January postcard swap

This is my postcard for the January postcard swap over on UK Stampers forum

The theme this month is New Beginnings

I'm fond of this stork stamp & stamped it out & coloured it in using my copics & a white paint marker. I removed the leg portion of the stamp when I cut it out & positioned him as 'flying in'

I used individual letters from a small stamp set to stamp the wording

and I stamped the sentiment stamp using distress ink & then popped the hand & foot prints on.

Hand felted bags

that I made as Christmas presents for my sister-in-law & niece

I had made the felt at an evening class

I then needle felted the seams together to form the bag

and needle felted the heart shapes which were needle felted onto the bag

and I used a beaded felt ball as a button for the fastener.

I used the same process for the Autumn coloured bag

using a white felt ball as the button this time

I really enjoyed the felt making process & was pleased with the way the bags looked when finished & decorated.

A hint .................

As to why my blogging has been missing ...

This is the jacket I knitted for our new granddaughter Ayda who arrived on the 30th Sept. As she & our daughter & son-in-law were living with us for the first 3 months of her life my crafting & blogging took a back seat for a while!

A quick romp ...........

through my postcards for the rest of the postcard swaps on UK stampers for the swaps I managed in 2012

I love taking part in this swap :-)

July - childhood

August - Favourite music - at the time was Why by Georgette Hilton

September - Colour

and October - Spooky!

Castles in the air ..................

The theme for the UK Stampers June postcard swap is

In the sky

and this is my take on the theme.

Firstly I drew a cloud shape to use as a mask, positioned it on the postcard & used my distress inks to produce the background, leaving the cloud shape white.

I used the sentiment & the castle image from my Lindsay Mason set. I coloured the image using my copics.

So there you have it - my take on the 'In the sky' theme is Castles in the air :-)

WOW!

I'm a lucky girl!

I visited Neil's great blog perfectly4med a little while ago & yesterday I found out that I'd won the WOW! Embossing Powder set of 6 powders in a carry case that he was giving away to celebrate 100,000 views of his blog :-)

Thank you Neil - looking forward to the postman's visit! :-)

Dancing the night away!

The theme for the May postcard swap over on UK Stampers is Party & I finally managed a play in my craft room last night!

This is what I came up with ....


I first thought of all the bunting & cakes etc that are around at the moment with the National Celebrations of the Jubilee & Olympics, but then went down a very different tack of party - dancing the night away! :-)

I love the feeling of movement in this image & I stamped it directly onto the backing papers & filled in with black pens.

The motif is from the same stamp set as the image.

I then got out my silver pen & highlighted parts of the motif & parts of the sentiment Party Time (from another stamp set) & also parts of the background paper too.

It looks very different in different lighting conditions & really sparkles at night under artificial light! This unfortunately doesn't come across with the photography today! :-(

3 stamps

The Less is More challenge this week is a one layer challenge to use just 3 stamps on your card.

I've used 3 stamps from a Personal Expressions set, stamped in a line.

and coloured them using my copics.

No sentiment as I'd used up my three stamps & although tempted to write a sentiment, not stamp it, I resisted & kept it truly LIM :-) 

Happy Birthday

It's hubby's birthday today and this is the card I made for him.

I stamped the image & then used my copics to colour it.

He actually looked on the back to make sure that it was one of mine! LOL

Although it looks deceptively simple the colouring took quite a bit of time to achieve :-)

My Domino Book swap creation ..............

on UK Stampers

I decided on the travel theme for my domino book.

This is the book open showing the travel related stamping

I left the back plain for the recipient to add their own personal touch - their own stamping or pictures, keepsakes etc

Craftytrog was very patient & waited until I returned home for me to post this off - I'd made it before I went off to Oz. 

I made a box to tuck it in & nestled it in tissue paper.

My 3D postcard

for the UK Stampers swap

The quest was to make a 3D postcard. The normal monthly postcard swap requires you to post the postcard naked (no envelope) so this was a one off swap that could be protected in the post.

I stamped the image & used distress crackle glaze over the copic colour on the wing. The background is distress inks & I used distress inks to colour in her dress.

The butterflies are punches, two different sizes glued together. I emphasised the edges using gold pen.

I used Andy Skinner quote stamps, some beautiful ribbon & some old currency coins & scattered the butterflies .....

I finished off with the bloom, the 3 elements held together with the small brad & the charm.


I boxed the postcard & stamped the box using a stamp set but didn't manage to take a photo in my haste to post!!

Domino family book

Gingersnap Creations Challenge GC141 is Granny's Photo Album & this is my entry - a domino book featuring photo's of my family on the maternal side. This is the front.

and the back of the closed book.

The open book

and a close up of my Great Grandmother & Great Grandmother & Great Grandpa

I'm very lucky to have some fantastic old family photos to draw on which I reduced in size & printed out to use:-) Some I used whole & some I cut out.

I'd started to make this domino book for my Mum just before flying out to Oz so just packed it up, including bits that I thought that I may want to use & finished it off .....

I'm having problems with blogger - not allowing me to upload all the pic's I wanted to but hopefully those that have uploaded will give you the idea of my domino book.

I loved doing it & it was much appreciated by my Mum :-)

Thank You cards

The reason for my lack of  posting, as some of you will already know, is that my father died unexpectedly & I've had to dash over to Oz to support Mum.

We had a lovely Celebration of Dad's life & Mum & I have been making Thank you cards for all the wonderful people that have been so kind.

Above are a few of the cards that I made after raiding Mum's crafting stash...... :-)

and I managed to photograph a few of Mum's - she had already sent a lot off before I realised :-)

Our styles are different but all the cards are made with love :-)

Less is More

This week is stripes

As it's also one layer week I stamped my stripes straight onto the card down 2 edges.

This is from a set of stamps & I stamped it one way & then the other

I finished with the sentiment which is again in stripes :-)