Hand Crafted Memories

A couple of weeks ago I received my Secret Garden project of the Month from Craftwork cards . These papers are just so gorgeous, you have to see them to appreciate the beautiful colours and some of them are glittered. I can't tell you have delicious they are. Unfortunately for me I am very busy at the moment with an order for wedding invitations and my own Christmas cards. I could only manage four cards. Here they are:     I also made this one, it looks a little plain on the outside and I used some older paper for it  But on the inside is this This is definitely a kit I will be returning to as soon as I have some free time.

Each year I organise some fund raising at work for Children in Need , this is no mean feat when I work mostly with men who work with computers. This year I asked them all to wear something spotty and donate £2 or donate £3 if they didn't wear spots. I never thought for one minute that spots are not really a man thing. I've got to give them 10 out of 10 for effort, they managed to get hold of some sticky spots and just stuck them all over their shirts. Even better they just donated money and the majority of them gave me more than the £2.  My contribution was to make some fairy cakes with spots on, that they could purchase for a minimum 50p each. Now this I knew would be a hit because they really are big cake monsters. My friend Genna made some rocky road that we also sold for 50p. I then asked everybody to look in the bottom of their drawers and bags for any spare coppers. At the end of the day we managed to get £160 together. I was thrilled to bits, last year we made £42.   Rig

A couple of weeks ago I went to a fantastic workshop at the Craft Box . Clare was teaching with her fabulous Molly Bloom Winter Wonderland collection.  I just love these classes because the attention to detail on the projects is so inspirational and the chance to use my Promarkers on these gorgeous images is a bonus.We made three lovely cards and these have kick started my card making for 'special' people. I have spent the last three evenings stamping and colouring some images ready to make up into more 'special' cards. Here is my inspiration    this one is my absolute favourite and the cause of my recent flurry of creativity.  

Each year I make a little calendar for the finance department at work. I do it so they remember to pay me every month! They use my mini calendar's more than the big ones on the wall, those remain on January for months before anybody changes it, but the little ones are marked off regularly. This year I was inspired by these lovely offerings. The previous years I made these and these .This is what I created, I made six in no time at all. Tthe black ones were an attempt to make them 'manly' for the two men. I handed them out today and they unanimously like these better than the previous years. Note to self, next year keep it simple!

This month in Shimelle' s 4 X6 photo love we have 10 photos to add to our layout. This has been a great series of workshops to follow for busting my mountain of holiday photos. I still have thousands to get through so this could go on for some time. I decided to use my photos from Sydney harbour for this months prompt, this page will sit nicely with the page I made for the prompt in April .   The idea was to use a divided page protector and decorate on top of it, also as it is actually 10 inches wide you can add a 2"" border and decorate that as well.  This is a really quick way of adding a lot of photos and just a little bit of decoration, when its added into the album its has quite an impact because it looks 'different'.

I recently needed a fiftieth birthday card for a friend and had a pi;e pf scraps from my favourite Sweet Meadows papers from Craftwork Cards . I love these colours and the lovely blooms. . The card came together quite quickly and was loved by the recipient.

Well you won't know if you are the winner unless you entered this fabulous draw. Who wouldn't want to win this fabulous Tim Holtz Tote?   Its really easy all you have to do is go here and leave a comment. Simples!