Hand Crafted Memories

While getting ready for today's scrapbooking class at the Craft Box I realised I haven't posted pictures of the class I taught last month ooops! For this class we made a pop up page, featuring a Sizzix die that I think is no longer being produced. I've had this doe for ages and haven't used it. Sometimes I imagine a page in my head and whenitI comes to making it everything comes together very quickly. Not so with this one, for some reason I couldn't transfer my thoughts onto the page. A couple of false starts and then two weeks later it finally happened. Fortunately because I had made all the mistakes the ladies all made lovely pages.    

That is the challenge over on Winter Wonderlands Blog this week. So as we are now over halfway through the year we will find ourselves present shopping and wrapping up warm in the near future. I know its hard to believe with this baking hot weather that we are having at the moment, but if you are anything like me you need so many Christmas cards that you need to start making them as soon as possible. This challenge asks us to make a Christmas project and bells should feature on it. I used my Hero Arts wreath of leaves stamp and by adding a few red berries it turns it into a Christmas wreath. Top it all off with some checked ribbon, a piece of potato sack (yes really it is) and a couple of bells it is a wreath that would look welcoming on any front door.

I recently looked at all the cards posted on Lili of the Valleys blog hop and was particularly inspired by this beautiful card . I loved the idea of the frame on the card. So I had to have a go myself, I have three weddings in the next 4 months and this will come in really handy. I also used some of the clay embellishments that I have been making, see the little scrolls on the top corner.     The cute little stamp is also from Lili of the valley, tomorrow I'm visiting their store to view the new release of Christmas images. I have the feeling I'm going to be very skint. I'm also entering this card into their monthly challenge, its the first time I've entered, but the theme this month is Pretty in Pink and this fits the challenge perfectly.

I've been busy playing in my craft room for the last couple of days. Why is it that sometimes you have loads of ideas and then other times there's nothing in your head? The Winter Wonderland Challenge this week is to include a boy and girl on your project. At the moment I am loving the Lili of the Valley nativity Christmas stamps. So what better than to include the sweet image of Mary and Joseph on my card.

Today I invited my friend Lesley to come over and do 'something crafty', a sort of adult play date. We have both been admiring some mixed media canvasses and art journals for a few weeks, so when she arrived I fished out some canvasses that have been hanging around for donkeys years. They are that old they are from a store that went out of business years ago and were priced at £2.50 for 4. We spotted a tutorial on You tube here and so took it as our starting point.  We tried gessoing, using texture paste, making plaster shapes and misting all on this 5 X 7 canvas. I love the end result, I just need to add something lovely inside the plaster frame.

Recently I have come across a few card makers blogs, where they seem to have gone over the top with their layering. Throwing all cares of the cost to post the creations once finished, I have been in awe of  these mini masterpieces. A few mixed media canvases have caught my eye as well, something else for me to have a little dabble at to see if I can transfer some of these techniques to my scrap book pages. For now start small I told myself, I pulled out my lovely mermaid friends stamp from Lili of the Valley , this was given to me as a present from my friend and I love this image. Then I just added a few flowers and spritzed a bit and coloured the image. Now normally I would stop but no I added beads, pearls a ribbon bow and an ornate corner. This is the end result of my efforts       all things considered I'm quite pleased with myself.

So is everybody in the UK enjoying this heat wave, I most definitely am. I love it. I love it even more because I have two weeks off work to make the most of it. I never have two weeks off together, usually a week is enough but this time I wanted longer so I didn't feel I had to rush and get everything done. Today I mostly spent in the garden cutting the grass and tidying everything up, then I had a brain wave and washed the wooden furniture with the intention of treating it later in the week. Within half an hour I decided to go ahead and oil it straight away. So much for me taking my time over everything that needs doing, however the garden looks pristine now and I can make full  use of it over the next two weeks.  This flurry of activity means I haven't done much crafting but thankfully I have a back log of work that can be posted. Before Christmas Lynn from the Craft box gave me a box (not meant to be funny but it is) and said see what you can do with that. It was a plain

It seems so wrong to be making Christmas cards with all this glorious sunshine to be enjoyed, but it will be here before we can blink. I love taking part in the Winter Wonderland challenges , a card a week isn't such a big task and means that when Christmas rolls around I usually have enough cards to go round without having a mad rush. This weeks challenge was an easel card, so with my lovely new Papermania papers and my favourite snowman stamp this is what I cam up with.   Looking at Mr Frosty on here has made me want an ice cream and the van is just coming down the road!  Thanks to a great tip off I am also entering this into the Penny Black Saturday Challenge.

For a number of weeks I have been trying to get hold of the Sizzix Pop n Cuts base die set. OMG! it was like trying to find gold plated rocking horse poo, was I really trying to buy something at exactly the same time as all other UK crafters. I know these have been around for a while but suddenly when I want one there was not one to be found. Then finally I got one. I ordered it from Cutting Edge Crafts and in less that 24 hours it was in my sticky little fingers. A++++ to them for super fast dispatch and delivery. In my excitement at fining one In stock I forgot to order any of the other shaped inserts, so for the time being its the standard set, but believe me I'm happy with what I have.  here is a card that started this NEED to have the die set, my friend Lesley let me play with her die and different inserts, therefore opening a world of ideas. She also let me have some if her lovely Lili of the Valley images to decorate it. I now want to use it for a scrap book page, watch

Occasionally I am asked to make wedding invites, and I love creating something that will be the first sight that guests will have to the wedding theme. My favourite boy at work is marrying his delightful partner this year and I offered to gift them their wedding stationery. Steff likes things plain and simple so after looking through all my samples she chose a plain and simple postcard style with a little hand tied bow on the top left corner and swarovski crystals dotting all the "i's" . Her only stipulation was it had to be purple but not just any purple it had to be ' Cadbury purple' . I searched for the ribbon and gems and finally found the perfect match. WE know it was perfect because I has them delivered to work and Mark and I sat with the on my desk and off course had to buy some chocolate that we ate while we discussed if it was a match. Two thumbs up and a pat on the tummy after the chocolate it was perfect. So last night I tied all the pretty little bow