Purple Windmill

Retro challenge

2011-08-17T08:56:00.000-07:00

Here is another entry to last weekends Scrapbook Challenge extravaganza on Shimelles blog, this challenge was to Go Retro and you can find all the details here. The basic requirement was to scrap a photo which was taken before 2011. I have had this photo knocking about for a while and it's one of those photo's that really makes me smile. It's not the fact that my dog Lucky loved being hoovered that makes me smile, it's all of the little details in the background that reminds me of my childhood, I can almost feel everything in that room and I can't actually think of another photo that makes me feel that way. So here it is my entry to Go Retro -

The patterned papers are from a pattern book by Djerba Goldfinger from Reprodepot and it has the most amazing retro prints in it all ready for you to print off yourself, I love it! I got inspiration for the layout from Scrapbook Trends.

Just to add as well this was my first ever attempt at sewing onto paper hence why it is so wonky lol!

Thanks for looking

Wendy :-)

From The Heart Challenge

2011-08-15T09:58:00.000-07:00

Well I haven't blogged in ages, partly because I've been working a lot more than usual and mainly because I've been so busy taking part in Shimelle's Explore class that I haven't really had time to do much else. I really enjoyed the course but I still haven't finished the last week so I'm going to leave it until next week.

Anyway, last weekend Shimelle started a free scrapbook challenge that has a whole load of challenges to complete before 21st August. You can find all of the challenges here and there's some great prizes so it's definately worth checking it out.

This is my entry to the "From The Heart Challenge", basically you had to scrap about something you love, I love coffee more than anything (expect my Husband....obviously ;-) ) so here it is in my favourite cup with an extra special swirl of squirty cream on.

I am still very much a novice at Scrapbooking but I am thoroughly enjoying it so whilst my layout may not be as good as some of the more experienced ones I learned on the Explore class not everything has to be perfect and I love it the way it is.

Thanks for looking

Wendy

:-)

Explore Week 2

2011-08-03T01:37:00.000-07:00

Last week on Explore was all about Observation, it also led me to the path of Ali Edwards Week in the Life Of project. I spent the whole of last week writing everything down and photographing everything I saw, my camera went through about 3 sets of batteries haha!! I really enjoyed having to look at everyday things that I never notice. When deciding on my layout I wanted to focus on the things that I observe with - my eyes so I made the layout showing the different objects I look through (glasses and contacts) and then describe the things I observed last week that I really loved.

Thanks for looking

Wendy

:-)

Explore Day 5

2011-07-25T00:38:00.000-07:00

This is my first ever real 12X12 scrapbook page, I have done them digitally but the size of a 12x12 has always been very intimidating to me but I took the plunge and here it is.

It's part of my Explore class and the task was to use one of the suggested layouts by Shimelle and to use 9 circular embellishments, the theme was to be based around subjects we had covered during the week like our greatest adventures and things not being perfect.

My layout represents my weight loss journey starting with a photo of my that I hated (I don't hate it now, because it's me and I don't hate looking at myself anymore). The second photo is a self portrait we had to do and is actually the first photo of myself that I love looking at, that's a bit of a revelation for me as I have hated looking at myself for so long. That is why I called the page Contrast because the contrast between myself in the 2 photo's may not be blindingly obvious to anyone one else but to me it unbelievable.

Thanks for looking

Wendy

:-)

Explore class Days 2-4

2011-07-22T00:50:00.000-07:00

Well I am sitting here patiently waiting for the last prompt of the week on the Explore class that I am doing so I thought I'd share my journey so far, I look at everyone elses projects and they look so much better than mine but I really am learning to love what I've done without comparing it to others work! I particularly loved Prompt 4 which was about "Perfection" I think I am continually disappointed in myself because I could always have done something better, but being the best isn't important, enjoying the journey to the end result is what I believe is most important and that is what I am going to do from now on:-)

Prompt 2 was about Postcards, so I made my own, It's not the greatest postcard in the world but It represents the things I love and if Wendy land existed this is what it would look like - Cooking, Growing and Making.

On the back you had to write about your greatest adventure, I've done many daring things in my life, Bungee jumping etc... but believe it or not a little camping trip had the most impact on my life so that's what I wrote about and then posted it to myself. My Husband can't stop laughing at the thought of all of the workers at the sorting office passing it round having a good laugh lol!!!

So Prompt 3 was about trying something new and trying it with maps. I took some old holiday maps and covered some chipboard letters with them, this was a new technique for me and I really like them, I also had to make things out of circles of maps so I made some flowers in different ways.

And the last Prompt was No 4 which was about what is perfect in your life at the moment, I like this list it's a very positive list for me and I know it is going to grow so I've left plenty of space. The picture is of a chocolate cake I made a few weeks ago and I am so proud of it :-)

Thanks for looking

Wendy :-)

Explore!!!!

2011-07-18T12:12:00.000-07:00

Well class started today on the new Shimelle course which is called Explore, I'm really excited to be taking part in a "live" class, I almost didnt sleep last night lol!

I haven't quite decided what I am going to explore during the 4 week course, seeing as the first task was to take a self portrait I think I may just explore me :-) I have had a bit of a transformation in the last 12 months as I've lost 8 stone after Bariatric surgery so maybe the time has come to explore the new me, who knows! I think I'm going to sleep on that one and see if inspiration strikes in the middle of the night!

Anyway here is my playbook cover and my page 1 which is the self portrait, and shock horror I actually quite like the photo!!!!!!! Second photo of myself in my life that I like, the first one I liked was of my back haha!!!

Wendy

:-)

Less is More challenge

2011-07-09T05:47:00.001-07:00

Well I think I am 100% addicted to the Less Is More challenge, I loved this week challenge which was to make a one layer card and use the theme of "something with legs" so I pulled out my Kanban stamp kit that I got from QVC last year and the perfect stamp was there waiting for me. I've used this stamp before but never in such a simplistic way and I am definitely going to knock up a few more like this.

REVISED TO ADD - The legs are on the dress form, I forgot to add that bit earlier duh!!!!

The only thing I have used other than the stamp is some WOW heat embossing powder in pearlescent white, the blue colour comes from the embossing pen that I used to colour in the image.

Thanks for looking, hope you like it

Wendy

:-)

Scrapbooking at last......

2011-07-05T14:29:00.000-07:00

Well finally it has happened, I've got into scrapbooking! It's taken a while but ater doing Shimelles Something from Almost Nothing class it has really inspired me in all areas of my crafting. I have wanted to scrapbook for ages but never had the exact stuff to do any layouts I'd seen and I also have a lack of 12x12 papers. It suddenly dawned on me that it isn't against the law to make a scrapbook in A4 so that's exactly what I'm starting. I started with a layout from Pagemaps then picked a photo that I love then looked through my mountains of scraps that I keep in an overflowing file and voila!!!!!

After completing this I ended up with more scraps, they're just smaller than they had been originally and me being me couldn't bear to throw them out so here they are.......

The papers are all from Pink Petticoat with the excepetion of the red which is plain card coloured with Promarkers.

I hope you like them, thanks for looking

Wendy

:-)

Allsorts Free and Easy

2011-07-05T01:40:00.000-07:00

This is my entry for this weeks Allsorts challenge which is free and easy, it was for a male birthday and I used my Big Fella kit from pink petticoat. The ribbon is some white tape stuff I got from a local haberdashery and coloured it in red with my promarkers - The stamp is Anna Griffin and everything else is using my scraps from the Big Fella kit.

Thanks for looking

Wendy

:-)

Stash busting and Less is More

2011-07-05T01:14:00.000-07:00

Well I cannot believe how good I have been with this one, I am still in major stash busting mode and this week I am so proud of myself. It all started with the Less is more challenge which this week was to use blues, I knew I had some flowers which I bought from Lakeland about 6 years ago, there were hundreds in the pack and to be honest I've only used them once or twice so today they have seen the light and this is the result -

Now I am very new to the Less is More challenge and wasn't sure if my photo above was considered OK because of the blue background (not sure if it is supposed to stay white or not) so just in case I made this one too. I used last weeks sketch challenge as my inspiration because I love the simplicity of it.

And then I got so carried away with my stash busting that I made another 5 in various colours

I am very proud of myself as I hated these flowers within about 6 months of buying them but couldn't bring myself to throw them away, now I am so pleased that I didn't.

Thanks for looking

Wendy

:-)

Less is More and Allsorts challenge

2011-06-26T12:52:00.000-07:00

This is my first ever entry into the Less is More sketch challenge, I've often looked at other peoples entries but been a bit frightened of all of the white space but I really enjoyed it, it is also my entry to the Allsorts challenge which was to use my 2 favourite colours "Lemon and Lime" I love them so much that my wedding theme was those exact colours so it was a pleasure to do this challenge.

This is the Less is More sketch

The papers used are from the free Pink Petticoat kit "Lifes Lemons" and the lemons were cut on my Silhouette machine. I've been making a real effort to use up things that I already have primted instead of printing new papers off and these particular papers have been hanging around in my paper file for at least 2 years I think s it was good to finally give them an outing.

Hope you like them

Wendy

:-)

Let the Christmas planning begin.......

2011-06-25T12:19:00.001-07:00

Well it's that time of year when I start all of the planning for the festive period, to non-cardmakers and crafters I''m sure they'd think that's ridiculous but I'm sure all of your crafters understand exactly where I'm coming from.

I handmake all of my cards and presents and it takes a lot of planning but I find it all so worthwhile that it's a joy rather than a chore. June is early to start planning but all of those chutneys and jams take time to mature so the earlier the better as far as I'm concerned.

I work in retail so Christmas Day tends to be just a day off to me therefore I need to have military precision in my planning otherwise it ends up so stressful that I don't enjoy it.

So that brings me to this years Christmas planner which I find absolutely invaluable. This year I've made it from a We Are Memory Keepers scrapbooking kit that I bought from QVC earlier in the year, I 'm so pleased I got it before it sold out as the papers are just gorgeous.

and here it is -

I got really carried away with the glossy accents but I think it gives those sticker alphas a whole new dimension (I sound like a craft TV presenter there lol).

I hope you like it and I can't wait to get it into use.

Thanks for looking

Wendy

:-)

Allsorts 3 2 1 challenge

2011-06-20T14:12:00.000-07:00

I've had a really busy week and had not time to enter any challenges so hopefully there'll be a few more this week, first up I've got my entry to the Allsorts challenge which is to use 3 papers 2 ribbons and 1 flower. In keeping with the theme of the course I'm doing by Shimelle I have only used things that were already in my stash, it's actually not that scary using all the old stuff up because it's making room for plenty new things which is actually quite exciting. Anyway on with the card -

I used papers from my Pink Petticoat Vintage Rose pad ( which seems to last forever) the flower was cut with my silhouette machine and again was cut out of the same paper pack and the ribbon is from my stash.

I've decided that all of the card's that I make for challenges are going into a box as a Xmas gift for my Mam because she's always asking me for cards to give to people and that way she can have a plentiful supply for all occasions.

Hope you like it

Wendy

:-)

Here Comes Summer....................

2011-06-09T01:16:00.001-07:00

Well seeing as we've had a few days of sunshine it got me right in the mood for this weeks Spoonfull of Sugar challenge, I've been working 7 days in a row this week so haven't really had a great deal of time for cardmaking so this is a quick card that I made from my Echo Park downloads, it's the Springtime paper pack which I got on my favourite day of the week "One Buck Wednesday" at Jessica Sprague. I think at the moment I live for Wednesdays as I love bargain.

The card was really simple to make, I re-sized one of the papers to fit the front of my card, printed it off, added some bunting, glossy accents and diamontes, stamped my sentiment and that's it done. Perfect for me when I'm having such a hectic week.

Hope you like it

Wendy

:-)

Allsorts Challenge

2011-06-05T00:20:00.000-07:00

Here is my entry for this weeks Allsorts Challenge which was to make a card that is "All White" I've seen a lot of cards that are plain white and I've always wanted to try it so now I've finally done it. I wanted to keep it quite plain as I thought the simplicity of the colour needed to speak for itself.

I used plain white pearlescent card for the base and the embossed part, the ribbon and gem are from my stash and the sentiment is an Anna Griffin stamp which I stamped in black then heat embossed it with White Pearl embossing powder from Powder Arts. I got the powder from a Craft Fayre and I love it, it is definitely my product of the moment, it almost transforms the colour of the ink to something much softer which is why I used it on this card as I feel the soft grey works really well with the plain white.

I loved doing this card so much I made another straight away ha ha!

Hope you like them

Wendy

:-)

Flower Power

2011-06-02T09:44:00.001-07:00

This is my entry for this weeks Spoonfull Of Sugar Challenge which was called Flower Power , the criteria was very simple - use flowers on your project!

I wanted to use these flowers which I've had hanging around for ages. I bought a load of them from an online store that was selling them off for 20p per pack, of course I went completely crazy bought tons of them and have never used them. I'm sure I remember telling my Husband that I won them because I was so embarrased to admit I had bought that many lol!

Thanks to a post I recently read on Vickys blog "Blush" I learned about some online classes by a lady called Shimelle, after reading through her site I joined the class entitled "Something From Almost Nothing" It's a great class which is designed to help you use up all of those bits and bobs that have been collected over the years that you've either forgotten you have or you've been saving them for "something special". I have only done class 1 and already I actually feel as though I want to use up all my old stash so that's where the inspiration for this card came from.

The sentiment is an Anna Griffin stamp and everything else on there is from my stash.

Hope you like it

Wendy

:-)

Boredom Buster!!

2011-06-01T08:21:00.000-07:00

My Mam decided to take my 3 nieces away again to France for a holiday, she again thought it a good idea to drive them there........... from Newcastle, hmmm I think this confirms she is verging on insanity! Anyway she needed things to entertain 2 11 year olds and a 13 year old so I decided to look up some road trip games and then made them a little booklet so they can just flick straight to a game and hopefully have a bucket load of fun!

And here it is.......

I used my Vintage Rose papers from Pink Petticoat and printed the games myself, I then laminated it as I wanted it to be robust and then hooked it altogether on a book ring.

I'm hoping it has entertained them somehow otherwise I may have a very demented Mother by the time they return ha ha!!

Hope you like it

Wendy

:-)

My Nieces Birthday Present

2011-05-23T12:08:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I made a photo frame so I thought I'd make one for my niece for her 13th Birthday, it matches her invites and her cupcakes from her party, I'm hoping she'll love it.

I have also decided to enter it into this weeks Papertake Weekly Challenge seeing as I am now officially hooked on challenges. This week the challenge was Bloom and Grow, I don't have any of the Molly Bloom stamps so I chose the other option of having something floral on my project.

Hope you like it

Wendy

:-)

Cute as a cupcake

2011-05-23T08:03:00.000-07:00

Wow 3 blog posts in one week this is a rareity lol! Well as I mentioned in my other post I am keen to start entering challenges. I wanted to enter them as I think they're great at giving you a little push to try something new or different. Thanks to Nic's comments on a previous post I found a few challenges that interested me so decided to try and combine them together. I've never understood how people do that because sometimes I see cards that qualify for loads of challenges, so I decided to write down the challenges that grabbed my attention, it started with a sketch then went onto embellishments and then colour, so the 4 four challenges I am entering this card into are as follows -

Sketch Saturday - Sketch challenge - I followed the sketch exactly - I have no imagination lol

Simon says Stamp - Sparkle and Shine - I used glitter a gemstone and glossy accents

CES challenge - Embellish it - I used buttons, ribbon and a gemstone

Colour Create - White/Cream/Brown + 1 other colour and include buttons and flowers - I chose pink as my 4th colour and I cheated and used a flower shape button - hope that's allowed :-)

The glitter didn't look too glittery on the first shot so here's a little close up

I hope you like it because I loved making it, and thanks again to Nic for leading me to those challenges.

Wendy

:-)

Cupcaketastic!!!!!

2011-05-20T08:02:00.000-07:00

I had to share these few photos with you as I am so proud of them, as I mentioned in my last post it was my nieces 13th birthday and she asked me to make cupcakes for her party. I make and sell cupcake wrappers on eBay so she asked if I could make cupcake wrappers to match her invitations so of course I obliged and I have to say (very modestly) that I love them!!!!!

I made 71 of them which was hard work but the sense of pride when they were all laid out made it worth every second! I bought Jelly Belly Beans in matching colours just to keep the theme going and my nieces Mam made the centrepiece cake and I think it looks great!

Thanks for looking

Wendy

:-)

Catch Up Time.....

2011-05-20T07:12:00.000-07:00

Well as usual it's been ages since I blogged and as usual I keep promising myself to get on here more often, I look at others peoples blogs for so long that I don't have time to update my own lol! In an effort to get me blogging more I am going to start entering some challenges so if anyone has any favourites that they want to share with me I'd be really grateful as I don't know where to start really!

But anyway despite my absence I have been crafting and here's a few I want to share with you :-)

The gorgeous young lady on these cards is Simran - she is my friends baby and I was very honoured to be asked to make Mothers Day cards for her Grandparents -

I kept both cards in the same format and I used the papers from the Vintage Rose collection paper pack that I received as a prize from Pink Petticoat, the border punch is the Fiskars Apron Lace punch and the bow was cut out with my Silhouette Machine.

The next creation is a birthday invitation for my nieces 13th birthday - she wanted her invites to match the colours in her bedroom which is pink/red and orange so this is the design we came up with. The patterned paper used is from the Pink Petticoat His 'n' Hers kit which I believe is now retired and I re-coloured it in photo shop to get it as close as I could to her theme.

We were really pleased with them and wait until you see the matching cupcakes on my next post - we were amazed by our creativeness.

This was a one for Mothers Day, I used the Pink Petticoat Kraft pack and some free papers from My Minds Eye which I received with a magazine.
The Thank You stamp is from my Anna Griffin sentiments stamp set from QVC.

The next couple of photos are quick cards I made for no other reason other than I want to use up some of my stash as it is getting out of hand so I am trying to find quick card designs that i can use up all of my papers and ribbons -

The papers are from the same My Minds Eye pack that I mentioned above, the stamp again is Anna Griffin and the pearls were given to me on a roll so I have no idea where they came from, what I love most about the cards is that is was my first time with Glossy accents and now I am hooked. I watched a tutorial on Lucy Abrams blog and she used glossy accents as her preferred choice of glue, I knew I had some so thought I'd give it a go and I am now hooked, I can't believe I managed without it so now every card I make will be covered in glossy accents lol! I'm not kidding either lol!

This is where my next Glossy Accents adventure took me and again I was trying to use up some of my stash so this next card was made using papers which I bought from The Works about 4 years ago and they've finally been given an outing. I used Promarkers to make the stems of the flowers but they looked a bit "drawn on " so I added the Glossy Accents over the top to make it look more professional and I am really pleased with the results.

I think that little bumble bee is my favourite thing about the card he's just so cute.

Well if you have managed to get all the way to the end of this post without falling asleep then I applaud you, I hope you've liked my cards and as always thanks for looking - don't forget to let me know your favourite challenges :-)

Wendy
x

Thank You, Thank You!!!!

2011-03-16T02:03:00.000-07:00

We had a fundraising event at my work on Saturday where we were raising money for The Rainbow Trust, we had some great donations from local businesses and raised just under £500 for the charity so I set to work making some Thank You cards to send to the businesses and here they are :-

This first one was inspired by the fabulous cards on Sarita's blog, the papers used were bought from My Grafico which I find has so much choice in digital papers that I'm often there for hours.

The label was cut out on my Silhouette machine and the stamped sentiment is from a set of Anna Griffin samps that I bought from QVC a couple of weeks ago. I found this card was really easy to make and whenever I need to make cards in bulk this is definately going to be a favourite.

My next card was inspired by this lovely card I received from Liz and the girls at Pink Petticoat, I was lucky enough to win a pack of Vintage Rose papers when I took part in their blog hop and along with my prize came this lovely card.....

I loved it so much it inspired me to make something very similar and again it was very quick to make so great when you have to make a lot of cards. The papers are from the Vintage Rose collection at Pink Petticoat and the stamped sentiment is by Anna Griffin as per the previous card. I punched the papers using my Fiskars Apron Lace punch and here it is.....

Thanks for looking, I hope you like them.

Wendy

:-)

Something Simple and Something New...

2011-02-07T10:01:00.000-08:00

That title sounds like the wedding poem, it wasn't intended that way but I quite like it haha!!

Anyway a couple of cards to share with you, the first is my Something Simple, it's another really plain card, I really think I could get into this style of crafting as once I get over the amount of blank space there is I find the images look so much nicer when they aren't crowded by pattern

The cupcake stamps are free from the latest issue of the Docrafts magazine, the sentiment stamp is from another Marion Emberson kit from QVC which I bought a few years ago, the images are coloured in with promarkers and highlighted with touches of glitter

And the second is my Something New, it's not very exciting really but the new thing is the piece of ribbon stapled onto the heart, I am terrified of embellishments but have tons of gems/ribbon scraps etc.... and I need to start being a bit braver and using them up. I always get inspiration from cards with lots of embellishments but just never have the courage to put them on mine so here it is....

This is my Husbands valentines card from me, the papers are from the latest free download by Summer Driggs, the letters/ribbon and gems are from my stash and the heart was made by drawing round a cookie cutter and cutting it out, it was not made using the exspensive Silhouette machine that I bought a while back after convincing the Hubby that I couldn't live without it, if he knew I was drawing round cookie cutters instead I think he'd kill me lol!

I hope you like them

Wendy

:-)

Keeping it simple

2011-01-13T11:11:00.000-08:00

I bought some of the Marion Emberson Designs stamps from QVC last, after what seemed like an eternity waiting for them they arrived yesterday and I got straight to work, the stamps are so beautiful that I really didn't want to put too much on the card to distract from them so I used the blank tree one with the flowery add on and just put some glitter on the flowers and gems in the middles. The Happy birthday stamp was a free one with the DoCrafts magazine last year.

I really love how plain it is, sometimes I have that many things to craft with that I can't decide what to put on so that's why I like the simplicity of this one.

Hope you like it

Wendy

:-)

Happy New Year!!

2011-01-09T07:38:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year

I am really not very committed to this blog I can't believe it was Halloween since I last posted, I am still making lots of things just not having the time to take the photos and post them on here so once again one of my resolutions is to make more effort with my blog (I'm sure I had that one last year as well).

I just wanted to share a couple of photos of some Xmas presents that I gave out this year.

The first is another washing powder box, I made my Mam a box years ago for her to keep her ever growing stash of ear-rings in but she has been moaning at me for at least 2 years to make her another one because she has filled the one she has, I decided to do a washing powder box with inserts in and I am thrilled with the result, I think it looks very glam!

I used some black spray paint to colour the box then covered it with printed card from a Pink Petticoat kit, I really can't remember which one, I think the pattern on the insert was from retired collection called Lolas Boudoir and the black and white from Spring Wishes but please don't hold me to that because I really can't be certain.

I punched holes into the cards inside for the ear-rings to go through then attached some ribbon to each card with a bit of ribbon and a brad to make it easy to pull the cards out.

I love it and my Mam did too.

The second is a small selection from this years hampers, I made tons of new goodies for everyone this year including nougat, mint choc fudge, mince pies, peanut brittle, hazlenut and baileys truffles, I could go on forever with the list, it took me months of planning but everyone loved what they got so it makes it all worthwhile, and my bank balance is all the healthier for it too. The place cards this year were cookie trees with different colour icing on and a brown paper name tag, I had to use the picture with my cheeky niece in the background :-)

Hope you like them

Wendy

:-)