First go at earrings - July's Monthly Make

My Monthly Make for July is earrings.  I am slowly getting the hang of this jewellery making lark and needed a pair of earrings to match this bracelet that was my May Monthly Make.

So these are what I came up with -

I was really pleased with how they came out and then my sister asked me to make her some red earrings.  As I wasn't totally sure what she wanted apart from red and dangly, I made her three pairs to choose from -

I'm now just waiting to hear which pair she preferred!!

Summer Blooms

The July challenge at Penny Black and More@Allsorts is Summer Blooms.  I had the ideal stamp for the challenge - this lovely hedgie lazing in his deckchair.

The sentiment is Lili of the Valley and the butterfly punch is Martha Stewart.  I haven't a clue what the papers are as they came out of my scraps box but I think the top one might be K&Co.  I used yellow stickles for the daisy centre.

The images were coloured with Promarkers.

I am also entering this for the Anything Goes challenge on J&C Creations Challenge blog

Twilight Addicts Cybercrop - My Challenge!!

This weekend the Twilight Addicts social group on UKS are having a little cybercrop.  We are all setting our own challenge for the cybercrop and will have a week to complete the challenges.

This is my challenge -

* Scraplift this layout by our fellow teamie Carin from Life, Love and Scraps
* Use either bold and loud colours like Carin has used or use a more soft and muted colour palette
* Use Patterned paper only
* Feature stitching somewhere on your page - this could be doodled or stamped if you really don't want to    get the needle and thread out.

This is Carin's lovely layout that she did as part of her work for the Bo Bunny Design team -

And she has provided a sketch too -

This is my scraplift using a more subdued colour palette.  The papers are Basic Grey Wassail.

I have handstitched all round the outside of the layout and the outer circle, plus the bunting is stitched on too.

Other supplies used are Creative Memories alphabet stickers and Papermania gemstones

Bikini Cow Birthday

The challenge this month at Penny Black Saturday Challenge is Summertime.  I have the perfect stamp for this - a cow in a bikini and it makes a nice funny card for men.

Supplies -

Penny Black 'Cheers'
Stampin' Up punches
Maisy Mo black rub ons
Paper - from stash and has no brand name on it
Sentiment - personal impressions
Self adhesive gems from Sarah's Cards
Coloured with Promarkers

I am also entering the card into these challenges -

Going Buggy - Under the Weather
J & C Creations Challenge blog - Anything Goes

Unplugged

This month's challenge at Sarah's Cards is a sketch challenge.

I used some papers that I have had for a little while - 3 Bugs in a Rug 'Dawson' and a photograph of my nephew Harry.  He use to love listening to a Disney LP that he had found at a jumble sale and as we were the nearest ones that still had a record player he would come round to listen to it.  When Richard was on nights he would have to listen with headphones which were way to big for him.

The star border was made with an EK Success border punch and then a layer of darker cardstock added underneath.  The stamps used are My Minds Eye, the title is foam thickers and the larger stars were punched using a Creative Memories star punch.

Under the Weather

This month's challenge at Going Buggy is Under the Weather.  To cool myself down and as I am seriously behind with my Christmas Card making I made a couple of snowy cards using a lovely Penny Black hedgie stamp.  It is from T for transparent set Jolly Friends.

Other supplies -

Paper: Craft Creations
Sentiment: Personal Impressions
Punches: Stampin' Up
Spellbinder nestabilities
Poundland gemstones
Icicle and Stardust Stickles
Promarkers

And a close up -

I am also entering this card at J&C Creations Challenge Blog where this month's challenge is Anything Goes.

Enjoy Life!!

This month's challenge at Scrapology is Y is for Yarn and to use this sketch

I tipped the sketch upside down plus slightly tweaked it to use a landscape photo.

Used Sarah's Cards June kit - Fancy Pants 'Be You'
Punches - Martha Stewart, EK Success
Bazill Basics and Papermania gemstones
Martha Stewart bakers twine

Photograph is from one of our Debden weekends - September 2009

Tinsel Toby

I wasn't going to do last week's challenge on UKS but I was at the Frozen North crop at the weekend and everyone there was doing it, so I decided to join in.  I was able to borrow some white paint and made a stencil using an EK Success star border punch.  The other requirements for the challenge was to leave some white space, use an odd number of photographs and use a non-summer photograph.

I used a lovely picture of my sister's dog bundled up in tinsel.  The papers and alphabet stickers are Echo Park 'For the Record'

Distress ink cards

I recently won a set of Spring Distress Inks from Charmed Cards and Crafts, so decided to have a little play with them.  I rarely do what I call messy/inky crafting so this was a little bit out of my comfort zone but I did enjoy the effect and will probably make some more cards like this.

I used an aperture card as a stencil to get a perfect block of inked background on the card and then overstamped with some Hero Arts butterfly stamps and Versafine black ink.

I still need to do a bit of work on my technique but I didn't think they were too bad for a first effort LOL!!

These cards were my entry for week 21 of the 52 cards challenge on UKS, which was to use a new (to you) technique.

Happy 17th Anniversary

Today it is our 17th wedding anniversary and with any luck we are having some wonderful weather up in the North East.

I made this card weeks ago (so fingers crossed I have remembered to pack it along with all the wet weather gear).  I wonder if Mr P has remembered what today is - mind you I don't mind if he forgets as penance usually involves letting me loose in a craft shop with his credit card LOL!!!!

I used Penny Black stamp T.L.C and the papers used are Craft Creations.  The heart gemstones are Papermania and the sentiment is Stamps Away.

The stamped image was coloured with Promarkers and the hearts in the tree were glazed with Glossy Accents.

Double Jubilee

This month's class with the lovely Anita aka The Inky Blossom was two jubilee themed pages, sadly I can't link to the lovely pages by Anita as she hasn't blogged them yet.

We had a bumper kit with enough supplies for two layouts - though I have enough leftover to make a third layout. 

These are the two layouts that I did - one with photographs from the Silver Jubilee in 1977 - please do not laugh at the hideous clothes that we are wearing - it was the 70s after all and back then kids didn't have much say in their clothes, you wore what your parents told you to wear.  The second layout features a collage of photographs from the party my Mum laid on in her back garden for the Golden Jubilee - such a shame we didn't have that weather for the Diamond Jubilee.  We spent the whole day in the garden and were still out there dancing at gone midnight as the weather was so fab for the Golden Jubilee.

,

The papers are Do Crafts (sorry not sure what the range is called), the alphabet stickers are Papermania and the faux brads are gold Card Candi.

Thank you Anita for another lovely class xx

10 on the 10th - My (current) top ten favourite Marillion songs

I'm sneaking in at the 11th hour with my 10 on the 10th post.  As it needs to be a very quick post this month I have gone for my 10 favourite Marillion songs.  Now please bear in mind that my top 10 changes virtually every week and it would be far easier for me to do a top 50!!  Also these are not ranked in any order either - I love all these songs and couldn't possible decide which is actually number one - this is just the order in which I scrawled them down

1.  Beyond You -

2.  Fantastic Place -

3.  Neverland -

4.  This Train is My Life -

5.  These Chains -

6.  Afraid of Sunlight -

7.  The Other Half -

8.  Between You and Me -

9.  This Strange Engine -

10.  The Invisible Man -

It is such a shame that this isn't 20 on the 20th as I have left lots of my favourites off of this list.  If you are new to Marillion you can request a sampler album called Crash Course from their website.

And if you want to join in with 10 on the 10th, then go and check out Shimelle's blog and see what 10 things other bloggers are getting up to!!

Connor

As always there is a lovely sketch on My Creative Sketches and this is my layout based on it -

I used Pebbles Inc 'Happy Go Lucky, punched butterflies and flowers and a Cheery Lynn die for the leaves and swirls.  The title stickers are Echo Park.  For a change I used some older photographs from 1997 when my youngest nephew Connor was born.

This was the sketch for the challenge -

The Corpse Bride

I've managed to do one more class from the ATDML cybercrop - this lovely class by Dawn Evans.

I used a mixture of Halloween papers from Bella Boulevard, My Little Shoebox and My Mind's Eye for this great photograph of my niece at her horror themed 21st Birthday party - she was a beautiful corpse bride, my Mum altered my Sister's wedding dress for her to wear and I do have a layout planned with some more detailed photographs of her costume.

Title:  American Craft Thickers - Sunrise
Buttons & flowers from stash

Party Pigs

I have been after this Piggy stamp for ages but had only been able to find it in the States, so I was thrilled to see it come up on eBay last week and even more thrilled that I had the winning bid and got it for good price.  It was perfect for this week's challenge at Penny Black Saturday Challenge which is hot metal and gave me an opportunity to use these balloon brads that I have had in my stash for eons.  I am also entering the card into this month's challenge at J&C Creations Challenge blog which is Animal Antics.

Penny Black Party Animals
Craft Creations party paper
Sentiment - Penny Black stamp/SU punches
Brads from Lakeland
Bazill cardstock

10 Go Mad

Jess set the sketch last month in our little sketch group and this is the lovely sketch that she chose for us.

I used a photograph from our Twilight Addicts weekend away in Herefordshire and Sarah's Cards September Kit - Fancy Pants 'It's the Little Things'

I didn't have a crystal swirl in the right colour for the layout - so I photocopied a Zva Creative swirl and then laid the copy on the layout and pricked holes through - covering them up with self adhesive gemstones from my stash - thanks Anita for that handy tip!!

My Month in Numbers - June 2012

Another month has passed us by so it is time once again to join in with Julie Kirk's Month in Numbers, so here goes with my June numbers.

Only 249 days till we are in the Netherlands for 3 days of madness at the Marillion Convention

I've been pretty productive this month - 22 blog posts, 13 layouts, 10 Christmas Cards, 15 other cards and 2 bracelets.  I took part in the A Trip Down Memory Lane cybercrop two weekends ago and managed to do all 6 challenges and 4 of the classes. 

I decided to put away all my loose layouts - it took me about 5 hours to put away 75 layouts into 8 different albums (I have to have all my albums in date order but I don't scrap chronologically so I always have lots of moving around of layouts to do - which is why I leave it until I have over 50 to put away!!  I didn't get bored though whilst doing this as I watched the first 5 hours of the tv series The Bridge (Danish/Swedish crime drama serial).

And then the next day I watched the final 5 hours as I really needed to know who did it!! 

So that's my numbers for this month - nothing very earth shattering LOL!!

The Tale of Dad's Shorts

Challenge 5 for the A Trip Down Memory Lane cybercrop was called Olympic Podium.  The challenge required you to use ONE sheet of cardstock, TWO sheets of patterned paper and THREE photographs, you were also allowed to add in a few embellishments and use inks, paints, alphabets.

Rummaging through my photographs I found three that have been waiting since 2009 to be commited to a layout and have the story behind them told.  These shorts that my Dad wears to sleep in when we are on narrowboat holidays have become a bit of a family joke as my Mum keeps trying to get rid of them and everytime she thinks she has been successful they turn up again in his luggage on a boat trip.  I just had to get some photographs of Dad in them as yet again after she thought she had successfully lost them, they made it to the holiday!!!

Crate Paper 'Random Collection'
Martha Stewart edge punch
Orange bakers twine
Wingo Zingo - Sizzlet alphabet die

A close up of the journalling -