re all well and have a lovely weekend!! :) Oh, and don’t forget to pop back on Monday for a special post with my sis’ gift!! :)

Snowflakes and Sparkles... :)

Hello Bloggers!! :)

Well, it’s been sooo long since my last post that I am having major problems remembering how all this blogging malarkey works... but I’m back and want to wish you all a very Happy 2013 a tad belatedly- I hope it’s been good to you so far!! :)

Now, you may (or may not!!) have noticed that I’ve taken a bit of an unexpected break from Blogland over the last few months... I won’t go into it in too much detail but 2012 turned out to be a bit of a rollercoaster year for me- some additional health issues made for some very extreme lows but despite that, the few extreme highs actually left me feeling this has been one of my better years so I can’t complain too much... the health stuff has just taken a bit of adjusting to and something had to give- and unfortunately, along with a lot of other things, that was my little blog and, to a lesser extent, my crafting :( But I have still been creating, just at a slower pace and a little less of the papercrafts, and have been checking out your blogs when I have been able too... and since Xmas particularly, my blog has been calling to me so I am going to attempt to get back into it... I just don’t know how regularly I’ll manage to post for a while as I am very much still feeling my way in terms of what and how much I can manage and trying to find a better balance between the different things going on in my life... but let’s get on to the crafty stuff, eh!!lol

This year I didn’t make many Xmas cards- one of those rearranging priorities and being kinder to myself things!!- but I did make some gifts... and this little set of beaded snowflakes was one of them...

After being given one of these gorgeous decorations by a lovely friend a few years ago, I made some for friends and family but never got around to photographing them properly to share... so when I finally got this set made for some lovely friends (who visited me in the summer- one of the highs that helped turn my year around :D) I made sure to get some decent pics!! :)

They are pretty simple to make- just adding beads to a pre-bought wire snowflake form... I added the wire circles too, as I loved the effect of them on the one I was given, but you don’t even have to do that, just the six beaded spokes look lovely!! :)

The beads are Czech Firepolished Glass- Opal and Clear with an Aurora Borealis coating- with a few seed beads as spacers... and they are just beautiful when they catch the light!! :)

Which would be why I took so many pics and just couldn’t choose my favs... some things never change!!lol

Whew- well, I think I made it to the end of my first post!!lol Glad there was no big papercrafting supplies list to tackle this time though!! ;) Thank you so much for stopping by and reading this and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did- I am so happy to be back in the wonderful land of blog!! :)

{{{ Ooops- knew that was too good to be true- I forgot all about challenges!!lol I’d like to enter my snowflakes in my lovely friend Elaine’s fabulous All Crafts Challenge  and to Inspire Me Fridays #91 }}}

Earth Tones at Dream Valley

Hello!! :)

A fortnight has passed us by in a flash again, which means it’s time for another new challenge over at Dream Valley... and this fortnight we’d like you to use ‘Earth Tones’ in your creation!! :) We have a fab sponsor this time, BeadCrafty... I popped over to their site a while ago and they had a lovely selection of slightly more unusual beads as well as all the basics you just have to have and the lucky winner of our challenge gets a £20 voucher to spend... so wishing I could enter myself!! ;D

It’s still very much ixnay on the papercrafting around here at the moment so I wasn’t really sure what I was going to be able to show you... turns out, though, that I have two things to share!!lol First up, a pair of earrings I gave you a sneaky peek of {in this post} last year when I made them for my step-mum’s birthday... they are the perfect earthy colour tones for this challenge and it seemed apt to share a beading project as we have a bead co. as our sponsors :) Here they are...

I used my fav antique gold effect findings- ear wires, head pins and some chain to suspend them from-  with a selection of pressed glass beads from an Earth Tones mix I’ve had in my bead stash for a while, along with just a few tiny golden glass pearls for a bit of a brighter pop of colour/reflectiveness :)

They were pretty quick and easy to make (I was on the last minute again... as ever!!lol) and I like the cluster effect... might be inclined to try a smaller bead at the bottom another time though...

And for my second share I have something more recent... infact, I only just got it finished in time to get the pictures edited last night... I mentioned in my last post that I’d been knitting as well as crocheting while not papercrafting and this is what I’ve been working on- a shawl...

I saw this being knitted on craft telly a few weeks ago and liked the look of it... but wasn’t about to buy a bunch of wool I didn’t want and a set of 4 patterns just to get this one, though, so I asked my Mum if she thought she could figure out the pattern for me!! :) Mum used to knit a lot and is pretty good at figuring this sort of stuff out... as well as sorting out my messes when I go wrong, thank heavens!!lol Anyway, it took us a while- yes, ‘us’... I was actually able to offer a couple of helpful observations myself!!lol- but we got there and I set to later that afternoon...

Since I started knitting again a few years back, I have really only knitted scarves with very basic stitches/patterns and I’ve been thinking for a while that, if my hands ever let me start again, I should really try and progress a little beyond that and this pattern included stitches which I haven’t used before in order to make the holes (never made anything with holes in on purpose before!!lol) plus the return rows meant a refresher in purl which I’ve not done in years, so it was perfect :)

A couple to show the stitches more clearly :) I used an Arran weight acrylic yarn that my mum found in Aldi a few years ago- a 450g ball which barely looks like I’ve used any even after knitting this!!lol I had intended it as a scarf for myself initially but the yarn doesn’t drape well enough for that so I just made it a bit bigger to make the shawl and I think I might try a finer cotton yarn for my scarf sometime :) I was planning to add tassles but mum said she’d rather not... which saved me a fair bit of time and yarn so I’m not complaining!!lol

If you’d asked me before hand if I could knit something like this, I’d have thought not, but it’s actually fairly simple once you know how... I’m a pretty slow knitter because of my hands and not being able to do too much in one go so it took me a few weeks in the end... not helped by the fact that I kept going wrong due to my rubbish concentration and had to take it back rather a lot :S This is where my mum’s patience and ability to figure out what I had done (as well as volunteering to take it back for me a few times when my hands had had enough :) ) came in so useful!!lol Frustration aside, I did enjoy it, though, I like the result and I really feel I’ve learned a lot from doing it... plus mum has a shawl to keep her shoulders warm from the drafts of an evening!! :)

My mum was, understandably enough, not too keen to have her pic on my blog but she said I could put this one up so you could get an idea of the size of it!! :)

I was planning on trying come more crochet or maybe making some jewellery when I finished this but have actually already started on my next knitting project after seeing this post on Dawny P’s blog and I’ll share the results of that with you when I get there... it will be a baby jumper and hat which will be heading off to Africa for babies who have nothing... if you have a a bit of spare time and wool then do pop over to Dawn’s blog where she has more details and the patterns for the jumpers :)

Okay, waffle and photo overload over for today- thank you if you’ve had the patience to read all the way through my ramblings again... two posts in one again!! :S :) Please pop over to the Dream Valley blog to see the fab creations from the rest of the DT... if you think ‘Earth Tones’ seems a little too restrictive a palette for you just have a look at the variety of styles we have over there!! :) I’ll be back again soon I hope- maybe with a card from a while ago as I know this sort of post is not a lot of people's cup of tea!!- and thanks for stopping by... have a lovely weekend!! :)