Flowers and sparkle

Good morning to another bright and sunny day, although thunder storms are threatened for later. Still the garden is looking good and I have nearly finished organising it. So much so I have taken my recent photos outside.

Well you know how I love sparkle, so when I saw Paperplay's challenge was flowers and sparkle I knew I had to design a card for that one. I also saw this sketch at Moving along with the Times and another theme of flowers at Charisma and Nordsalten Hobbyklub so I decided to combine them all. I had downloaded this gorgeous sheet music cover of 'Roses from Picardy' from Antique Images and a pink and green theme fitted perfectly, linking with the Creative Card Crew challenge.

I have used two DPs and some sheet music for the backgrounds. I couldn't make one of my own frames to fit this so I used double-sided tape to frame the green paper and cover it with glitter. I distressed the image, the rose paper and the music paper and used stickles on the edges of two of them.

The roses I had in my collection and I spritzed the lighter ones and the music paper with Tattered Angels water melon glimmer mist. I experimented with several things for the ribbon effect across the lower part of the page, but nothing seemed quite right until I die cut a long scroll shape to look like a stem effect for the flowers....... and so it all came together.

Supplies used
Stickles - Star Dust and Cotton Candy
Mireille glitter
Distress inks - Fired Brick and Vintage Photo
Glimmer Mist - Watermelon
Sizzix swirly decorative strip

Enjoy the weekend. Hopefully we will have a BBQ tonight and sit outside again, as we did last night with the family. Love the summer.

Love and hugs. Brenda xxxx
Challenge List
Paperplay Challenges #22 - Flowers and Sparkle
Moving Along with the Times #49 - Sketch
Charisma Cardz Challenges #22 - Flowers
Nordsalten Hobbyklub #8 - Flower Power
Creative Card Crew #51 - Pink and green

Summer theme - shells

Is it really Friday of half term? Oh my goodness, another week gone. We had a great couple of days with Ben, Bev and the girls last weekend down at Seaton, the weather was lovely and we were able to get on the beach. Fantastic. So when I saw that summer and beach themes were coming through in the challenges I decided to focus on a lovely little vintage picture that I had downloaded from the internet and a sketch that had caught my attention at Sketchy Colours. I get alot of my free vintage pics from The Graphics Fairy.

This is the result. I used a DP with shells over it to give me the colour theme, the picture and the postcard were both printed from my file of free vintage downloads. I made the frame and first of all lightly covered it with blue and green glitter, but it didn't give me the effect I wanted so I painted it with old paper distress crackle paint and rubbed distress inks into it when it had dried. I have some clear square dome stickers, so I put one over the stamp on the postcard to give it some dimension and got out some shells from a box of them that I keep. (You just never know what you are going to need do you???) I love the starfish which I had bought in Swanage the year before last.

Other supplies used

Stickles - lime green and star dust.

TH distress inks - frayed burlap, peeled paint and blue china.

Sakura glitter and glaze pens.

I love the colours and the beachy feel to it.

I hope you are enjoying this lovely hot weather we are having at the moment, must remember to water the plants though.

Take care, enjoy whatever you are doing.

Love and hugs.  Brenda xxxx

Challenge List

Sketchy Colours #26 - Sketch

Cupcake Crafts #92 - Summer Delights

Everybody Art Challenge #93 - Summer

Tuesday Taggers - Touchy, feely, texture   and a great prize this week from Tanda Stamps, check them out to see what goodies they have.

Papertake Weekly - Fun, fun, fun

Stampavie and more #97 - Summer

Crafts and Me #5 - Distressed

Creative Inspirations #63 - Beach theme

The Treehouse #52 - Beach/vacation theme
Raise the Bar #21 - Celebrate Summer

Vintage Birthday

Saturday greetings to you, I hope it is more sunny for you than it is here at the moment. I can't believe where this week has flown to, it's been so busy that I haven't had a chance to get to my craft much, but I have made a card for Jayne, who works at the same company as Ken. It is her 50th birthday on Tuesday and I have managed to get this in the post for her today with some notelets I made, as a present. Just remember Jayne, age is a state of mind, continue to have fun and enjoy yourself and have some wonderful birthday celebrations.

I have used the shabby vintage style, which I am soooo into at the moment, and I deceorated the inside of the card too. The die cut bird is the from the TH new alterations range, the one with the bird cage that I am so fond of. The ticket is also the same range, taken from the ticket strip, and I stamped it with a paper artsy ticket shape I found and added the lettering myself. The flower I made using the spellbinders nestabilities scalloped circles, I die-cut two sizes of tissue paper and used about 13 layers together. I sprayed the tissue with cosmic shimmer mist and put them together with a brad. I then scrunched each layer individually starting with the top layer first and unruffled it a bit. The frame is also one of mine using the spellbinders dies and covering it with glitter.

As you can see I have used vintage pictures, lots of butterflies and glitter, die cuts using the cricut and some stamping to complete the inside.

Enjoy the Bank Holiday weekend, we are off to Seaton late afternoon to spend tomorrow and Monday with Ben, Bev and the girls, so lets hope we see some sun.

Take care. Love and hugs.  Brenda xxxxxx

Challenge List

Daisy Doodles  -  Anything goes

Little Paper Shop  -  Pink, Craft and Blue

Method Playground  -  Love antique

Crafty Cardmakers  -  Inside Out

Stampavie -- Happy birthday for a girl

Crafts and me  -  Distressed

Creative Inspiration  -  Distressed

Flutterby Wednesday  -  Open challenge

The ABC Challenge  -  V is for vintage

Caged Butterfly

Firstly I chose five challenges from Wednesday's challenge list to create this card. Color Throwdown where the colours to use are pink pirouette, melon mambo and baja breeze. Stampavie and more want you to use flowers. Flutterby Wednesday challenges us to use flowers with a butterfly, fairy or angel!  Fab 'n' Funky challenge us to make our own embellishments and Gingersnap Creations have asked us to create our art around our favourite quote. I knew I wanted to play with the TH birdcage again and this is what I ended up with.

I heat embossed the cage with a sparkly embossing powder and decided that I would put a butterfly in the cage rather than a bird. Quite inspiring for me I thought!! I made and added my own charms from beads and I made my own flowers.

 The swirl and quote are also by Tim and I printed out a tiny bird to add to the overall effect with another small MS butterfly.

The coloured papers fitted the colour challenge and I have used more of my music paper, sewing them all together. The card and baja breeze backing paper were edged with copper Adirondack acrylic paint dabber, the pink paper was distressed and edged with cotton candy stickles and the quote was distressed and edged with stardust stickles. I added glossy accents to both butterflies and the bird, and sprinkled some glitter into the glossy accents on the large butterfly. I have also used the Sakura glitter pen in places.

We are off to Walsall tomorrow to stay with some friends and I am so looking forward to going to see Rod Stewart on Saturday night. Can't wait.

Have a wonderful weekend yourself. The forecast is good for the UK so hopefully we will see some extended sunshine.

Love and hugs. Brenda xxxx

Other challenges

Papertake Weekly - Say it with flowers

Tuesday Morning Sketches - Your favourite colour combo and glitter

Digi Doodle Shop - Sparkle, glitter, glitz

Retro Vintage

I hope your week is going well. I have had one of those days where I had an appointment all morning, which went well, and then I managed to get lots of little things completed this afternoon, making me feel I have achieved loads. It's a great feeling.

This is a different take again for me. Here I have mixed retro and vintage, and I think it has gone together quite well. The colours are certainly vibrant and the raspberry pink really stands out.

I have used a Llewelyn Bowen Retro Rose paper and chipboard flower, which I covered with rock candy distress stickles. The stamps are from the TH Mini Classic series and I put them all together on one acrylic block like Tim does and stamped them all in one go. I used tattered rose distress ink around the outside paper and vintage photo for the main one. I edged the main card with an Adirondack raspberry acrylic paint dabber. The frame I cut using the Spellbinders nestabilities and glittered it, then added a vintage image from a Debbie Moore collection. The chipboard mount, button, ribbon and word sentment finished it off.

Different, but an experiment waiting to happen.

Hope you like it. Thankyou for stopping by and taking a look, I appreciate any comments and love to read them.

Love and hugs. Brenda xxx

Challenge List
Your next stamp - Cut it out and pop it up   The frame and vintage image are 'popped up' using foam pads
Stampavie #94 - Pink
Lots to do #94 - Stamped collage
Pollycraft #44 - Summer blooms
Ooh La La Creations #54 - Bright and cheerful
Practical Scrappers - Patterned paper
Welcome Flourish - Use chipboard
Prairie Fairy - Flowers

Friend birthday card

Happy Monday everyone and Happy Birthday to my best friend Margaret. I have made her this card which I hope she will like, it's another 'shabby' creation.


I used three pieces of paper for the background, including a piece of music from Mozart. The sentiment is from the TH Shabby French collection and I have mounted it on a Spellbinders 'In Spades' pendant which was distressed with Tattered Rose and I edged it and the sentiment with Aqua Cosmic Shimmer Twinkles. The papers have been distressed with Vintage Photo and I made the embellishments adding a sticker, button and flower.


I feel the overall effect has worked well and I am pleased with the way it has come together.


It's beautiful sunshine in this neck of the woods, so I hope you are having some cheerful weather wherever you are.

Happy birthday Margaret, have a lovely day and to you all, enjoy the week and thankyou for looking.


Love and hugs.  Brenda xxxx

Challenge List
Papertake Weekly - Shiny, sparkly and special   Very special card for my best friend
Your next stamp - Cut it out and pop it up           The sentiment and the mini-tag have been 'popped up'.
La La Land Crafts Blog - Anything goes
For Fun Challenges - an anything card using a stamp   The sentiment has been ink stamped.
Cute Card Thursday - Someone Special               That's Margaret
Digi Doodle #7 - Ribbon       Yep that's there
Stamp Something - Celebrate something               Definitely
Allsorts - Birthdays                 This fits the bill
Stamp with fun - Stripes           Two papers have got stripes on them
Practical Scrappers - Patterned Paper    Four different ones if you include the music paper!
Sweet Pea Stampers - Paper piecing      Four papers pieced together her

Family Memories Tag Book

Well, here we are it's Sunday and now I can show you the project I have been working on for 'One Stitch At A Time' (OSAAT) as guest designer this week. Firstly I must say a huge thankyou to Stitchy and the team for giving me the opportunity to do this and for their help and support.


The theme this week is 'Anything but a card' and I have gone back to my roots of bookmaking. I first learnt to make simple books about 25 years ago and developed my skills over a number of years whilst teaching my pupils how to make them when I was a classroom teacher.  So I have made a Family Memories Tag Book and the idea is that whoever you have chosen to include in this project will decorate/embellish a tag which will be their contribution towards the finished book. I have included a tutorial as a seperate post today that I hope you will find useful.
 

I have had great fun creating this using the methods of putting covers and spine together as I have always done, but instead of making it with pages, I have made it with wallets and tags.

I have started to embellish the wallets and I have designed the tag for Ken and I. This shows us at the Isle of Wight music festival last year and I wanted to include it as it is the first time either of us have been to an open air festival like this.

Now I shall give tags to the children, granddaughters, my sister and my Mum, so that I end up with photos and contributions from everyone. The wallets and tags can include a whole variety of things including photographs, journalling, drawings/art work, poems, personal stories, just anything that could be included in a diary really.

I have started to embellish Ella's wallet both the front and the back.

I just need to finish the others but will do them as the tags get completed.

I must say a HUGE thankyou to my sister Chrissie who has looked at my design and given me other ideas to think about. It's wonderful when you have another creative person in the family and I am so lucky to have my sister, my daughter and my daughter-in-law and we share, help, guide and support each other. Let's hope it all rubs off on the grandchildren as well.

Have a great day, thankyou for stopping by.

Love and hugs.  Brenda xxxx

Challenge List
Sassy Designs #47 - Shabby Chic
The Shabby Tea Room #9 - Chipboard
Daisy Doodles - Flowers
Everybody Art Challenge - Make a gift
Quixotic Challenge - Make your own flowers
Crafts and me #4 - Anything but a card
Theme Thursday - Butterflies
Crafty Ann's #14 - Anything goes

Tag Book Tutorial

This Tag Book holds 8 wallets

Materials - all sizes are in inches 

2 pieces greyboard (like chipboard) 5 3/4 x 4 3/4 for the covers

1 piece greyboard 4 3/4 x 3/4 for the spine

2 papers 7 x 6 for front and back covers

2 papers 5 1/2 x 4 1/2 for inside front and back covers

1 paper 7 1/2 x 3 for spine cover

8 papers 9 3/4 x 6 for wallets (2 can be made from a 12 x 12 paper)

1 piece of thin card 4 1/2 x 11 for concertina spine to hold wallets in place

8 pieces of card 5 1/2 x 4 1/4 for the tags

I use bookbinding glue, dry-clear adhesive, extra strong double sided tape, fingerlift tape and wide clear duck tape.

1. Cover both boards with your paper. I cut the corner down to give a neater finish.

2. Place the boards and the spine together over the clear duck tape leaving about 1/8th of an inch gap between them. Fold the end of the duck tape up over the inside to secure them all together. This gives the spine it's strength.

3. Next score the card for the concertina spine as shown. Each of the valley folds is 1/2 an inch and the edges are 1 inch. Fold the card. I cut some of the greyboard and stuck inbetween each of the folds that will be on the bottom of the concertina spine.

4. It then looks like this.

5. Next stick the paper spine over the clear duck tape.


6. Using extra strong double sided tape, adhere the spine into place keeping the edge of the concertina lined up with the spaces between the greyboard spine and the covers. When you close the book they will all line up and fit neatly together.

7. At this point I added some seam binding to the back of the book using brads. This will keep it closed when finished, particularly when you have filled it with tags and embellishments.

8. Now make up the wallets. I scored each one using the dimensions in the photo and cut out the section along the bottom. I pre-folded them to make sure they fitted together properly and then put fingerlift tape on the patterned side of the two flaps. I folded the side edge over first and stuck that down, then I folded in the bottom flap to make it into a pouch/wallet.

9. Glue the front and back inside covers in.


10. Using fingerlift tape stick each wallet into the concertina only adhering the front edge (leave the back edge open and not stuck down as this gives you more flexibility for opening and closing the pages).

11. Your finished Tag Book should now look something like this.

12.                                                                   When you start to complete the inside of your book it will look more like this. Have fun with your own design and if you do not understand how any of this fits together, please email me and I will be happy to help out. My email address is on the main blog.

Golden Oldies 2

Yey, it's Friday and the weekend starts here. Hope you have been having a good day and have some lovely things planned to do for the next couple of days.

It's been a manic week this week hence the lack of blog posts, but here I am raring to go again. I shall be excited on Sunday as I have sent my project pictures in ready for inclusion on the new challenge theme from 'One Stitch At A Time'.

Here is another card using the hydrangea stamp and papers from Papercraft World. Very simple to make and I like the colours.

Something to think about.

"What would you attempt to do if you knew you would not fail?

Robert Frost

Bye for now, have a wonderful weekend.

Love and hugs, Brenda xxxx

Golden Oldies

Although it's been cold we have managed to get out in the garden today - at last!!! So it is now tidy with the decking washed and the watering system on ready so that I can get some bedding plants in my pots. I love the warmer weather and the riot of colour over the garden. Let's hope it arrives soon.

I still haven't been able to get into making anything new at the moment and whilst searching for some bits and pieces today I came across a set of cards I made quite a long time ago. So I thought I would show you some of these over the next few days and maybe I can find a challenge or two to enter with them.

This one was made when I started to use rubber stamps and this was stamped onto textured watercolour card which is why there are ridges through it. I was experimenting using different colours on the flower head, but it was definitely before I found TH Distress Inks although there is some distressing round the edges of the card. I even used torn printed paper and the tissue paper that feathers if you wet it (can't remember what it is called now). Apart from the sentiment using the plastic buttons and the metal corner there are no other embellishments, but there are some fibres tied round the middle. I think I would have finished it differently now.

Challenges
Creative Belli - Birthdays
Simon Says - Birthday/Celebrations
CRAFT challenge - Wedding/birthday
Theme Thursday - Vintage
Stamp Something - Birthday something
Crafty Ann's - Anything goes

Hope you've had a lovely weekend. I am off to do some more of my project for next weekend.

Take care.

Love and hugs. Brenda xxxx