Two Grumpies Cards

I have been randomly crafting at my dining room table with a friend. I got some Martha Stewart punches and I have been playing a bit, so this first one (above) uses the border punch down both sides of a 2.5-inch strip. It makes a fantastic "belly band" as I saw demonstrated on QVC. My little grumpy was coloured in with water-based brush markers. It looked a bit streaky until it was left for a while. It's not as streaky now. The "belly band" was glittered using Black Diamond Stickles. I took the photo when it was wet. There's been some shrinkage now so it doesn't look quite as good.

This second card is of a different Grumpy, a punched leaf spray and a layered paper flower. Usual fare for me. :)

All three together!

My last card was another one of peach roses, similar to the ones I made for my mother-in-law's birthday card. I thought it would be a bit repetitive to post the peach on its own, then the grouping so I'll just post the three of them together-- a little over a day's work, including faffing about with my Craft Robo to get the boxes made properly. I'm thinking I might make them and see who'll buy them. Thing is, I don't know how much to charge as they do take a lot of time and energy. I will need to "up my game" with the boxes as well if I want them to sell. That's not really a problem though-- I'll just use nicer card!

That's a Rose of a Different Colour!

This picture came out strangely!! It looks black and white with purple flowers but I didn't shop this photo at all! Odd. I tried a different colour. You probably can't see it too well but I did some colouring with a pink chalk pad as well, to make the petals more interesting. It's not visible in this photo really though is it?

Art of Crochet Square 24

This one's so different from the others in the series and I really enjoyed making it. It's a square with holes in it (on purpose) and each one is blanket-stitched. So cute!!

That's it for Crochet Wednesday... as you read this I'm on a bus trip with my bingo friends. Worry not, dear readers. More is to come!

The Journey Progresses

Here's my first completed boxed card. I'm really pleased with how it came out. Getting back into the swing of making them took a little while but I am really enjoying it. I think I need to use nicer card for the boxes, but really the boxes are just a way to protect the card from getting smooshed so it's a glorified envelope really. I love it, and I hope whoever gets this one will too.

I'm on a journey...

After the phenomenal success of the rose card and my phenomenal failure to properly package it, I am now trying to design a box to put it in. This is a basic box design that I made myself on my Craft Robo software. I made the bottom and then I modified it a little, dragging it out from the corner to make it a tad bigger and adding a rounded-corner rectangle window. I saved it out as box top. This was two nights ago. I came back to it last night to try and cut it and my line settings hadn't worked properly and all my dashed cuts were straight solid cuts. Not the way to make a box. So after a quick peep in the help, I fixed it. (For those of you with Robos, this is in Output Settings. You can colour-code your lines to cut straight or dashed.)

So I cut it correctly the fourth time or so, and then added an acetate insert to the inside of the lid (not pictured). I have now cut a few more and I will put them together so I don't forget.

What will follow will be a marathon session making three half-dozen-roses cards with 11 or 12 leaves apiece.

I've been told that if you make one individual item it can take ages, but if you're making a lot of them, the additional time required is marginal. I'm hoping this is correct because I'm about to start a journey.

Are you coming with me?

My first Digi-Layout

I needed to teach a friend how to do digital scrapbooking so in order to do that, I had to teach myself first. So I did, and here's my first effort. It was fun but I'm going to have to read up on all of it and see if there's any "tricks" to it.

I'm going to wait until my friend has time to herself to relax. There's no point in trying to learn a whole new type of computer thing if you're new to computers to start with, and have a room full of screaming kids to finish. Perhaps this weekend we'll get on Skype and have a chat and a walk-through.

This layout is probably simpler than simple to many who are more familiar to digital scrapbooking but this is my very first effort and I'm pleased with it. I'm not likely to do too much digital scrapbooking, but we shall see. It depends really. I love working with my paper and tools and photographing the result, and I would have to spend money on digital stuff more if I wanted to continue. Hopefully this isn't me getting bitten by the bug!

Stole this from Jane Gill...

I was so pleased to have been blog-hopping and to have found this. Go see it. Then come back. I'll wait.

waiting...

waiting...

Are you back yet?

No really, I mean it. I'll wait! Go click the link, read it, have a look at it...

Ok, so you've seen the example? The reason mine doesn't look like that one is because I was very limited as to what sizes of shape I cut. I wanted to quickly experiment with it so this is what I ended up with.

I now know how to make it and will be trying again with three shapes that are a bit closer in size to each other.

It's times like this that a Big Shot and a set of Nesties wouldn't be such a bad idea. I was feeling too lazy to hook up the Craft Robo.

Anyhoo, I do plan on having another bash when the robo does get set up. Stay tuned.

Nanny's Birthday Card

Here it is! My first card actually made with Floral Punch Craft flowers! I'm really happy with it. I hope my Mother-in-law likes it too. She grows roses, so it's appropriate.

I want to make another one now!! But it did take quite some time. Also, I'll have to make boxes for them if I start making them because they are so dimensional.

This one's going to be hand-delivered so it doesn't matter. I took the envelope apart and then loosely wrapped it around the card and taped it back together again. Seemed the best way.
Okay, for the crafty people who read this, here's the side-view. I put collars on all of them, and stuck the leaves to the petals, and a few on the card itself. Spoils the effect to see it from the side, doesn't it? Sorry...

I used oak leaves for the rose leaves. The shape's wrong but the colour is right thanks to chalks. :) I made 12 leaves and veined them and everything and ruined one. I fancy getting the fern punch. I got on well with that one. It may have looked even better.

Half a dozen roses for Nanny

I took some time to sit and make some roses for a card for my Mother-In-Law's birthday. They all have collars on them so that they will sit upright on a card. I need to make some leaves for them and have a think about how to arrange them onto a card.

More results later!

Art of Crochet Square 23

Just finished it in time to publish. I love this colour combo. I need to file these into my lovely pile of squares for storage.

I got my next shipment of issues on Monday and there's some interesting squares coming up. Keep your eyes peeled- Wednesday is Art of Crochet day on the blog!

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What I made a few days after class...

Okay, there's a lot of purple here. What can I say? I do love purple. I took my lovely box of Floral Punch Craft stuff over to a friend's house to show her and we both made these. She likes it too. Hopefully we can pool our resources eventually-- I have the punches, most of which were already in my collection before I took the classes and a few I obtained at the classes. If she buys the books, we'll be set! Our flower-making session was a lot of fun and she said it's quite therapeutic. I agree. It's lovely to just sit and make pretty things sometimes.

I'll put more up when I make them, and hopefully I'll actually be mounting them onto cards at some point...

What I made in class...

Take a gander at these babies... This is everything I made in my day of Floral Punch Craft classes with Jane Gill. I don't normally do classes but I really did enjoy the two back-to-back classes I attended on that Saturday.

I really do recommend a class. It's so much fun! But if you can't get to one, there is a very reasonably priced DVD. Check here. I haven't seen the DVD myself but it's done by the person who developed these techniques in Australia.

Summer Sweater Update

Here's a close-up of the pattern of my summer sweater in progress. I now have the front panel done and have made a start on the back.

Still to do, both sleeves and the neckband. I'm really enjoying this though. It's a great pattern. :)

...because that's how I roll.

It's not technically a craft but...

This is a shot of a table at the social club where I play bingo on a Wednesday night.

Last week, I stayed a bit late and someone was commenting that I had all my used bingo tickets neatly folded and put into an empty bag of peanuts. I vowed to further impress him this week, just for a laugh... what followed was this.

Remember gumwrapper chains? Well, I made a bingo-ticket chain.

Thing is, I expected that to be that. Have a good laugh about it, maybe pin it on the noticeboard as a joke and have done with it...

Oh no, no, no.

The people at the bar were actually pretty fascinated with it and I have taught people how to do it. It may become a fundraiser of sorts-- sponsor the bingo chain. It's been left in my hands to formulate a plan. I will do... I stand challenged. I will try to raise money for the social club by making a chain as long as possible. I'll have to make up some sponsor sheets, and see if people will sponsor me by the foot or something. Or maybe have a pool to guess the length of the chain when I'm finished.

Decisions, decisions...

Floral Punch Craft

What you're looking at now is the start of something new!! I took two Floral Punch Craft classes with Jane Gill on Saturday at Cardinal Colours. I expected to have a fun afternoon and learn some new bits...

But I didn't expect to have life breathed back into my older, less-used craft supplies! I also didn't expect for the additional, specialised equipment needed to be so affordable. I'm really jazzed about it even a week later. I learned how to make several flowers but now I'm looking at flowers outside and thinking, "What punches can I use to re-create these?" So cool... If you like flowers and would like to add them to special cards, wrapping, etc, do click the links above. Fantastic!

Take Two: Easter Concert

There are two pages here of the same event. When Cameron has a school event, I put a copy in his school album and one in the family album. So here's both of them. They both use the same photos and they both use K and Co paper. The above one also has ribbons and a journaling block from Stamps Away (Clevercut). Part of the title is stamped and part is hand-written. The below page is completely hand-written. Typical school concert really, paper hats and a few blurry photos I managed to get over a sea of heads in the audience. This is the last of the Infants school concerts he'll be in. He moves up to Juniors next year and will be performing in their concert, so it will be different. I look forward to it!

Testing Blogger-droid...

Just a quick post to see if my Android app works. The picture is of just a tiny portion of the shelves at the Indian haberdashery in Walthamstow. I tend to go there on a Thursday to ooh and aah at the pretty trims. Sometimes I buy them. :)

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Art of Crochet Square 22

Crochet Tuesday has come and gone. I'm pleased to report that I have got several rows done on my sweater project, and of course the obligatory Art of Crochet square.

This one is a granny square in Vanilla, Sailor Blue and Maize. It went quickly as my first crochet project was a huge granny square blanket. I can knock out a granny square in 15 minutes or so. This one has colour changes in it. I enjoy doing that.

My Babies...

The Scrappy Bit:

BG paper is K and Co that I swapped with KraftyKaren for some Rock Star paper. I took a look at the picture and saw that their heads looked like the top of a heart so I decided to hand-draw a heart and cut it out into a frame. I drew it on the back of a piece of Bazzill, cut it out, and then stamped some swirls onto it. I outlined it too. Not much more to it.

The Story:

Nothing really, just trying to get a picture of the two of them and this one happened.

Sand Box

The Scrappy Bit: Brenda Pinnick BG paper. (there's a lot of this to get through!) Heidi swapp and Prima flowers, punched button, bazzill mats. Stamped title with ribbon fringe.

The Story Bit: Not much to this one, just Victoria playing in the sand pit at the nursery that she starts attending in September. She was building a sand-castle, but instead of putting the sand in the bucket, she was putting the sand on top of the bucket! Silly girl...

In search of The New Victoria Line

Here's the Scrappy Bit:

The bg paper is Brenda Pinnick. The journaling stamp is from Stamps Away (CleverCut). The mats are Bazzill with a trim from Walthamstow Market. The title is cut with QK Star Minis.

Here's the story:

Cameron, as many of you know, is very interested in trains, especially high-speed lines around the world and the London Underground. A new train is being put in service on the Victoria Line and Cameron and I went down to Waltamstow Central Station to ride on one.

We waited there for two hours and saw none of them. The Station Manager came up to see if we were ok, as security cameras had shown we'd been down there for such a long time. We told him we were waiting for the new train, and he told us they terminated two stations down the line from us! He also contacted the Line Controller and found out where we could find the next train. He told us about it and he said when we came to the gate to say that said not to worry about the tickets. Nice!! So we finally got a ride on the new 2009 stock trains just as we were about to give up and go home!! I think you can see from Cameron's face that he was thrilled to bits!

When we got back to Walthamstow Central, we went into the Station Manager's office to thank him. He showed Cameron all his security monitors and line diagrams and stuff, and had a chat with Cameron about trains. It must've been thrilling for him. Now this goes in the album and he'll be able to read about it and re-live it time and time again.

A Word about My Scrapping Style

That word is Simple.

I don't scrap to make use of the very latest products.

I don't scrap to impress people.

I don't scrap to get published in magazines.

I do scrap to place my photos along with stories, dates and descriptions so that the photos will tell a story in the future.

I do scrap to share my work with friends and family, and to see the looks on my babies' faces when they see pages with their own photos and stories on them.

I do scrap because I enjoy the process.

I don't blog my scrapping to fish for compliments.

I don't blog my scrapping to rack up a record list of comments.

I do blog my scrapping so my family and friends abroad can see my work.

So, what will follow sometimes, as of tomorrow, are scrapbook pages I have made recently. :)

Thanks for reading.

Thinking of Consolidating...

It seems silly to be posting things to two different blogs when this one is affiliated with readers and the one where I put my scrapbooks is not-- or rather, not as easily-- connected with a reader.

I scrapbook often enough to be able to blog a bit more frequently than I have been and it makes sense to have one regularly-updated blog than two seldom-updated ones.

That's it, decision made. Readers can now look forward to scrapbook pages too.

Art of Crochet Square 21

I'm all caught up now, so I'll be posting my squares one per week. This one is in Redcurrant and is called the Chequerboard pattern. It's mainly trebles and chains alternated. It doesn't look straight but it adds interest. It looks jaunty and fun. I wonder though if there's a way to make it look straighter.

That's it for this week! I need my crochet fix regularly so the next one will be along shortly.

Finally... Grumpies!

Aren't they cute?

These are the first cards I've made with my "Lil' Grumpies" set I won from Smeared Ink. They're so cute!

This one was the most "solid" character in the set so I stamped it onto some scrap paper and cut out everything but the eyes and eyebrows. I stamped it again on white cardstock.

I mixed up some dye ink on a piece of acetate (a non-stick craft mat will do) with a brayer to create a variegated effect and using the scrap paper cut-out as a stencil, I brayered the ink onto the image. I love how these came out. I can't wait to do more!