What a lovely surprise

Hello folks

As most of you know I have been working on a family history project for the last couple of week so haven't been around very much.  I haven't done any crafting or updated my blog.  Anyway, I can see light at the end of the tunnel now so hopefully normal service will be resumed in the near future!

What a lovely surprise I had when I came up for air and discovered that I had been given an award.  Thank you Fiona C for thinking of me.  Please do have a look at Fiona's lovely inspirational blog -
Fiona's Adventures in Craft-Land.

The idea of the Liebster Blog Award is to spread the love from one small blog (under 200 followers) to other small blogs. This helps to spread knowledge and readership.

To accept the award, you must:

1) Link back to the person who gave it and thank them for thinking of you.

2) Post the award to your blog.

3) Give the award to 5 bloggers (with less than 200 followers) that you appreciate and value.

4) Leave a comment on the blogs of the five people you have chosen to let them know.

"Liebster" in German means "dearest", so to carry on the

  Liebster tradition, I am going to pass the award on to 5 people who's blogs have been an inspiration to me and my crafting. 

I have decided to pass on this award to the following people (not in any particular order!)

Cathy:  Cath's Crafts

Louise:  Lou's Card Creations

Donna:  Smiley Crafter

Nicola:  Pink Delight Craft

Bee:  Crafty B 

 

Right, back to the family history for now!

Catherine x

Paint Fusion Daisy

Good afternoon everyone

Sorry I didn't manage to post anything yesterday but my family history project is keeping me very busy at the moment so there's not much time left to craft.  However, I did manage to get some time this morning and have made a card.

Sheena Douglass has just brought out a new cd which contains images of flowers she has created using paint fusion and I just couldn't resist buying it.  This is my first card made using the cd, and of course it just had to be the daisies I used first!  For some reason I had an image of white daisies on a black background embedded in my brain so this is the card I came up with.

 

The base card is made from Centura Pearl from Crafters Companion and the daisies were printed out onto decoupage paper, also from Crafters Companion.  In fact, I actually bought the cd from them too and used their satin paper to print out the sentiment topper and the paper I matted it on to!  The daisies have been given a liberal coating of Spray and Shine (you've guessed it - Crafters Companion again!)    I have used black stardream paper rather than card as it is a good quality heavyweight paper and I buy this from my local craft shop Craftsite as they sell it by the sheet so I am able to buy the quantity I want in the colour I want as and when I need it. The gold card and black ribbon were from my stash.

The sentiment is the same one I used when I made a card using Sheena's daisy stamps and promarkers but this time I printed it onto backing paper from the cd and added an image of the daisies from the cd behind it.  (Done in Craft Artist).  You can see my stamped daisy card here.

Close up of the sentiment

I am pleased with the finished card, athough I have to say that cutting white daisies out from a white background wasn't the easiest thing to do - but I think it was worth the effort.

This month's challenge at Crafters Companion Monthly Challenge Blog is "Anything Goes" so I have decided to enter this card.

Thank you for visiting my blog.

Catherine x

Pink Tulip

Morning everyone

Well, as promised yesterday, here is the third card I made on Saturday.  It's made from the same photograph that I used for yesterdays Pink and Brown Card but the two cards look completely different.

For this card I used Centura Pearl from Crafters Companion for the base card, the mat and the frame around the topper, cutting the mat and frame out with my Silhouette Cameo.  I printed out the full photograph and decoupaged tulip onto Crafters Companion decoupage paper and then gave the tulip a liberal coating of Spray and Sparkle iridescent (also Crafters Companion.).  I resized them both in Craft Artist so the topper is slightly bigger than on yesterday's card.  I have finished the card with some ribbon and three little "crystal" topped pins from my stash.

Close up of the tulip

I posted the original photograph yesterday so if you would like to see it you can find it here.

I really love this beautiful tulip and am so glad I took the original photograph and that I can use it to good effect on my cards.  Hope you like it too.

Thank you for calling in.

Catherine x

Pink and Brown

Morning folks

Yesterday I managed to make three cards and I posted the first one last night so this morning I am going to show you the second one and will save the third one for tomorrow.

I have been playing with my photographs again and this time decided to use one of a beautiful deep pink tulip that I took in 2009 when Tom and I visited the Wimpole Estate, a National Trust property in Cambridgeshire.

Here is the first of the two cards I have made using this photograph.

For this card I used Craft Artist to digitally cut out the tulip from the photograph, and then digitally cut it into layers so that it could be decoupaged - only four layers, didn't want to go overboard!  There are no leaves becasue there were none on the photo.  When I made up the tulip I sprayed it with Spray and Shine from Crafters Companion, which really makes the colour pop, as well as giving it a lovely gloss.

The base card is A5 in size and made from Centura Pearl from Crafters Companion.  The ribbon is from Yorkshire Trading (can't go in there without coming home with some ribbon!)  I treated myself to a copy of "Simply Cards and Papercraft" yesterday (issue 94) and with it were free stamps and papers from Hot Off The Press and I decided to use some of the lovely papers on this card.  I used Spellbinders dies to cut both the tulip border and the oval frame (which is Coredinations card from Crafters Companion).  The doiley and pearls are from my stash.

Here is the original photograph

And now I really must go and see to the dinner.

Thank you for visiting my blog.

Catherine

Vintage Blooms Card

Evening folks

A few days now since I last posted on here.  I haven't had much time to craft this week, mainly because I have been spending a lot of time working on a family history project, which will probably take up quite a lot of my time between now and Easter so I will post cards as and when I get a chance to make them.

This evening's card is made from free papers from Jaq Heath, which are available to download here, and this set is called Vintage Blossom.  The darker paper down the right side of the card is one of my own, and the printed flowers at the top of the card were made in Craft Artist using a digital stencil - the lighter one is made with the Jaq Heath paper.  They were printed direct onto the backing papers.  All the flowers and the sentiment, as well as the lighter backing paper are Jaq Heath's designs.

I decided to use some pearly stuff for the centres of the flowers and a combination of my eyesight and lack of daylight has resulted in messy centres, which I only really saw once I uploaded the photograph so I think I shall have to do something about that - any suggestions anyone?

I really love the soft colouring on Jaq's backing paper and next time I use these flowers and paper I don't think I'll attempt the pearly stuff!

Thank you for calling in.

Catherine x

Katy's Cosmos

Morning everyone,

I didn't manage a post at all yesterday - thought I had better do some housework, and when hubby had gone to work I started messing around with photographs.  Then I decided to try turning one of them into a card again.  And this is what I ended up with.

Although it doesn't show up on the photograph, I printed the toppers and embellishments out onto Joanna Sheen's Gentle Gloss Photo Paper and they do have a lovely shine to them.

I started by turning the original flower from pink to blue (making sure I saved the original photograph).  I then started cropping both the blue and pink copies into sections.  I used one of the blue sections to make the backing for the card by enlarging it, slightly reducing the opacity and then printing it onto vellum.  I then chose three of the pink flower sections and matted them onto some dark blue embossed and pearlised card.  Then I digitally cut out  the entire pink and blue flowers, reduced them in size and printed them out to use as the embellishments.  I think they would also look goood printed onto vellum.  The only other thing I used on this card was a strip of dark blue ribbon down the left side as a border.

Here is the original photograph - and yes, I grew this one myself from seed in amongst the vegetable beds last year.  The flower is Cosmos and is really pretty and delicate looking.  The photograph was taken in July.

I have decided to enter this into the Pink and Blue challenge at The Crafty Bloggers Network.

Thank you for visiting my blog.

Catherine x

Tatty Teddy Tagged!

Afternoon everyone

Well, no post from me yesterday - Sunday is always a bit of a difficult day when it comes to crafting, though I did print off some papers in readiness for today.  I decided it was time to make another Tatty Teddy card and investigate my Springtime cd but wanted to make something other than a "normal" card so decided to try making a pocket and tag card using the papers and images from my cds.  I ended up making seven of them - I just couldn't choose so selected eight images and printed them off - but unfortunately decapitated TT on one of them when cutting him out with my Spellbinders nesties!  And then there were seven!  So, first two

And second two

I dithered a good deal about how to do the tags and in the end decided to print the same papers I used for each card so that the tag would also be double sided.  I printed these onto light printable card (160gsm) from Crafters Companion.

Next I had another dither about how best to decorate the tags, bearing in mind that the pocket card is made from 140gsm paper so quite lightweight for a card base.

I printed the sentiments out onto silk paper (100gsm) from Crafters Companion, cut them out with nesties and added them to the tag, finishing the tags with some little flowers.  The blue flowers are embellishments from the "Me to You" cd which I cut out and then added some yellow glitter glue to the centres.

The last three (still waiting to have the tags decorated)

I quite like these little cards and am pleased with the way they turned out and that the cards do stand up without wobbling or falling over.  I actually cut out the tags using my Silhouette Cameo machine which saved me a lot of time and meant that I got a perfect tag shape - and I now have some ready prepared tags to use in the future.

Thank you for dropping in.

Catherine x

Shades of Blue

Afternoon folks

Today I decided to make a card for the very first Emma's Crafty Challenge over at Emma's Cards UK.  The challenge is called "Shades of Blue" and the remit is "Everything on your project, except for your base card if your doing a card, must be a shade of blue."  Here is the card I came up with

Apologies once again for the duff photograph - these short or dark days play havoc with my pictures!

Anyway, I designed the card in Craft Artist and made the backing paper, which I printed direct onto a sheet of A4 Apple Pack 300gsm card, and when I cut out my card I decided that it would probably look best with a very very narrow white border.  All the elements on this card I found in Daisytrail Digikits, with the exeption of the bow, bling and card candi which were from my stash.  I printed the elements out separately onto light printable card from Crafters Companion and then had a bit of fun using my embossing pen and embossing powder around the borders of the tags, the heart and the little bird, though this doesn't really show up well on this photograph.  I also added a little bit of blue glitter to the light blue spots on the larger tag.

And now I really must go back up to my craftroom and tidy it up again - it's still in a mess since I made my Oriental card yesterday!

Thank you for visiting my blog.

Catherine x

Oriental card

Good afternoon folks

Well, I have spent the morning in my craft room (on medical instruction of course, - not because I enjoy it or anything!)  The challenge this week at Crafty Bloggers Network is Oriental.  Now Oriental isn't anything I have attempted before, mainly because it doesn't particularly appeal too me, although I have to say I have seen many beautiful Oriental cards.  So I decided to rise to the challenge - and believe me, I have been seriously challenged making this card!

So, as this subject doesn't appeal to me, where to start as I don't have anything suitable to use - or so I thought at first.  Then I remembered being given a "goody bag" containing an Oriental stamp at a craft fair a few years ago.  Right, sorted, I will use that stamp.  What to use with the image - hmm, I remember seeing bamboo in a book I have - "Design Source Book" so hunted that out.  Scanned the image, took it into Craft Artist and changed the colour to red then turned it into a backing paper.  All good so far.  Next I hunted out the stamp - a wooden and red rubber one.  Inked it up and tried stamping it - every time I did there was a 'patch' that didn't stamp properly. The stamp was of a geisha - a very cross looking geisha at that!  Anyway, no matter what I did - use a stamping mat, don't use a stamping mat, add extra ink, use less ink, put added pressure over the 'patch', stamp more lightly...... nothing made any difference.  So that scuppered that idea.  Back to the drawing board.  As some of you will already have realised, I love flowers and I have a lot of floral cds so a trawl through them and Joanna Sheen to the rescue.  I found a section entitled Japanese Chrysanthemums and Lilies in her RDS cd 2 so I printed out a page of toppers and a sheet of backing paper.  Next I did a search in Craft Artist and found a digikit called Forbidden City which contained things Oriental.  So I made two more smaller toppers using embellishments from that kit.

Here is the finished card

Unfortunately the colour on this photograph is a lot lighter than the actual card, with the exeption of the little topper on the right - the bamboo on that is actually dark red but looks black on this.

I moved all my bits and pieces around to decide how to lay them out before actually sticking them into place, and decided that the whole thing looked a bit bland, so went around the edges of the really pretty backing paper with Tim Holtz distress ink in tea dye, and then without re-inking the sponge ran it around the edges of the bamboo backing paper covering the front of the card, to take the 'white' look away.  I layered the papers and the toppers onto Coredinations card. Then, having spent about an hour hunting for a little oriental medallion/coin thingy I know I have 'somewhere' - without success - I cut out two flowers from one of my spare toppers and added them to the card.  Lastly I decided a little butterfly might look good so did a Google search for Japanese butterflies, found a photo, digitally cut the butterfly in Craft Artist and then printed it out a few times onto vellum before cutting three out (with scissors this time!) and adding them to the card.  I wanted the butterflies to be a little larger than they are - they look more like bees to me - but at that stage I just wanted to finish this card.  Close up of the butterflies

Of course having spent all that time making a bamboo backing paper initially, it can't be seen at all on the finished card so here is a photo of it (just so you know what it looks like!)

So there you have it folks, my very first Oriental card - and I am not at all sure I even like it!

Thank you for dropping in.

Catherine x

Pocket and Tag Card

Good afternoon folks

As some of you probably already know, I went for my first physio session today, and I am pleased to report that I am now able to turn my right palm upwards again - although I was warned that I may not be able to still do this tomorrow.   However, the physio did say that CRAFTING was a good way to keep my wrist moving and so I have taken that as a license to do just that.  (She did also mention light housework and baking but not as often as she mentioned craft!)  Anyway, this morning before I actually went for my physio I was determined to get a card made (because I didn't know whether or not I would be able to use my hand this afternoon).  Over at The cd Sunday Challenge Blog this week's challenge is "Tag you're it" so, as I love my cds, I thought I would give it a go, although tags aren't something I have used very much in the past.  So here is the finished card

Now, I've never made a pocket card before but there were instructions in my Hougie Board book so I made a practise one in duo card to begin with and once I was happy I knew what I was doing I printed a sheet of shimmer paper from Crafty Computer Paper on both sides.  The papers I used are from my Funky Word Books cd by Funky Hand and are in the "Daisy Chain" extras section.  I made the pocket card from this sheet.

I was a bit worried that the card might not stand up when finished because I had used paper rather than card but it is absolutely fine - I really love this shimmer paper.

I designed the tag in Craft Artist Professional and also printed this onto shimmer paper.  I already had a third sheet printed on plain paper and used this and a Spellbinders die to cut the border for the card and also the tag

I didn't want to over-embellish this card as I think the papers are so pretty so simply added some little leaves and roses from my stash, and, of course, some ribbon.

I am pleased with the way this card has turned out and I was amazed at how easy the pocket card was to create.

Thank you for visiting my blog.

Catherine x

Another photo card

Evening everyone

Well, this morning I headed off into town on my own - the first time I have gone out unaccompanied since 5 December.  I was extremely careful when getting on and off the bus, going up or down stairs and walking on tiled floors because I knew that if I tripped, slipped or stumbled I would automatically put out my right hand to save myself - ouch!  And I am happy to say that I managed it there and back without anything untoward happening.  But the best bit was that I got my hair cut (long overdue) and having the hairdresser wash my hair was pure luxury after being subjected to Tom's ministrations for the last two months!  I mean girls, would you like it if someone wrung out your hair like they were wringing out a mop?  No, don't think so!  Anyway, as I had to hang around in town for a few hours because I hadn't made an appointment, I haven't actually made a card today.  So instead I thought I would share a card I made at the weekend.  It's another rose card made with one of my own photographs.

I had already played around with the photo in  Painter Essentials 4 so took it into Craft Artist and made the topper.   Once I had done that I simply layered it up onto some peach coloured pearl card and some copper coloured foil card.  Very simple and straightforward.

Here is the original photograph

Again this rose was in a boquet of flowers, although I do have photos of roses which we grew ourselves, mainly pink and white ones, which I will use on cards eventually.  The roses in boquets always look perfect though - untouched by the elements!

Tomorrow I go for my first physiotherapy appointment so whether or not I will be able to craft after that remains to be seen.  I will try and get something done before I go, just to be on the safe side!

Thank you for dropping in.

Catherine x