Feeling blue

Hi, all
I'd like to think that some of you have been missing me, so I've come on here to explain myself. I haven't suddenly given up crafting, but I've been quite ill and in and out of hospital the past few weeks.
I've had kidney stones, a ruptured ovarian cyst, E-coli, MRSA and urinary tract infections. Last week I had surgery to clear all the rubbish in my stomach, and though I'm home now, I really have no strength and I've been ordered to rest for at least another week. I thought it would be fun doing nothing, but at the moment I'm even too weak to read much.
I can't wait to get back to my craft room and as my new baby hairband buisness is launching on 3rd December I really hope I'm back to my old self again. I s till have quite a bit of work left to do for the launch so wish me luck.
My two married daughters have been amazing, helping me with the little 'uns and sending me stuff to cheer me up. The grandkids came to visit me in hospital and had great fun riding up and down on the bed, but everyone and most of all me is glad that I'm finally home and pain free.
Hope to be back very soon

Out of my Comfort Zone

Over at UK Scrappers we are busy preparing for our cybercrop. A cybercrop or CC is exactly that. A group of scrapping fanatics get together over the WWW and have fun taking part in challenges,classes and learning new techniques. One of the precrop classes was a layout embracing white space. Now I'm really not good at leaving empty spaces on my pages so this class was a real challenge for me. I did the page though and it's not one of my favourites, but I'm glad that I did manage to get out of my comfort zone.

The original layout can be seen if you follow This Link and open the attatched PDF. Below is my take on it.

 I took DGD1 and DGD2 out for pizza during the summer and they had a lovely time. The original layout has suns where I put the pizza pies and a cloud where I used a cupcake.

 I cut the cupcake shape freehand. No I also didn't know I could draw a somewhat decent looking cupcake. I painted it with acrylics, outlined it in brown felt tip pen and addedd some gems and a button. The pizza pies are made from kraft cardstock also outlined in brown and felt tipped coloured dots for 'toppings'.

The circles and flower are die cut with my cuttlebug and finished with a button and a gem. As always thanks for coming.

Wall hanging

Hi, this is a really quick post to show you a wall hanging I made. We have a festival, where we build little temporary homes, something like a shed, only nicer, and spend most of our time in there over the next seven days. We decorate these homes to make them beautiful and this is what I made

 I used a 12 x 12 chipboard and then divided it into twelve with chipboard strips. Lots of texture paste, Dylusions inks, Metal bits and Prima flowers went onto this project. Below you can see some close ups.

As always I thank you for visiting my humble blog. Our holiday starts in half an hour, so I really must go. I'll be back in about 10 days

An experiment and a challenge

Today's page started out as an experiment, and since said experiment worked out so brilliantly I decided to use my worthy efforts in a layout. I had the two perfect pictures to use in this page and it also perfectly suited the September sketch challenge over at Creative Craft World, which you cann find at:http://creativecraftworld.blogspot.co.uk/  so here goes:

 DGD1 sat herself on my stairs one day and proudly told me ''Look Bubby I'm in prison''. I couldn't resist snapping a photo or three of her. BTW, Bubby is Yiddish for Grandma, just in case you haven't cottoned on. I used the Lilac House collection by Fancy Pants for this LO. I've had it in my stash for quite a while, but never really found a use for it. It jumped out at me when I was deciding which papers to use. The colours match perfectly and the stripes blend in really well with the picture. trimmed the stripey pp to 9x9, distressed and inked the edges and then tore it in swveral places to give it a slightly shabby feel. The title for this was obvious given what Tzivi had said to  me.

 These acetate flowers are the result of my experiment. It involves some acetate, a die cutting machine and dies, alcohol inks and a heat gun.

 First I diecut the acetate using my cuutlebug and the Spellbinders Rose Creations die. I had to run it through a few times and even then I still needed to use my scissors for some bits. Then I alcohol inked the blooms. I used a mixture of purples, blues and greens. Then the exciting experimental bit. Holding the petals with tweezers, I used my heat gun to curl them. You need to be really quick or they curl in on themselves or melt completely. While it is still hot you can manipulate the petals a bit, but I take no responsibility for burns so please be careful, and don't worry if the first couple are not perfect. I soon got the hang of it. I layered 2 or 3 at a time and used brads to secure them to my page. The little green berry branches are Petaloo. They were plain white, but I inked them up a bit.

 You could try using a candle.You probably have more control as it's not so hot and the petals will take slightly longer to curl

 I rubbed some lace with purple Stazon and stapled it on with my tiny attatcher. I sort of buried the lace under the torn bits.

I turned up the bottom right hand corner of the pp to reveal the other side and I finished off the LO with some bling. Wish me luck for the challenge.

Making waves

I've a new layout to show you all today. It is of  my daughter showing off for me at the pool. We had a lovely few days away in August, and luckily for us we had good weather all the time so Sarah could make plenty use of the outdoor pool.

 For this layout I used the Barefoot and Bliss collection from Bo Bunny. I wanted to create a feeling of a lot of movement on the page, so I cut the pps into wavy strips. I then used my sew it all tool to make the wavy holes along the layout and stitched them in co ordinating colours. I also machine stitched with white thread at the borders of the strips of patterned paper. All the embellishments and the title are part of the same collection.

 Some close up details of the stitching. I drew some blue wavy lines as well and added a liitle blue stitching too.

 Above and below are some close ups of the layering and the embellishments.

 Sarah really was cool by the pool. Thanks for visiting me today. It's always appreciated.

Band-it

I have a new occupation. My daughter and I are not willing to pay ridiculous prices for hair accessories, but both we and our daughters want the latest trends and fahions. So my genius of a daughter came up with the idea that her extremely talented mum can make them herself at a fraction of the cost. And of course if said mum - that's yours truly- buys all the bits and pieces needed it won't cost the family clever clogs anything. Always willing to have a go at new stuff, I said why not, and these are what I came up with.

 A mixture of  baby hair bands and hair clips for little -and not so little - madams

 This one is a hair clip for DGDs 1 and 2. Of course when Mummy makes the accessories they can match perfectly to the clothes. I put the turquoise and black ribbons together and treated them as one when making this bow.

 This hairband belongs to DGD3. You can buy every colour of elastic imaginable on Ebay. The bows on this are bought, and my bling box came in very useful as well

 Another one for little madam number 3. This is a simple double looped bow and some more gems

 And yet another baby one. Here I made two loops one slightly smaller than the other. I laid little over large and finished with a little sparkle flower and - you got it - bling!

 The two you see here are for not so little madam, my precious daughter Sarah. These are actually made from the same fabric a the outfits that I sewed. Maybe I'll get round to putting up some pics tomorrow. The one below is actually navy blue and mint green but the lighting was awful when I took the photo.

 And here is my beautiful granddaughter making a lovely model. Isn't she a cutie? So I've decided as I'm so good at this, maybe I can sell them and actually make some money from at least one of my hobbies. I've even thought of a name for my buisness. BAND-IT, the title of my post today. So all I need to do now is actually put my money where my mouth is, literally

Thanks for popping along today and as always I do appreciate all your lovely comments

Another card

Today is Sarah's birthday and here is the card I made for her. I am entering it into Creative Craft World's mini challenge.

 I used Bo Bunny's lush Garden Girl collection for this card. I'm really getting much better at chopping up my patterned papers for smaller projects than 12 x 12. The base is Bazzil, the lace is from Webster's pages and the baker's twine is MME. The sentiment is some very old mini alphas.

 The bunch of flowers is cut from one of the PPs and adhered with foam squares to lift it off the page. I also double cut some of the blooms and stuck them on top of one another for added dimension. It's not very clear in the photo, but looks really effective IRL. I added some little gems to the blooms and banner for extra girly sparkle and Sarah really loves it. Below you can see detail of the mini banner

Thanks for popping along to my blog today, and your lovely comments are always appreciated.

Happy Birthday Yossi

September is a really busy month here. We have 8 birthdays to celebrate. Here I'm starting with My DS2's card.

 I used the gorgeous Craftsman collection from Prima for the card. The base is bazzil. I wanted the card to look quite grungy, so I did alot of distressing inking and tearing for it.  I tucked some lace cut from Webster's pages vintage tulle under some of the tears, and I stitched around the cog cutouts and also did some stitching around the notecard.  I layered some stickers and trinckets and added some Tim Holtz chains to the cogs. I also placed a cog pin at th top corner of the card. The title is Hebrew for congratulations.

 Some close ups of the stitching and chains

 A little bit of lace

 Stickers, trinkets and sentiments. The title and some more stitching

Thanks for calling, and I always appreciate your lovely comments

A card a layout and a mini

Yes I know my blog's been sadly neglected lately. I'm going through a bit of a rough time with my health recently, and haven't really had the energy. I have some kind of unidentified lung condition which has me coughing all over the place and leaves me gasping for air so badly that I need oxygen to help me breathe. I won't bore you with the details, but I do hope the good docs find out what my problem is soon.

In the meantime I've managed a LO and a birthday card for DGD 1 who's turning 4 tomorrow. I can hardly believe I am a grandmother of a 4 year old. I've also started a mini featuring the party our family held over the Jubilee weekend.

Firstly here is my LO. The picture is of Sarah with her really good friend. The layout really came about because I was experimenting with a flower idea I thought of. I made the flower and it turned out so beautiful that I thought it was too good to waste and turned the whole thing into this LO
.

 Each layer of the flower is made by cutting out 5 hearts and snipping the bottom point into a  shape. I then glued the V together and glued each heart to the other with strong glue. I overlapped each heart slightly and the hearts needed a bit of manipulation to get the shape I wanted. I used two different sized hearts for the layers. I drew them freehand but you could use a punch or die if you prefer. I then used puffy paint on the edges and when I had puffed up the paint and it was dry I added some stickles to the edges and the body of the flower. I glued the two layers and finished it with a Prima flower centre. I hope you understand these instructions in case you want to give it a try

 I used the Martha Stewart lacy hearts border punch for my strips of PP and then used ribbon to lace through the holes. I also kept the tiny hearts that came away from the punch and glued them randomly over the LO

 A close up of the little heart fall outs. I also used puffy paint and stickles on the edges of my photo matte.

 

 

Next up is the card I made for my granddaughter.

 

 First I took a 5 x 10 inch piece of CS and folded it in half. I covered the outside and the inside lower half with PP

 Afterwards I chose this delicious little decoupage image as decoration. I stuck the whole image to a 4 1/2 by 51/2 piece of pp covered cs. I folded the top layer of the card in half and stuck the embellishment to the bottom half.

 

Some handmade spiral roses hold the mountain folded part of the card in place if you see what I'm getting at.

Lastly, I've been working on a mini album of our Jubilee party. The actual book is finished, but I have yet to fill it with pictures and decorations. Hopefull I'll get it done over the weekend, but in the meantime here is what I've done so far.

 This is the front cover. The album was inspired by one made by the amazingly talented Laura Denison. Check out all her really cool stuff on thepapertrail.blogspot.com. You will betruly flabbergasted by the stuff that Laura can do. I used the Portobello Road collection by Papermania. This collection is fantastic. It has everything you'll ever need for anything British, and no I don't work for them. The crown is cut from a sizzix die and I'm still going to add the number 60 from Tim Holtz numerals on the bottom corner .

 This is an approximate view of the inside. Each page has several pockets and tags for photos, journalling or ephemera.

 This is a close up view of one side of each page

And here is one from the other side. Hopefully soon I'll be able to show you the finished product. In the meantime thanks for stopping by and I always appreciate any comments.

Lay it out

I've had a productive few days, and have 4 layouts for you today. The first one is of DGD2 AKA Estie. She never stays still long enough to get a decent pose, so I decided to scrap her in her silly positions.

 As you can see, she never stops moving. This layout didn't really come out anyhing like I imagined it. With so many pictures I toyed with the idea of a double layout, but I don't really go for those, so I did this instead. The background is pale pink cs, and the pp is from thebasic grey little black dress collection as are the chipboard embellies. The gems are Prima flower centres and the trim is Websters Pages. I drew some faux stitching around the pictures, pps and embellishments. I added a stamped bloom in each corner and some pink bling to finish.

 The Alphas are American Craft DIY Thickers. I glittered them and added some more pink bling

 A close up of the chipboard above and the stamp below.

This next layout is of Sarah. She's kneeling on the wall in my garden. I used  Websters Pages Girl Land for this LO. I cut the pp around a shaped cardstock and then cut out the middle to make a frame, The picture is matted and then I used some of the trim to frame the matte.

 The blooms are a mix of Prima and Petaloo, white flowers which I inked and misted to achieve my desired shade. The leaves are also Prima.

 I added some bling to the centre of my blooms to give them some sparkle

These little knots were made from tiny remnants of ribbon that I could never bring myself to throw out, and I finally found a use for them

These little butterfly buttons and the green crochet brads seen above are from the Bo Bunny Little Miss collection. I absolutely adore Bo Bunny and have almost all of their coleections. I really need to scrap loads to justify all those purchases.

The layout above shows Sarah and Lazer feeling on top of the world. I used the Bo Bunny weekend market collection. I wonder who comes up with all the names for the collections. I mean why Weekend Market? Anyway, I digress. I cut the world shape from one of the pp's and added some blue  trim from my ribbon collection. Some noteworthy, dimensional stickers, trinkets and more bling finish off this one. The inking on the background cardstock is not ink at all, but chocolate which someone who shall remain nameless dripped onto my work when they knew full well that eating is forbidden in the craft room. Good job the brown blended in, so a bit of spray mist and a paper towel made this look deliberate.

This last layout which I have for you today is of my DGD1 AKA Tzivi. Contrary to her little sister, Tzivi loves posin for the camera. Here she is lying in the very messy grass in my back garden.

I used the Butterfly Garden collection from Pink Paislee. I kept this LO very simple as I wanted the focus on the flowers and leaves. They were created using the Rose Creations die from Spellbinders. I shaped the flowers and leaves with a ball tool thingy whose proper name I don't know, added some stamens and bling. I know I'm very into bling at the moment. Gems seem to go on all my projects lately. I left the chipboard butterfly bare, but added some diamond stickles to it as well as to my blooms and leaves. The title is American Craft Thickers. Thanks so much for joining me again and I hope to be back in a few days.