Love, love, love

With Valentine's Day coming up I thought I best prepare a card to send to Jenson Button! Well, you never know!



I've gone for what I hope is quite a sophisticated look and used Crumb Cake and red.



The little envelopes are made with the Petal Card Double Punch, which cuts and embosses, and the DSP is the now retired Love Letter series. The images are from a hostess set from last year called Cute By The Inch but it is one of my all-time favourites. The ribbon is Real Red Taffeta Ribbon.

Hopefully it will help me win Jenson over!

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Ahoy there!

I'm all at sea with today's card. Ho!

My friend Fay asked me to make a card with a boat for a friend of hers who loves sailing and luckily, the Stampin' Up! Mini Catalogue 2011 has a fab new stamp called Sail Away.

I saw this design on the SplitCoastStampers site and just loved it, although it turned out to be quite time consuming because of all the different elements.



The edges of the sails were coloured in using Blender Pens and the three stripes of cardstock were run through the Big Shot using the Perfect Polka Dots Embossing Folder.



These were matted on to Whisper White and Crumb Cake cardstock then I tied some of the Real Ride Striped Grosgrain Ribbon around and ruched it using some Linen Thread.



All this also made the front of the card quite heavy, so I added a piece of Whisper White to the inside to balance it a bit and added a little stripe in opposite corners to complete the nautical theme.

Fay loves it and rekons her friend will too, so the hard work does pay off!

I have just passed one year of blogging, so to celebrate I have some surprise blog candy up for grabs. Please check out Friday's blog candy post and leave a comment to enter! You have until midday on May 6th.

I'm back at home for a few days at the moment and although I'm still battling with some sort of illness (the cold has now developed into a poorly tummy) I am managing to get in some quality time with the family, including Bodd! Pics coming tomorrow!

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Experiments in ribbon ruffling

At training yesterday my lovely SU mummy Jules showed me how to ruffle ribbon. I've seen this loads but never managed to get to grips with it.

The trick is to use the wider Taffeta Ribbon and pull out one of the strands. It is a little bit fiddly - you cut into the ribbon and fray it up then use your nails (or tweezers) to eek one of the threads out.



Here are the cards I made featuring this technique. I used the Color Coach to determine the combo - Crumb Cake, Real Red and Bashful Blue. I love the Color Coach because I would never have thought of utting these colours together, but they look amazing. The stamp set is the now retired SAB Bliss, but I've not yet been able to put it down!



On this one I pulled out a thread in the middle, so it went crinkly on both sides. You can loosen it up a bit as you go along or pull it really tight.



Here I pulled out a strand at the very edge, so it created a valance effect.

Now I just need some of this ribbon in different colours ...

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Fairground scrapping

Yesterday I had a bit of scrapping fun with an old pic of myself and a former housemate, Vanessa.



We used to live together in Stockport and would go for a long walk at the weekends. One time we went to Oulton Park and had a go on the carousel there!



So for this page I started with a white background and coloured in a paper doily by rubbing my SU ink pads over it and coating it in Shimmer Paint. This turned out fab and is a great match to the horses. I used lots of different bits, including some different ribbons, Pearls and Gold Brads.



Lots of flowers and stars, and tons of Pearls and Rhinestones!



I used the Rub Ons for the title and scrolled the paper to match the one on the horse. His name is Troy!



I also tried out some Grungeboard.



And this is the journaling! Basically, we got on our horse anbd the carousel started going REALLY slowly. After a minute the guy in charge came walking round, looked at us and said: "There's too much weight on one side"!! That was it! So we had to move to balance it out with all the kids!

Was good fun to do this page, although it took quite a while to stick everything down!

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Bitten by the scrapbooking bug!

I have definitely got another love now - I am well and truly hooked on scrapbooking!

Yesterday (actually today still as I've scheduled this post for the morning! That'll confuse ya!) I made THREE pages! And I've not even shown you the ones I did at mummy Julie's club yet! Or the many other cards I have made and stored up to show you!

But one of yesterday's (today's) layouts to show you first!

My mum sent me a selection of pics a while back so I have finally got a good use for them! There were two lovely ones of the two of us - one when I was a baby and we were off to someone's Christening (I think, could have been a wedding!), and the other from my cousin's wedding in Cyprus a few years ago.



The problem was they didn't really go together as their main and accent colours were different. After some deliberation and a few tips from my fellow crafters, I sat down with my stash (this was at 10.30pm) and discovered that the Greenhouse Gala and Woodland Walk DSP from Stampin' Up! each matched a picture perfectly!



To bring them together I cut out a flower from each and added it to the opposite photo and then used the green and red in the title and journaling (to be completed with dates when I find them out!) to pull it all into one.

I'm really pleased with it and will now be on a mission to find and print lots more photos!

Today (tomorrow!) I am off to my first WI committee meeting at the federation offices before coming back for some work. I have half resolved not to do more crafting for a few days as I have a lot of writing to do, a class on Thursday at Buns & Roses WI and my mum is coming up to see me!


PS This is actually the third time I have posted this now as I kept forgetting to schedule it and it just went live. So I have no idea what day it is anymore! All this crafting makes me giddy.

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I love Stampin' Up!

Just a quickie to share my love for Stampin' Up! Tomorrow mummy Jules is holding her first all-day training event and there will be around 20 of us enjoying a full day of stamping and gossip!

As with any SU! get-together, we love to exchange swaps, and Jules suggested a love theme so this is mine!



I have used the Artistic Etchings stamp set, which is yummy vintage and one of my new faves! I decided to create a little tag using the Distressing Essentials. The card was scrunched, sanded around the edges and inked up with the Tea Stain ink spot.

The big heart was stamped with the image from the Punch Potpourri hostess set and ounched out, and covered with the Champagne glitter paint. I then added some Pearls for extra bling.



I hope they don't all check their blogs tonight otherwise the surprise will be ruined!

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A little scrapbook all my own

Today I decorated this awesome little scrapbook. I did it in between making Christmas cards with people at the I Love West Leeds shop in Armley.
I'm trying to do more scrapbook and vintage pieces so have got LOTS of new stash recently to play with. Just an excuse to shop and see the cute UPS man really!
I decided to title this one with my blog name, and if I can work out how to do it may even alter my layout to incorporate it!
Anywho, the check DSP was some random stuff I found on the net, as is the journal, which has some really funky cards in that I will show you another time. That is, when I have figured out what to do with it! The cotton reels are also from a sheet of DSP so I cut them out and wrapped some embroidery thread around them. I added SU buttons and ribbon and the wording is done with the yummy Broadsheet Alphabet and the Just Perfect Alphabet on Marina Mist card stock.
I'm in Harrogate all weekend so won't be around till Monday. I'm helping out on the WI stand at The Knitting and Stitching Show tomorrow, on Saturday mum is coming up and we'll be shopping and taking afternoon tea at Bettys and then on Sunday we're going to the show for more shopping and to learn new things. So excited!

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