A tribute to dad

Sadly, my dad died towards the end of 2003 (actually on mum's birthday), so I no longer make a father's day card, but this is the card that I would want to give him if it were still possible.

This is one of those cards that almost made itself, because the Paper Cellar background paper and the Anna Griffin decoupaged sticker say it all, so just the addition of the sentiment and some edge distressing with dusty concord.

With this coming Sunday being father's day here in the UK there are obviously a lot of challenges around atm with that theme, so these are includes among those below that I'm linking for:

Magical crafts 17: 'something for a male/father's day'
Stampin' sisters in Christ 43: 'father's day card or masculine'
Cards for men 12: 'father's day'
Double dutch 45: 'dad's treat (father's day)'
Tellen's place: 'father's day'
C.R.A.F.T. 54: 'father's day/men's cards'
Paper cutz 45: 'father's day'
Town scrapper: 'father's day'
Drunken stampers 20: 'father's day'
Simple doodles 19: 'just 4 you dad'
Fiskarettes Monday challenge: 'male theme'
Crafts by Carolyn TTC004: 'something manly'
CCEE: 'one for the males!'
Incy wincy 45: 'one for the guys'
Cupcake 95: 'one for the boys'
Kaboodle 33: 'anything goes with a dash of purple'
Flourishes timeless 70: 'black, white + one'

Male monochrome

This is for the monthly sketch for June on Cuttlebug Spot:


When I was at Southmore Court (where mum lives) selling cards recently, I was asked for a birthday card for an older man who wasn't interested in sport, fishing etc. Fortunately, there was something in my box that was OK, but it got me thinking about the kind of men's cards to make - yes, some men like fishing, golf, football etc, but some don't - and what's OK for the younger age range isn't always appropriate for the older.

I think this Personal Impressions stamp is just right for a birthday card for an older man. It was stamped with Memento tuxedo black and coloured with copics - I used just C-1, C-3 and C-5 - oh, and a touch of Y28 lionel gold on the pocket watch.

The button was die cut from mountboard, two holes pierced and copic coloured. The paper at the top of the card is BG granola and the spotted card is core'dination black magic with a grey core run through the cuttlebug with the swiss dots folder.

This is also for:

Magical crafts 17: 'something for a male'
One stitch at a time 17: 'celebrations' - birthday
Stampin' sisters in Christ 43: 'masculine'
Stamptacular 63: 'a tribute to all fathers'
Creative inspirations 36: 'monochrome'
Shabby tea room 13: 'just for dad' or masculine card
Creative craft: 'for the man in your life'
Scrap-creations Going grey 14: 'happy birthday' - granola paper used
Cas-tastic 7: 'button, button ... who's got the button?'
For fun: 'happy birthday'
Stampavie 98: 'dots'
Tanda teaser 148: 'for the big man'
CCEE: 'one for the males!'
Charisma cardz 23: 'spots and stripes'
C.R.A.F.T. 54: 'men's cards'
Pixie dust studio 26: 'what twilight means to you' - firstly, the shades of black and grey - and, secondly, the card is for a man who is in his 'twilight years'
Crafty catz 36:'embossing' - the core'dinations card embossed with 'swiss dots' cuttlebug folder
Your next stamp 18: 'buttons'
Fun with shapes and more 57: 'self made button' - the star button die cut mountboard, coloured with copic
Stamp something: 'happy somethings' - happy birthday
Clearlyistamp 14: 'birthdays'
Crafts by Carolyn TTC004: 'something manly'
Wee memories 10: 'in stitches'
Aly's Sunday 19: 'sewing' - there is stitching on the waistcoat, more easily seen on this closer picture:

Shaker ATCs

I used to regularly take part in the ATC swaps on CBC, but haven't done so for a few months now. I decided I'd join in the June swap and the topic is 'shaker' ATCs. I've never thought of making a shaker on an ATC, but thought I'd have a go at this.

I'm still not feeling great atm - hayfever that doesn't seem to be responding to the usual tablets - so I'm trying to do a bit of crafting to take my mind off it.

I took a bit of a cheat's route with these. I had some lovely little Anna Griffin frames that I bought at a craft fair a year or two back. I carefully took the top layer off, which revealed a few bits of double sided foam pad, so I carefully cut little pieces to fill in the gaps, stuck acetate to the top layer and added a few tiny gems and glitter to the body of the frame before putting it all together again. The background paper is also by Anna Griffin and the corner mosaics are Papermania.

And here they are 'all shook up' (as Elvis would have said):

I'm linking them for these challenges:

Annabelle: 'say it in green and pink'
Meljen 11: 'sparkle, glitter, bling'
Frosted designs: 'glitter, glitter and more glitter'
Prairie fairy 23: 'glitz and glitter'
Cupcake 94: 'dazzle us'
Crafty little place 42: 'anything but square'
Cute card Thursday 116: 'anything but square'
Gingersnap GC58 spicy supply challenge: 'transparencies or acetate
Stampin' royalty 23: 'picture inspiration':

Little miracle in pink

This is a clean and simple card based on FTL93 on Clean & Simple:

The background paper is Rayher rose patchwork & stripes, the embossed teddy is ages old from a QVC kit, the three pink teddies at the bottom are the last of some that I bought two or three years ago and I can't remember where the 'little miracle' came from. The buttons don't look such a contrasting shade irl - as light shines on them they look a lighter pink.

The inside says: 'Congratulations on the birth of your baby'.

It's also for:

Cupcake inspiration 62: 'white and pink'
Fiskarettes Monday challenge: 'baby'
Cas-tastic 7: 'button, button ... who's got the button?'
Creative inspirations 64: 'babies'
Stampavie 98: 'dots'
Charisma cardz 23: 'spots and stripes'
S2G 59: 'baby' twist: pink
Hand full of stamps 31: 'how cute is this?'
Speedy the cat's challenge 6: 'buttons and bow' - bow on the teddy
Creative cottage 14: 'going pink'

WOYWW ... but it's Thursday!

Who stole Wednesday then? Going out for lunch with friends might have had something to do with it ... anyway, I somehow missed doing WOYWW for the right day. If you don't know what WOYWW is (is there anyone left who doesn't?) please visit Julia's blog to find out and have a nose at lots of crafting workspaces - there's always something to inspire. Actually, there wasn't a lot on here for most of the day, having cleared up the tremendous chaos that accumulated the day before when I decided to get my melting pot out from the back of the drawer and have a play - you can see what I did here.

However, last night I needed to do my Salt LO for today's challenge - you can read about it here, so you can now see the evidence of everything that came out to achieve that LO. On the left of me there is a pile of papers underneath the stack of letters and in the end I didn't use any of them, but instead used some from a box that is in my bedroom wardrobe (I do tend to overflow into there, despite all the space I have in here).

And to the right of me are the boxes of blooms and ribbons that I rifled through to find what I wanted for my Salt LO. And in the background my melting pot is lurking ... not sure whether it will get used again soon or put back in the drawer!


I now need to put all this stuff away before I consider what to make today. I was going to go to Hobbycraft in Crayford today (John has a bowls committee meeting and is having a car over there and I could have been taken on to Hobbycraft) but I'm just not feeling up to it - hay fever or allergy of some kind ... runny nose, sore throat, watery eyes ... so I'm staying in instead, but might have a bit of online retail therapy before I start any crafting today.

Salt: mother

Gosh, don't the weeks go by quickly - it doesn't seem two days ago since the last Salt challenge and yet here we are again two weeks on with another one.

Julie chose the topic for this fortnight and you can read what she wrote here. It would be lovely if you could spend a bit of time and visit the Salt blog to see the lovely creations of others on the team and perhaps make something to share with us - just leave us a comment with a link so we can come and look at your creation.

I wasn't sure what to do for this challenge. I've never had children of my own, although I would have dearly loved to have had them, but when I married John nineteen years ago I gained two stepsons who were teenagers at the time and I've very much looked on them as my own, not denying, of course, that they still have a mum.

I thought of depicting a mother from the Bible, but no crafting inspiration came to me. In the end I felt that the obvious thing to do was to focus on my mum, so this simple LO is devoted to her. She is now 88 and in reasonable health for her age.

The papers are DCWV, the scalloped felt across the bottom is Anna Griffin, the centre of the flower is a prima 'say it in studs' (I love these and my supply has nearly gone - think I must get some more).

I apologise that the blue on brown wasn't easy to photograph - it says 'my mother is the heart of our family'. As usual, you can enlarge the picture by clicking on it.

Fun with the melting pot

For the past few days I've been looking at videos of Suze Weinberg using her melting pot and I determined that I would get mine out of cold storage (well, not quite cold storage - the back of a drawer to be precise). Anyway, Suze was on QVC this afternoon (and will be again at 6 pm), so I watched the programme and then set to work on using my melting pot. It's ages since I did - I don't know why I don't use it more often. It's a bit like making pancakes on Shrove Tuesday - I then think that I should make them more often ... and then time goes by again. Anyway, I digress - back to this afternoon's crafting.

I decided to use UTEE to cover a couple of big chipboard letters - H and b. I sprinkled bronze UTEE on the letters and then a sprinkling of Debbi Moore's metal magic. When I last used my melting pot I cut a piece of heatproof craft sheet to put into the pan so I could then pull it out with tweezers (this is what Dawn Bibby does rather than immerse the chipboard in the UTEE - the end result is the same).

When I pulled them out of the pot I stamped into them with this Tim Holtz stamp:

and this is the effect I got:

The above picture was taken before I sanded the edges with my precision file set.

The H ended up split in the middle, so I used the same process for another H, this time smearing stickles crystal ice over the embossed surface.

However, when I came to prepare the letters for the card I carefully added a little melted UTEE with a cocktail stick to the original H to join it together, so I now have a spare stickled H to use some other time.

I then stamped the remaining letters for Happy birthday on to pearlised bronze card using Versamark and heat embossed with silver detail powder, added the H and b and then cut round and mounted on to silver metallic card, which in turn was matted on to bronze and eventually on to a silver metallic A5 size card.

I wanted to keep the rest of the card simple, so I've just added a couple of the felt and buttons that I received recently from a crafting friend.

The photos show how the different angles of light change the look of the colours:


I made this card 'just because' - nobody in mind to give it to ... and then I realised that it would make a good birthday card for John - it's got lots of texture, large letters ... could this be the first time I've made his birthday card in advance - it's not till the end of December! Lol!

I'm submitting this for these challenges:

Corrosive 67: 'die cuts' - the letters started out as die cut chipboard
Magical crafts 16: 'metal madness' - I used metal magic
One stitch at a time 16: 'boys to men' - any male card
Sunday stamper 106: 'the letter'
Crazy challenge 18: 'distress it'
Shabby tea room 13: 'masculine card'
Artful inkables 22: 'something completely different than you normally make'
The creative type 32: 'monograms'
For fun challenges: 'card for a man'
Little red wagon 31: 'altered embellishment' - the plain chipboard letters were embellished
Simon says: 'male'
Tanda teaser 147: 'Xtra large'
Busy beauties creation station 5: 'anything goes'
Stampin' B 61: 'masculine card'
Frosted designs: 'buttons'
Drunken stampers 19: 'birthday'
Stamp, scrap & doodle 43: 'use a handmade embellishment - the altered chipboard letters
Delightful sketches: 'texture'
Caardvarks June challenge: 'stamps and wet and/or dry embossing'
My time to craft 95: 'Xtra special' - this is going to be saved for John's birthday (if I remember where I hide it!)

Birthday rules

This is for the sketch on Moving along with the times challenge 49:

The papers and sentiment are taken from HOTP cardmaker's floral ultimate pack (I love these papers, but have to confess that most of the time they remain unused - don't know why) with a bit of distressing with dusty concord distress ink. The flowers are rub ons.

I chose the colours for Color dare 68: razzleberry, soft suede, crushed curry, old olive.


The card is also for:

Crazy challenge 18: 'distress it'
Cas-tastic Wednesday 6: 'focus on sentiments'
Glue, scissors, paper 22: 'take 5' - my items: designer papers, cardstock (with the sentiment), sentiment, distress ink, rub on flowers
Sentimental Sundays 6: 'new or neglected stash' - the HOTP papers have really been neglected; the floral rub ons are new(ish) ones
Spoon full of sugar 107: 'floral delights'
Tuesday taggers: 'all that blooms'
Gingersnap GC55 rndom redhead: 'quotes' - I love the bit about the candles!
Charisma cardz 22: 'flowers'
Alphabet: 'F is for flowers'

Houses 'skinni' on 'new home' card

This card uses sketch 19 on Sketch girl:

I've used the 'skinni' I made for SCD's theme for this week 'houses' - you can see the original here.

I had to find a suitable sized card to accommodate the skinni to make a 'new home' card.

I used a cuttlebug embossing folder with the red card. The striped paper is from my scraps box.

This is also for:

Lexi's creations 15: 'buttons & bows' - the little houses are actually buttons - I cut the shanks off the back and secured with silicone glue
City crafter 7: 'button and bow'
Frosted designs: 'buttons'
ECP 14: 'green' - the bow is recycled - originally on a cracker
Challenge up your life 21: 'recycling - the ribbon bow from a cracker
Secret crafter Saturday 85: 'buttons and blooms' - the houses are buttons and the gems are 'blooms' in the gardens in front of the houses
Aly's 18: 'bows and ribbon'
Creative craft: 'ribbons and bows'
Whoopsi Daisy for June: 'ribbons and bows'
Meljen 10: 'dry embossing'
Busy beauties creation station 5: 'anything goes'

Something complete different 'skinni' houses

I haven't done anything recently for Something Completely Different - I've meant to, but the weeks have just gone by since I last played along.

The challenges for June are going to be skinnis - 3 x 5 inches.

The theme for this week is 'house or houses'.

I started off with a piece of blue hammer textured card and distressed the edges with china blue and shabby shutters distress inks, spraying some home-made mist on to my craft sheet and dabbing the card on it to add some texture to the green area, with the effect of bushes/tree on the left.

The little houses are buttons that I bought ages ago - thought it was about time they were used. I used tiny gems to depict flowers in front of the houses, but I'm not sure they look right.

Because of the evening sun streaming in the window (not complaining!), I either had to take the photo with the curtains drawn and cut out the flash:

Or take it with the sun streaming in:

The real version looks somewhere in between this

I'm going to incorporate this on to a 'new home' card (I need a couple more for tomorrow).

Sweet peas for sympathy

This card uses the sketch for Unscripted 57:
I've kept it simple because I think a condolence card should be without too many frills and embellishments.

The background paper is BG wisteria. The sweet peas stamp is Penny Black - so I'm submitting this for Penny Black week 103 'in the garden' . I coloured the image with copics.

It's another one for:

Alphabet: 'F is for flowers'
Charisma 22: 'flowers'
Busy beauties creation station 5: 'anything goes'

Jazzing it up brightly

Two more quick 'jazzed up' cards from the originals that you can see here - left and right of the third lot of cards shown.

I revamped them with Dena backgrounds:


Once again, these are very simple cards, but they have made use of a couple of cards that have been lurking in the box for too long.

They are for:

Stampin' royalty 22: 'jazz it up!'
Pink elephant 69: 'use bright fun colours'
Theme Thursday: 'bright colours'
Creative card crew 51 colour combo: 'pink & green'
Crafty calendar 9: 'bugs and beasties - optional: wings'
Cookin it up with Katie 18: 'wing it you pink petal' - wings, petals and pink

Still jazzing it up

For this card I've used a piece from the card on the right:

This is another of those concentina cards (seen originally here) that didn't sell, so I took the front piece to add to this bright card blank, also from Dena crafts - another quick and simple card:

It's for:

Stampin' royalty 22: 'jazz it up'
Pink elephant 69: 'use bright fun colours'
Theme Thursday: 'bright colours'
Creative card crew 51 colour combo: 'pink & green'
Quixotic 28: 'go wild' - well, it's an animal, but it doesn't look very wild!

Fancy embossed cards with pansies

As I'm selling cards tomorrow at the sheltered accommodation where mum lives, I dug out some of the remains of a Carol Wilson kit that I bought some time ago and have made three simple cards that are ready made with fancy embossed edges, adding the centre pieces, a few more pansies, which are also embossed, and Happy Birthday sentiments. These are the kind of cards that tend to go down well with more mature ladies, so I thought they might be a good idea for tomorrow. They have white envelopes to go with them that are beautifully embossed on the flaps.



I'm linking these for:

Tuesday taggers: 'touchy feely texture' - this week being sponsored by Tanda stamps
Delightful sketches: 'texture'
Critter 16: 'flowers and the colour purple'
Meljen 10: 'dry embossing'
Alphabet: 'F is for flowers'
Charisma 22: 'flowers'
Party time 1: anything goes birthday'
Divine diva 29: 'inspiration challenge' - this was the photo given:

Jazzing it up continues

Last October I made some easy-peasy concertina cards from a Dena kit - you can see the original post here.

Some of them have sold, but some were still in my boxes and I felt that they had had their day and needed to be cut up and used in a different way - to give me a few extra cards for selling tomorrow (summer fair at mum's sheltered accommodation). One of the problems of the original cards is that they didn't stand up very well - some of them needed struts at the back.

Firstly, I've altered the cupcakes card that you can see in the middle of the original picture:

So I made two very simple cards from the original one - the cupcakes on the left of the second one are decoupaged. I added fresh backgrounds that were also from the Dena range:

I'm linking these for:

Stampin' royalty 22: 'jazz it up!'
Town scrapper: 'save a tree' - both cards were made with the re-used 'scraps' from the original cards
Challenge up your life 21: 'recycling'
Corrosive 66: 'what's cookin??'
Cupcake 93: 'summer delights'
Ooh-la-la 55: 'use the colours of the challenge blog' - particularly the first card
Flourishes timeless 69: 'one layer card' - the first card because the second one has decoupage
No time to stamp? 142: 'sweet stuff'

Guest Bar Tender on Raise the Bar

I was privileged and very excited to be one of three chosen for challenge 19 on Raise the bar to be a Guest Bar Tender for this week's challenge 21: 'celebrating summer'. You can read about my original card being chosen here.

So, for my card for 'celebrating summer' I used two rubbadubbado0 images - one from their coastal summer range, 'pier scene', and 'children holding hands', masking one over the other, coloured with copics. The 'beside the seaside' sentiment is also a rubbadubbadoo stamp from the 'beside the sea' set.

The background paper is 'beach foam' by Wube prints - the other bits and pieces are from stash.

Thank you, Raise the bar, for choosing my card to enable me to have a guest slot - I very much enjoyed making my summer card. Why not go over to Raise the bar to look at the gorgeous crafting of the other guests and regular designers.

Jazz it up

This week's challenge 22 on Stampin' royalty is quite an unusual one - 'jazz it up' - 'Find an old project, card, scrapbook layout or My Digital Studio project and jazz it up - make sure to post your before and after picture'.

This is the original card I made last year - you can read about it here -

and it's been sitting in one of my boxes ever since, so I decided that I would take 'mum' off it and 'jazz it up' with some layered flowers and a Happy Birthday.

This is also for:

Charisma 22: 'flowers'
One powerful hour: 'I love that colour but never use it ....' - yellow and blue together
Challenge up your life 21: 'recycling' - the whole card! and the striped blue and white paper was the inside of an old envelope
Stamp away with me (W plus9) colour cue 4: 'white, navy, light yellow, light blue'
By the cute and girly June challenge: 'something old (the original card), something new (the added flower and sentiment) , something borrowed (the striped blue and white paper was 'borrowed' - or recycled - from an old envelope) , something blue (plenty of blue on the card'

WOYWW first anniversary

Over on Julia's blog she is celebrating a whole year of WOYWW. I haven't been taking part for all of the year, but in recent months have joined in on most Wednesdays.

Today my workspace is fairly clear as I haven't done much in the last couple of days - and I admit that I do like to tidy up in between and put everything in its place. Crafting was limited yesterday because John had to go up to St Thomas eye casualty - he has a scratch on his cornea. I did manage one card last night though - more about that later.


You'll notice that I now have my copics a bit more sorted out and all standing on a 'lazy susan' that I can pull towards me when needed and swing round to the container I want - I bought it ages and ages ago and have only recently put it into use.

I've also bought some of the long Really Useful Boxes for my ink pads. I used to keep them in a larger RU box, but had to empty out more when I wanted a particular ink. Now I have a couple of boxes for distress inks etc. The only thing is that I now need some more boxes to house the ink pad overflow!

Here they are in the cupboard:


Lastly, here is the other side of my worktop - not a lot to see, but a few stamps that were used last night for a card for my guest slot on Raise the bar this week - I was chosen as a guest bar tender - you can read about it and see my original card here - very exciting.

And now I must get off here and get the bus to go to the dental hygienist - oh, what fun!

Bubbly Funk photo prompt: machine

On Bubbly Funk forum we've decided to have a photo prompt week at the beginning of every month. We're taking turns over the next few months to set a new prompt. So, for the first seven days of June, Kathy is setting this month's prompts. For today she chose 'machine'.

My photo shows a very necessary machine that seems to be used far too frequently here:

My first joy fold card

I've often thought of making a joy fold card, but have never got round to doing it, so when I saw that this was the challenge this week for Squigglefly 51, I decided to have a go at making one.

The paper is Prima Indeed ollection 'rasberry pastures' - part of a kit I got a while ago from Bubbly Funk. I thought this went nicely with the copics colouring of the Squigglefly hummingbird. The flower at the bottom lefthand corner enables the corner of the flap to be tucked in.

I apologise that the photos are even worse than usual! - the light here is poor today (typical BH Monday) so I had to use flash.



This is also fo:

Sundays with Crissy 4: 'layers'
Moving along with the times 48: 'folds'
Frosted designs: 'photo inspiration'
Sunday stamper 105: 'wing of a dove' - or, in this case, hummingbird
Totally ggorjuss 32: 'wings'
PaperPlay 21: 'up in the air' - the hummingbird
Daisy doodles: 'anything goes' - include a digi
Lucy's cards 10: 'digital'
Bee crafty 30: 'something new' - first time I've made a joy fold card
Pollycraft 46: 'hidden message' - the birthday wishes inside the flap
Hand full of stamps 29: 'ruffle some feathers'