WHAT DAY IS IT?

Hi Everyone

I hope you all had a great bank holiday weekend.

I have been trying to catch up with all the chores that seem to have accumulated everywhere I look .. .. and still they aren't all done .. .. and as always when a bank holiday comes into the equation the days all seem to mingle into each other.

So today I'm afraid my teeny, tiny Tuesday card has morphed into Monday's Male card which I started yesterday and finished today!  (So please don't think I have managed to fit this onto one of my tiny Tuesday cards)  LOL!!

This used:

Image:  Digistamp Boutique "Harry Fishing"

Sentiment:  Computer Generated using font "Mountains of Christmas"

Backing Papers:  Pink Petticoat (sadly no longer trading)

ProMarkers

MFT Dienamics Die Set:  Blueprints 14

Glossy Accents (for giving the fish a little shine)

Diamond Stickles

Josy Rose:  Nail Head Stars

and as I have used a fun image from Digistamp Boutique I am going to enter it into the August Customer Competition .. .. with just 21 hours to spare!!  

Catch you again soon everyone .. .. but as normal life is a little full on ..  .. but as normal fun and exciting!!

Love Jules xx

INKY CORNER COMPLETE

Hi Everyone

Happy Saturday .. .. and happy bank holiday weekend.

My re-organisation is continuing and this morning saw the "inky corner" come to fruition.

This has to be the tidiest part of my craft pod .. .. now Christened "Inky Corner".

My sewing machine can be moved across when I want to work with my inks.  Everything is to hand, including the brushes and blender tools that are stored on the top.  Hopefully that is going to mean lots more inky creations because I'm not having to keep rifling through a drawer to try and find the right colour ink pad.

The only problem I have now is where I am going to put all the 12 x 12 paper stacks that used to sit there!!  I have a feeling I will slowly be moving everything to a new home and then I won't know where to find anything.

No cardmaking today, just re-organisation this morning and then this afternoon I have been to town to order a new pair of glasses.  How much?!!  I could have had some serious crafty stash for the price they are going to cost.  Just the deposit I paid today was bad enough!!.  

It isn't easy choosing glasses when you can't really see yourself, so Mr Heart and our youngest Son kindly came with me to help choose.  My lovely Sis and her partner also had eye appointments at the same opticians so they got involved too .. .. lots of people for me to blame if I don't like them when I can actually see myself in them LOL!!

Hopefully there will be a snippet make tomorrow .. .. provided I can actually find my desk.  It is buried at the moment under boxes and 12 x 12 paper stacks.

Enjoy your evening.

Love Jules xx

NEW SKETCH FOR THE LIBRARY

Hi Everyone

Happy Thursday!

I hope you have all had a good day.  

I got a far as creating a new sketch for my little sketch library today but not actually using it .. .. you never know .. .. perhaps tomorrow!

Round to Sketch Thirty Three already.  Can't believe they have built up so quickly.

So here we go .. .. this is the newest addition:

Please feel free to use it if you like the look of it .. .. along with any of the others which are in my little library which you can find on the tab at the top of my blog.

Love Jules xx

WHITE CARD WEDNESDAY

Hi Everyone

Happy Wednesday!

I have found the perfect challenge for helping me with my white card Wednesday makes .. .. .. .. .. The CAS Mix Up Card Challenge.

The challenge gives you two compulsory elements that you must include on your CAS card and one that you choose yourself from the list provided.

This month's compulsory elements are Stamping and Sprays .. .. and for my added extra I chose "Masking".

This is my creation:

This used:

Images:  Penny Black "2521K" Snowy and Penny Black "4271L" Winter Ledge
Sentiment:  Inkylicious Clear Stamps "Walking Winter Wonderland"
Distress Ink:  Weathered Wood
ProMarkers
Glossy Accents
Crystal Glamour Dust
Red Stickles

I started by stamping the snowman onto card, then masked him off and added the distress ink with a brush all around him.  Then I sprayed the ink with a fine mist of water, allowed that to eat into the ink a little then dried it off with a tissue.  Once everything was completely dry I stamped the background image over the top, removed the mask and coloured the snowman .. .. .. he is new to my collection this year and I love him already!!!!

This didn't use up much of the white card mountain .. .. but every little helps .. .. and it does mean that a Christmas card has made its way into my rather sparse Christmas collection for this year. Yay!!!

This particular challenge ends today, but a new one will start on the 1st September. I'm looking forward to seeing what the next recipe is already.

Enjoy the rest of your evening.

Love Jules xx

TEENY, TINY TUESDAY .. .. JUST

Hi Everyone

Well as promised yesterday .. .. here I am with my teeny, tiny Tuesday card (but very late in the day LOL!!). 

But never mind.  Better late than never.

So here we go .. .. a little 3.5" square creation:

This used:

Backing Papers and Sentiment:  Kaisercraft "Treasured Moments"
X-Cut Flower Punch (but very, very old)
Ribbon and pearls from my crafty stash box
Dimension Pads
We R Memory Keepers Envelope Punch Board

I made a card very similar to this a few weeks ago and enjoyed making it so much that I thought I would try a little tiny version.

So that is me for today .. .. catch you again tomorrow. Hopefully a little bit earlier.

Love Jules xx

STILL ADJUSTING

Hi Everyone

I hope you have all had a lovely Monday.

The weather seems to have gone downhill a little here these last couple of days .. .. but we have been promised better things .. .. perhaps even as early as tomorrow!

Today has been spent trying to get the house back in order now the London Kids have gone home and Mr Heart has returned to work .. .. but I have to admit to today being a bit of a struggle.  I enjoyed spending last week doing things with all my family so much that it is taking a bit of getting back into my normal routine.  Clearly I must have enjoyed myself too much!

But get back into my normal routine I must .. .. .. as that crafty list is growing bigger by the day!!  

No new share today .. .. too many craft things need to be put back into their rightful place before I can start .. .. but I can share a couple of my makes from the new Quick Cards Made Easy Magazine which is on the shelves now.

These creation were part of a Fretwork Technique Commission.

I really enjoyed working on all the cards and to be honest struggled to choose my favourites.

So that is me for today.

I will be back tomorrow with my Teeny Tiny Tuesday creation for this week .. .. and hopefully that will kick start me back into action!!

Love Jules xx 

MATLOCK STRIKES AGAIN

Hi Everyone

Happy Friday!

Sorry for the drought on my blog .. .. .. it has been super busy here.  Lots of commissions and wedding work to complete .. .. and alongside the craftiness the London Kids are here for a few days.

It hasn't been all work though.

We have been having a great time.  Far too many meals out (not that they have finished yet) and even a  late night BBQ in the garden.  Happy times.

Yesterday we spent the day in Matlock .. .. where you may remember last time I went I bought that huge reel of cotton ribbon.

Well this time I found this little beauty:

and I have been spending some time today hoovering out the cobwebs from the little shelves and starting to fill it up.  But the slots are a little too deep so I am cutting rectangles of polystyrene for putting to the back of the shelves.  What a mess polystyrene makes!!  It is all over my kitchen worktop and floor LOL!! I wonder how factories manage to cut it without making so much mess.

I am going to have to label the side of all the inks next with the help of the download from here.  

Currently my distress ink pads sit in a plastic box inside a drawer and I end up rummaging through all of them to try and find the colour I am looking for.  So when I saw this storage unit straight away I thought of my ink pads.

I will let you have another peep once my mission is complete.

But for now I need to take the London Kids to see what my Mum has been up to since they last saw her.  They go home tomorrow :-( but we have one last special meal together tonight .. .. to celebrate the rather large birthday I had earlier this year and their wedding anniversary tomorrow.

So crafting and my blog may be back to normal soon.

Enjoy your day.

Love Jules xx

WHITE CARD WEDNESDAY, ON A THURSDAY

Hi Everyone

Happy Thursday .. .. I hope you have had a good day.

Mine has been nice and productive .. .. but still not productive enough .. .. the crafty list is still a little long with plenty more to do by Sunday evening!  Eeekkk!!

But I was determined to finish a White Card Wednesday creation that I was hoping to have posted to my blog yesterday .. .. so here it is now .. .. a whole day late!

My white card Wednesday makes involve me using nothing but white card, which I always find very challenging and a little out of my comfort zone.  But here we go anyway:

This used:

Images:  Mama Elephant Clear Stamps: Bountiful Blessings (for the base layer)

and Docrafts A5 Clear Stamp Set:  Meadow 

Sentiment:  Card-io Sentiments Collection

Scrapberry's Stencil:  Hearts (laid over a square of card covered with Worn Lipstick Distress Ink and dabbed with a wet tissue to lift some of the colour)

Distress Ink Pads:  Crushed Olive and Worn Lipstick

First Edition Die Set:  Butterflies

My Trusty Sewing Machine

Ribbon and Pearls from my crafty stash box

So that is me for today.  A Wednesday card on a Thursday .. .. just to confuse the world!  LOL!!

Love how the texture on the white card has created the lines on the main image.

Catch you again soon.

Love Jules xx

TEENY, TINY TUESDAY

Hi Everyone

Happy Tuesday!

It feels so good to be back in blogland after having had a short break to fulfill my wedding work commitments .. .. .. certainly when you have been making multiples of the same items for a wedding, sitting down to make a "singleton" feels very strange and quite a treat.  

Don't get me wrong though.  I love my wedding work very, very much.  I know it isn't something everyone would enjoy but I certainly do.  I think it is something to do with all the lovely ribbons and sparkly embellishments .. .. and meeting all of those lovely "happy couples" .. .. who I try to make even happier!.

Working on the repetitive elements also gives me the chance to learn lots of new techniques because I will often have YouTube playing in the background whilst I am working away, and I end up with a long list of things I want to try when time will allow it.  Not that today's creation features anything off my "one day I want to try" list!

So here is my teeny tiny, 3.5" creation for this week:

This used:

Image and Sentiment:  JustRite Clear Stamp Set "Doodled Birds"

ProMarkers

My Trusty Sewing Machine

We R Memory Keepers Envelope Punch Board

and that is all!

I hope you have all had a good day .. .. and as the sentiment says "It is so nice knowing you are there".  

Thank you for continuing to call by and see what I am up to .. .. even though I can be rather unpredictable at times!

Love Jules xx

MONDAY'S MALE

Hi Everyone

I hope you have had a good Monday!

Life is getting back to "sort of normal" here .. .. just for a little while!

My big wedding order was collected yesterday and I am now trying to catch up with everything else that has backed up in the meantime.

Lots of general cards needed here so I decided to grab a Penny Black stamp that is quite new to my collection and colour it up. A great image that I love colouring .. .. and it works for men, women and children just depending on the papers you put alongside.

So here we go:

This used:

Image:  Penny Black "2358J" A Song For You

Sentiment:  Computer Generated using font "Mr Sirloin"

Backing Papers:  Craft Sensations:  Mix & Match "All Time Favourites"

Die-Namics Die Set:  Blueprints12

Josy Rose:  Nail Heads

Music Note Punch .. .. very old and with no name on it

Fiskars Hand Punch "Star"

ProMarkers

My Trusty Sewing Machine

Enjoy what is left of the evening and hopefully I will be back very soon!!!!

Love Jules xx

WHAT A SLACK BLOGGER!

Hi Everyone

Happy Tuesday and happy August!

Apologies for being so quiet on my blog .. .. .. I could say that life has been getting in the way of making an appearance .. .. but that would be a fib.

It is actually weddings that have been keeping me away.

I have had a lovely bride on my books since March 2014 and it has been such a pleasure to work for her.  Her wedding is nearly here .. .. after all this time .. .. and she is making the two hour round trip to collect everything at the weekend.  All I can say is that it is a good job she has access to a van.  No way would everything fit into a car!!  

I can't believe our journey is nearly over :-(  We have worked on everything from "save the dates" to "thank you" cards .. .. and everything you can think of that goes in-between. 

So I have been super busy doing all the last  minute work for her .. .. which will finish tomorrow with the sticking down of the table plan.  Something I always have to have complete silence for .. .. and of course my tongue sticking out in concentration LOL!!

But at the same time I have also been completing other orders and making samples for new happy couples that are coming onto the scene.  Busy times!!!

No inking up my stamps and grabbing my ProMarkers .. .. except to produce this teeny tiny Tuesday make .. .. which has taken ages to make because it has been done in stages over several days. Who would have thought that a 3.5" square card could take so long to complete?

But never mind .. .. at least I have something I can share:

This used:

Image:  Hobby Art Stamps "CS125D" Peonies (I love peonies though you don't see many with sparkly edges do you?)

Sentiment and Backing Paper:  Pink Petticoat (sadly no longer trading)

Distress Ink Pad:  Worn Lipstick

ProMarkers

Glossy Accents

Quickie Glue Pen and Crystal Glamour Dust

My Trusty Sewing Machine

We R Memory Keepers Envelope Punch Board

and that is all.

I would like to say that I will see you again soon .. .. but instead I think I had better just say "I'll see you when I do" as there is still lots I need to be cracking on with .. .. and we won't even mention Christmas!!!  That stock box is looking decidedly lacking!!

Love Jules xx