A trio of cards and a WIP LO finished

Evening everyone...

Today I am bringing you three cards I made earlier today..one for Mothers Day which is next Sunday 6th of March in the UK, then a 1st Birthday card for my Grandaughter Amber who turns one on the 22nd (where did that year go?!?!) and finally a Ruby Wedding anniversary  for my friends that are having a party on the 12th of March.. I still have three more friends birthday cards to make for March too.. why does that happen? Why is it that lots of birthdays and celebrations fall so close together? My busiest months are March..and June.

Anyway... as some of you may know, card making is not my real passion..I've only recently added card making to my skills..so, with the help of You Tube, I made my first ever  Tri-shutter card. I followed an instructional video and managed to come up with this card on the right. What you can't see is the heat embossed stamping of the words 'Celebrate' it's your day' on the return of one of the sides.

Then I started my Mum's Mothers Day card.. another first for me.. an easel card! Another trip to You Tube and a tutorial.. and here is my card.. a smallish circle..but it works. I used a  Stampin' Up label punch and I heat embossed the sentiment. I also die cut a coloured doily and topped it all off with some ready made flowers and added a couple of tiny hearts, one of which is the 'stop'for the easel.

Lets hope Mum likes it!

Then.. I wanted to make a nice bright, and child like card for Ambers first birthday. I have never made a screen style card before..but I managed to create something that should fit the bill. I found some circus, big top, themed papers from the Fun Fair collection that went with the zoo animals I wanted to use... so here is her card.. busy and bright.. just as a 1 year old deserves!

Once I'd finished these cards I decided to finish off a scrapbook layout I'd started at this months crop that wasn't coming together on the day. I took it back out and switched all the photos around, changed the background and it all worked much better! I got the inspiration from Sues blog Me and Mine here. Each month she hosts a sketch challenge.. that she designs herself, and offers a prize to the winning entry each month.

This month she offered us a challenging sketch with lots of right angles and carefully measured squares and rectangles.. well! That in itself was quite challenging for me as that isn't my style really..so here is my attempt.. not a faithful replica by any means, but I'm happy with it and its another one for my Sister in Laws 40th birthday album... all in all a good days work! 

the only problem is....I forgot to crop the background carpet out! Lol.. too late now.. so here it is!

I do hope you like today's projects.. I do hope you've all had a chance to get crafty this weekend too?

Elaine

x

Storage is my thing....

Afternoon all

Today I'm bringing you something different to my normal scrapbooking blogs.. I hope you may find some/any of these tips useful or interesting?

First I want to talk about my recently installed Craft Room.. full to the brim with scrapbooking and mixed media stash.. my passion.

Ikea is definitely my 'go to' store when it comes to storing my supplies.. especially the ,now discontinued, Expedit shelving unit which conveniently fits 12" papers inside the Drona boxes.(Kallax has nor replaced the Expedit and still fits the 12" papers) I store all my collections and kits in here.. and it is brilliant to be able to flip through them vertically. To stop them all sliding down I use some corrugated cardboard so they don't slip to the bottom of the box and create a bent pile at the bottom. Mine are the pink/rose floral boxes in the photo. I also use the Smaressel white storage boxes for 6" paper pads and other items.




For storing these pads I put each pad in a popper wallet (usually found in Poundland for 2 for £1) and I keep all the scraps inside the wallet with the original pads. It works brilliantly!




When working in my space I like to have all my embellishments sorted into colours (I have a good selection of mixed embellies permamently in my scrapbooking tote for when I am on a crop) I have saved all my business card boxes (and all my colleagues did the same) to store all my buttons and small flowers.. (they do sell these plastic boxes on Ebay too) I keep all of these in a small Helmer drawer unit.

I also store my punches and my ink pads and daubers in two more Helmer drawers too.

I also have an old CD rack (that my husband built years ago), that I have re-purposed for a storage unit. All of the plastic boxes I bought in Hobbycraft over the years. I have washi tape, bakers twine, bling, pearls etc etc stored in these and I also have several with loose stamps in them.. I also have stamps on an Ikea Billy bookcase as shown here beside another Kallax unit (I've spilt out in to an adjoining room as you can see!) LOL!

 The hat boxes store silk flowers, mixed media items and small MDF items ready for altering, hearts, small boxes, frames etc. As you can see I hang my rolls of tape on repurposed mug trees too. I have a lovely digital radio (bought for me at Christmas) that keeps me company when I'm crafting. I also have my beautiful Granddaughter Amber watching over me too.

To the side of my desk I keep an Alex drawer unit that I keep my art and paint supplies..embossing powders, mists, paints etc




On my desk I keep desk tidy's with all sorts.. my tool carousel with scissors, pens etcand, of course, my Silhouette Cameo. Behind that I have three RUB caes with small items in.. charms, small ready tied bows, tassels, candi dots, tiny flowers, bead spacers etc too.
I also have my portable tote on my desk..which I have standing on a lazy susan so I can turn it around to reach all of the items I store in it too. (see first photo)






I have also just added the wall art of the branch and flying birds.. a small thing but it makes it prettier. The wall colour is a leftover from the previous owners of the house..but its OK for now.

Finally, one last storage tip is how to store your Thickers alphas... extra wide magazine folders (old photo)... I bought mine from Paperchase but I have seen them in TK Maxx and Homesense too.. which is also where I get all my patterned boxes from.

Well that's about it.. I'm sure there are more things I can show you, but I'm sure you're bored by now..so I shall stop there.

The key for me is really all about labelling.. I don't know where I'd be without my DYMO paper labeller!

Thanks for stopping by..

Elaine
x

A 'golden' layout

Morning peeps....

Today I am bringing you something out of my usual remit and, almost, something of a new departure for me... ooh!

At the weekend I watched Helen Mirren starring  in The Woman in Gold...a story about Gustaf Klimts painting of Adele Bloch-Bauer all about his painting..now called The Woman in Gold, that was stolen by the Nazis in WW2.. a worthy watch if anyone is interested in finding out about the restitution of such paintings.

Anyway..I was quite moved by it and it got me thinking..could I create a layout inspired by such an outstanding piece of artwork? In case you are unfamiliar with it, I have shown it here

 

As you can see it is primarily gold..which in my opinion would have made a difficult colour for me, especially as I have very little of it in my stash! Lol

So..first, I found I didn't have a 12" background piece of gold CS..so I took a sand coloured piece and started working with that..well..suffice to say, I didn't like it, but I'd already distressed it, so I decided to paint it with black gesso..and I had intended to scratch through it to show the sandy gold through the black paint...but that turned out not to be the case! (All the best laid plans and all that....)

Then, as the CS was a bit dull, I needed to make it more luxurious in line with the glamour of my subject matter. This is where I got a bit messy... I used three different pearl mist sprays to create a pooled layer of shimmering golds and yellows..two of which were home made shimmer mists, one called Coral Gold, one I've called Rose Gold (created from an old tutorial from You Tube a while back)  and the other was a Tattered Angels Yellow Zest I hope you can see here the effect that this created?

Once the paper had dried and I had attempted to flatten the card, I took some of my new, coveted new stash, Stampin' Ups Winter Wonderland collection that I had recently acquired in their Sale-a-bration. I took the (in my opinion) brave decision to cut it into 2" squares and proceeded to layer them with some thought towards the squares that are in the original. I doodled on some and added vellum printed with gold from the same Stampin Up collection.

Once I was happy with the arrangement I matted my photo and added it to dimension adhesive to give it some depth. I added, rearranged and altered the squares until I was satisfied. I also added some gold striped vellum washi tape from the same collection too. As I wanted to give a 'nod' to my inspiration I looked carefully at the painting so I could decipher several elements that I wanted to include in my LO. These included smaller squares within the large squares and I used shaped sequins to represent these in the overall scheme. I also noted the diamond necklace Adele was wearing during her sitting and I wanted to include lots of bling and sparkles. With a thought towards using old and new stash (a tip from Glitter Girl, Shimelle in this weeks inspirational video) I dug deep into some incredibly old stash, broken costume jewellery, pearls and more sequins and added them to the black silk flowers that I have had for eons. (I knew they would come in handy one day!)

I arranged these to the right of the photo

I then made a small cluster to the top left and added a heart. Then I was stuck with placing a title.. I knew I wanted to add 'Photo Shoot' as the title because the picture was taken for a magazine photo shoot that we were in back in the 1990's where we were both treated to a makeover for Bella Magazine (I'd never worn my hair that short... and never have again!)..anyway.. I tried several positions and types of alphas for the title but I wasn't happy with it..so in the end I've decided not to use the title or journalling.. but I have added the story on the reverse side of the LO for posterity.. so here it is in full....

What do you think? Do you think it is a nod to the original...maybe I'll see if there are any other masterpieces that inspire me..maybe this is a new direction for me??? Who knows.. as always, let me know what you think!

Thanks for stopping by!

Elaine

x 

A valentines card today

Good morning all

Today, being the (allegedly) most romantic day of the year (!) I thought I would bring you a card I made for my husband for the big day.

I started off by looking at the prompts made for the February card challenge over on UKS and decided I would start my card by incorporating some black, gold, hearts and horizontal stripes. Here are the prompts I had to choose from:

From there, I thought I would make it a bit more masculine and added a black background.
The black and gold I used was from some new stash I bought from Stampin' Up.. I then chose a gate fold for the basis and I stamped a heart on some black card and heat embossed it with gold embossing power. I matted the black card on gold CS and then stamped my sentiment onto another piece of black card and mounted that too. After heat embossing that in the same way I stuck them all together..I deliberately chose not to say 'I' love you..just 'love you' as that is what I say to my DH before I go to sleep each night..altogether now...awwww... Lol

Anyway, here it is.. Hope you like it..thanks for stopping by!

Another post.. a minor miracle

Hi again

As I'm on a roll, I thought I would also share with you a layout I created for the weekly challenge over on UKS.

I used a Teresa Collins collection of glittery papers and used some inspiration from Shimelle Lane for the grouping of my sticker clusters.

I scraplifted a layout from another UKS member, Beaufulilly and added emanel dots and some feather stickers from some old stash.

The photo is of my wedding way back when.. I can't beleive that almost 36 years have passed by!

Thanks for stopping by again.

Elaine

Boo..I'm back!

Well...Hello! Long time no see!

Sorry it's been so long but this year a REALLY do intend to update my blog more regularly!
Having moved four times..yes four..times in the last 12 months my crafting really took a back seat and I am only just beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

So today, I am bringing you three tags I've just completed for my first ever tag swap organised over on UKScrappers. I'm still active over there and new members are always welcome so do pop along and register is you love anything paper craft or scrapbook related.

So, without further ado..here they are.

I used a variety of mediums for this and the theme was 'Hearts'. I used a lot of inking and misting and then I used a printed napkin with hearts on it to cover the lower half of the tags with PVA glue. Once dried I added some embossed stamping and topped off with some pink lace and some Prima resist canvas butterflies and hearts. I then used an embossing folder to put polka dots on some white card and punched the three large hearts. I then misted them using the same inks.
Finally I topped the hearts with the rose and leaf and added the stamped word 'love' on a tag and adherred it in the bottom right. I finished them off with a red ribbon and added pearls as the body of the butterflies.So that's it.. three tags finished.. I do hope the recipient likes them.

Thanks for looking and hope to see you here again very soon.

Elaine