Haaapy Monday! Can you believe it’s already the 22nd of May?? I had to do a double take when I looked at the calendar. (Although why it’s called a Calendar I don’t know. Surely it should be called a CalenDAY? It makes sense! Calenday. “Sweetheart . . . What date does it say on the calenday for a week on Monday?” See? Calenday. I think we should start a movement and all begin to call it a Calenday. That will get things put right!)
[thinks to self: perhaps I should write to Mr.Trump, and Mr.Putin, Prime Minister May, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, South Korean President Park Geun-hye, Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe, French President Francois Hollande ….. and of course I shall drop The Queen a note about this. I’m sure Her Majesty will agree that this is a grand idea!]
Aaaannnyhoo…. I made a card and I promised myself that I wouldn’t do a big long post and bore everyone to tears, so I’ll get on with showing you the card.
It was all made on a scored 6″x6″ white card.
Measured, cut and fixed in place the hessian you see in the photo (below), and while that was drying, I distressed some pale(ish) blue gingham paper, tearing it and rolling it in places, added some blue gingham ribbon and fixed the paper and ribbon two-some, in place, on top of the hessian.
Next came fussy cutting some honeycomb from a sheet of honeycomb printed paper then adhered it to the gingham paper. Time for a little decoupage: to make the dresser, where the chicken has laid her eggs, and one little chick has already hatched. 🙂
If you look really closely you just might be able to see that there’s a cobweb in the space where the drawer is missing, – to the right hand side, in the upper corner of the drawer space.I thought that was a nice touch considering who was making this. lol
Can’t see it? . . . here it is . . .
I added bits of straw in various places, and a tiny wooden rolling-pin – hanging on some cotton. The silver bumble bee you see hanging below the large red petal flower is also hanging on a thread, so giving the buzzy bumble a ‘flying’ movement.
The lovely, fluffy marmalade coloured feather was donated by one of our chickens: Miss Edna BIG BIRD, HUGE EGGS Chicken. She’s so accommodating. I ask for a feather and she does the ‘chicken wiggle’ and out pops something perfect. lol
The flower adornment was made using some pretty coloured stamens, some loofah strands, a tiny piece of muslin which I pulled some threads from to make it kind of ‘feathery’ around the edges, and that lovely ‘blousy’ flower from my stash.
Finally, it was time for some attention to the inside: using some distressed yellow gingham paper, cut to size, I made an insert which I then stamped and added a Country Chicken ticket in the lower right hand corner.
OH! And I added a bow made from the ribbon, to the front of the card!
And that, as they say, is all there was to it!
The papers and ribbons are all part of the DoCrafts ‘Home Sweet Home’ range. I bought them about a year ago and used some of them, but then Summer moved to Autumn and so I put them away reminding myself to get them out again this year. And … as strange as this might sound, I actually remembered!Ha! Miracles really do happen. 😀
Everything else came from my stash.
So, changing the subject …. I was thinking about Mondays, and I’ve worked out that Mondays were invented as a punishment for all the fun we have at the weekends! Seriously. It makes total sense when you think about it. We all do have more fun at the weekends, and we obviously needed something to kind of get us back into line – so Monday was invented. SOO…. Just get it over with and within 24 hours, it will be Tuesday, after that . . . it’s all heading towards Friday 😀 … can’t get better than that! So lets change things round a little. Smile today. Be happy. Be all twinkly eyed and joke around. Beat the system!
Oh … and just to get you started, here’s a Monday Special:
Q: What do you call a parade of rabbits hopping backwards? . . . A:a receding hare-line.
Have a great day out there. Be nice to yourself, and each other. And … remember to look both ways when you cross the road!
I’m still on my challenge to use ‘gifts’ which have come free with magazines. I’ve got a drawer full of stamps and loads of free decorative papers for use in card making or scrapbooking, so this weekend I decided that it was time for another ‘make it from magazine gifts’challenge.
I looked through the stamps and came across a set which had come with a magazine about 18 months to 2 years ago. (I know, I know. I should have used them by now). I can’t understand why I hadn’t unpacked and played with them when I got them to be honest, because they’re just so lovely. I even remember the magazine had featured some photos inside the mag to show a sample of cards you could make. One in particular stood out to me. It had coats on the front stamped on flowery paper, and I liked it. So I thought I’d make something like it because I have someone in my family who’s birthday is coming up soon and she likes Cath Kidston and cottage style, so my decision was made for me.
The coat actually wasn’t a stamp in itself, it’s a clear stamp of a little girl wearing a coat, so I masked off her head and legs, then inked up the coat in a Memento ink pad in brown and stamped out four coats on some creamy white paper which had roses printed all over it, and four coats on some blue paper which was also printed with roses. Both of these sets of papers were again free but this time with two different magazines.
I had to ‘fussy cut’ the coats out,which was fine at first,but by coat five I began to wonder if this was such a great idea! (Although you can only see 4 of the coats in the photos, there are actually 8 – they’re layered, using foam pads, to give a little depth to the card). I chose some vintage style blue paper with creamy white polka dots for the background (which I distressed a little by using a colour duster brush and some ink from the same ink pad I’d used to stamp the coats out.)
After that it was just a case of assembling it all. I found I had to place the coats at a slightly jaunty angle (and make them ‘hold hands’), because otherwise there wouldn’t be quite enough room for them to sit comfortably (with a little space between them). I did consider starting again and making the card longer, but I really quite liked the angle look so kept it.
While sat wondering what sentiment it should be … my eyes rested upon the friendly looking ‘Happy Birthday‘ ribbon and it called out to me to use it, so I chose the ribbon in place of a sentiment as it added a certain country cottage feel to it. Finally, I added some gingham buttons to finish the whole thing off.
And that’s all there was to it! But… looking at this last photo↑ … who on earth would tromp through the fields to get the sheep in for the night, wearing a Cath Kidston style coat? I mean to say … look at the Quality! The fit! The colours! These coats would cost an absolute arm and a leg if they were for sale in a Cath Kidston shop!
(The papers aren’t Cath Kidston .. but they remind me of her fabulous country-style.)
So that’s me done and dusted so let’s talk about you! .. how did your weekend go? Did you make anything? Did you go anywhere spiffingly wonderful? Buy anything? Eat something naughty? What made you happy this weekend? Or … what made you sad? Tell us … we might just be able to make you smile again, or at the very least, we can all send you love and chat with you about whatever it is. We’re all friends here. I’ll put the kettle on, you slip off your shoes, sit down, put your feet up and get comfy. Tea or coffee? Sugar? Milk?
Have a fabulous start to your week all.Make Monday Memorable.
Morning/afternoon/evening – all you lovely readers! (And those who don’t feel that lovely but really are very lovely indeed!)
I’m here and I’m still crafting … but I’ve had to back track on a project. [insert sad face here]. My much-loved Grandson began his new ‘big school’ this week, and the teacher had given all these little ones (on their visit to the new school a couple of months ago), a little bucket, which she asked them to fill with ‘stuff’ related to things that happened during the summer weeks before they started school.
My daughter (his mummy)doesn’t get out as much as she’d like to, due to a medical problem which can keep her not exactly house bound, but it doesn’t allow her the sort of freedom to come and go as much as you and I have and so I guessed that filling the bucket might be somewhat of a problem. So because of this I came up with the idea of making a little book/album and fill it with photo’s and mementoes of things that my Grandson did with us, his Grammy and Grandad, in the summer before big school. (Grammy and Grandad memories added to Mummy and Daddy memories would make up a selection of great memories for my Grandson to share at school). And making & recording memories is what’s been keeping me busy for the last few weeks. I’ve had tons of little things to do with this much-loved Grand-baby of mine (yes, I know he’s not ‘mine’, I have to share him with Mr. Cobs, and his Mummy and Daddy, and his other Grandparents, and his aunty and cousins ….and… and … on and on!, but when he’s with me he’s all mine).
It was a fabulous little book and I was so pleased with the way it was coming together. I’d planned that all the memories and photographs were going to be on large tags, which slotted into pockets which I’d built inside the book. I showed the book to my little grandson a couple of weeks ago and he loved it. It didn’t have the pictures in it at the time, I’d kept those to one side, but just wanted to show him the book – and I had the devil of a job getting the book back off him! He wanted to keep it and take it home. lol. Oh! I’ve just thought! … I perhaps should have told you that this darling, adorable little boy, who is just four and a half years old and the most incredible little chap who’s so easy to love, was born with Cerebral Palsy. It has affected his walking to some extent, and also left him a little behind educationally. His understanding is about 18 to 24 months behind children of the same age as he is.
I’m aware of how careful we should all be of our little ones, so instead of giving you his name, we’ll just call him little H here on the ‘net.
I’d almost finished the tag book, apart from a couple of photo’s and fixing a couple of feathers and an Oak leaf in place, when it turned out that his mommy decided that she didn’t want to use this book after all. [insert miserable face here].
I was at a loss about what to do with the tag book – it wasn’t at all big enough to use as a mini album, and I couldn’t make it bigger as the book itself was ‘made’ in full. So after a couple of days of looking at it and trying to come up with ideas, I decided that rather than lose the beautiful memories we’d made during the summer, I thought the best thing I could do was to de-construct it, and then build a proper mini album, and use what I had, in a way which would make it feel like it had only ever been like it was in its new ‘form’. So this is what’s keeping me busy and stopping me from keeping my blog up to date! (Sorry about that. Life!).
But … I thought I’d take this opportunity to share something I put together for this little chap (well, for his mum and daddy to be precise) – which was a Thank You card to all his nursery school teachers.
I had a Big Friendly Giant decoupage card – ‘un-constructed’ – in my stash for ages and never made it up. And, well, … I had a couple of days where I’d totally lost my mojo, so I thought I’d get the mojo juices running by making up the découpage card. Crafting something was better than just sitting there looking at my desk.
All the things needed to make up one card, came inside this ↑ handy wallet/envelope, from the makers of DoCrafts.
And this ↑ is what it looks like when you unpack the contents of the wallet/envelope
It was easy as melting chocolate with a heat gun, to put together. Just layer it all up. So I did … and loved it when it was made, and just as I was popping the last element in place, the phone rang … it was my daughter on the phone. We chatted for a while then I said that I’d made this card ….. and she said she needed a card to thank everyone at the Nursery School. She’d got cards for the teachers who had the most to do with little H, but she wanted one bigger card for a general Thank You, to everyone.
I looked at the BFG card and had an idea. I could turn this card into a thank you card easy peasy. So I did.
If you click on this photograph ↑ it will open up into a much bigger picture so that you can see it and all its layers. But … it’s not quite finished, so remember to click back to see the finished article.
I cut some flag bunting using a die, in four colours of gingham card: Biscuit; Baby Blue, Teal Blue and Pink, and mixed up the colours so that the bunting was a combination of all four colours. I die cut some alphabet letters to spell out the words ‘Thank You’, which I then mounted onto the flags and finally added some buttons, blue ribbon (to be the ‘book mark’) and a little card rosette with a button at the centre, for the top of the front.
And that, as they say, was all there was to it. But I loved the way it turned out. Just shows you that you can change a découpage card ‘kit’ to make it fit the occasion you want it to fit.
So … that’s me talked out, now it’s over to you.What have you been up to? Done anything nice that you want to share? Been somewhere lovely? Or just want to have a general chat? I’m in favour of anything you want to say. Say it in a comment below and I promise to answer.
In the cottage where Mr. Cobs and I used to live we had a HUGEmongous back garden. A tiny postage stamp sized front garden, but the back garden was fabulous.
We lived in that cottage for around 30 years, and I always said that I’d never leave it. However, what’s that saying about the best laid ‘schemes of mice and men’often going awry? My plan for never leaving the cottage totally changed when our youngest daughter got married and moved to the end of the planet. (Well no, not quite, it was only to the end of the country – but it felt like another planet altogether). She missed us, and the dogs, and the cats …. and … oh, everything! This missing us was making her dreadfully miserable, even though we travelled to see her and she to see us. Eventually we made the big decision that we’d sell up and move to live near her and our new son-in-law.
We’d said many, many years ago (when we were young and full of pie in the sky ideas) that maybe, possibly, perhaps, one day we might like to live by the sea, but we’d long forgotten that, and besides which, we’d grown older and less inclined to ‘up-sticks’. But anyway, … our cottage was sold, and we bought a new place near our daughter and son-in-law and moved lock, stock and … all our animals.
The long distance move was quite an ‘experience’ – but I’ll save that amusing, hair-raising tale for another day.
We’ve made friends with our new neighbours – all of them are just the most lovely folks, and we’re really settling in here in our new home and it’s feeling more like ‘us’.
I happened to admire some bluebells in one of my neighbours gardens, telling her how I missed the bluebells in my old garden. So she did no more than … gave me some of hers! I was beside myself with thanks to her. Mr. Cobs planted them in the rear garden and … the dog thought they were a new place to pee and killed the darn things.
My neighbour gave us some more some weeks ago. This time we planted bundles of them in the garden to the front of our new cottage, and just a few in the rear garden (and are keeping a close eye on the dog!).
The bluebells looked a little limp and very sad. All the leaves were just lying around on the ground like wilted things and I honestly thought we were going to lose them all. But suddenly … a spike appeared. Then another. And another and …. they looked like they were going to flower! AND … joy of joys … … THEY DID! They all began to flower.
I decided that I’d make a ‘Thank You’ card for my neighbour, and would take some photographs of the little bluebells for her, to include in the card.
So this, dear reader, is the story of how this card came to be, and how I went about making it.
Hand painted by Cobs.
I wanted the card to be very personal. Something where the ‘elements’ were a little more personal so that my neighbour would see that this really was a thank you from my heart. I began by painting a little bundle of bluebells – in a very light-hearted, kind of country style / folksy art way. (Country / folk art style painting is so much more friendly and less ‘formal’, don’t you think?).
Then I tried something I’ve never done before …. making felt flowers.
I made some bluebells from felt, wire and florist tape, then set this on one side for later.
I’d chosen to make a 6″x6″ white card as a base, and mat and layer onto the front of the card with something fresh and pretty as a background.
I stitched around the card I’d chosen for matting and layering on the card stock, in zig zag stitching.
Fashionistas always say you shouldn’t mix spots and stripes. I say … ‘do whatever feels good’. So I matched spotty card with gingham! (see above photo – the gingham is down in the left corner).
I stitched around the watercolour card in straight stitch, on the sewing machine.
I cut a slightly larger than the card size piece of green Organza ….
Green Organza, into which I hand sewed a running stitch and then pulled on the ends of he thread to gather the Organza up a little to make it look a bit scrunched and folded, behind the card.Showing you the white base card, with the gingham mounted on top.
Before I layered the spotty card onto the gingham, I distressed the edges and then using a duster brush, to give the card a more vintage feel, using some warm brown ink from a StazOn ink pad.
See the ‘gathered’/folded organza? I added a rough cut piece of muslin behind the painted bluebells, and added some deep blue paper ribbon, which I wrapped around the watercolour card twice and added the bow. I then added some cotton lace to the bottom of the card.
Then it was time for me to build the idea I’d had when I first thought of making this very special thank you card.
I knew I wanted it to have a vintage feel, to almost feel like it came from the 40’s or 50’s. I chose all my flowers, and knew that I had some wooden plant markers in my craft room somewhere … finding them was going to be the tricky part. Would you believe it! I found them in the very first place I looked! (That NEVER happens normally!)
My very most favourite part of card making … adding the ‘decorations’.
I added the little nest with the three bird eggs, by using my hot glue gun. It’s a very light weight decoration, so doesn’t make the card heavy. The flowers are all from my stash and bought from various places.
The little dragonfly is a metal, Tibetan Silver embellishment. The white fuzzy ‘flowers’ you see are a type of Gypsophila, which I’ve only recently discvered and absolutely love them. They make things so pretty, and give so much more depth to a floral ‘arrangement’ on a card.
The wooden plant sticks are blank – but you can change that really simply by either writing on them yourself (if you have a steady hand) or … choose a font on your computer, print the word(s) out that you wish to have on your plant stick and simply glue the word onto it!
Close up of the tiny boots.
The two Wellington boots are metal, Tibetan Silver, and actually do stand up all by themselves! I hung them on some silver chain – leftover from my days of jewellery making, and added the Rayon Seam Binding bow, in a deep blue colour.
I’d made the card so that it was a pocket card(with an easel stand to the back so that it stood up all by itself), and made two tags for inside the pocket. One was to be a bookmark, and the other was for photographs and the dedication (the ‘to’, ‘from’ etc).
Showing one side of the Tags
You can click on any/all of these photographs and they’ll open up to a much bigger photo which you can see a little more easily if you wish.
One side of the bookmark
The bookmark is double-sided. On this side (shown above) I’ve used two stamps from the ‘Floral Sentiments’ Vintage Collection which I stamped in black, and also another stamp called ‘Parchment Script’ made by Image Tree, which I embossed using Gold embossing powder. I also stamped two tiny butterflies from a collection by Cavallini, which I embossed using Copper Kettle embossing powder.
The other side of the tags
On the reverse side of the larger tag I stamp some card with a Postcard stamp (by Urban), which is where I wrote the ‘to ….. from ….’ – and on the reverse side of the bookmark; I computer made the little picture of the bunch of bluebells teamed with part of a poem written by Anne Bronte′.
If you click on this photograph it will open up into a much bigger view, and you’ll be able to read the poem.
Click on the photo ↑ to make it bigger – but don’t forget to click ‘back’ to come back again!
The photographs mounted onto the larger tag
I took a handful of photographs of the bluebells blooming in my garden, chose the best three, then resized them on my computer to make them smaller, and kind of cuter, and added them to the one side of the larger tag. Oh … I forgot to say . . . I stamped that word ‘Photographs’ – using a Tim Holtz stamp.
Close up of the photographs. click on the photo to make it bigger – but remember to click ‘back’ to continue reading
Obviously, a card with a bird’s nest on the front isn’t going to fit into an envelope! I had to make a deep box …..
I didn’t want to make the box in the same colours, but I did want the box and card to ‘speak’ to each other and have things in common . . . so I used dotty card – only this time in deep purple, and stamped all around the outside of the box with bird themed stamps. Bird Nests. Bird Houses, Dove Cotes. Birds on nests in branches …. etc. And just for a bit of fun, I added the little resin birds nest to the lid of the box. I added the little topper of a Garden Shed and made the bunting from scraps of different colours of dotty card, hand stamped with the letters from the alphabet to spell out ‘THANK YOU’.
Do you remember those felt bluebells I made, right at the start? Well … there they are. On that box lid.
A close up of the felt bluebells.
The colours of the bluebells aren’t actually quite as shocking as in the photographs of them. The flash obviously surprised them and make them a little more flamboyant than they really are. lol.
When I took the card over to my neighbour, she was absolutely thrilled with it, but as surprised as surprised could be that I’d made the card myself. She exclaimed …. “You made this??” … then a few moments later … “And you actually made this??” …. then …. “I can’t believe you made this. It’s wonderful!” … … which I didn’t take offence at, I just giggled my head off. (Although I do wonder what I look like I make in my craft room People probably think I make a mess more than I make anything else! LOL … Hmm, actually, looking at my craft room – they’d be right! eek!)
Well that’s it. That’s the story of this card, and how it came to be. OH! I nearly forgot to tell you … my neighbour said: “You couldn’t have brought this on a better day… it’s my Birthday tomorrow!”. Awww, I was filled with fun bubbles when she said this. She would have an extra card on the shelf!
Thank you SO much for coming to visit. I love seeing and chatting with you all via comments. It makes blog land such a wonderful place to be in. I’ve made some really fabulous friends and blogging buddies, and I never guessed that I would when I first began this blog, just over a year ago. So thank you for making this dotty old card makers days even more brilliant!
Sending love, and wishing you all …. a truly blessed rest of your day!
The Art of Cobwebs 