Lovely as a tree

The challenge on this week's Tuesday Taggers is to take our inspiration from a poem. Given that I love trees, I couldn't fail to be inspired by a poem about that very subject - "Trees" by Alfred Joyce Kilmer, an American journalist, lecturer and poet. "Trees" is probably his most well known poem.

I printed the poem on to a shaped cutout from the Artylicious Essence of Nature CD rom and composed my card around it. The base of the card is covered with matching paper from the CD. I stamped an Elusive Images tree on the top part and mounted the poem along with two tree images from the Crafty Individuals Miniatures book Nature's Beauty.

For the stopper, I cut a branch and leaves from Grungeboard and coloured them with Promarkers.

Here's the finished card. I really enjoyed making this one!

Well, I'm back

Had a great week up in Dumfriesshire. My daughter's house is in a rural area, overlooking fields. Just down the road there's a loch with a ruined castle. Buzzards and geese fly overhead. It's really peaceful and quiet, and the air is clean and fresh. I love it there. Not so quiet and peaceful inside the house, of course! Ewan, my elder grandson, who's 5 (going on 25!) will be starting big school this week.

We took him to buy his new school uniform, and I managed to persuade him (with some difficulty!) to model it for some photos so that I could bring them back home to show his granddad. He looks so grown up in it.

His little brother, Andrew, aged nearly 19 months, wanted in on the act, so he put on Ewan's school cap and had his picture taken too!

We had a trip to the Glasgow Science Centre, which was brilliant. There was so much to see and do that we couldn't get round it all in a day. By mid afternoon we were all suffering from sensory overload. Ewan's favourite thing was the model crane which could be operated just like a real one. He went on that several times.
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Andrew loved the tunnel slide.

I liked the magic mirrors which made me look tall and thin (well, ok, thinner, they were magic mirrors, not miracle mirrors), but I didn't get a picture of those. It was a great day out. Ewan said it was his best day out EVER. A return visit will definitely be on the agenda.

At the weekend we went to a farmers' market. There was a woman there demonstrating needle felting, something I've never tried before. She had done some lovely pictures and cards with it. I was dying to have a go. My daughter bought me a kit for my birthday, which isn't until October, but she said I could use it now. (So watch this space!)

Have done very little cardmaking over the holidays so far, and I'm getting withdrawal symptoms, but am determined to finish my craft stuff reorganisation. Not much left to do now. I have managed to make a bit more working space on my desk, by finding somewhere else for my printer to live, and a few other bits and pieces. I'm sure that my disappearing mojo of late has been due to the fact that I've felt constrained by the lack of space (not to mention falling over the stuff on the floor every time I stood up!) so I'm hoping that my new arrangement will kickstart it again.

Today Sally and I had a get-together with Lesley (Craftimamma) at Sally's house. It was lovely to meet Lesley for the first time, and we had a great afternoon, showing and telling, and having a good old natter. It felt as though we had been friends for years. Sally gave us a delicious lunch, with one of her fabulous coffee and walnut cakes. Yum! Lesley and I were very good and managed to resist a second helping, but only just.

Well, I didn't intend this to be such a long post, but it's so nice to get back to the blogging. I'll try & catch up with everyone else's over the next few days. I can't believe how quickly the holidays are going. Only a week and a half left before we go back to school. I really must make a start on the kitchen before then....

So that's where my desk is!

The decluttering is going well. Most of my craft stuff is stored in the spare bedroom, as my work room is too small to hold much and still leave room to work in. I can now see the spare room carpet, and the bed! Three bags of rubbish went to the tip (yes, three!). Old magazines and stash I no longer need went to fellow crafters. Strangely, there doesn't seem to be any more room in the cupboards, but at least everything is tidy now and I know where it all is. Not quite finished yet, but enough done to make me feel a lot better.

I have also managed to make a bit of space on my desk, just in time. A friend who has recently had a bereavement asked me to make her a set of thank you cards, and she needed them quickly. So yesterday I made 15 cards, which must be a record for me all in one day! She asked me to deliver them through her letterbox, so not knowing how far they'd have to fall I thought they'd better go in a box to protect them. Didn't have one suitable, so I made one.

The brief was: Irises, shades of lilac/purple, black borders, and MS doily lace punch. Not having time to do lots of colouring, I used a printed picture of irises from the Dreamy Flowers CD by Hinny Bop Designs, and a Penny Black iris stamp. The sentiment is a very old one from Make Your Mark. I covered the box with some wrapping paper bought quite some time ago from Ikea.

My daughter and family are coming to stay overnight tonight on their way back from holiday, and then on Sunday I'm going up to Scotland to stay with them for a few days. After all my hard work of the past few weeks, I'm really looking forward to the break. Not that it will be a rest with my two young grandsons around (aged 5 years and 18 months) but we always have lots of fun. Because they live so far away we don't see nearly enough of them so any time spent with them is precious. They grow up far too quickly.

When I come home, my next job is to make a start on decluttering the kitchen. Hmm.....

In Essence...

... I've just realised it's over three weeks since I last posted anything, and that's mainly because I haven't made anything to post during the last three weeks! I was very busy with school concerts and things leading up to the end of term, but also I've been sadly lacking in inspiration. I think my mojo broke up early and went on holiday without me!

However, it came back yesterday with the delivery of the much anticipated new Artylicious CD from Glenda at Graphicus. It's called Essence of Nature, and is simply stunning, full of the most gorgeous papers and elements in wonderful colours. Glenda's best yet, IMHO. I couldn't fail to be inspired by it, but  there's so much on it that the problem was in knowing what to try first!

I love the Elusive Images Eastern Grasses stamp set, and was very pleased to find a matching backing paper on the CD. It's beautifully subtle and makes a perfect background for the stamps. I used the main image from the set as a focal point (stamped on to paper coloured with VersaMagic inks), added some of the grasses along the bottom, and embellished it with a few butterflies from the Artylicious Butterfly Bliss CD. The sentiment is computer generated (not from the CD).

Inspired not only by Glenda's brilliant CD, but also by her posts such as this one about her decluttering, I decided that whilst I've got a decent amount of time off school I should try to emulate her! My craft stuff clearout is ongoing, but I hope to have time to get that finished and then maybe make a start on the rest of the house. (Note the word "maybe"!) So my blog will probably be a bit quiet again for a while (though I'm sure I'll be tempted to stop work now and then and make some more cards with the CD!), but I will do my best to look in on everyone else's blogs when I can. Hope you are all having a good summer.

Sir Stampalot July Challenge

The theme for the Sir Stampalot July Challenge is Lazy Hazy Days of Summer. There's not much that says summer to me more than poppies, so when I found a pack of gorgeous poppy design napkins in S****burys I thought they'd be just right to make a card with.

As you can see, they are rather bold and bright, so a large size base card was called for, in this case an 8" x 8" one from Craftwork Cards. I wasn't quite sure what to do at first, as the large, bright flowers would overwhelm any image I tried to put with them. However, when I separated the layers of the napkin, I found that the middle layer had picked up some colour from the printed top layer, and was in effect printed with a ghost image of the poppies. Perfect! It became the background for my card, with a narrow border sponged around the edge with Barn Door Distress Ink.

Next I glued the top layer to a piece of thin card to strengthen it and cut out some of the flowers and leaves. These made a border down the side of the card along with a strip of paper coloured with the Barn Door DI and cut with a Martha Stewart punch.

The stamped image is the beautiful new "Poppy Field" by Crafty Individuals (currently free with orders over £30!) which I coloured with Distress Inks (Barn Door, Bundled Sage and Shabby Shutters).

A computer generated text on a Nestabilities label and a few punched butterflies were the final embellishments.

And here's the finished card.

PS. My lovely butterfly blog background from Scrappin' Blogs disappeared this afternoon! On investigating, I found that Scrappin' Blogs are having problems with Photobucket (basically it seems they are too popular!) and need to find a new server. I'm not sure what the situation is with their backgrounds at the moment, so I've found another for my blog for the time being from The Cutest Blog on the Block. Maybe it's time I had a change anyway.

Normal service is resumed!

Back to my more usual style for this card. I love the look of the Tim Holtz Tattered Florals dies, but they are too big for the sort of things I'd want them for, so I decided to make my own distressed flowers using the EK Success retro flower punches. I wanted them to look as though they were made from old book pages. I've been wanting to do this for quite some time. However, I couldn't bring myself to tear the pages out of a book! A friend of mine even gave me an old book which she'd got specially for me to use, but it was a book of wild flowers with some lovely old pictures in, and I just couldn't do it! I thought I would scan them instead. Then I found a website where you can download copyright free books, so I printed some pages from that and made them look old with Distress Inks (Tumbled Glass and Antique Linen, which I also used on the butterfly and sentiment). Having punched out the flowers I just tore the edges of the petals a bit & then inked around them. Not quite the same as Tim's, but near enough to the look I wanted.

The background paper is a digital download from Two Peas in a Bucket, one of the "Art Papers III" digital kit by Vinnie Pearce. The text-printed leaves on it went perfectly with my flowers. It's such a pretty paper that I kept the embellishments to a minimum so as not to hide it. The photo doesn't do it justice. The punched butterfly is overstamped with Hero Arts "Delicate Vine", and the sentiment is by Darkroom Door. The lace and ribbon came from my late mother's stash. She was a crafter, though her speciality was in fabrics and dried flower arranging. She was also a hoarder and loved a bargain, with the result that she had more materials stashed away than she was ever likely to use. I think I've inherited the tendency! But if that's the price of also inheriting her love of arts and crafts and making things, it's one I'm happy to pay!

Woof woof! And woof!

I'm short on both time and inclination for crafting & blogging lately. Busy at school with preparations for end of term concerts, and not feeling well. I seem to have had a cold for weeks, but without the streaming eyes and sneezes, just the bunged up sinuses & feeling tired and lethargic. I'm beginning to wonder whether it's hay fever instead, although I don't usually suffer from that. But I've heard other people saying the same, because the pollen is so bad this year, so I've just started taking antihistamines to see if they will help. No improvement so far, but I guess I should give them a few days to start working. Anyone else out there had something similar?

Anyway, I did manage to make a birthday card for a friend who has two papillons (also known as butterfly dogs). I bought the Grandma's Parlor Collection Set (digital) from *Wink *Wink Ink, which came with a poodle (not quite a papillon, but I thought it would do!). This isn't at all the sort of thing I usually go for, but there was just something about the set that appealed to me. It comes with 3 types of files - png, jpg outline drawing and jpg pre-coloured. I wanted something quick and easy to make, so I cheated and used the pre-coloured version, with a bit of 3D so I could feel I'd actually done something!

Also couldn't resist the BasicGrey "Max & Whiskers" 6" x 6" paper pad, which made lovely paw print patterned "wallpaper". I was quite pleased with the result, so I made a similar card for my FIL for Fathers' Day. He used to have a border terrier, who sadly is no longer with us. The set is female oriented, so I changed the colour of the chair, lamp and vase using my graphics programme and made a "Happy Fathers' Day" instead of the Mothers' Day greeting which is included.

A mystery!

Several years ago I was given a wooden planter filled with spring flowers. After the flowers died off, the planter was left on the patio and became repopulated with dandelions and moss! Then, three years ago, we noticed a strange plant growing there. It had long leaves which were covered with dark reddish spots. Eventually a single long stalk appeared with a spike of pale pink flowers at the top. "Hmm!" I thought. "That looks like an orchid!" A perusal of the wild flower book confirmed that indeed it was. A Common Spotted Orchid.

The following year there were 3 flower spikes, and along with those there appeared another plant, with darker purple flowers and no spots on the leaves. We identified that one as a Southern Marsh Orchid.

This year there are several more flower spikes, plus more baby plants of both varieties. The mystery is how they got there, especially as there are two completely different species! We certainly didn't plant them. They weren't there when I was first given the planter. When the first one appeared we wondered whether a seed could have been carried there by a bird or something, but when the second variety started growing, that seemed unlikely. All we can think of is that the seeds must have been dormant in the soil, and sprung to life some time after the original flowers had died off. Anyone got any other suggestions?

We may never solve the mystery, but we have some lovely flowers to enjoy!

New Stash

Here's a card using a stamp I bought when we went to Sir Stampalot last weekend. It's one of this year's new ones by Hero Arts. I've had the Basic Grey "Stella Ruby" paper (now discontinued, unfortunately) for some time and had been looking for a suitable stamp to go with it. This one was perfect. The card is for my sister-in-law. I wanted the image to be the focal point, but also wanted the background paper to show as much as possible, so I've kept it quite simple; watercolour pencil on the dresses, Martha Stewart punch down the side, a few buttons from my button box, a bit of ribbon (also from Sir S), but I think she'll like it.

Brilliant Day!

Well, the day finally arrived, and Sally, Megan and I set off to Sir Stampalot for our eagerly anticipated Blog Girl Get-together. It was lovely to be able to put faces to names (and blogs!) and spend the whole day playing, although with all the talking and laughing going on, not to mention eating (at lunchtime a delicious buffet appeared as if by magic!) some of us didn't get quite as much crafting done as we might have!

Brenda and Chris had prepared some wonderful projects for us to make, and since we wanted to try as much as possible, many of them were started and then put carefully aside to finish off at home. Chris's first demo was a really neat little album for recipes, photos, etc, with mini envelopes for pockets, then Brenda showed us how to make a lovely book/album using a new Sizzix Bigz Pro die using distressing and resist techniques. Other projects used brayering, masking and decoupage. I have yet to complete my little photo album, but have just finished the book.

(I used Distress Inks, and stamps by Hero Arts, Penny Black, Magenta, Inkadinakdo, and Crafty Individuals. The flourishes were cut with a die by Marianne Design.)

It was a very warm day, but the atmosphere of fun and camaraderie was even warmer. So to Brenda, Chris, Jules, Linda, Hayley, Rosie, Amanda, Sally and Megan, thanks for your company, and I hope you all enjoyed the day as much as I did. Thanks also to Janice and Andy for keeping the shop open for us to indulge in some retail therapy afterwards (not to mention during as well!) to everyone who contributed to lunch (Jules's heart shaped cheese scones were just to die for!) and huge thanks to Brenda and Chris for teaching us some gorgeous projects and for all their hard work which made the day such a success. Here's to the next time!