Feathers

Hi, just popping in quickly to share a card.  I "borrowed" this design from Pinterest - I just fell in love with the falling feathers and the odd sprinkling of sequins.  I made it a while ago and I think I used Lost Lagoon, Crumb Cake and Early Espresso ink pads from SU.  And I'm pretty sure it was for my card swap group.  That's the problem with being so behind, I can't remember who I made the cards for!

 

 

I have an exciting weekend ahead of me.  I'm off to Suffolk for a scrap booking retreat.  I have mixed emotions - excitement and anxiety.  Even though I have been driving for 25 years, I have lost my confidence for long journeys.  I only really drive locally, and that's not everyday, as I walk to work.  I'm armed with Mark's satnav, as well as written instructions, so fingers crossed!

 

Take care and thanks for dropping by.  Have a great weekend.

 

Michelle x

Thank You Cards

Morning!  Hope you all had a wonderful Easter.  Mine was unintentionally busy!  I decided, in my wisdom, to start sorting out my bedroom.  What a job!  I've filled two bin bags and have not remotely finished.  I was supposed to be putting my feet up to get rid of another nasty cold but it was not to be.  I also went to a concert at the O2 on Saturday night - McBusted.  Bit of a drama there, because Emily was supposed to come with me but she caught my nasty cold and took to her bed.  Edward was dragooned into coming with me, thankfully he really enjoyed himself - as did I.

 

Anyway, here are some thank you cards that I made to say thank you for our Christmas cards.  Don't worry, I haven't only just sent them!  As I said previously, I have a lot to catch up on.

 

I can't take any credit for the design.  I shamelessly copied it from the SU catalogue.  I love the design, it's so clean and fresh.  Also, because I had 8 to make, luckily it was very quick to assemble them all.

 

I used the incredible versatile Crazy About You stamp set, along with the Hello You Thinlet dies.  The colours are Pumpkin Pie, Crushed Curry, Lost Lagoon and Pistachio Pudding.

hope you all have a good day. Take care and thanks for dropping by.

Michelle x

Hello Hexagons!

Goodness me, what a lot of catching up I need to do!  I hadn't realised quite how long I had been absent from the blogging world.  Life has been quite tricky recently, hence the absence, however I won't bore you with all the details. 

 

This card that I'm sharing today is from my card swap group.  The challenge was to use some sort of shape in the design.  Well, instantly I knew it would be hexagons.  I made a patch work effect with the SU Six Sided Sampler stamp set - one of my all time favourites, and I used Soft Sky, Pear Pizzazz and Smoky Slate as my colour palette. I am currently loving the Hello You thinlet dies, and lots of my cards are featuring one of the sentiments.  Finally, as you can't go wrong with butterflies, I popped one on the tag for added interest.  The challenge was hilarious, because nearly everyone used hexagons in one way or another, and butterflies featured quite heavily too!

 

 

I finished work today and am on holiday for just over two weeks, and I couldn't be happier.  It's been a bit of a slog of late.

 

Wishing everyone a happy Easter.  Take care

 

Michelle x

Jennie's Birthday Card

Good evening.  Just popping by to share a birthday card that I made for a member of my Card Swap Group.  I decided to try out the new SU Butterfly Basics stamp set, using Blackberry Bliss, Crushed Curry and Wild Wasabi.  I mounted the butterflies on 3D foam to give a little bit of much-needed dimension. 

 

I really like this stamp set as I think it has plenty of possibilities.  I do like to get as much out of my stamps as possible. And you can't go wrong with butterflies!

 

I hope everyone is having a good week, and staying safe in the horrible weather.  We don't have any snow yet, although I'm hoping that if it comes, we might get a snow day at work!

Take care

Michelle x

My Christmas Cards

Hi.  I know it's a bit late now, over mid-way through January (how did that happen?!), but I wanted to share the Christmas cards I made for 2014.  My colour scheme was a lot of white, with Smoky Slate, Soft, Sky, Pear Pizzazz and Lost Lagoon.   I really like the non-traditional colour scheme and look for my Christmas cards.

 

When I first saw the Autumn/Winter SU catalogue, I knew that my first order would be for the Festival of Trees stamp set and matching punch, as well as the All is Calm DSP.  I also fell in love with the Endless Wishes stamp set, as the sentiments have so many possibilities and I knew I would get plenty of use out of them.  And then a couple of other things were added: the adorable Frosted Sequins, the All is Calm Washi Tape and the Lucky Stars embossing folder.  I was all set!

 

I tried to keep my designs simple, I'm a real fan of Less is More.  But simple does not always mean quick!  The first two cards were the quickest of the batch.  Just two strips of washi tape, a couple of stamped and punched trees, a sentiment and some glitter glue.

 

This second design, however, was not so straightforward.  First I sponged the stars - two lots of sponging per card (and cleaning after each go).  The I embossed white card with the Lucky Stars and then cut circles, which I adhered to the front of the card.  Then I stamped and punched trees which went on top of the circle, then the sentiments followed suit.  After that I stuck on the sequins and finally added some glitter glue.  Oh, I neglected to mention that I had to cut out the white panel and the coloured panel first.  I made 22 of these cards!  Worth it though.

The final design (which I shamelessly stole from Vicky Hayes at Crafting Clare's Paper Moments), took the longest of the three.  It looks deceptively simple.  Cut a panel, then an aperture.  Pierce around the edge of the panel.  Stick a circle of All is Calm DSP in the aperture.  A little bit of silver ribbon, some glitter glue and a sentiment and there you go.  Simple.  But not when you make 22 of them in one afternoon.  My hands ached so much from the piercing, I really wished that had I scored some lines instead.  However, (and luckily) I was very happy with the results.

So, two weeks into term, four weeks until half term - yay!  We had to go to a Parents' Evening on Thursday for Edward - last one in Year 11.  Apparently, it's only 16 teaching weeks until GCSEs start!  Pretty scary stuff - well I'm scared.  Not too sure about Edward - teenage boys don't really give much away.  We are all hoping that his Xbox doesn't have to have a little holiday for the next few months!

Emily is back at University.  It was really hard taking her back, worse than September I think.  She has exams on Monday, so contact is minimal at the moment.  I really miss her but I know it'll all be worth it.  We are going to visit in half term and actually get to spend some time exploring Canterbury rather than just picking her up and dropping her off.  I think our dog Chloe really misses her too, she's so cuddly of late, although I'm not too impressed when she comes for a cuddle at 5 O'clock in the morning!

That's all from me today.  Take care and wrap up warm!

Michelle x

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year one and all!  Here's to a year of health and happiness.  I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and enjoyed your New Year celebrations.  I'm not going to dwell on mine, let's just say that they didn't go according to plan due to illness. However, I'm here to start the year as I mean to go on.

 

Looking back, I realise that my blog posts have been few and far between.  I really did lose my mojo, not just for blogging, but for crafting too.  I'm hoping that this year will be different.  In fact, this morning, I placed a Stampin' Up order for some of the new goodies coming up in the Spring Summer catalogue - I'm very excited.  I'm going to try and post more regularly - looking at my photos, there are lots of cards that I never got round to sharing. I'm certainly not promising to post every day, but hopefully I won't be leaving it for 2 months like my last post (hanging my head with shame!!).

 

Today I thought I would share the beautiful handmade Christmas cards that I received this year - they certainly are stunning.  Come and have a look.

 

 

This first card is from Jane, our Card Swap Group leader.  She does a superb job of setting us challenges each month.  Her card is beautiful - I really love the postcard image, and the red really ties in the background paper.

This card is from Lesley, using the gorgeous Festival of Trees stamps, as well as my favourite colour - Blackberry Bliss.

This gorgeous card is from Jennie.  I love the simplicity of the design, and the colour scheme is very me.  You can just pick up the hints of glitter on the snowflakes.  Beautiful.

A very stylish card from Zoe.  Again, loving the simplicity.  I didn't buy the wreath stamp set from SU, but I may have to!

This card is from Aileen and is fabulous.  I love the colours she has chosen, and the little pop of glitter on the bauble.  I absolutely love what she has done with this stamp.

Isn't this fab?  I love it.  Again, I love the postcard image, and the cheeky snowman.  I think this was created on MDS.  Thanks to the very talented Donna.

This beautiful card is from Alison.  Again, a stunning colour scheme, with a little glitter frosting the pine cones.  I love how the lace at the side gives it a feeling of vintage. Fabulous.

An absolutely stunning card from Sue.  My husband was very taken with the background by the way.  Gorgeous stamping effects, and I love the little stars in the sky.

A beautiful card from the very talented Vicky.  I love the graduated greens on the snowflakes, and the bright red sentiment really makes the card pop.  I'm very excited to see what Vicky will be creating in 2015!

This beautiful card is from Ann.  The colours look like Crumb Cake and Lost Lagoon - two of my absolute favourites at the moment.  I really like the little snowflake embellishment too.  Gorgeous.

And finally, this is the card my Mum made.  I love the violet card with the green and red, as well as a little touch of silver with the sentiment.  I may have to borrow that stamp set from her!

Well, that's all folks (for today!).  Thanks for bearing with me and hopefully I will be back in the next couple of days with the Christmas cards that I made.

Have a great day, and take care.

Love

Michelle x x

Box Cards

Hi everyone.  Hope you are all having a lovely weekend. Today is the last day of half term which is a little sad.  My house is very quiet.  Emily went back to University yesterday.  Mark has gone off to France for the week for work and I am left here with a teenage boy who doesn't speak much (grunts occasionally), and a sulking dog!  It's going to be a long week!

 

Half term was lovely, if too short (I know, we are never satisfied).  I spent time with my children, met a friend for coffee.  Mark and I had a lovely day in London visiting the poppies (mesmerising), I chilled out, I spent a day scrapbooking at the Scrapbags Autumn Retreat (couldn't do all three days) and I even made 22 (yes, 22!) Christmas cards.  I would say, it was a very successful week.

 

And, I have managed to blog twice :)

 

Today I am showing the box cards that I have made recently.  The first two were for friends having special birthdays.  I used the same colour scheme for both, and the same SU paper stack.

 

The final card was made for my parents' Golden Wedding Anniversary which was on Friday.  Not my usual style - I prefer silver to gold, but it was a "Golden" Wedding Anniversary!  So I thought I would go the whole hog!  My parents really liked it, my mum texted me from their cruise down the Danube to tell me so.

 

So, my next project is to make my mum a birthday card for her 70th birthday, which is in two weeks.  Two major events in her life, less than three weeks apart - she could have planned this better!  Joking Mum!

 

Anyway, thanks for popping in.  I love hearing you comments.

 

Take care

 

Michelle x