Schooldays

The April House challenge on UKS was to use this sketch

I rotated the sketch

I used a Sarah's Cards kit from January 2011 - Fancy Pants 'Happy Together' and some wide lace from my stash.  The flowers were punched with an EK Success punch and shaped.  The photograph was my first school photo taken in 1969 - gosh that makes me feel so old LOL!!

Bride and Groom

At the end of March, Jill from Cardinal Colours  organised a two day crop at a local hall.  It was a lovely weekend and some of the design team from Scrapology also organised optional classes.  I decided to do the Sweet Nothings class with Lynn Cooper.

I now have another beautiful layout for my wedding album

The paper was Kaisercraft Sweet Nothings and the title was done with Woodware Chippies painted with acrylic paint and crackle medium.  The beautiful flowers and butterfly had been crocheted by Lynn and we further embellished them with felt, ribbons and pearls.

Paper roses, pearls on wire and leaves were then added to the flower cluster for further embellishment.

Thank you Lynn for such a lovely page - I love it and have made it the title page for my wedding album.

Family Portrait - L is for Lace

This month's challenge on the Scrapology blog is L is for Lace and as always there is a lovely sketch for the challenge.

I used a photograph from the cruise that my parents took last year with my dear niece to celebrate her 21st birthday.

I used Sarah's Cards March kit - 3 bugs in a rug 'Ashtyn and some pink lace from my stash.  The lacy daisy border is a Martha Stewart PATP set.  The flowers were die cut with a sizzlets 12" border die and the swirls are a Die-namics die.

There is still time to enter the challenge as it doesn't close until 5th May.

Twenty One

This month the challenge on the Sarah's Cards blog is a sketch challenge.

I used the December Sarah's Cards kit - Webster's Pages 'All About Me' and a lovely photograph of my dear niece on the cruise that she went on to celebrate her 21st birthday.

I coloured the doiley with Pumice Stone distress ink and the thickers were coloured with an Umber Promarker as they were a bit too light for the layout.  The punched butterfly strip and top butterfly are Martha Stewart punches and the large butterfly is a Spellbinder die.

You still have time to enter the challenge as it doesn't close until 30th April.

Oh so cute - part 2

Another card for this month's challenge at Penny Black and more @allsorts.  I had prepared too many images for my Easter cards but that wasn't a problem as they were perfectly suitable for birthday cards.

I used K&Co paper and the ribbon is from Stampin' Up.  The image is from a T for transparent set 'Garden Friends'.  The image was coloured with Promarkers.

I also made these cards as well to use up some of the images

Cute wedding

Another card for the Penny Black and more @Allsorts Oh so Cute challenge.

I recently bought this lovely stamp from Lily of the Valley and it is ideal for a cute wedding card

I coloured the image with Promarkers and layered a further image on top of the base image to give it some dimension.  The roses and the bouquet have been lightly dusted with Diamond Stickles.  The base paper is K&Co and I layered another sheet of K&Co over the top which had first been punched using a Martha Stewart Punch all over the page set - I have finally got the hang of how to line the punch up to make a lovely lace effect.  The lace is from Sarah's Cards and the roses are from Wild Orchid Crafts.  The mats were cut using a deckle edged rectangle nestability die.

 This card is also perfect for week 13 of the 52 card challenge which was to use lace or doilies.

Spots and Stripes

The challenge this week at Penny Black Saturday Challenge is to use Spots and Stripes.  I just happened to have these lovely papers from Stampin' Up leftover from a card kit and as they were already out it seemed silly not to get on and use them.  I have made an easel card for one of the 18th birthdays that I have this year.

This flying hedgie is a real favourite of mine at the moment, the actually stamp has a banner of hearts flying from the back of the plane but it is so easy to leave them off.  I found the two die cut clouds in a bag of die cuts when I was having a tidy up of stash the other evening - I think they are Sizzix and I cut them years ago when a friend brought round the original big heavy red machine to demonstrate it to me - just goes to show if you hang on to something long enough you will eventually use it LOL!!  The sentiment and oval mats are all Stampin' Up.  The red glitter numbers are AC Thickers.

I coloured the image with Promarkers.

Sarah's Cards Retreat layouts Part Two

Also on Saturday we did this lovely class with Claire  We used Echo Park 'Happy Days'.  I put a slightly different flower on the layout as the flower that Claire had made by rolling punched circles into cones was very bulky.  I cut my flower on the Big Kick using the Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die.

Obviously this is not my Mum and Dad - this layout will go in my niece's album.

The first class on Sunday was with Helen and we did this lovely sparkly layout using American Crafts Amy Tangerine papers and the new AC glitters.  I love how we made the chevron pattern ourselves with small strips of paper and will definitely use that again on a layout.  The layout also featured some hidden journalling

Our final class of the weekend was with Jen and we made this gorgeous sun ray page using Jillibean Soup 'Homemade 6 bean soup'

It doesn't really show in the photo but the photo is mounted onto acetate which is raised up on foam pads so it gives the effect that the photo is floating on the page.  Jen showed us a really easy way of cutting all the papers, now that I have my template I will use this again for another layout.

On the Friday evening we were all given a page kit and if you wanted to you could join in with the challenge of using it but were restricted to what other supplies you could use with it.

I made this layout of dear niece celebrating her 21st birthday last year on a cruise with my parents

Sarah's Cards Retreat layouts Part One

Last month I had a fabulous weekend at my 3rd Sarah's Cards retreat in Warrington.  As always there were some lovely classes to participate in -

We kicked off the weekend with Tracey's class on the Friday evening using LilyBee 'Harvest Market' papers.  I wouldn't normally pick bright papers like these for a christening layout but they do really work.

Saturday morning we did this beautiful class with Ifa - a wee bit out of my comfort zone as it involved misting and as you can see my misting skills still need working on.  I found these lovely pictures of my Mum taken on Eastbourne beach in the late 50s/early 60s and they were perfect for the layout.  We used Crate 'Paper Heart' and American Crafts Flutterbys which are not as easy to use as they look, it is very easy to get in a right mess with them LOL!!

On Saturday afternoon we did this class with Lou - it was really lovely but needed lots of precise measuring for each part of the grid.  We used My Mind's Eye 'Lost and Found II'

I will put the other three layouts in another blog post.

Christmas in March Part 2

Here are the other Christmas cards I made last month -

Stamps - Penny Black except the last two which are Lili of the Valley
Sentiments - Personal Impressions except the last one which is Lili of the Valley
Paper - Stampin' Up, Craft Creations and DCWV
Punches - Woodware, Stampin' Up and Martha Stewart
Pearls & Bling - Sarah's Cards, Bazill and Papermania

Christmas in March Part 1

Finally last month I actually got a decent amount of Christmas cards made - whilst away at Meadow Barn with the Twilighters I made a load of cards, including 12 Christmas ones.

Here are the first 6 -

Penny Black stamps
Sentiments - Personal Impressions
Paper - DCWV, Stampin' Up and Brenda Pinnick
Punches - Woodware, Stampin' Up
Pearls & bling - Sarah's Cards

Case It Challenge with Penny Black Saturday

This week it was a Case It challenge over at Penny Black Saturday challenge and our inspiration was this lovely card from Helen.

This is the card that I made -

I used two different colours of Whitewashed Core'dinations which were embossed with a Cuttlebug embossing folder and then sanded to reveal the core colour.  The ribbon is from Stampin' Up and the sentiment is Hobby Art.  A bit different from the usual cutsie style card that I make but it was nice to have a change.

Oh so cute

The challenge this month at Penny Black and more @ Allsorts is Oh so Cute.  I had a pile of images that were ready to go on cards leftover from making Easter cards so I used this sweet Penny Black bunny to make a card

The paper is from a Lakeland pack and the sentiment is Wild Rose Studio.  The ribbon and bling is from my stash.

The image was coloured with Promarkers

I lightly highlighted the flowers with gold Stickles

Scrapology March card challenge

The March card challenge at Scrapology is to use a digital image.  I was a little bit stumped at first as I don't own any digital images but then I remembered that I had won some digital decoupage images from The Crafty Purple Frog last month.

One of the sheets I picked was Red Hearts, I really liked this gothic fairy.

The backing paper is Brenda Pinnick and I overstamped it with grey versamark ink and a fancy pants stamp.  The pink heart bling is Papermania and the sentiment is Personal Impressions.  It doesn't show very well in the photograph but the image is very 3d as it has 5 layers.  I will definitely make some more cards using these lovely images.

Ten Things on the 10th

It is amazing how quickly the 10th seems to come around each month and once again it is time to join in with Shimelle's 10 things.

I thought this month I would share my 10 favourite musicals - both Mr P and I love a good musical (though he is not so fond of some of the older ones that I like).  But we both agree that the best musical ever is

1.  Phantom of the Opera

I have seen it three times now and would happily see it again and again - it is a beautiful visual spectacle and the music is wonderful

2.  Les Miserables

I have been to see this four times now and each time I still weep buckets, thankfully I am never alone and my pack of tissues usually ends up being passed down the row LOL!!  I'm looking forward to seeing the film version of the musical once it is finished.

3.  The Sound of Music

This was the first musical I fell in love with - my Nan had the record and I played it all the time - for a brief spell I wanted to be a nun when I grew up LOL!!  A couple of years ago I was lucky enough to see Connie Fisher play the part of Maria when a touring production came to Eastbourne

4.  Blood Brothers

Another favourite of mine which I have seen several times and it is another real weepy one.

5.  Evita

I never got to see this in the West End but have been lucky to see it locally with touring productions, this will always be in my top 10.

My favourite song is High Flying, Adored

6.  Spamalot

This has to be the funniest musical I have ever seen - I took Mr P to see it in Brighton for his Christmas present last year - we are both Monty Python fans and found it hilarious, we were lucky to see Jodie Prenger and Todd Carty in it and can't wait until it is this way again as we would love to see it again.

7.  West Side Story

 An oldie but still an excellent one and a real weepie too.  I have lost count of how many times I have seen this one and I have the film on video too.


8.  We Will Rock You

We are both Queen fans so it was inevitable that we would go to see this - I took Mr P for his 40th birthday present and we enjoyed it so much that we immediately booked to go again the following month.  Definitely one to see if you like the music of Queen and don't take things too seriously.

We also discovered through seeing WWRY the amazing Kerry Ellis, she has an absolutely stunning voice - I don't think there was a dry eye in the house when she sang No-one but you.  Can't wait till December when we will see her in War of the Worlds.

9.  Miss Saigon

Are you beginning to see a pattern here that I like musicals that make me cry - it isn't intentional but I do tend to find the best musicals have some wonderful blubarama moments in them and Miss Saigon is no exception.  Sadly I have only seen this once though I play the soundtrack all the time - it is no longer in the West End and we haven't had any touring productions come this way.

10.  Oliver

 

Another oldie and yes a bit weepy too but it has a lovely happy ending LOL!!

So that is my ten for this month - sorry it is such a long post, I could easily have made it 20 musicals LOL!!  Looking forward to seeing what other ten's people have posted this month!!