Quite the ....

.... output around here these days - February being my busiest month for family and friend's occasions.  This one is a Mini club friend, who I normally wouldn't do a card for - but it was his 50th, so I pushed myself a bit ha ha!!  Here's what I made:

Update 21/02/17- this card was a challenge winner at Cardz4guyz - thank you!!
Update 01/03/17- this card was a Top 3 winner at Moving Along with the Times - thank you!!

I'm entering the following challenges: Cardz4guyz ("No patterned paper"), Moving Along with the Times ("For a Man"), Creative Inspirations ("Anything Goes") and Seize the Birthday

I kept this card quite plain, using some old background Basic Grey paper - and used a broken poky tool to scratch deep, jagged lines on it - I really like this effect and I know I'll do it again.  Added a bit of stitching and some tiny punched circles for embellishments.  Here's a side-shot:

Recipe:

Papers: Basic Grey "Ambrosia"

Stamp: Blade Rubber Stamps "Mini"

Font: "KG Sorry Not Sorry Chub" dafont.com

Other: needle and thread

Thanks for looking!

Inch by inch ....

.... I haven't made an inchie card in a very long time - before I had my blog I think.  I like the fiddlyness of them - the precision of stamping on the little grid of squares, adding colour, splatter or whatever, then separating them, inking, backing them and finally ever so carefully mounting them with a little, hopefully perfect, bit of a gap between each one.  Here's the finished inchie card:

I'm entering this in the following challenges: Stampin' for the Weekend and Crafty Girls ("Anything Goes"), Little Red Wagon ("Truly Dimensional"), Creative Inspirations ("Favourite Colour Combination" - I love blue and brown), Crafty Creations ("Happy Birthday") and Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenges ("D is for Distress").

The map stamp is from a Tim Holtz set, which also has an airplane that I could have used, but as this card is for a Mini friend, I stamped a Mini instead - and combined with the awful punning sentiment!!  Here's a side-shot of the dimension of the card:

Recipe:

Papers: Authentique "Abroad"

Stamps: Tim Holtz "Warehouse District", Mini

Colouring Medium: Watercolour paints and distress inks
Font: Cheddar Jack - dafont.com

Other: Clear embossing powder, baker's twine, Doodlebug brads

Thanks for looking!

Top o' the Morning ....

.... to you!  It's St. Patrick's Day, or Paddy's Day, whichever you prefer, here today.  And of course, the weather is horrendous - cold, windy, rain and sleet - classic St. Patrick's Day weather!  We are not going into town to the parade, not my favourite thing at the best of times and in this weather, no thank you!

It's time for another Sentimental Sundays challenge, and this week, it's "Anything Goes".  Our prize sponsor is Redonkulus Designs and our lovely Calypso and her husband, Patrick, have also contributed prizes.  One of the prizes will be for a randomly-picked commenter, what a nice idea.

My card has, again thanks to the yukky weather, photographed really darkly.  Here's what I made:

I used a sketch from Deconstructed Sketch and I'm also entering this into the following challenges: Crafty Cardmakers ("Masculine Birthday featuring technology or a gadget"), Simon Says Stamp and Show ("Shabby Chic"), and Totally Gorjuss ("Something Old" - mine is the Mini stamp, it was one of the first stamps I bought back in about 2005).

I went all Tim Holtz-y on this card, using Destinations papers, and the tag was coloured by spritzing water onto swipes of distress ink and then mashing the blank tag about in the ink.  I repeated a few times, between drying sessions, and it came out really shabby which is what I hoped for!  The gears and sprockets have been copper heat-embossed.  Here's a side-shot of the dimension:

Recipe:

Papers: Tim Holtz "Destinations"

Stamp: "Mini" by Blade Rubber Stamps

Die-Cuts: Nestabilities "Sprightly Sprockets" and "Labels 21"

Other: Copper embossing powder, Doodlebug brads, twine

Thanks for looking!

Funny old ....

.... weather we're having at the moment.  Last week, most unseasonal temperatures - up to 20C and a week of blazing sunshine.  This week, by contrast - there have been showers of sleet and hail, and a corresponding drop in temps!  I don't mind, I'm an indoorsy kinda girl - I like to look out at sunshine, but if it's raining, as long as I'm indoors, it's fine with me!!!

It's Thursday morning and time for another PaperPlay challenge.  Our challenge is "Shaped Cards", we're sponsored by Simon Says Stamp, and by some miracle, I've actually got two cards!!!

The first is for that friend's 50th I was telling you about on my last post - here's what I did:

And the second is from my son's birthday, I thought I had posted it already but I hadn't.  He's still into Lego in a big way, but since I've done a Lego card for him before (8th birthday, if I remember correctly), I decided to go with something else - he loves the Simpsons, so I went with Homer - and since it's a birthday with a "0" in it, really there was nothing else I could use but a doughnut!!!  So here it is:

Thanks for looking!

Churning out ....

.... the male cards!!  November is a month for male birthdays in my family, nothing like adding that pressure to that of the upcoming Christmas season!!  My husband is first, then his nephew, then a two-week gap before some more.  Gah!!!  Anyway, here's what I made for my husband this year:

I'm entering this into the following challenges: Basic Grey Challenges ("Anything Goes" - second time this week!), CES Challenges ("Entertain Us - Song or Film" - of course, mine is "The Italian Job"!), Totally Papercrafts ("Stitch It"), The Shabby Tea Room ("Homespun Fall" - a gorgeous inspiration pic that I've taken the colours from) and Our Creative Corner ("Masculine - using non-traditional colours").

Another pinwheel (or are they called rosettes?) - anyway, I love making them.  They are the perfect way to use those strips that are cut off the edge of a piece of 6" x 6" paper to make the background layer for my cards, those strips I can never bear to throw away.  I have oodles of them and at last can put them to some use!!!

I've been teasing my husband because he's getting to that stage where he's doing that stretchy arm thing when he's reading - needs to get the eyes tested, etc., and he is in complete denial.  When he looked at this card, he said "There's only one "L" in Paul", to which I replied "There's only one "L" plus an exclamation mark on your card - you need to get your eyes tested!".  Hee hee, got 'im!!!

I had to make the Mini bit three times - I had decided to try out the cracked glass technique, used about half a pot of e.p. building up the thickness I wanted, cracked OK, then my son came to see what I was doing and asked was the Mini supposed to look like it had crashed!  Oh dear, not quite the look I was going for.  The second one I forgot to distress the edges before putting one layer of e.p. on and it looked bland.  This is the third!

Recipe:

Papers: Basic Grey "Wander"

Stamp: "Mini" by Blade Rubber Stamps

Sentiment: Computer Generated

Other: Distress Inks, ribbon from stash, Doodlebug brads, needle + thread

Now on to nephew's card - eek!  He's turning 20 so no longer a teenager, but that doesn't make it any easier!!

Thanks for looking!

Back inside ....

.... after a fun time camping!!  I am drowning in filthy laundry atm - not to mention having had to go in to school for a few days - not fun, it's still supposed to be the holidays.

We had a ball at our annual Mini camping weekend.  The weather was way better than forecast, only one period of sustained rain, one day of completely unexpected sunshine too.  We went to see a birds of prey display on the Saturday afternoon, it was fantabulous.  I'm not that keen on birds at close quarters, but was prepared to make an exception for something like this baby:

And here is my mucky puppy of a son - half an hour after arriving at the campsite, before we had even finished putting up our tent, he fell into a swamp.  My husband took the photo, and for some reason only captured the top half, the bottom half was completely black, wellies full of black mud.  Oh the joys of boys!!  By noon the next day, ALL the boys had fallen into the swamp so many times, we had run out of clean clothes for them.  They were warned (again!) not to go into the swamp, and threatened with girls clothes if they did it again.  That stopped them!!

And here are some of the Minis in a bright green field in the sunshine.  Ours are the two in the foreground of the second pic:

Haven't made any cards in a while, but I've got a few planned in my head, will start one of them tomorrow I hope.

Thanks for looking!

Lots of ....

.... in-jokes in the project I'm showing you today. 

I rarely make very personalised cards, apart from adding a name or an age.  I can't imagine anything worse than having to make a card for a 70 year old school caretaker who likes drinking whiskey and betting on racehorses (this was a real card a crafting buddy had to make - I would have said "No" to that particular commission and ran screaming in the opposite direction)!!

Friends of ours had a joint 40th birthday party on Saturday night - it was a vinyl party, everyone had to bring old records - we had a very odd mix of 60s soul, 70s disco and 80s electronic, based on the age and record collections of those present!  The birthday couple, especially the guy, are big fans of Father Ted and can quote great chunks of the episodes verbatim, so we decided to get them a copy of The Specials "Ghost Town" as a joke present and base the card/gift holder around it.  Here's what I made:

Front cover:

Inside, with pocket for gift cards on left, and 7" record holder on right:

Here's a close-up of the Mo Manning dancing nuns image.  For embellishment, I typed out various Father Ted quotes and stuck them down, haven't put close ups 'cos some of them are a bit rude (nothing stopping you from clicking on the image, though)!!

It was a busy weekend, on Sunday we went to a car show.  The weather was glorious.   Here's a few pics:

The two Minis we brought - blue Traveller to the front, black Cooper behind:

Some fab VW camper vans and a divine Fiat 500:

The Minis all lined up in the sunshine:

And I was delighted to finally meet a fellow blogger, Margie.  She and I have been talking for over two years, but have never met in real life until now - it was an absolute pleasure to chat to her and her lovely niece, Rommeij.  Here we are in front of Margie's lovely Morris Minor Traveller - and see that necklace I'm wearing, it made an interesting pattern on my sunburn - the bit I forgot to put sunblock on.  Duh! 

(Iif you were wondering about the Father Ted/Ghost Town connection, here's a utube video of the piece of the relevant episode)

Thanks for looking!

A mixed bag ....

.... today, I've got all sorts of pictures to show and things to tell.

I'm back from a weekend away camping, it took a few days beforehand to organise the gear, and will take a few more to get it all packed away in the attic again.  I haven't crafted in a week and a half, must get back at it before we, sob sob, go back to school next week.

I was very happy to find out that my "Bon Voyage" Tilda card from a few weeks ago made the Top 5 on ABC Challenge - I got a blinkie for my sidebar (dances about a bit!).  I know I'm a saddo, but I really am happier to get a blinkie than a prize!!!

On my last post, I showed pictures of my desk after a book text flower-making session.  Inspired by my crafty friend Alicia, I decided to make a set of quite simple cards, and use the flowers on the front.  I wasn't going to ink and stitch, but it just didn't look right, so out came the applicator and needle, up went the timescale and here's what I ended up with:

I used some very old paper from a kit, cut the shapes using Nestabilities, the first time I've made shaped cards like this, great fun!!!  I made the leaves from my trusty Hero Arts set that I use all the time, and added some October Afternoon letters.  Here's a little close-up of one card:

We "harvested" our potatoes before we went away, one black plastic container yielded 25 spuds of varying sizes.  Haven't eaten them yet, maybe tomorrow.  Here they are:

And finally, here are a few pics from our camping weekend - we were away with the Mini Club, went for a drive up the mountains on Saturday, here are some of the cars just before a rainstorm hit:

And here's our little corner of the campsite, the Mini at the front is my baby!!

Now, enough dilly-dallying, back to the washing machine I go!!

Thanks for looking!

Lots and lots ....

.... of brown.  Still liking brown as a crafting colour, don't know why, I just do!!

This one I've done using this week's sketch on Friday Sketchers.  The photo is vile, it looks much nicer in real life, especially the flower - it's more softly detailed than shows on the pic.  I'm also entering it in Totally Gorjuss, who are looking for ribbon - I've used the crochet lace ribbony stuff on this one.

The next card I made in a huge hurry for yet another of our friends who turned 50 recently.  They rang a few days before his birthday to say they were calling round, and I had to make the card there and then before they arrived.  Only took an hour and half or so - that's quick for me!!!!

Thanks for looking - I am now off to try and make a birthday card with a horse on it.  I don't like horses. Guess I'll make it a brown horse, then I might be more inspired!!!! Sigh.