April 8th #3

Here's the last of my April 8th birthday card.  This one is for my stepson's partner - an avid runner - both on her own and with her gorgeous dog, Doug.  She is a vet - and is who we trust our Molly with as she has known her all her life. It makes going to the vets an enjoyable experience for her as she gets to see Hannah - which is always fun (except when there are injections involved)!

This is another Hunkydory Pick and Mix topper - this one is called Eat, Sleep, Run, Repeat. I just love the colour combination. 

For the matts and layers, I used silver matt mirror card, orange Core'dinations and teal card from Papermill.  

The letters are cut with Diamond Block Alpha, and I used one of my precious Hobby House orange flowers with a teal hessian one behind (can't for the life of me remember where it came from).

Take care and stay safe.

Cxxx

April 8th #2

Yesterday, I shared the first of my three cards for my April 8th family birthdays - my grandson's first birthday card!

Today I am sharing my niece's card- who was sweet 16. A very difficult time for her, as she is one of that group for whom her GCSE's will never be sat, and who will be hoping that the work she has done in her mocks and her coursework will get her the grades she wants. 

This is a 7x7 card using Hunkydory Pick and Mix - Girl Boss topper. It's pink - which is a colour she is rather partial too - and I like the message on there too.

The background is a combination of silver mirror card, some very old Create and Craft Textured Card (which isn't texture - just looks it), Crafter's Companion Matt Black card, and the pink is from Hunkydory's Floral Delight Card Block.

The letters are cut using Crafter's Companion Kinetic Alphabet, and the numbers using Diamond Press Block Alpha.  And as ever, it's all finished with ribbons and pearls.

Take care and stay safe,
Cxxxx

A very different time.

In one of the strangest years ever, we have come to one of the busiest days for birthdays in my calendar - 3 of them. And I am going to share them over three posts - because I can - and because it gives me something to do. For all three of them, it's most definitely a different day to the one that they expected or had planned.

So my first share is for my grandson, Arlo, who is one today! We will not all be meeting up this weekend as originally planned for a big party - but that will happen once this is all over. We will hopefully get to "chat" later. 

You may - or may not - know that there is a film with a dinosaur called Arlo - and Arlo has lots of dinosaur themed things. So his card had to be the same.

This is an 8x8 card base, and the topper is Hunkdory Pick and Mix - Dinotopia. I have used gold mirror card, yellow Core'dinations and the blue paper is from an old Papermania pack.  To cut the shapes, I used Spellbinders Grand Squares, Grand Scalloped Squares and Circles, with some Crafter's Companion Stitched Edge circles.

The 1 is cut using a really old Crafter's Companion 3" number die, and the letters using Diamond Press Block Alpha. And it's all finished off with some twine and flat backed pearls. 

Enjoy today the best you can - wherever you are, and whatever you are doing. Stay safe.

Cxxx

Easter at Use Your Craft Stash

As many crafters know, we all build up a huge stash of things as we race to get the newest dies, paints, stamps, inks etc etc And we're all bad at using up our stash.  So, over at Use Your Craft Stash, our aim is to get people to do just that - use your craft stash. We have no prizes on offer, but will be setting a weekly theme. And this week is Easter.

Now, I don't make Easter cards, so had to rack my brains to think what I had in my stash that would be suitable. And then it came to me - Bebunni!!  So, I had a look through and decided that Brighten My Day from Bebunni Floral would be a perfect choice. 

If you have seen my post from a few days ago, you will know I have a list of things in my stash that I want to get out and play with, and this seemed like the perfect time. So, instead of reaching for my watercolours, or my alcohol pens, I went for my Spectrum Noir ColourBlend Pencils.

As you can see, I have all the sets of pencils, along with the blending solution and paper stumps. I decided to restrict myself to just one set - the Essentials.

I started by colouring Bebunni, with White, Smoke, Taupe, Pewter, Black and Peach. 

And the Daffodil was coloured with Linen, Eggshell, Canary, Pumpkin, Nectarine and Pewter.

  

For the leaf I used Pistachio, Sage, Jade, Taupe and Black. I really like the blending solution to help get rid of the hard lines.

I decided that I needed to ground Bebunni, and used Smoke, Taupe, Pewter and Black. I then gathered all the papers - Core-dinations Brights Yellow and Green card, Papermania Yellow patterned paper (this has to be well over 10 years old), and I think the green stripe is also DoCrafts/Papermania. The Easter "words" card is another old one - and I really cannot remember where this came from.  I then dug out my XCut Egg des - these are the two smallest sizes, along with the paper strips that were for the Crafter's Companion Quilling dies.  

I also dug out some old embossing folders to add texture to the eggs. These are from Crafter's Companion - Verity Rose collection - Flutterby, Cupcake and Destiny.

And then I inked them with Mustard Seed and Lucky clover Distress Oxides.

 

The mats and layers were cut using another very old workhorse from my stash - Spellbinders Grand Scalloped Squares and Grand Squares, and also the Rectangles.

Even the ribbon has been around a while. You used to get packs with (I think) 4 ribbons wrapped around a piece of card. Not sure what make they were - but both of these were from packs like that. And of course, I used my trusty bow maker from Tattered Lace!! 

If you have craft stash to use, come and join us on FB at Use Your Craft Stash. You don't have to take part in the weekly themes if you don't want to, but get some inspiration and share your makes using your stash.  We look forward to seeing you.

In the meantime, take care and stay safe. 

Cxxx

Not a crumble - and banana loaf!

A bit of a random post today. I have been feeling a little lost with everything going on. I have cut down on what I watch on TV, but I do like my social media - although I am trying to not look at it first thing when I get up. 

As a teacher, it worries me that parents are feeling overwhelmed with the distance learning (on top of everything else), and that there is almost too much out there now - too many free access to this site or that site - too many ideas of what to do to keep your children occupied. For some of them, just getting through the day is enough.

I have also felt a little overwhelmed this week, with thoughts of all the things I could or should be doing during this enforced time at home. For the past two weeks, part of my day has been checking the on-line apps and answering questions, and praising what has been achieved.  I also do my daily exercise - with or without Molly (my dog) depending on whether my OH is at home and will take her when he does his daily exercise. 

And then I start seeing all these things on social media about sewing masks and bags and scrubs, and I think - maybe that's what I should be doing to help? But then I think - I am still teaching and working from home - do I need to be doing anymore? 

And then you see the "it's the perfect time to learn something new", or "plenty of time to craft". But there have been days when I just can't seem to motivate myself to do any of it. This new reality is proving difficult to adjust to.

The last couple of days, though, seem to have been better. I have made a concerted effort to do things - but not to necessarily plan them. I was finding that if I said I would do x, y and z during the day, and then didn't, then I would feel rubbish about it. So, now I have an idea of what I would like to do - but nothing fixed and no pressure to get it done (after all, we could be here a while). And actually I have achieved lots.

On Saturday, I finished all my foam flowers that I started a couple of weeks ago - I will share those in another post - I went out on my bike and I made sourdough bread.  I also felt quite satisfied that we had not been wasteful with our food. Dinner included left over roast potatoes and parsnips that we sliced and fried and ate with some lovely sausages from our local market. And I also made use of the ends of the sourdough loaf (it was a tad crusty) to make a version of a crumble. I found the recipe online, and it involved oats, breadcrumbs and orange juice.

The fruit was from the freezer - stewed apple and blackberry form last year (we have two apple trees in our back garden).

The result was alright! Not as rich as a normal crumble, but it saved my precious flour, which seems to be at a premium right now.

 

And today has been a whirlwind of things. I started by cleaning the kitchen, then stripped the beds, did multiple loads of washing, walked Molly - and bathed her, and made a banana loaf - another new one on me, but I didn't want to waste the bananas my OH was going to bin. I hate the things myself, but he'll demolish this all on his own with no problem.  

Then this afternoon, we planted the shrubs that we had bought pre-lockdown, I tidied the shed and my OH assembled one of my old plastic greenhouses from our old house so I can see if any of my (very) out of date seeds will germinate. 

So, this is how I am coping. I need to take one day at a time, be happy with whatever I achieve - and don't put pressure on myself to do things. 

I hope you are all finding ways to cope. Take care, and stay safe.

Cxxx

Sourdough and Pimm's for breakfast!!

Morning. Hope this finds you well. On a FB group I am in, people have been making sourdough, so I thought I would give it a try. Had to use wholemeal bread flour as it was the only bread flour in the shop. I made my starter, and fed it, and last night I was ready to make my first loaf.

Well, straight out of the blocks there was a problem. I had obviously done something wrong with the starter as I had nowhere near enough to make the loaf - and I was also supposed to have some left to keep feeding for my next loaf. Not to be put off, I ploughed on and made the loaf anyway (and made a new starter at the same time). 

I put it in the airing cupboard overnight to prove.

And, miraculously, this morning, it did seem to have roughly doubled in size! I tried putting it into a loaf tin which was not successful as would have meant forcing it into a different shape and knocking the air out of it. So put it flat onto a baking tray instead.

Didn't come out too bad.

Was a bit crusty, and a bit dense - but perfectly edible. So, fresh, warm bread and Pimm's Jam for breakfast!!

And if you haven't tried Pimm's Jam - it's strawberry, tangerine and mint. Scrummy. Enjoy your day - whatever you may be doing.

Take care, stay safe.

Cxxxx

When it goes wrong - put a butterfly on...

That old crafter's adage worked for me today - and saved me from feeling pretty rubbish about what I was attempting. This is what I produced, but it is so far from what I set out to do, that it's really quite laughable.

Let's rewind to just before lunch yesterday. I decided to make a list of all the things on my shelves, in my drawers and in my cupboards (and already I know I missed some things - gel press, mica powders...) that I really should play with, have a go with, experiment with. you get the idea.

And when lockdown had seemed imminent a couple of weeks ago, I ordered myself some journals from Pink Pig. The large one has watercolour card in - for an art journal, The next one is lined for jotting ideas and thoughts down. And the little one is for drawing and sketching - I went small with this one as I didn't want to be intimidated by a larger size.

The art journal was the one I wanted to start with, but I didn't really want to ruin other pages, so I cut a piece of mylar to sit behind the page and protect the rest (or that was the idea).

 

For the afternoon's dabble, I decided to have a play with the Spectrum Noir Sparkle Inks. I bought these with the intention of using them on my Christmas cards, and never did, so they have sat in the cupboard for a while.

I got all excited, googled for something different to try with watercolour based products, and found a lovely video clip which showed techniques using salt water, water with bleach, and clingfilm. Great, I thought. And got myself all set up, remembering to take photos for a step by step. And I used some low tack tape to divide the page into three - one for each of the things shown on the clip. So far, so good.

  

I started with the salt water. The idea was to put a wash of the salt water on the paper, then dot the ink on. I used Amethyst and Garnet from the Glitz and Glamour set. This was reasonably successful - but not quite as great as in the video.

I pushed on with the water with bleach in it. Same idea - make a wash with the water and then dot the ink on. This was supposed to give a much more feathery effect. This was what I got. Total fail.

At this point I was starting to get frustrated, but ploughed on with number 3 - the clingfilm. Plain water is put on the clingfilm, ink dotted on, and then applied to the paper. 

  

The result - a puddly mess that leaked onto the other two sides as well. Totally annoyed with myself by this point. Instead of a lovely page showing three techniques, it looked like a small child had been let loose on it (no offence to small children intended). So, I went over the whole lot with the salt water.

  

At this point, it was a case of what can I do to save this. So I dug out my Sara Signature Flutterby Collection (have pretty much all of this as I demo'd it not long after release), Harmony Water Reactive Inks - Plum Pudding, Winter Rose and Silent Night and Chipped Sapphire Distress Oxide.

At this point, photos kind of went by the wayside. I added more of the Pink Garnet Sparkle Ink at the top and bottom and stamped the Botanical Butterfly with Silent Night inkpad. I used water to spread some of the ink, and then filled in with Amethyst and Pink Garnet Sparkle inks. 

Have to say, it looks better on the above photo than I felt it did yesterday, so I watered down some white gesso and went over it to knock it back. And then I attempted to overstamp the butterfly with Memento - Nautical Blue.

    

To frame it, I used one of the Scripture stamps with the Winter Rose inkpad and two different stamps from the Textured Elements set with the Plum Pudding and Silent Night.

The sentiment is from the Fly Away set, and I edged the whole thing (tricky when it's spiral bound) with Chipped Sapphire Distress Oxide.

While this is is no way what I had intended when I started, it ended up OK. Oh, and it's almost impossible to keep the next pages clean in a book like this!! 

Lessons learned. Onwards and upwards!!

Take care and stay safe.

Cxxx