Going Green

Hi guys,

What a manic week I have had this week. Every had one of those weeks where you need at least an extra 4 hours a day to just keep up with things?

I started off with all good intentions but things cropped up - a friend in need, another friend with a computer problem. As such things I needed to get done fell by the wayside so cue a lot of late nights to catch up. I am doing a Open University BA Degree and have an exam soon so have lots of studying to do. Anyway enough of my moaning and onto the good stuff.

Its Dare day and this week it was Lythan's turn to be the dastardly darer.

Monochrome Madness

You can do anything you like on a card as long as you only use one colour. It may just help you appreciate the varied tones and hues of blue, red, yellow, orange - or how about a totally white card?
I can't wait to see the card rainbow we produce!

Seemed easy at first glance but I didnt realise how many "bits" I used without thinking about them, you know a brad here, a bit of printed text there, some black ink round the edges - except all of these were only allowed in the right colour. So here is this weeks attempt.

GOING GREEN

I started off by singing the theme tune to Rainbow whilst looking through my stash to see what I had of the same colour group.

Hey presto I found a Fourz set from

Bazzill Basics ah ha I thought!

I folded a piece of the Rain Forest colour in half to make my base card and attached a smaller piece of spring breeze. To that I stuck a piece of green patterned paper (the writing is light green IRL) from April 05 (still available) kit from Self Addressed.

I handcut (badly! my apologies) the word HI from a piece of the Lily Pond Bazzill and edged it with a dark green coloured pencil (sob I sooo wanted to ink it!) and attached that to the card. I then searched my flower pot and found 3 of varying sizes in green shades from Sarahs Cards which I stuck together (desperatly trying to avoid the urge to stick a gold brad in the centre!) and hey presto a card that fitted the bill.

This dare has taught me that I must buy more basic stash (inkpads, brads etc) in more colours - hmm not sure that was Lythan's aim?

Why not head over to the Daring Card Makers blog to see the rainbow the rest of the design team have created.

Will be back mid week with a weddingy update - if I forget someone gently remind me xx

"But you dont look like Twins"

How many times have I heard that about me and my twin? She is blond and skinny and I well am not! lol

Twins (well multiples actually) was the theme behind Keryn's Dare for the Daring Card Makers this week

Something I'm going to be struggling with in September and something we all struggle with I think, is cards to welcome the birth of multiples.

I challenge you create a card to send to parents to welcome the birth of twins, triplets, quads, quins etc. Any colours, any techniques.

My sister-in-law is carrying twins due in late September.

I instantly liked this dare, and on a side note did you know it is impossible (and the UK card manufacturers have confirmed it) to buy a card for MY twin on OUR birthday - how stupid is that!! Anyhow onto the card

Peas in a Pod

I started this week with a long tall card blank in a light green colour. I attached a piece of dark green grosgrain ribbon along the bottom with 2 tiny green prima flowers and a pewter brad at each end.

Then using different colour papers, I paper pieced the peas in a pod embellishment. (which took aaaaggggggggeeeeeesss then Rhi told me that Quickutz make a peapod die) by roughly drawing out the basic shapes on normal printer paper, cutting them out and then tracing them onto the right colour cardstock. I lightly chalked and inked for a bit of detail. I then attached it to the left hand side of the card using a foam pad.

I wanted to stick with a child like style but the foam letters I had were a really really yukky flourescent green so I used a black versa colour ink to dab all over it to dull the colour a bit. Then getting very inky pinkys I stuck them onto the card.

et Voila it was done.

If you want to check out my twins myspace then click here

Mothers Day

I hope everyone had a fab mothers day? I spent it in the car coming back from my mums.

The three of us went down to visit my mum for the weekend and had a great time. Saturday was spent wedding dress shopping with my mum and my sisters (its chosen!!!!) then Saturday night we (8 of us and 2 children) went to a all you can eat chinese buffett and us girls treated my mum and step dad to their meal. We had a fantastic time and I cant remember the last time I laughed so much. We joked and talked about everything including Twin Sisters new boyfriend (only 18 but took the jokes about his age well) and the past tense of Hang-glide (handglued? hangglid-ed?) Mum wanted a pic of the three of us so we all stuck orange segments in our mouths and smiled - not sure its what she wanted?

I had a lovely mothers day. Baby J bought me a lovely mug which said "to mum from your little devil" which is great cos I constantly complain about not having my own mug. I also got a lovely cuddly teddy bear holding a flower, saying I love mum. Its so Cute.

Baby J also made me a card (using their own purchased supplies!!) although I think he may have had some help from Daddy especially in the writing of it. Although by the matching scribbles in the card, and on his t-shirt, and duvet he definately helped. What do you think?

(and yes I know I am paranoid by blanking out his name but you never know do you)

How Random.

This Weeks dare was set by the lovely Kel

She dared us to write a list of craft items then get someone uncrafty to pick 3-5 of them. Then we were to make a card using ONLY them items (basic cardstock was allowed)

hmmmmmmmmmm tricky huh!

Well W decided rather than pick off a list he would venture into the dark domain which is known as my craft room and just find 5 random things. And off he toddled evilly laughing to himself. When he returned 4 days later he had in his grubby little paws...

1. Diecuts
2. Ink
3. Ribbon
4. Hot Fix Crystal Wand
5. Peel - Offs

Yes the guy thinks he is hysterical chosing the things I cant use lately. So I slapped/kicked/bit/inflicted injury on him for a while, then sat down to think of a design.

And Here is it - Mono Birthday

I started off with a normal white A6 card blank and using repositionalable (thats not right, but cant think what i mean at the moment) adhesive I stuck circle frame DIECUTS all over it randomly. Then using a black versa cube INKPAD I dabbed the ink all over it gave it a few minutes to dry and got very inky peeling them all back off. I was quite impressed with the pattern it left and used that as the main image on the card.

I used black RIBBON (not sure where I got it from SA possibly?) to add detail across and down the card, and the Hot Fix Crystal Wand to attach little silver rhinestones (whilst singing Rhinestone Cowboy may I add) at the edges.

To finish off I cut a piece of white card (allowed as basics) and stuck a black PEEL OFF greeting onto it and inked the edges. This was 3D mounted and hey presto, a card I am actually quite pleased with!

I might have to have a look so see what else I can do the background effect with.

Am going Wedding Dress shopping with my Mummy (***SMILES!***) so will update when I get back.

Love to you all xxx

SuperHeroes

Its friday again, which means its DARE DAY !

This week the dare was set by the talented Jo and she has titled it SUPERHEROES.

"I would like to challenge you to make a hero themed card. It could be a card for the Hero in your life or a Superhero themed card.... "

Firstly I went to Tesco and brought a spiderman comic cos it had 3 fabby free stamps with it. Then i got it home, realised the stamps weren't as fabby as they looked. In fact what was supposed to be spider man actually looked like a big headed alien. So I gave the comic to W's nephew and started again.

W came up with the idea of searching the net for a superhero comic strip (note: do not at any cost type the word "strip" into google images) . Finally a great site for kid's colouring pages were found and we found a great piccy of superman. I printed it out and sat very carefully colouring it, (stayed inside the lines and everything!). I then outlined the whole picture with a black zig marker to give it a comic type feel.

I matted the coloured image onto a piece of Karen Foster patterned paper free with Scrapbook Inspirations Magazine. Using coloured pencils I roughly carried on the design onto the area surrounding superman, added the words SUPERDAD and HERO and mounted the whole lot on a blank a6 card. Et Voila, a superhero card for a super dad!

Dont forget to check out Daring Card Makers to see what the rest of the design team came up with.

Till later xxx

MidWeek Chat

Hello Everyone,

Thanks to Kathy for the midweek blog reminder. Although it might be slightly boring as not much has gone on here.

How is everyone doing with this weeks Dare? There has been some stunning entries this week, I am hoping you arent all too mad at me?

Craft wise this week not much has gone on, mainly cos my craft room looks like the scene of a hurricane. It's having a new desk and everything built which cant be done until I sort everything but I havent had the energy lately. I will attempt it this weekend, then I can show you all pictures of my yummy new desk setup. I will be at standing height with a bar stool so I can sit or stand. W has also made a funky rubbish chute thing at the back of the desk so all i do is push all my rubbish towards the back of my desk and they fall down a small slot into the bin. I think he thinks it has more chance of making me tidy. I finished that order for ruby wedding invites and that has been all delivered and done. Big thanks here to a great friend who sat and hand glued 9 tiny hearts on 50 invites! Nearly had a panic attack towards the end as each one had the same greeting written four times. you know when you look at something so long it looks wrong. As I was writing greeting number 199 I said to W "errm how do you spell surprise" I was convinced it was wrong, luckily it wasnt, i was just having a brain freeze.

In other stuff this week, we picked up baby J's professional pics, he is such a goodlooking lad, even if I do say so myself. I am having a bit of a sad mummy moment this week as I am not sure where my baby has gone. He was sat there on the floor playing when I went into the kitchen. Then this little grown up walked into the kitchen with his cup signing "mum, more" I miss the little one who depended on me for everything. Wedding wise, vicar depending we have a date! We have also been and brought the material for the bridesmaids dresses and a great friend and talented beader is making our tiaras for us. Check out Lisa's amazing work! (oops wrong link sorry Lise! will update with the new one asap) I am so lucky to be able to have a tiara from her for my wedding!

Well thats me signing off for this week as baby J and I are off shopping today. Dont forget tomorrow is Dare Day. See you there!

Out of the comfort zone....

.....Into the fire! Thats how this weeks dare felt at first glance. Which is worrying really seeing as it was my turn to set it.

I looked at my cards a while ago and thought how similar they all were. White square cards, double matted embellishments etc. This quite worried me so I set out to look at other techniques and styles which i was missing. I decided to take the rest of the design team, and you guys, on this journey with me. So i am daring you to step outside your comfort zone and try a technique thats new to you, or that you havent done for ages.

As I was doing this card, it reminded me of my early card making days. You know the ones where everything fitted in one box and it was a hobby rather than a lifestyle choice lol! Now I have more stash than I could possibly ever use and literally breathe crafting. The dare also stirred up some bizzare emotions. To start with I was frustrated and worried that I couldnt do what I was used to, then annoyance when the ideas wouldnt come, then pride when finally I finished it and it didnt look anything like my normal ones. If you join in please let me know how you felt along this new path too.

now to the card .....

Decoupage Friends

Decoupage is something I dont do for a few reasons, firstly cutting them out makes my hands hurt (as you know I have MS so detail work can be a bit painful), secondly I rarely find designs I like and thirdly, I just dont have the patience for it. But looking through the designs in my local craft shop I was taken by the simplicity of the Paper Nation range of papers, as well as the simple decoupage designs, they also do matching background paper.

I chose the crafters one as I liked the idea of the two friends (the sheet also had scissors, cups of tea and paper round the edge but I didnt use them). it was a very basic card this week so all I did was carefully (yep and painfully!) cut out the designs and reassemble according to the numbers on the sheet. Then I mounted it on a patterned card blank by PaperMania. They are so handy just for sticking a simple topper on for a quick card. The colours are yummy too.

So there you go, a quick and simple card this week, but one that definately took me away from my comfort zone. I enjoyed it and like the end result but I dont think decoupage is something I really have the skill (or Patience) for.

Thank you everyone too for their congratulations on my engagement news. The planning is in full flow for what is looking likely to be a September wedding so will keep you updated with all the goss!

Till next time doodle doo!