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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Suits You Sir!

Hello all.  It’s great to see you here.  Before I get into talking about this card I’d like to take a moment to say a very warm welcome to new followers.  I’m absolutely thrilled to pieces that you’ve signed up here, – so a big thank you!

I actually made this card about two weeks ago and I’ve been struggling ever since to get the photographs loaded, sort out the clearest ones, (most of them look like I was joggimg while operating the camera),  resize them (to make them smaller than the size of an Olympic swimming pool!) and then load them onto the blog here.  Time seems to have flown and before I could blink, every day came to its end about 12 hours before I needed it to.  But … better late than never….

The idea behind this card came from looking at cards which had been made for men for all sorts of occasions: Birthdays, Anniversary, Fathers Day,  ‘Congratulations’ cards, and also cards sent to celebrate Civil Partnerships. I always struggled finding a decent shop bought card for men, but making one is even worse!  So I thought I’d give myself a challenge to come up with a design which would be a little different.  Something  which had a bit of style (and a spoonful of humour),  but instead of it being for a specific occasion, I wanted to make a ‘multi-functional’ type of card, which would be great as a card sent on or for any occasion.  I especially wanted to include a Civil Partnership suitable card as I’ve grown so tired of seeing two cut outs of grooms in wedding attire on the front of a card.  They’re great, and they state what the cards for, but I wanted something different. I began by fixing two 6″x6″ cards together and cutting the flap to the left hand side of the fold in a diagonal from inner crease top, to the outer corner bottom.

2 6×6″ white cards glued to each other, then the centre panel lined with black card.

The right hand side of the card was firstly cut in the same way, but then cut again, as you can see in the photo above.  This was in order for it to become the folded over side of the suit jacket. 

Adding the ‘fabric pattern’ of the suit

I originally began this idea thinking I was going to make a striped suit, but instead I chose a more fun, spotty card – black with white dots. I added two silver buttons, and made a jacket breast pocket – with faux stitching, to make it look like it was stitched to the front of the card.  I made the stitch holes using a sewers marker tool:

the white card shows the little holes made by the tool.

The collar to the jacket was an easy make.  Two strips of cardstock, cut to the correct length and scored (with a 1cm fold which would be used to fix the collar to the inside edge), then cut and shaped, with a ‘v’ cut out at just the right point, to represent a collar on a jacket, and then fixed to the card. Then it needed a shirt.  I simply measured the width of the inner card, then took off around a centimetre and cut some white card to that width.  I scored the card across the width at the depth I wanted the collar to be, and then cut down the centre of the card just enough to make it look like the shirt was unbuttoned a the top.  I then rounded the corners of the collar with my Memory Keepers Corner Chomper.  Next: came the tie. Aww, now this proved to be a big pain in the rear end – because the only time I’ve ever tied a tie was when I was in my Secondary School, and it was around my neck.  I can tie ties around my neck … but doing it around this card was something of a skill that was lost on me.  It took me roughly seven or eight go’s before I got even close.  <sigh>  But .. in the end I managed it and gave myself a well deserved  ‘FINALLY!!!’  – out loud and very exhaustingly proud. The shirt was fixed into place.  The tie was fixed so that the knot would hang free, but that the body of the tie would kind of bunch a little over the jacket closure. and finally, the jacket was fixed into place and ‘closed’. Then came the tags for tucking into the ‘pocket’ which I’d just made within the card, inside the shirt. The larger of the two tags is for the ‘dedication’ of the card (to/from etc):-  I think I found that frame on the Graphics Fairy – but wherever it was, I changed it so that it matched the purple of the tie.  The long slim tag was stamped with an empty clock face – the idea being that the time could be filled by the sender drawing on the hands to mark the time appropriate.  It could be the time he was born;  Time the child sending the card was born;  Time of the Civil Partnership;  etc etc.  And above the clock face – details of what the time meant/means;  date of birth etc, or maybe: details of where the receiver of the card is meant to meet you (say for a meal) – etc etc.  Or even maybe a photograph(s) of children or of the receiver themself. The backs of the tags  … the larger one is a vintage image which I coloured to match the tie;  and the long slim tag is a copy of an original vintage postcard of the same length and width as you see in the photograph. I added a paper rose and some metal filigree leaves.  (Metal for the more masculine feel of them), and a fob watch on a chain, which I draped up to the breast pocket, and fixed in place with a ring.  (The chain hangs free, and gives movement to the card.) I made a tag for the breast pocket too and added some folded and stitched ribbon to the end of it, to make the handkerchief popping out of the pocket. And finally …  I made a matching box for the card. The tiny shirt fixed to the front of the box is actually one piece of folded paper (sort or origami style folding), and I made a tie out of two pieces of card which was closest in colour to the tie on the card as I could possibly get.  I added a blank tag to the front of the box so that the recipient’s name could be added, just as you would do on an envelope.

The whole set!

I have to admit that there were times, as I was making this card, that I began to wish I’d never started – it seemed to be taking me forever to do the smallest things.  However, once it was finished and I sat back and looked at it, I loved it. Thank you so much for coming today and having a look at this card.  Hope you like it.

Have a wonderful rest of your day.  May the weather be kind and may life treat you well.

Lots of love ~