Finally something to show you

Hello bloggers and thanks for your patience. My life has settled down to some semblance of normal and today I have 2 new Layouts to show you.

The first one is of my brother with my DD1. The picture is 23 years ago. My DD now has three children of her own and my brother is  married with 4 little 'uns and is acutely embarrassed by the way he looks on the picture, but I really like it.

 I used Kraft cardstock for the background and splodged some paint on it. I'm getting to grips with my messy side and am finding it very therapeutic. The rest of the pps are from the Bo Bunny, Welcome Home collection. I fussy cut the fence and flourish, made some swirly roses and created a banner for the title. The alphas are ancient ones from the bottom of my alphas book and they provide a great finishing touch

 DEtails of the fence. This took me ages but is well worth it. I adhered it with foam squares to give it dimension.

 The roses are made by cutting circles of paper into spirals, twirling them and then sort of bending and squashing them. I finished each one with a gem in the centre

Details of the title banner and alphas. You can also catch a glimpse of the paint splats.



This next LO is of two of my favourite subjects, namely DGD1 and DGD2. I took this spontaneous shot just as they wer hugging each other and love the way it came out.

 I made this LO using the Little Black Dress collection from Basic Grey. I love this collection. It's so classic and can be used in many different ways. I also made use of one of my numerous pizza boxes. I stripped it down to the corrugation, tore it up a bit and used some acrylic paint dabbers in black and cream on it. The dabbers do have fancy name colours, but I only remember the generic names. I machine stitched round the outside edge of my background paper and also around the photo matte and the actual photo. I added some blooms, lace, a netting bow and rubons. The gem centres are from Kaiser craft. Finally the title which reads 'Sister Act' is done on a journalling spot with teeny tiny alphas.

 These blooms are done using the new cut fold tuck dies from spellbinders. They are amazing. I only have one set so far but plan on treating myself to some more in the future.

 The rubon is Basic Grey again and I put some little gems on for effect.

The bow is done with Webster's antique netting tied with some black ribbon, and the lace is I can't remember what from my stash.

That's all for now. Thanks for visiting and I love reading all your comments too.

Hello again

Hi everybody. I know I've been AWOL for a couple of months, but I've been to hell and back in my personal life and blogging was not even ON my list of priorities. So I apologise for that and am hoping to get crafting and sewing again now that I'm back to normal - whatever that is.
I'm not going to go into personal details, but I'm now a single Mum and though it's really hard work, I'm really happy now, so it was worth going through a horrible few weeks even though I thought I wouldn't survive it. My friends really rallied round and gave me the support and help to know that I did the right thing. That's all for now. See you soon

Playing tag

Hi there. Over on UKscrappers, I've been doing a fabric tag swap. we had to make 6 tags where the main ingredient was fabric. They could be enhanced with other stuff, but the majority had to be fabric based. Here's my effort.

 My base is burgundy felt and so is the backing. I added some pale pink felt and a touch of pink print fabric to the base. The flower is cut from the same burgundy and pink felt using the new Tim Holtz flower garland strip die and my lovely cuttlebug. I had to run the felt through the machine about six times to get a clean cut, but the end result was worth it. I sewed the pale pink onto the burgundy with green variegated embroidery thread and the pink print is appliqued on top with orange thread. I sewed the base and the backing together using the same green variegated thread. The watering can and butterfly are inked and glimmer misted chipboard, and I distress inked the lace which I then sewed on using teeny tiny stitches. Above the lace I added some burgundy loopy ribbon and the flower on the lace is an alcohol inked button, with a little green gem on it. I also added some gems to the lace and an alcohole inked crystal drop also compliments of Tim Holtz. A little silver charm and some stickles grass and a bird finish off the tag. I really enjoyed doing this swap and can't wait to see what the other swapees come up with. Below are some close ups of the detail.

 The flower is made up of layers of alternate coloured felt with a green dewdrop stuck in the centre.

 The crystal drop is alcohol inked with a gem stuck on for effect. The chipboard butterfly is inked and glimmer misted, and I added some stickles to jazz it up a bit

Here you can see the lace, ribbon, little button flower and stickles ''grass''. Thnks for stopping by and see you again soon.

Welcome Miri

Hello there bloggers. I'm catching some blog time, before rushing off to an appointment with my son. Sheya is diabetic and even at 19 he still likes me to come with him to his hospital appointments. Never mind, it gives me a chance to snooze on the bus. I am flippin' exhaustem. My granddaughters are adorably cute, but I've forgotten how hard it is to look after a couple of toddlers.
Anyway, back to the point. The newcomer to our family was named on Saturday. Her name is Miriam, but we're calling her Miri. She's too little for such a mouthful.
In between running after toddlers, doing Passover cleaning and sewing for everyone, also fo Passover, I managed to squeeze in a quick layout of ittle Miri. Here's a peek.

I used white cardstock as a base, and cut a frame from pink cardstock. The stripey paper is from my stash which I am trying to use up, as is the ruler paper. The blooms are Prima and the rest of the embellishments are from the My Minds Eye, Lost and Found collection. This picture  is one of the first ones of Miri taken soon after she was born . I can't wait to make layouts of all three together. Thanks for coming by and have a good day.

A brand new arrival

I know I've been a terrible blogger lately, but I've been up to my ears in working. First Purim and now Passover. But I have some gorgeous exciting news. DD1 has given birth to an adorable baby girl this morning, and here is the evidence

This is baby number 3 for DD. All girls. She is totally adorable and looks exactly like big sister 1 aka Tzivi. She weighed in at 2.9kilos which in English translates as 6 and 1/2 pounds. She's teeny tiny and gorgeous. She will be named at a naming ceremony in the synagogue on Saturday. That's all for now. Thanks for visiting

All Dressed Up

Okay, so I've been wittering on about Purim and the costumes I've been making, so I've decided to show you some pictures.

I'm dressing up my children as the Biblical Moses and Miriam and I've tried to keep it as authentic as possible.

 Lazer is being Moses, so I made him a shepherds type tunic and decorated it depicting what Moses is famed for. He was a shepherd and a sheep led him to the water where he saw the burning bush. The wording means approximately, Moses our loyal shepherd. All the decorations are appliqued on. It took me ages, but Lazer loves it and I'm very proud of it. The back of the costume shows the tablets and the Hebrew wording for The Bible as given to us through Moses,  The headdress is done in a style I imagine was worn three thousand years ago.

 Sarah is dressing up as Miriam and again I appliqued the decorations which Miriam was famous for. The back has a well, and the wording means literally Miriam's well and the front shows a drum, because Miriam danced with the Jewish women after they were freed from Egyptian slavery. I made good use of my Tim Holtz chains and some metal brads on the drum. The headdress is also how I imagine women dressed then.

And here is a pic of them both together. They were not being very cooperative, so the pictures aren't great. Thanks for coming by and looking

Just saying Hi

I've been crazy busy lately and haven't had time to blog, but I don't want to be too neglectful, so I'm just popping in to say Hi. My laptop died and I am now the proud owner of a brand new one.
I've been really busy sewing Purim costumes for my little ones. I'll be taking pictures and putting them up in a few days, hopefully.
Yesterday I was in Belgium for my niece's wedding. It was lovely, but I'm totally exhausted. DD has another 3 weeks to go to her due date and is totally fed up.
There's no other news, so I'll wish you all a very good night and thanks for visiting.