Little Treasures

Over the last few weeks I've been using the latest flower kit from Creative Treasures, aptly named "Parma Violets" and full of beautiful flowers, ribbons, buttons, etc in pinks, mauves and blues, plus some other little tempting treasures that Tracy always manages to include. I realised this morning that I've neglected to show all the cards I've made on here so thought I'd better put that right!

I've used loads of things from the kit on this card. I made the three layered paper flowers using various of the  blooms.  The pretty jewelled centre of the middle flower is included in the pack, and I've glittered one of the buttons and topped it with a pink flat backed pearl for the flower on the right.  The first flower has one of the wired aster flowers from the kit in the centre, I nipped off the original centre and added a pink gem instead.

The beautiful metal flower is actually a bead cup - I was going to use it to thread one of the bigger wired roses through on another project, but found that it didn't really show up how pretty it was used that way.  So instead I took courage in both hands and started tapping it with my hammer until it lay flat.  The loops allowed me to thread one of the gorgeous leaf charms from the kit (I do love these charms!) on to it.  I found a pink gem brad in my stash which was just perfect for securing all the bits together.

The flowers, ribbon and buttons on this second card form part of the Parma Violets kit.  The Card Candy is also from Tracy's shop and is so fab to use as although I didn't have exactly the colour I needed, I could just pick the one closest and add the right shade with pens or ink pads.

The frame is made using Nesties dies and the sentiment and little flower picture are more from the stickers sheet I made a few weeks back

This  third card didn't quite turn out as I'd planned, but that happens sometimes! The papers are from Fancy Pants and work well with the blue and pink flowers in the kit. 

I've clipped the central corners of the card with a Zutter Round it All, then used the corner punch from one of the MS All Around the Page punch sets - I think I should have added a tiny glimmer of glitter to the flowers on this one.

I really like the way it's easy to use Tracy's flowers with whatever is in your stash already, and that adding paper with other colours in their designs bring a new look to the flowers.

 Do check out Creative Treasures and see all the "pretties" that Tracy's got in stock at the moment - lots of temptation to be had!

That's it for today, I hope the sun is shining where you are - we even managed to sit out on the patio on Saturday afternoon - makes you think that maybe Spring really is here (at last).

I'll be back soon - I've still got more makes to share

A Shoe in....

Daring Cardmakers Day again, and despite my "down in the dumps" state of mind and lack of mojo I got a card made and even enjoyed doing it - so hopefully that's a good sign.  Especially as I've neglected my to-do list - they don't get any shorter when you do that, you know ;-)

We've more exciting DT news this week - so please head over to the DCM BLOG to read about that....

Our lovely Sue is taking a bit of time out and trying to give her eyes a proper chance to heal after recent surgery.  However she didn't go without leaving a little treat of a challenge to play with 

If the Shoe Fits........

buy it in every colour, as the saying goes!

We all wear them, don't we? so this week I would like to lots of footwear on your cards.

Boots, shoes, sandals, trainers, ballet shoes, slippers.... the list is almost endless so I'm sure there'll be some fab fancy footwork to admire this week.

Hidden away in my "charms" box there is a gorgeous little painted flip-flop charm.  I bought it ages ago for a specific card I needed to make, but in the end I went with another idea instead.  That poor charm is doomed to stay in the box because the same thing happened this week - I planned to use in for this week's dare, but in the end I made this instead:

The hardest thing was altering a photo of the shoe shape into something I could then make into a Robo template.  It's much easier to convert colouring pages as they are already black and white!  With this one I had to "trace" over the main lines of the image then alter the colours a couple of times before I could get the outlines I needed.  Mind you, there's probably a better and easier way to do it, but I'm no techie and the resident Tech Support was at work.  Sometimes you just have to think outside of the box and come up with your own solutions, don't you?

Well, hey, it worked and I got my template.

How I made it

I resized the layers all together (see HERE for how to do this) so that they would make a card to fit a 15cm square envelope. 

There are three layers (plus the silver bit at the back) to this card, I used the base layer only as a pattern for cutting out the actual card - the fold of the card is hidden and overlapped by the second layer (cut in dull silver card).  

The upper layer is cut from patterned paper (from Cosmo Cricket's Fleuriste collection).  After cutting I embossed it (Cuttlebug Textile Texture folder)

Lastly for the basic card I added the silver section at the back of the shoe and it was ready to decorate.

Other supplies

Shiny red braid, Prima Artful flower plus a large coiled flower, Stickles in black, silver and burgundy

Tassel - made with black thread, the beads are threaded onto wire and attached to the card loop at the back of the shoe.

As I said, this was a lot of fun to make - and it didn't take long either, as there aren't many parts to cut out.  I'll be using this one again, I think.

There is a wonderful array of footwear on display on our BLOG this week - it's like a shoe shop over there - full of gorgeous, desirable and fun shoes. But we're sorry, but these are for window-shopping only.  We'd love it if you'd join in and add your footwear cards to our virtual shoe shop this week!

Be Happy

Before I do anything else, I'm going to apologise for not managing to leave many "return" messages on your blogs at the moment.  What with one thing and another it's all a bit of a struggle at the moment - but I'm getting there - I need to craft my way out of the doldrums I've found myself in.  I thought it was going to be a real challenge to get something made for tomorrow's Daring Cardmakers, but once I'd got going I really enjoyed myself making it so I'm hoping that it'll kick-start my crafting-mojo.

I didn't get round to showing the photos of the word book I made with the new Retro Fun download from Funky Hand, so here it is!  It took me ages to do but I hope you like it.  You can click on the photos for a closer look if you like ;-)

All the papers are designs from Retro Fun download

There's a page for each letter of the alphabet and ones with numbers too.  For the "BE" I reduced the size in PSP and cut the letters using Mr Robo

I used my Bind it All to join the pages and added some organza ribbon to "prettificate" :-)

I printed out some "Happy" quotes to use on some of the pages.  The "Here comes the sun" was just hand-written (you can probably tell!).  

The big sun is cut from some gorgeous flocked paper I found lurking in my stash

The watering can image is a Robo version of one of the digi-images from the Dreams Come True CD, also from Funky Hand

The bird and the tree are more Dreams Come True digi-images - I wish I'd taken the time to ink the edges of the tree so that it would show up more (but I was being lazy).  I trimmed down a coule of feathers to use for the birds' tails.

The potted plant is another of the digi-images, converted for Robo cutting,  I added the flower (Cuttlebug die) to match the flowers on the paper

I loved this old gramophone image the moment I saw it on the Dreams Come True CD and have been wanting to use it ever since.  Music makes me happy, so it was the perfect opportunity to make it into a Robo template and use it in my book.

Other supplies:

Martha Stewart border punch

Flowers, either die cut using Retro Fun scraps or Primas

Buttons, Brads, Card Candy, Ribbon and Thread

Funky Hand Products available HERE

On My Desk Today....

 There's a right old tip!

Yes, even more of a mess than usual. 

It's my first day back crafting after waving our visitors off yesterday and I have some very difficult cards to make before I do anything else. I've done the decorative bits of the cards and I'm procrastinating now because I have the wording to deal with next.

I thought I'd be brave and pan down to new depths and show what's going on below the desktop.

If you guessed there'd be more "stuff" under there, you'd be right.  The 12x12 case is full of larger scraps of Bazzill type card, the plastic crate is full of things that "might come in useful one day", the tin has scraps of silver and gold card/paper in it.  The top drawer has the punches I don't use so often, the middle one has loads of pens and markers that I really should sort out, and the bottom drawer has stuff like Friendly Plastic, Paperclay and various moulds.  It used to have casters but the drawers were so heavy that it kept buckling and tipping over, so I took them off

One of the reasons there's so much stuff lying around is that it's been difficult to decide what to put on these cards - sympathy cards are never easy, but in this case the colours, style and sentiments I tend to fall back on in making them aren't really suitable. Which is why I keep getting stuff out, then rejecting it and reaching for something else.

The excitement of the imminent birth of a new member of our extended family turned to sadness last week when the little boy was born very, very poorly and died after just a few short days in this world.  What can you say in such circumstances?

Well, I must get on and finish them.

I'll be checking out the other WOYWWer's blogs later and will be back with some crafting from last week asap

Lucy in the Sky?

Today is Friday, AKA Daring Cardmakers day so a lovely new dare to play with - actually some of us didn't think it was so lovely - we found it rather taxing on the little grey cells, to be honest!

We also have a couple of pieces of exciting news to share.  

A new Guest Designer:

We're thrilled to have Cinnamon Sally with us as Guest Designer this month, her work is always beautiful and you can see the first of her DCM cards this week - we're sure that you'll love them as much as we do.

 A new full-time Teamie:

We're also chuffed to bits that Natty is going to be a permanent member of the Design Team
 from now on, we just couldn't bear not seeing her inspiring work on our BLOG after her GD spot was over! 
WooHoo all round!

Well, the first dare of the month throughout 2010 is given over to that month's birthstone. 

 The birthstone for April is the Diamond so this week we're making cards which relate in some way to diamonds
Sounds easy enough., doesn't it? Well, I wasn't the only one who spent most of the week wondering if I'd get a card done in time. hehehe

I got this one done yesterday afternoon after I decided that I'd just have to start something and hope for the best.

I must have spent hours looking for a good quotation to use as a theme but nothing seemed to jump out at me.  In the end I've gone for a 60th wedding anniversary card - so if you know anyone celebrating their 60th, just give me a shout as I've a card going spare!

I really fancied doing a black/white/silver colour scheme but thought lilac shades might be more appropriate, I quite like the final result.

There are lots of layers and lots of shimmer on this one which the camera doesn't pick up very well.

I embossed the background paper (which is very slightly shimmery) with the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder, then cut it in half to use at the top and bottom (wouldn't it be nice if the folders were a bit bigger). The central panel has layers of pearlised metallic card, pearlised lilac paper and a shimmery paper with a dot pattern in it.

I cut "diamond" on the Robo in two layers, one card and one the lilac pearlised paper.

It's probably getting boring to see yet more coiled flowers, they do come into play rather a lot at the moment!  I've also used a Prima daisy in this group - I folded it up, cut across the point in the middle, opened it out again and then between two of the petals I cut into the middle so that I could wrap it around the pretty ribbon and lace flower I found when I was sorting my box of wired flowers the other day.  I also found the crystal bead string things I've used in the corner.

The sentiment was computer generated, and to finish I've added a few "diamonds" in different sizes to the big letters, the corner of the card and the greeting piece.

Must admit there was a big "PHEW!" when I'd finished it!

I've been playing with flowers quite a bit lately as I'm working with the new "Parma Violets" kit from Creative Treasures.   I made a birthday card for DCM Lynda using some of the kit but decided that whilst I liked some elements of what I'd done, I hated the way it all looked together. So I made her a new one - the one I put on here earlier in the week, then set about dismantling the first effort and trying to make something I liked better.

The coiled roses, pearl brad and leaf are from my stash, all the other flower elements, ribbons and pretty leaf charm are from the "Parma Violets" kit.  The kit is stuffed with gorgeous blooms and wired flowers of different types, which look fab either on their own or used to "build" a larger, layered flower - those wired stems make it very easy to do! 

The blue flower with the pink beady centre was made in the same way as for my DCM card mentioned above, but this time I used some wire and glass beads to make the centrepiece to wind the paper flower around.

I made some gathering stitches part-way along a length of the satin ribbon and pulled them up to make the ruched section - it was fiddly just doing a little bit - easier I think to have a whole length of ribbon gathered up, but to be awkward I only wanted a little ruched section at the end!

I made another card with the stuff I pulled off the original and I'll put that on here another day!

Apart from this beautiful kit, Tracy (Creative Treasures) has some rather lovely new lace and lots of different flowers in stock at the moment - very tempting they were.  So tempting that I couldn't resist buying this little lot!

Right, I've got to go and help do some painting now (oh joy!). I'll be back later for a catch up around the blogs - I'll probably be needing a sit down by then!

Funky April Showers

 April 1st sees a new challenge on Funky Hand's challenge blog "Get Funky".  Somewhere among all the chaos of a few weeks ago I completely missed Anice asking me if I would like my very first challenge to be thee April challenge....ooops!.  So it was only with about a week or so to go - and after the lovely Jules had gently pointed it out to me (thank you, hunny) that I actually suggested an idea to the girls on the DT.  I'm not sure they liked it, but they are all way too nice to say so! hehe

Anyway, the theme this month is April Showers and as usual there's a £20 Funky Hand spending spree up for grabs as a prize for one lucky Challengee (I made that word up, do you like it?).  Check the Get Funky BLOG for info on what you need to do to qualify and to see all the wonderful things the team has made.

You might need sunglasses to look at mine, it's not very subtle!

All the papers I've used are from one of the sets on the fab Dreams Come True CD.   The stripes on the brolly and those at the top and bottom of the card are the same design - I just resized it to get the mini version for the umbrella.

The Child with Umbrella is one of my Craft Robo templates - I cheated a bit and used the same template and the same quote on a card for the Daring Cardmakers last year - I'm admitting it just in case you thought it all looked a bit familiar ;-) 

The black zig zag flower stems aren't ric-rac, they are cut with an old Quickutz die - it's the trim from the wedding cake set!

other supplies: ribbon, buttons, Prima and other mulberry flowers, green gem brad, Card Candy, tiny blue gems. black stranded embroidery thread

The sketch for this card will be the April sketch on The Sketch File (that's my next task), so I'd love it if you'd make something using it - it's always so interesting to see how other people interpret a sketch.

If you were here yesterday (WOYWW), I mentioned the half made Word Book that was on my desk, well - don't fall off your chair!  I actually got it finished - I'll show the rest of the photos another time but here's a sneak peek of one of the pages

The pages and papers are all part of the Retro Fun Word Book download which was released on Funky Hand earlier this week - and they are just gorgeous!

Right, it's 10.30 am on Thursday, and I'm supposed to be making my card for tomorrow's DCM.  Trouble is, I haven't got a clue what to do yet.  Wish me luck!

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