Card Swap 7 and 8

Greetings lovely bloggers!  Be prepared for a long post today.  Typically, I am massively behind in posting about the last couple of card swaps.  Scarily, Jane has just sent out the email regarding the 9th card swap - so I thought I had better get my act together!

 

Card swap 7 - the theme was to have a sentiment as the main feature.  Now, I'm not really big on sentiments (you may have noticed this already).  I like a simple little "happy birthday" or "thank you" etc.  So I was a little bit scared to have to make it the main feature.  I admit that I tried a few ideas with stamps and inks and I just wasn't happy with the results.  So I got out my favourite SU Paper Stack in the current In-Colours and cut out the letters of hello in Baked Brown Sugar and Pistachio Pudding dotty paper.  These were mounted onto white card, which in turn was mounted onto corresponding card stock (I added a little border of piercing for interest).  I mounted a piece of the Pistachio Pudding  dotty paper onto the base card and added the sentiment on top.  It did look a little bare, so on the advice of my daughter, I added some punched flowers and gems in the corners.

 

I was quite pleased with the result  I hope the recipient was too.

 

The card I received was amazing!  I was totally blown away by it.  It was made by the lovely Margaret who is such a talented lady (check out her blog here ).  I don't think the photos truly do it justice, but it is definitely my favourite card so far.

So onto card swap 8.  The theme this time was to create an Autumnal card.  Now I don't really have any leaf stamps from SU so I reached for a really old Hero Arts set that was just perfect.  The rest of the materials are all SU.  I stamped all three leaf designs in a variety of colours - More Mustard, Cajun Craze, Always Artichoke, Old Olive, Real Red and Early Espresso - onto a single piece of white card stock.  I softened the edges with an Aqua pen and trimmed the panel into three pieces.  I made a card blank from Crumb Cake and then cut a slight smaller panel out of the same card stock and stamped the Woodgrain stamp onto it with Early Espresso.  The three leaf panels were mounted on top. I then cut a band from More Mustard and stamped a sentiment from the Teeny Tiny Sentiments in Early Espresso.  The leaf embellishments were cut out and I used Glossy Accents to give them a bit of a shine.  These were stuck to the band when they were dry.

Again I'm quite pleased with the results - a bit of a departure for me - and, again, I really hope the recipient likes it.  I felt quite bad because I was very late in sending my card off, but actually as I haven't received my card for October yet, I cut myself some slack!

The subject for November's card swap is to use your all time favourite stamp, so this is going to require a lot of thought -  I do have rather a lot of stamps that I have accumulated over the last 18 years!

I mentioned in my last post, that I had made a card for my parents' wedding anniversary, and here it is.  I was inspired by a card I saw on Pinterest (what would we do without it?!), but tweaked it a bit.

The products are all SU.  The stamps are Creative Elements and Teeny Tiny Sentiments, and the colours are Old Olive and Tangerine Tango.  I used a variety of punches and some retired Scallop Dots ribbon.  This card did take me a while to make as I had a couple attempts at the stamping and the aperture until I was fully satisfied with the result.  I'm very pleased because there is still quite a lot of white space on the card!

So that's all the cards and photos for the time being.  Last weekend I was away at a Scrapbags Retreat - three days in a hotel scrapping all day - bliss!  I really have the scrapping bug now, but save it for retreats and crops, otherwise I would never get any cards made!  I'm still trying to get my Christmas cards finished, not panicking quite yet!  And with all this, we are still in the middle of University visits and UCAS - but that at least is all under control!

OK, that's me for today.  I hope you stuck with me, you are amazing if you did!  Thanks for popping in, and I really love hearing your comments, so thank you.

Take care and have a good week.

Michelle x

More Sale-a-bration

Hi!  I've been trying to upload these photos for a few days now, but Blogger seemed to have other ideas.  Anyway, success today!

 

This card was made with Sale-a-bration goodies - stamps from the Madison Avenue set and a strip of paper from the Sycamore Street DSP.  I stamped the small flower image in four different colours onto small squares of white card, then mounted them on to matching plain card stock.  I mounted these on the right hand side of the card, and added a strip of the DSP down the left (the paper reminds me of an Orla Kiely design).  I punched four flowers with one of the Itty Bitty Shapes punches, and moulded them a little bit with a scoring tool to give them some dimension.  I added these to the centres of the stamped flowers and included some crystal gems for a little bit of sparkle.

 

Today I've been really busy making cards.  I have lots of birthdays in March, as well as Mother's Day so I've been trying to get on with them.  Hopefully, this means I will have a lot to show you over the next few days.

We are still a house of germs, particularly Mark who has a pretty bad cough which is keeping us both awake at night!  Will he go to the Doctors - no, of course not!

Well, that's me for now - got to get back to the card making.  Take care and thank you for dropping by.

Michelle x

Hi, back again.  How's it going?  I'm having a pretty good half term. Quite relaxed but feeling in the creative mood.  So far I've managed to make a couple of cards and complete one whole layout as well as finish four others for Emily's 18th album.  I'm starting to panic about the album to be honest.  Emily's birthday is in four months and I still have such a lot to do.  Today I had a real good look at it and made myself a plan, listing the events I MUST put in and suggesting other things that I will do if there is time.  It's really difficult to encapsulate 18 years into one memory album.  I'm going on another Scrapbook retreat after Easter so I must, must, must achieve a lot over those three days.

 

I finally managed to watch the new Bond film, Skyfall, last night.  We never got to the cinema to see it, much like The Hobbit and Les Miserables, which I am also desperate to see.  Anyway our DVD arrived yesterday so we had a film night, complete with popcorn!  The film was phenomenal and I can't recommend it highly enough (although you've probably all seen it!).

 

Today's card has been made with some of the wonderful Sale-a-bration products from Stampin' Up.  I've used the Vine Street embossing folder to create a panel in Pool Party which I then mounted onto Rich Razzleberry.  The banner across the middle is cut from the Sycamore Street DSP.  The sentiment is from the fabulous Itty Bitty Banners set (not in the promotion), and the little heart icon is stamped with Pretty Petites (in Tangerine Tango) and cut with the Petite Curly Label punch.

I'm not sure how I feel about this card really.  In my head it looked different, which is a bit weird I know.  I love the embossing panel - can see that I will use the embossing folder a lot. And I like the cut-out motifs from the DSP - just not convinced it works really.  Oh well, it can go in my box of ready made birthday cards.

Thanks for looking in, I'm really appreciative of your comments.

Take care and wrap up warm!

Michelle x

Best of Everything

 

Hello everyone. Sorry for the absence.  I had such high hopes this year for more regular posting but I didn't count on Blogger letting me down.  I've been having so many problems trying to upload photos from my files.  I've had to go about it in a rather laborious fashion - via Picassa Web or something like that!  It was rather frustrating, but I got there in the end!

 

Today I'm at home as our school has closed due to the snow.  Emily is here too as her college has closed, but Edward is most put out because his school is open and I made him go in.  I did have to bribe him with a sausage sandwich for breakfast!  We've has a fun time this weekend, playing in the snow with Chloe - she adores it and wants to be out in it at every opportunity.  In fact, she never leaves Mark alone, constantly fussing at him to take her out.  Now though, I wish it would go.  We had to cancel a family celebration in Kent at the weekend for my Nan's 90th birthday, and my Dad will be 70 this weekend, so we are keeping our eyes on the forecast, and our fingers crossed.

 

The card I am sharing with you today uses a lovely set of stamps called Best of Everything.  I am very taken with them and I think they are really versatile.  I CASEd part of the card from the current Stampin' Up catalogue, but the rest is all mine!

 

I used Real Red, Tangerine Tango and Daffodil Delight for the flowers and Gumball Green for the stems.  The Curly Label punch works brilliantly with the dotty border and I used matching ribbon and coloured card for mounting.  Of course, no card is complete without a little bit of bling. 

 

 

 

Well, that's it from me today.  I'm off to wrap up warm and take my gorgeous girl for a run in the snow.  Have a great day and stay safe.

 

Michelle x

Hi All.  Wow, it's been a busy old time recently.  Work's been mad, and it's been pretty busy at home.  I did find time to make a couple of anniversary cards using the fab Mixed Bunch stamp set and matching punch from Stampin' Up.  I love these so much and will be using them lots (as soon as I get a bit more free time).  I stamped one of the images in Pumpkin Pie, Tangerine Tango and Real Red, then punched them out.  I then punched them in matching card stock.  I gave the stamped flowers a little but of a curl before I stuck them to the matching punched flowers.  I stuck a thin piece of ribbon around the middle of the card before I attached the flowers.  I couldn't decide which order to have the flowers, so I did one of each.  The centres of the flowers are Candi coloured with matching markers.  The sentiment is from a set by Paula Pascual.

One of these cards is for an old college friend who has been married 20 years.  I was a bridesmaid at her wedding and I had only just started going out with Mark.  It doesn't seem possible that so much time has gone by.

Talking of time passing quickly, my little boy was 13 on Thursday.  It doesn't seem 5 minutes ago that he looked like this.

And now he looks like this (complete with a bruised nose, from being bashed in the face by a tennis racquet!).  He had a lovely birthday, and was very happy with his Nintendo 3DS and a huge pile of books.  We went out for a lovely meal, and then had a big family party yesterday.

I made him a mini album instead of a card, which I will share with you soon, just haven't got round to photographing it yet.

We've also had to help him choose his options in readiness for Year 9 in September.  His school start their options courses a year earlier than most schools.  That was also hard to believe, he seems too young to be making these choices, although I am impressed by his mature approach to choosing his subjects.

We were blessed yesterday, for Edward's party, with the weather.  I know we shouldn't complain, but does it have to be this hot?!  My poor little Chloe, she doesn't know what to do with herself in the heat.  She has even gone off her food, which is virtually unheard of!!

Well, that's me for tonight.  Thanks for dropping by and I really do appreciate your kind comments.  Look after yourselves in this heat, and take care.

Michelle x