HS:MS catch up

During the last few days - well, it's almost a week - I've failed to take part in the daily HS:MS photos.

So this is a catch up:

Spiral - this is the best I could do (couldn't start to compete with the wonderful photos shown by others for this prompt):



Then came 'square' - I have two for this - not surprisingly, they're both to do with crafting - just one of my boxes of square cards and also some of my favourite 6" x 6" paper pads:





The next prompt was 'remember' - and for this I thought of the old 'tie a knot in your handkerchief' (knowing me, if I employed this method to aid memory, I would forget why I tied the knot there in the first place):



As for lines, do you remember writing these at school (no, I'm sure you don't, because it's only 'norty' children who have to write lines). I wonder if you can guess how the lines finished:



And today is 'device': 'A thing made or adapted for a particular purpose especially something mechanical or electrical. Show us a device in your space today.' This seemed the easy option:

I'm on a winning streak!

I entered a card in the Tanda April card challenge - blue - shown here -, surprise, surprise, I won!

I was asked to choose what sheet of stamps I would like, but the package I've received also has some decoupage and lots and lots of 6" x 6" papers:



I've also heard this morning that I've won a prize on UKStampers details here

However, I'm appalled that my answer was the nearest one - so many people wasting the moderators time and energy with their bogus registrations.

Why, oh why?

Why is it that commissioned cards take sooooo long - a long time to think about them and a long time to actually make them.

Here are two cards I was asked to make. The request for the husband's card was to do something to do with classic cars - fortunately I had this decoupage, so I hope it fits the bill:



The request for the daughter's card was to include her name, 40 and pink. I decided to go for PM background paper foam PP Pink Flush and carry on the pink and brown theme. The big flower is a mixture of silk flowers (originally, I think, from Wilkinsons) and flowers cut on my cricut to match the background. Sentiments printed on computer using Lucida Calligraphy (which is an oldie font, but still a fav of mine):



Now I have a golden wedding card to make - request from another friend - thinking about that one!

Salt: Forgiveness

This time it's Kim's turn to set the challenge. This is what she says:

"The SALT team continues to be encouraged and blessed by your continued participation in our faith-based challenges and we praise God for allowing us to share our creativity in a way that seeks to honor and glorify the risen Savior!

This week it's my (Kim S.) turn to set the challenge and I chose forgiveness. The idea for this challenge came from a hymn we sang in church a few months ago. The focus of the hymn is on man's natural state of sinfulness and how through Christ's sacrifice on the cross we can be set free from the bondage of sin and be "set faultless before the throne."

Many a man would state that they don't need forgiveness and yet, when we compare our every day acts against that of a sinless man, we are able to see our utter hopelessness of ever being worthy of the gift of everlasting life and our urgent need of a Savior who can forgive and create in us a clean heart. "Mine the life won, and thine the life laid down...."

Please enjoy the beautiful creations the team has made this week! You may click on each team member's name to visit their individual blogs and read more about their art pieces.

If you are inspired by this week's challenge and would like to share something that you've made, please leave us a comment with a link back to your blog or online gallery. We'd love to see your creations!"

Please take a look at Salt

I have found this challenge to be a challenge in more ways than one! The area of forgiveness is one that brings comfort and freedom, but also one which is a challenge - to forgive others. Sometimes that seems hard, and yet it is so much a part of Jesus' teaching and a sobering thought when seeking forgiveness for ourselves.

It got me thinking that love is at the heart of all forgiveness - God's amazing love for us that led to Jesus giving his life for us to be forgiven, but also love for others is the key to forgiveness.

I sought in my LO to show that love is at the heart of forgiveness, based on the three scripture verses that I've used on it:

John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

Mark 12:31 Love your neighbour as yourself.

Matthew 6:12 Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

I used PM brown weathered as the background and the reverse side of PM yellow ornate clusters for the heart - this was cut on my cricut and then run through my printer (having designed the cross and words in Publisher). Edges of the heart and background have been coloured with Brilliance Pearlescent Crimson.

(I'm wondering why photos sometimes make things look wonky!?!)

HS:MS view

Today: 'view: The ability to se something of be seen from a particular place. Show us a view in your space today!'

You've seen similar views before - just as it is, the view from my craft space window today (complete with washing line):

DCM

This is Lythan's dare on DCM this week: AD-dicted: 'I want you to browse the tv and magazines for advertisments and use them as inspiration. It might be the format, the colours, the products, the slogan - whatever floats your boat.'

I've chosen an old ad (it's a rub on) and then used rose and swirl stamps and pastel pencils with Sansodor:

Spiritual challenge

Caroline set a spiritual challenge on BF forum. Here is mine:



I kept it simple, with a BG cupcake paper as background - and the rest are rub ons. It just seemed to come together somehow, starting with the scripture of the Beatitudes. Jesus said: "I am the vine", so the vines/grapes seemed appropriate.

HS:MS SOS

It's SOS day again.

I've chosen a photo I took a few years ago when we were on holiday in Tenerife (so it's a cheat really, because it's not in my space today):

CBC Crew challenge - Template - CBCC047

Clare set this template challenge this week on CBC:



I used BG Boxer papers for the background and the pieces through the slots of the letters. I've had these letters for ages and never used any of them - they have a slight gold glimmer to the white which you can't see on the scan.

A card at last!

Today is the last day for entries for this month's (no, that should be 'last month's) card competition, organised by Wendy. I've just scraped in by the skin of my teeth (well, actually I think I might just be too late).

The top surface is acetate, which has been daubed at the back with denim and stonewashed alcohol inks with a hint of silver. I then stamped the Tanda stamp beach huts at the bottom with Stazon Ultramarine and partly coloured with a Whispers permanent blue pen. This was then overlayed on to a vague seascene background.

It's not my usual style (well, actually I don't really know what my style is because I haven't really got one!), but I enjoyed doing it:

HS:MS SPS

It's SPS day on HS:MS again today - how the days and weeks go by - it doesn't seem a week ago since we did the last one.

Anyway, having shown lots of photos in the past of Josey and some of Oscar, I thought I'd show a couple of rare ones of Nelson, our cat, who, sadly, was run over a few years ago. He was such a character and we missed him greatly - he was only 5 when he was killed.

I changed the photos to black and white - his colours, of course:





I wish I'd taken more photos of him - a few that I did take (including one of my favourites of him) seem to have disappeared.

HS:MS strings

Today: 'strings: A slender cord or thick thread used for binding, tying or playing. Have you got strings?'

When I saw Maz's fab photo of the cat with the string arms and legs, it made me think straight away of my little lifeboat man (bought him at a lifeboat shop while on holiday in Eastbourne). He sits on the edge, waiting for the alarm to spring into action - and I love his little dangly legs made of string:

Postie bought me some goodies

This afternoon (yes, we are getting our post late now that our lovely regular postie has moved on to pastures new) we had some boring bits of post, but also two packages - two more cricut carts - 'home accents' and 'paper dolls'.

Getting these today spurred me on to do something about my Sizzix red doll die and accessories and the green bitty body and clothes etc - so, as it was a 5p listing day today, I put them on ebay.

So, no crafting today, but I've managed to sort out quite a bit of stuff - I went through my 12" x 12" papers and I had lots of duplicates - so I've put quite a few bundles on ebay - hopefully some will sell - and then I can get some different ones! We'll see.

HS:MS spectacles

Today on HS:MS: spectacles: 'Eyewear for those why are Myopic, Hyperopic, Photophobic and for those who are plain old shopperholic! Which one are you?'

I wear contact lenses - couldn't be without them, although when I'm at home I do try and wear my prescription specs to give the lenses a rest.

But when I'm wearing my lenses I need to keep reading glasses close at hand:

HS:MS wild

Today on HS:MS: 'wild: living in a state of nature; not tamed or domesticated.'

As it's still raining, I'm not venturing far, so I popped my head outside the back door - to the left there is a part of the garden that gets pretty unruly at times because there's a hotch-botch of plants growing there quite wildly. There's an area more wild than that at the top end of the garden, but there's no way I was going up there in the rain, so this 'wild' will have to do:

Not much crafting

A couple of days ago I bought four new Magenta stamps and yesterday started to do some images for the swap on CBC, but a couple of the stamps were giving poor results (well, was it the stamps or 'operator error'?). Anyway, I gave up in the end and decided to come back to it fresh today. I didn't try one of the ones that were playing up yesterday, but the other one was fine today - just think I was heavy handed on inking up yesterday.

So, suddenly realising that it is the last day in April today I got on with the images this morning, thinking they should have got to Carolyn by today. When I logged on to CBC I couldn't find the thread for an April swap and discovered that this is a May swap - so I'm not late with them - phew! The brief for this swap is to use new stamps.

Anyway, in the absence of anything else much atm, these are the images:



The green leafy circle is a Magenta stamp. Jemima Puddle-duck was free with a mag I bought the other day (one of those where you need to cut away the excess rubber, but not a bad little stamp for a freebie). The funky plum flower shape is another new Magenta stamp (one of the ones that caused problems yesterday - kept getting ink in the middle of the 'petals'). The brown flower is a Papermania one that I bought at Easter and didn't use. The little black one in the bottom corner is a Basic Grey journalling stamp from a lovely set I got recently.

There has been chat recently on CBC about triple embossing and sinking a stamp into it while it's hot, so I thought this would be an appropriate card to send to Carolyn (I admit I made it quite a long while ago, but have never shown it before):



Perhaps soon I'll be back with some proper crafting - need to do some cards very soon and there are so many challenges I'd like to do, including LOs.

At least I feel a bit virtuous this morning, because I've cleaned the stamps I used (and have to confess that quite often I leave them to do them later ...)

And yesterday I did some die cuts for a swap on CBC using my cricut expression - some swirls from the Wedding cart and some flowers from the Walk in my garden - should have taken some pictures, but wanted to get them into the post quickly so I didn't.

So I suppose, although I headed this 'not much crafting' I have been doing some, but none that's got a finished result.

HS:MS dairy

HS:MS today: 'dairy: Milk or milk products. Find some in your space today.'

I was up this morning at silly o'clock because I had to go to the hospital for a fasting lipids blood test. So no cup of tea or anything else - and I was at the hospital even before the department opened at 7.30, only a few others before me. I was back at about 8.15 and I was then ready for my breakfast. So, here is my dairy - skimmed milk with my Oats & More cereal - skimmed milk as parr of my low animal fat diet because of high cholesterol - hence the blood test because of years on statins to try to bring the level down.

HS:MS weekend catch up & 'long'

For SPS for Saturday I've chosen a picture of Mum, taken last summer:



For this week's SOS, I've chosen a beach scene from our holiday in Bognor Regis last year, not because it's a good photo, but because it brings back memories of windy, cool walks by the beach:



And for today's prompt 'long: 'To measure a great distance from end to end. Find something long in your space today.' I've chosen a picture of one of our granddaughters (it's actually been shown before as part of a LO), because it shows her long hair cascading down as her dad turns her upside down - I like the plait going down the middle. I admit it's a cheat, because it's not in my space today, but it was taken in our garden last summer (and I don't often cheat!):

Re-assurance

For those who have made comments about the tidyness (and thank you all for your kind comments, not just on my craft room, but generally) - it's not that tidy now! But having a good storage system does help (although some of those boxes have 'things to be sorted' in them!

My craft room

At long last I've taken photos of my craft room. We had the room fitted out way back at the end of June (gosh, ten months ago!) and I've often thought about taking pictures. To be fair, it took a while to get the room as it is now - we didn't actually have it decorated until towards the end of the year, so we didn't have these curtains till after then.

So, because I wanted to include a photo in the new CJ for the group of Bumbleberries, I decided this morning to have a tidy up and a photo session. Straight after that I had to get on with the CJ, so the worktop began to look quite different!

The large cupboard on the left goes almost up to the ceiling, so houses quite a bit of stuff. (To the left of that is an old built-in cupboard that was already here, where we keep our coats - and it does have quite a big shelf at the top for extra boxes, but they're not that accessible - and not worthy of a photo!)



The cupboard to the left of the drawers goes into the corner underneath the bookcase - it houses a big craft hold-all on wheels (Christmas stuff in there atm) and also my 12 x 12 scrapbooks etc.



Inside the tall cupboard I have quite a few (!) really useful boxes and also quite a few of the clear plastic type. The black cabinet of drawers on the left used to be freestanding in the room before we had the fitments done, so I especially asked for a built in bit to house this - so handy to be able to shut the big doors on it all.







The worktop is nice and deep (about 30") so there's plenty of space to put things at the back and work at the front - and it stretches all the way from the bookcase that's built in to the right of the tall cupboard to the window the other end.



To the left of where I sit there are four drawers.









To the right of where I sit, there are two shelves that slide out when the cupboard door is open. My printer/scanner is on the top shelf and my craft robo is on the bottom one. And when I'm not using them I can shut the door and they're neatly stowed away.





And then there's my lovely drawers that were a bargain from Poundland. Each drawer houses at least 19 of those 'take away' type boxes that they sell 10 for a £1 in Poundland.











There is a door that opens out on to the garden (lovely in the summer - and we have an awning that comes out to shade the room) - and in the corner is our cental heating boiler - don't really mind that, because it's cosy in here in the winter.



Underneath the Laura Ashley throws that match the curtains are two 'put-you-up' beds that only get occasional use, but have to be kept somewhere - and they give me another surface to pile up if and when necessary.



Back to the worktop:





There is a keyboard shelf (I was going to use a separate keyboard with my laptop, but, although I've got one, I hardly ever use it - I prefer to use the shelf to tuck things away - WIP!



And there's even room service! This was my morning coffee delivery:



You may have wondered (although probably not, because I can't imagine that anyone is still looking this far!) where my actual finished cards are - it's simple, they are on shelves at the top of one of my bedroom wardrobes:

HS:MS twisted

'Bent, curly, inter-twined material or warped state of mind. Have you got something twisted in your space?'

I found these bits in our 'pot pourri' bowl, took the photo, then played around with it, mainly choosing a twisted transparent fade (thought that would add to the 'twisted' look):