inchie

I am hosting another inchie swap. this time the theme is wings. you'd think when you set these challenge you would know straightaway what you are going to do, but no. It took me ages to decide, but for once it was because I had too much choice. butterflies, fairies, angels, I even considered an owl
in the end I was swayed by the little words from the paperartsy plate "wings 4". The "little angel" words were just the perfect size. so I combined them with part of the stamp from the same plate. a couple of random stars, and a bit of glitter on the wings

tag book

This is for yet another challenge. to make a tag book with 5 tags with a vintage theme.

I find such an open theme quite hard!

so, first stop art-e-zine! that inspired me to use the pretty little girtls, which made me think of the song "thank heaven for little girls!" which very handily has 5 words, on for each page. lots of buttons and ribbons later!
ta da!

the background paper is all papermania, but I've toned it down with tea dye distress inks! a huge improvement I think!!!!

C and D

C is for clown
D is for "Dog or Diamonds?"

wednesday stamper - butterfly

it's well known I love to use butterflies, but I thought I'd do the wings on child thing (sorry galina) for this thing. I've had this paperartsy stamp sat in my collection for ages, so I thought I'd get some use out of it. I changed the wings though, they just weren't big enough!!

so here's my contribution for wednesday stamper

I just wanted to say thank you

to all the lovely people who left their kind wishes on the post about my dad. They meant so much to me. Also people who have contacted me directly after seeing it.
I have also received some of the most beautiful heart warming cards, which I will treasure.

and Penny and Deb have also proved my theory that purple and butterflies really are suitable for any occasion!!

B is for....

Obviously!!!!!

another day - another tag!

this tag is for a weekly tag swap. this weeks theme was "oriental meets western europe" and I have to say I had sort of decided I wasn't going to take part as I couldn't think of anything.
Then I was browsing the geisha gallery on art-e-zine when the inspiration hit.
and now I'm actually really pleased with it. I think it just sort of works!!


The images are art-e-zine, and the background is downloaded from canon origami. (that particular paper is Fuji-mon.

just when you think it's going so well!!

I was asked to alter a jigsaw piece for a blue themed jigsaw. I had just been talking about the paper artsy nudes on here and decided they would be perfect for this. I got busy and made this


I was really pleased with myself and smugly finishing off the ribbons when I suddenly spotted the "this way up" arrow on the back ....


....pointing the wrong way


aaaargh!

so in the jigsaw it would look like this



fortunately the girl it is for is very understanding!! and has taken it as it is, (but has promised me she will let me do it again, if it just looks ridiculous!!)

tag for nicole

I'm doing a long tag swap with my friend Nicole the one she made for me is on her blog and it's beautiful.

This is mine


it is 7 inches long. I've use the shap I always use for tags just made it a bit longer and thinner.

goodbye dad

my dad passed away late last night. he died of lung cancer after smoking since he was 12. I have this photo of him and his dad, which I think is really cute. so I copied it and made a simple card which I am going to send to my sister.

happy valentine's day

here's the amazing card my husband made for me. I don't know what to say. I'm gobsmacked!
he's drawn and painted it. I had assumed he'd copied it, but I've just spoken to him and apparently he just used one of our son's toys as guidance, but otherwise he made it up! and apparently it took ages!

what a nice surprise

In the post today I received an ATC that someone had sent to me because she had received an ATC from me in a magazine swap, and she liked it. so wanted to swap with me again, so sent me an ATC on the off chance I would swap with her. isn't that nice.
this is the ATC she sent me


well I guess it's the only "surprise" valentine I'll receive!! although my husband is making my valentine tonight, with the help of my 4 year old. Of course he told me this and my first reaction was "you haven't touched my craft stuff, have you?"

hmmmm! perhaps that came accross as a tad ungrateful?

okay back to the ATC , of course how could I turn down such a lovely offer, so I made an ATC pretty much using the same technique as my first wednesday stamper valentine piece.

I also used some punched hearts. I was looking for something to put in that bottom right hand corner, when I spotted my quite large tub of mostly neglected punches. I used to love my punches so much. I hardly use them now, but I quite like those black punched hearts on this ATC.

mardi gras tag

tonight I was in serious need of a little bit of "art therapy" either that or chocolate.
so I very quickly whipped up this tag for a mardi gras tag swap. it's not the best piece I've ever done. but at least the colours are cheery.

another tag!!!

ah but this is a tag that is only trying to be a tag. it's actually to go on a present.
it's my sisters birthday today. and I'm taking her present when I go to see her tomorrow.
I thought she could use it as a bookmark, especially as one of her presents is a book. more likely it will go in the bin with the wrapping paper!! people just don't appreciate the effort, do they?

another inchie and a jinxed card

I'm organising an inchie swap, this time with the theme "beauty"
I decided very quickly I wanted to use this art by moonlight stamp I've just acquired. but I really wanted to add the word "beauty" I had considered doing on the computer, but that seemed soulless somehow.
then as I was lying one the sofa flicking through the new stampers' sampler I found my answer. on page 68 a card by sharon schuman using some paper artsy nudes, including "a real beauty" and the beauty wording is the perfect size, and yes I have that stamp!!!. so here's the resulting inchie


while I am on the subject of the paper artsy nudes, these are some of the first stamps, certainly the first unmounted ones, that I ever bought.
at that time (well over a year ago) I was on the practical publishing forum, and there had been some hoo-ha about a competition the magazine had run for designer of the year, so the forum decided to hold it's own designer of the year competition. so armed with my brand new stamps I came up with this

unfortunately shortly after making it the forum suddenly closed down, and the competition never happened.

I was very proud of that card, so I took the bull by the horns and emailed it to the editor of the then new magazine "simply stamping" The editor said she would use it and I sent it off to her. I waited and waited and it never appeared in the mag, nor was it ever returned. the magazine subsequently changed editorship, and has a new style completely, so I doubt it will ever be published now. I've never chased up it's return, but then I don't think I should have to.

anyway, I'm wondering if somehow the card is jinxed. you watch! blogger will stop working tonight, and it will all be my fault!!!!!

wednesday stamper valentine part two

Here's my second contribution for this weeks wednesday stamper.
this was actually made for a tag swap. The theme was love but the challenge was to make it without using hearts or the colour red. so I fell back onto the good ol' faithful of purple and butterflies (you can make purple and butterflies work for any occasion - honestly!)

the tag ended up turning into a tag book (i thought it was about time I used the book rings I bought about a year ago) and I was quite pleased with the results.

inchies

two posts in one day! wow that's a first.
Here are the results of a recent inchie swap. the theme if you can't guess, is winter.
now considering this was the first time any of us had attempted inchies, I think we have done a remarkable job. some of us loved it and are itching to do another. some have been put of for life!
I have mounted them fairly simply, so as not to detract from them. it's a shame you can't see how sparkly they are, you almost need sunglasses to view them in real life.

from left to right
Nicole, Sheenagh, me!!
Is, Deb, Penny
Jo, Louise, galina

alphabet ATC

After being pointed in the direction (by me) of the blogs of Jo and Is a forum buddy, Karen, was inspired to start an alphabet swap of her own. so of course I couldn't resist.
so here's my ATC for A

A is of course for......


.....Alphabet

wednesday stamper-valentine

Isn't it sorry state of affairs when you make a valentine card, not to show your husband your undying devotion, but so you can play with your stamps and make something for wednesday stamper. (but he never needs to know that's the reason)

something different

People who know me, will know that before stamping took over my life, I was a knitter. actually I'm still very much a knitter, so today I'm going to share the hat I made. I wanted a hat to go with the scarf I'd made, but I didn't want it furry all over. I designed this one myself (not that designing a hat is any real feat!)

so just to show you that there is more to life than stamping....... no sorry, I didn't really mean that!

music tag

I made this today for a quick tag swap.
the theme was music, what a great chance to use this gorgeous 7gypsies paper, and my favourite stampsmith stamp.

two cards

okay, I'm going to try and get into this blogging lark, rather than just use it for wednesday stamper.
so first of all here is the birthday card I made for Nicole. you see she made the very dangerous mistake of commenting on my timepiece card that she liked Alice, so she of course got an Alice Card



the second card was for a challenge. I was supposed to work out of my comfort zone. so I was told to do collage and no purple.
maybe it wasn't far enough out of my comfort zone, as it's still very me. it is the first time I've used this stamp though, which was given to me by jo