A Day at the Seaside - 31st October!

We had a shopping trip to Llandudno today and along with many others walked back to the car along the promenade at dusk. The pier lights looked lovely reflecting in the calm sea. Looking at these photos I can easily imagine this is the South of France not North Wales. I'm very lucky to have been born and bred in such a beautiful part of the country.


On a crafty note, I was really pleased to find this Dovecraft 3" Snowflake paper punch for £6 (an item that's been on my wish list for some time) as well as two little jars of vintage-type buttons that I think can easily pass for Papertrey buttons. A very nice little haul from the Craftland store in Mostyn Street. Well worth a visit if you are in the area.

Mo's Challenge 3 - Anything but a card

Not much time to craft this week but I've just managed to squeeze in at the end of Mo's third challenge - which is to create 'anything but a card'. So here's mine. This is Dani, one of Mo's brilliant teenage girls - I love them all but this one is especially for my shopaholic niece Faye. I've decorated a Timeless Template from Lauren's Cash or Charge Collection - new this month - a little pillow box which will hold a shop gift card and any other little gift I can squeeze in.

As well as Dani I've used stamps from Papertrey's Polka Dot Basics and Boxes Bags & Tags. So as A Passion for Papertrey's current challenge is to incorporate dots into a project, I think I can enter Dani there too! Hooray! Don't you just love it when that happens!

Mo's Challenge 2 - Autumn colours + 2

Hmm - don't think I've got enough autumn colour here but this is how I would like to spend an autumn afternoon, with a good book, watching the mists and mellow fruitfulness of the landscape from a warm spot. And here's my proof that red and green are also the colours of the season - this lovely strand of black bryony berries I saw in the hedge.
Mo's challenge is to use an autumn theme plus no more than two embellishments. I've no problem with that as I find it quite difficult to add anything to my cards other than stamps and a ribbon or two. Again I couldn't resist using Papertrey's Text Style borders, plus twill tape and Nestabilities Label One cut in half. Oh, and does anyone have a cure for an addiction to kraft cardstock? I've hardly made a card without it for weeks now!

A Passion for Papertrey - Challenge 15 Autumn Colours

Here's my entry for Challenge No 15 - a card using autumn colours. This stamp from the Autumn Abundance set is just right and I've also used Vintage Labels and Text Style. Coloured with Copics and cut with Nestabilities Labels One.

Love Autumn - its my season..... as the garden winds down just a bit I usually have more time to enjoy the countryside and it looks so beautiful at this time of year. There's only one drawback and that's the falling leaves in the garden. Yes - I know if I was a real gardener I would love them as a free resource that should be collected, rotted down and used as a mulch. But there are so many large beech trees and a 100 year+ oak tree in the front garden and we get absolutely buried in them every year. So I'm afraid we usually dispose of them on the bonfire if they are dry enough. Don't you just love the smell of a garden bonfire!

Autumn Harvesting

I took advantage of a beautiful autumn day yesterday to go foraging in the hedgerows - I was after sloes as I want to make sloe gin as Christmas gifts this year and it needs starting as soon as possible. Happily they were there in abundance and I could have picked pounds and pounds but only took what I needed. I love the hedgerows in autumn as they seem painted with the lovely colours of turning leaves and ripening fruits.

I've been walking these fields for more than 40 years now and never tire of watching the seasons changing in them.
Yesterday I was accom- panied on my walk by these beauties who seemed very interested in what I was doing! And I was delighted to capture on camera some damselflies that were basking on a log in the sunshine. They are usually really hard to creep up on but the warmth must have made them a bit sleepy. Marvel at those beautiful wings - I'm sure folk must have mistaken them for fairies in times past.

Mo's First (Perple) Challenge

I'm such a Mo fan at the moment - I so admire her style of illustration. I always had a secret hankering to try book illustration myself in my younger days. But now I can indulge that wish by using Mo's excellent designs in papercrafting.

So I was very happy when I found out she was starting a challenge blog and here's my entry for the first challenge, which is to use the colour purple! And it certainly suits this gorgeous Goth Girl. The sentiment is from PTI's Green Thumb set.

Thanks Mo!

Wow! Challenges complete! Australia

Well I'm proud of myself for finishing all four PTI World Card Making Day challenges - never thought I could do it! But sometimes the simplest designs turn out well and I really like this card that includes the Aboriginal art-style white dots. Just one PaperArtsy stamp, Waltzingmouse sentiment, white gel pen and a deckle edge scissors.

This card is dedicated to my Australian cousin Jeni and I'll probably send it to her - hope she likes it. She was over here in Wales this time last year and we had a lovely time ancestor hunting together.

Papertrey WCMD Challenge 3 - India!

I'm doing well here - got three of the four challenges finished! This one is to add jewels into the design. Well I'm not one for shiny unless its Christmas but I have tried here. You can't see well in the photo but I've used a Sakura glitter pen to fill in parts of these Indian style stamps and added some rhinestones too. I did intend to use these tiny bells which a friend's mother brought back from India recently but they didn't seem to want to fit into the picture anywhere so I gave up on them. I used a little stamp from PTI's Butterfly Kisses to make the swirly background paper and I think it fits into the Indian theme nicely.

I'm off to Australia for the last challenge but may not get it finished as I'm back in my carer's role today and will be travelling to my sister's later this morning.

Sunflowers - my Mexican Challenge

Papertrey's WCMD Challenge 2 with a Mexican theme worried me a bit until I "Googled" it and read that recently it has been discovered that the Mexicans grew sunflowers either 2000 or 4000 years ago depending which theory you read. So what an excellent opportunity to try my new Autumn Abundance stamps. When I think of Mexico pink and orange come to mind so I've used those colours for a special card to send my youngest sister on her birthday later this month.

I've grown sunflowers quite successfully this year and although most of the flowers have finished now they are developing lots of lovely seedheads ready for the birds to feed on over the winter months when food gets scarce for them. I've been feeding the garden birds for many years and I know they absolutely love sunflower seeds. I took this photo when the sun was behind these two sunflowers, exaggerating their lovely dark red colour.

Happy WCMD - and a real challenge for me!

I'm hoping to enter Nicole Heady's Papertry Ink Challenge for Word Card Making Day and get four cards made over the weekend, along with all the other stuff waiting to be done. It will be a real challenge as I'm only at home till Monday morning and the house needs a good "bottoming"!

So here is the first one - the challenge theme is Japan and all things Japanese. I bought these Japanese stamps a long time ago in a car boot sale and this is the first time they've been inked up - along with a PTI sentiment and the small flower from the Everyday Classics set. I think it looks like a chrysanthemum (kiku in Japanese) which is the coat of arms of the Japanese Emperor.

The other challenges have the themes Mexico, India and Australia, so I've to put my thinking cap on for some inspiration!