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
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 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.