Finished at last!!

My Fabric book has been sitting there just waiting to be put together and last week I did it, I am so pleased with the finished article despite it having taken a year to do - note to self (again) must finish the cowgirl book next!!

Not as I planned!!

Well it's Sunday so it must be the Less is More card, this week I knew exactly what I wanted to do after seeing the sketch we'd been given, I picked the stamp and started then decided the stamp was too big so go one down - it wasn't there, in fact it was nowhere so onto plan b which I didn't actually have but I've done it and am quite pleased with the result,I used a Marianne ribbon flower die for the focal point, punched out the black strip and add matching ribbon,finally I embossed the lower part of the card with the Swiss Dots cuttlebug folder, I should mention we had to work on a DL card.The sentiment is from Polka Doodles.

Stitching again......

The first time this year that I used my sewing machine, very unusual for me but just haven't felt like it so far, anyway last night I set to and made one of my vintage style bookmarks for a friend, definitely feel better for doing it!! Off to the hobbycrafts show at the NEC tomorrow, what do I need? nothing really - have I a shopping list - yes a long one, of course.

Jungle friends and a new arrival.........

I'm really pleased how these Cricut cards turned out after staring at the die cut pieces for a while, then panicking!!! what do I do with the bits???? but in the end they were ok. The two A6 cards are for the 'soldiers' box, I thought they'd be ok to be sent back to their children and the pink one is for Viv's charity box.

Out of the Box

I've been watching Sue Wilson demo this technique, on Create and Craft TV,She stamps her design the cuts out the part that is to be 'out of the box' or out of the nestie, so I decided to have a go for this weeks Less is More Challenge which is Masculine cards, again I rummaged thro' the old stamps and found this little used Vintage car, an ideal image to use for this method. It really has been a strugle to put the card together, I started yesterday and have only just finished.

Cricut cards!

Thought I'd show that I do use my Cricut machine for things other than corners and flourishes, the new arrival card is going into the charity box for Viv and the Hippo card is going into the box of cards I'm making for a friend to send to the Help the Heroes organization, they apparently send them out to the camps in Afghanistan for the soldiers to send back to family and friends.I think baby and childrens cards are really out of my comfort zone but I think they're ok - some more in the making on my desk.

My digi 'magic'

I'm so pleased with myself that for once I managed to change the colour of this Digi stamp from the original black to this lovely orange, (and other other colours as I want them),usually when I go into a graphics programme I get nowhere so I must have been having a good day. The ribbon bow is American 'seam binding' that Jan sent me a small length of, I 'dyed' it with watered down distress inks. I'm entering the card for the Gingerloft challenge as their theme is Flowers, and for once there's not a punched out one in sight.

Less is more challenge

This weeks challenge is for a one layer card with the image going 'off the edge', I thought this old Fuschia stamp would be ideal for this as I could imagine that they are hanging down from a basket. I stamped the image with Adirondak - eggplant and coloured with Promarkers, the sentiment, also in eggplant is from Polkadoodles.I originally took a photo of my card but as usual the white looked lilac and although I tried to alter it in Picassa it wouldn't work so cleaned the scanner plate again but I can still see marks on the card close up, they aren't there in realilty - honest!!

Black and white mood.

I just made these two cards using a digi stamp for the daisies and the butterfly is the free stamp from craft stamper magazine this month.I cleaned my scanner screen but I can still see marks on the pictures.

A Follies Fan

The latest challenge on the flickr Art n Soul site is to make a fan with a french influence,I think mine is influenced by the 'Folies Bergere' (apologies if that isn't the right spelling but I'm sure you know what I mean) I've used my Martha Stewart punches for the flowers and branches then stamped and embossed in black halfway down the fan stick, I've attached the ribbon to the back so that it doesn't open and close, was that a mistake? - well my story is that it's to protect the flowers - and I'm sticking to that.

Pastel Challenge

This weeks Less is More challenge is Pastels, I decided to make text the focal point of my card, which turned to cards as I made two, and use my palest distress inks - Bundled Sage and Spun Sugar. I used a Marianne die for both, i'd had trouble cutting this with my Cuttlebug but it worked perfectly with the Grand Calibre.On the 'green' card I coloured the ribbon with the sage distress ink. Am I happy with these two cards - I don't know!!

Mini Album

At the pre xmas scrapbooking crop we were given instructions for making a mini album, I didn't want to use the xmas kit for that month so I used my own papers and card to make the basic album and promised to have it all filled for the march crop which is this saturday, this morning I thought I'd better set to and here is the finished results with photographs from our december walks around the local lakes and some stamping to fit in with the theme.