Your Crafts from this week

 

Good Sunday Morning Ladies,  

I hope that you are all being spoilt today my lovelies.  

Today's reminder is very apt for me today,  as we had a lovely afternoon in the garden yesterday, I really didn't do very much apart from a little bit of weeding in my pots and some pruning, our garden is on quite a hill though so just getting up and down had me breathless!  I definitely wouldn't be able to get out there at all without my walker !  

Let's have a look at what yoo have been making ....

Karen 

Karen's Description:  

1:   My version of tea lovers, Very simple 

Gingham card which I dread to think how old it is from C&C 

Die from Dreamweavers paper pieced with card coloured with Ecoline pens I shadowed them slightly with pencil but also added a grey shadow (Hickory Smoke DO) and a printed sentiment

2:  Circus finished

I love this clown image found on Pinterest 

Added the sentiment coloured to match the image and turned into a sticker

I have decoupaged the image 

Added some texture paste and decided against splatters

Edged imaged with Tumbled Glass DO

I love that you are enjoying creating these pages for the Aa&C Challenge,   I know the feeling as I love creating the journal pages,  I think its because there is no pressure for perfection as its for our enjoyment only.  

Your Tea Lovers card is brilliant and I love the checked card as the tablecloth,  brilliant idea. 

Now I'm generally not a lover of clowns,  I find them terrifying, the image you have found is completely different though,  it has such a sweet face, not frightening in the slightest.   Your background is so clever too, with the texture paste stencilling is a brilliant idea for juggling balls!  

Everything works perfectly!  

Thank you so much for sharing your inspirational ideas with us XXX 

Lilian 

Lilian's Description:

Hi, here is my piece for this week. It’s taken me a week to do kitchen, this the best I could come up with.

As usual Stamperia papers, from several books. I wish I cut the window out first and put a background behind it.

Lilian it's perfect, I love the papers you have used, I have been thinking all week what to do for the Kitchen category,  you have given me some ideas!  

Thank you so much for taking part my lovely XXX 

Maria

Maria's Description

I have been sitting here for some hours now and made this card together.

Lilian mentioned something about "Kitchen" so I had a look at my stickers to see what I could use and here it is.

Paper as a background. Distress Inks, White Splatters and Kitchen Stickers used here

Many hugs to you all 💕 xxx

Your time was well spent my lovely,  your card is lovely,  the background is amazing and your card works perfectly for the challenge.

Thank you so much for taking part and supporting the blog my lovely XXX 

Sonia

Sonia's Description:

I made this card for Dad to give Mum tomorrow on Mother’s Day. The background papers are printed. I’ve used a Sue Wilson die as the focal point and the little circle die cut sentiment, from my stash. The butterflies are from the new set I bought by Craft Addiction. I added some clear gems to finish it off 😊

Oh Sonia your papers are so beautiful, they work perfectly for your pretty design,  your mum will love it.  So sweet that your dad gives your Mum a card.

Thank you so much for sharing your lovely card with us XXX 

**************

I hope that you all have a lovely Mother’s Day,  

Love and hugs to all of you,  

Sandra xxx 

Mixed Up Saturday

 

Good Saturday Morning Ladies, 

You amazing, Dear  Sweet  much loved Friends are everything mentioned in the reminder today and more ❤️ 

We are having a quiet day,  well actually we have a to get everything we we want to do this weekend today as we are 'Dogsitting' our newest Granddog Boo tomorrow, he might be tiny but my goodness is he needy,  with Harley or Benji they let you know when they need to 'go outside for a toilet break'  but we aren't anywhere near that stage yet with Boo. So we'll have puppy pads everywhere just in case.   Added to that Milo was wholly unimpressed when Boo last came to visit, he is the boss around here,  the funny thing is that Boo is smaller than Milo so poses no threat. 🤣

My craft shopping 

I was looking at sponge daubers at the craft show and online they were atleast £19,  these were £4.60 each, so worth a try,  I only use them for edging die cuts. 

I picked a few dies out, they ranged from 80p to £2 (I do think I might have the top vase die set from Gummiapan) 

I bought this storage unit thinking it looked a bit different to the one on temu,  it was £4, I will make it work 🤣

I absolutely love this Alphabet die set, it was £6.97, its quite large though (its on A4)  I love the curly bits! 

I couldn't resist this stamp set from Arden Creative or the Die cuts and Rub-ons above,   I have seen this stamp set used loads for adding details to journal pages.

This is the PET tape that I used on my last journal page, its by Arden Creative,  you peel off the clear stickers from the Acetate strip

These gorgeous stamps and tickets are perfect for adding little clusters to journal pages,  I love them.  

That's it the Temu haul above was my little addition to Paul's temu Strawberry planter haul 🤣😂

I hope that you all have a lovely Saturday,  

Love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra xxx 

Butterfly journal page

A fun quote,  I am hoping it's  just

My mind that's 'growing'!! 🤣

Good Friday Morning Ladies, 

Well did you Ladies  get the gale force winds??  It started to pick up here early afternoon as Soph and I were driving back from Cirencester (Bladder Clinic) and lunch out. As the afternoon went on the wind picked up,  it looks worse in our garden because we have so many big trees, they were bending and swaying like crazy, fingers crossed that everyone stays safe and these gales don't cause and structural damage.

I got back from Cirencester and really had the urge to get crafting,  however I started to tidy my desk which turned in to a much larger tidy and reorganise,  until Soph came downstairs and looked at me and told me to sit down and insisted on me taking my BP which had shot up, she said she knew I wasn't right as my face was so red.  I made room on my desk and started crafting, which is the best thing for calming down a busy mind.  Today's little journal page is the result.

I started out by sprinkling some of my Lindys Powders onto my 3x5 inch gel plate, I spritzed with water and placed it on my journal page and squished the powders about, moving the colours over the page.  I dried it quickly and added some stamping and then some texture paste through a stencil.   I tried a new product called PET tape by Arden Creative,  I initially thought it was the whole thing that you used but realised you peeled the sticker off of the shiny carrier and added it to my page, a larger piece on the left, small on the right,  next came the lovely little tickets,  I absolutely love them.  I tore off a few and added them to my page,  

I have tried to capture the sparkle here 

This is the background without the finishing touches.  The shimmery pigment powders have so many different colours in them.

I added some gauze for some extra texture  it's a bit like Tracy Evans adding the cotton under her focal images.   I found a butterfly on some old SU papers that worked with the colours and fussy cut it and added it over the gauze.  I found a sentiment,  added it to a black mat and added it to the cluster at the bottom of the page.  

I hope that you all have a great end to your week,

Love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra xxx 

Mothers Day card

 

Good Morning Ladies, 

I hope that you are all well or as well as you can be!  Sending hugs to those of you that need one ❤️ 

I love todays reminder, its very true, although it can be hard to believe at times.

Today's card I made yesterday for Paul's Mum for Mother's day.  I used my Altenew Garden Cosmos, I die cut the flowers but left them in place in the card to make it easier to add the inking.  I them popped out of the card and assembled the 6 different flowers,  Altenew have a brilliant system in that each group of petals has a die cut symbol so that you know you have the right petal and they have a guide to assembly, each petal has a number so that you know you add the right piece at the right stage, it sounds complicated but it makes it so much easier.  

I embossed a piece of card for the background and then arranged the flowers over the card base.  I added in some extra bits of foliage to fill out background.  I used a sentiment and coloured it to match the flowers.  Fingers crossed Paul's mum likes it.  

Bladder clinic this morning!  

I hope that you all have a good day,

Love and hugs to all,  

Sandra xxx 

A simple floral card

 

Good Wednesday Morning Ladies,  

We had another sunny but chilly day yesterday,  Lucy wanted me to go to B & M Bargains with her to get some food storage boxes as her and Soph want to start meal prep for lunches to take to work as the choices they get at work aren't very healthy.   We got home around 4.30 ish,  by which time I was exhausted,  Lucy was panicking because my face was really hot and red which is something I don't usually suffer with until this past few weeks, I did my BP and it was really high again, which is so frustrating because I was consistently lower last weekend (well the top number was) the bottom one never gets below high 80's and my Heart rate remains in 90's at lowest.  I was hoping that if it stayed lower I wouldn't need to take the Ramipril,  but it looks inevitable. 🙄

Today's reminder is another important one to remember,  Paul reminded me of that yesterday,  I wrote about how 'lucky' I was to have him in my life,  his reply was "Well I'm lucky too" and that I should feel like I am valued too.  x 

On Monday I had one of 'those' days,  I sat at my desk for most of the day and made nothing, I couldn't decide what to use or where to start,  so at around 4pm, I closed my eyes and picked a stamp set......

I have had this stamp for a good couple of years,  I have seen many cards that in fact inspired me to buy this stamp set,  a lot of them had a polka dot like background that I loved,   I have bought two different stamp sets trying to get the same effect, but the dots were either too regimented or the dots were too big, more like splatters.   So I had this brainwave yesterday,  I used my black Calligraphy ink to do my own splattered background,  

It still didn't look like I wanted it to but it was Okay,  so I moved on to stamping and colouring the flowers,  I then looked at the stamp set beside me and I noticed the stamp in the top right corner,  

The DOTS!!! Yes the dots that they use to make the dotty background,  all this time I had the stamp to make the background right THERE 🙄🙄🙄🤣😂

What a twit I am!!

I coloured the flowers with my Clean Colour Pens and washed the colour out to the edges with a paint brush and water.  I set this to dry and then die cut the flowers.  

I decided to use that dotty stamp to create my background,  guess what my lovelies..... it's the results I have been trying to acheive for many many months 🙃 🤣😂  

I stamped the border lines up the left side and across the bottom.  I stamped the sentiment and then added the flowers to the right hand side of the card   I added 3 little sparkles to finish the card.  

I hope that you all have a good day, 

Love and hugs to all, 

Sandra xxx 

Mixed Media Sprays Card

 

Good Morning Ladies,  

Today is a special day for me, as it is the day that I met the love of my life ♥️

38 years ago today I popped into Sainsburys in Ipswich for some toiletries as I was staying with a friend, I locked eyes with someone that made my tummy flip,  we  'just so happened' to end up behind him at the till,  I started a conversation about what he was going to cook with his shopping.  We then said goodbye,   later that evening we were out in Ipswich, my friend knew which pubs were best as her partner was in RAF,  we went into the Swan and I spotted that familiar face straight away,  we got chatting and the rest is history.  I honestly feel that we were meant to be together , the love I feel is beyond anything I could have dreamed or wished for ❤️  I am very lucky ♥️

I love today's reminder,  it's something thats easy to forget 🥰 

Anyway let me tell you about this card,  the background was created with Distress Spray stains, Fossilised Amber,  Picked Raspberry,  Twisted Citron,  Mernaid Lagoon & Cracked Pistachio, I sprayed a little at a time, drying between some layers to avoid a muddy mess.  The stamp set is a Tim Holtz Mixed Media set THMM12 Silhouette Birds.  

When the background was dry I stamped the birds and embossed them for a more intense black.  I used the stencil that comes in the pack with Black Texture paste to add some extra detail.  I stamped the stitched lines under and above the birds,  I stamped and fussy cut the heart and spritzed some of the inks onto a piece of card and stamped the sentiment and added it to the card. 

I matted the piece onto black mat and then onto a white card base.  

I hope that you all have a good day, 

Love and hugs to all, 

Sandra xxx 

 

If you need reminding of this.......

I am incredibly glad and VERY grateful that

You are here 🥰

Good Monday Morning Ladies,  

We had a bright but chilly day yesterday, Paul got some jobs done in the garden while I was sowing seeds and sorting what we are sowing and when so that we are prepared for the coming weeks, we got Sweet Peas, sweetcorn, a few different flowers, some pea shoots for salads. The most time consuming part was creating the biodegradable pots for sweet peas out of loo roll tubes that we have been saving. They make transplanting really easy though.  

I didn't get much else done, my blood pressure went up again yesterday which gave me terrible headaches.  

Becca tried a couple years ago to claim for loss of earnings from Thames water, it happened the weekend of International Air Tattoo, they were fully booked as its a simple journey to Fairford from Burford, there was a burst main somewhere which meant that Burford area was without water on the hottest weekend of the year, it took 2 days to resolve, again it cost the business thousands, they tried to claim from Thames Water but got nowhere, they also looked at claiming from insurance but their premiums would have ridiculously. Insurance companies are like crooks sometimes. Mind you so are Thames Water !!!  

I could look at doing a Step by Step tutorial for Sue's Fancy Fold from yesterday, it was called a 'Diamond Column Card' Now I'm interested to know how many of you are working in Imperial? I mostly use inches as thats how I was taught, I thought most of us would be the same, apart from Our Maria who I'm guessing was taught in metric?  

I am sharing a super quick and simple card that I made using my Stamperia Secret Diary collection, I love all of the little details that they include in the junk journals, like the clip on the top of the topper, they also have things like faux tape, paper clips etc. I may add some more detail to this card, to make it a bit more interesting. 

I hope that you all have a great start to the week, 

My love and hugs to all of you,  

Sandra xxx