Father's Day Take 2

I have finally finished making my 4th card of the day and it's been the one that took the longest. It's for a dear friend's 60th birthday on Tuesday. It's too late to photograph it now so I'll take pictures tomorrow in daylight and upload it tomorrow I', really pleased with it. I'll leave you with the other father's day card which I made this year for my bf's dad. He's big into cars so a used some Kanban clear stamps which I've had a while but not had a reason to play with. I coloured the car in with promarkers and used glossy acents to add closs the the fender, lights, window and mirrors. I cut the letters out of black cardstock and added white markings and cat's eyes with gem stones. I made my own little traffic signs with card and coctail sticks, to share the sentiment 'Happy Father's Day' which is what I think really makes this card. I was looking for yellow ribbon as I was going to colour in black stripes on it to make it look like the hazard tape police use on the road and feed it inbetween the signs but I couldn't find any in my stash. I'm really pleased with this card and think I'm going to get organised and make a different version of it for each of ny 6 brothers for their next birthdays.

New Home

My brother and his family has just moved into their newly built house and so I decided to make them a 'New Home' Card to wish them well as they settle in.
The paper is a crat paper from Lilian's Home collection and the tree stamp was a Nitwit freebee from a magazine. The house stamp is a Kaiser Craft mini clear stamp which I coloured in with my pro markers.I added some faux stitching around the side and sugar candy in the corners and finished it off with some bunting cut from the reverse of the crate paper and joined together with dots of perfect pearls. I decided to keep this sweet and simple. I'd like to enter this for the following challenges: Scrapbooksisters - Bunting & Banners Totally stampalicious challenge - Anything goes Stamp challenges - pretty papers

Father's Day

I've had so much fun over the last few days scrapping at scrapbook sister's birthday bash and at home in my craft corner. I eventually found the time to make my dad and Noel's dad both very Father's Day cards. They are both very different men with different interests so I couldn't simply make the same card for the two of them. This first card is for my dad and I tried to make it look quite vintage and grungy. I had my very first go at using the sewing machine on this card and incorporated canvas and dyed material scraps on a tag which i sewed with the machine. I stamped directly onto the canvas and blue cotton with some letter stamps and used a scrap of graphic 45 paper in the background which I tore the edges of and rolled with a wet finger.

I'd like to enter this card in the following challenges: Ooh-la-la-creations challenges -Father's Day /Special Man Pear tree designs challenge - Father's Day Paper take weekly challenge - Dads & Lads Digi doodles shops best challenge- Stitching Southern Girls's challenge - anything goes Creative inspirations challenge - stitching

Birthday wishes

I made this card this morning for a very dear friend's birthday on Monday. Every year her birthday is over shadowed by the fact that my mum, her best friend died the day before. She never fails to contact me on the anniversary and always has so much time for others.

I wanted to keep the card quite simple and stick to using punches, a gorgeous girls stamp, some tule, sugar candy and my nesties. I'm pleased with the end outcome and hope Eileen will like it to. I'd like to enter this card in the following challenges.

http://www.cardcupids.org/blog/ - ribbons & fibres

Lauren's Canvas

I've finally managed to upload the images I've taken of a project which I completed at home at Easter on my phone. The images aren't great quality and don't do the project justice. It's a canvas I created for my little niece Lauren for her bedroom. I started off with a cheap wooden frame which I bought from ikea I painted it using acrylic paints. I then used a 12x12 canvas painting it similar tones of pink to the wooden frame. I then played with scraps of papers from the DCWV Nanna's Nursery paper stack to add behind the frame and to make the bunting. I used a ball tool to round each flag and added silicone in behind. I had to have a play with my new Tim Holtz rosette die to make the flowers. The chipboard letters I covered in one of the papers and I used a scrap of torn mulberry paper to make the ruffled material in behind the letters. I then embellished the rest of the composition with some buttons, ribbons and brads from my stash.

What makes this creation so perfect is the photo which I took of Lauren, by complete chance the dress she is wearing is made up of little triangles just like the bunting! I've since made this design again with a friend for her granddaughter Tilly. I cant wait to make a baby blue version for Lauren's little brother Todd.

I'm back!

I've been finding it hard to find the time to blog but have decided I'm going to try and update it at least once a week. Yesterday I had a lovely time at the Scrapbook sisters Crop catching up with friends and taking part in the afternoon class where we made a lovely project (well I started to make it...) I'll try and find the time to finish it sometime.lol!

I made this card for my sister to give her as part of a set of 6 for her birthday in December but as my flight was grounded and I had to track across England I couldn't take much luggage and the bag with these card packs had to stay in Kent. I intended to include 6 different sentiment toppers for her to add as she wished and left the insert blank.
The design is really quite simple because I wanted to be able to make 6 of the same design quite quickly. Here are some of the variations I made using the same papers and beatiful Sugar Nellie Stamp.

I'd like to enter this card for the following challenges:

http://www.scrapbooksisters.blogspot.com/ - red, red, red.

http://craftsandmechallenges.blogspot.com/ - red.

http://craftycreationschallenges.blogspot.com/ - my love is like a red, red rose inspiration.

Wedding Invitation

This is the Wedding invitation I designed for Noel's brother and his wife for there summer wedding. Making it involved stamping, punch art, dimontes, embossing, and decopage!!

I'd like to enter this in a number of challenges this week:

Basic Grey- Sparkle

Secret Crafter - Easel Cards

Scrapbooksisters - Diamonds are a girl's best friend

Sweet Stampin - Punch it out

Pixie Dust Studio - Swirlie Swirls

Keeping it in the family.

This gorgeous mirror was made by my little Niece Hannah. She was only 8 when she came to stay with me over the summer, when I was home in Ireland. She and her sister came to stay with their me for a few days crafting and this was one of the creations which we made. The girls had a ball painting the frames and then making their own embellishments, including their initials and then chose a photo of themselves to include in their design to finish it off. This original creation now hangs in her bedroom and hopefully when they look in it they remember the fun times we shared making it.

Scrapbooksister's 2nd Card Challenge

These cards were inspired by a card which I purchased from SBS at their stand in Hempstead Valley one Sunday afternoon. If you're ever in the area on the last Sunday of the month be sure to call in and see the girls and the beautiful work which they have on display. I have had these Magnolia stamps for some time and never used them but over the summer made some time to play with them and my promarkers and once I started stamping and colouring I couldn't stop!!! I made lots of different colour combinations of this card but here are two of my favourite. I'd like to enter these into Scrapbooksisters' second card challenge 'Scalloped Circles' and thank them for the original inspiration of using circles to make a scalloped design.
I had never made an easel card before so this was completely new for me. I used nestibilities, martha stewart and woodware punches as well as Promarkers to colour my little magnolia girl.I was in Ireland when I made this and didn't have many papers to hand so decided to create the dotted strip using the swiss dot embossing folder and a strip of cream card. I was then able to use a distress pad to add the colour to the embossed strip. I added the floating balloon using a piece of twisted craft wire and love how the punched balloon floats in the air.

http://www.scrapbooksisters.blogspot.com/

Stamps R Us Challenge

Today I am posting a card which I made over the summer for my friend's granddaughter Tilly, to celebrate her very first birthday. I started off with using one of the sugar nellie Gorgeous girls stamps and used promarkers to colour it. I then looked through a range of my stamps and selected random stamps to make the child's toys at the front. I used the nestibility circles and big shot to cut a circular aperture in the lilac card and also cut a smaller circle from some green card stock. I decided to create a 3D card and added a folded piece of cream card to the base and back so that my card would stand. I then used the cuttle bug swiss dot embossing folder to emboss the green circle which I distressed and 3D mounted onto the lilac circle on the back. The little girl and bird are attached using invisible thread and they are suspended from the top where I poked 2 small pin holes and threaded these through so that the girl appears to be on a swing. I used some pink tool to cover the holes at the top. To finish it all off I used a large woodware balloon punch to punch the balloons out of some dotty paper and added a distressed chipboard letter. I added the balloons by twisting some coloured wire around a pencil and using silicone glue to fix both ends.

My friend loved the card and her daughter had it framed in a shadow box as she liked it that much.


I really enjoyed making this card and would like to enter it in Stamps R Us challenge to create a card for a child’s birthday! http://stampsruschallenges.blogspot.com/

Scrapbook Sisters Card Challenge

I've been so busy since coming back from my holidays in Ireland and I really haven't had much time to myself to craft so last night I decided to have a little me time. I made this little card to enter into Scrapbook sisters first ever card challenge.

The theme was Pink and Black, their signature colours and once I started I couldn't stop. I used bits and bobs from my stash and lots of what I've learnt in classes at scrapbook sisters. I really enjoyed making this and look forward to entering future challenges.

First attempt at Metal Embossing

I have fallen in love with Metal Art and have recently purchased a number of Ten Second Studio products from LB Crafts. When I was home in Ireland over half term I also managed to pick up some fantastic coloured metals at the bargain price of £1 per roll! I decided last week it was finally time to have a go and this is my first ever piece. We ran a staff/student masterclass last week in school where I shared with my colleagues and some of our most talented student more specialist art activities like metal embossing.

We created these by using an image of a butterfly which I found on the internet and used it as a template to trace the butterfly onto the metal. I then used a range of techniques and skills to em and deboss this little sample. I have shown it here prior to adding paint and destressing further as I wanted to show the different stages of my sample.

Happy Mother's Day Mum.

Even though my mum is no longer with us in person she is in my heart and with me always in spirit. On today of all days I especially miss her and think back on how fantastic a mother she was and the influence she had on me and my life despite only having her in with me for my first 19 years. I love you mum and hope that one day my children might love me as much as I love you. x

I was asked by Noel and his two brothers to make mother's day cards for their mum Sue. I really enjoyed making these for Sue as she is a dear lady and has always made me feel really welcome in her home and part of the family.

To Mum love from Noel.

Happy Mother's Day love Decky.

With love from Micky. x

I used a combinations of stamping, punching shapes, distressing and layering. I found half of a 12x12 page that I'd used in a previous layout because I loved the reds, black, and green tones in it. I used this as my starting point and as you can see continued with this colour scheme and style in all 3 cards.

To finish off the evening I made Decky's fiancee, Stacey a mother's day card from her boys.

A treasured gift...

This is one of my favourite projects to date. I love the concept of the exploding box and really enjoyed using different punch art, brads and buttons to decorate and embellish my box. I used paper cutoffs to decorate the pages and of course rounded all my edges with that creamy brown chalk eye!!

I found a series of inspirational poems on the Internet and included these in the box along with some photo of Eileen and her family and friends.

This exploding box book was a project I started at Scrapbook Sisters and took home to Ireland to finish. The lady I made it for is a dear friends sister who is very ill and I wanted to make her something to remind her of the family and friends she has to support her. A fellow crafter herself she truly appreciated this little box of treasures.

Baby Frames as promised...

These photos really don't do these two frames justice. I intend on my next trip to Ireland to rephotograph them. As the lighting and quality of image are just all wrong. I might just have to make a few more as I've recently been to Ikea and purchased 15more frames!!

Happy Birthday Mum

7 years to the day this photo was taken celebrating my mum's 60th birthday. It's hard to believe she's not with us any more and I miss her so much. There's not a day goes by that I don't think of her, and I'm very conscious that people in my life didn't have the opportunity to meet this amazing, loving woman that I called mum. So I decided to create a memory box, full of memories, stories, photos and anything really that I can look back on fondly and share with my future loved ones to remind me of the truly wonderful mother I was graced by God to have.

February the 14th

This has been the best Valentines I've ever celebrated and it all started off with a rather embarrassing delivery to work in front of my students of a beautiful bouquet of 12 red roses, chocolates and 6 helium filled balloons...If that doesn't tell me he loves me I don't know what will!!

I made this unusual card for Noel as part of my Valentines gift to him. The idea came from a class that I'd completed at Scrapbook Sisters which I worked on further at their latest crop. I love the end result. Here's a few sneaky peaks inside until I can upload all the photos.

Baby Bethany

I made a photo frame for the occasion of my neice Bethany's birth last year. I can't find where I stored the photo I took. So until come across it here is the photo of her which I altered to black and white and put inside the frame. I was so pleased with the end result that I nearly didn't want to give it away.