Birthday Wishes

Hello friends

This is a very poor imitation of a card made by Christina from  Card Making Magic. I have tried to put in a link but blogger is not co-operating at the moment. I shall try again later.

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I used ivory and lavender card stock and Spellbinders Venetian Accents and Motifs. The ribbon and gems are from my stash and the small rose is from Wild Orchid Crafts.

There is definitely something missing from this card but I can't quite put my finger on it.  (It all seems rather bland. Maybe it needs to be matted again onto lavender, or maybe the mask and sentiment die should be in lavender? That would probably work better. Anyway I'll have to re-think it because I'm not happy with it.

Have a good day everybody.

Love and hugs from Christine xx

Peace

Hello again. Well at long last the snow looks to be on its way out! It started to thaw yesterday thank goodness! It looks like I am going to be able to get out into the wide world again.

Here is my second  post with a sympathy card.  I'm sure most of you will agree that these are probably the most difficult cards any of us will ever have to make.

My Card

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This is a close up to show that by printing onto Safmat it looks as if it has been printed directly onto the cardstock

My friend was a jazz lover and a great musician. He played many instruments, even the organ in church at times. Because of this I wanted to fit music into the card somewhere but not be blatantly obvious about  it.

After die cutting the largest Floral Ovals die, whilst still in the die I stamped it with a music background stamp by Penny Black. I used Versamark watermark ink and heat embossed it with clear pearl powder. As you can see I used two different crosses from the Spellbinders Cross 2 set. I used M-Bossablities Dainty Dots folder on the background. I computer generated the sentiment by Thomas Moore and die cut it with Labels 18. For the inside I used a digi sentiment from the Endless Beginnings set by Clear Dollar Stamps.The dove is also from the same digi set. I used the pre-coloured png version and printed it onto Letraset Safmat and attached it to the inside.

This digi set was amazing value for money. It cost $2.50 and for that you get a total of 26 digi images -18 of them  sentiments and the other 6  doves. Half the set are jpg and the other half png. I don't know of any where else where you can get such value for money!

Well that's it for today. Have a good weekend everybody.

Love and hugs from Christine xx

I am entering this into http://creativemomentsbloggersnetwork.blogspot.co.uk/Challenge 9 Use Neutral Colours

With Sympathy

Hello friends

In the past two days I have heard of the death of two friends. This card is actually for an ex colleague, with whom I worked for about 20 years, whose wife sadly died yesterday. We met socially too so I do know his wife.

My Card

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This is a very simple card. I computer generated the sentiment and printed it  onto white cardstock. I matted the spray of lilies onto cream then green cardstock and mounted it next to the sentiment. I then matted this onto green cardstock and mounted  it onto a white card blank.

The second card I am struggling with because this is for a friend I have known all my life! I know his wife is devastated but also glad he is now pain free. I will show this later no doubt.

Fortunately the snow appears to be thawing at long last!! Let's hope we don't get more for a while yet.

I hope you all have a good day!

love and hugs from Christine xx

Relax

Hi blog friends

Well we are once again totally snowed in! Managed to dig ourselves out on Monday to go to the hospital, and whilst John was "otherwise occupied" I nipped to Sainsbury's to stock up on some fresh produce. Just as well - they didn't predict last night's huge snowfall!! Ah well, it could be worse. We've plenty of food and plenty of wood!!

My Card

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This is a very simple card using an LOTV topper diecut with Spellbinders Labels 16. The spotted paper was  from my bit box but I'm sure it is Papermania Capsule Collection. The felt buttons are from Hobbycraft and the sentiment is computer generated and diecut with Spellbinders Lacy Circles.

John has dug out a path to the wood store and another to the bird feeding station so my feathered friends can still visit the All Day Buffet and be assured of some grub!!

Well that's it for today. Keep warm and safe if you have the dreaded white stuff!!

Love and hugs from Christine xx

Sweet Friend

Good afternoon dear friends. Well they promised snow on Sunday and they have certainly delivered!!! Yesterday we dug out the snowdrifts from around the house and cars. We knew more snow was due but at least there us less to dig next time.

My Card

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My card today uses  two JustRite Stamps from the same set as my last card "Grand Sentiments". This time it was the Labels 8 frame and a different sentiment, both of which I stamped with Memento London Fog which I thought looked better with the lavender papers than stark black. The papers are from First Edition "Daydream". I only realised afterwards that the glue hadn't dried when I took the photograph and one of the Spellbinders Foliage leaves had slipped. (I have now corrected that.) The roses are  Wild Orchid Crafts and the ribbon and pearls are from my stash.

Well it has not stopped snowing since 9:30 this morning and it is getting pretty deep out there. I have just been out and freed a robin which had somehow managed to get into my fruit cage but couldn't get out again. I have really had a good look but cannot for the life of me see how he got in there in the first place! I hope he appreciates how wet and cold I got in freeing him because whilst I was already out there I also thought I should get rid of the snow off the poly tunnel because it was deep so obviously quite heavy and I didn't want it to get damaged..

Well that's it for today.  Hope everybody is warm and dry and most of all safe!

You Make Me Smile

Hello from a very snowy north Oxfordshire! The snow itself is a problem but even worse is the wind which is making  it drift. I think we won't be getting out of here for a day or two yet.  Fortunately the freezer and cupboards are pretty well stocked. Oh the joys of living in the country! I hope you are all coping, and if you need to go out please take care!!

Today I have made an easel card.

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I used Spellbinders Resplendent Rectangles and embellished with ribbon and pearls from my stash. The peach  and white backing paper is from First Edition "Summer Breeze" which I won from Paula Hollifield. It is very pretty and glittered.  The sentiment is from JustRite Stampers "Grand Sentiments".T he flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts. It is quite a simple but pretty card I think.

Well the only thing to do on days like these is keep warm and keep crafting I think!!

I will enter this into
http://sparklesforumchallenges.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/challenge-40-die-cuts-flowers.html
http://perfectsentimentschallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/psc62-encourage-me-wribbon.html

Gossiping Bunnies

Hello dear friends

Well fortunately we didn't get any more snow today but we'll just have to wait and see what the rest of the week brings.

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This stamp is one  of the very early ones I bought when I first started card making. In those days rubber stamps all came on wooden blocks and took up an awful lot of storage space. One day I spent some considerable time removing them all from the blocks by sticking them in the microwave which loosened the glue and then the rubber peeled away nicely - storage space solved! Unfortunately, I forgot to make a note of the names of the stamps or manufacturers in the initial stages so I now have quite a few stamps with no name. I have since learned!

Anyway it is such a sweet little image of these rabbits gossiping over the wall and hasn't seen ink for years so I decided to give it an outing. It is coloured with Promarkers and diecut with Spellbinders Standard Circles and Lacy Circles. Believe it or not the papers are Christmas papers from Papermania   from years ago - Contemporary Christmas - but they match quite well and don't look the least Christmas-sy.  The Prima flowers, ribbon and pearls have all been in my stash for quite some time. So my card is made entirely from old stock. I made a promise to myself at the end of last year that I would use as much old  stuff as I can. So this is definitely a result. I deliberately omitted a sentiment so that it can be used for any occasion.

Hope you all have a good day and enjoy a little crafting if possible.