Time is not measured by clocks, but by Moments.

I have a fascination of/with time.  It’s not an obsession, but it’s been something to which I became more aware of about ten to fifteen years ago.  I can’t quite explain it…  well, no, actually that’s a bit of a porky pie.  I could try to explain it, but to do so would unfortunately give away something in my book – which I’ve been writing inside my head for .. oh – heaven knows how long!   And a girl has to have some secrets, so I don’t want to divulge them yet  … at least, not until I write my book first!

Because I have this ‘time thing’ going on, I thought last week,  that I should make a time card.  I had a sentiment in mind and had recently bought some new stamps which would fit perfectly with that sentiment … so I went to work.

I began by making a sort of ‘explosion’ of colour happen on a ready scored 6″x 6″ card…

I stamped four different coloured ink pads in a (sort of) circle onto my glass mat, then spritzed them with water so that they bled into each other and ran a little.  I stamped the ‘spoldge’ stamp into that watery mess and then stamped it straight away onto my card.  There was a little section which didn’t quite pick up enough colour, so I just used a paint brush to fill in.  You can see in the photo where that was – but I knew it wouldn’t matter as this was just to be the (kind of) background to what was to come …

After the ink dried thoroughly, I stamped the image of a Fob Watch which had exploded …

..  and embossed it part in silver and part in gold embossing powder.

Then on another scrap piece of white card I stamped the same image again…

This time though I didn’t do the explosion of colours behind it.

This was because I wanted to cut some parts of that image out and needed those particular parts to be crisp white . . .

The white arrows in the above photo point out which parts I wanted to ‘fussy cut’ out.  This was so I could coat those pieces with Anita’s 3D Clear Gloss – because the parts I’ve pointed out in the photo above, would be the face of the clock…  and would have had the glass over them too – so I wanted to give those parts a clear glassy type finish.

By half way through I have to admit that I was beginning to wonder if it was such a great idea,  but I plodded on telling myself it would look fine and groovy once I’d finished.

Once cut out, I used the Anita’s 3D Clear Gloss on those pieces and put them on one side to dry overnight.

The following day they were dry and ready to go  . . .  so I fixed those pieces in place using Pinflair Glue Gel (what would we do without that gel, eh crafters?!).  But I put the pieces in a sort of ‘wiggly woggly’ way.  Some were tilted one way.  Some another way.  Some this way, some that.

You can’t quite see it here in this photo (above) but you’ll see it better in the final photo in a minute.

The sentiment I found some time ago and don’t know who it’s supposed to be credited to – even though I’ve searched the internet.  I think it’s just something which happened one day and there it is.  It belongs to us all (maybe).

It reads:  Time is not measured by clocks but by Moments.  I printed this out using my computer and Photoshop.  I knew how I wanted it to look, and had a font in mind … so built it then printed it out onto card, then matted it onto gold Mirri board.

Finally … I added a short length of Ivy  (Ivy is so timeless that I felt it married well into the card)  and some paper flowers …

I made the flowers from music sheet paper which I ‘vintaged’ with an ink pad and a duster brush.  The die used to cut them out was a large die of different flowers by Heartfelt Creations.  The added bits,  of cogs and parts of the clock explosions, were also cut from a Heartfelt Creations die, which I die cut using my Ebosser and three colours of Mirri Board, Silver Shiney Gold and Matt Gold,  and then the resulting die cuts I cut into to make the effect I was after.

And that’s all there was to it.  😊

This card, well ….  I very nearly opened my bin and plonked the whole lot in.  It took me sooo long to make.  Doesn’t look as if it did – but oh boy, it was all  Start.  Stop.  Start.  Stop.  I had to wait for glue gel to dry.  Ink to dry.  Work out the size I wanted the sentiment to print out – I only had a certain amount of space – so it needed to feel balanced.  Even when I finally said “Ahhhh.  Finished!”  I still had to wait till the next day to photograph it because the centres of the flowers have gold and silver Tonic Drops as their centre and they had to lay flat in order to keep them where they should be.

So yes..  I’ll admit that I was kind of glad this card was finally finished.  But … I’d still make it again. (I know… glutton for punishment.  lol).

I trust your Monday went well and that now you’re home (or when you eventually get home) that you feel that wonderful “Ahhhhh” feeling when you shut the door and kick off your shoes”.

Oh I remember that moment so well,  and will freely admit that I don’t miss it.  Although I’m not of retirement age,  (YAY) …  naturally – because as you well know,  I’m “Ooooonly 27“,  I am truly blessed to be ‘living the retired way‘ – even if very early on in life.  And no, it’s not because I won the lottery or have pots of money – sadly.  But if I ever do …. I promise you’ll be the first to know. 

I’m glad to not have that horrible Monday morning feeling – which actually happens sometime during Sunday afternoon.  See …. not so old that I don’t remember that feeling.

I hope your Monday has ended with you having a smile on your face.  And remember … Tomorrows Tuesday … already on the way to Friday!  YAAAY for Fridays!

BUT . . .   For anyone who needs an extra smile today …  I’ve come complete with a joke.  It’s the tiniest bit naughty … but not really, because it’s your mind which will make it naughty.

A Joke For the Day

The Mole Family
A papa mole, a mama mole, and a baby mole all live together in a little mole hole.

One day, papa mole sticks his head out of the hole, sniffs the air and said,
“Yum! I smell maple syrup!”

The mama mole sticks her head out of the hole, sniffs the air and said,
“Oh, Yum! I smell honey!”

Now baby mole is trying to stick his head out of the hole to sniff the air, but can’t because the bigger moles are in the way.
This makes him whine,
“Geez, all I can smell is….

.…. Molasses!!!!!   😆

Have a truly fabulous rest of your day,  and a blessed rest of your week.

Squidges and love,

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A special ~ ‘Pink Ribbon’ ~ Card

I don’t normally make ‘requested’ cards.   I make cards and donate them to charitable causes and organisations who sell them to raise their much-needed funds.   But .. I made an exception with the request for this card.  The person who asked me if I would make a card for someone told me about the lady they wanted a card made for, and also why they wanted a special card made – and I knew I had to make the card.  And that’s why this is a  ‘Special’ Pink Ribbon Card.

The person who asked me to make the card said that she liked vintage looking cards, and said she “would love a card with a bike on it, like on the other card…”   which she’d seen on my blog (here  → https://thecobweboriumemporium.wordpress.com/2014/07/30/take-time-to-stop-and-smell-the-flowers/ ).  She also said that she’d love some pink flowers on the card. 

So armed with this information, I set out on my journey of making a special card ….

I began with the background:-  I embossed a 6×6 piece of good quality craft card using a Sheena Douglass embossing folder, putting the card through the embossing machine twice (because the embossing folder I wanted to use was only  5 x 7.)   I had to be careful about where I placed the ‘join of the pattern’  of the double pass so that the embossing ‘fell’ just right so that the pattern continued as seamlessly as possible.

Then came colouring the woodland scene:  Three colours of Gentle Blends (by Pinflair)  blending the colours over the embossed areas in the places I wanted them to be and then using a duster brush I added a little cantaloupe coloured ink from a Memento Ink Pad and another yellowy colour which was slightly more buttery,  to the centre of the ‘view’ to give it that ‘hazy sunshine in the background’  feeling.

 

I hand painted the butterflies, leaves, flowers and grass  using a paint brush and Memento ink pads,  and. once the ink was dry  added a little pearl gilding wax to some of the butterflies, to give them a slightly ethereal feel and make them look as if their wings were fluttering.  I gave each of them a little glitter trail –  ‘falling’ behind them as they fluttered their wings to fly,  using a glue pen and some of my favourite glitter dust.  It kind of gave the whole scene a magical feel.

The sign post  I built using my computer.  I went around all the edges of the sign post with a black pen so that it gave the post a little depth and made it look like it had a dark shadow falling behind it.

A darker view of the card so that you can see a little more of the details which the flash has hidden on the other photographs.

I wanted to add a little more depth to the leaves on the branches , so I ran the embossing folder with a scrap of craft card inserted into it, though the embossing machine again, but this time carefully cut out a branch and its leaves, and then painted the branch and leaves using the paintbrush method, but this time in three darker shades of green so that it looked like it was somehow in the shade.  (I added a little glitter to the very edges of some leaves, which again, just added to that all round magical woodland feeling).

I die cut the bicycle using some textured black card, and, using a white pen, added highlights to the bike where the light would have naturally caught on it, to give it more of a dimensional feel.

At last I was able to assemble the whole card.   I fixed the sign post to the background, using Pinflair Glue Gel, and a tiny bit of tape on the back, where I’d pushed the bottom part of the post through to the back of the embossed card.  Then attached the embossed background to the card base – with my favourite ‘go to’ glue:  Collall All Purpose Glue.

The bike was added using some black foam tape, cut and snipped to the right proportions,  and the extra branch was added using Pinflair glue gel and Anita’s Tacky Glue.

I added some pretty papers to the inside of the card and stamped a butterfly  from a set which I’ve had for donkeys years . . .

. . .  and so that the inside of the card reflected the front, I added a little bicycle stamp to the other half of the inside of the card.  Signed the back and … voila!  One card all done and dusted  . . . . . . .   except  . . . . .    it needed something more  . . .   A Box!  So I made it a special box …

The decoration to the top of the lid was made using a Tonic Die set, and I just glittered the words (‘with love’) and the wings of the dragonfly.

NOW it was finished!  I’m really pleased with this card.  It has something magical and special about it.  I love it.

Thank you so much for coming to share this card with me.  I enjoy your company! 

Have a truly fabulous Sunday!  ~ 

 

Forget me Nots ~ on an ~ ‘In Sympathy’ card.

I love making cards, it’s one of my favourite things to do, however, there is one type of card that I find ‘difficult’ to make – and that’s  ‘In Sympathy’  cards.

How do you second guess someone’s pain?  How do you know what they’re going through, so know how to address the traumatic time they’ve found themselves in?

I realised today that I hadn’t made a ‘sympathy’ card for my blog, so thought I’d put myself to the test and make one.

I wanted to make something which would be the right card for several options.  If someone wasn’t a believer, then I didn’t want to push a religion upon them by saying that I was praying for that person – as some folks are so anti-religion that a card of that type could cause the person concerned to feel offended – so in the end I decided to opt with the sentiment you see on the card above.

The card is (was) based around those little blue flowers you see running down the card on the right hand side.  If you’ve already seen my post in the ‘Ranger Melt Pot’ category, then you’ll know that I made those flowers especially for this card.  I wanted to make  Forget me Not  flowers to put on this card, and I wanted them to be blue.  So I set about making them using the Ranger Melt Pot.  Once made, and with the addition of a little gilding wax (and a polish) – the flowers were perfect, so I set about making a very simple card – but one which you could feel the love which the card was made with.

Made on a brilliant white 6″x 6″ scored and folded card;  I partially embossed the front of the card using an embossing folder from the Sheena Douglass range.

The sentiment is a stamped image from a collection of Stamps made by Heartfelt Creations, which I stamped in black,  then die cut (using a Spellbinders die) and  gently inked around the very outer edge, using the same black ink as the sentiment was stamped with.

The butterflies were die cut using Tonic Dies.

The addition of a short length of black satin ribbon and the card was made.

click on the picture ↑ to make it bigger so that you can read it.

Thank you SO much for visiting. I hope you like the card, and the post too!   

If you’d like to leave me a comment, it’s easy to do:  Just scroll up to where you see the title of this post  (Forget  me  Nots on  ~  An  ‘In Sympathy’  card.)  and look just to the right of that title.  You should be able to see a grey speech bubble.  If you can’t see it, just move your mouse cursor to the left of the title – the speech bubble turns red when you roll your cursor over it.  Click that speech bubble,    it will open up any comments that have been made already – so that you can read them if you wish,  and it will also give you a comment box where you can type your own comment.

You can do this on every post, in every category on the board.

Wishing you all a truly blessed Thursday.  Have a wonderful day.

 

 

If love is blind, then why is lingerie so popular?

If love is blind … then why is lingerie so popular?

I had so much fun making this card.  It’s a large 8″x8″ card, made on white cardstock.  The pink, rose and printed papers (at the two corners) are all papers which came free with magazines a while back;  and the gold mirror board and flat gold card (die cut into a rectangle doily) were from my scraps drawer!

I’m very much a thrifty crafter and won’t waste great papers if I can save them – so where I knew I wanted to curl back I simply used a large triangle of paper to cover the corners of the base white card.  ↑

The sentiment was stamped onto gold card and embossed in black.  I felt that it needed more importance, so choose to use one of a selection of light-weight wooden frames – this one is warmer to look at than the photo shows.

I stamped out the basque ↑ onto the same colour of pink paper as the backing paper, embossed it and then attached it to a little hand-made, wire coat hanger.  I punched a hole in the rectangular doily and ‘hung’ the basque from it.

If you look closely at the basque in the photo above ↑ you might be able to see that I used a white pen in places.  This was to place ‘light’ in the places that natural light would have fallen on parts of the basque in real life.  The ribbons, the seams, bits of the lace, etc etc.

I stamped peacock feathers ↑ over the paler of the pink backing pages, and embossed them with a pale pink, twinkly embossing powder.  In the photo above you can see the embossed feathers.  (I was checking the page for placement of the basque on the doily to make sure that it would look right.) ↑

Added roses in three shades, and some sprigs of a lilac type flower in white and pink. ↑

 

Close up photographs ↑ of the corners ↑ which were curled back so that you can see the patterned paper underneath and the two different colours of pink papers.

Although I’d  curled and glued corners I wasn’t entirely convinced that the glue would hold, so I chose a large, warm pink brad for each corner to pin the paper in place.

I attached the rectangle doily, which I’d die cut on my Ebosser, to a piece of gold mirror board, then cut around the doily so that the mirror board fitted the doily exactly.  Everything was then fixed in place, and voila!  One more card added to the pile for charity.

I had lots of fun making this card and loved the way it’s turned out.  Hope you like it too.

Have a truly lovely Sunday all!

Sending love out into the ethernet  –  so grab some as it flies by!

With Love in Powder Blue ~ an elegant handmade card.

 

a more elegant card
handmade by Cobwebs

I have this love affair going on with the colour Teal at the moment, and when I saw this beautiful, teal, velvet ribbon on sale at a haberdashery local to where I live I was shocked to find that some just jumped into my basket – where it promptly held me to ransom until I’d bought 5 metres of it.  [tsk tsk.  what an absolutely shocking way for ribbon to behave!]

Made on white cardstock which has a very slightly hammered texture to it.  The powder blue edge strip along the fold line, was made using a Spellbinders Classic Petal Edgeabilities die; and the central circular, lacey type die cut, which includes the sentiment  ‘With Love’, was made using a Tonic Indulgence Semi Circle (item number: 471e).  The powder blue  card which I used for the die cuts was a huge sized piece of random card which I’ve had for ever!

Of course me being me  . . there had to be a little surprise waiting on the inside. . .

I made an insert from papers which had a sort of heavenly, cloudy effect – added another Spellbinders Edgeabilities die cut (from the same set) and made the little tag from some printed papers which I think I got free with a magazine a while ago, which I mounted onto a piece of the powder blue cardstock which all the die cuts were cut from.  But this time, instead of the velvet ribbon (which would have been too thick and substantial to use on this tag) I used a short length of teal Rayon Seam Binding. (American Seam Binding).

I don’t normally make ‘elegant’ cards.  I’m more the fun, shabby chic, steam punk, vintage type of card maker, so this card really was a step out of my comfort zone.  But I like the way it turned out.  Less is more really worked for this card.

Whoops – nearly forgot  … the flowers on the front are all from Anna Marie Designs, who you can find on this clickable link:  http://www.annamariedesigns.co.uk/

Thank you so much for visiting and taking the time to have a read.  Please have a look around while you’re here.  There are lots of categories (see the menu over to the right – you might have to scroll up to see all the categories) where I hope you’ll find something you like.

Have a really lovely rest of your day all.

Life is a Journey .. not a Destination. ~ A vintage style handmade card

 

Life is a Journey, not a Destination.

This post is dedicated to Stacey, a fellow blogger on WordPress, who came up with a brilliant idea of promoting other crafting blogs in posts.  Stacey very kindly mentioned my blog (with a link) and other crafters blogs that I hadn’t seen before  – which was enough to tell me that I too should take up her idea and promote crafters blogs on my own blog here. 

So, since Stacey came up with the idea, I am firstly promoting her blog (link below) and dedicating this post  – and this card  –  to Stacey. 

Stacey’s blog can be found here:  http://staceyscorner.wordpress.com/2014/06/01/share-sunday/  ~ go and take a look and maybe even click to follow her.

To Stacey,   a dedicated blog post and card,  for an amazing idea!  ~ from Cobs.

. . . join me on a journey through this card . . .

 

Every few days/weeks  … now and again … I’ll make what I call a ‘labour intensive’ card.  One of those cards which takes more time than the regular cards you’ve so far seen me post here.  This card – ‘Life is a Journey, not a Destination’, is one of those cards.

It’s not that these types of cards are difficult, they just take a little more thinking and working out so that you end up with the ‘feel’ that you started out knowing you wanted.  This particular card was inspired by a piece of wall art which I have hung in my bedroom, facing my bed.  It’s an iron framed rectangle with a piece of calico strung in the centre and printed on the calico are the words Life is a Journey, not a Destination, and that’s what gave me the theme for the card.

I wanted the card to have a vintage style, with a slightly ‘steampunkery’ feel to it – but at the same time I knew I wanted it to carry a message,  and wanted the message to be read as either literal or spiritual, depending on who the card ended up with, and the circumstances they were in within their life, at that time.  And ... I think I’ve managed it.

This card could be for someone who’s:-  moving house;  going on a cruise or going abroad;  it could be a simple regular birthday card (for either a man or a woman);  it could be for someone who’s starting a new job;  or perhaps for a person who needs some encouragement;  maybe some tests soon?;  or … it could be given to someone who is going through some sort of personal challenge or challenging time, and this card would be a gentle, loving way of saying that they’re going to get through this time and move on to a better place or time.

I’ll give you a list of everything I used to make this card at the end of the post, because I don’t want anyone to look at the list and think that they couldn’t make a card like this.  I might have different stash to you, and I might have different cardstock; dies; ink pads; glues etc etc … but I’m pretty sure you will have things in your stash that you could use to pull a card like this or similar together.  Just because the list of stuff I’ve used might look long – please don’t be put off.  If you want to make something like this, go and look at your stash.  You’d be surprised what you can use in order to make your own style of card.

For now .. I’ll just give you different photos of the card so that you can see things closer up….

Up up and away!  . . .

A  (working)  compass  to help you keep you going in the right direction . . .

 

 

Time passes quickly, –  so some gentle encouragement to enjoy the beauty of every moment.

 

 

As followers and readers of my blog know  …  I LOVE to put surprises inside all the cards I make.  I feel that the inside of a card is just so wasted and such a let down when you open a birthday/Christmas or any other time card, and find a big white space with a little bit of writing. 

I like cards to be beautiful inside and out and surprise the receiver when they open their card! . . . 

 

Oooo…  I wonder what the magnifying glass is for?!   ;D 

OOhh .. another surprise!   ..  now we have a lucky wish star and a ticket which gives me ‘entitlement’ to one wish!    But .. what the devil is that magnifying glass for???

 

Ah haaaa!  . . .   It’s so you can read the page from the dictionary/thesaurus!  Ok .. one mystery solved,  . . .   but  … what’s that pink ticket by the end of the handle?

 

 

Ah haaaa!  . . .  mystery number two solved!  (Just call me Sherlock.  lol)

Oh, and by the way  … the postcard inside . . .  is for you to write your message on, for the person you’re sending the card to!  See?  It all makes sense!

And that  . . . (photo above)  . . .   is the just finished card, stood on a glass cutting mat, on my desk …  and that’s all my  mess  important, essential, fabulous, well organised   {cough}  equipment and tools behind the card.  (I’ll clean it up properly at some point, so that I can take a photograph of my craft room and share it.)

 

The Recipe for this card:  I used:

• Sheena Douglass – Little Bit Sketchy – Magnifying glass stamp.
• Papermania Acetate (for the ‘window’ of the magnifying glass)
• Papermania Black Embossing Powder
• Stazon ‘Saddle Brown’ ink pad
•      ”       ‘Jet Black’ ink pad
• Memento Dye Ink Pad in ‘Desert Sand’
•      ”               ”            ”     in ‘Rich Cocoa”
• Xcut Build-a-Scene Dies – Vintage Hot Air Balloon
• Heartfelt Creations 12×12 pad – which I used some of the images from.
• Spellbinders ‘Once upon a Time’ Die
• Tattered Lace ‘Postcards’ Die set
• Heartfelt Creations ‘Time Sentiments’ stamp
•         ”               ”          ‘Journey Sentiments’ stamp
• Pinflair Gentle Blends – in Denim colour
•       ”            ”            ”      –  in Dark Khaki colour
• Graph It Glitter Ink Pen
• Compass – was in a pack of 4 I bought a while ago, from the children’s section of either Asda or Tesco.
• Dictionary page was cut from an old Dictionary/Thesaurus which was no longer used.
• Cardstock used:
• Warm Chocolate Brown 300gsm
• Plain Black 270gsm
• Orange – was scrap from my scrap draw
• White – 270gsm
• Kraft Card – 300gsm
• Extras:
• 2 x short lengths of silver-grey Rayon Seam Binding.
• Grey and white Bakers Twine
• 3 x fuzzy, funky fibre, Eyelash Knitting Yarn/Wool –  1 x length of warm brown.  1 x  length of jet black.  1 x length of a blues and purples mix.
• One tiny metal vintage looking Postcard embellishment.

And that’s all there is to it!  😀

Aw, please don’t be daunted by the apparently long list of ingredients for this recipe.   I’ve named almost everything I used here just to be helpful to anyone who wants to know where I got a particular thing, or the make of the papers or dies etc,  (named everything apart from glue .. but if you need to know:  I used Collall All Purpose, Anita’s Tacky Glue, hot glue, and Double Sided Tape) – but I bet you use tons of stuff when you craft a card and you don’t even notice what you’re using anymore.  It’s just all  … ‘stuff’ … which is treasured and loved,  and there because you use it!

Thank you so much for coming to read.  I hope you like the card!  Oh … and don’t forget to visit Stacey’s blog!

Please have a look around my blog here and check out the different categories.  There’s a list of them all in the column over to the right, – you’ll find the list of categories towards the top of that column.

Have a truly beautiful rest of your day!  ~