A "Thank you"....

A "Thank you" for my friend, Beth, in Maine...
This is the stamp I used to make the flower:I layered it up:Inside, it's just stamped flat:Here's what I am thanking Beth for! She sent me this beautiful case, with lots of crafty embellishments inside, and included this lovely, glittery "mat stack" (a book of 6 x 4 sheets of patterned card):Beth said she was sending it as something I could do whilst I was at mum's! She also included chocolate but, um, it didn't seem to make it to the photo....

Cards from Australia :)

I'm doing a "Seasons" card swap with Feronia and hers arrived this morning:

"Spring" and "Summer"....

..."Autumn" & "Winter".

Aren't they great?

I really like the paper she's used on the Spring and Autumn cards. I think this is Japanese paper, or "Washi". It's a lovely, pliable paper with deep gold embossing. It's often used in origami, but in Japanese papercrafts it's used to make 'quilted' cards, where squares of it are wrapped round pieces of foam and mounted into a pattern on the card to make a 'quilt'...I'll have to get mine finished pronto! I won't show them here till she's got them.

Meanwhile, here's a "Thank you" card I made for Sharon Duncan, re. the prize she sent me. I used Tim Holtz Distress Inkpads, which I'd bought in a sale a while ago and never got round to using much. These ones are Vintage Photo (edges) and Antique Linen (background).It was nice to make my own design and background etc. I must do more of that.

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Today is officially the longest day. Sunsets get earlier and earlier after today. Poo. I prefer the first half of the year, when all the summer is up ahead, all to look forward to, nights drawing out longer and longer. This solstice sort of feels like the hump of a hill; downhill from here, tumbling towards winter. Isn't it daft to think like that? I'm trying to push such hunches away and tell myself that this is the beginning of summer, not the end!

Keeping me out of mischief....

I've lost count of how many loads of washing I've done this week! Our washing machine broke down on 17th July, and the replacement only arrived last Friday. Getting the backlog washed is one thing, trying to get it all dry when outside is gale force winds and torrential rain has been... a challenge! It's all been hanging up everywhere, all over the house! I'm on my own this week, too, so, in between basket-fulls, I've been relaxing and pootling.....


First, a "Thank you" card:A plain brown notebook stayed still too long and I got it:This one I made for my God-daughter. I wanted to send her a wee note as she lost her favourite toy this week: "MooCoo" had been with her since she was a few months old. She is now 9 and inconsolable to have lost him in a shop. Waah!Not sure either photo shows it very well, but you get the idea. I love this stamp!I left this one blank but I suppose it could be Christmas card.... I just liked playing with the image and the crochet flowers...
This is definitely a Christmas card! Using the same stamp I used in the Saturday Sketch challenge earlier this week:
Ah well! It keeps me out of mischief!

I've enjoyed playing :^)

2 Crafty Challenges

I thought I'd join in on a few weekly challenges, to keep my creative doobrys flowing!

The first is the Inchy Challenge set by Inch By Inch.

To take part, you must create something to fit in with the week's theme. Any materials can be used, but it must be 1 inch square in size! Then link back to the Inch By Inch site, and leave a comment there, so they know you're joining in.

This week it's hats. I was wondering what to do, and then realised that that old song, "The Sun Has Got His Hat On" was going around my head. My dad used to sing it round the house during his wackier phases! Well, here goes:-It's a 3 layer watercolour- the hills and the sun at the back, then the trees cut from another piece of watercolour paper, then the writing on another. I've gone over the leaves on the tree with some green Crystal Lacquer pen.

Having the 1 inch square to restrict you is amazingly freeing! You have to be very strict with yourself about what you have to leave out. It's like writing a poem to a set metre or rhyme- a restriction, but a helpful one.

Go on- have a go! You may surprise yourself!

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Next, a weekly challenge from Sketch Saturday. (It changes each Saturday but lasts for the week.)

The 'sketch' is actually a layout that you have to follow for making a card, postcard, ATC, etc. You can turn the layout on its side, or upside-down, but mustn't move the elements around.
Here's this week's:And here's my attempt, using paper scraps, stuck on to a plain brown "Kraft" card. Part of the bare card shows at the top, and I've rubbed gold and green ink pads over this part and then rubbed on some fine glitter. The butterflies are outline stickers, filled in with Crystal Lacquer pens. The flower in the centre bottom is a sticker left over from a pack (possibly K and Co). The three are sitting on squares of Indian paper handmade from recycled cotton rag. I've coloured the margins of these using purple and bronze ink pads.........
"Thank You" was a Paper Artsy stamp, using a bronze ink pad and clear embossing. Behind it is a thin strip of vellum with some gold calligraphy on it.

I added some light butterflies along the middle strip with another Paper Artsy stamp, using a watermark stamp and a little pink and blue.

The photo's don't show the colours very well, I think this is because they were taken in artificial light.

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While I found the inch by inch challenge fun, and the size restriction helpful, I didn't enjoy working to this layout at all! Whether this is because I've only made a few cards, and when I do, I just make them up as I go along, or whether a different layout would suit me better, I don't know. I'll do this challenge for a few weeks, and that way, I'll find out!

A thankyou for Aunty Pat!

My Aunt had sent my partner a card for his birthday on 11th July. She had enclosed a monetary gift and the other night, we suddenly realised that no "Thank you" card or email had been sent, and no phone call made! Aaagh!

I think you should always respond with a thank you phone call, email or card when the gift has come through the post. Even apart from politeness and gratitude, how else will the person know it ever arrived safely?

I came up with this:
The photo doesn't really catch it!

The angel picture, white tissue paper and slide holder all came from Crafty Individuals a few days before!
After cutting out one of the angel pictures, I rubbed it all round the edges with a nail file to "age" and fade it.

I tore some of the white tissue paper and stamped it with brown, bronze and gold versions of the same swirly design, then layered these behind......I covered the slide holder with some contrasting paper.

It holds a piece of tissue paper that's had the gold stamp-pad rubbed over it after "thank you" had been written.... A small swirly frame design is stamped on some paper and layered behind.
I made an envelope out of a vellum sheet that had musical notes embossed over it.

Well, it's a few weeks late but I hope she likes it. She should have got it yesterday!

I really recommend Crafty Individuals. They are a small business with friendly customer service and very speedy delivery.

Have a look at their projects gallery for inspiration- there is so much there I haven't flipped through it all yet! And check out their stamps- really nice, original designs, different from the usual.