Hen Party Favour bags

Hello, crafting friends!

 

If you popped by yesterday you'll have seen the cards I made for my daughters hen party. They were slipped into little favour bags which I'm showing you today:

 

The bags themselves are little 'mini lunch sacks' left over from my Stampin' Up demo days all those years ago - knew they'd come in handy one day! I decorated them with Funky Fossil's In The Meadow stamp set, stamped in black and doodled in gaps and in areas where they didn't stamp well.

 

The tags were made entirely with snippets and left overs! The biggest snippets were offcuts of a dark kraft card which I cut with a small arch nesting die. I decorated these with flowers and leaves cut from green, yellow and coral snippets. I stamped hens on white snippets with a hand-carved stamp that my daughter bought in Paris years ago when she was studying there and gave to me as a gift. They needed to be fussy cut - a labour of love! I cut small black circles from black offcuts and glued them to the tags, made a hole in them using my cropadile and threaded them with some coordinating twine from my stash. I attached the tags to the bags with little coloured library clips that I've had in my stash for years.

 

They were an easy design for multiples (although I ran out of time - I had meant to use green washi tape to ground my hen and finish the flowers with a black marker. Aaaargh!)

 

CHALLENGES

I'm linking my tag up with the Cut It Up Challenge where the theme is Tag You're It - Make A Tag; I'm also galloping off to the Snippets Playground to share this project as it was made entirely with left overs and snippets! I feel like a proper womble!! Since this is the first time I've used the hen stamp, I am linking up with Darnell's NBUS challenge where we are inspired to use our Never Before Used Schtuff!

 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

As one of the activities at the party, the Head Bridesmaid showed us how to make perfume. It was such fun! We all selected our preferred mix of essential oils and mixed them in a spray bottle with gycerine, alcohol and water. By the end of the party, they had blended and there were some gorgeous signature perfumes! Each guest had their perfume added to their bag, along with the thank you card, a packet of little speckled candy covered chocolate eggs, and...

 

 

... an adorable little ceramic hen to remind the guests of when they were hens! They came in different colours and were made by a local potter. I wrapped them in coral coloured tissue, secured with yellow washi tape.

It was such a lovely party. We had lunch, played games, did plenty of Golden Retriever cuddling, and had a lot of fun laughing and chatting together. And then, right at the end, amid much laughter, the Head Bridesmaid produced a bag and from it dressed my daughter up in a 'Bride to Be' sash, a mini veil and some kind of crazy tiara!  I sent them off in a taxi bus, giddy with giggling, to go off to the evening party.

 

This was the photo that overset me. My daughter left home to go to university ten years ago and has been an independent young lady living in a flat of her own ever since, but there was something so touching about this picture that I had to reach for the tissues!

Sending hugs,

Labelled with birthday hugs

Hello, crafting friends!

 

It's Thursday and time for another Tic Tac Toe challenge! Joanne has come up with a board bursting with inspiration:

 

Today's card was made with The Greetery's Oopsie Daisy stamp set. I stamped some of the stalks from the set onto a card panel and added three flower heads in Stampin' Up's Fresh Freesia ink. Coloured pencils were used to add a bit of detail and depth to the flowers and stalks. I cut the panel out with a pretty hem stitched frame die from Spellbinders.

 

The set also has a twine image which I stamped in black ink to 'tie' the daisies into a little posy. I thought it would be fun to add a little tag so I die-cut one from Stampin' Up's Wrapped Flowers die set and stamped it with a tiny sentiment from a Clearly Besotted set. 

 

The tag was tied up with black twine and popped up on a dimensional pad. To finish, I added a sentiment from MFT that worked well with the little tag. 

 

 

Okay, it's over to you now! Which row or column will you choose? Or will you go for one of the diagonals? Do hop over to the Tic Tac Toe challenge site to admire all the amazing cards the team has made to inspire you, as well as Cindy, our special guest for this week :) You'll find the Linky Tool at the bottom of the post and you can use it to share your own creation with us. We can't wait to see what you make!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up with  Addicted to Stamps and More where the theme is Dies and/or Stencils.

 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I took Eva for a walk in our local park this morning and strolled through the field area where stalls were being set up for an event celebrating the Queen's Platinum Jubilee. Eva has walked through this field many times before but there have NEVER been stalls in it and she was very keen to let me know that she had noticed this!! Luckily I was able to distract her by suggesting a nice swim in the river where she enjoyed retrieving sticks for a while before returning home.

Sending hugs,

Big birthday wishes

Hello, crafting friends!

 

It's Thursday and that means it's time for a new Tic Tac Toe challenge! Betty is in charge of the board this week and as usual, you could use the inspiration to go in many different directions.

 

I wanted to road-test my new huge Lawn Fawn birthday sentiment die, so I chose the left-hand diagonal - Die Cut/Free/Large Sentiment. I used Embellishment as my option for the Free sqyuare. I started by taking a square white card base, masking off the edges with low tack tape and sponging green/blue ink into it. Once the tape was removed I moved onto the die cutting.

I make quite a lot of one layer cards and so naturally (ahem) I have quite a lot of spoilt card bases! I die cut my big sentiment twice using some of those and then cut another one from a yellow off-cut. The yellow one was given the ombré treatment with some alcohol markers, then adhered in an offset way to the stacked up white ones.

 

One of my favourite colour combinations is yellow, green and orange and I thought it would make a nice bright summery card. I die cut leaves from a variety of green snippets and tucked them behind the sentiment. When I was satisfied with the positioning, I glued everything in place and embellished with some bright orange enamel dots.

Okay so now it's your turn! Which column or row appeals to you? And don't forget you can use those diagonals if you prefer! Do hop over to the Tic Tac Toe challenge site and admire the rest of the team's beautiful samples. You'll find the Linky Tool at the bottom of the post and you can use it to share your creation with us. Have fun!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up at The Snippets Playground as I used lots of snippets of coloured and white card; I'm also joining in at Happy Little Stampers Die Challenge where Anything Goes with Dies; I've not used this wonderful big die before so I'm sharing at Darnell's NBUS challenge where we show off our Never Before Used Schtuff.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I have been walking 'The Smol Horse' all this week and although Eva continues to ignore her efforts to play, she did place herself in front of the pup when a charming but boisterous young lab came over to investigate. Subtle behaviour, but I believe she was protecting a member of 'her gang'. And for anyone that could do with some sweetness on a Thursday evening...

... here's a photo of The Smol Horse. How adorable is she?!!

Sending hugs,

Happy news

Hello, crafting friends!

 

Happy Thursday and a very warm welcome to the latest Tic Tac Toe challenge! This week, I've come up with a board that I hope will inspire you to join in with us.

Lots of different ways to use this board! Here's what I came up with using the bottom row Die Cut/Leaves/Pearls:

To make this card I first masked off the edges of a thick card base with low tack tape and sponged blue ink into the remaining space. The leaves were added using green ink and Uniko's Nature's Treasure stencil.

The sweet sentiment is from WPlus9's Strictly Sentiments 2 and was stamped in black ink. To finish the card, I added die cut flowers from Stampin' Up's Wrapped Flowers dies and decorated the centres with pearls.

So now it's your turn! Which row or column will you choose? Or perhaps you've been inspired by one of the diagonal lines on the tic tac toe board? Do hop over to the Tic Tac Toe Challenge blog and check out the gorgeous samples from my talented team mates. You'll find the Linky Tool at the bottom of the post and can use it to share your own creation with us. Have fun!

CHALLENGES

AND IN OTHER NEWS

This card was rustled up because we have been blessed with more good news... there is to be a new addition to the family! My eldest nephew and his wife are expecting their first baby later this year and I am absolutely thrilled to bits for them.

Sending hugs,

Joy to the world at Easter

Hello, crafting friends!

 

It's a Tic Tac Toe challenge kind of a day today and I hope you'll be inspired to come and join in with us! Joanne has gathered some versatile elements together on her board this week:

You could make any kind of card with these ideas! I've had Easter on my mind and thought the right hand column would be a good start. Here's what I came up with:

I started by making a stenciled background on a white card panel. I sponged yellow ink through Clearly Besotted's Sunny Day stencil, and added green ink to the bottom of the panel through the grass section of Funky Fossil's Scenic Borders stencil. The panel was cut out with one of The Greetery's Nordic Frame dies and I trimmed a vertical section out of it to make it fit my A6 card before glueing the two sections together onto a card base.

The join was covered with a cross which I put together with pieces cut out of a plank DSP by Stamping Up. The palm leaves and flowers are from Stampin' Up's Wrapped Flowers dies.

 

I have Easter sentiment stamps but I wanted something joyous to go with my cross image. In the end I pulled out The Greetery's Banner and Bough Christmas stamp and stencil set, stenciled a banner with blue ink and stamped the 'Joy to the world, the lord has come' sentiment leaving out the word 'come' and adding in the word 'risen' with a black fineliner. It's not exactly seamless but it works if you don't look TOO closely I think!

So now it's your turn to get creative! Which column or row will you choose? Or will you go for a diagonal? Do  hop over to the Tic Tac Toe Challenge blog and check out the amazing samples made by my teamies and, when you're ready, yyou'll find the Linky Tool at the bottom of the post so that you can share your card with us. Have fun!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up with The Snippets Playground - the flowers, leaves, cross and banner are all snippets; I'm also joining in with Happy Little Stampers Stencil challenge where anything goes - there's LOADS of stenciling on this card; and also Happy Little Stampers Die challenge where anything goes - the frame and the flowers and leaves are die cut.

 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

It really IS true that British people talk about the weather all the time, but that is because the British weather is totally unpredictable and is always doing something crazy. At the moment for example, Spring has arrived ludicrously early when we were expecting winter to carry on for at least another month! Some people are wearing shorts and sleeveless tops (that's me - it's hot when you're walking dogs!!) and others are still bundled up in winter coats and boots! But almost everyone is smiling and ready to talk about the unusual weather and you've got to love something that brings people together like that :)

Sending hugs and wishing you sunshine,

It's a wrap!

Hello, crafting friends!

A very special friend of mine lives nearby and is always doing lovely things for everyone. A couple of weeks ago, knowing that I was feeling blue, she lent me some stamps and dies from an Stampin' Up order she had only just received. That's right, she hadn't even played with them herself yet, so you see how lovely she is?! Today, I used some of the items she had lent me to make a card to say thank you.

I used the Wrapped Flowers embossing dies along with a whole lot of snippets from my card stock off-cuts folder and from my designer paper drawer. The blue and green colour scheme was chosen because it's my friend's favourite. The background is a snippet of a very old SU paper, trimmed with a Stitched Rectangle die from Heffy Doodle and attached to a card base.

In the die set, there's an interesting 'flower wrap' die that I used on a tiny snippet of dotty paper. There are also loads of different leaf dies which gave me a selection of foliage to build up in the flower wrap. I added a die cut label and twine, tied in a little bow, and then attached the bouquet to the background. I filled in the gaps with more leaves, gluing them to the background. Finally, I used the little flower head die to cut some bright blue flowers which I gave white centres with a Posca paint pen. 

The sentiment is from my favourite Uniko set, Simply Said Blocks, and you can see that little tag which I stamped with a heart before attaching it to the flower wrap.

CHALLENGES

I thought I had already entered the Snippets Playground this fortnight, but it seems I haven't so I'd better get a wiggle on! I'm also joining in with the latest Just Add Ink challenge where the theme is Just Add Something Beginning with L - mine is Leaves (as well as lots of Love!); last, but not least, I'm linking up with Addicted To Stamps and More where the theme is Dies and/or Stencils.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Eva and I have a new game! A neighbour of ours goes down to the fields behind our house to practise his golf swing; he's very nice and whenever Eva and I turn up, he stops at once so that we can get safely round the perimeter. We always say hello to him and I'm afraid Eva has decided that he brings golf balls for her to play with, although of course I don't allow this because golf balls are not a safe size. We do find the balls that have gone astray though and I allow her to pick them up and give them to me in exchange for a treat. Needless to say, she has become VERY good at finding them! So I have hidden a tupperware container in the hedge and I put all the balls she finds in there for Mr Golf Man to collect whenever he next goes for a practice!

Sending hugs,