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

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

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

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 ;-)
 

Late WOYWW and Sam Plank's Disco

I'm late again with my "What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday" shots,  but I'm hoping Ms Dunnit won't be too strict - I've not touched it since yesterday so I think I can get away with it....

Two photos to make up for my tardiness.

The big tatty old bookcase to the right of my desk holds all my paper boxes, various files and folders that tbh I hardly look at, the bottom shelf that you can't see has boxes of coloured A4 card,  the box of 12x12 card stands between the shredder and some horrible plastic drawers I use for the overspill ribbons, stamps and inkpads etc - the purple boxes you can just see a corner of are on top of those.  On the top shelf are a few finished circle journals and mini books, plus all my beading stuff

This is my desk this morning.  Several projects on the go and I'm starting to get a bit panicky about finishing them on time.  This set of horrible plastic drawers has a box of "stuff" including border punches on the top, then the drawers contain, from the top: more flowers, chipboard shapes, ribbon scraps, punches

This week on Bubbly Scrumptious I've made another page for my Word Book. 

This time you'll find me in San Francisco -I can never say the name without thinking about the joke that ends up with the angel singing to St Peter "I left my harp in Sam Plan's Disco", hence the post title.

You can see more photos and whatever by visiting Bubbly Scrumptious, where you'll find more crafty projects and ideas than you can shake a stick at.

Right, I MUST finish my Hubby's birthday card and I've still got my DCM card for tomorrow to move from drawing board to paper and card.

I'm really sorry that I've not been doing much blog visiting lately, I will catch up with everyone soon, I promise

Thanks for visiting

More than Words....

.... by Extreme is one of my most favourite songs - so will do nicely for the title of this post.  Even though there's only one word involved actually.

OK so that's not strictly true either, because all you'll see for certain is one letter or the word.  The word I'm talking about is the one I chose for my chipboard word book, which is part of the current kit on Bubbly Funk.

If you popped in to see my work desk for "What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday" yesterday you'll have seen some of this project peeping out from under a sheet of paper!

The rest of the letters will be revealed as I get the pages made. You can try guessing what the finished word is going to be if you really want to :-)

I decided to see if it would be possible to add extra pages in between those with a letter at the end of them - does that make any sense?  Maybe the pictures will help show what I mean.

Here's the reverse of a letter page and my extra page which I cut from a piece of chipboard

And next, the other side of the extra page and the front of the next letter page. 

I used chipboard for the extra page, but adding a few more pages would be no problem if you used Bazzill pages instead.

You can see more photos and read about what I used on these by clicking HERE

I'm using my current fave sei Moravia papers throughout my book as they are just perfect for all the pages I need to do.  Is this the time to admit that I've already bought another set of them because I love them so much? hehehe

Still got loads to do so I'm not going to waffle or procrastinate today (honestly, I'm really not!)

Hoping to catch up on my blog-hopping at the weekend

Whoops!

My name is Kathy and I am a Numpty!

I thought I'd check up on blog comments on my iPod Touch while having my breakfast this morning.  Ooooh six new comments since I last looked - I went to publish them and I really, really should have zoomed in a bit more because what happened?  I managed to press the "reject" instead of the "publish" boohooboohoo, I've lost all those lovely messages and I don't think I can remember all the people who left them to go and apologise.  What a Noodle I am.

Centre stage on my desk yesterday for the WOYWW craft desk web wander was my project for today's Bubbly Scrumptious emag.  BubScrump as it's affectionately called is the BLOG for the Bubbly Funk online shop and I'm one of those lucky enough to be on the Design Team for the monthly kits.

This month's kit has just been released and there's an exciting opportunity to buy a customised word book this month - choose a word of up to 7 letters and Caroline will arrange to have a chipboard word book made especially for you and already to decorate.  

This week though I'm using papers from the "Word Book" Kit and the "Violette Wings" kit  for my project - I'll get to my word book later. Shall I tell you what word I've chosen for my book?

No....I don't think so. hahaha

Anyway here's a closer look at the "thing" that was on my desk yesterday.

Nope, not an exploding box - or a box of any sort, though I can see why some people thought it might be.

Maybe this next picture will give more of a clue as to what it really is

Yes. you've got it, if you tuck all those bits of card in correctly it gets to look less like a box (or a jumble of different sized bits of card), and what you end up with is this rather nifty 6x6" album, there are different sized square and rectangular pages and even a couple of hidden pockets in there just waiting to be filled up.

I know it doesn't look very exciting yet, but hopefully once I've decorated the cover and filled it up with pictures and whatever else I decide to use it for it will look more inviting.

So, over on BubScrump today, you'll find the instructions on how to make the basic album, I hope you'll go and take a look and maybe even have a go - trust me, it's not nearly as complicated to make as it looks when all those pages are let loose!

Please let me know what you think - and if you leave a comment I'll try my very, very bestest not to press the wrong button this time!:-)

Sew What

I had an early (for me) start this morning as I had to take the car to the garage for MOT and service by 8.30.  Normally at that time I'm still lingering over my toast and coffee and thinking about what I'm going to do with the day.   As a treat for being so good I bought one of those yummy Sicilian Lemon Muffins from Greggs as I walked home through town....what I want to know is why don't Greggs sell stotties in all their branches?  I think they should - it would mean I didn't have to buy half a dozen to stuff the freezer with when we're on the way back from Northumberland, or beg anyone coming this way to bring with them.  "Yes, of course you can stay - but can you pop in to Greggs and buy some stotties on your way?"   

There are loads of Northumbrians and their descendants living in our town. Apparently many came looking for work in the 1920s around the time of the Jarrow marches.  Not long after my family moved south my mum stood in the PO waiting to collect ehr Family Allowance, the man behind her recognised her accent and asked where she was from.  Turned out his family had once lived a couple of streets away from my Grandma.  Small world.

Anyway, I shall endeavour to put thoughts of a bacon stotty out of my head (difficult as my mouth is watering at the idea). now and concentrate on getting this blog done as I need to get Mr Robo started on cutting the bits for my DCM card or it won't be finished for tomorrow.

Today on Bubbly Scrumptious I've got a card to share.  It was only after I'd finished making it that I realised it would make quite a nice canvas or a wall hanging of some sort - which would have been lovely to hang in the spare room where my sewing cabinet lives.  Never mind, maybe I'll do the larger collage version another time.

You can find all the info on how it was made by clicking HERE 

Is it me, or do you think I'm having a bit of a Turquoise phase at the moment?  Scroll back through the recent posts and you'll see what I mean!  

Right, stop waffling Kathy, it's now 10.30 and you must get that card done!

Honestly, I can be soooo bossy sometimes.

Thanks for visiting

About the House

My project for Bubbly Scrumptious (emag for the Bubbly Funk shop) this week uses the Studio Calico papers in the Home Front collection.

I must admit, unlike some of the others on the DT, I've struggled with these, they've been sitting on my desk for a while now.  I kept getting them out, leafing through them and putting them back in the bag!  They are unusual and interesting designs but more specific to a theme than the papers I usually use - so they taxed this "bear of little brain".  

Some ideas come quickly, others need a bit more time.  We've been thinking about things we need to do in our own house, and also for some work we want to have done on a house we rent out to tenants, so we've been trawling around the DIY places, kitchen showrooms, bathroom places, tile warehouses etc. It made me think of work we'd already done and also about things like roof checks, external paintwork, tree maintenance that should really be on some sort of regular schedule to keep them in good order.  We're just not that organised but thinking about it all sparked off the idea for making some sort of organiser book for keeping a note of all this stuff.

I've made this "About the House" book while full of good intentions to do better about record keeping (when we did the work, who did the work, resources used, paint colours, serial numbers etc), and maybe also having somewhere to keep notes and clippings for future reference when we come to do things that are further down the "to do" list.

Obviously making something like this is no guarantee that I'll ever actually use it, but it's a start, eh?

You can see more about the book and how I made it by clicking HERE and if you joined in with my Sketch Challenge last week, the winner of the random draw, and therefore of Caroline's fab "Stamps and Ribbons" prize can be found HERE

Thanks for popping by - I hope you enjoyed your visit.

Please leave a message if you've time - I love reading them :)

Yay! It's RAINING!

I've never been so glad to hear rain on the windows, then look out and see the snow is being washed away.  The grass is visible again and gradually the paths and road are appearing too.  I bet it's really slippery though.

Mind you I'm sure I heard a weather forecast that said more snow was on the way - wouldn't it be nice if they'd got that wrong - usually we moan when they get it wrong - but that's because they tell us it's going to be hot and sunny and it turns out damp and miserable!

Bubbly Scrumptious day today and I've made a few cards to show on there this week.  There are three cards and they all use the Violette Wings kit, which I'm managing to make spin out as long as possible!  The main thing this week though, is that all three cards were made following the same template - and that I've issued a challenge for anyone else who dares to join in - make any sort of crafty project using the template, then leave a message, on the challenge thread with a link so we can see it - even if you don't have a blog of on-line gallery you can still enter by sending a photo to Caroline (the address is on the BS blog).  The names of all those who join in will be put into the virtual hat and one lucky person will win this prize, couresty of Bubbly Funk:

It's a Hero Arts Designer Ribbons Stamp Set, along with a lovely array of ribbons and trims to go with it.

Head over HERE to see the cards I've made in full and of course to see the sketch you need to use for making your own project.

I really hope you'll join in, I'd love to see what you make.

I'm also popping this sketch onto my Sketch File blog - so you can also link to that too.  I'm going to try and add at least one new sketch each month - I was really rather useless at adding new sketches on there towards the end of last year.  This year I'll try harder!

Off now to finish my card for tomorrow's Daring Cardmakers, ooooh it's all go, isn't it hehe

A Websters Pages Calendar

Well, at the moment we are escaping the worst of the snow which seems to be engulfing the country.  We have a couple of inches - which is not nearly as much as we had here before Christmas - but still too much for my liking.  bah humbug!

My turn to add something to the Bubbly Funk shop's blog aka Bubbly Scrumptious.  Last week I'd got this little calendar ready to go, but I just didn't have time to write up the project.  So this week that's what I've been doing and you can read all about it by clicking HERE.

It's a really fun-to-make project as the Websters Pages I've used almost tell you which bits should go where on whatever you make - then it's just a case of adding all those extra bits and bobs.  If you visit here regularly you'll already know how much I love using flowers, lace, ribbons etc. on my projects and this week I've managed to use lots of them!

This calendar is made on a 7 x 5" canvas panel and the whole thing took less than a couple of hours to make.

I hope you like it and if you have a go at making something similar - please please let me know so I can come and see!

Right, I must be good and stop waffling now as I have some rather urgent crafting stuff to do and I'm running out of time - nothing new there then, eh?

Stay safe and warm and take lots of care if you have to go out in this snowy, icy weather.