Happy Anniversary My Love...

Hello Friends

Today xxxx number of years ago Mr Hettie and I were married on a beautiful sunny day.  So I thought today I would share the card I have made for Mr Hettie to mark the Special Day.....

This really is a heavy weight card on which I have used a plethora of stamps including Artistic Outpost, 7 Gypsies, Tim Holtz as well as my favourite honeycomb stencil with some Sweet Poppy embossing paste (NBUS - in copper anyway).

This is not an ordinary folded card.  I had already made the panel and laid all the elements I wanted included but knew that an ordinary square card would possibly not hold the weight (and anyone who knows us will know we are anything but square!).  So I went on to Splitcoast Stampers to see if there was any other design that might still stand and came across a tri fold shutter design.  As usual I had to put the "Hettie Spin" on it and change the sizes but this is what came about.

On the original design the back closes but as I used a 12x12 sheet, mine didn't but to be honest I like this as it leads the recipient to look inside at the message (I wrote it after I took photographs!)

Here is the back opened up.  The red ribbon (a Snippet) is only there to hold the card together to make it easier to put it in the envelope and get it out.  

 

Some close ups for you to see the details.  Inks used were Archival and DI in Vintage Photo and Aged Mahogony, some gold embossing powder and "Stuff" from my collection.

And here it is standing up in the bay window.  The papers used were Papermania Elegance which I have had for ever and the little stamped pieces were all from white cardstock from my Snippets drawer.  So I shall be taking this along to the Snippets Playground. 

Thanks for calling by.

Hettie

CC2C - Cordinations Challenge

Hello there Bloggers.  Happy Tuesday to you and I hope the weather is being kinda OK or better, i.e. not raining!

Linda over at Studio L3 has set us the task of turning to page 61 of Vol 2 of Mr Tim Holtz's Compendium of Curiosities where you will find this week's technique, which involves Cordinations papers.  This week the lovely Guys and Gals at Simon Says Stamp are offering a prize of £25 to one lucky participant so it is worth joining in if you can.  Click HERE for details of this week's challenge with Linda.

The Peeps at Simon Says Stamp are also asking you to use your favourite technique for a chance to win $50 and as this piece includes a few of my favourite techniques I shall be entering it there too.  If you have not noticed the new blinkie on the top of my margin, I was very lucky to come in the Top 3 last week with THIS piece and I was on Cloud 9 when I found out on Friday.  Thank you!  

I have to confess that I only recently ventured into my Cordinations book and actually used any of the papers last week when I made the Christmas Trees.  You see, I like to hoard them until I find the right project for them.  I had the urge to use the Victorian Velvet sheet for this project as I was finally going to use my Destinations papers, which again I have had a while but not used, and there are hints of Victorian Velvet  in the paper.

Right then, enough waffling.  Here is the layout which I have created using the technique on page 61.....

One of our favourite photos of the Eiffel Tower as it shows the sheer awesomeness of the Tower as well as the ingenuity which went into building it all those years ago.  The text was cut out using my latest toy, my Cricut using the font Stone Script.  The centre panel next to the photo has had a mixture of DI and gold wax rubbed over the embossing.  Throughout this layout I have used Victorian Velvet, Walnut Stain and Vintage Photo DIs and all edges were distressed using the TH Distressor and Walnut Stain DI.

I recently came across my tin of stamps which I used to collect as a child (just a couple of years ago!) and so I decided to have a little rummage through the tin as I was sure there would be some French stamps in there.  Sure enough there were and the stamp which is still affixed to the envelope with the frank mark on there is dated 1980! The stamp to the left is actually a Tim Holtz stamp, and the mini map is a Cavallini sticker. The sprockets are TH as well as the film strip. All the brads I used I bashed with my TH hammer.  It is OK, I am old enough to use a hammer unsupervised!  We came back from Paris with somewhere 700 photographs between us!  I love this little heart charm but cannot remember where I bought it!  There had to be a heart on there somewhere as it was our 20th Wedding Anniversary (I was a child bride!).

Unfortunately I have taken these photos under lights and you cannot see the full effect of Perfect Pearls (PP) which despite being one of the messier products to use, is one of my favourites and I like to stamp on paper using DI and then powder the PPs and then mist to wick the ink underneath.  You can also see some PP used on the tag too.  More of that to come in a moment.

Here you can see the stamping direct on to the background and the washi tape and tissue tape I have used.  I only have two washi tapes but I can see I will possibly be buying more at some stage!  There has to be some purple tape available somewhere!

Here you can see the tag which I have removed from behind the photograph.  I got the distressed effect by placing a TH flourish mask on my craft mat, then placing the tag over the top and sanding the card with my sanding block. Loved doing this and cannot believe it has been ages since I last used this technique.  Then I stamped a flourish over the top and dusted with PP.

Thanks for visiting today and please sign in the Visitor's Book so I know you have been here.

Hugs

Hettie

Mojo Monthly - Just in the Nick of Tin!! (Sorry about the pun!)

Well Hello there Peeps!

I spent a jolly lovely day in my Craft Room yesterday making my lickle piece for the MOJO Monthly with the lovely Sarah.  I know I am a little late but things were a little on the hectic side before Christmas and I would not have enjoyed doing anything.  This lickle project I did enjoy doing.  NO pressure, no deadline (well only until tomorrow at midnight) and no products you must use other than a tin!!

Well, here it is....

Yes!  How predictable of me.  A mini book.  BUT a mini book IN A TIN! That is not totally predictable ey!

My motivation for this little piece was to use the lovely 7 Gypsies stamps that I won a few months ago from Sarah with THIS piece.  I have been so engrossed lately with Christmas and Craft Fairs etc, that I didn't really have chance to "play" with these stamps.  Now that I have I Lurve them and they will be popping up in many other projects.

The tin?  It started life as one of those tins for ladies to carry their "lady things" in their handbags (Bodyform and please do not sing the awful song!).  I will admit that this particular brand is not one which I use regularly but like any good crafter, I knew the tin would come in handy at some point so I bought the packet complete with tin.  (In my best BBC voice, there are other brands available!)

Then I sanded it and painted it with alcohol inks (terracotta, picket fence, gold, cranberry (I think!)).  Then painted it a little more.  As I couldn't seem to get the felt to take inside (even without applicator) I used a gold pen to colour around the inside edges of the tin.

I cut out six squares which then needed trimming to rectangles as the tin is not quite square!  and I then made hinges using a Sizzix die and attached all the hinges with brads.  Then came the fun bit.  Making the stamped panels to go on the pages!

Then i had a not particularly fun job as I had to take all the brads back out and the hinges came off, then poke holes into the panels and then reattach the hinges with the brads.  Why wasn't it fun?  Firstly the little legs do not want to go back through the card and the panel and secondly, the little beggars go missing on the desk whilst you are attaching them!!  I did get my own back by hitting all the brads with my Timmy Holtz hammer!!  Haa Haa Haa!!

Here are some closeups of the individual panels for you to see.. (I am afraid no. 5 didn't save for some reason!)

Here it is in all it's glory standing how I actually want it to do!!



Well, this is probably my last posting this year and most certainly my last project for 2011.  I have spent a happy few hours today clearing, cleaning and disposing of unnecessary stuff from my room today.  Hubby did ask if I needed a lie down as I cleared out a Really Useful Box of scrap papers which have not been touched for sooo long!  Some of those papers were nearly 12 x 12"!  I did go through them and kept a few essential ones (mainly Basic Grey Christmas and plain green cardstock) back before bagging up the rest to go to the local Brownies group for their next crafting session!  Phew!  Feeling better now!! 

Don't forget to pop over to the lovely Sarah to see the other projects that have been entered for this challenge!

Well only one more thing to say to all my friends and followers and that is Happy New Year to you all and may 2012 be a Healthy, Prosperous and above all Crafty year for you all and may your mojo never fail you!

Keeeeeeeeep Crafting!!

Hettie

Scrapbooking Layout - Notre Dame!

Good Evening Fellow Crafters

If you saw my posting yesterday you will remember that I told you that I had won the July Challenge for Shimelle Laine's 4x6 Love on Twopeasinabucket.  I have been very remiss and forgotten to post this layout on my blog so here it is.

I have been following Shimelle Laine's 4 x 6 Love Classes, but up until now I have been using my wedding photos. However, after watching the video I decided that I wanted to use some of my Paris photos which were taken on a trip to celebrate our 20th Anniversary, which I had received that day by post.

I flicked through the photos and out came 6 portrait photos of Notre Dame which I thought would be perfectly suited to this challenge.

Instead of using patterned papers I had the idea of creating my own paper with TH Alcohol Inks. I used a sheet of glossy card, alcohol inked it and then cut it into four 3 x 12 pieces to make the tops and bottoms of both pages. I cut another piece to make the red blocks which I stamped using TH and Cavallini stamps. At the top of the layout I used some ribbon in order to pick up the green of the trees, and the pink that is in the embellishments. The bottom edging I made with white cardstock and a Martha Stewart punch. Layered up some punched circles, cut the top title on my Silhouette, the bottom title with my Sizzix dies, some bakers twine, a pin and hey presto a layout which I absolutely love! It is nearly a wedding layout - just Wedding Anniversary instead!!!

I hope you like my layout.  I know for sure that I would never have attempted the alcohol ink backgrounds if it weren't for the Grungy Monday series by the Lovely Linda so thanks Linda!!

Talking of Grungy Monday, if Postman Pat doesn't get a move on I may have to miss it this week!!  Shock!! Horror!! Oh No!!  My heat gun died on me on Monday night just as I was in the middle of making a schparkly Poinsettia for the front of a book.  I will let you imagine how I felt about that shall I?  I ordered a new one straight away from Craft Obsessions which they dispatched on Tuesday.  I think it is taking the slow donkey!!  Typical as I NEED it!!!  Maybe tomorrow ey!!

Off to beddie-byes now as I am feeling very tired and need to be up and ready for the weekend as I am going to have to use my painting skills on the window frames - deep joy!!  However, if it is raining, then I will be painting louvre doors in the room that was my former craft room so that it can be a bedroom again instead of a large space in which we dump "stuff"!!

That's all Folks!  Don't forget to leave me a comment please!!

Hettie

Scrapbooking Layouts

Good Evening Crafters

I thought tonight I would show you a couple of layouts which I completed at the Penallys workshop which was held last Saturday.  It was a fun class with lots of giggling and frolics going on and the day seemed to fly by and before we knew it we were packing up to go.  I had also completed two layouts of my "Fergus" album too.  I will show you that album another time when I have got over being teased about it on Saturday!!

The first layout we completed was this one...

The photograph was actually taken from the Eiffel Tower and despite the layout looking very girlie I thought that the colours of the papers were absolutely perfick for the colours in the photograph. 

Who says views cannot be portrayed in pretty layouts? 

There was a picture available of me having just taken the photograph, but my red handbag let the colours down a little!  It was a Radley handbag but the red wasn't right!!

The next layout we did after having a bit of lunch is this one....



The photo is of my Hubby when we were on the Seine hopping from place to place. 

I think here we were on our way to the Notre Dame after walking all round the Eiffel Tower.  We were glad of a rest!!I had taken several "nautical" photographs with me but I felt this one best suited the colours.

The papers we used for the first layout were Basic Grey and the second layout were Paper Loft.  I had not heard of Paper Loft papers but they were lovely quality and not as thin as some makes of paper.  I will definately have a look around to see if I can buy more of those papers.  As for Basic Grey they are one of my favourite companies already.

Thanks for looking and please leave me a comment so that I know you have been here.  They always make me smile!!

Don't forget to come back tomorrow as I will be showing you the PIF gift I received from Kim.  It is fantastic!!

Hettie