Happy New Year

It's the last day of my holiday from work. Like lots of us I want to try and get fitter this year, I need to lose weight and get more exercise! So I started today as I mean to go on and we went for a walk. Next week I am starting a zumba class which should be fun!

I snapped this pic with my phone, so I was quite pleased how nicely it came out!

2011 was a horrid year for us, I am so hoping this one will be better. 

Wishing you and yours a great year ahead.

Elaine

Bee boxes

Just before Christmas, I shared a canvas I made as a DT project for Chocolate Baroque with the gorgeous honey bee plate. Here is another project I made with the same set, three tiny boxes.

I used three graduated sized papier mache boxes which I pained with acrylic paint. I stamped the bee and honeycomb design onto tissue paper with Stazon and added this to the box lids with Mod Podge. Once dry, I added Distress Ink watercolouring to add depth to the cells of the honeycomb and used a white pearlescent reinker to paint the bee wings. I added gold microbeads to the stripes on the bee bodies, using pva to stick them in place. When these were dry I added a glossy accents layer on the tops of the boxes.

These boxes are tiny, but would be nice for gifts of jewellery or other little treasures. 

Do check out these great stamps here.

Elaine x

It's beginning to look a lot like ...............................

In our house Christmas decorating gets left until the last minute as I use quite a lot of evergreens and if I put it up too soon, it is brown and crispy in no time! So yesterday and today I have been doing all my last minute prep and cooking and generally getting in the festive mood.

I've been cooking to Christmas CDs, watching lovely Nigel Slater on the TV, giving myself a break watching The Polar Express and doing the last minute decoration on our Christmas Cake.

This isn't a traditional Christmas cake as I don't like the strong taste, this is a fat and added sugar free Molly Cake.You can find the basic recipe here, mine is an adaptation.  I use golden raisins, dried apricots, glace cherries, crystallised ginger, pineapple, mango and orange peel and walnuts. All mixed together with a paste made from dates, ground almonds and orange juice. I topped off the cake with toasted marzipan and more fruit.

Finally to finish, a Christmas card I made for my special crafty friend Judith.  Not my usual style, but I fancied trying a Christmassy version of what I call the Magnolia style. I loved these rich colours. This is an 8 inch square easel card, the image is from Mo Manning and the sentiment is a Waltzing Mouse stamp.

Whatever you are doing for Christmas I hope you have a happy one with your loved ones. We have a quiet day planned tomorrow, with a couple of good films, books and our feet up. It has been a very hectic time lately, and I can't wait!

Elaine x

Honey Bee Canvas

Glenda has launched some gorgeous stamps over at Chocolate Baroque this week. One sheet honey bee is right up my street. I love bees and like to watch them at their work in my garden.

This is one of my favourite creations with these stamps. I used an 8 x 8 canvas which I covered on various shades of orange, buttermilk and yellow acrylic paints. I cut a piece of tissue paper larger enough to cover the canvas and stamped all over it using black Stazon. I stuck this to the canvas using Mod Podge and covered the whole thing with more Mod Podge. I added colour by watercolouring with Wild Honey, Vintage Photo and Spiced Marmalade Distress inks. I added more colour by sponging at the edge.I highlighted the small bee wings with a white pen. I then stamped lots of the large bees on white card and coloured the bodies with a marker. I covered the bodies with glossy accents. I made wings by stamping them into angelina fibre and ironing it into shape. I stuck these on around on the canvas with silicone glue. Finally I added the words in a chipboard bookplate which I stuck on after adding honey coloured brads.

Thanks for flying by - hope your Christmas preparations are on track.

Elaine x

White Christmas Challenge

Here is my entry for the White Christmas Challenge over on Glenda Waterworth's blog! Be in it to win it! A lovely Chocolate Baroque gift voucher - just click on the link in my side bar.

I wanted the centrepiece of my card to be a Christmas garland in shades of white and silver. I used stamps from four different Chocolate Baroque sets for this card. The corners are from the Steampunk Christmas set, the poinsettias are from Poinsettia Script, there are acanthas flourishes from Brocade Backgrounds and the sentiment from Christmas Reflections.

Here is a brighter picture I managed to get in daylight!

Firstly I stamped and embossed the ivy corners onto my card blank, embossing in silver detail powder. I used my square quilter's ruler as my acrylic block to help me line up my corners. I added pearls to the design. I then embossed the sentiment and cut it out in a circle and stuck that on as the guide shape for my garland.

The garland is made from die cut and punched leaves in white and white glitter card and pearlescent vellum, using a Crealie die, a Doo Hickey die and X-Cut Holly and tiny leaf punches. I also added acacthus leaves and poinsettias embossed in silver onto white pearlescent vellum. The flowers have a second layer decoupaged. I added tiny silver gems and gem flowers as highlights.

I really enjoyed making this card, it made me feel quite festive!

Do pop over and see the other projects - there are some great ideas there and lots of different interpretations of the theme!

Elaine

An Allsorts card

This is a card I made for the Chocolate Baroque Design Team using the new Texture Fragments stamp set .

Once more using my favourite square format, this time I used one of the essentials chipbaord frames with inchie inserts. I inked the framed with black soot Distress Ink. I then painted the tiles in three shades of acrylic paint - buttermilk, tangerine and fuschia. I stamped each tile in black Pefect Medium and embossed with black EP, then reinserted the tiles back into the frame. I then matted and layered with black, fuschia and orange corrugated card onto a black 6 x 6 card blank.
These stamps are great fun to play with. When I had finished this card I realised the colours made me think of licquorice allsorts!

Elaine

A purple birthday

It was my special crafty friend Judith's birthday recently. She has been having lots of celebrations lately and keeping us busy on the card making front. This is the card I made for her birthday and she loves purple!

I started on a black base and layered up a deckle edged Laurence Llewellyn Bowen paper, topped with an art nouveau themed Joanna Sheen paper that Judith actually gave to me so I knew she would like it, The stamps I used were the gorgeous Crafty Individuals tag, with the little girl image that in our little group of crafty friends we called the Shirley Temple stamp. I stamped in my favourite Versafine in Imperial Purple and shaded with Victorian Velvet and Dusty Concord DIs.

The berries and leaf stamp is from Stamp Camp, embossed in a coppery Moonshadow powder. I used the same stamp as a watermark on the sentiment panel which uses a stamp I bought from Rubbernecker at Ally Pally on my last visit. This sentiment is especially appropriate for Judith as I always call her the Queen of Flowers because she often adds beautiful handmade flowers to her cards. I finished with some grosgrain ribbon, purple arum lilies (also a gift from Judith) and two little metal earrings, that I bought especially, to incorporate into a project for Judith some time.  

Thanks to Judith for taking the picture for me as I was so pushed to get this in the post I didn't have time to snap it myself.



Have a good weekend!

Elaine x