The Other Side Of Me

I've had a break in packing to make a card for my son-in-law who's birthday is April 1st.  No comments about April Fools, please (after all, he had the  courage sense to marry my daughter!)  I've had to make it so I can post it, then I've got to pack all my craft stuff away (sob!)  Thank goodness there's my last craft group on Wednesday to keep me going. Anyway, here's the card: I've used the sweet Perfect Postage stamp set.  It's so cute, I could sit there and play with it in a most child-like manner, for hours.  I've used Baja Breeze ink, Marina Mist, Night of Navy and Not Quite Navy.  I've backed the 'stamps' on a strip of Marina Mist card stock, then stuck that onto a panel of Marina Mist stripy dsp, with a scalloped bottom.  The reason it's that height is that there are two horizonal score lines along the bottom with the Happy Birthday sentiment in the middle, but it doesn't show up very well in the photograph.  The who...

So first of all, the good news.  After a lot of discussions, we have decided to keep the horses!  I am so thrilled and relieved, I can't begin to tell you.  Once we'd made the decision, things came together very quickly, and we have found a yard for the horses and a sweet little house for us, where I will have my own dedicated craftroom.  This is such a luxury I can only imagine it at the moment! I've been to the doctor's for some stronger antibiotics, as I've been in agony with an ear infection that actually got worse.  I've only taken 2 of the new tablets and feel miles better already.  There's so much to do, I can't afford to be ill now. And I've had time to make another Christmas card for the facebook challenge, Sundays With Santa.  The challenge is to use non-traditional colours.  I feel I have to tell you that first or you'll wonder what on earth I've done: I knew I wanted to use Pool Party and Wisteria Wonder colours together, as...

Sorry I haven't posted for a while, things have been very hectic here.  We are moving in just over a week, the horses go next Friday and we go on the Saturday.  I have been busy packing and I've been ill, which hasn't helped.  I've been on antibiotics since Monday but I'm no better. Our horses have had the same farrier for the past eight years, and today was their last visit.  I wanted to make a card to say thankyou for all their care over the years.  Suddenly I remembered I have the perfect thing: I love this set of farmyard animal stamps from Woodware.  The grey horse is Barnaby and the brown horse is Zak.  You have to stamp them and mask them, then add the wall, which I coloured with various brown Promarkers and Stampin Up pens.  The sentiment says, 'Peeking over to thank you.'  I hadn't realised there was a thankyou in this set, I was going to use something else.  I've coloured the horse's headcollars in Pacific point (SU!) so f...

Hello fellow blogeroos!  I've just got time to pop in today to show you a very simple card.  Have a look: This was so simple to make, but I am so in love with this paper.  The pool party flowes are a lot bigger than I'd expected, but this is a 5"x7" card so it fits beautifully.  I'm not sure where the sentiment is from but it's nice and big too and looks lovely in the pool party ink.  I've just popped on some ribbon and there you have it.  A nice simple card, where the beautiful paper does the talking.  And who isn't in love with Pool Party as a colour, too? I'll be back soon with my pick of the week from this week's craft class. Thanks for popping in today, don't forget to let me know what you think of the card. Jane xx

Hello there!  I am a big fan of The Paper Players challenge blog and follow it avidly week by week (yes I spend a lot of time reading blogs!) and so finally I'm able to join in this week.  It's a colour challenge: Now here's the silly thing... when I saw these colours I knew exactly what I wanted to do with them, but when I actually tried it, it didn't work!  So I played and played and had practically every stamp out that I own, and then in the end, this is what I made: The thing that's brilliant about these challenges is that they're helping me to learn about proportion, i.e. whether everything is to scale (you know what it's like when you have a tiny stamp that disappears on your card) and the way colours work together.  Years ago (yes, I'm quite old!) there was a brilliant book called Colour Me Beautiful which explained very cleverly about how to dress and keep colour and pattern in proportion.  It talked about main colours and accent c...

Thanks to Shirley Chalmers (Nanniflash) I have joined a facebook group that challenges us to make a Christmas card every week.  I am so thrilled with what I've made this morning, I decided I had to share it with you folks as well! I am way behind on these, as this is my entry for week 4, 'Santa', but that's the beauty of it, you can add your cards onto the facebook page as and when you make them.  I can't remember who it was that said if you make a card, and it's good, make another one, and that's what I'm going to do.  My Christmas stuff is all in one box, so rather than drag it all out once a week, making a card and putting it all away again, I am going to get it out once a month, have a 3 day session and make at least 6 cards before having to pack away.  I think I'll be a lot more productive that way, (and less stressed!) as it takes me a day to get into Christmas mode, a few hours to look around for some inspiration and then the time it ta...

Hello everyone, welcome back. Do you ever find, as crafters, that you've slipped into meeting deadlines with your card-making and have very little time to just play?  I know when I started out I did a lot more playing than I do now, so I decided this week that I was just going to play with paper and ink and it didn't matter what I made as long as I'd had fun and spent time with some of the new stamps and cardstock that I have. The other thing is that I've wanted to make something to mark St Patrick's Day ever since I started crafting, but it's pointless making a card because I haven't got anyone to give it to. Then I saw this inspirational sketch at Mojo Monday, a challenge blog I've been following for a while: I decided to use it as a basis to make a plaque for St Patrick's Day.  Here it is: I cut a piece of corrugated card 5x7 and covered it with one of the green papers from the Papermania verde collection.  I wrapped it round and stuc...

In our Wednesday night craft group we have been given a list of all the members' birthdays so we all make cards for each other.  It is Jo's birthday today, and this is what I made for her: The cardstock is Rose Red, which I've put through my Bigshot in a flourish embossing folder.  I'm sorry, I've never known what it's called as it came in the post last year, with another one, with no address of the sender (and I didn't order it!) so it's a bit of a mystery.  It's a very pretty folder, though. I've used my lovely Flight of the Butterfly stamp set.  I had such fun playing with this. I stamped the sentiment first, which says 'hope your day is as happy as happy gets', then stamped the plain butterfly in Pretty In Pink ink then stamped over it (using my SAMJ) with the little flowered butterfly which I didn't notice until after I'd done it, is the stamp with the butterfly's body on it.  The little strip of scalloped paper is ...

Good morning all!  We seem to have slipped temporarily back into winter this morning.  There was snow yesterday and ice everywhere today.  My poor horses don't know whether they're coming or going! My mojo is well and truly up and running and I've decided to combine two challenges today.  The first one is the ColourQ challenge .  I try to join in with this whenever they use colours I've got.  Here is this week's inspiration:       This is certainly a colour palette I can relate to. The other challenge is the St Luke's Charity Card challenge.   I did promise myself I'd have a go every month this year, but I haven't been able to until now.  It's for such a worthy cause, though, I'm so pleased I can enter this month.  They want to see cards with a spring theme.  You're probably already thinking how you could combine these two challenges yourself, so here is my take on it: All the colours used...

It's been an interesting time of late.  It's one thing when your mojo gets up and goes but quite another when your mojo's alive and well but life's little hiccups get in the way of your crafting! And so, it was with great pleasure that I sat down last night and made a card for the Less Is More challenge this week.  It's a colour challenge, and the colours to be used are neutrals.  Now, I may still be fairly new to crafting, but I do have a history of dabbling in interior design, as I love fabric and paint, and neutrals are my favourite things. I've been wanting to make a topper like this for ages.  I cut a piece of textured card using my  Square Labels No1.die and scored it about a quarter of the way along and folded it over.  I cut some of the other 3/4 off so it goes to a point at the back, and cut a piece of the same card to stamp the image on.  The stamp is from the Stampin Up! Faith In Nature set.  I am so excited to own this becaus...

I'm so grateful for craft class at the moment, I need some sanity in what's turning out to be a bit of a crazy world at the moment!  Jo led this week and we made three beautiful cards.  It's practically impossible to pick a favourite, but I think it could be this one: I have been wanting to make a 'white on white' card for a wedding for ages but wasn't sure how to go about it.  I have some good leaf punches but not many flowers, but it's the beautiful lacy dies that make this card stand out from the crowd.  The centre stamp is in Pool Party, but if you knew the bride's colour scheme you could make it to co-ordinate, couldn't you? Here's a close up (sorry I've just seen the picture quality isn't very good!) I am in love with the pearls on this card, too (you can see some top right in the main picture) they are definitely going on my next shopping list! I'm sorry I can't give you many details about the card, we just ...