Visitors BooK

Hello there!

I hope you had a great weekend and you're feeling fine and dandy this Monday.  I'm not actually sure where the morning went, but it's definitely gone and I even forgot to have a mid morning coffee.  It's taking a while to get into any sort of routine again!

Anyway, my crafting project today was actually finished a couple of weeks ago but the photos have been waiting to be blogged since.

One of the things on the inventory of things we needed to leave in the Southwold holiday flat (Alice's, Southwold) was a Visitors Book, and  couldn't bring myself to just leave a ready made one - plus of course, I knew it would be a fun project to get stuck in to!

 I started with one of the lovely Kraft ring-bound books from Paperchase, then gathered a load of seaside themed bits and pieces that I might find a home for on the book.

The papers are from a couple of Studio Light paper pads I bought last year and absolutely adore!To make the 6x6 papers work on the larger area of matted black and white card, I adhered some areas onto card, then tore the edges and overlapped and inked the various pieces to layer up a bit.  The larger base layer was stencilled with my favourite stencil in a rather random and overlapping series of inks, glitter gel and also for some areas I added gilding flakes. 

I threaded some seaside themed charms onto a few strands of silver thread to decorate the left side, and also added some plaster shells and a couple of shell brads.  The 'beach' sign was created in Paint Shop Pro, and raised on a piece of chipboard to keep the silver thread in place.  I used Glossy Accents behind the charms so they stay where I want them to be. 

The letters were cut with a Spellbindrs Alphabet Die Set  - I cut each letter 4 times from plain white card and glued them together so that the stand out.

The little beach hut was hand cut, except for the window die which comes from a Spellbinders set. I scanned a piece of the patterned paper so that I could use exactly the same colours to make some striped digital paper for the walls and trim of the beach hut, and some in the plan cream and aqua for other parts.

I added some aqua and clear dewdrops to finish the cover, then tied little pieces of ribbon, twine, fibre etc around the wires to finish the whole thing off.

I had a load of fun making this!

Before it was taken over by one of the big companies, we loved travelling with Simply Travel - all their properties had simple exercise book style Visitors Books where precious guests left lovely messages about the places they'd found and enjoyed visiting.  The books were always fun to read and a great source of

recommendations for where to visit, good places to eat and other local info.  Often these places were off the beaten track and we'd never have found them on our own - like the amazing restaurant, up a hillside track near Gumusluk in Turkey, where you sat on rugs and big cushions and watched the sun go down as you ate wonderful, home-cookled food!

 Ah, the memories!

That's the sort of thing we'd love people to leave in our Visitors Book too - their  recommendation for interesting and favourite places to go in Southwold and the surrounding area,

Enough of my waffling - I hope you like the book,

Thanks for looking

 

Link to Holiday Flat is here:

Alice's, Southwold

 

Sketched Blooms set 2 - Spellblogger post for Spellbinders

Hello
I loved the Sketched Blooms collection as soon as I saw them and soon acquired two of the sets.  Last week I shared a card made using set 1 so today I've another card, this time using Sketched Blooms 2 to share for my Spellbloggers post. 

Info:
Smooth White card blank, with extra of the same card for the embossed panel (Blistered embossing folder)

Black card to cut the Sketched Blooms 2
I chose some Digital papers, resized a few of the designs so they would print in a very small size, plus one larger piece to cut the Petite Double Bow from.  The designs were then printed onto white textured card
The torn Kraft paper background is actually an envelope
 Decal sticker sentiment was added to a little tag cut from scaps of the printed paper
The circles in the corner were cut using just the centre of one of the flowers, and shaped with a ball tool

Here are the details of all the Spellbinders products used this time 

Sketched Blooms 2 
Die D-Lites Etched Dies

 Petite Double Bow and Flowers  Elegant 3D Vignettes by Becca Feeken Shapeabilities Etched Dies

Blistered  

Embossing Folder  by Tammy Tutterow Designs

Platinum Die Cutting and Embossing Machine
 

  I love these die sets!  I've another card using set 1 to share, and something else I'd like to try out, so don't be surprised to see more
 Sketch Blooms projects popping up on my blog!
In case you missed it, here's how I used Sketched Blooms1 last time 

Anyway, that's it for this time. Thank you for visiting. 
Click on This Link to visit the wonderful Spellbinders store where you will find lots of lovely dies, stamps and other goodies, plus a huge amount of inspiration
to get you motivated

Happy Crafting

Still Got the Blues.....

Hello

Well, the weather has really changed for the better, hasn't it?  Mind you, there is always a downside, and in my case it's the onset of hayfever.  You can't have it all!

Last weekend we went to Southwold for a few days, just to drop off some more bits and bobs and do a few little jobs there,  This time we even managed to have not only a walk along the prom, but to sit there with our books for a while too.  I always have an Audible book on the go and my earphones in my pocket - that way I can watch the sea and the comings and goings on the prom and listen to a book while I do.  

Talking of upsides and downsides though, the downside of a few days away is the lack of crafting time it leaves.  So I've been trying to catch up with some projects during the last couple of days.

First to share is one of my Blue-themed cards for the Daring Cardmakers challenge this week

Feeling Blue  
It's Nat here, and I'm just back from a little holiday in Cornwall visiting family. :)

Blue is always a colour I associate with Cornwall - the iconic blue stripes of Cornish-ware pottery, the gorgeous indigo fabric prints (especially in Seasalt - yep, I bought another shopper bag...), and just the general weathered blues on boats and buildings all about.

There's lots to love about that colour so this week I'd like you to share projects showcasing shades of blue!

Blue is my favourite colour,  from Deep Navy to the softest Baby Blues and of course all the lovely Aqua blues too.  I willed myself to stay away from the latter this time though as I wanted to make a more masculine card (preparing for all the 'boy' birthdays coming up in the next few weeks!)

It was supposed to be an easy card, but all those stars and squares took a lot longer to cut and work out how to use than you'd ever believe!  So while ot was easy, it wasn't quick!

I used lots of pieces of card from my Blue card Scrap box (yes, I have my scraps colour coded!), As many square and Star shaped dies and punches in the right sort of sizes as I could find and set to work.

To complete the card I used black card to cut the word 'happy' and my fab Spellbinders Alphabet set to cut 'birthday'  I love this set so much that I've just bought another, different alphabet set, so will be giving that an airing soon!

That's it really.  A simple idea, if a bit time-consuming!

There are, as always some lovely cards to see over on the DCM BLOG, so please pop over to see them.  We'd love to see your own Blue creations too.

Now, a little shameless advertising for our lovely holiday flat in Southwold, Suffolk - if you'd like to take a look, and maybe make a booking (friends and family, contact me first!), you can find out all about it here: 

Alice's, Southwold

Fingers crossed this lovely sunny weather sticks around for the weekend!  Have a great one

Thanks for looking

Ladybird, Ladybird....

 Good Morning, how's your Friday going?

It's still damp and a bit dull here, but at least the mizzly fog we had all day yesterday has lifted.  Out in the garden we have lovely red tulips, camellias flowering and the magnolia with loads and loads of buds just waiting to be photographed against a blue sky.  But we're still waiting for that blue sky! 

Despite, or because of the gloomy weather we've had all week, I've been crafting with Spring colours and themes.  Yesterday I blogged a little matchbox in Spring colours and today I have some cute little Ladybirds to share.  This card is for Ruth's very first Daring Cardmakers challenge

Hello,  Ruth here!
    This is my first time hosting a challenge and I hope you'll join me and the so talented Design Team in creating a project for the theme for this week:

Animal Antics

Animals can be so funny and as long as your project features one then get it linked to our BLOG so we can come and visit you! 

 Make it the focal point or as an embellishment or accent - just as long as your creation features one then you're good to go!

It was a toss up between using one of my 'old' favourite die sets (elephant) or my new "Lady Bug Garden" set.  This time the bugs won!

 Info

White card blank, plus extra for upper panel which was cut with a scalloped square die then embossed with a Petite Dots embossing folder

Red card for matting

Scraps of yellow, orange, kraft, green and black card.  A piece of red gloss card for the Ladybird shells

Die sets from Spellbinders

Lady Bug Garden 

Die D-Lites Etched Dies

Sentiments 5 

Die D-Lites Etched Dies  (loopy hello. just a note) 

The grass came from another Spellbinders die set which I've found really handy to have in my collection.  Flower Field Die D-LitesEtched Dies

  I still feel there should be something else on this card - I always struggle with the whole "white space" thing, so have tried not to succumb to adding anything more - but it's soooo hard!!!

 

We'd love you to join in with us this week - you can see more of our cards and add your own links HERE.

Thank you for popping by today

Have a great weekend

"Hello Spring" Match Box

Hello!

Oh my!  what a really grotty, mizzly sort of day we have here today! 
I'm quite glad I have something rather more Spring-like to share with 
you this time.

It's a sweet little matchbox gift box made from lovely fresh green and lemon coloured card-stock and decorated using a few of the cute embellishments from the new "Hello Spring" Bubbly Funk Through the Letterbox craft box

I made the box itself using a Spellbinders die set.  The box is just the right size for presenting something like a necklace or bracelet or other small item, and looks so pretty in these colours. The label and tiny tags are in the die set too, along with dies to make a tiny paper bow!  

Match Box Love Set Match by Debi Adams
Shapeabilities  Etched Dies 

From  the "Hello Spring" Through the Letterbox craft box I used:

Lemon and Cream  Ribbon

Lemon Organza Flower

Lime Green Glitter Chipboard Flower

White Twine

Lemon Glitter Paper

From my stash I added;  Card,  Dies to cut the matchbox, label and tags, punch for hearts, ink

 

 The "Hello Spring" box from Bubbly Funk Through the Letterbox   costs £15.95 and is stuffed with lots of different stash, plus a choice of stencils to get you inspired for crafting.

That's all for this time. Thanks for popping by

Happy Crafting