Card Swap Group - 1

Well this post is long overdue.  I think I mentioned before that I joined a Card Swap group run by the lovely Jane over at Eden's Tree .  I've been meaning to share the card I received as well as the card I made.  As I am about to post off April's card, I thought I had better show you March's.

 

This is the beautiful card I received from Aileen. (Check out her blog here ).   The stamping is gorgeous and I love the pierced design.  The card is very clean and simple which I am a big fan of.  

 

This card is my entry.  I scored a border with my Simply Scored.  Then I cut a slightly smaller panel and stamped the flower and leaf images from the SAB Bloomin' Marvellous set in Elegant Eggplant, Melon Mambo and Old Olive.  The sentiment is from A Word for You which I stamped in Elegant Eggplant.  I cut round it and mounted it centrally with 3D foam.

 

So there we are.  I'll be back in a few days with April's entry.  Thanks fro dropping by and I really appreciate your comments.

 

Take care

 

Michelle x

How long?!

 

My poor, sadly neglected blog - it's been so long.

 

Where has the time gone?  It's been a bit busy recently, to say the least.  My lovely dog was spayed a few weeks ago and has recovered well.  It was very difficult keeping an exuberant 2 year old Labrador calm for a few weeks.  She was only allowed in the garden on the lead, and when it snowed she went crazy, desperate to play in it.  I was a total wreck when she was in having the operation.  I'm such a worrier, but she is so precious to us, and was a lifeline to Emily when we first got her.  But all is well and she is back to her normal, mad self.

 

Emily is still fighting off germs, even succumbing to another cold on Easter Sunday.  I had to take her for blood tests where they are pretty much testing for everything!  Won't get the results for another few weeks.

 

Easter came and went.  It was a pleasant weekend - saw family, and chilled out.  Mark has been off all of last week but we didn't really do too much - the weather was off-putting.  He did take me to a lovely scrap booking shop - Sugar and Spice in a farm park and craft village in Essex.  The next day he visited the Henry Moore Foundation which is quite near to us.  I didn't go because it was too cold (it snowed while he was there!).

 

This week is all about scrap-booking.  I'm away at a retreat on Friday, the children are staying with my parents and I'm devoting all my time to getting on with Emily's album.  I've had a very productive day today and hopefully tomorrow will be the same.

 

There has not been much going on with card making.  I've probably mentioned joining Jane's card making swap group.  Apologies that I have not had time to share my cards - will try and remedy that this week.  I must make at least four cards this week before I go away.

 

I did make a quick card on Saturday for my friend who has just had surgery.  I used a 10cm square card, with a scored boarder.  I cut a smaller white panel and mounted it on the spotty paper from the DSP Patterns Stack. I used the Patterned Occasions set from the recent Sale-a-bration promotion at SU.  I stamped the image and the sentiment (Teeny Tiny Sentiments) in Calypso Coral.  Very CAS I think.

 

 

 

Well that's me for now.  Hope you didn't fall asleep with all my ramblings.  Take care and enjoy the lovely Spring weather.

 

Thanks for dropping by.

 

Michelle x

Honeycomb Delight

Hi everyone.  Hope you are well and have had a lovely weekend (despite the rain).

 

I am sharing two cards with you today.  The first was made for my mum for Mother's Day, and features the new Honeycomb embossing folder.  Wow, this really does have lots of possibilities.

 

First of all, I ran a piece of white card through my Cuttlebug in the embossing folder and stuck it to the front of a card.  Then I cut up some scraps of the Tea for Two DSP and put them inside the folder and put it through the Cuttlebug - this gave me a guide to cutting out the hexagons and getting them the right size.  I stuck them down in a random pattern.

 

I then stuck a piece of Baja Breeze pleated satin ribbon across the middle of the card, followed by a piece of baker's twine (I borrowed that idea from Jane, at Eden's Tree - check out her blog here ).

 

The sentiment is from Notable Alphabet, stamped in black onto a piece of Tea for Two.

 

 

 

The second card is very similar (because I'm in love with it!!), and was for Jane (mentioned above), whose birthday was earlier in the week.

 

I used her favourite papers, Spice Cake, and teamed them with Pear Pizzazz pleated ribbon and brown baker's twine.  The sentiment is from the Hostess set, Stacks of Wishes, stamped in Early Espresso ink and mounted on the same colour card.

 

Jane has set up a card swap group and I received my first card this week - it's stunning and I will share it with you soon, as well as the card I made.  Jane received lots of handmade birthday cards this year - one from every member of the swap group - keep looking at her blog, as she is going to post them soon.

I've noticed that my three photos differ in quality - the first is a scan, the second I took and the third was taken my Mark,  I'll let you make your mind up which one is the best!

Take care

Michelle x

Betsy's Blossoms (Again!)

This is the card I made for my mother-in-law for Mother's Day.  I wasn't going to make her one, Mark was going to buy her a card instead.  But as you know, we've been under the weather, him in particular, so I thought I would save him the job of going into town.  I needed a quick design so though I would rely on "old faithful".  This is such a quick but effective card and I love it so much.

 

This time I chose Concord Crush, Wisteria Wonder and Lucky Limeade as the colour scheme, and used the Notable Alphabet for "Mum".

I've had a busy afternoon sorting through photographs for the final selection for Emily's album.  It was lovely looking back, but hard to believe that she is going to be an adult in three months.  She has no idea what she wants to do for her birthday or what she would like - helpful as ever!  The problem is that she doesn't want to grow up, she really wants to stay a child.  I think she would be really happy with some Harry Potter Lego!

Thanks for dropping by.

Take care

Michelle x

Mixed Bunch

Hi everyone. I loaded up lots of photos over the weekend so that I could blog regularly this week, but as you can see, that hasn't' happened.  I'm quickly popping in tonight to share with you, a card that I made for my friend Tracy, whose birthday was yesterday.

 

I cut and folded a card that measured 12cm x 12cm, from the Midnight Muse card stock.  Then I used one of the Mixed Bunch stamps and stamped all over the front of the card with a Versamark ink pad.  I haven't used this technique for a long time, but the watermark effect is one of my favourites. I used one of the Window Frames Collection Framelits to cut an aperture.  Then, with one of the piercing templates, I pricked a pattern around the outside of the frame. 

 

 

I stamped the same flower from the Mixed Bunch set, onto some Very Vanilla card stock, using Midnight Muse. I pricked a pattern around this using one of the other templates, and then mounted this panel behind the aperture.

 

I stamped another flower in the MM ink onto the VV card stock and cut it out using the co-ordinating punch.  I curled the petals slightly and stuck this onto the other stamped image.  I added a little gem in the middle of the flower to add a little bit of bling.

 

Hopefully, I will be back soon with some more cards - I've certainly been rather busy recently.  Also I am really pleased to report that we are all finally getting back to normal, the coughs are starting to disappear and normal sleep has been resumed - hurrah!

 

Thanks for dropping by.  Be back soon.

 

Michelle x

Hearts a Fluttering

A mid-week post in a working week - how unusual.  I'm taking the opportunity whilst Mark is watching the Man U and Real Madrid match - it holds no interest for me.

 

We are still a house of germs, everyone is coughing and coughing.  I feel so sleep deprived that my right eye has been twitching since Thursday and it's very uncomfortable.  I'm thinking I may have to resort to an eye-patch soon!

 

Anyway - today's card.  This is a bit radical for me, completely not my usual style, but I have to say that I rather like it.  The card was for my friend Karen who was 40 on Saturday.  I used my new Hearts a Flutter stamps and matching Framelits (a great value bundle option available in the Spring mini catalogue).  I used Lucky Limeade, Pool Party and Island Indigo and stamped and cut out a variety of banners.  Looking at the card now, I realise that the way I have mounted them is not at all random, there is some order there.  I have a problem with random - it just doesn't sit well with me!  I scored a diagonal pattern on a strip of Lucky Limeade and mounted that on Island Indigo. I stuck this over the banners to give a neat finish.  I forgot to say that I curled the banners around a pokey tool first to give some dimension

 

 

I wrapped some Baker's Twine around the card and added the sentiment (my favourite Itty Bitty Banners stamped with Island Indigo) mounted on foam pads.

Finally I stamped one of the heart stamps in all three colours, cut them out and mounted them near the bottom of the card slightly overlapping each other.  I used some rub-ons to add the numbers.

And there you go.  I'd be interested to know what you think.  Well that's me for tonight.  I'm off to fashion myself an eye-patch from SU products!!  Have fun!

 

Michelle x 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