Baby, Baby

It's still sunny here in Scotland, so looks like summer is going to last a little longer.

It's been quite an unexciting week, with plans made and dropped several times.  We will get a wee trip along the coast & fit in a visit to one of the local cafe's for a spot of fish & chips - eventually!
Freshly Made Sketches Challenge

I had some papers with a diagonal lace pattern which came with a Joanna Sheen papercraft kit so decided to use that as a guide for the design.  The embellishment is a rose die which came from The Works.  I ran the die twice, once in lilac card stock and the second in white which had been coloured with Distress Inks.  When I cut out the white card stock I used a folded sheet of kitchen towel behind it and that gave an embossed, slightly puffy look to the cut out.  I took some Mod Podge and sealed the kitchen towel on the back to keep it all together and once it was dry I used a satin varnish used for decopatch over the top.

I have been working on some baby cards for my friend's card collection, I had a couple of things stamped out waiting for a card to go on so I decided to use the FMS sketch to make one of them.  This one for a baby girl uses the Woodware "Huge Baby" word stamp set along with the tiny crown stamp from another of the Woodware baby sets "Cutie Pie Vest".  I had been going to add "Little Princess" to the sentiments on the card but decided against it.






I did, however, use the "Little Prince" on the "Cutie Pie Vest" baby boy card that made.  I made a Distress Ink background and then used more Distress Ink to colour the vest to help lift it up from the background.  The "Congratulations" die comes from a small Dovecraft set, I used a clear embossing powder to give it a glossy finish.

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Time For Wine!

Summer is still here and, according to the weather forecast, it will be hanging around a wee bit longer too!
Last Friday, while hubby was been sitting out in the garden topping up his tan, my teenage son and I went out in the car for a run along to Portmoak Church to take flowers, it's been a wee while since we were there as I've not been feeling able for the hill. I had phoned ahead to the local farm cafe near Loch Leven and booked one of their garden "pods" so that afterwards we could have an hour or so of bonding time over a cream tea.

There is an island on Loch Leven which has a small castle on it, it is where Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned after her surrender at Carberry Hill on 15 June 1567.  She escaped on her second attempt on 2 May 1568 https://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/articles/mary-queen-of-scots-great-escape/.

For this week's Freshly Made Sketches Challenge I decided to be inspired by the summer sun and the Woodware "Time to Wine Down" stamp set.  The embossed strip was made using a Darice Ivy Corner embossing folder, I thought the ivy from the folder looked very similar to the vine leaf on the stamp.

 

Some other stamps I have been using recently.  Most of these are for my friend to add to her stash.  I had already made a Baby Boy version of this Woodware "Baby Patch Elephant" set but forgot to take a photo of it.

Woodware "Huge Baby"

Woodware "With Love Doodles"

Enjoy The Ride!

According to today's weather forecast it's been the hottest day of the year so far and they reckon it's going to get even hotter by the end of the week - great timing for the start of the school holidays!  Our son is just finishing off some last minute College coursework and that will be him off on holiday as well. 


I cannot believe the amount of bird food I am going through at the moment, in the last 24 hours one feeder has been fully loaded three times and the seed feeder filled twice.  I swear as I walk back into the house you can hear the volume of tweets increase as they tell their pals that the wifey at No 3 has just put more food out!

I have some more cards to make for my friend's collection, it's her brother's birthday soon so I thought I would use this weeks Freshly Made Sketches Challenge as inspiration.

I chose the motorcycle as her brother was a keen motorcyclist. 

The stamps I used were "free" with a magazine (several complaints in to the Advertising Standards Authority about the way the publishers describe these promo items, especially when they change the price from Issue to Issue).

Cog Wheels

Hard to believe that we are already half way through June already and in a couple of days it will be the Summer Solstice!

Lots of frantic activity in the garden with birds queuing up to get to the feeder, so much so that in between the squabbles, fisty-cuffs kept breaking out.  It got so bad I went out and bought a second feeder to try and keep the peace!  I honestly don't know how they can get off the ground at the rate they are going through suet balls, meal worms and seed mixes!

I was struggling a bit trying to work out what to make for this week's Freshly Made Sketches Challenge.  There were a few false starts as nothing seemed to work the way I wanted it to.

Over the weekend I was working on some new boxes for my son's supply of cards.  He had handed me one of the originals I'd made for him which was looking the worse for wear and asked me if I could make him another.  I ended up repairing that one, which was a favourite of his, and a couple of others.  While I had embossed some of the cardstock for the boxes with a effect cog wheel embossing folder and had cut out some cogs for decoration from the Tim Holtz set I had.  It was when I saw the cut out corner pieces that I realised I might have what I needed for this week's sketch.

Hello Summer!

Yesterday was the first day of the Meterological summer, the sun was shining and so to celebrate I took Suzi (my car) out with the roof down and all the windows open so she could pretend to be a cabriolet.  In reality I just headed out to go for some free range eggs from a local farm - the roof and windows were soon closed to try and tame the rather pungent farm odours.  

I was listening to the radio on the way back home and the news reader was telling everyone how we've just had the sunniest and warmest May since records began.  The words were hardly out of his mouth when the heavens opened, I had no jacket with me and from the short distance from car to house I was soaked!

It's been warm and sunny today but while I was taking photos of this week's cards I could hear rumbles of thunder in the background but the rain has stayed away (for now).

When I first looked at this week's Freshly Made Sketches Challenge it made me think of an opened envelope so I began to have a look at what I had that would work.  Originally I was going to have the background as text like a letter but when I couldn't find anything I liked to use to make it decided rather than an envelope I would make a pocket with a decorated tag to put into it.

While having a clear out I found the head of large artificial thistle and it reminded me that I had a couple of stamp sets that I could use in a card to put it to good use in some photos.

The tag was made using the Woodware "Thistle" and Crafty Impressions "Bonny Scotland" set.  I used a section of white ribbon which I partially unravelled to make the fringed pull coloured with the same markers as the image to give the appearance of a thistle.  Another piece of ribbon was unravelled to make a fringed bow.

It was only after I posted my entry into this week's challenge and was looking over what I'd written the following day that I realised what a numpty I had been - I hadn't coloured the thistle properly, too much purple!  This is what happens when you do things when you really ought to be in bed asleep!

This is what it should look like

and not this

I also managed to lose the large thistle head I'd found so had to dig out the Eryngium & Rose posy for the photos instead.

While the sun was shining and because it was the first day of summer I decided to colour the Woodware "Wiggly Stems" set in bright summery colours. Tonic Studios ""Hello from "Folk Heart" Layering Die Set. The background paper came from a magazine "free gift". 

Pandamonium!

Big Birthday has been looming large this last week or so and today's the day!  Out for lunch this afternoon with hubby and son joined by a few sisters-in-law and brother-in-law.  I had been dreading this birthday but once I got to the restaurant and was looking round our tables I realised that, apart from our son, I was actually the youngest one there!  I felt a bit better after that. 


I recently acquired a set of Dyan Reavely's "Shut up and colour" stamps and as the dark forboding clouds of Big Birthday approached I found myself drawn to using a few of them . . . 

This one had me reaching for Tonic's Rococco Mirror  

"Auld age disnae come itsel'!" was one of my Gran's favourites. She was right, in these parts it also comes with a bus pass! I already had one due to some health and mobility issues so that may have been why I was drawn to the words of this stamp . . . 

 This next one was inspired by this week's Freshly Made Sketches challenge 

When it comes down to it age is only a number so I guess it's a case of

My entry for this week's challenge uses 3 of the 5 cute pandas from the Woodware "Pandamonium" set.  It is actually a single strip of 5 panda stamps but I found it a bit unweildy to use (doesn't fit in my stamp platform all that well). I decided that it would be more flexible to use if it was cut into two lots of two sitting pandas plus a single panda who is standing.  I nearly split the set of two in this card up as well but they sit very close to each other and didn't want to damage them if the scissors slipped.

Not a lot of colouring required for this one; just the background and an outline around each panda, 

 Finally, I guess I did

Cute Woodware "Unicorn" stamp set although I really must get the "Fantasy Land" sentiment set that matches it!

A Lovely Day in May

What lovely weather we have been having over the last few days and the garden is beginning to get it's colour back.  The sun came out on Friday just in time for "The Wedding" and has stayed for a couple of more days.  As the TV began the build up to the event, there was one song from "Calamity Jane" that kept going through my head.  It made me wonder if there was someone else humming it as she was getting ready for her big day - "Tis Harry, I'm Planning to Marry".

Whilst all the pre-amble & idle chat was going I thought I would try this week's  Freshly Made Sketches Challenge, it was either that, or help hubby sort out the garden shed - so, obviously, no contest!

Our Great-Niece, Annie, has her 6th Birthday coming up so I decided to use the sketch to make her card.  I double checked how old she was going to be as last year I made a mistake with her big sister's card and got a telling off!

The stamp I used is the Woodware "Fairy House" and I coloured it with the set of pens I recently purchased from The Works.  They should have been £40 for the 40 pens but between discount codes and reward points I managed to get £17 off - bargain!  They are really nice pens to use, I am impressed!

The colour cardstock pack was also a bargain from the local "Poundland".

This next card is to add to the all events card collection I am making for my friend who is currently housebound.  This one uses the Woodware "Whale Hello" stamp set.  The background paper is from a "Whizz Kids" paperpack and I used my marker pens to match the colour of the waves to the colour of the mat I used for the stamped image.  The background is Distress Inks in the very apt colours of "Salty Ocean" and "Mermaid Lagoon".

 

I forgot to add this card a couple of weeks ago, it is one I made for my sister's Birthday earlier this month. 

This is one of the largest stamps made by Woodware called "Jacqui's Garden".  I teamed this up with one of the Tonic Design Studios Window Box 3D die set "Tangled Terrace" (it's another one of my bargain buys!)

I learned a valuable lesson on this one, the first I'd made, in that you have to choose your cardstock very carefully to make sure it can withstand the folding.  I had used my American Craft "Heavyweight" "Summer" cardstock but it tore at the tabs and I had to reinforce them - hence the added larger flowers fussy cut to try to cover the repairs.

What's That Yellow Thing?

Good grief - it's the sun!!! 

Looks as though Spring may just have finally sprung! 

It was my older sister's Birthday on Thursday but we didn't manage to catch up until Friday,  We met up at our local farm shop and cafe - the first of the season's strawberries were in so it had to be a cream tea (although I had coffee with mine!). It was rather yummy with a cherry and dark chocolate scone, clotted cream, strawberry jam made with fruit from the farm and, of course, some new season strawberries!

Unfortunately, it has been a bit of a naughty week eating wise, and after having that plus a Chinese take out that evening I got a bit of a shock standing on the scales yesterday morning - it's back on plan starting tomorrow!

I've had some peace and quiet today as hubby is out with his brother while son is out with some friends so the time was good to sit down and have a proper look at this week's Freshly Made Sketches Challenge

I remembered a Darice embossing folder that I bought a few years ago which embossed a lacy oval but hadn't quite decided as to what else to do with it.  We have some family members moving house and I had been working on cards for them so while looking at my stamps I decided that I would use the Woodware Love Birds stamp to go with it.

It was actually warm and sunny enough to go & take photos outside, just a slight breeze to keep knocking the cards over but I got there in the end!

I used Nuvo pens to add colour to the embossed design and also used the matching pen to create both the mat and the plaque to take the sentiment "It takes hands to build a house, but only hearts can build a home".

The challenge card with other "New Home" cards I have made recently

The images were coloured using a mixture of Tonic Nuvo & Winsor & Newton Promarker pens.  For the "Three Houses" stamp set I went for the Tobermory (Balamory) coloured house look.

Whilst not exactly a new house card I just had to include a card made using the Woodware "Unfrogettable" set.  Coloured with some "Script" alcohol markers I bought in Aldi a couple of months ago.  The dragonfly has had some Sakura Gelly Roll Clear Stardust applied to it's wings.

What's the story in Balamory?  Our niece Nikki has a new home!