The Other Side Of Me

Hello all! I'm still having loads of fun with Project Life.  I've kept a diary all my life but I'm also a woman who likes a lot of paper and PL definitely satisfies that side to my character.  In fact I've decided that PL is the place to keep all those little stickers, notes, leaflets and postcards that you just can't live without.  So instead of tucking them away in a box somewhere, they'll be in my album where I can look at them and get pleasure from them every day.    This is a spread from early June.  I am dithering now as to which layout I prefer, because at the time it was this one but now I think I prefer Design A because I've learned to treat all the 6x4 pockets as mini scrapbook pages, but it took a while (and many, many hours trawling Pinterest!) to work out how to do those.      The colour scheme for this page turned out to be Calypso Coral and Pear Pizzazz but I didn't plan this at the outset, it just worked out t...

Hello blog friends!  I realise I haven't posted for a few days, but it's been so hectic here.  I can't complain as I've been out for two Christmas lunches and two Christmas parties!  I am sooooo tired! I just wanted to show you the card I made for my craft group friends: The stamps are a brilliant set from Stampin Up! called Tree Trimmings.  You can't see it very well in the photo, but I've stamped each bauble and heat embossed them, just with clear embossing powder to add a bit of shine, but then I've added glitter with my Quickie Glue Pen, so the ornaments sparkle beautifully.  I've added some tiny gems to the top of each bauble (from Wild Orchid Crafts.  Note to self - order some more, they're fabulous!) The background paper is MME Snowed In, and the colours match my inks perfectly.  I was so pleased as it was complete chance.  I stamped the baubles, then started hunting round for paper so was delighted to see how well these went together. I...

I really liked the sketch over at Sketch Saturday this week, and again I've decided to use it to get a Christmas card done.  Here we are: The sketch is quite unusual and I really had to think about how to do the bit in the middle that's in red.  In the end I cut it out with a little tiny join in the middle which you can't see as it's under the stamped image.  I followed the sketch very closely and instead of getting things ready beforehand I just decided to go with the flow.  Each time I saw an element on the sketch I decided to add something to my card to represent it, hence the snowflakes and the two little tags with stockings stamped on.  I just felt it worked really well that the little girl is looking at a robin and the backing papers have robins on.  My favourite bit was making the snowflakes.  I wiped a Versamark ink pad all over a big section of card, then sprinkled white embossing powder all over it.  I heated the powder until it set, ...

As you may know, if you're a regular follower, I made a commitment at the beginning of the year to make a birthday card for everyone in our Bible Study group so that everyone could sign it.  October has been a busy month, as it turns out, with three birthdays.  This is what I made for one lovely person: For ages I've been wanting to make a card where I had a flower in the bottom corner, with a leaf going horizontally and vertically, but for some reason it's taken me ages to work out what to use.  This time it was MME that came to the rescue, with my lovely Wild Asparagus papers, and this gorgeous die cut flower.  I just stacked one on top of the other, and finished off with a fabric brad from the same range. I cut a square of paper, 15x15cm, distressed the edges and added some brown ink.  I cut an oval of white cardstock and distressed it all over before stamping the sentiment and the butterfly, both in Memento brown ink.  The stamps are from the Flouris...

I've just found out the style of cardmaking I like has a name!  Honestly, I must be a bit thick (don't answer that!)  Anyway, it's shabby chic.  I've found some very good, inspiring blogs and the penny has dropped.  I'll probably never give up stamping and colouring, but love the shabby chic style.  Bizarrely, at the opposite end of the spectrum, I love clean and simple cards and tend to swing between the two.  Oh well, as long as I'm happy! This is the first notebook I've made: I'm not even sure where this book came from but it's been in my drawer for ages.  It has plain paper in it and I'm going to use it for art journaling.  I will put a title on the pink panel when I think of something suitable, but the old brain won't co-operate at the moment! I've seen an inspiring scrapbook page recently, with what the author describes as 'an embellishment sneeze' on it!  I was in hysterics as I totally understood what she meant (it was...

I haven't used this stamp for ages, but think it's very sweet.  I wanted to make one last card for the church sale, and here it is: I am aware that when you use an embossing folder, the card that is embossed is a certain size but I wanted to make a 6"x6" card.  You can see the card is embossed on the left but it doesn't reach all the way over to the right.  I put the torn piece of patterened paper across the bottom which hides most of it, but the blank bit at the top was an excellent place for some card candy.  Of course I coloured the image with my Promarkers on the most wonderful card which I buy at Little Claire's Designs.  It's truly beautiful stuff for stamping and colouring, the pens glide across the top of it.  I've attached some ribbon on the left side and there we are. So now it's Christmas cards all the way, especially as I've just got my latest Cardmaking Making and Papercraft magazine and the papers and chipboards in there are st...

This is a page I've just finished for last November when we took Barnaby to a dressage competition.  He was so naughty in the end I couldn't ride him and hubby had to do it! Here's the page. The letters that say 'Bad Boy' are chipboard.  They are really brightly coloured, so I covered them in plain blue paper, then stamped on them with a floral stamp, which is much more what I had in mind.  The newspaper cutting bottom left is from when Barnaby got stuck over his stable door and had to be rescued by the fire brigade.  I found out later we'd been in the paper and managed  to track down the cutting.  It seemed  to fit with this page of equine naughtiness! I have only done this in a normal scrapook and have one more to go before I can start using proper 12" x 12" paper, which I'm really looking forward to, but using a normal book has meant I've had to be quite inventive.  I've also noticed I go into a slightly different brain mode when I...

I've been working on this, this morning: I got the basic idea from a magazine, and used it as inspiration for this layout, but when I went into the detail, the dimensions in the magazine were wrong, so the stamped image didn't fit with a frame round it, which is why I decided to put it on at an angle.  I enjoyed making it, though, as the backing card is brayered with Tim Holtz Shabby Shutters ink (which I thought was going to be blue when I bought it, but love the colour of it now), layered up with MME papers.  I think I'll have to buy another pack of these, as they're so versatile.  The flowers were a free digi image, coloured with Promarkers and then shimmer paints.  It's meant to be a stencil, but I wasn't happy with my colouring so I cut the top flower out and stuck it back in place with sticky fixers, to give it a bit of dimension. I've been watching some very inspiring You Tube videos, so it's 'all systems go' this week. I'm off to do...

Hello there all, I hope you're getting some of the sunshine we're having, it's been a funny summer so far, hasn't it?  On Tuesday night I went to my craft class at Dolly Cottage Crafts.  I haven't been for absolute ages and really enjoyed myself.  Yes, we make cards, but we have such a laugh at the same time.  It was amazing for me to see how far I've come since I last went (I'm not afraid of the Bigshot, for a start!) We made a Christmas card, which I'll show you nearer the festive season, but I also made this: It looks quite effective, but it's very easy to do.  It's all about using double sided paper.  This is Bloom and Grow by MME.  I have a soft spot for this paper as it's the first paper I came across when I started crafting and had that moment of revelation of 'It's not just me!  Other people like paper, too!'  I never bought it, though, so it was lovely to have the opportunity to use some.  The variations of this card ...

I am well and truly going through a pink phase.  Please bear with me, I'm sure it will pass!  But if you can't have some fun with your favourite colour, what can you do? This card sums up everything I've bought new recently.  The image is a free digi from Little Claire's.  I have had the papers for a while (MME).  I decided to colour her in antique pink and pastel green, which really matched the flowers and came out quite aqua looking. New things: The flower at bottom left is made with a Marianne Creatables die.  I am in love with these.  I think I'll buy a ribbon threader next, I've wanted one of those for a long time.  The top left corner has a corner die.  These are fab, too. Top right is an LOTV sentiment, 'Time To Shop.'  How perfect can you get, for an image like this?  I love it when a plan comes together. Hot News:  I have twisted hubby's arm, and he has agreed we can go to the Create and Craft exhibition at Do...

I made this card late last week, and when we went shopping I saw a man in the supermarket with this very thing on his T Shirt, so I felt as if I may have been barking up the right tree for once! I've made this as a Father's Day card for a friend to give to her dad.  I gave her three to choose from and this is the one she picked.   The VW camper van is from Little Claire's Designs, and as their Challenge No. 9  is to make a card for a man, I thought I'd enter this one.  It's a digi image, wonderfully clear and a pleasure to colour in. The papers are from MME, which I've had for ages.  The ribbon is from my ever growing collection (a girl can never have too much ribbon in my opinion!) I printed out the Happy Father's Day sentiment on my computer, then decided to stamp over it with my blank ticket sentiment from Bunny Zoe's Crafts.  It's rubber, so of course I can't see through it, so I decided it didn't matter if I missed, I'd ...

I have a little set of blank shoe cards, which I feel are too small to use as a card on their own, so I used one as a template to make this card.  The papers are from MME and I've been dying to find a way to use these two papers together, the paper for the shoe and the spotty paper for the heel.  The card blank was actually an A5, and rather lovely it is too, but I cut it down for the scale of this card to a 6x6.  It all started as an experiment with my new printer to see which way up it prints on my paper, hence the sentiment which says, 'you can never have too many shoes.'  I decided if that worked I'd carry on and if it didn't I'd have to cover it up and make something else, but as you can see, it did work, and I'm very pleased with the result.  I just popped on a few roses from Wild Orchid Crafts, and left it at that. So Jimmy Choo, you are not the only person that can do shoes, okay?! Mrs O.