Merry Christmas! - 'M' is for Merry!

Hello!

Well we are at the penultimate letter of the Craft Barn's alpha dictionary challenge and it is the letter 'M'.  I settled down today to do two things in my craft room - to make a card for my husband and to do my entry for the challenge.

Here is my card - it uses a set of border dies that I have arranged together to imitate the images so popular in Nordic countries.  It came out better than I expected and I must confess to being quite pleased with it!  I like cutting a pattern out in different colours and then piecing them together.  This is what I have done with the sparkly elements of the card in the snowflakes, the decoration on the baubles and the stars.  I think he will like it.  

Then I immediately hit upon the 'M' of Merry Christmas as my possible solution to the challenge. What's more, I had a lot of 'waste' elements from the card and I just put them together for this tag.

It also reflects what I'd like to say to my blogging friends - I hope you all have a very merry Christmas and a happy new year for 2017.  

Take care everyone,

Anne

'Y' is for 'Yule' of course!

Hello,

The Craft Barn's challenge this week is the letter 'Y'.  Now there aren't many words beginning with 'Y', but as I'm in full swing making Christmas cards, the solution was simple!  Yuletide!

My tag uses the elements I usually have in my cards:  pretty backing paper, tags, a central image and snowflakes!  I love snowflakes and I usually add to my collection each year with something new to tempt me!

I'm off to the Craft Barn's sale in a minute - looking for some presents for two family members.

Hope you like my tag.

Have a good day.

Anne

Ice skating - my entry for 'I'

Hello,

The Craft Barn alpha dictionary challenge this time is the letter 'I'.  For me, this was a simple choice, as I've been playing with Heartfelt Creations two wintery launches called 'Celebrate the Season' and 'Snow Kissed', which contains this lovely skating snowman image.  Frolicking Frosty snowman appears on a number of my Christmas cards this year, along with the pair of skates.

I also used a snowflake stamp in white chalk ink to add to the background.

As we draw to the end of the year, there are very few letters left.  I'm trying hard to enter each challenge, but invariably leave it to the last day!  LOL!

Best wishes,

Anne O

Unite! - my entry for the letter 'u'!

Hello,

The letter for the latest Craft Barn alpha dictionary challenge is 'u'.  Now there aren't really that many words beginning in 'u' if you discount all those that begin with 'un'.  My favourite word was really umbrella, but my attempts at drawing umbrellas for a bit of zentangle were pretty pathetic, so I had to have a re-think.

I was tempted by 'Uncle Sam' - probably because the news is full of the US presidency outcome - and I thought about creating a flag and adding some stars floating off it, but then I came up with 'unite' which I've illustrated by two intertwined hearts.  

This die set is one of the first ones I bought - it's by Heartfelt Creations, which is one of my favourite die manufacturers.  It's called 'Timeless amour' and has got a number of very pretty hearts.  It's a very simple entry this time.  I've been making some Christmas cards and only just remembered that I needed to do an entry...

Thanks for visiting.

Anne

Travelling with luggage

Hello

Today's blog is for The Craft Barn's alpha dictionary challenge and this time it's the letter 'V'.  Once again I've left it to the last minute, so much so that the next letter has been announced.  It's the letter 'U'.  As I was at a loss about what to do - I'd even thought about combining both challenges and illustrating Ultra-Violet - I was beginning to think this might be the first challenge I've not completed.

Then I happened upon 'Valise' - a small case - and I was away!  I turned to a die set from Heartfelt Creations which comprises a suitcase, various labels and some tickets.  Perfect!  I then turned to a favourite postcard stamp - again from Heartfelt Creations, to link my case, label and ticket with a pretty postcard.

Phew!  Once again, late to post!  Hope you had a good weekend and are rested for the week ahead.

Thank you for visiting.

Anne. x

'E' is for Eight!

Hello!

Today's blog is my entry for The Craft Barn's alpha dictionary challenge and the letter this time is 'E'!

There are quite a few words beginning with 'E', but somehow I wasn't attracted to any of them until I came across 'eight' and 'eighteen'.  While I was initially going to illustrate 'eight' with a rowing boat (The Oxford vs Cambridge Boat Race kind!), I wasn't really happy with my rendition of the long and graceful boats, so the number not the noun it was!

I found some balloon dies (Spellbinders' 'Fun on a string') and I cut out eight balloons and mounted them on a checkered paper that reminded me of a table cloth and a birthday party!  

I added the definition, as usual, but one thing that struck me was the wording:  Eight is defined as one more than seven.  So what if you don't know what seven is?  One more than six?  And why not use the definition as one less than nine?  As definitions go, I think this one is pretty weak!

Perhaps I should have gone with eighteen after all - the tag does look a little bare!  LOL

Have a good weekend.

Anne x

Stocking filler...

Hello!

Yet again, right at the last minute, I'm posting an entry to The Craft Barn's challenge.  This time the topic is 'books', and I have decorated a little note book for my step-daughter Amy as a little stocking filler for Christmas!  

It's a tiny notebook - about 4 inches square - and I found an offcut of some pretty paper with a sort of a paisley pattern.  I then went mad with my glitter glues - purple, turquoise, dark blue, clear and green.  The main challenge was to get it from my little craft room in the garage into the house and photographed without smudging the glues.  I think I made it - just!

I'll put glitter on the spine and the back tomorrow! LOL!

I love Christmas, and I love making cards and decorations - it's never too early to start!  (Oh nooooo! I can hear some of you saying!)  I just can't help it!

Thanks for visiting my blog.

Best wishes,  Anne x 

'X' is for Xerox!

The Craft Barn's alpha dictionary challenge this month is the letter 'X'.  Well it had to come round at some point, I suppose!  I'd initially thought I'd do Xmas, but I never ever write Xmas on cards, as I really don't like the contraction, so I thought I'd try a little harder and up popped Xerox!

I found a small stamp of a jam jar of brushes - I think it was a free gift on the front of a magazine - and stamped it a number of times.  One of them was deliberately stamped off the page and crinkled - in recognition of the problems I always come across with printers and copier!

I hope you like my tag!

Have fun!

Anne

O for Olympics

Hello!

I'm writing this post from my holiday terrace in a small mountain village of Mallorca!  I just remembered to do my tag in time, photographed it and then didn't do my blog until I was reminded by the Craft Barn's blog this morning! Phew!  I don't want to miss it!

I'm entering this tag in the Alpha dictionary challenge, for the letter 'O'.  Spurred on by our recent successes in Rio, I thought that 'Olympics' would be reasonably topical and, more importantly, fairly easy for me to do when I was running out of time....

I don't tend to look to see what everyone else does before I've posted my entry.  I'd thought that lots of folk would have chosen 'heart' for the previous challenge, but I was the only one.  I bet I'm not  the only one to choose Olympics this time!  LOL!

I used up a few scraps to make this card, my usual Spellbinders font and a circle die!  

Thanks for reading my blog!

Anne

 

H is for 'heart'

Hello!

The alpha dictionary challenge this time is to illustrate the letter 'H'.  Once again I'm an hour or so before the deadline and still without my word.  Then out of nowhere my word came to me - heart! I then found an offcut from a lovely piece of Heartfelt Creations paper in a beautiful deep red with a dainty pattern. And, of course, out came my heart dies and I was off! 

My tag features a die from Heartfelt Creations (Timeless Amour) and a Spellbinders heart as well.

Best wishes,

Anne

Some cool blues for this hot summer!

Hello!

The Craft Barn challenge for this week is 'blue' - I rather think that the intention was blue skies, blue sea in tune with the beautiful summer weather we're currently enjoying.

However, I've just treated myself to some Heartfelt Creations dies and stamps from their new collection called Snow Kissed.  It's absolutely beautiful, with a stunning snowflake, a tag die (I love my tags...), snowmen and pine trees.  For my card, I chose some icy blue colours and cut up one of the 12" x 12" papers to form the background.  I stamped the pretty tag pattern onto dark paper using white chalk ink.  It's not as clear as I expected, but I quite like the mottled tones.  This stamp is gorgeous on a solid colour.  There are snow flake stamps and dies to cut them out and these are what I used to decorate my card.  Finally, I had to add some glitter - dark blue in the centres of the snowflakes and diamond over the flakes and around the edge. 

The sentiment is from Sue Wilson.   This is such a clever die - you get two sentiments each time you use it.  I've kept the 'waste' for my tag, and the words that have fallen out of it are waiting to go on the next card! (Well, assuming I don't lose them of course!)

It's quite unusual for me to start Christmas cards this early, but with so many lovely things coming out, I've made some headway.

Oh dear - it doesn't look as blue as it really is!  Will it still count?

Have a good bank holiday weekend.

Best wishes,  Anne x

Z for zebra

This week's alpha dictionary challenge from the Craft Barn was the letter Z with a pearl.  So, I needed to choose something beginning with Z and add a pearl to my tag.

I left it a bit late in the fortnight and because of some family celebrations that would take up most of the weekend, I realised that I needed to make my mind up soon!  One of my earlier tags featured zentangle, and I thought that the technique would help me depict a zebra print on my tag.  Once again, I made a stencil to produce the wording.

I'm surprised how much I enjoy making up these patterns and filling in the spaces.  It's quite therapeutic.

Hope you've had a good weekend.

Best wishes,  Anne x

On camera

Hello everyone

Today's blog is for my entry to The Craft Barn's alpha dictionary competition.  This time its the letter 'C'.  The choice for me was easy - Camera.  I remembered that I had some Kaisercraft paper featuring cameras and photography and I thought they would be perfect to illustrate my word.

Trouble was, where did I put them?  Some hours later and the tidiest of tidy craft rooms, I had found them.  I'd used the papers at one of the mini-album classes I go to, and all that was left were a few tiny scraps!  As they were in sepia, I decided to make the whole of my tag sepia, reflecting the golden age of photography with negatives and slides.

As well as my Kaisercraft paper (sorry, I can't remember the name!), I used:

• Font 1 from Spellbinders
• A sizzix die for the slide mounts 
• Tim Holz distress inks - vintage photo (what else!)

Thank you for visiting my blog,

Anne x

Clean and simple - part 2

The two-weekly challenge from the Craft Barn is clean and simple.  As I mentioned on my last blog, I don't really do clean and simple very well as I have a tendency to embellish.  I thought I'd have a second entry this week.

This heart is one of the first dies I bought so I have a great fondness for it, and I still think it's better than lots of hearts around.  It's a Memory Box die.

I've teamed it with my favourite set of sentiments called 'scripty sayings' by Lawn Faun and a small rose from Spellbinders Bitty Blossoms.  I've made two cards.

I hope you like my second entry for the challenge.

Thank you for reading my blog.

Anne

Clean and simple

The two-weekly challenge from the Craft Barn is clean and simple.  I don't really do clean and simple very well as I have a tendency to embellish, and add, and add some more, and then do some glitter, and some more... But I thought I'd have a go.

This is a belated birthday card for a family member who does not really go in for fussy things, so a perfect candidate for my card.  I have used three die sets:

• 'Happy' from Sue Wilson's perspectives collection - I love the concept of this die set.  It comes with a variety of words to help you extend its use. You can cut into the card as I have done, or you can cut out of card.  I really hope she brings out some accompanying add-ons to help with 'Happy Christmas' and 'Happy New Year'
• Spellbinders Marissa's bouquet - this is a die set with a number of different simple flower styles and leaves.  Perhaps I should just have had one layer, not two!  (Oh dear, I can't help myself adding things)
• Spellbinders Tag Trio - this is a die set with three patterned tags.  I like the bunting for birthday cards, but there is also a heart version and a sunbeam pattern.  They make a nice embellishment for a man.

It's a fast card to make too.  It takes just one A4 sheet of card and a contrasting layer for matting, plus some scrapes for the tag and flower.  I found a nice glass centre for the flower.

I hope you like my entry for the challenge.

Thank you for reading my blog.

Anne

Numbers, numbers

Today I'm sharing a tag that I've made to enter the latest Craft Barn's alpha dictionary challenge.  It's the letter 'N' and as I was going through the dictionary, I was beginning to wonder if I'd manage to do anything!  Night, nut, nine came to mind, but then I found number!

Having recently gone through the cupboard where I keep my embossing folders,  I already knew I had a nice folder called Numbers and Letters from Spellbinders.  I often forget to get out my embossing folders, but I'm always so pleased with the impression you get for the folders!  I gently rubbed some ink over the tag to bring out the numbers and I added a few numbers form a Memory Box set.

Oh dear! I've not been very straight with my letters this time!  Haha!

Thank you for visiting!

Anne

Butterflies

The latest Craft Barn challenge is 'butterflies' - well, that's quite an easy one for me as I frequently add a butterfly to most birthday cards I make.  I don't often add more than one, though!

This card uses a mini striplet die by Sue Wilson called 'Butterflies in flight' and I have cut it out four times to create a frame for my sentiment.  The fallaway from the die cut leaves you with a number of butterflies that you can add to your creation.  It's quite a quick card to make for those occasions when a birthday comes up unexpectedly.  The sentiment is from Justrite.

How many butterflies can you see within this card?  

Thank you for visiting my blog,

Best wishes,

Anne O

Winter in July!

Well, with the weather we're having at the moment, you could be forgiven for thinking that we're experiencing winter - wind, rain, cold.  You never know what to wear or what to take out with you!

The reason for my title in this blog is that the alpha dictionary challenge for the Craft Barn this time is the letter 'W', and I have chosen to illustrate 'winter'.  I think I've also been influenced by all the lovely new dies for Christmas that have been hitting the craft stores and showing online!

I love making Christmas cards and so I very happily dug out some of my wintery dies!

The paper I've used is a small scrap of BoBunny paper featuring snowflakes, and I added a few snowflake dies on top.  Finally, I added a liberal pinch of glitter in all the centres (although the photo does not show it terribly well!)

I had an even smaller scrap left over and so I made a small Christmas card, using Sue Wilson's tag die and her new Christmas sentiment.  I really like the style of the sentiment, combining capital letters and a friendly scripty font.  OK, so that's the second Christmas card I've made so far!  Only about 80 to go! LOL!

Thank you for visiting!

Keys, keys, keys!

The letter 'K' is the challenge for this fortnight at the Craft Barn's alpha dictionary challenge.  K doesn't seem to have very many words in the dictionary and I was at a loss about what to do until I happened across 'key'!

This tiny word has so many meanings - additionally, it's a noun, an adjective and a verb, so lots of opportunity for illustration.  My tag illustrates two of the meanings - physical keys which I have cut out using Heartfelt Creations Burnished Key die; and a motto (Keys to a good life) taken from the Burnished Key background.

I stamped the key images and coloured them with mica powder - the photo is a bit flat but the keys are all quite shiny in real life.  

I'm pretty hopeless with keys.  Not only do I seem to spend half my life looking for them, but I always manage to be involved in a key drama on holiday.  One year I locked the keys in the car at a pretty remote beach in Mallorca, so my husband and I had to walk from the beach up to the town (quite a hike in heat) and catch a bus back to the next village to retrieve a spare set!  Then at our most recent holiday, we managed to lock a phone in the car at the airport and they weren't able to come out in time - so no phone for my husband for a week until it arrived home having been nicely packed up and posted!

Hope you like my tag - thank you for visiting my blog.

Anne x

A simple happy birthday card

Hello

My blog today is a simple 'happy birthday' card made with my balloon dies ('Fun on a String) by Spellbinders and a sentiment by Dee's distinctively   I'm entering it for the Craft Barn's two-weekly challenge where the challenge is to feature stars.  I was about to draw some as part of a Christmas card, but then quite by accident I found a sheet of backing card with quite multiple stars in foil, so I had the basis for my card.

I simply matted the backing sheet onto red card and made the sentiment and balloons out of red and silver to match and layered them all together.  

It was quite tricky to photograph as I kept being able to see my reflection in the mirri board behind the sentiment!

Hope you're enjoying your Sunday.  We have a sunny day with no rain here today - quite a novelty.

Thanks for visiting,

Anne

Beautiful Dreamer mini-album

The latest Craft Barn challenge is all about two different papers.  Ahah!  Right up my street.  I love buying and collecting papers and have only in the last 18 months or so taken to actually cutting them up and using them!  

As I've mentioned in a previous blog, I've been taking part in Kathy Byrne's mini album classes.  Last year's classes were for anyone with no experience, and this year I've joined the 'masterclass'.  

My entry for this challenge is a mini-album with a box and a drawer.  It is decorated in 8 different papers from Bo Bunny's Beautiful Dreamer paper and stamp collection.  I love the colours - the greens and pinks are gentle and pretty.  There are some beautiful illustrations of hot air balloons and and traditional bicycles alongside some quirky pictures of owls.  

Part of the charm of making mini-albums is the think about how photographs will look, using fold out and fold up pages, making hidden pockets to contain tags and other messages.  I've posted two photographs today of my project.

The first photograph is the outside of the min-album; the second is a close-up of the inside and a sample spread.  I really like to decorate the tabs.  The various die cuts on the tags and pockets are from Heartfelt Creations.  I've used Regal borders and pockets for the longer decoration running the length of the page, and Ornate borders and pockets for the tabs (you can just see a green tip poking out of the drawer).

A real test was making the drawer fit - not too snug, not too loose

Here are some of the pockets!

I'm typing this blog from my holiday in Mallorca!  It's a beautiful summer's day here in the north of the island, and our terrace looks out onto the stunning Tramontana mountains.

Here are a couple of pictures - I couldn't resist sharing them!

We've got a full week still to enjoy!  Normal blog service will be resumed soon.  Haha!

Thank you for visiting.

Anne

'T' for Tag

I'm getting ahead of things for this post as my holiday beckons!

The letter for the latest Craft Barn's alpha dictionary challenge is 'T'.  'T has quite a thick section in my dictionary, but I didn't even open it before I'd chosen my word to illustrate.  I'm entering tags for each challenge, so the obvious solution for me was to do a tag of tags!

It's fair to say that I have more than one tag die!  Some of my favourite ones are in the Heartfelt Creations' Luggage and Labels set.  They co-ordinate with their papers too, and this is what I've done here, using the very pretty Cascading Fuchsia paper.  I like using these tags as part of a more ornate birthday card.

Fuchsias are one of my favourite summer plants - as long as you keep deadheading, they keep going until it gets really cold.

Thank you for visiting my blog.

Anne

The letter 'A'

That's my letter!

The letter for the latest alpha dictionary challenge from the Craft Barn is the letter 'A'.  Now that's my favourite letter - it's not only my initial but also the initial of my birthday month!  That lead me to thinking about birthdays and so the idea of illustrating 'age' popped into my head.  Here we go:

Rifling through my dies

I used dies from seven different sets to create this tag!  The alphabet die cuts were from Spellbinders' font one (upper and lower case).  I then cut out some numbers from each of the three numeral sets that I have - Memory Box typewriter numbers; Spellbinders' Victorian numbers and Etched alphabet.

Finally, the sentiment, balloon, heart, star and tags were from Sentiment 3, 'Fun on a string' and Tag Trio - all from Spellbinders.

The Tag Trio is one of my 'go-to' dies at the moment - especially good for male cards. I've made a few clean and simple cards recently and I use them to support the sentiment.

I made the card here for my nephew Daniel for his recent 30th birthday.  I used a  die set from Sue Wilson, from her Perspectives Collection called Happy.

I need to get ahead on the next challenge as the closing date is while I'm away on holiday - can't wait!

Have a good bank holiday weekend.

Anne

Dragonfly jigsaw

Welcome to my blog and today's project is for the Craft Barn's alpha dictionary challenge.  When I heard what it was - the letter 'J' and containing a dragonfly, I didn't immediately think of anything.  Did I have a dragonfly stamp?  How difficult would it be to draw one?  Perhaps I had something from a magazine?

Well it turns out I did!  I have the beautiful dragonfly stamp from Indigo Blu in their dinkie range.  Now for the 'J'.  Jam, jumper, July, June - all featured in my thinking, until I had a sudden brainwave - JIGSAW!

So here is my entry, a dragonfly jigsaw using some Heartfelt Creations paper from their Ariana Blooms collection.  

I've not checked to see if anyone has come up with anything similar - but at least I won't be doing it an hour before the deadline, as I did with the last challenge!  

Thank you for visiting my blog.

Best wishes

Anne x

Seaside fun

This is my latest entry to the Craft Barn's alpha dictionary challenge

The chosen letter for this time is the letter 'S' with the additional twist that it must contain a shell in it.  I took ages to decide what to do and in the end I chose 'seaside".

I had a stamp and die from Heartfelt Creations for the anchor and I made the lifebuoy from a circle, and I found some paper with a starfish and the shel.

Can you find the shell?  I wonder what the next letter will be in the challenge.

Best wishes

Anne

Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer....

Hello everyone

Today's post is my entry for the Craft Barn's alpha/dictionary challenge.  The letter for this challenge is 'D' and I have chosen to feature daisies.

Now while I have lots of flower dies, none of them were really very daisy-like (other than the flowers I featured in the last challenge when I chose garden as my topic).  I didn't want to repeat the flowers and so I though about illustrating daisies in a different way.

I'm quite intrigued by zentangle and so I decided to use zentangle techniques for my tag.  Of course I couldn't leave my die cuts behind entirely, and I made a stencil to draw round for the lettering and a label die for the mini-tag.  I had a few practice daisies and then I was off!  I really enjoyed playing with these patterns and I will definitely try some more on my cards.  

Thanks for visiting my blog!

Anne

Mini-album time and a cheeky entry to a challenge

Hello,

Since the beginning of 2015, I have been attending a monthly mini-album class, run by Kathy Byrne who is a lovely tutor with loads of patience.  I'm now attending the 'master class' and our albums are gaining in complexity.

I'm sharing my latest album today and entering the Craft Barn's challenge at the same time. The challenge is to share some craft containing rabbit and and oval.  Well I searched my stash high and low for a stamp or some paper with a rabbit on it to no avail.  

Then in chatting at my mini-album class last week, it was pointed out that my papers are all from a gorgeous range  by Bo Bunny.  Surely that would meet the criteria?  Secondly, one of the elements that I use had an oval within it. So here goes, here is my cheeky entry for the challenge.

If you have never tried your hand at making a mini-album, give it a go.  There are some great ideas online and they are much easier than they look.  There is a bit of discipline involved in cutting papers, cardstock and chipboard to specified sizes, but it's a lovely feeling when you show off your first album and it's greatly admired.  

Beware, though, they are not everyone's cup of tea and you are just as likely to get the reaction of 'what's it for?'  I've made a few for special birthdays and dug out some old photographs to include. 

So fingers crossed that my entry is accepted.  

Have a good week everyone.

Anne

How does your garden grow?bouquet

The post for today is another challenge from the Craft Barn's alpha dictionary challenge.

For this challenge, it's the letter 'G', and the idea I had was to feature flowers from a garden.  Making flowers for my cards is one of my favourite things to do and so I dug out some pretty papers to use.  The die set is a set by Spellbinders called Marissa's Bouquet, which produces very pretty simple flowers.  I've probably gone over the top here, but they're perfect for clean and simple cards.

Here's a lovely sample of them from Christine Emberson's blog Creativity Continues.    

And here's my Garden tag:

I took it quite early in the morning and the shadows are evident.  Sorry about that!  The definition (which is part of the challenge) talks about a lawn and flower beds, and cultivated plants for enjoyment.  While I get a lot of enjoyment out of my garden, it's mainly to do with defeating weeds and eradicating snails!

Have a lovely weekend.  I might even get the chance to make a start on the garden for the first time this year.

Have fun.

Anne

Going round in circles

Today's blog presents my entry in the latest Craft Barn two-weekly challenge.  It's all about circles, in honour of the Hula Hoop, but the circles have to be the background.

I've made a clean and simple birthday card using two die sets from Sue Wilson (intertwining circles and pierced flags) and a highly stylised flower from Heartfelt Creations (sweet Juliet).

I cut the small striplet die twice into blue card and mounted this onto a white card.  I then cut two pierced flags in different sizes to form a matt, and stamped a sentiment from my favourite sentiment stamps (Lawn Fawn's scripty sayings).  

Finally, I wanted to ensure that the card was suitable for males as well as females and so I used the unusual 'flower' from Sweet Juliet, to finish it off.

I hope you have all had a lovely Easter.

Anne 

Rock and roll

The next letter in the Craft Barn's alpha/dictionary challenge is the letter 'R'.  My first thoughts were to have something like 'romance' where I could carry on using my heart dies, or 'roses' where again I have an array of suitable papers and dies.

Then, when flicking through my dictionary, I came across 'rock and roll' and decided that I would try my hand at this!  I found some lovely papers by KaiserCraft and used them with some ancient peel offs that I'd bought to make a birthday card for my music-mad son.

I've been away from my craft room for a while due to holiday and then a busy first week back, so it was nice to get back to it.

Hope you're having a nice weekend.

Anne

Mother's Day cards

I'm using today to post two cards for my mother and my mother-in-law.  

They both love flowers and I chose fuchsia for my mother and asters for my mother-in-law.  We are on holiday at the moment so we won't see either mum, but we'll be calling them to say hello.

The fuchsia card uses Heartfelt Creations dies, stamps and papers, and I coloured them with Pan Pastels. 

The asters card also uses Heartfelt Creations dies and papers.  I just love the background die - it provides such a pretty backdrop to the card.

Our love to you both.

Anne x

Clean and simple challenge

I'm entering the Craft Barn's challenge to produce a clean and simple card than contains a sentiment and a flower.  I find clean and simple quite tricky as my natural inclination is to add more and more and more!  And, of course, I like to add glitter...

For this card, I used a memory Box die for the heart and matted it on a red layer for impact.  I used my favourite Scripty Sayings from Lawn Fawn for the sentiment.  Of course I needed to add a flower, and I chose one of Spellbinder's bitty blossoms.  At the last minute I decided to matt the top layer at an angle, and I'm rather pleased with the effect.  I hope you like it!

Best wishes,

Anne x

Labels for Luggage - the letter 'L'

This is my entry to the latest Craft Barn alpha/dictionary challenge for the letter 'L'.  My initial thought was to feature luggage, but I came up against an immediate hurdle - the word 'luggage' was way too long to fit onto any of the tag dies I possessed.  

So my next thought was to think what every piece of luggage needs - a label!  The paper I've featured is KaiserCraft's Teddy Bears' picnic range.  One of the labels came from the pad's embellishment page and the other was cut from a Heartfelt Creations die.

I've a holiday coming up and so this has quite put me in the mood!

Thanks for stopping by.

Anne

Craft Barn challenge: hearts

The latest challenge from The Craft Barn is 'hearts', as long as they are not red!  Around this time of year I start to think about the most difficult card of the year - a birthday card for my husband.  Well, this gave me the idea to combine the theme of hearts with a birthday card for someone special.  

  I decided to keep it simple, using a pretty paper from KaiserCraft's Teddy Bear's Picnic range.  It's a delicate blue/green paper with spots and definitely no red in sight.  I chose to use it with a contrasting colour of cream.  First of all I passed the background paper through Sue Wilson's Cascading Heart's embossing folder, inking the edges slightly before matting onto the background.  I used Spellbinders Sentiments 3 for the wording, and two Heartfelt Creations hearts which I cut and interlinked.  This die set (Timeless Amour) was my first introduction to Heartfelt Creations several years ago, and I return to it again and again.

I hope you like my entry for the challenge - just don't mention this post to my husband!  LOL!  There's a week or so before his big day.

Thanks for stopping by.

Anne

Monochrome magic

Two of my favourite blogs have featured monochrome cards recently (John Next Door and Particraft Sue Wilson's blog).  I really like monochrome as an option for cards for men - it lends itself to patterns and the starkness of using just two colours is very striking.

My card today is a twist on a card which featured on Sue Wilson's blog here.

I had to make a card for someone who is male and 60, but who I didn't really know very well. I wanted it to be as clean and simple as possible and I'd admired Sue's use of positive and negative on her card.  I chose a bright white hammered card and a some gun metal pearlised card.  After cutting the pieces out, I butted the die cuts together and combined them with a very simple sentiment from Lawn Fawn - one of my favourites currently.  Finally, to add some interest, I added a label with the number 60 on it and some white twine (no ribbons, glitter or bows in sight!).

The die is intertwining from Sue Wilson - the fallaway items are in general quite large, and my next project will be to cut it out in different colours and insert the pieces in the gaps, just like a mosaic.  For some unknown reason, I really enjoy piecing the die cuts back together!  And, unlike a jigsaw puzzle, if I lose a piece, I can always make another one!  

Have a happy Saturday!

Thanks for stopping by.

Anne