Allotment of birthday wishes

Hello, crafting friends!

 

It's my OH's birthday coming up and I've had an idea for a card for him. He and I have been working on the allotment together (although I must say that he's done the lion's share this year while I have been busy working with Lulu.)

 

I thought this In Spades stamp set and coordinating Garden Gear Tools die, both from the Greetery, would be perfect for my allotment hero! I started with the trowel and fork, cutting a set from white snippets of card and another from grey. The wood effect handles can be cut separately, so I cut those from an offcut of brown card. I sponged the white set lightly with grey ink, then stamped a small floral design on each. Once these were completed, I assembled them, glueing the stamped tools to the grey ones for dimension and adding the handles. I sponged the edges of these with brown ink to blend the colours. For a decorative touch, I threaded a bit of jute through the handle of the trowel and knotted it.

 

Rifling through my designer paper drawer (and thinking of sheds!) I came up with a strip of wood effect paper which I trimmed to size with a stitched rectangle die from Heffy Doodle. (So sad, by the way, to see that company is closing.) I wanted a bit more interest on that background, so I chose an oversized birthday stamp from Avery Elle's Big Birthday and stamped it in black on the side. I was then able to add a little 'happy' tag.

 

I wanted the wood effect panel to have a blue border to match the floral design but didn't have matching card, so I swiped the ink round the edge of a white panel cut slightly larger. Finally, I glued everything in place, attached the panel to a card base and finished with a small orange enamel dot.

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up with Allsorts challenge where Gail has chosen Way to Grow as her theme; The Sisterhood of Crafters have an In the Garden theme, so I'm also joining in there. And this is the first time I used this stamp and die bundle, so I'm heading over to Darnell's NBUS challenge.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Thank goodness election fever is over and we can return to the football! The golden girls disapprove of heated political debates and are happier (although still a bit dubious) with OH yelling at the footballers on the television screen to play better. They are quite surprised when we jump to our feet cheering, although this could be because it doesn't happen very often when supporting England!

Sending hugs,

A truck load of birthday wishes

Hello, crafting friends!

 

Welcome to another Tic Tac Toe challenge! Felicita has created the board for this fortnight and she has come up with ideas that will hopefully inspire you to get a masculine card or two under your belt! 

 

I was inspired by the diagonal from bottom left, but realised that the top row fits as well!

 

Earlier on this year when the days were dark and the rain never seemed to stop, I won a bumper prize from The Snippets Playground that really brightened my day :) Included in the parcel was a large Christmas die set from Tonic Studios which included a truck. The moment I saw that I wanted to play with it - and now is the perfect opportunity!

 

I cut my truck out of snippets of white card and sponged and watercoloured with distress oxide inks, trying to give it a 'seen some action' look! The tyres were cut with a circle punch and the whole thing put together and glued onto the shadow die which came with it.

 

For the background, I cut a rectangle out of a white offcut using a stitched rectangle die from Heffy Doodle and cut across it with one of Lawn Fawn's Puffy Cloud border dies. The bottom of the rectangle was masked and sponged with green distress oxide ink. The sentiment is the Lawn Fawn Giant Happy Birthday To You die which I used with a yellow offcut of card. I trimmed off the 'to you' part with paper snips and glued the sentiment over the clouds, allowing it to burst out of the scene. To finish, I added the truck and a Clearly Besotted sentiment in a surprise pop of red.

Okay, so now it's your turn! Do hop over to the Tic Tac Toe Challenge blog and check out the amazing inspiration from my team mates. To play, choose a row, column or diagonal on the board and make a card using the ideas; when you're ready to share it with us, use the Linky Tool at the bottom of the post. Have fun!

CHALLENGES

I’m vroooming over to the Snippets Playground in my truck - anyone fancy a ride? The snippets I used were all white except a yellow offcut for the sentiment and a tiny piece of black for the tyres. I’m also joining in with The Sisterhood of Crafters where the challenge is All About the Men and The Male Room where the theme is Planes Trains and Automobiles. The Winter Village die set is making its debut so I shall stop to refuel and then motor on over to Darnell's NBUS Challenge :)

 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I love taking my golden girls out for walks in weather which is dry and warm, but not TOO warm - like today. We can go out and play in the countryside then and don't need a river to cool Eva down with her thick coat (although if there's any water around, she will find it, no matter what colour it is and what it smells like!) If the girls aren't on a tantalising scent or chasing a cheeky bird or rabbit, they can always play Dens.

Here's a cosy little place that Lulu has discovered in a hedge. The perfect place to bring up a litter of puppies and welcome Bubba Dog home after his long day hunting!

I tell her that boy dogs and puppies are a lot of work and that Meaty Chunks twice a day plus extra treats, plenty of walks and snuggles on the sofa isn't such a bad life!

Sending hugs,

A hugely happy happy birthday

Hello, crafting friends!

 

I'm living in Birthday Land at the moment as lots of friends and family celebrate their special days around this time of year. Today I want to show you a really quick card that I made for my brother's upcoming birthday:

 

The bright striped paper is a Stampin' Up design given to me by a lovely friend. I trimmed a little smaller than a card front and cut off the top at an angle.

 

 

Along the top I positioned the die cut word 'happy' from Uniko's Big and Bold Happy die set. I cut several of these out of yellow card and stacked them together for some nice dimension. I topped that with a birthday sentiment from Uniko's Simply Said Blocks stamp set, stamped in red ink and snipped out. That's it, very quick and simple :)

CHALLENGES

Kim's fabulous 'cut on an angle' sketch at Freshly Made Sketches this week was my inspiration for this card, so I'm linking up there; I'm also joining in at AAA Birthday, where the theme is Clean and Simple birthday cards; The sentiment is the main focus of this card so I'm playing at Word Power too.

 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

The nesting season is in full swing in my tiny garden and loads of birds, mainly sparrows, robins and blackbirds are busily popping in and out of the ivy and making exciting rustling noises. Eva takes it all in her stride and although she gets quite interested when the fledglings start to learn to fly, I am pretty confident she wouldn't harm them. Lulu, on the other hand, spends a lot of time watching them...

 

... and I cannot be sure that there are no dark hunting thoughts going on in that pretty head! You will be glad to know I don't leave her unsupervised in the garden!!

Sending hugs,

Cheers me dears!

Hello, crafting friends!

 

We had fun celebrating my youngest son's birthday earlier this week and I thought I'd show you the card I made for him. It was designed to make him smile and I hope it might give you a chuckle too!

 

The sentiment is supposed to be read in a cockney accent. When I used to live in London, I might hear someone say: "Who's that geezer with the dodgy tache?" meaning: " Who is that gentleman with the inappropriate moustache?" Anyway, enough of that...!

 

The drinks are from an older Clearly Besotted set called Raise a Glass. I stamped them on off-cuts of watercolour paper, coloured them with my Arteza Watercolour Brush Pens and fussy cut them. In case you were wondering why the boozy card, my son is not a dipsomaniac but IS a master cocktail maker!

 

The sentiment was made using The Greetery's Slim Alphabet dies which I cut from the matte black packaging my Arteza Brush Pens came in! Waste not want not! I arranged everything on a thick card base, making the letters dance about as if someone had (ahem) imbibed rather too many of the cocktails! I tried to make the cocktails realistic - see if you can spot a Martini, a Margarita, an Old Fashioned (he told me off because it's the wrong glass!), a Singapore Sling, a Cosmopolitan and a Bellini! 

I forgot to take a photo of the snippets before I cut them out but here's a photo of the cuttings!!

 

CHALLENGES

I am of course romping off to the Snippets Playground with my cocktail shaker in my satchel - will tell Miss we're doing scientific experiments! The Male Room's theme is Food & Drink so I'm joining in there too.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

My son kindly brought his cocktail shaker up at Christmas and had great fun devising cocktails for our enjoyment. I took a photo of some of them:

 

... unbelieveably delicious! I would share the recipes but naturally they remain a secret known only to the genius behind their conception ;) The decoration in the second photo was supposed to be frosted cranberries but I hadn't been able to find any so my poor son had to make do with a frozen cherry. Other great artists don't have this kind of nonsense to contend with do they?!!

Sending hugs,

Autumnal mushrooms

Hello, crafting friends!

 

Are you ready to do some Saturday crafting? Well have a look at the new Code Word at Addicted to CAS, brought to you this time by Ceal:

 

I was thrilled to see this word because it gave me a chance to get my Greetery Mushroom dies out and have a play! I think mushrooms make a lovely autumnal focal point and they're great for male cards.

 

This one is for my eldest nephew whose birthday is in October, and who will be celebrating with a slap up meal at my house this year! It's very simple. I made a stencil out of the waste from die cutting an arch and sponged inks into it. The arch was extended with sticky notes to form the banner and I continued the ink blending with those in place.

 

The mushrooms were die cut from snippets of white card stock and sponged with ink, then I assembled them and glued them to my background. The card was finished with a pair of sentiments I'm enjoying combining lately - Happy Birthday from Uniko's Floral Vines and Have a Wonderful Day from Clearly Besotted's Fly With Me.

 

Okay, so now it's your turn! I know you have some mushrooms in your stash somewhere... why not get them out and make a clean and simple card to share with us! You'll find loads of inspiration at the Addicted to CAS challenge blog and will find the Linky Tool at the bottom of the post to link up your own creation. Have fun!

CHALLENGES

This is my homework for The Snippets Playground - I used snippets of white card to die cut my mushrooms and used die cutting waste to make a stencil; I'm also joining in with Four Seasons where Anything Goes with a Fall Theme; it's Anything Goes with a birthday theme at HLS Birthday so I'm linking up there; also Less Is More, which also has an Anything Goes challenge and the cards must be clean and simple of course; I'm also sharing at Darnell's NBUS Challenge where we showcase our Never Before Used Schtuff.

 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

The summer in the heart of England has been odd this year. It's tended to be warm but damp and the combination has brought the mushrooms out like a rash!  We've seen proper fairy rings appear in the fields behind our house, and who better to frolic about in them...

 

... than our very own fairy queen! She's obviously been trying to magic up some extra treats but it's just not working... we have to watch that waistline madam!

Sending hugs,

 

A young Man's 18th birthday

Hello, crafting friends!

 

Those special birthdays are coming thick and fast around here. Today's card is for a young man, a friend's son, who turned 18 AND got his exam results all on the same day! He did really well and is all prepared to zoom off to uni, but first, we got to crack open some fizz and toast him with a few bubbles!

 

To make the card, I masked off the edges of a card base, positioned Clearly Besotted's Sunny Day stencil (a big favourite!) over the top and sponged yellow ink into it. Taking the stencil away, I added a bit more sponging over the top part to balance out the sun at the bottom.

 

The sentiment was stamped in red ink with 'Wishing you a happy' from The Greetery's preText Sentiments, and 'birthday' from Uniko's Wild. The name and the number were made from some left-over letter and number stickers I bought many years ago to create a title on a photo album. I finished the design with some red and yellow enamel dots for a celebratary feel! This card was for his birthday but I was able to write a message inside congratulating him on his uni place too.

CHALLENGES

The Red and Yellow challenge at Color Hues inspired this card so I shall link up there; I'm also joining in at AAA Birthday and Happy Little Stampers Birthday challenges, where Anything Birthday Goes; also The Male Room is looking for masculine cards featuring spots and/or stripes, so my sunshine creates stripes and the enamel dots are good for spots!

 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

I told another friend about the young man's birthday and his success, and that we were invited round to help celebrate before he went off to celebrate further with his pals. "I'd better not tell him that this adulting malarkey isn't all it's cracked up to be," I said. "Oh no," she agreed. "Don't grow up! It's a trap!"

PS. If you subscribe to this blog and you received an email with no pictures this morning, I do apologise! We'll put it down to Human Error shall we and move on!!

Sending hugs,

Make Shapes

Hello, crafting friends!

 

Welcome to some crafty Saturday fun courtesy of Addicted to CAS! Jaydee has chosen the code word for the next fortnight:

 

How fun is this?! It could mean a shaped card or a card using shapes as part of its design or a card that uses shapes as part of its decoration... it's up to you! I was inspired to make a masculine card using a bold striped background stamp from Uniko to create skinny rectangles.

 

 

I used waterbased markers on the stripes and then added coloured pencil over the top to increase colour intensity and this created an interesting texture. Isn't the sentiment fun?!  It's from All Year Long by Concord & 9th - a set I have finally hunted down after a long, long search! I didn't want my card to be too symmetrical so I offset the 'happy birthday' part of the sentiment and added some coordinating enamel dots and star.

 

 

I was sending a gift with this card and, after making the card, decided to make a pouch to put it in. A quick look in the designer paper drawer brought this fabulous paper to light - a pretty good match wouldn't you say! Love when that happens :)

Okay, so now it's your turn to interpret the word Shapes - I can't wait to see what you come up with :) Do hop over to the Addicted to CAS challenge blog to check out all the great samples the design team have made to inspire you. You'll find the Linky Tool at the bottom of the post and you can use it to share your creation with us when you're ready. Do remember that we are a clean and simple challenge and make sure there's plenty of nice clear space on your card and minimal layers. Have fun!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up at Seize the Birthday where Glenda's optional Topping is book-related themes or you can go for an Anything Birthday Goes. My mind jumped to a fable called How the Zebra got his Stripes but my more colourful stripes fit in better with Anything Goes! I'm also joining in at Little Red Wagon where Doni has chosen the theme of Boys Will Be Boys or in other words masculine cards!

AND IN OTHER NEWS

The story of the Zebra really sent me down memory lane. If you have small children or grandchildren and are looking for a great story with a good message, look no further than this one - How the Zebra Got His Stripes!

 

 

The story is about a greedy baboon who decides that the watering hole that all the animals need to survive is his property and he isn't going to share. The zebra, who had a plain white coat in those days, tells the baboon that his behaviour is unjust and that he will fight him for the right for the animals to use the pool. The baboon lights a fire next to the pool to ward the animals off but the brave zebra goes to fight him. Zebra defeats the baboon by kicking the baboon away from the pool but gets too close to the fire as he does so. Some of the sticks burn into his coat. I love the message that some things are worth fighting for and that we bear those scars with honour. Zebra's sacrifice bought back the life-giving pool for the other animals.

Sending hugs,

Male Birthday? Nailed it!

Hello, crafting friends!

 

It's Thursday and hopefully you are on the edge of your seats for the latest board at the Tic Tac Toe Challenge! I put this board together and there are some ideas that might help you make a masculine card or two - after all, the guys have birthdays too!

 

What do you think? I chose the left hand column (Slimline card/Tools/Die Cut) to make a card for my brother whose birthday is coming up. He is an amazing inventor and designer and has all the skills to bring his ideas to fruition - he blows my mind!

 

I started my card by masking off the edges of a slimline card base and sponging pale grey ink into the centre. With the mask still in place, I held Funky Fossil's Brick Wall stencil over the sponging and added more browns and greys to the bricks in a random pattern. This makes a subtle background.

 

The die cut tools are from Sweet Dixie. I cut them out of snippets of white card intending to colour them, but I thought the look of the white against the background was actually pretty cool! I played around with the layout of the tools until I was happy, then glued everything down. The sentiment is from Altenew's Birthday Wishes and was coloured with a metallic blue pencil. I added a few lovely shiny enamel dots and the card was done!

 

So, now it's your turn! Do hop over to the Tic Tac Toe Challenge site to check out the amazing inspiration from my team mates. When you're ready, choose a column, row or diagonal from the board, use it to inspire your own creation, then use the Linky Tool at the bottom of the challenge post to share your card with us. We can't wait to see what you make this week!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up at the Snippets Playground which is where I was lucky enough to win this set of tool dies a little while back :) I'm also joining in at Make My Monday where Meg has chosen a Masculine challenge and TGIF where the theme is You're The Man.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

Unfortunately the skills with tools has not passed to all the members of my family and although I would back myself to put up a shelf or some pictures, that's where it ends.

 

source: pinterest

Sending hugs,

Room with a view

Hello, crafting friends!

 

Thank you to all of you that joined in with our last challenge at Addicted to CAS. We are always amazed at your creativity! Today there's another fun word prompt, this time chosen by moi!

 

I didn't have a clue what I was going to make when I chose this word but I was looking in my NBUS box the other day and found a Spellbinders window die that I had bought in a thrift shop on holiday a couple of years ago. Here's what I made with it:

 

It was the simplest card to make! I cut the window out of a snippet of white card and used the negative to trace the arch shape over a holiday advertisement in an old magazine. This was cut out with scissors and glued to the back of the window die.

 

I found a sentiment that fit the width of the window and stamped it in a blue ink that coordinated with the scene. The window was glued to a card base and finished with two enamel dots to represent the window handles. It was fun making this and thrifty too - might make a whole set of them!

But now it's your turn to use the word Window to create a clean and simple card. Do hop over to the Addicted to CAS challenge blog where you will be blown away by the cards my team mates have made. When you're ready, you'll find the Linky Tool at the bottom of the post and can use it to upload your own creation. We can't wait to see what you make!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking this card up with the Snippets Playground as these snippets were used:

 

 

I'm also joining in at Happy Little Stampers Dies challenge where Anything Goes and Less Is More where the challenge this week is Anything CAS Goes. I'm also sharing at Darnell's NBUS challenge where we showcase our Never Before Used Schtuff :)

 

AND IN OTHER NEWS

We've had workmen in the garden this week andso I, once again displaying shocking cruelty to puppies, informed Eva that she was not allowed to play with them. She moped about, watching them wistfully through the French doors with her nose pressed against the glass. When she went out for her walks, she forgot about them instantly and bounced about cheerfully as usual, but on her return she resumed her persecuted demeanour. I was glad when they left!

Sending hugs,