Such excitement ... off to crop tomorrow!

It has been MONTHS since I have gone to crop anywhere. Quite a while ago I was asked to teach at the Exhall Coventry crop and the date has finally come around.

I've nicked the sneak peek collage put together by Claire (Weetabix on UKS) - the kit has been sponsored by Sarah's Cards and is the wonderfully bold and vibrant Seasons range from Crate Paper.

I'm teaching two layouts and have done a bonus card with the left-overs. Special thanks go to A Trip Down Memory Lane and Sir Stampalot too for getting extra bits to me in time for the weekend.

I'm really excited about meeting the people down there (and a little bit nervous too, but that's a good thing, right?) Am hoping the lure of my special chocolate cake will soften them up nicely :) Saying that, off to do the baking right now.

For the love of cards

I do make them, you know, sometimes. Usually I get a blood rush to the head and do a lot (usually when it's the 2peas challenge week), but mainly I'm a 'make 'em when they're needed' kind of card maker.

This pretty, girly card, was for Mia's birthday. The image is from Wild Rose Studio. It's packaged as a Christmas stamp, but some pretty colours and bling to cover the snowflakes and it's just purrfect (sorry!) for a girly girl birthday. I coloured the cat grey to match the balls of fluff we have at home.

Patterned papers are predominantly Making Memories (I absolutely adored the Noteworthy range and have quite a few papers from that stockpiled) and look, that purple paper is some VERY old Chatterbox. So very pretty. I absolutely adored that range and, yes, there is quite a bit of that in my stash too!

I used Nestabilities (scalloped and plain rectangle), Fiskars Apron Lace punch, Sizzix flower die (cut out a felt flower) and a circle punch (to create the shrink plastic button stamped with Love words). The sentiment is from a beautiful set from Hero Arts and the image is coloured with Distress Inks. I need more practice, but I do like the water colour effect of working with these.

I've discovered a wonderful site, The Daily Dare, which lists LOTS of challenges (just perfect for kick starting the crafting gears) and this card happens to meet quite a few this week:

ABC Challenge - S is for Sparkle
All That Scraps - Sewing
Creative Belli Blog - Die cut shapes CBC89
Fab 'n' Funky - Get it all out (neglected stash!)
A Spoon full of Sugar - birthday
Creative Card Crew - birthday
Scrap Creations - 3 different embellishments
The Crafty Pad - stitching
Allsorts - stitching
Split Coast Stampers Ways to Use it Challenge WT267 - Mixing patterns

And now ... digital delights

I'm a dreadful procrastinator. Always have been. With life stuff as well as scrapping. Those last minute 'nerves' always seem to get me fired up though.

It was Mia's 9th birthday last week. She had been so excited (even more so because she was getting some long awaited bunnies for her birthday).

We had a lovely little party planned, just my two girls and four of Mia's friends. Off bowling followed by McDonalds, ice-cream, jelly and cake at home followed by a treasure hunt in the garden.

The year Mia was born it was Easter weekend on her birth day, so even though the dates for Easter do change year to year, we usually celebrate with an Easter themed party for Mia. It's great to just buy an Easter egg for the party 'bags'. And, of course, the egg hunt always goes down a treat!

Anyhow, back to the procrastinating ... as ever I had left it to the last minute to get things ready. To speed the process up a bit, I decided to 'do digi' and, to honour the arrival of Mia's own little Easter Bunnies, I trawled the net and found a wonderful digital kit called Honey Bunny by Dani Mogstad at Sweet Shoppe Designs. I used this super cute kit to design and decorate the party/treasure hunt bags, prize tickets and cake boxes.

The cake boxes were made from a variety of patterned papers and cut using a great design, made bigger to fit the bigger wodge of chocolatey birthday cake, from a free template by Marie H over at UK Scrappers (if you have a need for GSD files and you aren't already registered with the Craft Robo template section over at UK Scrappers, it is well worth the effort as there are some fabulously talented people who share their goodies and knowledge there).



Some of the prizes didn't fit into the eggs, so I made tickets to fold and put in them instead. And Mia won a large Easter egg at the Easter fair a couple of weeks ago. Since she doesn't eat chocolate, she offered it up as a special prize at her party. She had a tub of Pringles in lieu :)



And finally, a picture of Mia blowing out the candles on her birthday cake (based on the one I made last year which she specially requested again this year).


For years I have cheated and bought novelty chocolate shapes from Thorntons to decorate the birthday cakes and also they will ice the little plaques with your own message too. Easy peasy! And that chocolate cake recipe is just wonderful. Also easy peasy. And easy peasy to make gluten free too!

Stamping delights

Managed a quick (okay, not so quick, no crafting I do is quick) card today before spending the day out and about with Mum (garden centre, coffee shop, Sainsbury's, the excitement of my life is overwhelming).


This card features Hero Arts stamps:
Dots and flowers background stamped and embossed in white, distressed with Vintage Photo distress ink.
Antique brocade cling stamped with distress ink and butterflies punched out.
Panel background created with distress inks (broken china, peeled paint, shabby shutters).

Botanical Tulip digital download (Hero Arts at Two Peas in a Bucket) coloured with markers and triple embossed with UTEE.
Sentiment from the Thoughtful Messages clear design set, mounted on oval punchies (Stampin' Up).
And, of course, the faithful Fiskars Apron Lace punch.

At the garden centre I bought a new Sizzix embossing folders set - I had only been admiring that large embossed background on a card in an online gallery this morning before going out!

At Sainsbury's my mum bought me some yellow tulips (just one of THE perfect spring flowers) and a fruity/creamy/meringue from the bakery section (well she bought herself two fruit tartlets and they had a buy two get third free offer on the cake counter hence my good fortune). It's sat hidden in a box in the fridge ready for when I get the munchies later on tonight.

Have just cooked chicken nuggets (homemade you know!) chips, peas and sweetcorns for the kids (including two visiting additions) and after my cuppa I will be back into the kitchen again - chicken/lemon/rocket risotto for me and DH tonight.

Shopping for Stash

From older stash right here at home.


The challenge last week on the KI Memories blog was to use product from older ranges in a new project. For some reason KI Memories isn't that easy to find in the UK any more. I don't know why that is now, it hasn't always been like that - I know because I have a pile of the older papers as evidence!

For this page I used papers from the Bloom collection as well as a couple of embellishments. Some of the butterflies were cut from a patterned paper, others from punches and the largest one in the title was created by cutting around a (K&Co) chipboard butterfly. I even went diving into the boxes of older alphabets. Rub-on letters. I remember when I couldn't do a page without using rub-on letters. And these little pink ones from KI Memories went on as smooth as ever. The large glittered chipboard letters I dug out of another box. I think these were by Making Memories.


And the journaling stamps, I think these were about the first set (or high up there on the list) of clear stamps I bought. I didn't keep the packaging but I have a feeling they are Li'l Davis (yes, I said they were old!). I wanted a larger space for journaling than one block provided, so I stamped it once, stamped again onto scrap paper, cut out and then used that to mask the first stamped image and stamped a second image on top - although of course the second image actually looks like it is behind the first. Oh I used the Fiskars Apron Lace punch (again) and spritzed with the Radiant Rain Teal Zircon (again). Nothing like getting your money's worth out of stuff LOL!


The card is created using Hero Arts stamps. I bought the Truly Appreciated set (bargain from Ebay - okay this veers from the shopping from stash theme I know). I love the extra large sentiments and also the little images that are on the sheet are really useful too. Here I stamped one randomly onto the background and heat embossed with clear embossing powder. The butterflies and flowers are also Hero Arts stamps, which I coloured in using Sakura Stardust pens and a watercolour technique (yay for Create and Craft, I never knew you could watercolour with these, but you can and the effect is gorgeously sparkly).

I also used a Nestabilities label die, KI Memories Bloom paper, KI Memories Pop Culture sticker strip and a selection of stick on pearls and gems. I love using bright colours. So cheery.

I'm back ... and all of a flutter!

Oh heck how predictible is that title for what I am posting? You will see!!!

I've not blogged for so long. That's what comes with having a boring life (like woo hoo when it's supermarket day) plus being too lazy to photograph what I've been doing to share anywhere.

Anyhow. I want to get back to the land of the living, including the land of blogging. Just to share things, though I will generally not bore with lots of personal stuff.

Except to say that YAY good news is that Chiara has been accepted for high school of choice. So ends another six months of anxiety (and this time I didn't put a second option, nor the local education authority option *gulp* so, yep, this was a good result). Apparently there will be a different system for when it is Mia's turn because she has a statement of special needs. Just when I had got the hang of it.

So onto scrappy stuff. I've been neglecting my craft desk rather too much lately and want to get back into the swing of things, which means I am trawling the net for challenges to take part in. Hence this post because I found one on the Bo Bunny blog. To use green, aqua, cream/white. So perfect for me because it fits right in with their Flutter Butter range which I absolutely adore. So much that I am sharing three pages using this range. Confession, the first one Such a Girly Girl is the one I created for the challenge, the other two I did at crop sometime last year, but the Full of Promise page was sitting in a to be finished pile (something else I want to get motivated to sort out).

The papers in this range are so pretty and I'm pleased to say that my new local scrapbooking shop stocks Bo Bunny so I have lots more papers ready to use. I'm hoping they will have some of the new ranges in soon too.

Such a Girly Girl records how much Mia loved pretty dresses at that moment in time. She still does to an extent ... certainly more so than Chiara ever has.






I spritzed the cardstock background with Radiant Rain Teal Zircon and used Vintage Photo distress ink to blend and add a softer look. Used the Fiskars Apron Lace punch liberally (on the accordian fold flower too, see?). The sheer journaling spots are Maya Road, bracket sticker October Afternoon, Prima crystals, letter rub-ons Scrapworks and tiny letter stickers Adornit. And lots of hand stitching. Was doing this late at night and the sewing machine is just too noisy for then.

This next page uses an older photo of Chiara. She suffers dreadfully with lack of confidence despite me always telling her different. She's pretty bright, determined and beautiful. Wish she would see that for herself.




I used Bazzill dotted swiss cardstock background, scalloped edge from a DCWV cardstock pack, American Crafts chipboard letters, My Little Shoebox tiny alphabet stickers, Hero Arts stamps, brads of various sources including MME and Autumnn Leaves, lots of stick on pearls and my trusty photo corner punch by EK Success. I love this punch!

Finally, a page featuring myself *gasp* and the guinea pigs. They are so cute!




The gorgeous butterfly stamp is by Hero Arts, the journaling card Cosmo Cricket, journaling notepaper Making Memories, felt letter stickers American Crafts and ... yes ... I told you I love that corner punch (I stamped and embossed using a Hero Arts stamp to add some subtle interest to them).

You can see the difference between crop pages and at home pages that's for sure! I love doing the busy pages but generally when I am at crop I stick to plainer layouts. Not really because of lack of product (you should see how much stuff I take with me) but because I don't concentrate on scrapping as much whilst out at crop, I love socialising more!

Cybercropping

Taking part in the challenges and classes over on UK Scrappers this weekend. Unfortunately the gallery server is overloaded so I am just uploading my project photos here for now. More info later. Excuse not so good photos, I took them all at an angle to overcome flare from the flash, it being so dark early here nowadays.