sorry to be boring ....

...... but having so much fun. Sat out in the garden doing these this afternoon. I have used the JS Rose stamp before, and normally water-coloured it, using Lyra or Sakura.

The other three are stamps I have purchased at some point and not got around to using. The poppy and the Medallion ones are stamps from Glenda, and the owl was one I bought at the Craft Barn one day, couldn't resist it - as the sentiment made me laugh!

Think the owl one might get used on husband's birthday card!

Quietly playing ...

I have sat quietly this afternoon, playing with my new promarker pens, that my husband treated me to as an early birthday present.

I have really enjoyed myself, and it was so relaxing and rewarding to get a decent finished image. I decided to prepare some card toppers for future use.

First three using some stamps that I have had for years, and that haven't seen the light of day in a long time. (It also means I have made a start on my Christmas cards!)

These four are some newer stamp purchases.

I really love these new pens.

They give such a professional finish to the colouring of the image. Don't think I have ever done so much colouring in one afternoon!

Panic over!

so I sat clicking on the followers of my blog over the weekend and created a new Blog favs folder, and started adding everybody - and having done about 5 - suddenly when I clicked add to favs - I had a choice of the old blog favs and the new blog favs - Obviously the original file had finished its wanderings around cyber space and returned home! blinking technology! (well those weren't my exact words!) rofl!

Not a Happy Bunny!

I am not a Happy Bunny today - the Blog Folder in "My Favourites" on my Computer has disappeared into Cyber Space! It is only the Blog folder that appears to be missing - although there could be a few other links missing from other folders that I haven't discovered yet. Would have to be the folder I used most wouldn't it!

Theoretically the "My Favourites" file is kept on the AOL Server and should be available if I sign on from any computer - well I haven't managed to access it from any of ours - so looks as though I will have to go round to my daughter's and try and access from hers.

I even lost the link to my own blog - fortunately I had about three of the ones I follow duplicated on IE as well as my own. Thank goodness! So if you are reading this and know that I normally follow your blog - could you either send me a link to your blog via an email (if you know my email address), or via YUKU for JS forum members or through FaceBook, for those of you that are on there.

Thankfully I can at least click on the friends that follow this blog and add some of them back into my file.



Mags

Playing about

One of my forum pals posted a link to a programme for making these Rubik's cube images. So naturally I had to play. Think I am a techno crafter rather than a stamping crafter, as I love doing things like this!

The one on the left is one of my granddaughters at the beach last week, and the other is using one of the Kaleidoscope images I made with my clematis picture (See earlier posting). You can also make jigsaws and christmas baubles. I think the Rubik's cube one would be very useful for those difficult mens cards. Can see myself creating an image in My Craft Studio and then saving it as a jpeg and converting to a rubik image.

and if you want to know what the programme I used was click on this link:

http://www.dumpr.net/

Crafting with Granddaughter

I have had eldest granddaughter staying for two days this week - Thursday off because of polling and then Friday was an inset day.

We spent most of our time crafting, although there was a visit to the hairdressers on friday for the two of us, and the playing of a few board games. DIL visited on Thursday too with the other granddaughters - so Bea of course had to do a bit of crafting with her cousin Ellie. (I bought Bea a cuttlekids machine for her birthday, and although her mum had to help her a bit, she did the turning of the handle, and stuck all the foam images onto her Birthday Thankyou cards herself. I also bought a rather nice Forever Friends starter stamping kit - think I might have to borrow that at some point!

I had been making note of all the colouring techniques on the Forum, so we decided that was what we were going to practise. Ellie is getting quite good with using a koi brush and sakura or felt pens (well I did buy her Lyra Aqua colours for her birthday so think she has been getting some practise in!)

Anyway enough of my rambling - here are Ellie's cards. First two just playing about and for no particular person. Next two are a card for her little pal's birthday today and a topper for a Christmas card. Ok so Christmas Roses aren't really that colour - but her colouring in real life is gorgeous - sparkly sakura done with a koi brush.

and I suppose I had better show my efforts - perhaps not as good as Ellie's!

Think I need more practise - but am gradually getting the hang of shading - shame my experiment on the ivy didn't come out as I wanted it - although it does look better than in the photo, as the sakura highlights are more subtle.

Something a little different

I was admiring my Nellie Moser clematis today - the flowers this year are huge - the size of dinner plates! Of course I had to get the camera and take a photo!

Having uploaded it, I then decided to play with my Kaleidoscope Kreator programme, and had a lot of fun with the image. Personally I thought Wow! Hope you do too. I think some of them would look great for teabag folding.

A fishy card!

When it comes to men's cards my mind tends to go blank. I decided to browse some of my Joanna Sheen cds to find a suitable image. My immediate thoughts went to the Jane Netley Mayhew cd as there are some nice wildlife images on it.

I came across this one, and I like the simplicity of it. (As most of you know I only do simple!) I also used one of the backing papers that went with the image. Originally I was going to cut the blue paper in a circle to match the image, but catastrophe - the blade seems to have disappeared from my circle cutter - heaven knows how - so that will be a new purchase. My husband said it looks quite nice on the square - just as well, as I didn't have a lot of choice! To make it a little different I cut the blue paper with the wiggly cutter.

The fish were decoupaged, and glazed. I also added a few drops of glaze as bubbles, and although you can't see them on the photo a few little bubbles with a sakura pen. Finished off with a sentiment from my Daisy & Dandelion stash, which was just the right colour and of course matching card candy buttons.

3-year olds rule this week!

We are attending a joint Birthday Party today for three 3-year olds. My granddaughter Bea and her two little friends who have birthdays this week - in fact it is actually her best friend Alex's birthday today.

I have made a cake for Bea - I hope she likes it. I asked her what she wanted on her cake and at first she said Peter Rabbit, then it was Peppa Pig and last week at her dad's birthday party she said a Fairy! I showed her the Messy Fairy Rabbit image on Wednesday and asked if she would like it on her cake ,and she said she "ooo a Fairy Rabbit - I like that Nanny" as she left I said so Fairy Rabbit on your cake then - "No was the reply "Mickey Mouse" Don't you wish you had never asked! Soooooooooooooooo - she has got the lot!

I have also made Birthday cards for her and her pals, plus a new baby card for her little friend Alex's baby brother. Matthew will probably be Connie's best friend - as they should have been born within a couple of weeks of each other - However, Connie was early and Matthew was late!

The cards are fairly simple. I had bought the decoupage images last year at Farnborough Show and finally got around to using them. I am glad they were die-cut images as there were some awfully fiddly bits, which would have been a nightmare to cut out with scissors! I also got to play with a couple of new purchases - my Martha Stewart punch and my mega nestabilities, and to try out an idea of threaded ribbon I saw in a craft magazine.

Martha Steward punch and flora doodles for Bea (she fell in love with the punch this week), and flora doodles are a must on cards for her!

Used a japanese punch on this card and then did the ribbon weaving. Letters cut with x-cut letter set.

Cuttlebug background, chalked and cut with a mega nestabilitie for Alex, and one of my favourite images from Joanna Sheen's Baby Love cd for his new little brother.

Son's Birthday Cake

We are having a bbq lunch for my son's birthday - hosted by my daughter, and I made this cake for him. I hadn't realised when I made the cake that the board I had was oval, and the cake I had made was round, but think the end result is quite effective (even if I say so myself!)

I was originally going to make a cake when he got engaged, but they didn't want a party. I had bought the ribbon for the cake and the bottle candle and glasses, so I have also used those, so it can also double up as a belated engagement cake, as Katharine's family will be attending the bbq!

I think the wording on the computer image should be dot net geek -having looked at his blog since I iced his cake - but what the heck! Mothers are entitled to get it wrong!

For those of you that dabble in cake decorating I have also added the instructions on how I did it.

Another view showing the side ribbon (originally bought for engagement cake)

And here is how I achieved the result.

I stamped the image of Lofty and his accessories onto a piece of paper. He was a tad too small for the cake. So I scanned the images and then saved them individually.

I used Publisher and drew an 8" circle and then imported the images and resized them and decided which ones I wanted to use. Printed off the draft design and placed it it a clear plastic wallet.

I then wiped the plastic sheet with vodka to sterilise it and dried it off, and then rolled Sugar City antique white platinum flower paste very thinly over the images and trimmed the paste roughly to size.


I then painted the design using cake dusts mixed with Sugar City "PaintMate" (iso-propyl alcohol). Some bits had to be painted free-hand so to speak, as couldn't always see the image underneath!

Finally with a very fine sharp palette knife I cut the images out of the paste and attached them to the cake with a dab of water. The number 30 was done with a cutter, and I piped his name in royal icing. Both were "edged" with gold dust mixed into a paint as before.

Finally I should add (just to get your taste buds going) the cake is made from a professional chocolate sponge mix!