Maureen's Gifts

Maureen's Flowers in a tea cup.

 

 

So Pretty!

 

Pretty Parcel

Beautiful Card!

 

 

Good Sunday Morning Ladies,

Todays post is all about our sweet Maureen, first up we have a couple of photographs of the flowers that we sent to Maureen to let her know how much be were thinking of her and loved her too!

I am so pleased that Maureen was thoughtful enough to think about taking a photograph of the flowers so that we could all enjoy how beautiful they were. I am hoping that they smelt really nice too, as I picked a collection that had freesia's in it, they are my favourite as they smell so lovely.

I hope that you get to put that Huge cup and saucer to use Maureen, it could be a large, multi wick candle or you could just refill it with flowers. I am sure that our sisters here in the café will come up with some more ideas!

Next up we have the beautiful card that Maureen sent to me last week, the experience started when I took the beautifully wrapped card out of the jiffy bag, I wanted to rip through that paper to find out what was inside, but I was very reserved and preserved the pretty wrapping to photograph, but just look at the pretty card that was hidden inside that package, so beautiful!!

Maureen has used Spellbinders Heirloom Oval, without its outer cutting edge to make the delightful frame for those pretty flowers, which are made using Creative Expressions Camellia Dies, both the Open and Complete Petal sets, both designed by Sue Wilson.

The beautiful blue that Maureen has used in the Camellias' is complimented perfectly by the pretty satin bow finished with a pearl.

Thank you so very much Maureen for the lovely card, your words were lovely too.

Well that's all for today ladies,

Enjoy your Sunday,

Love and Hugs

Sandra xxxxx

 

 



 



Mixed Craft Saturday

Anne's Minion Scrapbook Page

 

Margaret P's Cross Stitch Collie Card

 

Brenda (littlelamb) Purple Poppy Dish

 

 



 







 

Good Saturday Morning Ladies,

Mixed Craft Saturday is upon us once again, I really think that someone has their finger on the 'fast forward' button, as these weeks are flying by way too fast, my goodness we are in August already!

First up today we have Anne's fabulous 'Minion' themed Scrapbook page, there is one very cute little man featured on the page and an absolutely amazing 'Minion' Birthday cake, the way you have created the Minion style layout on the page is just genius, a couple of circles and pieces of circles, giving the perfect Minion eyeglass.  What a fabulous way of keeping that memory to look back on for many years to come, do you do 'journaling' where you write about what was happening in the photo's, life dates, ages and details that you remember of the day.  I read that somewhere, its so that somebody in a couple of generations time can look at the page and see who is on it, how old they were and what was happening in the photo, particularly funny things that you remember.

So much better to display the like that than kept in an old chocolate tin.

Thank you very much Anne for sharing your page with all of us xxxx

 

Next up we have Margaret P's amazing Cross Stitched Collie Dog, it is so detailed Margaret, you have captured so much detail in your stitching, it must have taken ages, I bet the recipient was absolutely blown away when the saw how realistic this Collie dog really looks!

I am hoping that this will be the first of many cards that you send in for me to share with our friends

here in the café. Thank you Margaret for allowing me to share your project today xxxx

 

Last but not least we have the most AMAZING piece of pottery by our 'Expert Potter' Brenda (littlelamb)! You have created some of the most amazing pieces over the year but Brenda I have to say that this one I absolutely love, the colour is just so rich and vibrant, I love the unusual shape of the dish too, do you paint the colour onto the flowers before or after 'firing' , I thought it was after as so much of the vibrancy of the purple colour remains. You are one very talented lady Brenda,

thank you so much for allowing me to share your amazing pottery with everyone xxxx

 

Well once again I am totally blown away by how very talented you all are, week after week we share some amazing crafts with each other, it also inspires others to try something new, so thank you for your inspiration. xxx

Well that's all for today,

take care and enjoy the weekend,

Love and hugs

Sandra

xxxxxxx 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 







Myra's card made without any dies

Myra's 'no die' card!

 

 



 

 



Good Friday Morning Ladies,

I was thinking of making Fridays that day that we show our 'Challenge cards'

Today's card has been created by our lovely Myra, the challenge for

this card was :

A card made without any dies !

If any of you would like to take part please email your challenge cards, they can

be any design or style, just made without the use of any dies.

Another challenge if I remember correctly was :

A Christmas card made with only One die. (please tell me if I am wrong)

I think it will be fun taking part in the challenges, encouraging us to think out of

the box, I think we could go on to do cards with a particular die or older dies too.

It may well get us using our older dies, like Anne had on her card yesterday.

I love the image that Myra has used for this card, a great card for all of our

girlfriends, sisters etc, after all, who doesn't like a bit shopping?!

Myra has picked some of the colours in the image to create her matt and layering,

Everything works so well, those cute little pearls picking the colours out perfectly,

I love the font on the little Sentiment you have used Myra, its really pretty,

Thank you so much Myra, your card is fabulous and just goes to prove

that we can make amazing cards without the dies we have become very

reliant on in our everyday card making, don't get me wrong, I love my dies and

what they can do by mixing them up and combining them.

I can't wait for an update on the wedding yesterday, I will be eagerly

pacing the Café until either Hazel or Patricia arrives and tells us

everything about the day!

Wow, I can't believe we are almost at the end of another week!

I hope you all have a lovely day

Love and Hugs

Sandra

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

Gillian's Wedding

The Happy Couple

 Beautiful Grandchildren

Looking Fine in Kilts

 

Andrew performing his duties

 

Hazel sent us a few photos of Gillian's Wedding so I wanted to add

them straight away as I knew you would all being looking forward

to seeing the happy couple.

 xxxxx

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 









The Most Beautiful Wedding card by Anne !

A Beautiful Wedding Card

 



Good Thursday Morning Ladies,

 I couldn't wait to share with you this Beautiful wedding card created by our very own Anne,

it is so elegant.

The picture of the amazing beach in the frame makes the card just perfect for those tropical beach

weddings, Anne this is pure genius idea, I love it and I think that it will inspire a lot of others too,

you could put a photo of most venue's in that window.

I love that stamped image too, what stamp have you used??

I can see that you have used the Creative Expressions Heart Lattice Embossing folder for the background.  The Flowers are (CE) Faux Quilled Blooms and (CE) Ivy dies, all designed by Sue Wilson.  The Border is Spellbinders Floral Doily Accents Border Die, so pretty, I must make a conscious effort to go back and use these dies.

I love the touch of gold in the matting and layering, perfectly picked out in the gold centres of the flowers.  Anne, thank you so very much for allowing to share your amazing wedding card xx

 

This card seems so fitting for today, its Hazel's daughter Gillian & Andrew's wedding day today,

I would personally like to wish the pair of them a 'Lifetime of Happiness'.

Hazel I hope that the day goes smoothly, the sun shines and that you have a totally amazing day.

Love and Hugs to all of you,

Sandra

xxxxxx

 

 

 

Today's gift from Saba xx

A gift Beautifully wrapped

 

Such a Pretty gift inside!!!

 

 

 

Good Morning Lovely Ladies,

Today I want to share with you all this lovely gift that I received last week all the way from sunny Germany! It came in the pretties jiffy (padded) envelope I have ever seen! All flowery and beautiful.

Well it ended up being like a pass the parcel, I was actually that excited, but I was like the grumpy child at the party and was passing this parcel to nobody!!!!

The next layer of wrapping you can see above, a beautiful piece of card, delicately folded into an envelope, the card was really pretty and had texture too, it was all secured with a pretty pink tulle bow, with a lovely white flower to finish if off, I was eager to get inside but took the wrapping off so securely so as not to damage it, (( I really don't like throwing any part of such a gorgeous gift away)

I finally got inside the envelope and found the prettiest card inside, at first light I thought it was blue and white, but on closed inspection it was gorgeous shades of purple.

Saba has used Creative Expressions 8 x 8 embossing folder Scored Lines to create the textured background, I notice that you have got it to sit flat on your card Saba, what was your trick, mine seemed fine at first but I am still having issues with the card buckling in the folder?

The beautiful flowers that Saba has used are Creative Expressions Open and Complete Petal Camellia dies, designed by our lovely friend Sue Wilson, Saba has finished the flowers of beautifully with some flat back pearls, the different size and shape and position of the flowers make for a absolutely perfect composition, the card is totally gorgeous and the words inside were lovely too.

Do you know that there are only about 7 weeks (ish) until we get to see Sue again at Ally Pally, I hope that there will be plenty of you all going, so that we can have a pre= retreat meet up!

Thank you so very much Saba, you are so very kind, I have another gift card coming up maybe tomorrow too.

I want to thank you all also for your amazing responses to my post yesterday, I just wanted you all to know how very much I needed and appreciated all of your kind words of support over the past few weeks, it really has shown me how much you all enjoy coming in a catching up with each other, there is hardly ever a day goes by where someone has bought a smile to my face, whether it be Maureen's barrage balloon knickers or Saba tormenting the living daylights out of her long suffering husband.

But you are also there for the darker times when somebody needs some love and support, which has been proved over and over again, bringing this huge bond between us all, I can see that there will be some tears when it comes to saying goodbye after this retreat finishes in October, we may have to organise two next year, one in Spring and the other in Autumn, I only say this because I think that after meeting up that one weekend, saying 'see you in a years time' will sound devastating!

We will see how this one goes and go from there.

I have Pat and Sue coming over today for some crafting and laughter, I love my weekly highlight.

I will call in and catch up later ladies,

Love and hugs

Sandra

xxxxxx 

 

Another beautiful gift, from Myra x

Good Morning Ladies,
I cannot begin to tell you how totally uplifting it has been receiving all of the beautiful cards that
you ladies have taken the time and trouble to send me over this past few weeks.
All of the silly nonsense that went on made me stop and think twice about whether or not I wanted to
carry on blogging every day, because as both Hazel and Patricia have said before knowing that there are people that are looking in everyday in the hope of reading something to cause problems with does make you stop and think, is it really worth it, as anyone can read something and take it totally out of context and then things can snowball so quickly out of control.
But the amazing support and out pouring of love and friendship from all of you lovely ladies has confirmed to me that getting up each day and writing a blog message to share with all of you is SO worth doing, so many of you have benefitted in so many ways from walking through that "Café Door" it fills my heart with joy, I love being able to showcase all of your work, as it not only shows you how fantastic your cards are, it also inspires somebody else that may be struggling with a certain style or design of card, there are also the mixed crafts too, again so very inspiring, had it not been for mixed craft days we may never have come across Teacup candles or many of the other crafts we have shared with each other.
All of the gorgeous cards that I have received over this past few weeks really have reinforced how very important this blog is to me and also to all of you, so I want to thank you all from the very bottom of my heart, you are all the most amazing friends that anyone could wish for, I only wish that everyone of you were coming along to our Craft Retreat in October so that I could show you how much you all mean to me, but I am determined to meet you all one day.
So as much as I was upset by all of the nastiness that went on I am going to say that it has had a very positive effect, who would have thought it!!!!
But had it not been for all of that, I would never have known how much the blog means to all of you and that fact alone makes all of this so totally worthwhile, so lets hope those "Café Doors" will be swinging for many years to come.
Anybody looking in please come on in and join the most amazing bunch of ladies that you could wish to meet, we absolutely welcome anyone to come in and join our craziness.
Up above you can see one of the cards that I was talking about, this gorgeous card was sent to me from our lovely Myra, I absolutely love the sentiment on the front and once again Myra wrote some beautiful, uplifting words inside, thank you so much Myra xx
Myra has used the Creative Expressions Noble Square die to create the frame for the lovely teacup and has embellished the card with some pretty roses and some gorgeous little resin flowers in the corners.
That's all from me today ladies, I hope that you all have a lovely Tuesday and I very much look forward to reading your comments.
Love and Hugs
Sandra
xxxxxx