Lucky Me!

I thought I would share this lovely bouquet I received today from the Guides. Wearing one of my other "hats", I had been struggling with producing the new Directory (address book), as there were so many changes and a slightly different format to contend with. Theoretically it should be an easy job as I am the editor of the directory, and if I am kept uptodate with the changes the annual directory should be a cinch, but not this year! I kept thinking I had finished it, and more amendments would roll in! Our County Commissioner arranged for these to be delivered to me today, as she knew the directory had gone to the printers this morning!

The flowers are blue hyacinths, white broom, blue iris and raspberry carnations, which are the colours for the Guide Centenary (which is actually 2010, but we start the year of celebrations in September this year).

Forever Friends!

Managed to create this card today for my niece's birthday later this week. I suppose I cheated really, but I do love the images, and having bought the goodybag last week, I really wanted to use it.

Everything (apart from my favourite card candy button shapes - and let's face it you wouldn't expect me to make a card without them at the moment!) were from the goodybag.

Agnes the Duck?

I got around to making Agnes this afternoon whilst watching Joanna Sheen on Create and Craft tv. (Agnes is the name given to her on the knitting pattern!) I am presuming she is a duck - Well at least an egg-shaped duck!

The crocheting of her body and wings took hardly any time - it was putting all the bits together that took the time.

So another achievement for this non-knitter, non crocheter! Phew! so you reckon I can put down my needles and crochet hook now - erm I don't think so - the baby's big two-year old sister wants me to make her a blanket for her doll's cot. Shall have to knuckle down to this now I suppose so that it is ready for her as a pressie when her sibling is born! Good ol' Nanny!

Jasper the Monster!

Well I have finished the first of the two little soft toys for the new baby's nursery, and gave it to Bea to give to her little brother or sister when it arrives. She has one knitted in moss green. She was thrilled, and I also gave her the matching cuddler, which is also the same as the one she takes to bed every night! So Nanny is flavour of the month! I also gave my son as shawl I had that his grandmother knitted for me. So the new babe has something knitted by it's greatgrandmother as well as me!

(Note: I have adjusted the stuffing in Jasper now, as I saw from the picture that it wasn't quite even!)

It was a bit manic for a bit in this house - I couldn't find my button box! Catastrophe! - in fact I still can't find it. Bea offered to look for it bless her! I had to nip down to a pal's and raid her button tins! She has two Very Large sweet tins (you remember the size Roses used to come in?) Even so it took us a while to find 3 different coloured buttons of a similar size! I thought I also had my mum's box - but think I may have given that to my daughter!

I next have to tackle Agnes the Duck - a crocheted toy to match the one Bea has.

The finished "Blankie"

Yes I have finished the new cuddler for my soon to be new grandchild, or as its sister calls hers "Blankie". She won't part with hers, so a new one had to be knitted.

Took this photo just after I had finished doing the crocheted edging - it has now been hand-washed ready for its recipient.

Originally I thought I was making one for the cot - but we discovered that the original one was this size. (I had also made another one a different size for the pram, which fortunately the new baby can use).

The colour looks a bit pale in the picture - probably caused by the flash - the original first square below is a more realistic colour.

Am now starting on some little soft toys to go in the nursery to compliment the blanket and to go with the ones I made 3 years ago.

Not bad for a non-knitter! - even if I say so myself.

The pattern I worked from was one of my mum's priced at something like 6d (yes that is old pence!). However, for anybody interested I have discovered that it is still available: Google: Sirdar leaflet 3266

Mothers Day

I had two lovely cards from my children for Mothers Day, and some lovely presents a JS voucher and beautiful red orchid. Two favourite things, what more could a mum ask. However had to share this card made by my daughter, as there is a little story behind it, which I am sure fellow crafters will be able to relate to.

Dawn and I went to a DoCrafts Event at a local stationers on Saturday. We hadn't intended buying much, although we like to go along and support this particular shop.

However, we both fell in love with a couple of the Goody Bags one was a Forever Friends, and the other a Daisy and Dandelion one.

When we got home I sat and explored my two purchases, and fell in love with the images in the Forever Friends bag. I thought the above image would be perfect for Mothers Day, and wished that my mum was still alive so that I could put it on a card for her.

Imagine my delight, when I discovered Dawn had used the images for cards for me and her mother-in-law.

So I have a card to keep made with the image I loved. Note Dawn has also used some card candy - yes she loves these little embelishments as much as I do.

When she puts the cards on her own blog, I will add a link here later - so that you can see the other card she made.

Dawn has now put both cards she made on her blog - so here is the link: http://dawnywol.blogspot.com/

A couple of Birthday cards

I appear to be on a bit of a roll today - two more cards. Actually it is more a case of get these out of the way, finish off some Guide work, and then perhaps I can get on with the housework and some gardening - preferably the latter. (At least I have done 3 washloads today as well!)

This first card is for my Aunt Iris - well that is what I call her - she is actually my mum's first cousin. She is almost completely blind, so wanted to make something a bit touchy-feely for her.

Although some crafting pals sent me some Iris images, I decided to go with this one I had found, as it was fairly simple and clear, and she may just be able to make out the outlines. Have decoupaged this, matted onto purple and irridescent pink papers, and a decoupaged butterfly added. Lilac ribbon along the folded edge, highlighted with my favourite card candy - these are from the iced gem collection (do you remember iced gem biscuits? - they were a treat when I was a child!).

The sentiment was supposed to be done with the double-sided lettering I have in my stash and glittered - but could I find it. Well found these freebie foam letters in lilac instead. They are mounted on a piece of dot cuttlebug card and layered with same papers as the image. Finished off with another touchy-feely flower from my stash from Joanna Sheen's shop.

This second one as you will see is a belated card - definitely an oops I forgot, and I only realised when I was checking the family tree and realised I had missed a cousin's birthday. For some reason it wasn't on the calendar!

The image is from some of my Kanban stash, and is matted onto a piece of backing paper, from one of Joanna's CDs that I had saved from an earlier card. It was perfect match. I printed out the Belated Wishes and mounted that on same matching paper. The main topper is edged with a silver peel-off and a fancy one added between the topper and sentiment.

Card for an old school friend!

Just a simple card for an old school friend, using Joanna Sheen's Baby Love CD. I actually imported the picture into Publisher, and then added the text - although I could have done this using the interactive facility - but I wanted to change the font.

Mounted on some backing paper that I created in psp - which was originally a picture of an old map, and all mounted on cream hammered card stock. Finished off with fine gold peel-offs and some card candy.

An experiment - playing with new purchases!

I tried an experiment yesterday. I had bought some bits at the Farnborough Show, and wanted to use them. This week I bought the April copy of Craft Stamper, and there was a card using some of the bits I had bought! - just the incentive I needed.

I started playing in the afternoon, but was interrupted by my daughter and granddaughter, the latter had been fascinated by the technique at Farnborough and had come home with a sample done by the demonstrator. Well you can imagine the scenario - ooooo can I have a go Nanny! I then made a booboo in the masking, so she was allowed to play and experiment!

So later yesterday evening, I started to play again - well I confess it took me about three tries to get something I liked, or hadn't made a booboo with the masking!

The original design had fairies on which were more a block effect, but I only had some fairy stamps of Joanna Sheen's so the design had to be adapted.

Basically I masked and brayered the sun and what is supposed to be sea, grass and hills. I then stamped the fairy, and added the various leaves using different coloured archival stamp pads, and the bumble bees (as I didn't have a suitable butterfly stamp). Leaves & Bees are from Lavinia Stamps.com. The fairy and bees were coloured with H2Os and a touch of sakura pen.

The next decision was - what to mount the picture on? I also bought a patterned brayer type tool at Farnborough, so decided to "christen" one of the rollers. (Have just found the name for these rollers - called Rollagraph - I got mine from imaginationcrafts.co.uk) The design was rolled down each side of the front of the card, and down the middle of the back, and was embossed with silver. My "creation" was then added and edged with silver peel-offs and a sentiment and flower added.

This was all quite a different technique to what I am used to doing, but as they say count a day lost you don't learn something new!

Sympathy Card

We all have to send one of these from time to time. This is a simple one created in My Craft Studio, matted on purple backing paper, and mounted on an Ivory card. I added a few peel-offs on the corners and then using a ruler, drew around the topper with a fine silver pen.

Creme Eggs

Easter is coming, and inspired by pictures of some sugarpaste modelling done by a Sarah (Twinplums) on the JS forum, I have scanned some photos of eggs that I have made over the years especially for her. They are mainly models made with creme eggs, although there are a couple of ordinary eggs amongst them.

All you need is a creme egg (or some white almond paste {white marzipan}/ sugarpaste in the shape of an egg for the body for those that don't like chocolate!) about 2oz of white almond paste or sugarpaste coloured as desired (you will need more if you are making a body as well) a little melted chocolate to stick it all together, and paint on eyes/features and a small silver board or a biscuit, and some inspiration! Note: most of my eyes have been piped with a little royal icing, but you could use white sugarpaste.

So here we go some ideas:

Lady Rabbit made with white almond paste and sugarpaste

Pig and "Teacher" Owl (sugarpaste)




Mouse in a small egg shell (not creme egg and Crooked House using dolly mixtures

Frog and Footballer/Rugby player

Ninja turtle with pizza and Mr Elephant

Bear and chocolate easter egg turned into a Frog (normally filled with smarties)

Group 1: Mrs chicken, frog, elephant

Group 2 cat, alligator, tortoise (half creme eggs), squirrel, chicken

a selection of eggs - some are proper easter eggs, and the rose one has been modelled in white chocolate "leather" - i.e. modelling chocolate (very easy to make).

Second group: Mrs Elephant, Pooh bear and his honey, Owl, Mr frog, Mr Elephant

I hope I have given you some inspiration. Great gifts for children, wrapped in piece of cellophane and tied with a ribbon, or just have fun and let them make their own. (I have made hundreds of these with the Brownies and Guides and with boys and girls on holiday activity days)

My First Messy Rabbit!

My new CDs arrived today - Joanna Sheen's Messy Rabbit. After quite some time browsing, I decided to print off a page from CD2 - one of the decoupage pages, as I was making a New Home card. I also printed off a sheet of one of the "Stripes" backing papers from the same CD.

I then chose one of the inter-active sentiment boxes, and realise that "Messy" was same image as in the picture! Rather than print my message using the interactive facility, because I wanted coloured writing, I did a snapshot and copied it to paintshoppro and then saved it as a jpeg. I then imported the image into publisher and created a clear text box, and did my message in green. (This may seem a long-winded way to do it - but for some reason if I import an image from adobe into publisher - although it is on the screen it won't print! So this is my way of overcoming the problem.)

I used cream hammered card (yes I know it looks pink but it is ivory/cream - why do scans always make the colours look funny?), added some papermania fabric flowers from my stash, using my new card candy embellishments for the centres (see previous post).

The topper is decoupaged with a mixture of pinflair glue and small foam pads.

I used the same image on the insert, and put another "Messy" from decoupage page on the back.

The card is for my new tenant and her baby daughter. (what a nice Landlord am I ! grin!)

I am quite pleased with it as I am not great at decoupage!