Sunday, April 24, 2011

Easter Weekend

What fab weather we've had this Bank Holiday weekend - we don't often get to say "Bank Holiday" and Fab weather" in the same sentence, do we hehe
We went for a bit of a jaunt of Friday - and an hour or so into our journey we remembered why we tend to stay at home on Bank Holidays - the roads were jam-packed!
We were heading for Oxburgh Hall in Norfolk, a National Trust property and somewhere new to us.  Having taken out a year's membership to the NT on our anniversary jaunt last July, we're trying to make the most of it in it's last few months.  Anyhoooo, it took longer than we expected to get there, but at least we'd taken some sandwiches with us, so were able to have a quick picnic before heading into the grounds.
Oxburgh Hall is a fabulous moated medieval manor house.  Mary Queen of Scots was held here for a while, there are tapestries made by her, and also by Bess of Hardwick who seems to be "stalking" us in recent months - we stayed in the EH holiday cottage at Hardwick Hall in March and it seemed that everywhere we go, Bess, or one of her rellies has also been,
The hall is completely surrounded by the moat and there's a pretty little bridge for access to the building, through the big gatehouse and into the very sunny courtyard in the photo below.
Isn't it all gorgeous?  I quite fancy a moated house with a lovely courtyard now hehehe
I had some crafting fun at the weekend too - there have been a couple of projects I've seen recently that I wanted to have a go at.  One was this adaptation of a Splitcoaststampers idea.  The original pentagonal tube was way too complicated, especially as I didn't have the five petaled flower punch to make the top and bottom sections.  So I made my box a plain old rectangular prism, with square ends - much more suited to my limited mathematical abilities!

The project sheet had the cute bunny on the front of the box, but the instructions weren't given for that, so I had a good look at the picture and worked out what shapes I needed.  Then I created them in Craft Robo - they are mainly just circles and ovals, but I needed to "draw" the ear shapes and features "free-hand" (should that be mouse-hand?), using the paintbrush in Paint Shop Pro.  I just built up the shapes on my Craft Robo sheet, then added in the extra PSP bits and fiddled about with the sizes until I thought they all looked right.  If anyone would like my template for this Easter Bunny, just email me and I'll send you a copy.
I used:
Bazzill card for box and bunny
MS border punch for lid trim,
Cream and green seam binding, pastel buttons  all from  Creative Treasures 
(Those buttons are soooo gorgeous!)
Black pen, white pen, pink cat's eye ink pad, pink Liquid Pearls

My second Easter Box is made using a video tutorial that my lovely Funky Hand Teamie Lucylou pointed me in the direction of a couple of weeks back.  Thanks Lou, what a fab idea this one is.
I made mine from a sheet of paper cut down to 10 x 10 square
Sorry, it's not a great photo so I'll try and do a better one tomorrow/
I used:
Paper: Bo Bunny Abbey Road, Mint Green and Chocolate seam binding from Creative Treasures
Chocolate mini eggs and Maltesers to fill the box with!
Hope your Easter is full of love and peace
Thanks for visiting, please leave a message before you go :)

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just a quick note to let you know that a link to this post will be placed on CraftCrave in the Cutting category today [25 Apr 01:00am GMT]. Thanks, Maria

Janice said...

Your day out looks great Kathy with those blue skies. But where are the shots of you in the open topped sports car? Come on, share!

Hazel said...

Lovely dimensional crafting and great photos of your Norfolk visit. x

Angelnorth said...

Lovely day trip pics! Love your two Easter treat containers, the bunny is cute and the second one looks really sophisticated!

Kath said...

Love the boxes Kathy. Particularly the second one. Lovely trip out photos too.

Carol Plume said...

what great piccies and lovely boxes - the contents of the second one look rather yummy!!

Angie said...

Looks as though you had a great day out ...must not waste that membership.
Those boxes are brilliant ... great for Easter treats.

Kaz said...

The house is lovely Kathy, but you'd have far too much H********k to do!!
Love those boxes, the bunny is so cute xx

Sue said...

oh that bunny is so cute.
Looks like you had a super day out as well.
Sue x

Faye said...

Oh Kathy, what a gorgeous little box and cute bunny. Love it. xxx

Karen said...

WOW! Oxburgh Hall look an amazing place to visit, esp with a camera! I do love to see a moat!

Awe...your Easter boxes are really pretty honey and I really love your cards below!!! HUGS XXX

audrey said...

Great to see your pictures of Oxburgh Hall I was there on Easter Monday. Love the boxes.

Jules said...

Hi Kathy

Sound like you had a good Easter break.

Oxburgh looks lovely!! So many places in England I haven't been!!!

Great projects too. Loving the colours and gorgeous stash on the second one!!

Love Jules xx

Monia - Monika Jakubowska said...

The manor house is absolutely gorgeous! And Your boxes are so sweet :)

Maarit at Violets Corner said...

Oxburgh seems to be well worth a visit, glad you had a great trip even though it took some time to get there.

The boxes are really pretty, love the second one, it looks very complicated to make.

Hugs
Maarit