Family

This week at Sentimental Sundays we want to see your creations focusing on the Sentiment! The prize for this challenge will be four INDIVIDUAL sentiment sets from theRaindrop Echo Designs Whimsy Stamps Digital Collection. If you like the weekly freebies offered here, please visit the store to see even more! They also offer custom digital designs at an affordable price with tutorials on how to use them.

This week my project is a altered photo frame, and instead of framing a photo I framed a lovely sentiment from Raindrop Echo Designs Family Sentiments set.

The sentiment is actually printed on a light blue card, but with the glass in front of it for some reason it came out looking white! Here is a quick before shot (I had started painting before I remembered to photo it!

Make sure to head on over to the Sentimental Sunday blog to check out the DT’s work and show us your work too!

Purple paisley

I had a bad crafting evening yesterday. I sat down with one project in mind to make. It wouldn’t quite come out right and then I kept getting distracted by other ideas that all wanted out at once. Instead of writing them down or sketching them out I started on a few of them. Simultaneously. Not a good idea, my desk looks like a hurricane has hit it. I made 3 cards, started another 2 and sketched out a gazillion things I want to make. Now if the time fairy can come along and give me extra time to fit the making of them all in it would be superb!

Anyway, I really liked this Raindrop Echo Designs for Whimsy Stamps sentiment. I liked it so much I wanted it to be the focal point of a clean and simple-ish card. Its one of the cards that wasnt really working out for me. I keep looking at it thinking it needs more. But what? Ideas on a postcard please!!

Golf card?!

A friend commissioned me to make a birthday card for her future father in law. She gave me the following instructions ‘just a generic birthday verse and golfy theme’. I have a stack of DoCraft masculine papers and this paper was in it. As  soon as I saw it I thought it was perfect for golf. It matches all those, ahem, ‘lovely’ golf clothes that golfers so like to wear! I kept it quite simple as the papers are quite bold. Hopefully my friend approves of it anyway.

Thanks for stopping by, hope you are all enjoying your Sundays!!

Oh and doing a bit of blog visiting I realised it fits in over at Cards for Men – Birthdays.

Simon Says – Distressed/Sanded

This week over at Simon Says Stamp and Show the theme is your Distressed/Sanded projects. I just about got my entry ready on time for this one, its been a busy week. I started off with a cheap €1 A5 notebook. I peeled off the holographic blue foil it was covered with and painted it chocolate brown, then crackle glazed it and topped it with ivory paint. When this was all dry I took some 7gypsies paper and sanded and distressed it and part covered the note book. I used lots of stamps, tissue tape, distress inks, embossing and Tim Holtz bits and pieces on this project. The recipient is in her final year of a zoology degree so I snuck in some dragonflies, birds and ladybugs to make it more personal to her. Thanks for stopping by

The front cover, personalised for Faye.  Spot the cute little ladybug – she loves them! I love the book corners. I had to reclaim them from a card I had made previously as they are the only 2 I have.

You can just make out the sanding and distressing on the paper and the paint job in this shot.

Some lovely metal foliage pieces to jazz up the spine a bit.

Inside I edged the cover with tissue tape to hide the mess from peeling off the original foil covering! I added a pocket with some more 7gypsies paper and added a tag for some more interest. The field notes piece was in my stash (no idea from where!) but it suited perfectly as they do a lot of field work on her course.

I added a ribbon for marking her place in the book.

I kept the back cover quite simple as I wanted the distressed paint job to be visible. I just added a bit more sanded and distressed 7gypsies paper, some stamping and a tag. I like the quote on the tag, it quite suits her personality!

I covered the spine with dictionary tissue tape. I love the effect it gives!

If you made down it this far then thanks so much for looking and enjoy the rest of your weekend!!

Round up those scraps!!

Below is a series of cards and gift card holders I have made with the scraps on my desk from the September Crafty Alley kit. I am determined to use the majority of my scraps before I start cutting into new papers! The only things that were not in the kit were the flowers. I am dedicating this post to my flower mad friend Katie - see, I can do girly, and I am getting there with my flowers!! I hope you enjoy and thanks for stopping by!

Owl card. I love this cute stamp! I would tell you where its from but I lost the packaging and I cant remember!!

This could be a slightly smaller card or a slightly large gift card or money wallet.

This is the perfect size for a gift card!

I quite like this one. It would be perfect for a money wallet. I have it monogrammed & personalised for the recipient.

This one is small card sized but I have a little slot inside for a gift card also. I love the bird stamp on this one, from a recent e-bay bargain - you cant beat a set of Tim Holtz stamps for E6 including delivery!!

Lavender and old lace..

The last two days I have only been allowing myself to make little cards and tags using the scraps on my desk. This is one such project. As I was applying milled lavender distress ink onto the kraft card stock I remembered the challenge over at Pocket Full of Posies was Lavender and Old lace. After a bit of a rummage on my desk I found the scrap of lace and voilà! The small Magnolia tag backed onto the larger tag looks a bit blue in the picture, but it is really quite purple in real life! Thanks for looking

Grungy J….

This is my entry for the challenge over at Simon Says Stamp and Show blog. The challenge is to ‘Show your Grunge’. I had just gotten this wooden letter J in TK Max to alter and I decided it would be prefect for this challenge. Its for my husband so that fact that it was going to be all grungy and old looking suited perfectly! (Hope he doesn’t read that!) I painted the letter brown first (it was a rather shocking pink!), then added a layer of crackle medium, then painted over this with a coat of ivory paint. When this was all dry I added some 7 gypsies paper,  sanded it, added some Tim Holtz pits and pieces – key hole, key, type charm, door knob to hang the key and charm off of etc. There was also lots of distress ink, stickles, tissue tape and Tim Holtz stamps used. Hopefully the hubby will like it! I have included a few more pics below for close up details. Thanks for stopping by:)

Told you it was very pink!!

Much better on the eyes, no need for sunglasses any more!

Top close up..

I love tissue tape!

Side view

Back view

Back view close up. The little J is crackled but didnt show up very well in the picture!

If you got down this far then thanks so much for looking, and I hope you enjoyed!!

Enjoy the Journey

I made this simple little card for the challenge over at Cards for Men where the theme is Transport. I used some Kraft card stock for the base and to stamp the images on. I stamped the background with a script stamp and then used my Tim Holtz stamps on top. I have been wanting to use the car stamp since I got the set! I also stamped the tickets on to a scrap of the card stock. Its a large border stamp, but I just cut two tickets out of it and adhered them with the paper clip. The backing paper is a piece from my new 7 gypsies paper stack and I embossed it with my swiss dots embossing folder..  I tied a bit of twine on the left of the card and rounded most of the corners. I do love my corner rounder!!

Thrifty flowers

I am by no means the most flowery girl in the world. I am not a florally obsessed crafter like some out there (I shall name no names, but you know who you are!) However I did see some flowers while out in B&Q and decide I had to have them. Burnt orange hydrangeas….

They look quite good for artificial flowers. Good enough for Binky to try out at least….

But the best thing about these flowers? The €3.50 price tag!! After snipping away at the bunch I now have over 50 flowers, most a bit bigger than a €2 coin.

As I am totally useless with figures my hubby kindly informs me that this works out at about 7cent a flower. I also now have some lovely big fake leaves that I reckon I can use on something. And a long green fake stem. Im not so sure about using that bit, but I sure will give it a try!

Vintage birthday….literally!

Another vintage style card. I used a scrap of the beautiful paper from the August Crafty Alley Kit that I had left over. There was tonnes of sheets in this kit but I think this one is my favourite! The card is for a man and the birthday being celebrated is…I better not say actually. Not a 21st, lets put it that way! I had the usual dilemma of not having any male suitable embellishments. So I took a die cut label, inked the edges with bundled sage and frayed burlap and stamped my script stamp in the frayed burlap distress ink roughly onto it. I then stamped the sentiment in brown permanent ink and clear embossed it.  Hopefully it is enough of a feature to make the card look good!