Two cards and Today's WOYWW

I've not been a very diligent blogger this week, but it would be such a shame to miss WOYWW day - so just the pointy stick I need to actually update my blog.

First up, here's my desk as it sits this morning

 I know my craft mat looks mucky - that's because it is mucky.  I actually have a brand new, still-in-it's-polythene one sitting beside my desk - but I don't want to dirty it......hahaha

What you see on my desk is the Funky Hand Word Book I'm busy with.  I've been busy with it for about a week now and I'm so far behind the rest of the Design Team - I should go and stand in the Naughty Corner because all the others have finished theirs.  We've all been working with the brand new "Retro Fun" download (see more HERE) - it's absolutely fab and we're all enthusing about the designs and colours.  I'm going to finish mine today, I'm determined to!

I've been pretty busy with the card-making over the last week or so.  Last week it was DCM Lynda's birthday.  I wasn't keen on the first card I made for her so I had another go and made this one

Supplies:  "Father Knows best" papers from Dream Street Papers, various Prima flowers, Butterfly charm, Card Candy, Neties Labels 9, MS Doily Lace border punch, Versamagic ink pads, Lokta paper in brown and aqua.

I added some aqua mulberry paper to the insert on the version I sent to Lynda so that it showed through the aperture, but I forgot to take another photo.

While I had those papers out, and because they are soooo delicious I made this one for Funky Hand Teamie Jules.  More lovely Primas and a little flower rub on from the sheet I made most recently using the transfer papers from Crafty Computer Paper.  I added a little Prima pearl to the middle of the flower.

I've got another set of cards to share, but I'll save those for next time!

Now I'm going to have some lunch before settling down to that word book project.  Then and only then will I allow myself a tour of all the other WOYWW links - if you don't have a clue what I'm talking about head over to Julia's Stamping Ground to discover all. Except I've just been over there and Julia's not updated yet today.....

Please leave a message if you've a minute, I do love to hear from anyone who drops in

Eggstra Eggstra, Read All About It!

It's Lythan's turn this week  to set the challenge for Daring Cardmakers everywhere:

Thanks for all those lovely bird cards last week. In our case we can answer the question - what came first the chicken or the egg? because last week it was the chicken on a card and and this week its the egg! For our Dare is
How Egg-citing!
Easter is on its way. Which, amongst other things means Easter Eggs. So be inspired by egg shapes or chocolate or both! We are very sad this week because it is the last week to feature our wonderful guest designers Asia and Nat. You have been fabulous darlings - thanks so much for the inspiration! And we are also saying adieu - but not goodbye to our gorgeous Sue. She is having to take a leave of absence for a wee while. We will miss you Sue.

I think that yet again there were a few furrowed brows among the team at the beginning of the week - well our dares were never meant to be easy peasy - it's not a challenge if it's too simple, is it?

On Wednesday I still hadn't a clue what to do, but something Lythan said that day set the cogs working and an idea started to form.  Another chance for Mr Robo to do his stuff!

The pun came first I must admit, then I tried to come up with something to illustrate it. It seemed a cute idea to have an expectant mother duck (or is it a goose?) using a baby's pram to push her egg around in.  It also got me out of having to decorate a traditional Easter Egg.  The pram template is one I made ages ago, but I altered it for this card to make the hood look as though it was part way down. The egg is just made using the auto-draw ellipse that's on the Robo front page.  The duck/goose was a free colouring page image and took about 5 minutes to convert for Robo cutting as it was so simple!

 I used:

white and yellow Bazzill

Imaginisce papers

Prima Flowers

Card Candy, Brads, Stickles & Liquid Pearls

Sentiment is pc generated, scalloped circle is a Nesties die, plain circle is Robo cut

One of the fab things about the Robo is that it's a simple task to get several templates to work together even if they start off as very different sized images.  I thought I'd add a quick tutorial on how I married up a set of different templates so that they all cut to the same ratio, hopefully it'll be of help to someone out there!

To do this start by loading all the bits  needed onto the same Robo page.

Next put all the bits of each image together on top of each other - in this case I had all the pram bits together and all the goosey bits together, I left the egg aside while I got the rest right.

The goose was far too small to match up with the pram, by "drawing" a line around it I could drag it out from one of the corners until it was the right size for pushing the pram.

Next change the size of the egg first by eye, then put it into the pram and adjusted if necessary

With all the pieces matching,  move (roughly) into the positions they'll be on the card/project.

Now, Select everything in one outline and use the Position Settings (right click for menu, Position Settings is the last option on the drop down list)) to set the actual size you want - tick the Hold Aspect Ration box to keep width and height correct.

Once that's done you can separate all the bits for cutting in the card or paper you want to use.

Sounds complicated, but it's not really!

If I ever learn how to do screen shots I'll add some in!

Right on to the next thing on the list.

 

The Last Bubbly

I've been doing projects for Bubbly Funk Kits for a couple of years now, and since the lovely Caroline started up the fabulous Bubbly Scrumptious emag I've added some sort of project to the blog every Thursday - I think I've only missed a couple of weeks in that time.  Anyway, I think I need a bit of a break, so the card I've made for this week's BubScrump is my last project on there, at least for a while - I'd love to to the occasional project in the future if Caroline will have me!

 This week I've raided a few of the old kits for bits and pieces and made this card.  I love blue, but don't really use it as the main colour very often.  The most recent kit had this paper from Webster's Pages in int and it's such a lovely shade of blue that I really wanted to  make something with it.

I've been playing with my Nesties dies quite a lot lately and I've used a couple of sizes of the Labels 9 die to make the centrepiece for this one.  I indulged myself a little bit by using lots of flowers, lace and ribbon too.

 

I've explained how I made the card, and added more pictures over on today's Bubbly Scrumptious HERE.

As usual, I've left my DCM card to the last minute, so now I'm off to try and cobble together an idea I had last night - finger's crossed I can make it work or there'll be nothing from me tomorrow.  Mind you, having seen the cards that the girls have already made (there are always a few of them who are more on-the-ball than the rest of us - you know who you are ) it won't matter as there are some fab cards all ready to share.

Right.  Stop waffling Woman and get on with it!

maybe a coffee first though

Catch up with everyone soon

WOYW Wednesday & an Anniversary Card

If you've not joined in with the WOYWW phenomenon, check out Julia's Blog to see what you're missing.  Each Wednesday you'll find an ever-growing list of links where you can go visit the workdesks of a whole lot of crafters who take a deep breath then take a snap of their desk to share - we get to see some wonderful stash, projects and great storage ideas and we come away knowing that gosh, someone actually makes more mess than we do.  Or not!  Can you believe it?  Some people manage to create without needing every square centimetre of space covered with assorted stash and gubbins and cut off bits of scraps - yes, it was a shock to me, too! hehe

First though, this is the Anniversary card I needed to make to complete an order.  Trust me, the aqua shade do match in real life, though on the photos the flowers look a bit more turquoise than they really are.

I've used Nesties to make the aperture and the sentiment piece which is suspended within it.The aqua flowers and the tiny mauve one are coiled flowers, made from Lokta and also mulberry paper - I was experimenting to see whether other papers would work for these.  For the insert I used some matching gingham paper that I found hidden in my stash.   

The large purple and pink flower and  purple organza ribbon are from the beautiful "Parma Violets" March Flower Kit by Creative Treasures

I chose to add the aqua shades to the card to make it a little less "girlie-pink" - a token gesture as there's a man involved in the anniversary!

The flowers are so beautiful and  there'll be more crafting to be done using this kit soon!  I've just checked the shop to get the website link and I spied some lovely new lace in there, and as I'm in need of a little treat, guess what I'll be doing later!

 So, on to my desk this morning.  

I've taken the photo from a different angle today and you can see the stack of stuff perched at the end of my desk and on the book shelves beyond.  You can also see the door that my Hubby spent hours stripping Lord knows how many layers of ancient paint off, sanding down and then treating to lots of beeswax - he's done such a great job. Only the rest to go now.....

On the desk are some of the Funky Hand papers I'm using for the current work in progress, along with the bind it all which is also involved ;-)  apart from that it's the usual clutter you expect to find if you come by here on a Wednesday.

Right, I have something that needs finishing and. I just know that as soon as I settle down to doing that my groceries will arrive - maybe I should make a coffee first then?  Or check out some of the other WOYWWer's links?  NO! if I go that route I know I'll never get anything else done!

O'll get to that later,

Catch you soon

Olivia's Teddy

I'm trying to catch up on a few things today, so just a quickie for now.

This is another commissioned card and I've got my lovely buddy Jo Kill to thank once more for this fab idea - these "circles teddies" have come to my assistance on more than one occasion, I can tell you!

The papers are by Bo Bunny

Nestabilities  Scalloped circles

Other bits and pieces from my stash

I've got this order finished now and I'll show the last of the cards I made for it next time. 

I told you it would be quick!  Catch you soon

Thanks for looking

A Bird in the Hand

Daring Cardmakers Day today and it's Vanessa who's set this tweet little dare.

 ".... I really love this time of year because the nights are rapidly getting shorter and the days longer. Spring is in the air, the birds are chirping and tweeting early in the mornings and I'm starting to think about mowing that lawn again!

Your challenge this week is :

Tweetie Pie

Please use a bird or birds on your card and thats it, any kind you like.

As always, we'd love to see what you make, so please leave a link on the DCM BLOG so we can admire your creations."

 It's seems like ages since I've had a chance to play with the fab Funky Hand "Dreams Come True" CD, so knowing there was a really cute little birdie digi stamp on there I thought I'd take the chance to put that right.

I was tempted for a minute to use the cute owl that's also one of the "stamps", but then my eye caught the watering can design....and the two sets of lollipop flowers and together with the long-legged birdie a plan was hatched ("oh no, not another pun", I hear you sigh).

The papers are printed using Funky Hand's "Dreams Come True" CD.  A spotty one for the birdie and a gorgeous striped design for the watering can and the awning - a Martha Stewart border punch was used for the scalloped edge.

I converted the birdie and watering can from the original digi images to templates for Robo cutting and gave each some dimension by cutting in layers of card as well as paper.  For the upper layer of the bird I made the template so it would cut around the wing , so that that the wing could then fold upwards a little.

For  Ms Birdie's legs I've used very narrow B&W braid

I used both sets of lollipop flowers, resized, "glued" together and repeated before printing them out.  I like the way the flowers are decorative enough not to need colouring in - especially as my skills in that department are laughable! I did feel they needed a bit of colour to tie the whole thing together so I added a few tiny buttons to their centres.  I've used embroidery floss to make tiny bows for some of the flowers, and also knotted some through the button holes

The sentiment was an afterthought - I was going to leave it without a message but the gap at the bottom of the card just looked a bit wrong, so I've used rub-on letters (Maya Road) to add a little "any-time" greeting.

We saw some fabulous cards last week for the Daffodils challenge and I'm absolutely sure that this week will be fab too.  If you've not checked out the DCM BLOG yet, please do go and see all the chirpy little numbers the team have made this week - they are all wonderful!

Now I'm off to stick inserts in and bag up some cards to send off - not my favourite bit of card-making, but once that's done I can do some more interesting stuff.

Catch you later

Camera Fund, Photo Album, Word Book Pictures

hmmm, could that be called a "snappy" title?  Sorry, I just can't resist a pun should the chance of using one present itself!

Thursday is "my" day over on Bubbly Scrumptious, but before I show the next set of pages for my Word Book I thought I'd put the photos of the little cheque holder and photo album I made for Izzy's birthday.  She's saving up for a "proper" camera so it seemed appropriate to use the Quickutz camera die on the front of the wallet

I'll draw up a diagram on how to make this wallet and put it on my blog in a day or two as things like this are so much nicer to present cash or cheques in than just tucking the money or a cheque inside a birthday card, aren't they?

I made the album from a couple of sheets of chipboard and filled it with pages cut from various colours of Bazzill to match and tone with the colours of the MME Breaking Free papers I used for the covers.  I used my Bind-It-All to put it all together

Also used : glitter brads, various fabric flowers, spotty grosgrain ribbon, lots of organza ribbon. chipboard corner, Robo cut lettering

For last week's Word Book pages I travelled west to New York City, but this week I'm heading a long way east of the UK and my location is Singapore.  I must say that I much preferred Singapore to New York!  It's definitely somewhere I'd be happy to visit again, it's such an intriguing, vibrant place.

Anyway, here are the pages, you can see more about what I've used on the Bubbly Scrumptious BLOG

Oooooh look at that, there's another letter clue for what the letters of my book will spell out when it's all put together....

Right, I've got my DCM card to do today and I really really must get that card order finished and sent off, so I'd better stop waffling and get busy

WOYWW and Izzy's Card

Having a quick break from my current project to add my photos for today's Whats On Your Workdesk Wednesday - if you haven't a clue what I'm talking about look in the sidebar you'll find the WOYWW link to Julia's blog and all will be revealed.  It would be great if you'd join in.

So here's what my desk looked like first thing this morning

A couple of almost-finished cards for a commission - I'm still considering whether they need a bit more added before they're ready to bag up and send, then there's some other bits for the project I'm working on today.  The little "pizza" box at the front contains flowers from the latest Creative Treasures flower kit which arrived yesterday - I knew I'd find a use for that box if I kept it long enough!  It's just the right size for the large size blooms, which of course means it's good for other sizes too!  The bag you can see holds other things from the kit; ribbons, charms, buttons and pins.  I've already been using some of the kit - one of the almost finished cards has pink and purple flowers and ribbons on it - give me a day or two and I'll share proper pics of those cards.  There might just be a few squares of chocolate there too. ;-)

I thought I'd add a couple of extra photos today, so here are the top two drawers of my desk - with the little ink pads, Stickles, ribbons etc that I need close to hand.

I mentioned a couple of days ago that it was my niece's birthday on Sunday so today I'm adding photos of the card I made for her - I'll save the book and the cheque holder I made for another day as it's all getting a bit photo-heavy here today!

I added pretty papers to the inside too, so that it can stand up an alternative way

The papers are the fabby MME "Breaking Free" which I go back to time and time again as the colours and designs are so delicious.  In fact I'm already on my second set and running low on those!

I made these flowers using Lokta paper - one day I'll get round to putting a tutorial on here to show how to make them

Right, my tummy is screaming "lunchtime" at me so I'd best go and make some toast!

Will be around later to see the contents of all the desks today and to see what projects are on the go this week.

Thanks for visiting - please don't move on without letting me know you called by!

Crafty Templates Threesome

The sun is shining so perhaps all the cheery daffodils over on the DCM BLOG have encouraged Spring to arrive at last!

We had quite a relaxing weekend, had a pub lunch on Saturday, then out yesterday afternoon to see Niece Izzy on her 16th birthday.  The rest of the time we didn't do much at all.  Hubby went to archery for the first time in months - he's been suffering from tennis elbow so hasn't been able to manage his longbow.  He borrowed one of the club's beginners' bows to see how he got on and thankfully his elbow didn't hurt at all.  It'll be a while before he's back using his longbow though.

I did some crafting - at the last minute I decided that I did have time to make a photo album to go with the money we were giving Isabelle for her birthday.  She quite likes taking photos and she's now decided she'd like an SLR, so she's saving up her pennies for that - we were adding to the camera fund and I thought an album to put her photos in would be a nice idea as an extra present for her. I'll show that and her card later in the week.

Today I've got some cards made with the newly released Crafty Templates set to share.  There are some fun Spring/Easter templates this time which will be great not only for Easter cards but fab for kids cards too.  There's one in particular which I'm definitely going to use to make some egg-cosies with - when I get a Round Tuit, that is.

I particularly love the Pinwheel Flowers template and have used it for this card

There are loads of different sizes on the template - I've used three sizes on my card and instead of the stems Leo included on the sheet I used ric-rac braid.

Papers are from the MME Wild Asparagus pad

Stickles Glitter glue lightly smudged on the flower centres

The card sketch I've used is the MARCH SKETCH  my other blog; The Sketch File

next a couple of the cute animal templates from the new set

This little chick is so sweet!  I cut off the wing shape from the front section and added some Easter eggs for him to carry but this template would make a lovely "New Baby" card too, I think

More MME Qild Asparagus papers on this Funny Bunny Card. 

I'm not convinced about the paper I used for the main body section - poor Bun looks like he's got a nasty rash! hehehe.  maybe I'll pull him to bits and give him a new coat as I think he's quite sweet really.  I added an extra couple of layers to his feet so that I could attach a few Prima flowers on wire stems.

Find out all about Crafty Templates HERE

I spent a little while blog-hopping over the weekend - I really enjoyed catching up with what people are up to.  I'm going to really make an effort to keep up it now.

I suppose I should go and make my to-do list for this week, but I'm putting it off in case it's scary.

I know I really do need to finish the commission that's on my desk before I do anything else though.

Catch you later

A Host of Golden Daffodils

The ones in my garden seem very reluctant to show themselves, and tbh I don't really blame them, it's been such a bad winter.  I think it was someone on the TV the other day who said that they normally had about 26 frosty/snowy days during the winter and this year they were already up to 48.

Anyway, over on the DCM this week we're trying to encourage those daffies out into the open.  It's our Lovely Lynda's turn to set the dare and here's what she says:

This week it's Lynda here to set the challenge and as my birthday occurs in March, and we've already covered the birthstone for the month, I thought it would be a lovely idea to use the March flower as inspiration for our cards.

So I'd like to see.......

A Host of Golden Daffodils

this week.

Please use daffodils on your cards or maybe make a card inspired in some way by those sunny yellow flowers.

If you head over to our BLOG you're in for a treat as the cards are all so sunny and Springlike.  We didn't find this dare at all easy, for some reason there's not a lot of daffodil themed stash around - what a shame that is too - they are such lovely, cheery flowers aren't they?

I spent  a while getting good and gluey seeing if I could make some daffodils with dies and punches.  The outer petals on the larger daffodils are cut with a Cuttlebug die.  I used a small Nesties "pinking circles" for the centre, cutting and twiddling in the same way as I make the coiled flowers but glueing in some wire and trying for a shape more like the trumpet of the daffy.  For a couple of the small flowers I used a Kikyou punch for the outer petals and a wired flower from my stash inked in orange for the trumpet.  I've no idea what sort of flower they are - they're very small and they're not rosebuds but that's all I can tell you!  

While delving into the lower layers of my big box of wired flowers.....

.....I found some little white and yellow fabric daffs so I've added a couple of those too.

Papers are from a really old MM pad; MS Doily Lace punch used on the lower edge.  

Yellow gingham ribbon is from my stash

Sentiment is from one of my home made transfer sheets - I love this font, it's called "Lemon Chicken"

The top of the card looked a bit bare so I added the three brads to pick out the colours I'd used on the rest.

I'm really looking forward to seeing all the daffodil-inspired cards this week, I know  it's going to be a real treat to wander around seeing all that sunny yellow all over your cards.  

I managed to spend some time yesterday evening having a quick look around Crafty Blogland - what a lovely way to spend an hour, I really enjoyed it and I must try to do it more often.

Right, my job for today is to come up with something for my niece's birthday card - I had a vague idea of what I wanted to do, but having spent yesterday afternoon making flowers with this in mind, I don't think it's actually going to work after all.  bummer!

Back to the drawing board, then!

Thanks for visiting, please leave a comment - which reminds me, Blogger is doing something odd with the comments - if it says there's 1 comment to moderate when I go to do it I find there are 2 comments, if it says there are 2 there's actually 3 and so on.  My problem here is that if there really is 1 comment - what happens?  I'm assuming it won't show up until another appears......so if you left a comment and it hasn't appeared, well maybe you could leave another one and we'll see what happens!

Right, I really am off now....

 

On the ball, Moi?

Maybe not!

About lunchtime yesterday I sat down at the pc to load up the photos I'd done ready for today's Bubbly Scrumptious.  Just as I realised that I'd taken the pics without actually finishing the page of my word book that I wanted to share and still had bits to add, an advertisement on the radio invaded my consciousness saying that Sunday the 14th was Mothering Sunday.  No!  it can't be the 14th.  I'm sure it's later in the month.

The realisation that I've only made one of the two commissioned cards which need to get up to my customer in Northumberland in time for her to send/give, and that we've not organised anything for MIL yet and it's lunctime on Wednesday already didn't do me any good at all!

I've mentioned before that I'm not a quick crafter - I like to take my time, give myself lots of time to faff about, to hum and haw about which papers, fonts, embellishments to use.  Well yesterday I was like greased lightning!  Although I was a bit cross with myself when I realised that the flower I'd made for last week's DCM challenge was way too big for the card I was making, it proved to be a blessing in disguise!

Not only would it make a nice focus for the second card, but it stopped my usual mythering about which colours/papers to use. Good job I'd saved the rest of the Lokta paper I'd coloured for last week's card too!

I can't quite believe how quickly this card went together and by 2.45 both were finished, had their inserts, were bagged, parcelled and in the post.  I know!  Shocking isn't it!

For MIL's card I cheated a little bit - I'd not added greetings to the butterfly cards I made for the February Crafty Templates DT, so I just added a rub-on greeting to one of those and handed that and the whole Mother's Day problem over to Hubby

I guess I'd have noticed the date was so soon if my own mum was still around, but part of me blocks out all the hooha around "painful" dates.  So whilst I know it's always in March, and I knew I had cards to make, but the soon-ness  of the day really took me by surprise, how I've let it creep up on me so stealthily I just don't know.

Anyway. once that was done I set too and finished the New York page for my word book.  You can read all about it on today's Bubbly Scrumptious blog - please accept my apologies if it reads as though it was written in a bit of a hurry - that's because it was!

Today I've got my DCM card for tomorrow to make (if I ever come up with a plan!) plus I need to get something done for my niece Izzy's 16th birthday which is this weekend - so it's off the pc and over to the craft desk for me.  But I'm having a coffee first.  It's medicinal.....I think the "emergency Mars Bar£ might be needed today too.

I will catch up with my blog-hopping, I will, but it might not be today!

Thanks for popping by today

Odds and Ends

Yet again I've managed to find myself with a bit of a to-do list for this week.  Sometimes I think writing everything down isn't such a good idea after all - it just makes me panic!

Today I thought I'd just pop a couple of things on here that I've not shown before. 

First is a commissioned card for a Sapphire Wedding Anniversary.

I made the flower from Lokta paper in the same way as some I was experimenting with a couple of weeks back. The Lokta paper is thicker and more textured than the coffee filter papers - and comes in loads of different colours too.  The white "blobs" are Distress Stickles and aren't nearly so white and blobby in real life - they look much more subtle than they do on the photos!

paper is by Imaginisce (I think) and the lace came from Creative Treasures.  The ovals are Nesties and the little gems are from the 2mm and 3mm gem wheels from Anita's

The next card is one I made for my cousin.  I was in a hurry to get this one done before we went away the other week - if I'd had more time I'd have started again as it's not great!  You win some, you lose some, as they say.

I used a little cartoon, printed off a couple of times - I cut out the dresses from the second copy and coloured them in shades that better matched the red and green, then raised those bits on small pieces of chipboard -I've "gone off" foam tape recently - bits have fallen off some of the things I've used it on that I've kept around the house and I'd hate to think of the same happening to things I've made for other people.

Rightio, I must get on.

Thanks for looking