Beading Mad!

Morning all,

Well life carries on in it's typical railcrash fashion, bouncing from one thing to the next. Work is busy (for all we have a serious lack of visitors) and we've gone from one event - William Murdoch's Birthday Picnic -and heading on full steam to the next - Napoleonic Day [bank holiday monday] and then we'll bounce over the hill of a weekend on to the 3 days of heritage open weekend! Tiring? oh yes!

Nevermind. It wouldn't be so bad if free time wasn't currently split between visiting my nan in hospital - where the only change in her condition is the fact she's developed kidney stone! *sigh* and when i'm not there i'm busy job hunting! As unemployment is rapidly looming. If I can't get work soon I was thinking I may try and sell some of the things I make but I'm just not sure anyone would buy them..... must get my thinking cap on.

But my latest project isn't for sale - this one was all about me. I recently visited the spellbound bead company in lichfield for some findings, for various projects i've been doing for the church bizzare. But whilst I was there I fell in love with some of their projects. Now as i've never beaded in the sense of making jewellery with beads I thought i'd start with something middle of the road and choose a really sweet brooch pattern. I finally got around to making it up on monday and 4 hours later I was left with this:

I was really pleased with it and as i've got enough beads to make a second one (I think) i'll be making another one up just as soon as i've got the pin and larger beads for the centre of the design. Not sure what I'll do with the second one yet - most likely it will end up being a present though.

Hope you all like it and I promise I'll try and get round to making some cards soon!

Take care and happy crafting

Glove Puppets

Evening all!

Just a flying visit as i've not been making cards recently (see previous post) but given the number of hours i've been sat in the hospital or unable to access my card supplies has meant i've been getting a whole series of cross-stitch projects for mum out of the way. More on those another time.

Talking of mother dearest, I thought i'd share her latest project as they're sooooooo cute! Every two years, our church and other in the diocese send out teachers to our sister church's in Malawi, where they run a 4 week programme with local teachers there. The aim is to help them improve their teaching (as most of them are volunteers) and provide them with the materials they need to improve the children's lives. This year, we were asked for supplies for primary school children - amongst the plee was the request for glove puppets. And so 20 of the following designs are on their way to a new home and we're making more to send out in the container shipment in the new year.

That's all for now, hope you like them as much as we do. For those who have been asking after my grandmother, there's no real change and we're looking at weeks before there is any improvement. Thanks for all your messages and i'll be back soon I hope x

Diamond Wedding Anniversary Party + Update

Morning all, I'm so sorry that I haven't done this post until now, I really did mean to but life's been a bit hectic recently.

So anyway! on Sunday 24th August we celebrated my Grandparent's Diamond Wedding Anniversary with a 3 course dinner for 50. Mum and I did the cooking, the decorations, the inviations..... yeah the whole lot - with the exception of the flowers which my godmother (and mums cousin) came to help us with.

We were given the use of the church hall for free and as it has a catering standard kitchen we were well away. We started to set up on the Saturday with the flowers. It was a hoot - my godmother did the 4 massive arrangements in the same time mum and I made 7 table centres.....LOL! oops.

There were 3 of these in total in each of the window spaces

My Godmothers stunning arrangements - the pictures don't do them justice

After that mum and I went to get some balloons we had ordered and arranged the tables and chairs. Afterwards it was onwards to the shopping for all the vegetables and ingredients for the deserts. We spent Saturday afternoon baking castle sponges, making a huge lemon cheesecake, prepping all the vegetables and getting the raw ingredients for the soup starter ready.

Sunday rolled round and at 7:30 mum was at the church hall, heating the oven up for the beef. At 8:30 I arrived with dad to do everything else. I laid the tables with their centrepieces, diamond scatters, menus and the blasted favour boxes!

Now I've made these bird boxes many times before, but these were the bain of my existence. My grandparent's wanted them to look like green finches..... eek! so to start with sourcing the card was a nightmare. Then I had to cut them all out, emboss them and stick them together..... only they wouldn't stick! extra strong double sided tape, didn't stick! superglue, also failed to stick - in the end I had to resort to a hot glue gun and still some of them were looking a tad dubious when I laid the tables! I was not a happy bunny.

 Top table

 Table from my grandfather's seat and the nightmare bird boxes

The centrepieces and diamond scatters

The whole hall

After this it was just the work of cooking! eeek.... well actually it went really well and the menu was:

Salmon and Prawn medley or Minestrone Soup to start, Roast Beef or Chicken in a white wine and dill sauce with all the trimmings and seasonal vegetables, followed by desserts, cheese and crackers and coffee/tea and biscuits.

And then, if that wasn't enough - mum had made her parents a rich fruit cake to cut and people still ate slices of that too..... (where they found the room I will never know).

The roses on the flower are sugarpaste and not that you can see them very well but there are further diamonds studded into the sides of the cake.

All in all it was a wonderful affair, although given I spent the whole thing serving people and running round like a headless chicken it didn't feel like it at the time! LOL!

So that's the end of that, sadly though on the wednesday after this event my grandmother suffered another massive stroke and has been in hospital ever since (hence the lack of any blog updates). She's stable but as this is at least her 7th stroke (actually I think it's her 9th according to her records) the affects are horrific and its a waiting game to see how things play out.

Now that you're all up to speed I hope you don't mind if my blog updates are few and far between over the next few weeks. There's not much I can do, but I do feel that I should visit her or at least run errands for my grandfather in my free time, so that's what i'm doing.

I hope to have some crafting to share with you soon, but please be patient!

Thanks for stopping by and happy crafting!

Another Show Off Card

Morning all! the sun is shining, the birds are singing and I have to work! :( very sad. But anyway, onwards with todays card which is the 2nd of the show-off cards I had in mind for Tiddly Inks. This lovely lady is called Precious and isn't she just!

The image is coloured by promarkers - not that it shows up well on the photos but i've been pushing my comfort zone and blending colours that I wouldn't normally match up in an attempt to get a two-tone effect on her fress. It looks better in real life, I promise! The edge is distressed with versafine and the paper is from stampin up. the gems are from stash and the sentiment is hand written and one of my all time favourite quotes by Coco Chanel - 'A woman can be over dressed, but never over elegant'.

I'm tempted to make a whole series of these cards up and give them away in a box as a present. Hmmmm, will have to think on this a bit more. Until then, I am also entering this card in Ooh La La's challenge of Circles this week and Simon Say's Challenge of Shaped Cards.

That's everything. Thanks for looking - have a great day whatever you get up to and Happy Crafting!

Another Goodbye

Morning all, how is everybody today? sadly i'm not much better - the excessive sneezing has ceased but now i'm just blocked up and unable to breathe.... urgh! anyway on to the card. Today's card is another card for a member of management who is leaving today - so that's it. We officially have no bosses! eeek - except we do as they've already appointed the new curator, we're just waiting to hear who has the other post.

I've already done this card once, but it's so effective and I wanted to do it again as I wasn't 100% happy with the last one. I'm much happier this time.

Details are the same as last time - Marianne D die, woodware punches, florish embossing folder and pearls from stash.

I'm entering this card into Crafty Catz challenge of no blue or pink and for Everybody Art Challenge of the Garden.

Thanks for looking and I'll see you again tommorow! Happy Crafting!

What's Cooking?

Morning all, I hope you're all well - I'm currently suffering with a stinking summer cold so I'm not very happy, luckily - the worst of it didn't hit until after the party on Sunday, which was a great success and I'll post a blog entry with pics later this week.

My card is for 3 challenges - Just Magnolia and Hanglar: What's Cooking, Allsorts: Free and Easy and Sketch Saturday who provided this layout

I've done the layout as a mirror image and come up with this:

The images are coloured with pro markers, ribbon from the ribbon fairy, pips from stash, paper from dovecrafts and the brad from the let's cook range.

Think that's about everything. Must dash as i've got work but i'll be back tommorow with another card.

Thanks for looking and happy crafting!

Tiddly Inks Show-Off Card

Morning all! If you weren't aware that Tiddly Ink's and Make it Crafty have just released the most fabulous range of Steampunk Victorian images then I'm not sure where you've been! But they have and I just had to play, which is great for me as Tiddly Ink's has a show off challenge for this new range.

I decided to do something which is very un-me. It's clean, it's simple and I messed around with inks to create the background and distressing for the leaves...... ummm, yes - like I said..... very not me. But the  crazy thing is I love how well it's worked and I already have ideas for a second card in the same vain of design :S Maybe all the lemsip i'm drinking has gone to my head!? Anyway, enough of my rambling! onwards with the card

The image is called Owlette and the twisty tree comes with the design. The leaves are cut using one of my cuttlebug dies from newspaper print paper. The whole image is coloured using promarkers and the leaves distressed with Olympia Green Versafine ink. The blue background is the Colourbox: Lavander.

I hope you like it, I had so much fun making it! I'm also entering this into Simon Say's challenge this week which has the theme of newspaper (the leaves).

Would love to hear your thoughts on this card, but whatever you get up to have fun and happy crafting!