ONE DAY AT A TIME

Hi Everyone

Happy Monday.

This has been the last Monday I will be home alone .. .. .. Mr Heart has annual leave to take next week ahead of a new holiday year starting at the beginning of October .. .. which means from now on Monday's will be a whole new ball game .. .. both for him and for me!  I am definitely going to need a new work regime that's for sure!

We are both really looking forward to having more time together though .. .. the best times are always when we are side by side.

There have been lots of suggestions from my lovely blog pals as to what he can start doing with his extra day . .. . and I have passed them all on .. .. but so far the only response has been for him to laugh at each and every one!  He hasn't once said "that's a good idea"  or "I will have to think about that one"  LOL!

There are lots of things I am hoping he "might" do .. .. but I won't be holding my breath. It is fair to say (and he would be the first to admit it) that he doesn't have the practical DIY skills my fabby Dad used to have.  But I suppose he has other skills instead.

So I have made him a special card to mark this special day in his life .. .. and as the sentiment says .. .. the future comes one day at a time.  That is because he is going to keep reducing his working week a day at a time until he eventually retires and then every day will be ours!  Yay!!

So here we go:

This used:

Background Image:  Imagination Crafts (no name on the packet)

Butterflies:  Hobby Art Stamps "CS077D" Butterflies

Sentiment:  Paper Artsy "HP1004EZ"

Distress Inks:  Tumbled Glass and Spiced Marmalade

WOW!!  Metallic Brass Embossing Powder

Josy Rose:  Nail Heads

Glamour Dust

My Trusty Sewing Machine

Mr Heart loves butterflies so I am sure he will appreciate his card.  I don't know about you but we have had hardly any in our garden this year .. .. and those we have seen didn't actually have glitter on them .. .. but mine have LOL!!

So now Mr Heart has opened his card I can post it here.

Super busy on the wedding front at the moment with two new happy couples joining my working list, lots of samples to make, a big wedding fayre looming,along with my Niece's wedding mid October. Busy, busy fingers!!

Enjoy what remains of your evening.

FREE GIFT

Hi Everyone

Happy Saturday .. .. and happy weekend.

Another scheduled post from me today as I try to get ahead of the game in my crafty little world.

In my previous post I shared with you some of my makes from the current issue of Quick Cards Made Easy .. .. with a promise of sharing separately another commission I worked on.

Well, never being one to break a promise .. .. here we go with my third commission.  

This commission was to use the free gift .. .. and boy did I have fun!  I loved the gift so much and am still using it now!  What a great freebie!!

It is actually 9 craft items in one collection and comprises of four brilliant sentiment stamps, a Santa and his reindeer sleigh stamp, a star embossing folder .. .. and treat of treats a fabby stencil.

This is how it all looks when it is shiny and new and still in the packet:

You can't actually see the stencil too well in the packaging but this is how it starts to look when you have had hours and hours of fun with it LOL!!

I have inked through it, chalked through it, embossed through it, drawn round sections and either coloured or cut those sections out, I flipped it over so the houses and trees  ran in different directions .. .. .. and I am sure there is still much more I have yet to discover.

This won't be leaving my desk for a long time yet that's for sure.

Here are a few of the cards I  made for the magazine .. .. .. but I shall be making many more for my own Christmas stock box!!

There are instruction on how to make another of my cards using the gift here.

So there we go.  Free gift fun!!

Hopefully another scheduled post that will make an appearance.

I should probably schedule more to be honest.

My apologies for the lack of blog visiting at the moment.  I will catch up with your lovely blogs eventually I promise.

Enjoy your weekend.

JUST POPPING IN

Hi Everyone

Happy Thursday!

Whilst things are super busy this end I have lined up a few scheduled posts .. .. just to keep you busy heart searching!  I don't want you losing the knack of it LOL!!

Today I thought I would share some of my makes from the most recent Quick Cards Made Easy Magazine which went on sale this week. 

I worked on three commissions for this issue .. .. but will just share two of them today .. .. my third one I am going to give a whole post of its own because I loved the commission so much .. .. so more about that another day.

But for now here are my favourites from the other two commissions.

The first was for a technique commission called "Inlaid Glitter Cards Made Easy"

and my second was another technique commission called "Acetate Cards Made Easy" 

as always I find it hard to choose my favourites.

So all being well this post will have behaved itself and appeared .. .. another few days and I should be back on track.  

You never know I might even get a bit of housework done!!  Shock horror!

FOR THE LOVE OF VINYL

Hi Everyone

Happy Monday!

Regular visitors will know that I am the proud "part-producer" of two wonderful Sons.  The eldest one is the one who lives in London and the youngest lives locally and is obsessed with his music. 

Well it is a special day here as it is our youngest Son's birthday and my day saw me start even earlier than normal by making him a bacon, mushroom and tomato ketchup sandwich and delivering it to him along with any birthday cards and presents we had collected for him.  After the grand opening of everything I then gave him a lift into work to save him the walk.   (I promise I would do the same for you my lovely London kid if you lived close by .. .. the house next door is still for sale ??!?!! not that I would drive you to London .. .. probably just the train station.   LOL!!! xx).

The weekend saw Mr Heart and myself design a birthday card for the birthday boy based on his love of vinyl records. So here we go:

Not much I can say about it really other than it was made up of lots of die cuts, a bit of artwork in Craft Artist 2 for the record label and then some great design work from Mr Heart for the "arm" which I then scanned and cut out with my Scan N Cut (yes it is still getting used nearly every day).

So there we go.

If there is anything you would like to know then ask away, but I think it is all pretty self-explanatory today.

Many thanks for all the lovely comments on my gelli plate prints.  You are all very kind.  Surprising how so many of us crafters are so very alike.

Not sure when I am here next.  I have a few deadlines to meet.  But fingers crossed I won't be away for long.

GELLI PLATE REVIEW AND AN UP-DATE

Hi Everyone

Happy Sunday!

My apologies for being absent for a few days .. .. it was all super manic on the build up to the wedding fayre .. .. and then even more manic after it was all over!

My feet don't seem to have touched the ground and this little crafty journey I took myself on really has turned into a full-time job! Every day, week, month and even year has to be planned .. .. just like it did when I was wasting my time working hard for other people .. .. when I should probably have been working on making this dream come true earlier!!  

I enjoy being my own boss much much more . .. though I am a bit of a hard taskmaster!

My fingers have been super itchy to play with the gelli plate I made and showed you in my last post though .. .. .. and yesterday I was determined to at least have a little play.  I have had so many you tube videos playing in the background whilst I have been beavering away on other projects that I felt really ready to try my luck and have a go.

These are my first two prints from my first experiment .. .. .. and I am well chuffed with them.  I used a brayer, acrylic paints, a stencil and a piece of corrugated cardboard  .. .. :

I didn't actually have any acrylic paints apart from a huge tube of white .. .. so I invested in a little box of mixed colours .. .. a whole £5

I enjoyed mixing and creating colours as much as I did the actual printing process.

So my gelli plate has worked brilliantly with acrylics .. .. .. but sadly the same was not true when I tried working with ink pads .. .. and I tried a few different types.

My ink just seemed to soak into the plate .. .. and hardly any would lift off .. .. even if I wet it.

Never mind.  

I am content to be working with the acrylics ... .. .. but am happy to say that  an "official" gelli plate will be making its way onto my Christmas list this year!  I will be interested to see how different they are to my own homemade version.

So, am I pleased I made one?  Yes.  

It proved that this is a different type of crafting that I would like to experiment further with.  But I do I need to get over my fixation of everything needing to be clean and pristine.  It was freaking me out that I had paint on the lids of my tubes and I found myself cleaning every speck off them before I could put them away.  Life really is too short for that surely?!?!?

So that is me for today.

Once I actually use my gelli prints I will show you what I did with them .. .. but that isn't going to be for a little white yet looking at my work list for the next few days!!

Enjoy what is left of your weekend.

HOMEMADE GELLI PLATE

Hi Everyone

Happy Thursday!

I hope your day has gone well.  The weather here has got brighter and brighter as the day has progressed and has produced a lovely afternoon/early evening.

All of my orders made their way to the Post Office this morning so I have been free to get cracking on the new wedding stationery samples I am hoping to take to the next couple of wedding fayres.

These are the colours I have chosen to work with . .. along with some kraft card that has a box all of its own.  I have been making stationery using kraft card for years and years now .. .. and those are still the invites that the youngsters head for.  Quite a "long lasting" fad that's for sure!

I also had a little experimental session and have tried making my own gelli-plate using instructions that I found on Pam Thornburn's blog (Waltzing Through Life).  Basically it is water, gelatin and glycerine.

Like Pam I have always fancied having a play with a gelli-plate but haven't wanted to invest in one in case I don't like the results I get.  

I did lots of research before going ahead and some bloggers have loved it so much they have since brought "proper ones" only to find they prefer their homemade version.  No-one has actually said how long they last though!

Pam recommended using an old Ferrero Rocher box to set and store the gelli-plate in (sadly my box was already empty and I didn't need to eat lots before I could proceed).

So here is the finished gelli-plate .. .. I love the feel of it .... and every time I walk past it I have to touch it LOL!!

I didn't line my box with cling film as Pam suggested, simply because I didn't want to risk having any crease marks on my plate .. .. but I managed to get it out of the box easy enough. I may use cling now that it is set though, or trim it down a little to make it easier for getting in and out of the box.

Well I will see how I go once I use it.  I have to leave it for 24 hours now.

Not a problem though.  I doubt my results will be anything any happy couples will want on their wedding stationery.

Have a lovely evening everyone.

TEENY, TINY TUESDAY

Hi Everyone

I hope you all had a happy Tuesday! (which feels like a Monday).

I hope those of you who were treated to one, had a good bank holiday weekend.  Wasn't the weather just perfect?!

Mr Heart and I really enjoyed ours.  Lots of chores and lots of chilling crammed in .. .. .. and today we have been back into the normal routine of work again and what better way to get going than to make a teeny tiny 3.5" square creation .. .. .. shame it didn't arrive here on my blog until late though:

This used:

Backing Papers:  First Edition Papers "Bella Rose"
Sentiment:  Computer generated using font "Aracne Condensed Regular"
X-Cut Dinky Die "House"
Kaisercraft Clear Stamp Set "Fine & Sunny"
My Trusty Sewing Machine
A little piece of organza ribbon stuck behind the windows along with some pink card.

.. .. and that is me for today.

So sorry for being late in posting .. .. I have needed to work extra hard today to make up for some of the bank  holiday chilling!   I have a feeling that is going to be the theme for the whole week ahead the wedding fayre on Sunday. LOL!!!

Catch you again soon.

SKETCH ON A SATURDAY

Hi Everyone

Happy Saturday .. .. in fact happy Bank Holiday Saturday!  

A lovely long weekend .. .. a taste of what is to come when Mr Heart begins his new regime come October.  He is getting a bit excited about three day weekends becoming the norm!  I wonder why LOL!!

Yesterday I had a play with my new sketch and I decided it had better be another Christmas card (sorry) in an attempt to add to that hungry Christmas stock box.  I had intended to post last night, but sadly lack of time meant it didn't happen.

So here I am now instead: 

This used:

Sentiment:  Stampendous "CRH296" Cling Joyeux Noel

Backing Papers::  Kaisercraft "Frosted"

White Embossing Powder

Wooden embellishment heat embossed with white embossing powder

My Trusty Sewing Machine

Snowflake from the overflowing snowflake die-cut box

Ribbons and gems from my crafty stash box

Sketch Number Thirty Six from my sketch library which looks like this

Good timing though because I am able to enter this into the Rudolph Day Challenge for August.

Enjoy your weekend everyone .. .. the sun has made an appearance here already so let's hope it is here to stay for at least three days (but more if it can mange it would be good)!

Catch you again soon hopefully.

A NEW SKETCH AT LAST

Hi Everyone

Happy Thursday!

Hope you have had a good day.

I seem to be having a really good week this week and getting lots done .. .. oh for every week to be like this one! 

Lots of orders crossed off the list, wedding invitations finished ready for handing over tomorrow, a baby step forward in catching up with my commenting and even a new sketch added to my sketch library at last!  Woo hoo!!  

I have a little book with sketches doodled in them ready for sharing .. .. I just need to convert them into actual images I can share with everyone.

For anyone new to my blog there is a tab under my profile picture that will show you all the sketches currently in my collection. Please feel free to use any you like the look of.

So here is the new sketch .. .. number thirty six.

Sadly there has been no time for me to actually use it today though. I hope you like it and have fun with it if you decide to have a play.

Did anyone catch Lavinia Stamps on Hochanda this morning?  It was their first ever appearance on the show .. .. an early 8.00am programme .. .. but it was super busy for them and everything was selling really quickly. There was hardly anything left by the end so come the 2.00pm slot they were taking orders with delayed delivery .. .. and even that had to be cut short. How wonderful for them.

Anyway, that is me for today.

Catch you soon

HAPPY POST

Hi Everyone

Happy Wednesday!

I hope it has been a good day for you.

The sun actually made an appearance here this afternoon .. .. .. let's hope it is going to be around over the bank holiday weekend.

What wasn't quite so exciting was the speed at which it started to go dark tonight.  I'm not ready to say goodbye to summer yet.

A magazine dropped through my door yesterday that I had been fortunate to have been asked to contribute to.  It is one of those bumper magazine where you get lots of supplies for making a variety of projects .. .. whether you like stamping, embossing, decoupage or simply using the papers and toppers.  

When the commissions were sent I only received the supplies I needed to work with .. .. so when I saw the other items in the bundle it was a lovely surprise.

I particularly love the little row of houses .. .. how cute are they?  They will definitely be being inked up sometime soon!

As for my makes in the magazine .. .. well these were my favourites.. ..

There aren't just cards in the magazine but tags, gift bag and box ideas.  

These were my gift bag and box .. .. I loved making the little gift bag on the left it closes with a little velcro tab.  

So that is me for today.

Catch you again soon.