Layer It Up With CD Sunday

I nearly forgot that I had made this card to post for the challenge over at CD Sunday which at the moment is Layer It Up. I love doing decoupage and as I had not done any for a while it was fun. The image is from Kraftyhands Vintage Transport and the backing papers are from Sue Smith Plaid and Co. I used a gold linen textured card for the matting, also for the die cut Birthday greeting and 80 today.

Just a quick post today.

Thanks for taking the time to look and your kind comments which are always appreciated.

Sue

The First UKSN Residential Retreat

Last weekend saw the first residential retreat for the UK Stampers Network. It was held at the Holiday Inn Express in Nuneaton and attended by 8 enthusiastic crafters (Ann, Elaine, Karen, Mickey, Nicola, Sue D, Sue R and myself Sue T). Half of us arrived on the Friday with the rest arriving first thing Saturday morning for a bright and early start. Saturdays workshop was run by Mickey and saw us making mini albums using papers from Graphic 45, By The Sea. We were crafting so hard that we didn't stop for coffee or teas we just had them beside us while we worked. Lunch saw us crossing the Hotel car park to the pub next door who had our lunch ready and waiting for us. Then it was a quick turn around and back for the afternoon where we carried on with the Albums. The time just flew by and it was 7.00 o clock before we knew it. A quick change and we were headed back our to the pub for our evening meal, we were joined by Sue D's Husband and my Husband.

 Working on our Mini Albums

Sunday after a good nights sleep we were back in the craft room ready to go by 9.30 again. This time it was my turn to run the workshop, we were altering mirrors bought at Ikea. The above photo shows us working on our base layer, and the one below, after a lot of gluing, we painted everything with black gesso.

 While we waited for the layers to dry we started Elaine's workshop which was to make a bouquet of flowers from paper and decorate the jar to hold them. Again we crafted through and had coffee and tea while we worked. We also popped across the car park for lunch again. By the time we returned it was time to finish the mirrors.

In the above photo you can see that sue D is putting some Inka Gold/Pinflair Buff It's on to the gesso painted frame. It was then time to get stuck into making our paper flowers, but by now the time was passing too fast and we were struggling to get them finished. But armed with all of the petals, stems and instructions these were taken home to complete.

On the photos above and below is what we managed to make between us over the weekend, I know I had great fun and really enjoyed myself and I think that everyone else did too. Hubby enjoyed himself fishing and found some great fishing lakes only four miles from the hotel. He is already talking about fishing there next year when we have the next residential retreat (well fingers crossed).

A big thank you goes to Mickey and Elaine who organised the weekend.

Thanks for taking the time to look and your kind comments that are always appreciated.

Sue

Purple Crazy

The girls over on the CD Sunday blog are running a challenge at the moment called Purple Crazy, this is memory of their fellow DT member - Wendy - Who sadly passed away recently. As a former DT member of this blog I could not let this challenge pass without joining in.

I was recently asked if I would make a wedding card, the lady said the Bride had an unusual colour scheme for her wedding , it being Orange and Purple. She had picked the stamped image that she wanted on the card so the next stage was to match it all to the colour scheme. The backing paper that I used was from Holly Pond Hill (these are some lovely backing papers on the CD that have a small pattern on them), I took it into MCS and changed the colour to a lilac shade. Along with some silver mirri card I mounted it onto an 8x8 card base before adding some Rob Addams die cut corners. Next I stamped the image and coloured with pencils, cut it out using a spellbinders die along with a decorative base layer. Once this was mounted I took some white flowers I had in my stash and coloured the ends of the petals with spiced marmalade and shaded lilac distress inks. When I added them I popped on some leaves cut from a Marianne die and added pearls to the middles. Finally a foil sentiment was added along with a small diamante heart and a purple ribbon. An unusual colour combination was right, but I like the finished result hope the Bride and Groom do too.

 

Tomorrow I'm off on a Crafting Retreat for the weekend, there is only going to be a small group of us but should be lots of fun.

Thanks for taking the time to look and your kind comments which are always appreciated.

Sue

In The Country

I've been playing with some new stamps that I bought from Create and Craft the other week, the Old Barn set from Hobby Art and also the Aqua pens from Crafters Companion. I stamped onto some watercolour card using an Archival Black ink pad. This is where I found out that not all watercolour card is the same. I've had some floating about in my cupboard for sometime, I've used it to make backing papers quite successfully. However my first attempt with the Aqua pens on this was awful and the colour did not want to move around as it should. So knowing that I had some of the Crafters Companion watercolour card in the cupboard I sorted it out and started again. This time it worked fine and I liked the results. When it was dry I mounted the scene onto some grey card stock. I then embossed a piece of silver centura card that I had in an embossing folder and then gently rubbed some pebeo Renaissance Gold gilding wax onto the raised areas and mounted this onto an 8x8 card base. Then finally I added the Happy Birthday from Tonic, cut one in silver and then again in a bronze colour to match the embossed background.

Thanks for taking the time to look and your kind comments which are always appreciated.

Sue

Lemon And Lime At Lavinia

Last weekend I paid a visit to the Creative Expressions show at Ally Pally, I had a great time and bought lots of new crafting goodies. But when I got home I had to have a bit of tidy up in my Craft Room before I could put anything away. Among my buys were these wonderful hares from Lavinia so when I got my stamps out this morning to make a card for this months challenge, I knew these were what I was going to use. The challenge this month is Lemon and Lime (I think mine is a bit more lime than lemon) and for this I used Distress inks in Lemonade and Shabby Shutters, with darker greens for the foliage. I finished by adding a sentiment from Chocolate Baroque. Now that my room is clearer I hope to have some more cards to share with you this week.

Thanks for taking the time to look and your kind comments which are always appreciated.

Sue

Crazy Birds

I fell in love with the Crazy Birds stamps from Tim Holtz as soon as I saw them, so when they popped up on the Art From The Heart website they dropped straight into my basket. I had to make a quick card for my son this week and these hopped into my hand and said stamp me. I stamped the birds with Versafine Black Onyx and then cut the birds out with the scan and cut, then coloured them with Distress Markers. The background was made with Distress Ink pads, and the branches are from a Heartfelt Creations set - Birds and Blooms. I cut the branches down from the original size to short branches which suited the card better and then stuck them down. The words are from a Tim Holtz Idea-ology Chit Chat pad, I just added the question marks with a black fine liner pen and the "happy birthday" was created on the PC using a type font to match the chit chat.

Thanks for taking the time to look and your kind comments which are always appreciated

Sue

My First Mini Album (Nanny's Brag Book)

Today I have a long post for you, but before you say "Oh No" it's mostly photos. I have long been admiring the wonderful albums that Nancy from Crafting Passions has been making and first saw this tutorial on her blog made as Grandma's brag book. As I'm going to become a grandmother to a baby boy in July, I knew that I just had to make one of these wonderful creations. So I popped across the Kathy Orta's Shop at Paper Phenomenon and bought the tutorial for the Album. As hubby disappeared on Easter Sunday to play golf with the guy's I sat down to read the instructions. For the rest of  the day and then again yesterday I was making my first Album. The instructions were very clear and easy to understand with plenty of photos along the way too.

After making the Album base using some Navy Blue card stock that I had in my stash. I then looked at what I could use to decorate it with.  Nancy uses scrapbook papers to decorate her Albums, but I normally print  my papers so I had a good look at what I had. I have in excess of 500 crafting CD's but not one of them was dedicated just to babies so after a quick look around on line I found this lovely set from Nitwits called Bundle Of Joy. It was inexpensive and downloadable as soon as I had paid for it, so I could carry on crafting without waiting for it to arrive.

I've used the backing papers (called fat quarters in the kit) to cover the pages,  then from the matching Little Bits kit (that matches everything on the first kit) I used the bits to make the journaling tags and to decorate the front cover. Below is one of two open up pages that are for photos.

Before sticking everything down I distressed the edges of the backing papers with salty ocean distress ink.  I think that I shall call this Nanny's Brag book, as I don't see myself as a Grandma.

 Do pop over to Nancy's blog she has some amazing albums there.

Thanks for taking the time to look and your kind comments which are always appreciated.

Sue

Sentiment With CD Sunday

The current challenge on the CD Sunday blog is Sentiment and mine is Happy Birthday. I've made this card using the new Debbi Moore CD Art Deco Elegant Moments, such a beautiful CD with the ladies in gorgeous summer dress's. I printed off a sheet of the decoupage to cutout and realised that it was going to be too big for a normal A5 or 8x8 card base, so I made one that would take the size, this one is 7x11. The backing paper is from the CD  and after adding the decoupage topper to the card I added some pearls to the swirls, also some flowers made with my favourite crealies die. My sentiment - Happy Birthday - was made using a tonic die.

Thanks for taking the time to look and your kind comments which are always appreciated.

Sue