Penny Black

It has been several months since I have been in my den doing any serious crafting.  I don't know where the time goes.  A group of crafting friends have started a circle journal swap so that really inspired me to get back in my den and get the creative juices going again.  My journal is now away to the first swap and it will be great to eventually see the finished result. 

It was also Rebecca's 30th birthday last week and here is the card I made to send to her.  Unfortunately we were unable to go down and see her but hopefully we will get down in the new year to see her and the boys.

I haven't made many christmas cards this year but wanted to get a couple of special ones made and after that I made a couple of different designs.  When making any cards at the moment I am trying to keep to a couple of personal goal I have made and that is to try and use stamps I have bought and haven't used and use up all the scraps of paper and card I have sitting in my boxes.  I still have some special ones to make so that is my aim this week after I have tidied my den back up!! Please excuse the quality but I have scanned these ones in as I cannot get good daylight for photos at the moment.

 This is an 8" x 8" card.  I had some large envelopes in my stash so joined two pieces of card together using a fold down the left hand side.  I used my tombow markers to colour all these.  It has been a while since I have used them as I have been using pencils and blending with sansador.  It was good to go back to the watercolouring for a change.

 I have had these two stamps for a couple of years or more now and this is the first time I have used them.  The reindeer was fun to colour in.

 Back to my Penny Black stamps.  It will take me years to use all the christmas stamps I have purchased.  Maybe I should keep my stash of xmas stamps out all year and try and use a different one each week!  A good way of having my cards made in plenty of time!! Maybe not!!

                                                            Last card one of the week.

Flock

My friend Siobhan Fyffe is on the Woodware Design Team http://www.woodware.co.uk/blog/and this week's theme is "flock".  I have previously worked with flock and thought I would post the ideas I came up with as I was dabbling with it.  Please excuse the marks on the samples, I scanned the sample in and my scanner is now covered in particles of embossing powder/glitter. 

For this one I stampled the flower and then went over areas with Zig Zag glue, let it dry slightly then added the flock.

The swirl and flowers were punched/die cut out on double sided adhesive sheets and then the flock rubbed into the adhesive.

These were samples I was playing about with. My good samples, I made into cards which I gave out.  I cut pieces out of double sided adhesive sheets, rubbed the flock over the area I had cut out and then stamped and embossed on top of the rubbed in flock.  Layered onto a card they were lovely

Follow Your Dreams

A work colleague of mine is leaving on Friday - not to go on to another conventional job but to follow her dreams.  She is a very creative person and has already written and recorded some of her songs, she has written her first draft of a children's book and and also makes the most beautiful jewellery.  I have spent this afternoon adapting the idea from the Mirror Workshop I had the pleasure of taking which was held by Siobhan Fyffe.  (You can see lots of beautiful designs by Siobhan who is also part of the design team for Woodware). http://recoveringstampaholic.blogspot.com   I love the wording on the stamps I have used which are quite appropriate for the new journey Jess is about to embark on.  I also made a very quick card to go with the mirror, unfortunately I ran out of time to do anything more fancy so have taken a leaf out of the Simplylessismoore challenges and kept the card minimilistic

Mirror

I have four brothers and sisters with birthdays, my grandson, a friend, a brother-in-law's birthday and also my husbands birthday all this month . Need to go and tidy up my den as  I have pulled out lots of different stamp sets for my mirror and don't have any free space to work in - sound familiar!!

Introducing Dylan

Yesterday, Holly one of our Schnauzers gave birth (by cesarean) to one little puppy.  Harry has named him Dylan.  Both mummy and puppy are fine and have no side affects from the operation.

Dylan   

Holly and Dylan 05.07.11

Celebration Cake

Well, it finally arrived - my 50th birthday!  I had a wonderful day starting off with one of my sisters taking me out for a champagne breakfast and then in the evening I had lots of my family at the house for eats and drinks!  It was lovely.  Must admit my head was sore the next morning, not the drink mind you, oh no, it was because I hadn't eaten much!!! Yeah right!

As usual I was totally spoilt and received lots of beautiful gifts, flowers, balloons and the most beautiful cake made by my niece Gillian.  Away now to start making the thank you cards!

Circle Journal Pages

Penny Black at Allsorts have their new challenge running.  I have added this project which are two 8" x8" pages I made for insertion into a circle journal.  It is very difficult to pick favourite Penny Black stamps as I love so many of them.  You are allowed to enter three projects so tomorrow I am going back into my den to make a new card for entering as well.

I had such fun doing these pages as it gave me the opportunity to use four of my Penny Black hedgehog stamps.  http://pennyblackatallsorts.blogspot.com/

Get Well Soon

This is the first day I have been crafting and blogging since my sad loss last week.  We need a Get Well card to send to one of our volunteers at work who unfortunately is not too good after an accident at his home.  I sometimes find choosing a stamp for a male card quite difficult but I finally decided on this Crafty Individual Owl stamp. Hopefully this will cheer him up!    Apologies it looks a bit squint but I think it is how I have scanned and cropped it.

Now back to the blogging, I need to see what new challenges are around!  I noticed the new Less is More for this week is running and the Crafty Individual June theme has now been posted and just as I logged in to my blog account I noticed my friend Siobhan has posted a wonderful Penny Black card on a challenge so might go and have a little look at that one as well!  Hopefully these will lure me back into my den so watch this space ......