A Big Birthday - A Little Birdie (or 3)!

So far this year I've not been doing much in the way of blogging - just a combination of things between not feeling too great and a massive bout of can't-be-botheredness but hopefully now that I have made something to blog about I may just find my mojo again!

There are 3 "Big" birthdays and our 20th Wedding Anniversary in the offing this year, hubby's brother-in-law is 60, our son is 18 and my big sis is also 60.  The first is my out law Robert's birthday.  I've spent ages wondering what on earth I was going to do for him and I've lost count of the cards I've started and then gone "Meh" to. 

In the end I just started working my way through all my dies and stamps to see what I hadn't used for a while and found Elizabeth Craft Designs Karen Burniston's Katie Label Pivot die and decided to give a try. I had bought the Tim Holtz Crazy Talk stamps a wee while ago but I had only used a couple of them so they came out the folder & if you're talking Crazy then the birdies just had to come along too!

As I seem to be getting more problems with my dexterity I decided to treat myself to a WRMK Precision Press & it certainly makes a difference to my stamping.  At least now when I miss a bit I don't have to ditch everything and start again, I just re-ink and re-stamp over the missing part.

I had some cardstock which I had Distress inked up a while back but it was only after I cut out the label inserts and went to cut out lettering I realised I didn't have enough to do all the personalisation. As I had already glued the labels in place I had to try and match up the colours to do the letters and numerals - fortunately the finished results weren't that far off the original.

Hopefully Robert will like it!

 What I used

Cardstock

Linen Card 6x6 Blank - Craft UK

White Supersmooth 300gsm - Fabriano 

Stamps & Dies

Tim Holtz Crazy Talk & Bird Crazy Stamps - Stampers Anonymous
Tim Holtz Bird Crazy - Sizzix Thinlits

Smiles and Years - Lindsay Mason Designs

Inks

Tim Holtz Distress Inks - Ranger

Tuxedo Black - Memento

Assorted Promarkers - Winsor & Newton/Letraset

Salty Cat Story

I  may not have posted much lately but it doesn't mean I haven't been crafty . Perhaps not really crafty, crafty just sort of crafty as in playing about with Distress Inks to make some backgrounds that might come in handy.

I have bought a few of the Tim Holtz Distress Ink mini pad sets so have a wider range of colours to play with now - added 4 new colours to my collection at the weekend. I sat and played for a wee while the last couple of nights putting ink on to card stock - different colour combos some left as the were while other had various things done to them. Nothing too exciting just some sprayed water or a fine spray of diluted bleach. The last couple I made were done using a lot of  water over the inked card stock followed by taking my salt grinder and leaving pieces of sea salt on the card then allowing it to dry. The salt reacted with some of the now diluted inks leaving flower-like images behind.

My camera has run out of charge and only had enough power left to photograph my entry for this week's Freshly Made Sketches Challenge so will post other examples once it has charged up again.

I decided to use one of the new backgrounds on the card I was going to make for the challenge, if you look closely you can see the little flower-like areas left by the salt after it reacted with the ink. I decided to pick up on the orangey/yellow colour in the background to use as a contrast and to colour the Crazy Cat.

What I used

Cardstock

White 300gsm - Fabiano

Yellow - American Crafts

Dies & Stamps

Crazy Cat Stamp -

Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz
Crazy Cat Die & Stitched Ovals -
Sizzix Thinlits Tim Holtz
Cat Sayings - Stampendous

Inks

Assorted Mini Distress Ink Pads

Assorted Promarkers

April 3rd

April 3rd is an important day in our household.

April 3rd 1982. My husband was one of 22 Royal Marines who under the command of Acting Lieutenant Keith Mills RM  defended the small island of South Georgia against an Argentine invasion force of hundreds for several hours before finally being forced to surrender.*

April 3rd 1999 was the day our son made his first appearance into this world. Within minutes he was in an incubator hooked up to wires and tubes fighting to survive in the Neo Natal Intensive Care Unit. He is now taller than his Mum & Dad and a typical teenager.

April 3rd 2016 and Liam's 17th Birthday. When he eventually parted company with his bed and opened his presents it was a mad dash to get to the car hire in time to pick up the dual control car for his first lesson. Once the formalities were taken care of, I drove him to the industrial estate just around the corner to start his lesson - not driven a stick shift for at least 5 years so I was able to show him how to stall the engine before we'd left the forecourt!

He was rather excited about being in the car and it was showing as soon as he got behind the wheel - I had to remind him to breathe on more than one occasion! Once we got the "Cockpit Drill" done and went over what all the different controls did it was time to have a go at actually getting the car actually moving He got it moving off first time but is going to have to learn not to press down so hard on the gas! There were a couple of stalls and a bit of "I can't do this" but I just reminded him if he keeps telling himself he can't then he won't! I also asked him if he had read what was on the Birthday card I'd made for him but apparently he had only looked at the picture - typical teenager! I told him if he looked carefully at the words he would see the line "You are . . . Smarter than you think . . ."!

On the way home driving my automatic transmission car I found that old habits die hard and much to the amusement of my boy I kept going to use the gear stick only to grab a handful of air!

For his Birthday card I used this week's Freshly Made Sketches challenge sketch as it's base.

and came up with this:

I Used 

Cardstock:

Blue & Green - American Crafts, Summer

White - Fabriano 300gsm

Dies, Embossing Folders & Stamps

Bird Crazy - Sizzix/Tim Holtz

Star - Nellie Snellen

Bird Crazy -  Stampers Anonymous/Tim Holtz

Quintessential Quotes- Rangers/Dyan Reavely Dylusions

Dotted Chevron A4 Folder - EBosser/Theresa Collins

Inks

Promarkers - Winsor & Newton/Letraset

Tuxedo Black - Memento

* April 3rd 1982. My husband was one of 22 Royal Marines who under the command of Acting Lieutenant Keith Mills RM  defended the small island of South Georgia against an Argentine invasion force of hundreds. They holed a warship with an anti-tank weapon, downed a helicopter and held the Argentines off  for several hours before finally being defeated. There is a very famous photograph taken of them before the invasion began that was lucky to survive and only did so because the Argentine who took Lt Mill's camera couldn't work out how to open it! Below I've linked an interesting interview with Keith Mills given to the BBC for the 30th Anniversary.

Keith Mills Interview

Invasion - The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

Spring!

The days are getting longer now and I'm looking forward to the clocks going forward to BST next weekend. The snowdrops have been out for a while and the daffodils are now getting into bud. One thing this town is renowned for (apart from the town planners extensive use of roundabouts in the roads system) is it's floral displays and in two or three weeks time the whole town will be a mass of yellow.

Earlier today I had gone out to get something from the car and as I came back up the path I spotted something pink I didn't expect to see - our miniature cherry tree was in flower! The reason for my surprise was that I had to prune it right back last year as the top half of it seemed to be dying back. I thought I'd prune it before it went any further down the stem. There is only a few branches at the base but they are all in flower so hopefully it may be on the road to recovery! Another reason I wasn't expecting cherry blossom is that the mature cherry trees are still bare.

It's my friend's Birthday next week. I did think about using the Crazy Cats stamps & dies cos she's cat crazy but as Spring is in the air I decided to use a new die, "Spring Garden" that I thought matched the "Ditzy Floral" embossing folder I had - both are Crafter's Companion so they at least have that in common!

I Used

Cardstock

Metallic Silver Card Blank - Docrafts

Pearlised White - PayPer Box

Dies & Embossing Folders

"Spring Garden" - Crafter's Companion

"Ditzy Floral" - Crafter's Companion

Ribbon & Bling from stash.

For this week's Freshly Made Sketches Challenge I decided to stick with a floral theme as I had bought a die and stamp set called "Beautiful You" in the Sizzix website sale that was still to be played with and thought I would give it a try using this sketch.

I had been going to use reds for the flowers but decided to use a pink instead as I felt it was more Spring-like. I spent ages going through my cardstock supplies looking for a matching background for the card base and was getting to the point where I thought I was going to have to change colour scheme then it dawned on me - what a numptie! This silly eejit somehow managed to forget how I normally matches the colours I'm colouring in with . . . use the same Promarkers! I swear I actually blushed in embarrassment when I realised!

I Used

Cardstock

White Pearlised - PayPer Box

White Supersmooth - Image

Dies

Beautiful You Set - Sizzix

Inks

Smokey Grey - Memento

Winsor & Newton Promarkers

With Love

There was a bit of nail biting going on this afternoon watching some Six Nations Rugby. The "Auld Alliance" was put to one side with Scotland taking on France at Murrayfield. France had won the last 9 matches they've played against Scotland & it didn't get off to a great start when they scored a try within the first few minutes and it was 0-5. My heart sank a little but the Scots lads came through in the end winning 29-18 - I was exhausted just watching them by the time the final whistle blew! Next week it's Ireland at Dublin, always torn with that match, whilst I like Scotland to win, the Irish blood in me is always happy when Ireland win too!

My Maid of Honour's nephew is getting married in May next year & boy does that makes me feel old! He was at a Wedding Fayre with his Fiancée yesterday and they saw some invitations they liked. Taking ideas from the photos of the ones they like, I've offered to do something for them - new dies on order (just so happens one was already on my wish list!).  It's only going to be a small family ceremony at the local castle Balgonie, (the castle appears in episodes 13 & 15 of "Outlander") followed by a larger function at a hotel for friends in the evening. So fancy cards for daytime and simple ones for night time - plenty of time to get them done too, hopefully I'm not being too ambition in the design of the family ones!  I think my MoH is also planning to sub-contract some of her contributions to the cause - there are hints being dropped!

I'm still slowly but surely working on the cards for the Cat Rescue charity but this sinus infection I've had for the last 3 weeks has been making me rather lethargic and my get up and go definitely seems to have got up and went. Having said that the Freshly Made Sketches Challenges have been great help for design inspiration and I did manage to do some colouring in of a couple of stamps although I'm not entirely happy with the results! Originally I thought about trying a technique I saw Sheena Douglass from Crafter's Companion do using Tim Holtz Distress Inks to paint with but I don't have any watercolour paper at the moment and the cardstock I do have doesn't really like getting wet.

The stamps I've used are from the Penny Black's "Hugs" set

Can't make up my mind to submit the Hedgehogs or these Mice so I may end up trying to sneak them both in!

I Used

Cardstock

SS Pearlised - Create & Craft

White - Image Supersmooth

Stamps

Penny Black - "Hugs"

Personal Impressions - Paula Pascal Mixed Sentiments

Inks

Tim Holtz Distress Ink

Winsor & Newton Promarkers