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

My Fave Colour

I'm going to be popping over to the DCM Blog often this week just to look at the array of cards made with the turquoise/aqua shades that are my favourite colour - it all looks sooooo pretty!

The challenge this week is the next in our birthstone series and the birthstone for March is 

Aquamarine

Looking around the web to find out more about the gem I found some interesting info

*It's also the gemstone for the 19th Wedding Anniversary (something to look forward too....;-) )

*The properties associated with aquamarines are

Faithfulness, courage, friendship, awareness, quick response and easing communication problems

*This gemstone is often used as a charm by sailors for protection while at sea.

Plenty of  ideas for cards there,, eh?  

I've a couple of commissioned Mother's Day cards to make and I thought this dare was the perfect opportunity to make one of them - 

As I've added the new March sketch to my other blog The Sketch File I thought I'd use it for my card this week

Although the card I've made is pretty simple, you wouldn't believe how much of a hassle it was to make!  Do you ever get one of those days when you're decidedly "off-par" and find that every single thing needs at least two attempts to get right?  That was me yesterday!

The coiled flowers are made from Lokta paper.  The colours of the ready dyed turquoise pieces I have were too dark for what I wanted so I thought I'd use some white and spray ink it to a shade I liked.  Let's just say it took all morning just to do that bit.  Then I had to get the iron out to dry the now very soggy paper.

The 4 scalloped layers panel were a trial - I now have a little pile of mismatching strops.

The bow refused to tie nicely, and when the bow was right, the position was wrong.

I made the holes too far apart for the bead string so had to add more beads.

Then I used foam pads that were too thick and the sentiment piece was higher at the right end than the left, so I had to persuade them off and just use some chipboard instead.

I realised halfway through making them that the flowers I wanted to make would be far too large to fit three of them along the top of the sentiment

So, change of plan and went for coiled flowers instead and at last things started to get better. Once everything was in place I added some tiny brads to the white space top right and finished it off by adding a tiny amount of Stickles to the flowers - then stopped while the going was good!

I'm really looking forward to seeing lots and lots of lovely aquamarine cards this week so I hope you'll be joining in!

I forgot to mention earlier in the week that there's a new challenge over on the Get Funky blog.  For March the theme is "Girls, Girls, Girls" and we're asking you to make something nice and girly this month.

There's a great prize on offer - but, please read the rules - to enter you must use some Funky Hand products - you would not believe the number of people who don't bother with that bit and therefore disqualify their lovely projects.

For some reason I seem to be making a lot of little boxes lately and here's another one!  I've used the fab "Dreams Come True" cd to print the papers for my box.

 There are four different papers from the same collection on this mini pizza box and yet more of those coiled paper flowers. I highlighted some of the dots on the paper designs with a few blobs of matching Stickles shades.

Right, that all for now. I'm off to start on the next thing on the to-do list - and I'm hoping that today things work first time!

Thanks for looking

Gift Boxing and an Album

Still playing the "catch-up" game after a week away!

Thursday is my day to do something for the Bubbly Funk shop blog aka Bubbly Scrumptious - I didn't have time to do another page for my Word Book, so today I've a project for a little gift box and a matching gift card. really quick and easy to make and once you've made one you'll see that it's pretty easy to alter the dimensions to make a box to suit what you wnat to put in it.

I thought I'd also show the album I made to give to Hubby on his birthday.  I made it in such a rush!  I started  it the Thursday afternoon - we were leaving after lunch on Friday and as he works from home on Fridays anyway, I knew I had to get it finished before he arrived home from work - I think I made it with about 10 minutes to spare!

It's a good job he doesn't much like "fussy stuff" hehe - much quicker to make something with very little embellishment ;-)

 My idea was that the album would just look like a little gift in it's own right; as his birthday was the Saturday, we'd already be there when he opened it, so it looked innocuous - just somewhere to put his favourite photos from our holiday.  

But it would also hide my secret - it would gradually disclose what his present really was!

So next I made a page with a fold-out flap, printed out a few photos from the web of things we might see on our sightseeing travels in the area and adhered them to the page.

Still pretty innocuous-looking....

Turn that page thought and the flapped section appears

Inside the pocket was a "voucher" the lovely Ellen from the helicopter company had printed out and sent to me. He was very quiet when he opened it and I think the realisation dawned rather slowly!

My idea was that he fill the album himself but I've got a sneaking suspicion that he'll choose and print the photos and muggins here will be doing the rest!

Right, I've got my DCM card to do for tomorrow now, so I'll love you and leave you for now.

Hopefully at the w/e I'll get some blog-browsing time - I've got loads of catching up to do, I've no idea what everyone has been up to over the last few weeks, and I'm nosy ;-)
 

Up, Up and Away

More of our Kent photos today!  Are you bored yet? hehe

Please remember that these pics are just pulled straight from the camera - they'll be better once Hubby has brightened and smartened them up a bit!

Anyway, it was his birthday on the Saturday, a beautiful, blue skies day (at least to start with - see photos of the sky in Deal on my last post for enlightenment!).  As as Walmer, Deal and various other EH places are still closed at this time of the year (which is a bit of a pain tbh),  I'd phoned ahead and  arranged a private tour of Walmer Castle (we were staying in the Greenhouse Apartment there) for Saturday morning.  By luck it was the lovely lady from Deal Castle who came over to help the Walmer EH warden out while we were there - well, you've got to take your chances, haven't you? And if you don't ask, you don't get so I asked if there was any chance of seeing inside Deal Castle too - so in the end we had tours of both castles - which was so fab - we learned so much - and of course there was no one in the way when we took our photos!

For Hubby's birthday pressie I went a little bit crazy and organised a special treat.  

I chartered a helicopter (and pilot, of course) for an hour so that we could see some of Kent's castles and other interesting places from the air.  Ok so maybe I was a bit optimistic thinking the weather  in the middle of February would be nice for such a jaunt, but hey, sometimes we have beautiful, clear blue skies at this time of year (don't we?) - we did on Saturday so I was feeling optimistic that Monday would also be like that!

Wrong.

It was chucking it down and our flight was postponed till Tuesday and we went to Dover Castle instead (lots of indoor bits, you know!)

It was chucking it down on Tuesday too.

"I'll ring you later this afternoon once we've more idea about tomorrow" they said.

It poured all day Tuesday, but the phone call came and we were told that Wednesday afternoon the forecast was for better weather and the flight was duly booked for 2pm. We looked out of the window and shrugged.

Wednesday morning it was......raining.  We thought we'd head in the direction of Manston airport anyway and see what Sandwich has to offer.

Sandwich is LOVELY - even in the drizzle.

We went into a cafe for a sandwich, well, when in Sandwich...

We sat near the window and suddenly realised that we were squinting - because...the sun was shining!  There was even some blue in the sky!  eat lunch quickly, dash around taking same photos again, this time with blue sky background!  Jump in car, go the wrong way, get back on right road arrive at airport just in time!

Up we went.

Here are some photos, click on them if you'd like a bigger version!

The Reculver Towers  

Canterbury

Leeds Castle

Channel Tunnel terminus

 

Sissinghurst Castle Gardens

 

 Westenhanger Castle

 Dover Castle 

 

 Dover/White Cliffs

 

Deal Castle

Walmer Castle

(The Greenhouse Apartment" is above the greenhouses in the buildings to the left of the castle, the second EH holiday let is the cottage at the left of the greenhouses)

 

"Our" Helicopter

  

 Richborough Roman Fort

A week later I still can't quite believe we actually managed to get this flight done - a couple of hours after landing it was raining again and in the evening we had thunder and lightning!  A minor miracle really, and it means we don't need to rearrange it all - and face sitting in those queues at the Dartford crossing tolls - no idea what's going on there atm but both ways it was nightmare busy with 5 mile queues just to reach the toll booths and clear straight after p maybe they need to get some more booths, it's certainly not working atm

We've got photos of the wonderful new rooms that have been created in the Great Tower at Dover Castle, I'll post them if you're interested.  You may have seen the Time Team Special about how they were created that was on TV a month or two back.

Ooops, nearly forgot my WOYWW

Here it is, complete with the leftover stuff from something I was making yesterday - that'll be on here tomorrow!

 

Catch you soon