Some you win...

.... and some are just plain scary!

Hello there
Just a quick post to wish you a belated Happy Easter, although there's still tomorrow to go for most of you but I'm back at work.

 I thought I'd share my daughter and my Easter activity of making chick like cake pops. As you may know from a recent post of mine, we've only done one batch of these previously, so we're still very much in the learning stage. Unfortunately the one thing I've learnt is that Wilton's candy melts are not very user friendly. We tried to melt them with the double pan method but not successfully at all. The mixture went smooth but nowhere near runny enough to coat a cake pop. We struggled to coat each pop and then use a knife dipped in boiling water to try to smooth it round the pop but that still left it very uneven and ugly looking. Some pops broke apart. We both got very frustrated and my daughter suggested dumping that idea and using the white chocolate we had left from the last batch and then all went smoothly. We put the 'feet' on when the chocolate had hardened a bit and was just a bit tacky. I did the eyes with a cake decorating pen and the beak was made from some sprinkles we had. They're not the right colour really but they're alot better than these critters:

Chicks made with Wilton's candy melts :-(

They're the stuff of nightmares if you ask me, although Chris said that you could think of them as being more realistic, as the lumpy bits could be thought of as the little downy feathers - I'm not convinced.

I'm glad that we got to salvage the situation - Maggie is so good at helping us to do that alot of the time. We've also had a lovely day with my mum and step-dad in the winter sunshine out and about, so I'm left feeling pleased with this Easter weekend. I hope you are too and if not; there's always tomorrow.

Take care out there
p.s I've seen a youtube video today about microwaving the pops, so we'll do that next time :-)

One thing leads to another... again

Hello there

The other day I got carried away after making a card and it's happened again. I love it when this sort of time is around as it means I'm feeling inspired and that's got to be a good thing.    
                                                 
It started with this card which was created from leftovers which are lying on my desk. If you read my blog fairly regularly, you'll know that I made a similiar card to this last week but with black embossing. Strangely enough the colour theme over on the British Crafters Facebook page was turqoise and orange today too, so I sent them in a photo but they started showing Valentino and Chanel stuff, so I didn't have a chance of them showing my things. I thought that was rather odd of them, as they are called British Crafters after all?!!

I had done another embossed Swallowtail, so I decided fairly quickly to do a journalling page with that one. I really enjoyed the process of making the page, as it just grew as it happened. I started the journal book when I was at the Indigo Blu retreat, so I made this page along the same colour theme as the two pages I completed at the retreat. Sarah McCrossan suggested that to keep three sets of pages on the same theme can help keep your journal connected within itself, rather than it all just being random individual pages. The journal book we were given is gorgeous with a very high standard paper for the pages, which is excellent if you're pouring paint and gesso etc all over them.

Page number 1

I have another journal book which is a 'Me in my Moleskin' project but I've done very little with that since having it for at least a year. Doing this in a class environment actually helped me, which I found strange. I thought that I'd be intimidated by the others but they were all wonderful people and helped me be at ease and just go with the flow. We had plenty of tools there to help us, so I had no excuses really. We even had sunshine in the morning through the large windows in the lovely room.

The second page was when I was really settling into a pattern and developed it from the first page ideas onto stencilling. 

Today's page

My kind of journalling is just me expressing myself and thoughts I have and crafty ideas I want to try. Today's page still needs to have the journalling added on to it to explain why I wrote those two sentences on the zig-zags but other than that, I'm fairly happy with it. I'm definitely happy about recording my thoughts on matters today.

I'll have to be careful and not add so much 3D detail in the pages to come or the book will just get too thick to close at all but that's fine. I won't force myself to journal; I'll just do it when I feel the need. That way, it'll serve me more of a purpose.

Crafting for a purpose creates a purpose to craft. Hopefully it will for me.

Take care out there

Get on with it

Hello there

This week I got a brayer and today I had to have a play, so guess what? I did! 
I checked out a couple of videos on youtube and after watching a 5 year old one from Nathalie Kalbach, I decided on the 'ray' effect technique, as it's quick and easy basically. I got my 'big and juicy' stamp pad out and hey ho, off I went. No more messing, I started cutting away at it and worked on a scrapbook layout to use those first pieces. I really like the idea of that, as I'm just rolling with the creative flow, so to speak and not wasting that energy.       ..........Although in this cold weather (loads of falling snow again today) it's little wonder I have any energy at all but don't let me get started on how much I hate winter or I could be here  a while :-)  ...........

I quickly chose some photos out of my huge stack of already printed ones and that was that. I do have to mention my new SU trimmer though, which made cutting the mats for the photos an absolute dream. It's clear guard across the cutting area; the measurements, the straightness of the cut with ease are all just some of the features which I'm going to appreciate. 

Some ribbon, a title, some journalling and Bob's your uncle.... and you know the rest if you read my blog as often as you should do! :-) That's a bit of a lie though, as I need to add the date still but I'll do that when Chris gets back from badminton and reminds me exactly when it was, despite it not being very long ago at all.

I'm so glad I do tend to go through batches of printing photos, as with all the trouble I've had with my laptop, I will have lost all of them otherwise.

The layout's not fancy, pretty or clever but I do love it as I was able to use the result of my playing about and record memories at the same time. I'd like to use a better ink and paper mixture next time and add some shine to it and of course vary the colours. I'm sure there'll be much more playing with the brayer in the future.

Take care out there

One thing leads to another

Hello there

Oh gosh, how one piece of card can keep you busy for hours! I had just finished a card and I found a card blank with paper piercing all the way round it. I could see why I hadn't used it as the lines weren't straight, so I just ripped off the pierced bit and used the back. 

.........In a post of mine I told you about the swallowtail stamp. Last week Catherine held a 'four ways with the swallowtail' session at her house. Unfortunately, due to work commitments, I was an hour late, so I was too tired and late to get much done but I later finished them at home and I've just realised I haven't posted about them; but hey ho, I can't post about everything. Even, amazeballs me can't do everything!! ...... I certainly hope you all realise that's just my warped sense of humour :-) ................

Back to the blank piece of card. I decided immediately to rip yet another idea of Catherine's, which she told us about on her blog. I don't have a swirl stamp that was suitable, so I went about finding a swirl pattern on one of my Cricut cartridges and ended up using a rather pretty one from Ornamental Iron2 (lace2 function, size 6in, gate10b design on page 42 of the booklet). I cut a few samples first to ensure all was correct and I got the size I wanted and then I cut it out of 'Cricut cuttables' to make the stamp.

I had a piece of the patterned circles paper on my desk, as Catherine must've given it me in the pack from last week and it was the right size - vunderbar! :-) I improvised with the mat before that and also found some pretty flower embellishments, which I tried to make it look as if they were on a part of the swirl. I also used daffodil delight as the yellowy colour, as I don't have the colour Catherine used in her project. A sentiment stamp in the same Tangerine Tango colour as the butterfly, a rub of glimmer mist and a couple of stamps on the envelope and 'Bob's your uncle, Fanny's your aunt'; we're good to go :-) .... that's an old saying I was bought up with, which just means 'we're finished and ready to move on'.

Watch this space for a project soon, which will no doubt use those practice die-cut swirls I did for this and the matching stamp.


Take care out there

A sneaky pic of one of the boys, as it was
close to my card photos on the SD card.
One for you dog lovers out there :-)

Cake pops

Hello there

Over the weekend my daughter and I were not keen to go out in the continuing snow, so to cheer us up and give us something productive and fun to do, we had our very first go at making cake pops. We had mixed success but the main success lay in the activity itself i.e us sharing time together, having a chance to talk and resolve problems as best we could.

Word to the wise - if a diecut goes slightly awry, don't throw it,
tuck it behind something or cover it slightly.
Not that that ever happens to me of course ;-)

I got the inspiration for the layout from my friend Catherine's blog and quickly moved on from there, although I had already decided to use the cake pop stand packaging as the base for the page.

For those of you who have spent hours making cake pops from basic sponge cakes and crumbled them up and then formed the cake pops, TAKE NOTE! STOP! Don't do that to yourself. Get yourself one of these little cuties and make a small amount of sponge mix, pop it in the base of each mould, pop the lid on and cook for 20 minutes. Simples! Well, it is when you know how :-) We made a few mistakes, such as putting the lid on the wrong way round with our second batch but that's just daft me.

We got a lovely stand with our kit - it does a
great job of displaying the pops

One of our favourite designs which was a happy accident

Take care out there or stay inside and make good stuff if the weather is foul.

70th birthday book

Hello there

Here's a 'birthday book' I was asked to make for a friend; so yes, I could call it a commission which makes it sound ever so grand and official. She had the exact colours in mind and we talked about a few options/ideas for such a book for her mum but in the end I was just asked to stick to the black and gold theme album and after asking, I realised that swirls were more her mum's 'thing' than geometric shapes, so off I went a creating.

This may sound simple to many of you but I'm not a fan of either colour, so I don't have a big stock, to say the least. Thankfully I'd had plenty of warning, so I had time for shopping.

The text on the front is from the Winter Woodland cartridge and that mat is from the Mini books cartridge with the holes cut off the ends. I've used that mat shape several times inside the book too, along with some other shapes and sizes but only about 3 different ones or I felt it would be too unconnected. 

There's a swirl on every page too, which is from the Home decor cartridge -'border2'.

 As black and gold aren't reknowned for being good to write on, I decided to add a matt cream coloured fancy shape on each page, which is from the Cricutcraftroom basics digital cartridge (accent); for the journalling to go on. I do hope that they make notes of who each person in the photos are and what their link to her mum is, as they may know now but in the future her kids won't necessarily have a clue as to who they are.

I really hope that she likes it. I'm a tiny bit concerned that the album is so thick now that it doesn't close easily and it hasn't even got photos in it yet but that's why it closes with a ribbon. I also had the idea that it will make a lovely display item. You could stand it up and have about 3 pages ajar at a time, to tempt your attention to it and you could change those pages every now and again. That's much better than it being stuck in a cupboard and never looked at, as it'll be full of people who have played a part in her life.

The presentation bag

Pricing it was hard but I looked on Folksy at some and they ranged from £25 and all that was done was the front was decorated, down to £9.99, so I'm happy I gave her a very competitive price for all the work I did inside it too. I'll see what her reaction is; by the time this is posted, she'll have it, so fingers crossed! It's all part of the learning process I'm going through. I'm glad it doesn't need to be mailed though, as it's quite heavy,  especially with the new Royal Mail charges recently.The postage will make it more expensive for selling albums like it on Folksy but that's the price you pay for internet shopping. Talking of which, you can probably tell that my mind is racing with the idea of selling these on Folksy. We'll see. I'd have to make a range of colours to show what's possible, as people often need leading into these things, as they don't know what can be done.

Take care out there

First birthday

Here's a quick post about a card I did for a one year old boy. The original inspiration came from the February 2012 issue of the Cricut magazine; a card by Theresa McKinney.

Theresa says to cut the seal pieces at 2.5 inchesbut by mistake I cut mine at 2.25 but that worked better for the additional embellishments I wanted on my card. My card blank and envelope was cut from Plantin Schoobook cartridge at 6 inches, so that's bigger than she used too. I enjoy the double layer of balloons, as that does show detail, which helps complete it properly. The twine for the ballon holds looks so cute too.

All in all a quick card which I enjoyed making.

For his present, we've sent a book called Peekaboo Peter about Peter Rabbit. I've put a Stkrit in there, so Maggie can record her reading the book for him. Then whenever Bentley's mum, who is my daughter's half sister, gets the book out, she can use her phone to play that recording to him, so he will associate that book with Maggie. Bentley lives in New Zealand, so unfortunately that's the only way we can make that happen. I think they're a top idea for family and friends who live too far away from each other. You can record videos on it too; which could be put on a scrapbook page to add so much more detail to the story behind your scrapbook photos. The sticker looks a bit like a Q- reader symbol, so if you install their app on your phone, the messages can be very portable. Go have a look see for yourself - www.stkr.it

Take care out there