Acetate challenge

I had wanted to make some little boxes for this challenge but as is too often these days, I ran out of time.
I was lucky enough to find some acetate jackets in my stash already folded and printed with white wavy frames. I vaguely remember buying them eons ago ! They are perfect for this project and so I added some glittery gold peel off frames directly onto the acetate and mounted some christmas peel offs onto paper, coloured and cut them out for mounting onto the acetate with tiny sticky foam pads.
I love the intense blue of the foiled card I used (for 3yr olds and upwards). Why should kids have all the fun, LOL, and I stuck a white Christmas greeting in the centre then finished it off with thin white organza ribbon.
Hope you like.

ppp penguin

Its a ppp penguin challenge at Bah! Humbug Hall this week and I so enjoyed making this penguin themed Christmas card.
I designed and then printed the background and text straight onto watercolour card, then added penguin images and a star. I also added some glitter but its not obvious in the photo. The penguin images are just scans that have been given a digital twist. The larger one is mounted on navy pearlised card and the small penguin is a cut out.
Hope you like !

Scarves and Mittens

Only, I lost the mittens. I hope Bah Humbug doesn't mind that I have substituted a wooly hat for the mittens in this weeks challenge.
I must apologise that I have missed out on so many Humbug challenges, me thinks I will need to make at least two a week to catch up on my stash of Christmas cards. I like this card and may even do four of them! It says to me "the dark days of winter" but the little girl's face swathed in wooly hat and scarf brightens the day.
I have used old gold coloured card and an aperture frame cut down to fit around the girl's image. I used bog standard matt photo paper sold at my local computer store to print the girl's image. I think it has a dreamy soft appearance and am quite pleased with it. I distressed the frame a bit with a distressing tool and some green ink then added gold line peel offs. I touched up the white poinsettas with gold ink to tone them down and added a green ribbon which already had the jewelled embellishments attached. Finally I added the greetings sentiment.
The card is from Joanna Sheen
Girls image is from Crafty Computer Papers
Greetings is by Flower Soft
Ribbon and aperture are old stash.

Hope you like it, please comment if you can.

flowers on gingham

At long last I have my craft room back in order so that I can get creative in comfort again. All I need now is a new CD player so that I can listen to my favourite music at the same time. I knew my mojo was in desperate need of nurturing so we had a taster session this weekend and I thoroughly enjoyed my playtime and even the long awaited rain couldn't dampen my spirits.

Digging through my stash of paper crafty things I pulled out some pretty pastel blank cards measuring just 5x5". I matched them up with pretty gingham backing papers and a mix of paper flowers I got from Joanna Sheen some time ago. Digging deeper in my stash I found an assortment of embellishments and peel offs and I was ready to create!

Just basic layering and a few adornments were all it took to make my first card and I was so pleased with it I just couldn't stop there. If a basic design is quick, attractive and successful, why stop at one! At least that is how I think and so I got to grips with my next card.


Wow! I was on a roll. I chose green for my next colour although it isn't a colour I would normally go for so it was a challenge and what a challenge it turned out to be! I just don't 'think' green and I struggled to make my next two cards. I don't do cute either so it was a real surprise for me to find myself working with cute bears but they saved the day and came together nicely with the green background.

The green was looking good but my inspiration was flagging and I should have called it a night there and then but what did I do? Went on to pink!

This one just about had me beat! So I made it simple with less embellishments and I think I managed to pull it off with the butterfly. Just a simple peel off stuck on the same gingham background paper and stuck down so that the wings lifted.









Thats when I called it a day but bright and early the next day my mojo was buzzing and I set to creating another card in pink.

It was so easy to do. It all came together
with hardly any forward planning.
As easy as one, two, three!









The images shown here are scanned and may have looked better as photographs. Hmmm, maybe its time to get a new digi camera.
Thanks for reading my blog. Please feel free to comment.

Decorated Verse

I'm struggling with so much stash in my craft room doing not much more than collecting dust. That has to change and if I can get my act together I hope to use up lots of acquired picture frames with pressed flower decorated verses/prayers and sell them at parish fund raising events. Thats the plan anyway!
My pressed flower stash is ageing but still useable as I found out to my surprise with this latest arrangement. It never ceases to amaze me how pressed flowers and other plant material come to life as an art form. Hope you like!

Mountain Sunset

Feeling a bit didgery doo this morning due to (I think) overdoing the niquitinelle lozenges so am sitting quietly recovering. My fingers are still twitching so I think that's a good sign and am letting them play with a new blog entry.
I am getting more and more desirous to return to playing with pressed flowers and creating artwork with a digital twist. My latest play is with a pressed flower picture I did a few years back and given a new look. It is called Mountain Sunset. Here it is.



Coming up soon is my son's wedding and I hope to get some wedding flowers pressed. I need to take my presses down with me to Gosport to capture the flowers in their best condition. It will be a long journey from up here on Tyneside, making it a three day trip in all so I hope all goes well. The wedding day is forecast to be warm and sunny - perfect for the wedding and a kick start for pressing just as soon as my new daughter in law will allow me to have the flowers. Thinking ahead... hmmm, I will also help myself to any suitable table decoration flowers after the reception.
Its going to be a great day with a granddaughter being bridesmaid and seeing the youngest and last of my children being wed and am thrilled to have been asked to give a reading during the wedding service.
I'm feeling a bit better now. The didgery doos seem to have passed so I will get busy with other things. I have lots to do!

Crochet and Candles

Took some time off this last weekend to get creative and it was all so worth it.
I haven't worked any crocheting for decades but after finding the same ball of white wool squirrelled away in my stash for the umpteenth time, thought it was about time I did something with it. I bought myself a crochet magazine with freebie hooks and coloured wool as a quick refresher and this is the result.
My granddaughter should love it, as her favourite blankie is made from crochet squares fringed around the edges. With this in mind I added a bit of fringing with the left over strands and added it to the pocket. She loves playing with the fringing so she should feel at home in this body warmer. Fingers crossed she will.
Now I have to make something similar for another granddaughter and then a bolero for yet another. My goodness! what have I started!!

When finished, my hands were still twitching for
something to do and I was on a creative roll. I just love it when that happens and I looked for something quick and easy that doesn't really need much planning. A bit like a simple dessert after dinner. I decided to decorate a candle with pressed flowers for my daughter's birthday coming up next week. I used blue verbena and weed pressed from my garden and adhered and laminated them to the candle using botanical glue. Ordinary PVA white glue works but I prefer botanical. Cheap white paraffin candles are not suitable for this project in my opinion. I much prefer beeswax or good quality church candles.