Magic Carpet Seeds - A Passion for Papertrey Challenge

The Passion for Papertrey challenge this week has 'nature' as the theme . When my seeds for the OWOH Magic Carpet event arrived they didn't come in very attractive packaging - they came in little plastic bags! My fault - I didn't read the small print. So I transfered them to glassine bags and made these envelopes. They've got the cultivation information printed on the front.

I've used PTI's Background Basics Diamonds and I've printed the plant names in Simple Alpha - its very fiddly but its one of my favourite alphabets. I bought some PTI cube ink pads on ebay recently and one was Smoky Shadow - I've used it for the butterfly and plant stamps in the background (Darkroom Door and Lavinia Stamps) and I love the real shadow effect it produced.

Magic Carpet Blog Giveaway Event

Lisa Swifka aka "A Whimsical Bohemian" is holding this blog event and as my blog is one year old this month I thought I'd celebrate by giving it a go.

As you can see the theme of this year's event is the Magic Carpet and, as I didn't have time to make a carpet, I wondered what on earth I could offer as my

giveaway that would fit in. Of course my favourite sort of carpet is in the garden and thanks to a bit of 'googling' I found these three flower varieties named Magic Carpet (ok one is Persian Carpet!) . So I would like to give someone the opportunity to have a beautiful growing magic carpet in their garden, or in a container or window box, in a few months time.

I've also crocheted these little flowers in magic carpet colours - I found the instructions here on Nichole Heady's blog. They look really pretty crocheted in embroidery cotton and have a lovely sheen that just reminds me of a silky carpet my sister bought when she lived in Turkey - surely the home of the magic carpet!

So if you would like the chance of winning the seeds and crocheted flowers (with their box and some buttons for their centres) all you need do is leave a comment here on my blog. Please include a way for me to contact you if you are the lucky winner. Lisa will be listing all the ticket holders on her blog. Click on the Magic Carpet ticket on my side bar to be flown there in the blink of an eye! The event ends on 15th February, when I will pick a winner using the Random Number Generator. Everyone will be announcing their winners on that day. Last year there were 911 ticket holding bloggers participating in 28 different countries so there will be plenty to look at! I can't wait to see what everyone has done!


1st February edit - I'm absolutely astounded by the number of comments I've received and to celebrate crashing the 200 barrier I'm going to carry on crocheting flowers so I can give more away. Look out for another post later today for some extra details.

DC's Earthquake Relief Fund

I don't usually blog about the family as they don't like it! But we're very proud of my 14 year old nephew who has spent the last week or so making these lovely bracelets and selling them at his school. So far he has raised about £316 and is still stringing every night to keep up with his orders! Well done DC - brilliant job - and look I haven't posted a photo of you!!!

New Year Resolution

My crafty New Year's Resolution is to try to be more creative. I often see wonderful techniques demonstrated in "blogdom" I would love to try but never seem to get round to it - two of my absolute favourite creative stampers are Jennifer McGuire and Stamping Mathilda (aka Godelieve). If you don't already know them you should definitely visit.

So here is my first attempt at a couple of techniques I've seen on Jennifer's blog recently - using Distress inks with a Ranger Ink Blending Tool and clear embossing. The stamps I've used are from Darkroom Door. I love the things Godelieve does with their stamps so just had to have a set myself. This one is called Wildflower.

Apologies for the blurry photo - its that pencam again! I so miss my digital camera - its just a very basic inexpensive model bought from Argos and is a few years old now, but it does the job efficiently. Can you imagine having to use a film camera - waiting for photos to be developed and then scanning them in! How times have changed... I still have my lovely Olympus Trip though, bought many years ago in a charity shop, and the flash unit which belonged to my father; but I can't remember the last time I used it and the unopened rolls of film I have are marked process before 2006!

Syrup and Treacle for tea!

A burst pipe at the weekend leaked water into my food cupboard and clearing it out yesterday revealed three tins of Golden Syrup and two tins of Black Treacle!! So I need to do some cake, biscuit and pudding making post haste as I wouldn't like to admit to the dates on the tins.

I used to make these ginger biscuits often and don't really know why I stopped. Its a Delia recipe from one of her first cookery course books I bought back in the 70s. I've always been a fan and have bought many of her books. In fact Christmas dinner this year came from her latest offering and was most successful. Anyway - these won't last long as they are as yummy as I remembered them.

Couldn't resist adding Tia Bennet's Toy Camera Frame (at 2Peas) and a bit of masking as the photo is rather blurry.

Excuse the Grunge

The grainy images I'm getting using my old pencam are the perfect excuse for grungy scrapbook pages. I love the effect you can get using masks and overlays and I've used both on this page - another mask from Vinnie Pearce and an overlay from Rhonna Farrar.

We stopped at the top of the hill to view the sunset when coming home the other day. I didn't expect the pencam to cope with the sun going down but one or two of the photos have an atmosphere I really like. A strange thing - the actual disc of the sun came out black where it was captured in the frame and I had to edit the black pixels out!

Tonight the snow seems to be thawing a bit and a huge lump just fell of the roof making me jump out of my skin! Is this just a short respite? I've already had two burst pipes and have used a mountain of coal and logs trying to keep warm! And I'm sure all the wildlife and the sheep out in the fields can't wait for some green instead of white. But there's something about the landscape under snow that always enchants.

Snow Days

I've been itching to get out into the fields since the big snow came this week and as my son was at a loose end I got him to come too. This is a favourite walk when I've got a spare half hour or so. Although my camera is in a different country to me at the moment I found an old pencam which will do to take landscape shots - I can't not get pictures of the most snow we've had for years! I'll be out again tomorrow if the sun shines again.Here's another scrapbook page. I've used another two kits from 2Peas in a Bucket - Toy Camera Frames by Tia Bennet and Snow Yesterday by Kate Teague. I'm really enjoying digi-scrapping again although my hands freeze with cold at the laptop at night!

In Memory of my Gorgeous Cat

Yesterday was not a good one - the ice was thick on the ground, it was several degrees below zero all day, my bathroom sink was frozen solid and my lovely cat took a turn for the worse. I had to ask the vet to put him to sleep as he was becoming more distressed as the day went on. So after having four cats for many years I'm now down to one. My only consolation is that they all lived to a good age and enjoyed life right up to the end.

FOUND!

Good news and bad news! The good is my camera has been found - the bad is that its been found in Turkey and is now on its way to Nice in France! It somehow got into my nephew's luggage when he and his Mum, my sister, left after Christmas last week to visit family in Istanbul. Of course I'm delighted that I haven't lost it in the street or somewhere else like that and that my photos haven't been lost - but I will have to wait until February to get it back as another sister and I will be visiting Nice then. So sadly no posting of projects until then.

However this does mean I can get back to my passion for digital scrapping - which I have really neglected recently. Here I am with my nephew on Nice beach last February. We're looking for sea glass - you know, those pieces of coloured broken glass which have been worn and smoothed by the waves and when wet look like jewels. I've been collecting it since I was a little girl but I don't think I've been to beach which had more of it before. I like to think it came from all those glamorous beach parties of the 1930s..... or wine bottles thrown from fabulous private yachts that have been sailing around the Cote d'Azur for the last 100 years or so.

For this page I've used Sweet Pea Brushes by Rhonna Farrer at 2Peas in a Bucket, the background paper is from Nantucket by Sue Cummings at Oscraps and the clipping mask by Vinnie Pearce at Pixelcanvas.

PS: Thank you so much Lindby for my first blog award - I'll upload it as soon as I can think of 7 interesting facts about myself........ hmm, this may take some time!