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.

My First Mini Album

For a very long time I have been fascinated by Mini Albums, and have wanted to make one of my own, however I was very nervous about beginning as I felt there was great potential for making a lot of mistakes, which could turn out to be rather expensive, given the cost of cardstock and embellishments. Nevertheless, begin I did, and I have to admit to being very pleased with the outcome. I find these albums so tactile and can't stop stroking mine, turning the pages and generally fiddling with the charms etc.

Front Cover

The base of the album was 6" x 6" chipboard and I used 2" O rings as a binding  not being sure of being able to cope with some of the more sophisticated methods.

In my stash I had an 8" x 8" paper stack called Parisian Nights and being a complete Fracophile I decided that this would be perfect. It was an impulse purchase many years ago and had been languishing in my stash ever since as I couldn't really decide what to do with it. Over the years I had also been collecting  vintage French ephemera so had everything around me that I needed.

The Eiffel Tower die was from Tim Holz, the flowers were  from Prima and the lace from my stash (made up of several e-bay purchases) The large flower I  hand crafted from eyelet and other laces. I used a ribbon closure as this seemed the simplest method for a first attempt. 

Page 1

Page 3

Page 5

Page 8

Page 11

Page 13

These are pictures of some of the inside pages.

As a prototype,  I am pleased with it, however, I did make several  mistakes but thankfully was able to cover them up using strategically place trims and embellishments.

There are plenty of photo mats, and journalling tags so I am looking forward to finding some appropriate photographs to fill it. Probably those from our 30th wedding anniversary trip to Paris 15 years ago!

I really enjoyed making this album and can't wait to get started on my next.

Thanks for dropping by and happy crafting!

Die Storage

Until now, I have been storing my dies on magnetic sheets in a plastic storage box. Naturally, every time I need a die, it is on the bottom sheet and  moving the uppermost sheets to get to it causes all the other dies to fall off, thus ensuring that my valuable crafting time is spent re arranging the loose dies back in their allotted places.

I remember a long while ago, seeing a book that someone had made to house their dies, and in doing so made them easier to access. This book was beautifully embellished and looked very pretty, however, much as I liked it, I felt that the embellishments were not all that practical as storing the book(s) on a shelf would not be possible without damaging them.
I decided to have a go at making my own and this is what I came up with.

The cover was made from heavy weight chipboard: I had to ask my husband to round the corners for me as my corner chomper wouldn't cut through it. The internal pages were cut down stiff Amazon envelopes (waste not want not), covered with single sided card stock. The pockets were also made using the same cardstock but given depth by scoring the edges to make them expandable. These are for storing the packaging/instruction cards that come with the dies. The dies were attached to the pages with either self adhesive magnetic strips or the magnetic sheets on which I originally stored them cut down into smaller sizes and adhered using red double sided adhesive tape. I punched two holes in each cover and sheet using my crop a dile then inserted two large book rings. I wouldn't suggest using more than  5 or 6 pages as the book will not close properly.
The inside of the front cover was covered in a single sheet of card stock, but I covered the outside using the off cut strips from making the pages. I first gave the chipboard a coat of Mod Podge, stuck on the strips by overlapping them slightly ( I found a brayer useful in this instance) and finally coated the outside again in more Mod Podge, to protect it and give it durability. To finish off, I cut a Spellbinders name tag from the packaging and attached it to the top  book ring to make identification easier.
I am now staring on my second book to store my other dies!

MATERIALS USED

A4 size heavy weight chipboard 
Single sided card stock Good Day Sunshine by We are Memory Keepers.
Old Amazon envelopes or other stiff card. (Several sheets of cereal packets stuck together). 
Red double sided adhesive tape
Ordinary double sided adhesive  tape
Mod Podge
2 Book rings
Paper trimmer
Corner rounder
Self adhesive magnetic strips
Score board
Brayer