To have and to hold...

Remember I showed you this picture of the Tando Creative horseshoe that I made for my son's wedding?  Well now I am going to show you the book that I altered to present it in.

This also features a piece of Tando Creative Chipboard, the lovely branch of leaves which I combined with Wild Orchid flowers to match those on the horseshoe.  The papers are Websters and also some K& Co.  I've smudged the date in the photo deliberately.

 It fastens at the side with velcro and ribbon.

When you open it the horseshoe is inside as well as an appropriate poem.

I hope you enjoyed seeing this as much as I enjoyed making it.

I thought I would also show you what the 'book' was made from, it was a Christmas present from my other son and his girlfriend, I'm on my last bottle of shower gel, but I hope the book will be treasured for a little bit longer.

Whispers of Mothers Day

This is the card I made for my MIL for Mothers Day, my mum got the Aquamarine card I made for last week's Daring Card Makers Dare. I used the colours from the Bubbly Scrumptious prompt Whispers of Colour No. 3, "Chocolate, Pink, Green and Red". The red is a pinky red but I thought it was near enough.

Papers and chippie butterfly are K&Co Madeleine (yes, I still have a few bits left!)
Sketch is Becky Fleck/PageMaps March 2010 Card Maps

Garnet: the birthstone of January

The Daring Cardmakers are back after the Christmas break with a new challenge and some new ideas, here is what they are daring us to do this week:

"We thought it would be fun to have series of linked challenges that run throughout the whole of 2010. We're going to use the first Dare of each month to make cards featuring the birthstone for that month. How you decide to use the birthstone is up to you, it may be a card for someone who has a birthday during that month, it may simply be an any occasion card using the colour of the birthstone - anything goes, really as long as somehow the birthstone is hinted at. The birthstone for the month of January is the GARNET"

Paper: K&Co Madeleine (yes I still have some of this paper)
Vintage picture from Red collage sheet - Last Door Down the Hall
Tag - Digital element from Scrapbookgraphics Melissa Mini-kit
Sketch No 17 - Kathy Black at Kathy's Waffle Sketch File

Brown paper packages tied up with string...

These are a few of my favourite things - I hope you are singing along lol! I certainly do like brown paper packages especially if they are full of crafty lovliness. But that's not the challenge, no what the Daring Card Makers would like us to do is make a card with our favourite things.

Here are my favourite things for card making:
1. Favourite type of card - Square
2. Favourite Sketch - Kathy's Waffle Sketch File, Sketch 4
3. Favourite Papers - K & Co Madeleine
4. Favourite Style - Vintage
5. Favourite embellishments - Lace & flowers

I hope you will join in the challenge and tell us about your favourite things.

There must be an angel...

I'm telling you, I was not sounding like an angel when I made this card for the Bubbly Scrumptious monthly challenge. It gave me no end of trouble, wouldn't stick, stuck on squint. However, I got there in the end, I used a sketch prepared by Kaz of Slightly Wonky Crafts for last week's Bubbly Funk mini-crop. Image is from Last Door down the Hall, music paper is K&Co Madeleine and there is some Ranger Distress ink in Aged Paper.

DCM Autumn Purple

This week on Daring Card Makers, Vanessa challenged us to create an Autumn card using purple. I found the Stanley Horowitz quote in this month's copy of Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazine and I immediately thought of creating a mosaic effect. I have to say it was really fiddly to do, but I like the effect.

Papers are K & Co Verbena, the frame is a digital element from Studio MGL "Awakening" at Scrapbookgraphics, I don't know what the stamp is, it is from a set of leaves I got at The Works ages ago.

DCM - Sunflowers

This week at Daring Card Makers, Rein has dared us to use Sunflowers on our cards. I love sunflowers so it was a real pleasure to take part in this challenge.
The image is one supplied by Artarazzi (sadly not longer running), papers are K&Co Verbena and the 'Enjoy' label is from a digital freebie kit from Scraporchard, oh and that is a bit of garden twine! I used sketch 36 from PageMaps card maps.

Birthday Album

You may remember that my great-aunt took me to The Seafood Restaurant for my birthday and I took pictures of all the food as well as of us at the restaurant. Before we left, she asked me if she could have copies of the photos. I decided that I should make her a little album, it's not a scrapbook just a little 5 x 7 photo album, but I did decorate the cover! I used sketch 36 from PageMaps Card Maps the papers are 'Madeleine' by K&Co and the letters were part of the candy I got from Anne of 'Pretty'.
Excuse the 'not deliberate' error! TraceyR pointed out that I have a letter missing :o and, do you know, I looked at that and thought there was something wrong, but I just couldn't spot it. No doubt, I will find the missing 'h' lurking somewhere under my craft desk!

Something Completely Different - Postcard, Vintage

Over on 'Something Completely Different' challenge blog the challenge for July is Postcards size 6" x 4" any colour any style unless stipulated by the weekly theme. The theme for this week is "Vintage".

My card is dominated by a free image from Isabella Vintage, I've also used quite a few bits from the K&Co Madeleine Kit from Bubbly Funk, the swirly rub on is Wild Saffron also by K&Co and the flowers are Mulberry Street by Petaloo.

DCM - Blue & Green

Hi there, Vanessa set the dare this week for Daring Card makers, this is what she has dared all the card makers to do: Finally, onto this week’s dare, and as you will tell from the title...I want you to use blue and green on your cards – they must be the predominant colours, and as the old saying goes...they should never be seen together!! But we all know how they can work beautifully together – so show us what you can do!!

I used K& Co Garden collage Flat Paper, card is Coredinations. 'It's your Day' stamp is Studio G, flourish stamp is Paperartsy. I 'card-lifted' the layout from a card by Rachel Jackson in Craft Stamper March 2009.

Bubbly Funk Non Retreaters Crop - Mini Book

You may remember that last weekend the poor souls who hadn't been able to attend the Retreat, had their own Non-Retreaters Crop and I made this little 10 minute mini book. One of the other crop challenges was a photo challenge featuring prompts that spelled out the letters BUBBLY FUNK! I decided to use my mini book to display these photos.
Prompt 1 - Blue, so here are some very BLUE bells, all the papers are K&Co from a monster bargain pack I got about two years ago from Arty Miss, the floral stickers also came in that pack. The large letters are Basic Grey and the rest of the word was done on the computer.
Prompt 2 - Underneath, this is not easy to see in the photograph unless you know what it is! And what it is, is a Swallow's nest, in our garden shed, I went in there for my watering can and saw the two swallows swooping out, so looked around and saw the nest UNDERNEATH the tin roof.
Prompt 3 - Beauty, and what a beauty this Highland Cow is! Not one of ours, but it was in the field right next to a cottage in the Lake District that I stayed at with some friends last year.
Prompt 4: Bottle, I was making a card for my DS1, as he had got a new job, so used that as my 'bottle'.
Prompt 5: Leather, I took a photo of the tassels on my suede boots, the black bit at the bottom of the page is a leather fringe I created from some off cuts of leather.
Prompt 6 - Young, this is me camping at York with my parents and my sister. We didn't have proper camping chairs so my dad used to take the seats out of the car and we had lovely comfy leather chairs!
Prompt 7 - Faces, you may have seen this photo before as it is one of my favourites of my family, taken in Dublin just before they flew the nest!
Prompt 8 - Up Above, I wasn't sure what to use for this so searched through some of my photo files and found this chandelier at Peterhof near St Petersburg. The photograph didn't look all that promising, but I am really pleased by the way it has come together on this page.
Prompt 9 - Nature, I have many, many nature photographs and this was taken last spring. The rotting log with moss and dead leaves is typical of the kind of habitat in the wood close to our home.
Prompt 10 - Knit, I had a bit of fun with this one, I did knit the beanie had, but probably about 15 years ago at least. It is Aran wool and has been one of the most enduring knitted items I have, I wear it when doing farming tasks and on winter walks. I did a little bit of knitting using a cotton bud with the ends cut off and some tapestry wool.
The back of the mini album gives the details of the dates of the NRC, these elements came from digital kits by Faith True and MAELIA Design France for Digiscrapaddicts, the little tag is actually a digital element that I printed and cut out, the brad is real! The 2009 is stamped.

I hope you have enjoyed my mini-book, I certainly enjoyed making it :)

Here's one I made earlier...

It's my sister's birthday tomorrow. I know that she would love me to send a card full of loving, sisterly messages, but I'm afraid that is just not me, this is about as close as she is going to get. That's us on a boat on the Norfolk Broads in the 1960s, I'm the girly one sitting down - hee hee, no change there then. Still managing to find some bits of K&Co Wild Saffron to use on this card.

Card for my DH

This is a card I made for my DH, he is currently in hospital and although he is convinced he will be coming home in the next day or two, it may take a little longer than he would like. It would be a bad show if a card maker didn't have a card on her DH's bedside cabinet and I wanted to tell him how much I love him.

Papers and Butterfly are K&Co from the BF August Kit. Stamp is Elusive Elements from Graphicus.

Birthday Card in double quick time

When I got home from work tonight, my MIL reminded me that it was Brian's Godmother's 70th birthday on Friday. She does not usually make much fuss of her birthday, but we had been talking about it when we were all at a funeral recently (my, that sounds depressing doesn't it!). Anyway, I said I wasn't sure if I would be able to make one to be posted tomorrow, but then thought I'd better make the effort. The paper is K&Co, there's a little bit of pink vellum and the sparkly pink paper I've had so long I can't remember whose it is, but I got it at the SECC Hobbycraft Show. The big bloom was from the Big Bloom swap on Bubbly Funk Forum and the chipboard circle and numbers came from BF too.

Sympathy Cards

I had a phone call at work yesterday from my DH, to say that his cousin, who was more like an aunt, had died. She was 83 and had been in a nursing home for a few years now, but there was no final illness, she just passed away peacefully. I made these two cards last night to send to family members. The stamp on the top one came from the rubber stamp image swap hosted by Karen on Bubbly Funk, I thought it was such a beautiful and peaceful image that it would work well for a sympathy card for a man. The second one is made with K&Co paper and a Lakeland fabric flower.

Little card with swapped images

I took part in two stamped images swaps on CBC, but they have been sitting around for ages waiting to be used. So when I was sending a little card to my great-aunt with pictures from Steven's 21st, I thought I would use one of the flower images. The paper on the bottom half is K and Co, I did the top bit with watercolour crayons and the stamped image came from someone on the forum, again coloured with watercolour crayons.