With Love

I make no apologies - another "tangle", but this time using a stamped image.  Stamped with memento ink and then tangled, and coloured and edged with promarkers (Cool Aqua, Pastel Green) and highlighted with Cool Grey1, and mounted on pearlescent card stock.

I discovered that the piece of left over pearlesecent card in my stash wasn't quite big enough for a proper matt and layer, but I think I have discovered a new effect!    I also drew on the faux ribbon which was another piece of the pearlescent card.  (OK - there is absolutely no hope for me - I have completely lost the plot now - it appears I have a tangled brain !)  :-))

Just for comparison here is a photo of the original stamped image, before I tangled it.

I have made another card today (non-tangled) so will share that tomorrow to give you a respite from my tangling!

Thanks for popping by.

Mags

Hugs Tangle

"Hugs"

There was much excitement in the road yesterday with two fire-engines and a the fast response ambulance car outside our friends house.  The had a fire in the kitchen.  My pal thinks she must have left something on after she had cooked their lunch.    They are ok, although my pal suffered some smoke inhalation.   I haven't seen them today, think they must be staying with family.  No doubt it will take a while to get things sorted, and as her hubby is currently on crutches they will no doubt have to get the family involved in the cleaning up.

I am sure she will be distraught, as her craft corner is just off the kitchen and I can't begin to imagine what the smoke will have done to all her cardstock, ribbons etc.

Having finished my household chores and done a bit of gardening (vacuuming up more of the dreaded leaves to fill the bin ready for collection this week) I decided to try and create a "Hugs" card for them.    For a change having done the tangle, I then used some promarkers to colour and highlight it.

It was a complete experiment, but I am rather pleased with it, particularly when I found I had exactly the right colour pearlescent card to matt it onto.

Thanks for looking

Mags x

Three Generations Now Hooked .......

....... on Zentangle.



Zen and red



This is what I did last night whilst watching TV - a punched flower and a zentangle with a touch of red!  and the following are my Daughter's and nine-year old Granddaughter's first attempts.  Think these are loads better than mine - but of course they do have the book on Zentangle and the kit that I bought my Daughter for her birthday for inspiration!  I have also gone right to the edge of my square of card for this one.

Think I am going to have to go down the less is more route as we have all used the same sized card to start with (9 cm square).



Daughter's first attempt




Granddaughter's first attempt

 How good is that for a nine-year old!  -   and then my daughter got really good at it:



D's second attempt




K Zentangle



I absolutely love what she has done with this K - (going to have to try out that block design) and obviously my granddaughter did as she asked her Mum to do one with an E for her !



E for my granddaughter

 I am going to have to do a lot more playing I can see - or else ask my daughter to do an M for me. 

Are any of you inspired to get hooked on this zentangle doodling yet?

Mags

Crafter's Birthday Card

This is the card I have made for my daughter.   As soon as I saw this image on MCS Crafty Characters cd - I just knew I had to use it!  I decoupaged the image and on one of the lower layers I cut down between the doors, so that it looked as though it really was bursting at the seams!  The backing paper is also from the cd as is the blue sentiment shape, which I added the words to in MCS before printing.  A bit of matting on to blue pearlescent card, a bit of ribbon and some flowers to complete the effect. 

I used the same backing paper on the insert, but made it a lot fainter.

and as I mentioned in my earlier Zentangle posting, here is another one I did as a present tag.

Zentangle present tag

Happy Birthday Daughter!


Mags

Turquoise Daisies

Turquoise Daisy Muffins

It's my daughter's birthday tomorrow, and I thought I really ought to make a cake or something for her.  (You never know I might get nvited to tea!).   The cake mix is lemon flavour sponge.



Close up - showing the sparkle!

I also made a single layer cake with the mixture - and just iced it very simply (oops shame I didn't realise the name was a bit wobbly - but still she knows I am a bit wobbly these days! LOL! )  Actually I have now straightened it up - that'll teach me not to use the straight edge to position the letters!

I didn't have a suitable new board, so had to use a square red charger!



Birthday Cake

 Thanks for dropping by.

Mags

More Zentangle .....

... so ok, I admit it I am hooked!  I watched some more videos today:



Mooka and Betweed Zentangle



The first of today's efforts was created after watching Zentangle's "Mooka" and "Betweed" videos.  I followed their instructions for the initial "square" of the Zentangle.

Mooka is the ones with the squiggle lines, and the Betweed is the one across the middle.  I also tried a bit of blending with a pencil, but I need to treat myself to a soft B pencil so I can blend with my fingers.  ( I only had HBs in the house).   I hope if you click on the picture you can see the pencil shading.  (I might have to save them as larger images as the new Blogger doesn't seem to make the pictures large when you click on them anymore.

I started with the Betweed across the middle and then did the lower Mooka,  I prefer that to the one at the top, as don't really like the black background.  I had to add some sort of flower patterns to bring it to life more.  I need a bit more practise with these two designs.

I then decided to try White on Black:



Black on White Random Designs

This wasn't so easy, although I did do the freehand outline on the black card with pencil for the basic layout of the sections before I  put pen to paper.  I tried my inkessentials white pen, which although it has a fine nib, it didn't seem to like the black card - maybe I need some smoother card.  I ended up using a White Soufflé pen, and although you it doesn't show up in the picture I used a sakura sparkle pen.  It looks quite effective in real life.  As  you can see I included a bit of Mooka on it.

The "basket-weave" in the bottom left triangle had sparkle between the elements, and the right-hand bottom triangle was highlighted with sparkle too, as well as some of the other sections - the section that looks like a ships rigging, in real life looks likes lots of little quilted pillows.  I went over the outside of the outline with a  bullet-nib White Pen-Touch pen to give it a bit more definition.

The white on black I think needs to have a larger scale pattern, if I am to use Sakura pens, as the lines are much thicker using them.

I have signed up to a blog which gives you a free Zentangle pattern each week to try. http://blog.suzannemcneill.com/, and I also think I saw a site which gives lots of samples of patterns.   Think I shall make myself  little notebook with designs in it.

Mags

First Zentangle

My first Zentangle

I have been doodling tonight or Zentangling.  I have had so much fun.  I have placed the image on a card for the purpose of photographing it - so it may end up on a card, or it may end up in a picture frame.  It didn't take very long (and in fact I did another one tonight - which I will share at the weekend - the reason for the delay will become obvious then!).

Whilst we were at Sandown, we watched a demonstration of Zentangle, which I already knew about having watched Barbara Gray on C&C.    My daughter had never seen it before, and I knew she would love it as she is a great "doodler" (as I used to be when I was at work taking notes at meetings, or taking dictation, etc  and doodles would appear on my notebook if the meeting was boring or whilst my boss was on the phone!).

The upshot was that I offered to buy her a starter pack and instruction book as part of her Birthday present.  Well I have been very very good, and tempted as I was to have a peak at the book, I have refrained !  However, I did this afternoon google Zentangle, and having watched some videos, my fingers were itching to pick up a pen!

I cut the shape of the paper with my Making Memories wavy cutter and created a random shape and then went from there, using the inspiration from videos and patterns I found on the net.   The demonstrator we saw at Sandown actually used pencil and a blender pencil to give some shading, but obviously as I don't have that mine are just black and white.  I used a Letraset 0.1 Fine Line Drawing Pen, and filled in some of the bigger blocks with a black Promarker, for quickness.  I also edged the finished design with the Promarker.  

Close-up  of the Zentangle

The pack I bought for my daughter also had some template patterns for things like Christmas Trees, Valentine Hearts, etc - so can't wait for her to open her present and learn more!  I am already thinking along the lines of using my Paint Fusion Stamps and Zentangling them!

The demonstrator also showed us examples of coloured Zentangles using jelly pens - and in particular using a white pen and also Sakura clear sparkle on black card.!   ooooo can't wait to try that - I have an Inkessentials White pen in my stash, as well as the Sakura Clear Sparkle  (I use it so much that I even know the number of that pen - 700!)  (Am also wondering if my old blender pen in my felt pen stash might work too on the pencil ..... ?)

Sorry for the rambling - but you will gather I am rather hooked!  Do have a try for yourself - I gather it is all the rage in the States, and is considered to be Yoga for the Brain!

Mags

Playing about

I decided to have a play tonight with some recent purchases, some I bought at New Year in the Craft Barn half price sale, and some I bought at Sandown Show on Saturday.  No recipient in mind at the moment - so one for the box! 

The main topper is created from lemon papermania paper and purple mirri using a Nellie Snellen die.   The strip along the bottom was created with my new Tonic Studios Simplicity Patterned Punch - "Daisy Strip" (from Crafty Devils), and the fancy circles from a Martha Stewart punch, using papermania pearlescent card, and I used the little flowers from the centre of the Daisy Strip to decorate the main topper.   Finished off with a couple of pearls from a sheet also purchased from Crafty Devils and a white sparkly peel-off greeting from my stash.

I am loving the new Tonic punches - takes a bit of practise to keep them in line, but am getting there.  I also bought the Celtic Strip which is gorgeous!

Thanks for looking.

Mags.

Wire Mesh Ribbon and Bead Necklace

My daughter and I went to Sandown yesterday to the Stitch & Creative Crafts Show.   We had a great day, meeting up with some crafting friends, as well as catching up with some of our Demonstrator friends.

One of the things  on my list to buy was the kit to make the above necklace from RibbonBox.   I bought some of the elements last year, but decided I really needed a kit with instructions and the clasp findings to make my first one.   So had a play last night and this is the result.

I am not sure how well you can see it, but the large beads are encapsulated in the mesh ribbon, with the silver rondels being on the outside of the ribbon.  The most difficult bit is to hide the holes of the beads (they should be hidden by the silver spacers), and I still have to do a bit of tweaking to a couple that managed to move!

The mesh ribbon is a fantastic product, and you can do so much with it.  Make flower/butterfly embelishments for cards, ribbon brooches.   The secret is to have a play, and if you don't like it just pull it all back into shape!

We spent a fortune - well I did - but having said that I did buy about 4 family birthday presents whilst we were there, so I didn't spend THAT much on me!  I didn't spend too much on beading stuff, but I did treat myself to some of the new tonic punches - WOW - they are brill - absolutely love the two I bought that cut strips of "punched ribbon".  I also treated myself to some sizzix dies.  Shall hopefully create something with those to share with you in near future.

My daughter also bought the where-with-all to do some fusioning of material into toppers, pictures etc using a soldering iron - absolutely fascinating - can't wait to have a try at that when I next visit!  (Have already told IM-indoors I need a soldering iron!)

Mags

ps Yesterday I wore the long silver necklace I made earlier this week to Sandown, and I had so many compliments about it (even from some of the stall-holders); so that really made my day!

Long Silver Necklace

Watching Sarah Millsop on Create and Craft today, and seeing her long Chain Maille necklace, reminded me that I had an idea going around in my head since before christmas for a long necklace, so I set to to put my idea into reality.  It is actually longer in length than in the above picture.

For the jewellery enthusiasts amonst my followers - the chain was a length of flat chain.  the beads were round sparkly silver beads with smaller shiny round beads either side, alternated with little sparkly "cluster effect" beads, with a decorated flat silver bead either side, held in place to create a "floating effect" by silver crimp beads.  This is the first time I have tried to do something like this with crimp beads.  I am really pleased with the end result - it came out just as I wanted it to, even my husband commented on how striking it was - heck - praise indeed!



full length view

I have also added a few other views of it - as it was quite difficult in today's light to get a decent picture.

It is also difficult to see how pretty the different silver beads are - I have converted a couple of the pictures to black and white so that hopefully you can see the beads better:



same picture as one above but converted to black and white



I will try and take a photo when the weather improves in daylight, perhaps with me wearing the necklace, as I would really like you to see how sparkly it is.

Thanks for popping by.

Mags

simple necklace

Just another simple pendant on leather ribbon for a friend.  I gather it has been much admired.

MCS meets Joanna Sheen





Groovy!



 Well after all that sewing this week, I managed to play with some cardmaking bits today, and achieved something completely different!  I have used a backing colour, and two images from MCS Men-y Happy Returns, which have been edged with peel-offs to keep the thickness of the card thinner for posting.

I then added stamped images, which I coloured with promarkers and then embossed with UTEE, from Joanna Sheen "Groovy Baby" Stamp sheet.  Cardstock was leathereffect burgundy card.

I think my nephew might laugh at the old fashioned record player - but couldn't resist adding it.   He is a DJ, and is currently looking for a new scooter to replace his old one! (wonder if he will buy a red one?).

Thanks for dropping buy.

Mags

Baby's Cot Blanket

Cot blanket

I have been very busy this week finishing off this cot blanket for my son and daughter-in-law's new baby, which is due in February.  I confess that I didn't actually knit the squares for this one as I was so busy before Christmas trying to get the lounge stripped of wallpaper and redecorated.   Fortunately my daughter's MIL loves knitting and as she offered to do something for the new baby (She is known as Auntie Anne to my son's two daughters), and she kindly offered to knit the squares for this one, as she had always wanted to knit this pattern, but never had the opportunity.  However, she left me to neaten all 80 squares and to sew them together and do the crochet around the edge as she doesn't do crochet - so it was a joint effort.  Think it took me almost as long to neaten all the ends and sew up etc as it did Anne to knit it!

I was so grateful for her help, as I am not the world's greatest knitter - in fact I hate knitting - it takes so long to achieve (give me some material to make a dress in a couple of hours any day!), but my DIL wanted a blankie for the new baby.   We don't know what it is going to be so once again it was a neutral colour - the baby's sisters have pale green and pale gold ones.  (If they have another child think we shall have to know whether it is pink or blue before it is born as running out of neutral colours! LOL!) 

The pressure has been on to get it finished as my DIL has been warned that she is showing 4 weeks ahead of predicted date, so that means anytime soon!  (and there we were worrying that if it was late it might be a leap year baby).  Mind you they could be wrong yet!.

I did say it would probably be born on Valentine's Day as we already have two birthdays that date (one being my DIL!) but now that it looks as though it will be early with a whole lot of family birthdays at end and beginning of Feb, we are wondering what chances of another doubling up on dates!

Now that it is finished - hopefully I can start playing with some of my new craft bits.

Mags

choker necklace

Blue Choker necklace

Just found some photos on the camera of pressies I had made for Christmas, that I hadn't downloaded onto the computer (or should that be uploaded - I never know!)

Choker necklace finding was from Beader's companion, the bead holder I bought at Sandown - I can't remember the supplier - but they are sold on various bead sites.  The beautiful blue beads, were some from my stash that I bought at Farnborough last year.

I also made one with red beads for my DIL - but don't appear to have taken a photo of that.

Mags

A Bevy of Thank You Cards

It has been a bit busy since Christmas, as I had a houseful of visitors and family over New Year,  and I have only just got around to doing my Thankyou cards.   I had a hospital appointment yesterday to check out a dodgy eye (which turned out to be ok) and because it took some hours for the blurryness to wear off after the drops, I sat and coloured in the images that I had stamped the day before in order to sit quietly and keep myself occupied, whilst listening to the tv (as couldn't actually see it that well with the blurry eyes)   I must admit my first love will always be stamping, and I find colouring in so therapeutic.

The sheet of stamps was a free one with Cardmaking and Papercraft - and the only reason I bought the magazine when I saw it on the shelf was to do my Thankyou cards - it was just perfect for what I wanted. 

Images were coloured with promarkers (what else - just love blending with those) and then I tried out some distress inks that I bought at the Craft Barn sale where I went on NY Eve with my pal Sassie.  I have never tried distress inks before. (I know where have I been!)

The two cards with blue background were distressed with broken china, and the first one has a bit of bundled sage on it too, the other three were distressed with scattered straw.  I also ran the cardstock through my woodware cutter to give a wavy edge, and then ran the ink pad along the edge.  I was going to matt the image, but decided to just keep the cards "clean and simple" as didn't want a "matt" to distract from the distressed edge.

Am quite pleased with my first attempt at distressing.

Thanks for looking

Mags

1st Birthday

Bunny Snuffles 1st Birthday Card

Created with MCS Bunny Snuffles Big Birthday Bash cd.  Main image and flags decoupaged, and then a few embellishments from my stash added (little hedgehog, balloons and "with love" tag), and few highlights with Sakura Clear stardust.

Mags

I may have forgotten to take a photo .....

..... but I can share my draft layouts of two January birthday cards, that I menionted in my last post.  Both were made from JS "From the Heart of the Garden" cd.

I quite often plan my layouts either in Publisher or MCS and then print off the different elements.  In both cases the images were matted and layered with appropriate coloured card.  (I thik the teacup one was mounted on gold mirri, and the purple one on silver mirri.  (That's why I take a photo cos I can't remember!)  In the first one - I actually replaced the bottom little image with the flower spray on the final card.  You will have to imagine that the backing paper in both cases was mounted on an A5 cream card.   I actually imported the purple image into MCS in order to match the colouring of the sentiment to the image.

so although I forgot to take a photo before I rushed to get them in the post (and blame that on the fact that I also had visitors in the house - so brain cell was not functioning at full power - LOL!) - Hopefully you can get the gist of what the cards look liked. 

Mags

The last card of 2011

A card for a birthday on 31 December, for my son-in-law's mother.   She joined the family to see the New Year in as we had my pal Sassie and family staying - so the children were allowed to stay up to see the fireworks and play "gambling" card games!  - we taught them Newmarket and the pennies had their yearly airing!

I will have to make the photo of this card last as I also made two others for early January, and in my rush to get them in the post because of the Bank Holiday I forgot to post them.  Fortunately this one was still to hand!

The images and backing paper (as were the other ones) was from the JS "From the Heart of the Garden".  I did draft the other cards in Publisher so will try and recreate the idea and post them in next couple of days.

In the meantime - I would like to wish you a very Happy and Prosperous New Year.

Mags