A bit of crafting at last

The last week has been a very difficult, fraught one and so it's been a while since I've done any crafting. I needed to do my flower ATCs for the swap on Paper and lace that Net is organising, so have spent some time this afternoon doing these.

I'm not that happy with them, but at least they have got in the post in time to (hopefully) get to Net by the deadline, tomorrow.

I haven't taken part in any of the challenges on Carolyn's or Just Bex (I've had a list of them ready, but just not been able to get on with any of them).

I need to do my DLO in the CJ for Carolyn's forum, which must go in the post next Monday - I'll try not to leave it to the last minute.

Having done the ATCs this afternoon, my back is feeling awful (the last few days have been really painful again), but I think it's done me some good to do something creative.

Hopefully I'll be back before long to blog about some more crafty efforts.

Swap cards received

These are the cards I've received in the monthly swap on Carolyn's organised by Melissa.

From Net:



From Alba-Jane:

From Janet (JAN1951):

And from SueF:

All lovely cards and thanks to Melissa for organising.

I haven't done any crafting this week. In preparation for moving my craft stuff out of our spare room for it to be fitted out during the last week of this month, we've been sorting out stuff for the charity shop to give us more room in other parts of our smallish maisonette to house everything. Neither of us are hoarders (we both used to be, but over the years have had to be more ruthless in deciding what we keep and don't), but it's amazing the amount of goods that we have just had collected to be taken to a local Cancer Research shop. We are so grateful that arrangements were made for someone to come by van to pick everything up - we just couldn't have coped with getting it there without transport. Disappointingly, John, because of his lack of vision, got up quickly from his chair last night to answer the phone, forgot that there were cases and bags of stuff ready for the charity collection and fell awkwardly on top of them - he now has bruised ribs.

I'm hoping that later today/this evening I'll be able to do some crafting and take part in some of the challenges on Carolyn's and Just Bex that I've been itching to get on with.

A quick blog to show the inchies I made and sent to Jo (Paperlily) for the swap on Just Bex. Her dear Asti had to be put to sleep recently so Jo said she would like some inchies spelling out Asti's name. As Jo had quoted the Rainbow Bridge poem, I thought the picture would be nice and included Asti with the other dogs.


I'll come back and blog again later, but I haven't done any crafting to speak of for quite a few days. In readiness for our spare room being fitted at the end of this month, we've being having a 'turn out' and getting stuff ready to be collected by a charity shop. In fact, someone has phoned this morning to say that it will be picked up on Friday morning, so we now need to make sure we have everything ready for then. We already have two case loads of books and videos and a fair number of bags of other items. Neither of us are hoarders (used to be, but have learned over the years to streamline things) but it's still amazing how much stuff there is.

Card for a man

I did this card for the 'card for a man' challenge on Tanda Stamps.

I also did some inchies for the swap on Just Bex, which I'll be posting tomorrow, but can't show here until they are received. In fact the inchies are very basic because of the rest of the content - all will be revealed soon.

"Secret sender" notebook swap

Yay!!!! I've received a fab, fab, fabulous altered notebook from my secret sender on Carolyn's.

The front:

The back:

Inside the back cover:

Thank you so much, secret sender (I'm trying to work out who you might be - I have my suspicions!)

Just one more

Just one more for the Haute Couture comp on Just Bex. This is another of the Tanda Stamps (but I don't have any more of the prize ones!) - again stamped on an evenweave material. I actually started this one days and days ago and thought I ought to finish it.

Just Chill

I cheated a bit with Just Bex challenge 2 - it's meant to be a fridge magnet, but I wanted to do a tag with both sides written on, so here it is.

Summertime ATCs

These are for Challenge 7 on Just Bex: 4 summer ATCs.

Altered photo frame

This is for the Just Bex challenge 8: Picture it. I've gone for the 'distressed' look on the wood, but I'm not sure that it's worked really - but, hey, I had a go and it's the first time of doing a wooden frame like this.

Haute couture competition

Another card for the Haute Couture competition on Just Bex.

No reason at all

Just a few more 'no reason at all' cards for Just Bex Challenge 5:







Will be back later to show a couple of other attempts for challenges.

ATCs

This morning I've finished off two lots of ATCs to get in the post. The first is for a swap on Tanda Stamps, with the theme of butterlies:

The second is for the swap on Carolyn's, 'haute couture':

In both cases I used alcohol inks (good to get them out again and have a play). As ever, better irl than on scans.

And finally for today ...

Here is my last challenge of the day - it's No. 9: multiple pages, an accordion card with at least four panels both sides.

The first four scans are the front panels and the next four are the back panels.

My next entry below was actually composed before this one - it's just the way it was published and I just couldn't face changing it to put this at the bottom.

So things are a bit topsy turvy!

At least I feel as if I've achieved something today. My back has been driving me crazy with the pain, but I've paced myself through these and tried to engage my mind and creativity in the hope it would ease the pain (it didn't, but it was fun!).

A bit of a challenge

After a poor night, I surfaced this morning and have managed to do some of the challenges on Just Bex. The first is a card for challenge 1: 'All four one'.

The brief for this card was that it had to include at least four pieces of ribbons, four flowers, four different pieces of patterned paper and four fasteners, also a photo or main embellishment. I'm hoping that the 'Thought this might brighten your day' sentiment will count as a 'main embellishment'!

I decided to use chipboard flowers as a change to blooms and made the central holes easily with my crop-a-dile (if you haven't got one, you need one!)

I'm back again! I've just finished challenge 3 'Oh Baby' LO:

The next challenge I've tackled is No. 10: 'Two contrasting four words' - create a SB LO that is made up of 2 strong contrasting colours that you perhaps would not normally use ........ AND it must include at least 4 Words!

So I chose purple and red as my theme colours. The photo is John and me at Paul and Mandy's wedding reception.

The next one is for challenge 6: a LO from a sketch - it had to include journalling.

This is what it says: 'Mother and daughter sharing a huge ice cream dessert. I'll leave you to guess who ate the most! It was certainly delicious and between us we managed to clear the lot - well, it would have been wasteful not to, wouldn't it!'

Oh dear

Rubbish crafting and rubbish photography - great combination!! (and that's with a new camera - blame the light!)

Since Friday I've done no crafting until late this afternoon and evening. I managed to get out to church Sunday morning, but apart from that have been indoors and feeling rotten. In rare moments like this morning I begin to think the back pain is more reasonable and then it quickly returns with a vengeance and with a headache too.

A friend rang up today to ask if I had a golden wedding card in stock (I didn't - probably could have adapted one, but decided to do one from scratch). It so happens that the person she's giving it to has asked me to make a card for her sister's birthday, so it has made me get on with that this evening as well.

The only thing I'm remotely happy about is the roses on the heart on the anniversary card. As for the birthday card, the person receiving it is a keen gardener, so I thought wheelbarrow, watering can, etc but the card is far too busy (although my excuse is that older people tend to like more rather than less on a card).

All I can say really is 'oh dear' - not my best efforts.




This one is in fact far brighter and lighter than this - the left hand is a silver holographic butterfly background and the right hand is a pearlised white card (I know, you would never guess!) - perhaps I'll get a chance in the morning to get a proper picture before my friend comes to pick it up.

I'm just hoping that tomorrow morning I'll feel like doing some crafting for fun - I'm really wanting to join in the challenges on Just Bex, but apart from a couple of cards on Friday evening, I haven't done anything else. Perhaps I'll bounce back a bit tomorrow.

Challenges on Carolyn's

It's been a week of challenges on Carolyn's - why not visit the website to see all the fabulous entries that have been produced by so many talented crafters! And my stuff's on there too.

I did a LO this morning depicting Josey - I've been wanting to do something with some photos of her for a long time and this was the spur I needed. Although it was our wedding anniversary today, John had to go to the chemist to pick up prescriptions and so I had just under an hour to do this challenge - I managed it. We were asked to produce a LO that had at least four photos and some journalling or labelling on the photos. The LO also had to have stripes.

Here are some close ups, so you can see what Josey's saying:

We then went out to lunch - I was glad that we were both able to make it, despite the back pain.

This evening a series of challenges have started on Just Bex and here are two cards for challenge 5: no reason at all:

I hope these fit the bill - the brief was to be bright and cheerful.

Brief health update

Yesterday I went for the results of my bone density scan - disappointing, the score indicates severe osteoporosis. Don't want to dwell on this though and will continue to try to make the best of things. Regarding the vertebral fracture the advice still is to go with how my body feels (and I won't tell you how that is most of the time!).

Enough said.

Mini book for our wedding anniversary

I've been working on this when I can throughout the week (have submitted some of it for various challenges on Carolyn's this week).

It's our anniversary tomorrow and I'm giving it to John with his card.