Christmas Traditions.

Most families have their Christmas traditions; little rituals that are carried out year after year and our family is no exception.

It was a long held tradition  at tea time, when we used to go  to my parents in law for boxing day celebrations, that there would be some extra small gifts for everyone. These were always concealed in either a fairy house or a pretty fairy mushroom that had pride of place on a 
beautifully laid dining table adorned with the very best bone china and glassware. Meals taken here were somewhat formal affairs, and didn't happen that often other than special occasions. Sadly they are no longer alive and it has been up to us as the now senior family members to uphold our own traditions. This year we have the joy of hopefully being joined by our first grandchild Emily (that is if everyone else is cold and bug free). We have to be sensible about infection around her as she has HLHS.

I decided at the last minute to make my own house for her ( I know she is too young to understand this year but it should last for a few years to come). It has been a labour of love but has gone together quite well, with a little help from my husband where mathematical calculations and construction tips were needed. It took 10 sheets of 3mm A4 chipboard, some gold acrylic paint and a selection of  Kaisercraft paper that I had left over from last year. I also used  scraps  of red and yellow cardstock, Scor- tape, hot glue, glossy accents and stickles. The shingles for the roof were made using a Martha Stewart lace edge punch and made to glisten like frost by using crystal embossing powder and a heat gun. Unfortunately, the photographs do not do the house justice as the light wasn't coming from the right direction to enable good photographs. Nevertheless, here is a selection.

I hope you like it as much as I enjoyed making it. I will have another project to show you after the festive season, but need to wait until the recipient has seen it first. Here's wishing you a very happy Christmas and New Year.

MIA.

I guess you all thought that have been missing in action or AWOL. The truth is that I have had a really busy year, and blogging has had to take a back seat for a while. Just before Christmas, we learned that our expected first grandchild had been diagnosed at the 20 week scan with a serious heart defect (HLHS) this means that she would only have half a working heart and that she would need an eight hour operation shortly after birth. This came with no guarantees and all we could do was hope and pray for her survival and recovery. I am pleased to report that Emily was born weighing just 5lb 5ozs on the 23rd April this year and underwent her first surgery at 6 days old. To date she is doing very well,and is awaiting the second of the three operations needed to hand make her a heart. She is very cute and has a very good set of lungs on her which she uses to full advantage to let her parents know when she's not happy about something! 

In February, courtesy of monetary birthday and Christmas gifts from the family, I signed up to do a weekend craft retreat with the very talented and patient Clare Charvill of My Creative Spirit. Claire has a blog and online shop, which can be found at Mycreativespirit.blogspot.com . Her work is amazing and she is an ambassador for Graphic 45. I had never taken a workshop of this nature before, and was amazed at the amount of work some people managed to get through during the weekend. Needless to say I was very slow so didn't manage to complete the project which was an album using the Couture Graphic 45 paper collection. However, I intended to finish it later. This turned out to be much later as the events detailed above rather overtook me.
Here are some photographs of the Couture Album made during the February craft retreat.

I have long been fascinated by the construction of albums and learned a great deal during the retreat. So much so that when my daughter requested me to make an album for her, I was able to oblige and will post the pictures next time.

Thanks you for stopping by.

At last, it's only taken a year!

Having received my first consignment of tags for this year's Chocolate Baroque tag swap, I remembered that I still hadn't made a suitable display for my 2012 Alphatags so my challenge this week was to make something that would set them off in a complimentary fashion. 

Looking through them for inspiration, I was once again amazed by their beauty and the range of colours, not to mention the artistic talents of the ladies who had slaved over them in order to meet the given deadlines. The idea I came up with was a display album  made from black 270 gsm card stock with a chipboard cover. Each internal page  has a pocket big enough to hold 2 tags. I left the pages black but painted the edges of the chipboard cover in black acrylic paint to match and then added  papers from the Prima firefly collection (which I purchased from Chocolate Baroque a long time ago and have been stroking ever since) a handmade flower and some  leaves. All the pages including the cover have rounded corners. Finally I added a small sparkly acetate butterfly that I have had in my stash for years and made a dangly charm to fix to the spiral binding. 

I bought a Zutter Bind-It-All second hand from e-bay several years ago and this is the first time of using it. It wasn't as successful as I would have liked as some of the rings came out a little mis-shapen however given that it was the first attempt I wasn't too disheartened. I used 1 inch O rings but because of the finished depth of the album, I could have done with 2". Unfortunately the largest size they make is 1.25 inches so perhaps a different binding method would be better. Back to the drawing board on that one I guess.

The last task was to insert an eyelet in both the front and back cover, thread with pink seam binding and tie in a bow. Job done!

I hope you enjoyed looking at my endeavours for this week, I have another project on the go which I hope to share with you soon. Thanks taking the time to call in.

Gill x

Christmas Cards

Here is a selection of the special cards I made this year for my family.

They were made using a mixture of water colouring, stamping, embossing and fussy cutting. At one time I used to make all the Christmas cards I sent, but with that being around 120 + I now only make for those I know will appreciate them (family & close friends) for the rest I buy charity cards. The rush to finish is now almost over, only 8 more sleeps to go!! At the risk of being accused of plagiarism (from Strictly Come Dancing) Keep crafting!

 Only ten sleeps to go!

I know that Christmas is nearly upon us but that doesn't stop people from having birthday celebrations,so I wanted to share a birthday card with you that I recently made for a male friend who owns and sails a boat regularly.

It was stamped with Scene-it stamps from Hobby Art Stamps on W. H. Smith watercolour paper and coloured with Tombow pens and Tim Holtz distress markers used as watercolours. I mounted it on shiny blue card and then onto the card itself.

I hope you like it.

It was my friend's birthday recently, and I decided I wanted to make a special present for her. Her hobby is watercolour painting, and I remembered seeing a blog post from Elaine (Craftshedgirl.blogspot.co.uk) ) one of the Chocolate Baroque design team detailing a very simple water colour palette for Peerless Paints. This was accompanied by a link to a video, by Jane Davenport on Youtube whose  original idea it was.

I checked it out for myself, but decided to elaborate on the scheme somewhat, and the pictures below show the finished palette. I should confess however, that it took me several abortive attempts to make the basic folder, before I got it right.

The Peerless paints. as far as I am aware, can only be purchased from the USA, but buyers beware, the postage and insurance is very expensive and because of the wording on the customs form, I got stung with a hefty customs bill, so all in all it was not an economical purchase. That said, they will last me for a very long time.

I decorated the folder with a  paper line that had been in my stash for ages, embellishing the front fussy cut flowers with stickles and the spine with wide chocolate brown lace. The title was printed on an oval Nestabilities die cut with the edges inked with Vintage photo distress ink

I added a medium tipped water brush before giving my gift and my friend was really pleased with the whole idea.

 All that remains is for me to make another palette for myself, when I have the time.

Hello again!

Well hello again,

I know it's been a long time since I posted to my blog, but I have been out of action since returning from France on the 9th of July.
I underwent cataract surgery on my right eye on the 11th of July followed by similar surgery to my left eye 6 weeks later on the 22nd of August. Obviously my eyesight during this period was somewhat compromised and it is only of late that I have begun proper crafting again. I now don't need glasses for normal everyday living but I do need them for reading. So far I have purchased a cheap pair of readers from the local supermarket, but intend to visit the optician soon for an eye test as I have astigmatism which needs a little correction.

Since beginning to craft again, I have made a nautical themed card for a male friend using the Hobby Art Scene-it stamps coloured with Tombow pens used as watercolours on 300 gsm Daler Rowney watercolour card. I do admit to being pleased with the result, especially as I no way consider myself an artist.

My friend was delighted with his card and says he likes it so much, he is going to frame it.

I have done one or two other projects, but will leave those until another time.

Until then, keep on crafting.