Sunday 23 June 2013

On your Special Day

I had been asked to make a wedding card at very short notice, I didn't want to refuse as this particular friend  has paid me generously in support of my chosen charity ...our Local Hospice at Home which enables terminally ill to spend their last days in their own homes. I was undecided what to make and then I was watching one of my favourite crafters on C&C, Sue Wilson who makes beautiful cards using Spellbinders, she showed one sample and I thought that's it I can adapt that.....so here it is...


So that was on at lunchtime today and by teatime I had come up with twhen his. Sue Wilson was on again at 5pm and I sent in an email with a photo ... my email was selected and the photo was shown on tv I was over the moon that Sue said she loved it!! Just hope my friend likes it too.


Spellbinder dies used were: Enchanted labels 28, labels28 and lattice die, Bitty blossoms and the reverse side of their A4 Garden Lattice Mbossibility folder.

So at least I got an afternoon of craft in tomorrow the builders are back for 3 days so I will be back on Brewing duties, till next time  Bye xxx annie

Saturday 15 June 2013

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's day to all the Dads out there, especially my 2 lovely sons, Mark and David who are both great Dads to their children, Rhiannon & Sion, and Lorna & Kate. I love being a Nana, although having 3 granddaughters after having two boys of my own was an eyeopener and my only grandson Sion, who is so like his dad when he was young , reminds me of happy days as a very young mum.


This is a card I made this afternoon for DH from his boy Jasper (our 4yr old Black Lab) that's him on the front of the card. Kate took this photo when she found him lying on the top of the stairs waiting for us to come home. The lettering was done using Clarity Letterbox set a very useful set.

 
 
This is what I put on the left hand flyleaf, I used Serif craft Artist to put the same photo in a doggy frame and added one of their embellishments, I love being able to use their drop shadow effects to make the picture pop out of the page.
 
Must dash now as I seem to have lost a couple of ours up here in my Craft Attic :) xxx Annie
 

Friday 14 June 2013

Fussy and Fancy Challenge #91...Button Up

I was really stuck for inspiration with this one and then by chance I saw a post by a dear friend who had done some 'Button Art' to raise money for charity. I researched Button Art on Google and You tube and found it was very popular, this is what I came up with:


there are many tutorials on You Tube to get you started, I found a canvas board amongst my crafty stash and lightly sketched in the letters L,O,V,E, thinking of them as 4 equal squares. Then I started placing buttons over my sketch, I found using bigger buttons for the base and layering up with smaller ones to fill the gaps was most effective. I used a hot glue gun to stick my buttons on, a bit messy, but the cobwebs of glue were easy to remove.


 When it came to frame it I bought a cheap frame with plenty of depth in it, I added thin pieces of wood painted white to set the backboard a bit further away from the glass forming a shadowbox. As I dismanteled the frame I saw the large piece of backing paper, turned it over and using Ali's Stampaway Button mask I stencilled through with red, blue, green & purple distress inks. As the frame was still very large for my canvas board I used the mount that was included with the frame to finish it off.


This was a fun project to do and I am sure one of my three granddaughters will take it off my hands to hang in their girly bedroom.
Hope you have as much fun as I did with this challenge, I look forward to seeing what you come up with and Good Luck .... Bye Annie xxx

Tuesday 11 June 2013

Indigoblu Challenge #4 Backgrounds Galore

 
I wanted to use my latest Indigoblu stamp for this challenge, Summer Lovin is such a lovely detailed stamp, I just wanted to highlight the main flowers and the butterflies, but there are also, humming birds, bees and scrolls in there. Again I was  inspired by Jo Rice's card using the same stamp.
 

The title of this challenge is Backgrounds Galore, I used my favourite Itsybitsy background stamp with Cobalt blue Archival ink, I added script stamp and using the Summer Lovin stamp without a block I stamped selected areas, mainly the flowers, butterflies and scrolls.

The topper was stamped using Stormy Sky distress ink and then I coloured the main flowers with promarkers, then I use my perfect medium pen to cover the petals, added clear embossing powder and heated. I then stamped the image again twice coloured and glazed the main flowers and cut out to make embellishments together with some Marianne diecut swirls.

My husband loved the colours I had used so I have 'killed two birds with one stone' as his sister has a birthday in July ...problem solved.

That's all for today, crafting and blogging are having to take a back seat at the moment as we have builders in and I am on call for 'brewing up' and entertaining Jasper (our Lab) so he doesn't get in the way. Hopefully see you soon Bye Annie xxx