We do like to be Beside the Seaside!

I love Graphic 45 papers, but I am very bad at using the papers when I buy them. Making a birthday card for my special friend Jo who love miniature details provides a perfect excuse.

This is a 8 x 8 card with all the little elements fussy cut and layered up. I added some smashing shell embellishments from K & Co, these have glittered detail, but I felt they were a perfect addition to my design. You can see the sparkle here.

I am enjoying working in my new craft space. I gradually seem to be refining the organisation of my space and a green vegetable rack purchased in the Hospice furniture shop for £1 has given me three levels of extra useful space. I have made about 6 cards, including some Christmas cards this week, so my productivity seems to be pretty good at the moment, more of that later.

Hope you are enjoying your weekend. It is pretty chilly here today, such a shame as we are off to a garden party today, it is definitely feeling like autumn is in the air! I am glad we had our holiday when we did!

Elaine

Happy New Year - better late than never?!

Goodness me, the new year is already whizzing ahead. Happy new year to you all.

I had a really long and much needed Christmas break from work and one of the things I gave myself permission to do was to not feel any pressure to do things to a deadline! I also put away my crafty things while I had my Mum visiting for Christmas itself, so I am just getting back into the groove really. As a result today's cards are actually older examples that I don't think I have posted before!

Now like many of us, I am a real fan of Graphic 45 products. I love the busy vintage feel of many of their product lines with rich colours and loads of detail. This is a birthday card I made for my special crafty friend Judith last year. The only inking is a little shading at the edges and the sentiment which is an art deco stamp from Do Crafts.

I am always a bit sceptical about the idea of identifying a word to help guide you for the year as it seems a bit of an artificial exercise in some ways, but actually a word did come to me that I think will help guide me this year and that is SPACE. Space is important to me, both in terms of the outside and inside spaces where I live (where I need to create more space by better organisation), my crafting space, in terms of my physical crafting spaces, time to give me space to be creative without always working for deadlines and mental space to play and mental space to generally enjoy life at a slightly more sensible pace. So this year is about tackling and creating spaces in all sorts of different ways!

Right, time to dash for work, have a good day!

Elaine

A wedding card

Thanks to those that offered comments and advice about my blog layout. It was too annoying, although it seems to have been something relating to the coding of the background. I may try to reinstall it, in the meantime, I have done a quick temporary basic and unfussy makeover!

This is a card I made back last year for my lovely friend Lesley's daughter Jenna and her husband Tony when they got married. I have never met them, but the wedding had a vintagey feel, so that is what I used to inspire me. I used a framing mount as the base for the card which I painted in pink acrylic, distressed with white using a baby wipe.

The main images are a vintage photo I found and printed out in sepia, framed in a K & Co frame, I then cut out the bride and flowers from a Graphic 45 paper, arranging them all against a pink paper with soft art nouveau swirls I had had in my stash forever! The words come from a lovely Cosmo Cricket paper, left over from a sheet I bought to make a card for an anniversary card for my OH. I think it was for our 30th! (That makes me feel truly ancient!). I finished off with some peach paper roses and some cream and brown pearl swirls, which I think are Prima. I then covered the frame with some rose trim which I extracted from a couple of Primark children's hairbands! The congratulations was a little metal tag which I punched an extra hole into. No stamping to be seen at all, just collaging!

It is the most glorious day here, we have the window open, sun streaming in and birds singing their heads off. Time for me to get back into my messy craft shed for a massive spring clean, now the warmer weather and lighter evenings will be here. The shed is a complete tip with massive cobwebs! Yeeeuk!

Have a wonderful weekend.

Elaine x