Folding Up

Another Friday, Another DCM day, Another challenge to play with.

This week we're having a nice easy one while we recover from all that hunting for tartan Jo had us doing last week. For goodness sake - she forced me to go right to the bottom of that deep and messy ribbon-and-fibres drawer so I need a rest after that.
So this time it's all about folds.

Folding Up

It's "just what it says on the tin", we'd like to see some folds on your cards this week.
Fold the whole card, fold some paper, fold some ribbon.
Do some origami, teabag folding or just fold over a corner of your paper to reveal the other side.
As long as there's some sort of folding used as a feature of your card then it counts. Any subject, any theme, any reason.

Lots of news on the DCM blog this week; we're sending "Get Well Soon" wishes, announcing our new Guest Designer for October and also news about two new DT Members - you can read all about it on the BLOG.I folded several die cut tree shapes in half then glued them back to back to make this 3D tree which folds relatively flat to go in an envelope. This one has quite a few layers but that's because I went a bit OTT. Nothing new there. I added some Stickles to the cut edges.


I used: 14cm square card blank, Spellbinders Pine Trees die, Polar Expressions paper collection from Imaginisce, Chipboard star, Stickles

Those papers might just be my 2009 Christmas faves - gorgeous colours and designs and a little bit of glitter to boot!. I made the word tiles by cutting out some of the tiles on one of the papers and mounting on chipboard.
Thanks to Charmed C&C and Craft Obsessions for their brilliant, speedy deliveries - I didn't have a Plan B if the dies and papers hadn't arrived in time! lol

A week or two ago I showed a sneak peek of a project I'd been involved with on Bumbleberry Crafts forum. It was a Fat Book with the theme "Myself", I really enjoyed doing my pages and receiving pages from the other members of the group. I even managed to get the covers for my book done - I know from experience that if I don't do things like that straight away they just don't get done!

I'll pop the pages on here next time, but here are my covers. I used flowers, ribbons and embellishments from the September Flower Kit from Creative Treasures. I'd based my own page around this kit so continued the theme onto the cover; the red, turquoise and black look fab together.

The Front cover
Inside front:
Inside Back

On the back cover I just traced the paper design (Black Market Paper Society) with Black Stickles glitter glue - but it doesn't really show up in the photo

That's all for today, my next job is to get thinking about things for tomorrow's mini cyber crop on Bubbly Funk. I've got one project ready and a couple of other little things to sort out. I could show you a sneak peek, but I'm not going to.....lol
Thanks for visiting, your comments are always appreciated

"Festival of Flowers" CJ

I thought I'd share some photos of my lovely flower themed cj which has recently come home after travelling around the country since last July

A HUGE Thank You to all those who took the time and trouble to add their LOs to my book, it's been such a pleasure to open the books and find all the lovely pages you made.

Lovely, isn't it?

I'm so lucky to say it's mine!

Circle Journal Comes Home

After flying back and forth across the Irish channel a few times, my "Funky Flowers" circle journal arrived home to stay.

Huge thanks to Angie, Isobel, Hazel and Nicky for making this teeny weeny book a real joy to look at. You're all wonderful - and I really enjoyed making my pages for your little books too.

Covers
Angie's pages
Isobel's pages
Hazel's pagesNicky's pages
My pages
The book standing upThanks again girls - this was such a fun CJ to be part of

Photos and CJs

First up I thought I'd pop a few photos on from Bank Holiday weekend, when we were out and about with our visitors. We didn't actually take many because blue skies were sadly lacking! In fact Hubby didn't even get his camera out when we were in Southwold on the Wednesday - saying something like "I've been to Southwold on nice days...." I think I took a couple of token pics just because I'd carried my camera around all day. On BH Monday we went to Denny Abbey (Cambs) - no pics as we've been there on better days too, then on to St. Ives, where the sun did appear from behind the clouds occasionally!
St Ives:
Southwold
I've been busy with CJs over the last week or so. These are my pages for a CJ all about "Home"

Papers are all by Fancy Pants, I hand cut the little house from cereal packet chipboard.
I'll save another of the CJs I've just done for next time (well, I've got to spin it out, haven't I?). Thanks for looking, please come back soon :)

Going Round in Circles

Here are some photos of a couple Circle Journal layouts Ive been working on recently.

The first one is all about our creations, be it crafty or otherwise. I'm not actually sure if this is the best thing I've ever made, but it was certainly the one which at the time caused me the most stress! It was one of the garments I made for my A Level coursework and I had no idea just how complicated it would be to make when I read the brief and made my drawings and patterns.
I'd done all the embroidery as it's done on the reverse of the sheer fabric and I can still remember the panic when the french seams I'd planned to use just wouldn't lie flat on the curved shape. The fabric had been really expensive and now not only was I facing having to do all that embroidery again, but also having to ask my parents for money to buy more material. Fortunately my teacher saved the day and suggested doing "run and fell" seams. I had to unpick those I'd already done, but at least I didn't need to start all over again. I machined all the seams but then had to neaten every single inch of them by hand.
There were 27 covered buttons and rouleau loop fastenings, the sleeve edges were hand finished with different decorative hemming for each fabric, and working with two different fabrics one over the other was a nightmare from start to finish.
Despite all the hassles and difficulties I got there in the end and maybe that's why I think this was my greatest creation - maybe it's the triumph over adversity thing!

The second of the CJs has a theme of Seasons. I couldn't decide whether Spring or Summer was my favourite, but in the end I went with Spring - because it holds the promise of Summer.
I don't really like the Winter, and although Autmn can be beautiful and the weather can be pretty good, there's the old bug-bear of the nights drawing in and the days getting shorter and shorter. Those of you who know me already know that I find that time of the year a real trial.
So Spring it had to be really!

I made this card for a challenge on JB forum. The fabby NickyNoo asked us to use her card for a copycat cardlift - so not just using design elements from her card - this time we had to make a direct copy of her card, though obviously choosing our own papers, colours etc.
This is my cardThe papers are from the the gorgeous "Nancy" collection by Dream Street Papers. The colours are soft and rather subdued and the designs are lovely.
I think this card is OK but needs a bit of a "tweak" - so it might have a revamp and be back on here later.
A new idea for yet another reality show "Celebrity Card Makeover" perhaps? aaaggghhhh

I'm off now to bang my head against the wall for a bit.........

It's Cold Down Under

These weeks are whizzing past, aren't they? I always seem to be playing the catch-up game with my crafting at the moment. I must try to get myself more organised so that I'm not always rushing to get things done at the last minute, maybe then I'd actually manage to post out birthday cards and the like in time for them to arrive on the right day. This is something I'e been truly rubbish at lately.

Anyway, it's Daring Cardmakers day today and it's Kiwi Keryn's turn to set the dare, she's feeling the chill at the moment, Poor Love so here's what she's asking:

In New Zealand at the moment it's winter and cold and dark. No snow here as temperatures don't get that low but still low enough that that's all anyone thinks about and anyone talks about. So this dare should be easy for those in the colder climes of the Southern Hemisphere but in the North it may be a little trickier. Use images, use colour, use embellishments that make you feel cold and remind you of winter.

I'm really really not a happy bunny doing all this Christmas stuff in the middle of the summer - I don't like the cold and I especially don't like those days when it never seems to get light so all these Christmassy projects and challenges just seem to highlight those long dark days right at the time when they should be farthest from my mind. So no more of 'em, pleeeeeease!
Here's my card
I seem to have used the parts of the paper with the writing on the back for the card -but I think they are Adornit. I made the snowman with my Craft Robo. Version 1 didn't have the robin on it, but Mr Snowman looked a bit lonely so I couldn't resist adding a tiny hand-cut robin.

One of the projects I've been late with is the new Circle Journal that's started on Bubbly Funk forum. Well, tbh I did have my book ready on time, but I'll be sending to Di this time, and unfortunately her last CJ went missing in the post (despite being sent Recorded Delivery, mind you....) part way through the circle. So we all decided to make her pages, or in some cases redo them and send them direct to her so she could stick them in a new book. So I wanted to get mine done so I could send them in the same parcel - are you still with me? :-)
Di asked us to Challenge Ourselves for our pages. If you read this blog regularly you'll know how much I whinge about stamping, so I don't think there was any other choice for me. I can't say I'm happy with this LO, but it was definitely a challenge and that's what Di asked for, so it's all her own fault! My own CJ is called "A Festival of Flowers" and I just couldn't resist using the lovely Fancy Pants "Crush" paper collection (yet) again! I even had to buy a few more sheets of my favourites to make sure I had enough! The cover looks like this: This is the Intro page and my own LO I was a bit stuck for an idea for the signing in pages but in the end I did it like this, using acetateto make pockets so that the finished tags will all show through the clear acetate and look like a garden of flowers - well that's the idea anyway!Just to prove how much I love these papers, and how much I've used the same LO idea of the picture frame and cut out flowers sort of LO, here are a couple of other things on a similar theme! This is my LO for Rosie's "Memories" CJ recently And a card for Keryn's last DCM dare, the theme was "distressed" and I think these papers have a lovely, chintzy shabby chic look I think maybe I need to put these papers away for a week or two now. After all, its not as though I don't have any others to use! Thanks for visiting, don't forget to check out the DCM blog for the other chilly offerings the DT are sharing this week.

Season's Greetings

Not only did hubby feel the need to vocalise the fact that this week saw us nearer to next Christmas than last Christmas but Jo (fabby though she is) only went and landed a Christmas card dare on us for this week's Daring Cardmakers challenge.

Now I really don't like to even think about making Christmas cards till the end of September. I do like to start buying the odd thing to put away for Christmas presents, but that's different because it doesn't feel like the dreaded Christmas shopping when you're only buyin the odd item.

Sometime around April or May a CJ arrived asking me to do a couple of pages about Christmas too, so I think the Christmas goblins have it in for me this year!

Anyway. After the shock of reading Jo's dare subsided I decided that it would be fun to go along with my current love of chipboard birdies, branches and circles. Here's my card

I drew the basic birdie shape on "cereal packet chipboard", then used paper from the BG Figgy Pudding 6x6 pad to cover the bird's wing and background paper circle. The red card is just made from a scrap of dark red Bazzill
The branch is from Bubbly Funk and I just inked it up with shade of brown, orange and red inks - the leaves are supposed to look like those last few that hang on all through the winter. I added a bit of glitter for a frosty look
The letters are rubons - they are teeny tiny Doodlebug ones that came in an old Self Addressed kit. Yet again a little bit of unwanted rubon attached itself to the corner of the little card - but I disguised it this time by popping the corner under Robin's beak
It all looked a bit too naked so I put a dotted border around the card

I quite like the idea of this one so it might be one of my card designs for this Christmas. Usually I hate any cards I make ahead of the real Christmas card making season, so I've surprised myself with this one!
A real scary dare Jo - thanks for that, Mate! :-) :-) :-)
I've got a few commissions on the go at the moment. This one is for a 30th Wedding Anniversary. As that's the "Pearl" anniversary I've used a string of pearl beads around the message. I've also used gold heart-shaped brads, heated up and dipped in pearl UTEE. I didn't really want a very in-your-face gold effect on this card so UTEEing the brads worked quite well. I used a really soft gold coloured and slightly glittery card to cut the fancy bits of the Cuttlebug hearts. That beautiful ribbon from Ribbon Oasis (of course....) is cream, but with tiny gold spots.

The gorgeous papers are from Dream Street Papers, this set is the Carrinna Rose collection, which I love for it's soft colours and elegant designs. They do seem to have a paper collection for every possible style and occasion whcih is probably why I've been tempted into acquiring quite a lot of their stuff recently!

Last up for this time is cj entry I've just finished. This one is for a tiny book - I think it's cut with a sizzix die - so I've tried to keep it fairly simple. Hard for me as I do have a tendency to throw a lot of stuff at my LOs! The theme of the book is "My Name" and I've gone along with what others in the group have already done and kept the journalling hidden away on tabs and tags.
Now that the Bubbly Funk June kit, and access to the fabby Bubbly Scrumptious e-mag is already in the sticky mitts of the subscribers, next time I can show the things I made for the May kit. The sneak peeks are here and hereif you want to see them again

Thanks for visiting. hope you'll come by again soon

My Beautiful book

I'm listening to Coldplay's Viva la Vida atm. Actually I've listened to it at least once a day since it landed on my doormat a couple of days after it was released - and if that makes me sound sad, mad or just bonkers, well so be it. I just love this album, I think it's fab - it was worth the long long time we've had to wait for it.

Anyway - on to crafty stuff!

I'm so thrilled with my Bubbly Funk Circle Journal!

It arrived home this week after travelling around the country since the beginning of October last year, and I really couldn't be more chuffed with the results of it's epic journey. All those involved have done a fab job - and considering I was asking an awful lot when I said (with a little bit of aprehension):
"In this Circle Journal I want you to share your favourite crafty stash with me...."
I'm absolutely thrilled that no-one held back - they really did use that stash and the resulting pages are wonderful - maybe we should use our facvourites more often if this is the sort of thing we manage when we do!

So, huge thanks to Rosie, Karen, Ann, Tracey, Di O, Linda, Caroline, and Di W. Not long now till it starts all over again and a new CJ begins it's travels....

Here is my lovely "Stash Attack" - you can click on the photos for a closer look

The cover
The Intro and my own pageThe pages by my talented forum friends
The sign-in pages