It was a book – and now it’s a card!

Firstly … sorry to still be posting Christmas cards,  in the middle of January, but this was one which I couldn’t post before Christmas as it would have spoilt the surprise, so sharing it with you now.

Originally this was a children’s book called Dear Zoo.

It was one of those books which is ‘interactive’.  It had opening doors on each page.  So I began by cutting those doors out so that the pages lay closely together.

I set to work and first measured out how much of a section I wanted to cut out of the book in order to leave the right size ‘hole’ inside the card/book at the end.  Once I’d cut through the pages, I then glued and used double-sided tape to ensure that the pages I wanted to stay shut actually stay that way.

Then …  I went to town.  Papers, card, ribbons, flowers, baubles, a sleigh, handmade hearts, berries, printed pictures from a CD Rom, cutting, pearls, snowflakes, die cutting …  you name it, I think I probably either did it or thought about doing it.

Inside, showing page 1, of the book/card.

I die cut the Christmas trees, then painted them roughly with a little paint then once dry I added some dimensional ‘snow’ and added a little twinkling glitter.  While those dried I stamped the blue backing paper with clear embossing ink and added some softly twinkly embossing powder so that it gave the background a bit of twinkle.  The snowflakes are all die cuts too.

Inside of the book/card  –  page 2

I printed this page (above) three times, and cut out various parts of the page so that I could do a little decoupage and give the page some depth.

I added a little white glitter here and there, on these layers, just to catch the light and again, add some depth.

The back of the card/book

The spine of the book (and spreading round to the front and back) …  when you see it in real life, looks like leather.  It’s not.  It’s actually made from regular craft card and glycerine. (and an embossing folder – but you can use any embossing folder you like).  I won’t bore you to death with a ‘how to’, because people have posted how to’s about doing it all over the web.  But instead, I’ll give you a video of the fabulous lady who taught me how to make this faux leather:  (her name is Sheena Douglass and she’s Scottish – so give yourself chance to adjust to her accent and you’ll be fine then). . .

And that’s all there was to it!

Have to admit that the most difficult bit was actually cutting through those individual pages.  Coooo, those were thick and really tough work. But then …  I’m a bit of a weakling so taking the top off a bottle can challenge me most days!  tsk tsk.  drat these muscleless arms!

Well .. it’s Tuesday (or Chewsday as my friend pronounces it), and I think we need a little Tuesday fun, so here are a few jokes to turn the corners of your mouth up . . .

• Why don’t you ever see hippopotamus hiding in trees? Because they’re really good at it.
• How does NASA organise their company parties? They planet.
• My friend recently got crushed by a pile of books, but he’s only got his shelf to blame.
• What did Jay-Z call his girlfriend before they got married? Feyoncé.
• What do you call dangerous precipitation? A rain of terror.
• What do you call a big pile of kittens? A meowntain.
• …. and finally ….
• Atheism is a non-prophet organisation.

Well even if only one of them made you smile, then I’ve done my job.  😀

Thank you so much for coming.  I love seeing you here.  Each blog post is, for me, like opening up my front door and waiting for you to arrive  . . .  and then you all come, one by one, and stop for a coffee with me.  I just love it.  (and I love it even more when you stay for a chat – so please feel free to chat away in comments.  I can promise I’ll reply because, as everyone will tell you, I love to chat!)  😀

Have a truly blessed rest of your day!

 

 

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A new blue bonnet for Christmas! (on a vintage style handmade Christmas Card)

I still have the Christmas Crafting Box out next to me on the floor where I’m sitting at my desk…  and since I was still in the ‘Christmas’ frame of mind from the last card I made, I began this card (above) on Friday afternoon, . . . but then Little Cobs (Grandson) came on Saturday, and, just like any fabulous grandchild does, he shares with me all the germs he’s caught during the week at school (he’s 5), and this week he shared the germs which gave him an ear infection – however they changed somewhere in the passing and gave me a temperature and made me feel like a wilted weed!  I woke up at 3am gasping for breath and absolutely drenched.  I have no idea what my temperature was but I’m pretty sure someone could have fried an egg on me had they tried!

Thankfully things are getting back to normal again, but I really think we should build a sheep dip at the front door so that we can dip him in antiseptic before he crosses the threshold in an attempt to remove all the germs he’s bringing with him!

Anyhoo  … I’m supposed to be talking about this card so I’ll get on with it.

Made on a 7″x7″ white card, using some Red Corrugated card as a layer to bring the Christmas colour into the card.

I bought a pack of decorative papers last year, with Christmas images on them and hadn’t used them.  There were 2 of each design in the pack.  And it was this little girl, in her new blue bonnet which was so sweet that I chose her to theme this card around.  I used both sheets of this design, layering one sheet onto the Christmas Red corrugated card, and then cutting into the second sheet in order to pick out some details and over-lay them using foam tabs, so giving depth to the card.

The large snowflakes are wooden ones, which I painted white, and while the paint was dry I gently sprinkled a little fine glitter over them so that they would have that more ‘frosty’ look.  The Red/pink four petal flowers around the left side of the card, I actually picked up in a charity shop about a year ago.  It looked as if someone was clearing some of their stash from their craft room and I found these flowers.  Didn’t know what I was going to do with them, but at 75p for a large cellophane bag full of them, I decided to buy them because I knew I’d use them at some point.  And … look!   I am!

I added the blue ‘crystal’ centres to the flowers, in a nod to the colour of the bonnet which the little girl is wearing.  I wanted a ‘conversation’ to be going on between the colours.

The little wooden frame is one from a selection by Docrafts, and the sequins are from my stash.  To finish the card off,  I added the little silver metal Christmas Stocking Charm (right top corner) with a Christmas Red Ribbon tied to it and … that, as they say, is all there was to it.

If I’ve missed anything or you want to know about something, please just ask away in a comment.  I promise I’ll reply.

Well Halloween came and went, and I was rather happy when the day had drawn to a close, because we had out busiest Halloween night, EVER, and I only had three bags of sweets left, and had begun to panic.

I went through my whole supply of cellophane C5 size bags and had none left!  I’d begun by making  about 12 cellophane bags, each filled with either a sucking lolly or a (drumstick) chewy lolly,  plus a pack of parma violets; a Roses chocolate;  a humbug; a chocolate eclair;  2 chocolate Ghost;  2 chocolate eyeballs;  and two chocolate coins.  We thought, judging on previous years, that those 12 bags filled with assorted sweets would very likely be enough.  Oh how wrong were we!

After just ten minutes I had to throw more bags together as fast as I could,  but before I’d managed to finish the doorbell wrang again and I had to leave Mr. Cobs to seal the bags up, while I kept the little ones and their mummies and daddies talking at the door (admiring their costumes and having a conversation about how wonderful the Princess’s were, and how scary the ghosts and ghouls were), while Mr.Cobs quickly sealed the bags and scrambled out to the door to bring me more supplies.  And that happened again, and again.

Sometimes there was just one little darling with a daddy or mummy, and sometimes there were five.  On one visit, there were five little ones, three girls and two boys, and as I was talking to the little ghostly bride she was doing a familiar jiggle.  I bent over and whispered in a stage whisper (so that mummy could hear what I was saying) …  “Oh Beautiful Ghostly Bride … do you by any chance need a wee?”.  “No,  no I don’t.”   ….  “You don’t?  Are you sure poppet?”  …  “Yes I’m sure…..  Uhm . . .   Actually …. I do!“   The jiggle had got ever-so more jiggly.  Mummy stepped forward and said … “Oh dear,  I think she does, yes”. So … not only did I have ghosts and ghouls at the front door on Halloween …. I even had a spook in my bathroom!  And I noticed that the jiggle had gone by the time she collected her bag of sweets from me on the way out of the front door.  lol.  Bless her heart.

They were all so, so lovely and so very sweet.  I couldn’t pick a favourite out of them all if I tried to.  I just wanted to scoop them all up and squidge them  …  which I think was because I was missing Little Cobs – who was still suffering with his virus so sadly couldn’t go out Trick or Treating.  Ah well … there’s always next year.

Aww anyhoo …  HAPPY WEDNESDAY all!  May your day bring with it some smiles, and a sense of peace with it.  May any mail you receive from the postman/lady be of the happy type, and may you find a parking space, sat waiting just for you, if you happen to go out in your car today.

Be good to yourself,  and each other.

Sending you a squidge ~

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Hand painting Christmas …

Bless me bloggers for I have sinned ...  I didn’t show you the Christmas Cards I created and sent to my neighbours last Christmas.  [hangs head in shame]. But I’m here and able to post them now.  (Wouldn’t post them earlier in the year because it felt almost obscene to post about Christmas too soon.)

Made with a little help from a kit bought for me as a gift, from:  Folk It,  which contained all the colours of paints which I needed, (and I only already owned the one colour (white)), so I was happy to have the kit just to get everything there in one place.  If you haven’t painted before, or even if you have and need a little encouragement for whatever reason, I would thoroughly recommend their kits to you.  They don’t just come with the paints and a couple of brushes, (and a dotting tool), but they come with everything you need to make at least one project, or in the case of the cards – you would normally get around 4 or 5 really good quality cards & envelopes, a little booklet which helps you, plus it comes with a CD Rom that you simply put into your computer (in that little draw which you use to hold your coffee cup  – just joking.  I don’t do that.  At least .. not for a few months now. lol), and you watch as the delightful lady on-screen as she not only tells you what to do, but demonstrates IN REAL TIME as she teaches you – so you can watch, pause, paint, and then move on (but I’d recommend watching the CD Rom all the way through first … don’t run before you can walk, eh?)

Aw anyway .. you want to look at the piccies … so without further ado ….

Angels, stars and snowflakes.  With the addition of an ‘angel feather’

All of the cards you see here, have that central panel with the painting on it – which is a piece of mount board, already cut to size for you.  But, you only get a certain amount in the kits which will help you to make the projects in the kit itself, however, you can purchase more of these cut to size mount boards from them directly (pack of 25 for £5.00).  I recommend their ready cut mount boards because I know how difficult mount board can be to cut.  (oh boy do I know!).  So if you can buy it ready cut then it removes the struggle.

Another Angel card, this time with an embossed background.

Mistletoe …  PUCKER UP PETAL and brace yourself, I’m coming for a smacker!   … Good grief!! Cor  …  you can run faster than I thought you could just by looking at you!

Ok … you might have got away that time … but . .  here I come again  ….  [flicks the light switch and everything goes black]  ..  you’re not getting away that quick this time kiddo!

A snowflake … on a chalky blue background.  The painted snowflake was sprinkled with very fine glitter before the paint dried, so that snowflake twinkles merrily when the light catches it.

Another snowflake … only slightly different from the last.  I think I must have had a glass of wine too many when I took this photograph because it’s drunk and leaning!  LOL

Now I did a snowflake on black... but I should have taken more care as I slightly wandered off the straight and narrow, but I kept it anyway and was so glad that I did because at the last moment I realised I’d forgotten a card for the Postman!  So I quickly mounted the black backed snowflake onto a card and ran it past Mr. Cobs who said … “It’s fine!  Stop worrying!”  … so I tucked an ‘internationtionally accepted gift card‘  (i.e. [in this case] money) into the card and sealed it just in time before the postman arrived…..

Can you see where I wandered off the path of good and true?  Look down in the bottom left corner as you’re looking at the card right now.  It doesn’t end in the corner.  [sigh] … But, in crafting,  just as in life …  It’s the mistakes we make which teach us the things we need to learn.  …  Because this was for the Postman, I stamped a postal franking image on the envelope. lol.

To mix it up a bit, I turned the mount boards so that I was painting on the diamond rather than the square and this time it was a wreath.  Once the painting was dry I added a little satin bow in a deep vintage colour red.  (The berries are paint … not stickles).

And we end where we began … on a wreath, this time a thicker, fuller wreath, mounted on a square of mirror card in deep blue, which I punch around the edges of with a little hand punch.

Better late than never  …  those were the Christmas cards I posted to my neighbours last Christmas.  What am I going to make for them this Christmas?  Well,  right now I haven’t got the foggiest notion, but as soon as I’ve decide and have made some, I’ll share them with you!.

Happy Monday all.  The start of an all new, shiny, fresh out of the box, week.  Enjoy it.  Make a memory happen today.  One that your mind reminds you to remember.  Remember *that* moment.  A moment in time is just a moment in time … unless you remember it.  And then, it becomes a very special moment.  A magical moment.  A memory.

So … when you go to bed at the end of today ... just as you lay down to go to sleep … inside your head, remember something which happened during the day which either made you smile, laugh, or even something which was just an enjoyable moment in time.  A few seconds even.  Then remember what it was that made that moment a memory for you.  What special thing was it?   Fix that memory to the wall of your brain.  Put it up there on a memory post it note and pin it there with a pin, to make sure that it doesn’t fall down.  Now look around at all the other post it notes inside your head.  All your memories or moments.  Coooo … there are a lot.  Have a look at them as you drift off into sleep.

Sending big squidges from my corner to yours where you’re sitting right now.

Have a blessed day, my friend