Woke up it was a misty morning!

Well the freezing fog forecast has certainly arrived here this morning, but it is very beautiful!

I have finally got back into my teeny indoor craft space to make some much needed cards. The temptation of sitting with my knitting and crochet by the cosy wood stove in my freezing house has been too much, but I needed a kick to get back to my papercrafts! I was given a couple of unexpected Christmas cards by some ladies in my exercise dance class. I decided I would give them new year cards, but felt that I wanted something with a message that might be able to be displayed a bit longer. A good job as for various reasons tonight will be my first class since Christmas!

 

 

I went for my favourite style of ink shaded background, stamped a background stamp lightly using a couple of shades of ink across the stamp for variety and then overstamped with the sentiment and main image. I have to say I do love the ability to restamp over black images the Misti gives me. I know it is an expensive tool, but it has allowed me to do something I have never managed before with other stamp positioners. I was very interested to see the new Tim Holtz stamp platform to be released later this year. It has some interesting design features, like the reversible lid to allow for stamping rubber or clear stamps.

 

Stamps: Kaisercraft sentiment, Impression Obsession background swirl, I think the dancing lady may be Lost Coast

 

Inks: Distress Inks: Tumbled Glass, Peacock Feathers, Wilted Violet,  Chipped Sapphire, Wild Honey, Spiced Marmalade, Picked Raspberry, Barn Door and Aged Mahogany. Versafine: Onyx Black.

Several knitting and crochet projects are keeping me busy. I have vowed to finish some things off and not just start new ones, but I have not done well so far. I have started the Moorland blanket designed by Lucy at Attic 24 and made a reasonable start on that. It is a gorgeous colour palette, although I have struggled a bit to master the pattern, it is the lining up of stitches that bamboozles me sometimes! I now have 4 blankets on the go, so I really must rein myself in! Still I should be cosy next winter!!!

I have also made time to organise my book jar for this year. I started this idea at the beginning of 2016 when I realised I had 130 books waiting to be read! I kept a book diary to keep track of my random selection of titles from the jar and by the end of the year I had read 59! Needless to say more new books have been added, but I am already on book 3 of this year, with 101 in the selection for this year so far!

Whatever you are up to, I hope you are keeping as warm and cosy as possible. Some books about the Danish concept of hygge have slipped into my reading. It makes so much sense to me, I naturally enjoy cosiness, and this time of year and with the sorry state of things in our world, there is a real need for comfort, companionship and simple pleasures.

Elaine x

A Year of Inkscapes - January

Happy New Year!

As soon as I saw these black do-it-yourself calendars, I knew what I would do with them as I love to mount my ink shaded cards onto black backgrounds. I decided to make 5 calendars for special crafty friends and one for myself. What I failed to realise initially that this meant that I would need to make 65 inked panels for each month and the covers. Phew that was a bit of a labour of love. However I am really happy with the results.

First of all here is my cover. I wanted to try out the new Concord and 9th alphabet stamps I had treated myself to, enabling me to get a customised calligraphy like font.

Inks: Stampin' Up -Pistachio Pudding. Distress Ink - Cracked Pistachio, Chipped Sapphire. . Versafine - Onyx Black
Stamps - Concord and 9th Upper and Lower case Sophisticated Script, Inkadinkado
Stencil: Tim Holtz Wildflower

Inks are applied with a mix of Clarity Stencil brushes and round Ranger Ink blending tools and a lot of elbow grease! Sentiments were all positioned with the assistance of a MISTI stamp positioning tool.

Here is my panel for January depicting the aurora borealis.

Inks: Distress Ink - Picked Raspberry, Cracked Pistachio, Blueprint Sketch, Wilted Violet, Chipped Sapphire & Black Soot. Versafine - Onyx Black
Stamps - Stampin' Up - Wonderland, Quietfire Sentiment.

Copper snowflakes

This is a card I made for a special friend. I started with a background made with Paper Artsy Infusions.

I added some snowflakes embossed in copper EP and then mounted the panel behind a die cut square aperture. I added die cut snowflakes and a sentiment using a copper coloured pearl card.

Elaine

Recycling Christmas cards

Although it is lovely making completely hand made cards, I do feel guilty about the lovely cards we get sent that just go into the recycling. This year I have made a couple of cards using cards we were sent last Christmas. I have combined them with die cuts and a stamped sentiments.

The first design used a mixture of Marianne, Memory Box and Avery Ellle dies and a Stampin' Up Embossing folder.

This cards uses Crafters Companion and Memory Box dies and a Kaisercraft sentiment.

I know these are very simple designs, but it feels right to try and save some of these lovely cards we have been sent and to give them a new lease of life.

Elaine

December is here!

I seem to have been AWOL from my blog for absolutely ages. Life is mad! Anyway, with Christmas looming like an express train, I decided I better get on with some festive posts! I have been making some batches of simple cards.

This card is pretty flat ideal for posting.

Stamps: My Favourite Things Snowflake Flurry; WPlus9 sentiment
Dies: WPlus9
Inks: Distress Inks - too many to mention!
Other: White embossing powder

Hope your own plans are on track for getting organised for Christmas

Elaine

Snow Fairies

I am quite behind with Christmas card making this year, I have about 70 to make, plus about another 10 special designs, so I need to get started quite early in the year. I think this time last year I had all my main batches made! Anyway, yesterday, realising the autumn equinox had passed and starting to feel slightly panicky, I sat down determined to make a small dent in the task.

At the start of the year I bought the Penny Black Snow Fairies stamp set. I am not one for cute designs as a rule, but sometimes the character of particular designs calls to me and these rather mischievous little fairies were an example of this. I actually stamped these images on watercolour paper in archival ink months ago, coloured them with my Faber-Castell Aquarelle watercolour pencils and a waterbrush and fussy cut them out in front of the TV one evening.

I decided to take a production line approach to make the batch of 10 cards, so I cut the teal matting, squares of two types of designer paper and die cut and stamped the snow drifts, ready for the sticking session.

Originally I was going to stamp and emboss a snow fall background, but I took the lazy route and used a couple of sheets of 12 x 12 designer paper.

 

 

I added the pre-stamped die cut snow drifts, being carefully not to glue right at the top, so I could tuck a little foot down behind the snow where this looked appropriate for the design.

 

 

Thanks to the three different fairy designs and the different backgrounds, I got a bit of variety in the designs. I finished off by adding a little sparkle to the wings and snow balls with a clear Wink of Stella pen.

 

It is always nice to see a new batch of cards packed up into a cello bag (usually a recycled one) and ready to go into the Christmas card box!

 

 

So in the space of less than two hours I made my 10 cards and I was pleased with the result.

 

Stamps used - Penny Black Snow Fairies, Stampin' Up Flurry of Wishes

Dies used- My Favourite Things Die-naimics Snow Drifts

Designer Paper used - Do Crafts, Sandy Lion and Core-dinations

Inks used - Stampin' Up Lost Lagoon

 

Hope you are having a good and productive weekend too!

 

Elaine x

The adventures of Bunjamin Benny and a Happy Birthday!

It's my sister's birthday today and like me she is into recycling (I much prefer the term to upcycling I have to say!!!) Anyway, I am a fan of Country Living magazine mainly for the gorgeous photography and I am especially fond of the little crafty supplements they often include as they are printed on matt paper. I save them for future use and making my sister's birthday card seemed the perfect opportunity. This is the one I used to make her card having carefully removed the staples.

This is the card I made from the pages I recycled, the front, with some added cloth tape, the red heart with stamping, some little wooden hearts and the wish ticket. 

This is the inside, the main addition is the little dress which is stamped and cut out, with buttons sewn on and some matching ric rac braid and a little stamped patch added to the pocket.  In the pocket is a picture of a knitted rabbit I made - more of than in a moment! I also added another heart with a stamped Happy Birthday sentiment and some Tim Holtz stickers (the black and white words on the left hand side which read "It's the little things that make life big" which seemed ideal for this theme.

I made the little rabbit for my sister back earlier in the year. I enjoy crochet, but despite coming from a family of very talented knitters with my Mum, Nanna and Mother in Law producing some incredible intricate work in days gone by, I was never tempted to knit as it always seemed too slow growing and fraught with the complete terror of dropped stitches. However, the thing that tipped the balance for me was seeing the beautiful little cotton rabbits produced by Julie Williams over at her blog . Julie is celebrating 10 years of blogging. Anyway, Julie sells her patterns and I decided to take the plunge which for such a novice knitter who could basically just cast on knit and purl was a big step. Julie's patterns give great instructions and links to suitable tutorial videos to help knit wits like myself! Here is the start of my little bun!

Here he is when he only had a head! I must confess I struggled to get the nose right, so mine is sewn on!

 

 

Here he is when he was finished and ready for delivery.

 



At one time you could buy Little Cotton Rabbit rubber stamps and I have had one of these for ages, so I was able to make a customised label colouring his clothes appropriately with coloured pencils. You can just about see it in this picture.

Anyway from Day 1, my sister has loved this little rabbit who was christened Bunjamin Benny and he has certainly settled into life with her very quickly and I get frequent reports of his antics which are a source of great amusement.

Bunjamin pops up at work with her.

He has helped with a book promotion

He enjoys his snacks (although I think we might have to teach him about his 5 a day)

 

but he also remembers to get some exercise climbing trees!

Most of all he remembers the importance of a good work life balance and remembers to relax, whether its daydreaming,

.... enjoying a good book .....

 

...  or relaxing in the bath with his very good friend on his lilo!



As you can see this little fella is giving us both a lot of pleasure and best of all, once I had made him my confidence in my knitting abilities has really grown and now I have also managed to teach myself to knit socks and am currently on my fourth pair!

It's a horrible wet day today, so I feel spending some time blogging is an ideal way to while away some time!

Hope you are having a good weekend.

Elaine