Robin - 2

Here's the robin page. I faded the black & white around him as it was a bit busy. I used paper from the Beautifully Grungy Garden kit by Chelsea Parsons at 2Peas, some brushes from Rhonna Farrer's Sweetpea Brush Set and Typeset Letters, and my favourite font AL Modern Type. I don't know if I'll remember how to do the effect next time though. I know - it only takes practice! A good challenge though.

2Peas Challenge

This little robin is my attempt at the challenge "hand tint a black & white photo". I'm rather a novice Photoshop user and love it when someone gives instructions for a technique in simple language (thankyou Jennifer Pebbles!). I haven't uploaded it as I haven't turned it into a layout yet - perhaps tonight....

Peek-a-boo and origami boxes

I'm always looking for good ideas to copy/adapt for my own needs and these two little boxes are just what I was looking for as little gifts I could give to friends I haven't seen for a while. Both ideas came from the wonderful Splitcoast Stampers website. I made the brown box to hold Post-it notes but it ended up a bit too small and I had to cut the notes down - not an easy job! The peek-a-boo boxes hold sweets. These will be very useful as Mothers Day and Easter treats too.

$20 for me

Well I've managed to upload my 20 projects to 2Peas in a Bucket - the last ones today. Most were pages I'd already created but I did do a couple of layouts this week and this is the one I like best. Its me on the right, Hazel from next door and my cousin Dafydd. In my designer comments on 2Peas I've put how I remember Dad developing his films in the dark in the bathroom, all the paraphernalia, mysterious liquids in trays and the spooky red light. We certainly weren't allowed in until he'd finished developing - it was like magic.

How much???!!!

I made this card for a friend in Denmark who collects stories written by the author Rosamunde Pilcher and were published in Woman & Home magazine in the 50s & 60s. We both collect the mags and I had 6 to send to her today. I expected to pay around £12-15 postage but it was £28.99!! I nearly died! I could probably have flown there to deliver them for less!

I've had rather a miserable weekend with a heavy cold and spent most of it knitting by the fire - which gave me a chance to finish the lap blanket for my sister. I made one for my Mum for Christmas and she's used it a lot during this cold weather. I bought 2 cones of this yarn in a charity shop some years ago and until now never found the right thing to make with it. I'm very pleased with they way they've turned out. I used my favourite Addi circular needles. The gathering bands stop the blanket constantly falling off your knees. Lovely to cuddle up with. On to the next project....

10,000 hits - amazing!

Here's my try at Linda Lloyd's (Purely Stamping) sketch challenge - you can see it here:

http://purelystamping.blogspot.com/2009/01/

and there's a link on my side bar. Its another card for St Dwynwen. The stamps are from Paperartsy's Squiggly Ink range. Another of my favourite brands.

20 projects = $20

2Peas in a Bucket are offering $20 credit for 20 projects uploaded to the gallery by 31 January. This will be hard as I can only offer digital layouts (you have to tag 3 products to each project) as I've only bought digital from them. I will use some of the layouts I've already done but its so hard remembering which digikit I've used from my library of about 60 kits! HOWEVER, I've successfully uploaded 4 so far and am delighted that I've already had some lovely comments. This is especially pleasing as there are over 55,000 digital layouts there! I've had the most compliments on this layout in memory of Sarah.

St Dwywen's Day card

I've started following the "A year in cards" classes on my favourite website 2peas in a bucket and this is my homework for January. A Valentine card using one of three templates. But of course mine is for St Dwynwen's - which is next week. I like it.Went to the park this morning - very muddy - look at the gorgeous colour of the lichen on the branch! With the red of the hawthorn berries it makes a wonderful colour scheme for a scrapbook page or a card.


And I took some photos of the birds on the pond.

Another box!

This is the last box I promise - can't resist posting it as its so pretty. From the same website, this is a good one to have in hand as it will fold flat for storing. Still can't get colour right on indoor photos - the image gets bleached out and Photoshop doesn't seem to rectify it (or I'm not doing it properly). It is a cheap camera I suppose.

In the garden

Snow on the tops of the hills today. I wanted to go for a walk but by the time I'd organised myself it was raining, sleeting and snowing all in one. Pottered about in the garden instead - it was very wet! But the robin was there again singing his tiny heart out answering his rival in the next garden.

I found the snowdrops by the gate just starting to flower and my leeks and onions are still looking healthy.

A Valentine

Another miserable day today - overcast and drizzly. But the Japanese Maple leaves hanging in the window are still glowing with colour. I picked them up on a walk last autumn and pressed them - but when pressed their colour was nothing like the fiery red it had been. I had the idea of laminating them and was delighted to see the colour restored - how does heat and plastic do that?

Here's another little box from Papershapez - you can find it here: http://papershapez.com/. There's just enough room for a little treat inside and the little heart shaped tab folds over from the back and slots in to close the box. I've used some of my Squiggly Ink stamps from PaperArtsy. I recently invested in two sheets of foam mount and spent hours mounting stamps I haven't used for ages and it was time well spent - its so much easier to get a good print with the foam so I will be using them a lot more in future.

Squish Box

I downloaded some templates from "Papershapez.com" some time ago and made this little Squish Box today. It was really easy and would make a lovely giftbox or wedding favour. I added the stamping and the flowers. As my printer doesn't like me using cardstock I've found it safer to print on paper and then trace the outline onto card - infact I've made myself some thick card templates to save printing out each time. However I have to admit it's much quicker to print the template straight onto the card you want to use. But, as you can see from the photo of the bottom of the box, I should have been more careful to cut just inside the line.
I bought these lovely ranunculars at the supermarket yesterday - poor things, they had been put in the reduced bucket and I had to rescue them - I bought two bunches for £1.60.

Lastly, exciting news - I've booked a flight to visit my sister in Nice at the end of February. It's the time of the Carnival so hopefully there will be lots of photo opportunities! I may even have to buy a spare memory chip for my camera!

Two more cards

Here's the Valentine I managed to make after lots of fiddling about and changing my mine. I've made a baby card aswell. They're of similar style to the birthday card so I don't know why it took me so long to make them - not at all cost effective if I am thinking of selling!

My photos aren't too good either. I'll try photographing the cards in daylight next to see if it improves things.

A Card

Well this card was to be a Valentine card but didn't turn out that way! However I was pleased with the design. It's my first attempt at creating a Stampin' Up card - even though the cardstock isn't their's and neither are the little stamps I used for the background.

I'm still pondering ways to make some money from my crafting to offset the amount I spend on stash. I feel so guilty buying so much stuff! But there are SO many people selling handmade cards. I'm toying with the idea of asking the Country Market (as the WI market is now called) if I can try offering some items through them. The crafts they sell now are not very inspiring....

Walking by the river

Thursday morning was beautiful even though this freezing weather continues.... I went for a walk by the river, where we used to play as children. I haven't walked that way for years. I found some pieces of pottery and glass which had been washed into one bit of shingle and I spent about 20 minutes trying to get one piece I wanted out of the frozen ground. This bit of river is downstream from where the two old "pop factories" (as we called them) once stood and these broken bits must have been thrown into the river from there 100 years ago. I love the way the sun shines through this bit of broken bottle. The edges of the river were still frozen even though it must have been about midday when I took these photos.

Pegs

I made these peg dolls a couple of years ago for my work colleagues. I had seen the idea in my favourite magazine, Country Living, and they were quite easy to copy/adapt. You can still buy the old fashioned pegs in ironmongers and I've seen them in craft shops but they are more expensive there. But, enough of Christmas now! The next celebration is St Dwynwen on 25 January. I wonder how many people celebrate the Welsh St Valentine's Day? Hope to post a card soon - once I've thought of an idea!

12th Night

For another year my collection of vintage Christmas fairies had to go back into the cupboard. Poor things - they don't seem to have been out for long. My newest acquisition is the smallest doll I picked up at a car boot last summer. She had to have a new crepe paper dress and sash. I must make wings for them all before next Christmas. I have quite a collection of old Christmas tree decorations, found mostly on ebay in the last few years. I love them as they remind me so much of my childhood Christmases in the 1950s when it was all so exciting and magical.

My First Post!

I've been looking at lots of crafty blogs lately and have picked up loads of ideas. So..... I thought I would try blogging too. Here goes then - I'll start with a couple of the things I made as family Christmas presents; those that turned out quite well.

What do you give kids that have everything? I made these for my nieces and nephew and they seemed to go down well. I saw the idea in an old Scrapbook Inspirations mag and used those small wooden manikins artists use for sketching. I used scrapbook paper for the orange flowery manikin but turned to tissue paper for the other three - which was so much easier to work with.

Smallest great-niece was given this bunny knitted from a Sublime pattern in the October issue of Knitting magazine. She was christened Betty Bunny straight away!

My nephew has decided to try animation this New Year and wants to use his large Lego collection. I like these 2 photos we took after Christmas Dinner. Obviously these little 'dudes' are very photogenic!


Okay - as this is an experiment to see if I can do this blogging lark, I'll keep it short and see what happens.......