The final letter - 'P'!

Dear friends,

Well, we've made it!  After a year's worth of fortnightly challenges, we are now on the final letter of the Craft Barn's alpha dictionary challenge, and it's the letter 'P'.

My choice was easy - having just made Christmas cards that featured poinsettias, it was the first word that popped into my head - I didn't even scour the dictionary for something else!  It's also the longest word I've featured in the challenge during the year with 10 letters to cut out and glue down.  

My tag features:

• A tag die from Heartfelt Creations
• 'Happy new year' die by Sue Wilson
• Poinsettia die by Spellbinders

I have really enjoyed taking part in the challenge over the year; and I've enjoyed meeting other crafters and seeing what they've created throughout bogland.  Thank you for visiting and leaving your comments.

So, to echo my tag, I'd just like to wish you all a very happy new year for 2017.  

Take care.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 

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

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

Friend

Friend

The next letter to be chosen for the Craft Barn's alpha/dictionary challenge is the letter 'f', with the added challenge of incorporating a heart in the artwork.  I have an abundance of hearts in my die collection, and so I thought I would major on hearts, linking them to my chosen word, 'Friend'.  With Valentine's Day just around the corner, it was time to dust them down.

The heart dies are from Spellbinders and the pretty pink paper is from Heartfelt Creations.

I hope you like it.  Thanks for dropping by.

Anne

Happy birthday!

I went to a lovely 70th birthday party last night which had the theme of 50s and 60s.  Oh, what to wear?  I could only think of Twiggy and mini skirts. Then I remembered the films set in that era - Grease, Blues Brothers and I was off!  Sandy from Grease was my inspiration.  No, not the leather catsuit!  The clean cut girl with a hair band.  I added a circle skirt, a petticoat and a pair of white socks with sneakers.  (Thank you Lindy Bop for making sure my skirt arrived on time!)  The outfits at the party were stunning without exception! Well, perhaps there was one exception - one family member 'misread' the invitation and organised 70s Abba outfits for himself and his wife!  Actually their outfits were pretty cool too! LOL!

The card I made for the birthday girl uses Heartfelt Creations paper and dies.  I love making 3D flowers and they appear on many of my cards.  My favourite background die at the moment is the Decorative Oval die, and the pattern is reflected in the Cascading Fuchsias paper.  I teamed them up with the Delicate Asters flowers, which I cut out of the same paper.  Finally. I stamped 'Congratulations' on a Banner die cut from Sue Wilson.  The stamp is from Lawn Fawn - I just love the friendly loopy style and am using it a lot at the moment.  

Happy birthday Irene!  And thanks for a lovely party!!

Anne

A Christmas card in February!!!

It's a first for me!

I've just made my first Christmas card for 2016.  No, I'm not being super efficient.  I simply had an idea for a card to enter the Craft Barn's weekly challenge - Triplets.  I remembered that I had some wacky stockings which would form the focal point of my card.  

What do you think?

It was a really fast card to make:

• I cut out the stockings using Spellbinders' Stocking Trio.  I stencilled through the dies with a chalky white ink.
• The garland is from Spellbinders' Victorian Tassels, decorated with the fallaway from Crystalline Border by Memory Box.
• The sentiment is from Heartfelt Creations.
• And the finishing touch was some twinkly stickles!

Thank you for visiting.

Anne