Tag Archives: Card

Another Great Day

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What a week it’s been. I’ve just calmed down from my Bury Show wins and received my Hunkydory magazine. Having a quick flick through and I’ve only gone and won the sketch challenge from the last magazine!

Talk about thrilled and flabbergasted! So I have a nice little prize to spend on their website. I think I’m going to save it up for the Christmas goody box, but you never know as they are bringing out lots of lovely new products all the time and I might just cave from my no spend Summer!

Here’s a close up of my winning card. It was made using the Dreams of Spring collection which I’ve been trying to use up and this design was a great stash buster for some of the little bits left over. It’s a 6×6 scalloped edge card blank, silver mirri and cardstock from the kit. I loved the scalloped circles and they were all far too nice to put on top of each other. I thought this large circle in particular was very pretty. I used a corner rounder on opposite corners to tie in with the scallops and a leaf shaped sentiment I had left.

I really enjoyed putting this together, so much so that I made another one for a friend moving on to a new job.

What do you think?

Time to get cracking on the rest of the kit I think!

Happy crafting

x

What have I done now!

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I told myself I wasn’t going to spend anything on craft supplies this month as I have several regular payments due (website hosting and Hunkydory club membership) and I have made a few purchases recently. But that seems to have lasted all of about 5 minutes!

I spotted a local lady selling a stash of craft items on Facebook Marketplace and it was too good an opportunity to pass up. (Plus, whilst the others are away I must play) So I walked over to her house this morning and collected a box full of crafty goodies.

There are loads of stamps, embossing folders, die sets and masks as well as few other bits and pieces (papers, toppers, stickers, punches, glitter, magazines and ribbons). I think crafty-teen might be steeling the colour pencils! Certainly a bargain for £30. This was me trying to cram everything onto the desk.

There is plenty for me to have a go at and lots of things I wouldn’t necessarily have bought, so a chance to try out some new products and techniques too.

It turns out that the lady I bought them from is on several craft design teams and has her own YouTube channels, so check out

CarolAnn Crafting and Imala

There’s lots of arts and crafts inspiration on these and her tutorials are really easy to follow. I shall definitely be having a go at some of them in the future.

Time to try to find somewhere to put all this lot now!

Happy crafting

x

Hello Again!

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Well hello there! it’s been almost a year since I wrote anything on here and it really does seem like forever. I don’t know where the time disappears to these days – it must be my age!

So, what has been going on? As I said, I’m not really sure where the time has gone. I’ve been busy as normal with my regular routines – looking after the house and garden, shopping, cleaning and shopping for my parents. Just the normal sort of life stuff, including mountains of washing (where does it all come from?) I’m also still a governor at my local primary school, although I am trying to step back from this a bit. Having said that, I’m now Vice-Chair, so my plans aren’t quite working out on that front! Ha ha.

One properly new part of my life is becoming a regular at Parkrun. It’s over eighteen months since my first ‘run’ and I am now a firm fixture at Heaton Park on a Saturday morning. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t enjoy the run/walk element of it, but being out in the park is very refreshing and I usually feel better for it a couple of hours latter! I’ve never been a runner, so this is very new for me and I find it incredibly difficult, so much so that my first attempt took over 52 minutes! I’m now able to run some parts of it and I’ve just dipped under 44 minutes 30 seconds. I’ve completed over fifty 5k’s now, mostly at Heaton Park, but there have been a few at other venues when we’re visiting friends and family or just because my other half fancies a different place. It’s been great to meet new people and I’ve also volunteered for a few different roles. Who knew I would enjoy being a course marshal so much!

Work wise, the admin job in Bolton didn’t go any further. They took on someone full-time who had previous experience in commercial property. So I’ve been back on the job hunt for a while. Recently I’ve had a couple of interviews and I’ve just taken the plunge and registered with an agency to do some exam invigilating. My thoughts being it will fit around all my other commitments but also get me back into working outside the house (and with other people). I’ve done all the registration process, DBS checks and an online training course so far. There’s an incredible amount of reading to do before I even get near an exam room. So with exam time looming, I’ve been trying to get all my jobs done at home – mostly washing it seems like. It has included some crafting as well so I’ll sign off with a crafty project and I’ll catch up again soon.

Happy crafting

x

I’m back!

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Hello again, it’s been a long while since I posted anything on this blog, but I am back and hope to be able to post a little more frequently in the coming weeks at least!  Over the last couple of years I have been working in the local primary school during lunch hour, doing admin work on the school website and volunteering to read with some of the younger children.  This has taken up far more time than I had imagined it would and I guess this blog is what I sacrificed.  However, I have been crafting when I can and my facebook page has been updated more often than the website.

I am currently not able to do my lunchtime role in school and the additional admin work I was doing seems to have dried up as well.  Yesterday was the official end of my contract and I don’t predict that to be renewed in this current climate, so I am now back to crafting and looking after the home again full time.  Of course, my daughter is also at home and I am trying to find ways to keep up with her school work as well as keeping her busy and interested each day.  I would love to hear of any activities you think would be useful to share with an eleven year old about to leave primary school!

So while I sort out the rest of the day, here’s a card I made last summer, using Tonic adorables die and stamp set – Kirby and Lulus Wash Day.  I think it sums up how I feel at the moment.

Cute cats in washing

Stay safe and happy crafting.

x

 

New style cards

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I’ve been looking around for some inspiration and ideas to make a new range of cards for this year. While watching one of the shows on Create and Craft tv, I saw one of the crafters make what they called a dangler card! I’m not sure of the name, but I really liked the way her card was put together, so I decided to have go myself. With My Mum’s birthday, Mum and Dad’s wedding anniversary and Valentine’s day all coming up, I thought they would make a different card. It’s also been a chance to use some of the enormous stash of coloured card in my craft room!

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P1240823I’ve never been particularly confident using embossing folders.  Don’t get me wrong, I know how to use them, but I’ve never really found a use for them in my cardmaking.  So it was great to finally use one of the background embossing folders for the birthday cards.  I love how it gives some extra interest to the backing.  I used some linen card on these and adding the embossing just gives it a bit more oomph!

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P1240821I thought I would take it a step further and use one of the heart dies I have.  This intricate one is from Spellbinders and I’ve only ever used it as an embellishment, so to use it cut out of the main card elements was something totally new for me.  I really enjoyed making these cards, the blue one is for my Mum and Dad’s 45th wedding anniversary (sapphire, hence the blue).  The red one is for my husband for Valentine’s Day.

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Finally I changed the shape of card and went for a square card with circular aperture.  This time I used the delicate heart die to make the ‘dangler’ and added a tattered lace die cut butterfly.

All of the dangler pieces are attached using acetate, so they almost look like they are floating.  I’m not sure whether a ‘floater’ card is better or worse than ‘dangler’, but name aside, I like this new look and think I will be using this style as my focus for cards this year.  It’s a great way of using up the plain coloured cardstock I have and can’t wait to get going on Christmas cards, I can see floating snowflakes everywhere this year!!

Time to think about Mother’s Day though first.

Happy crafting
x