A Birthday and A Wedding

Hello Everyone,

The pop up box card made for Max in the last post was so popular the same lady has asked for another one to be made for her neice. The recipient is very musical playing lots of instruments, so is the theme she asked for. here is the result.

In the photo, it has just struck me, it looks like a barcosde in the front. Haha! I assure you it is not....it is a keyboard!

The second card request this week was from my Daughter. After a whistle stop tour of Scotland with friends this week they are rushing back on Saturday to go to a friends wedding. I hope that she thinks this is special enough. Here are pictures of the inside and outside.

The papers are from a first Edition pad called Love Letters. I used a tonic header dies for the shaping on the front of the card with the Mr & Mrs being added using Craft Artist. The bow is from a Sue Wilson die. The inside mat was cut using Spellbinders decorative labels 8.

That's all for now.....

A few Birthday Cards......

 I have a few cards I can show you, now that the birthdays concerned have passed by. The first was for my Husband. it was his birthday recently and I quite took a fancy to the build a scene dies. This one uses the build a scene hot air balloon die set. I love it. it looks really fiddly, but honestly it wasn't. I placed an antique looking map behind and continued the vintage themes using colours to suit on the balloons, mostly coloured with my Promarkers.

The next was for my Cousins wife.

For this one I used some images from a My Crafts Studio CD. The image is decoupaged to give dimension.

And finally for today. I was asked by my Mum's friend to create a 21st Birthday Card for her Grandson who will soon be 21. He knows nothing of this blog, so I can safely post this. The brief was......he is 21, works in a gym, loves his football, loves swimming and generally enjoys most sports and likes darts. Wow! She wanted something special...."one of your lovely cards that I would never be able to buy in a shop"....no pressure then!
He is what I came up with....

I have made this pop up box card using two sheets of A4 card to make it nice and big. (folded flat it measured 21x25 cms). I found images covering all the sports Max enjoys, coloured them all up with Promarkers and attached them on the four shelves inside the box. I was happy with the result, and more importantly I think Grandma will be too.
That's it for today, thanks for reading!

I have been organising.......again!

Hi everyone,

I am always looking for a better way to organise my craft stuff. I can never quite remember what I have or where it is stored, especially when it come to my dies and stamps. I started by keeping the dies in their packaging...soon got fed up with that. Then I went onto the magnetic sheets stuck to the back of a cupboard door. That was great, until I had more dies than would fit on the door. Back to the drawing board again. I have placed all my dies in their sets into A5 plastic wallets and am storing them in a rather nice basket I found. This idea works great for me, I used the magnetic sheets from the back of the door to keep the dies in place on a piece of card. I even created a sheet to fill in on the back of each set reminding my of the make and name of the dies, giving my a note of any connected products like stamps or embossing folders, and also making a note of the sandwich required for each machine I have. Are you impressed? Really organised, right? Wrong. Even after all this I couldn't find what I wanted easily. I really needed a way of being able to leaf through all my dies easily, or to just search for a particular dies easily. I read on a blog somewhere that a database app had been used for something similar, so I went on a search and found......

SNUPPS!

I just have to tell you about this app. I have never posted about anything like this before, but it is exactly what I needed, and I though someone else in craft land might want it too. The great thing is it is free! You can use it to log anything you want, but for craft stuff it is really useful. I have set up a shelf for each type of die, for example flowers, basic shapes etc. You just take a picture of the item, enter a few details and save. Easy , your shelves can be shared on Facebook etc or, like me, you can make them private. I can now enter a search word, find the exact die I want and see what pocket number it is in. Cool! I did have a minor problem with the app after an update was issued, but I emailed and had a personal reply with the hour and the problem was sorted very quickly. Lovely to have personal help like that. I have almost finished my dies now, and then I will do all my unmounted stamps which are stored in the same way. I think I will also catalogue all the mounted stamps and possibly all my embossing folders too! I know....I need to get a life!!!!

Thanks for reading, I would just like to say this is my own opinion of this app,which is available from the iTunes app store. I have not received anything from the app owners to " help" me form my opinion. I hope some of you find this useful.

having a bit of fun...

I follow a blog called A Piece of Heart. I really like this blog because the lady writing it has the unique ability to find just the right thing to say. She has a blog feature called the Friday Freebie and each Friday she has a sentiment to give away. I have used many over the time I have been following her, but when I saw her offering a few months ago I immediately decided it was a project in the making but, as with everything, it has taken me a while to get around to it.
A while ago I moved my Craft Room lock, stock and barrel, downstairs into our old dining room to give my teenage son more space. He is very into IT and Fitness and he disparately needed more space than his bedroom alone would allow. I am happy to have my craft space here as I now no longer have to carry the dog up and downstairs to be with me when I work and craft. The only problem is that I don't have a door. I have to keep things tidy....well I try to! This is my little bit of rebellion to hang above the entrance...

Birthday Boy...and Girl!

Toady is my Son, Dan's Birthday! and it also mine....yes 19 years ago today he was MY birthday present.
Here is the card I have made for him this year.

I haven't made a sliding easel card for ages, so I fancied doing one again. As a normal 19 year old he is into music, computers, personal fitness (in a bit way) and is usually to be found in a hoodie...hence the image on the card. The card base is made from Papermill White Linen card, which has been printed with an image from a CD called Not For Girls, appropriately enough. I love this Papermill card, it has a great texture, which shows especially well if you ink it at the edges as I have here. I hope he likes it.