Old Skool - A Joiner Themed Thank you.

Well the joiner has finished the crafty blogger kitchen (no pics yet as it still needs painting, and I've only got as far as the patchwork sample stage :( ) Anyway, I decided to thank Graham our fab joiner with a little card.

I went back in time for this one with a Sizzix doll. It seems ages since I did a character card, and you don't seem to see as many of them around these days , hence the Old Skool title. I don't have the doll dies, I just accumulated lots of bits from various ebay purchases over the years. Here's the finished product, complete with mini joiner.

Ingredients:
Card from papermill shop
Screw head brads from Crafts By Carolyn
Dies: Sizzix Doll body and clothes; quickutz tools and toolbox, Cuttlebug red tag sale alphabet

I have also been playing along with HerSpace:MySpace this week but not had chance to post so here's my catch-up

Leaf:

Autumn has arrived in my garden, not sure what happened to summer though!

Adventure:

This was one of the few days of summer we had this year - taken in May on a camping weekend in north Yorkshire.

Stack:

A stack of my Cuttlebug dies on a very well worn cutting mat.

Carved:

Yes, another shot of Morecambe and the Midland Hotel, taken last Saturday. These are the two seahorse carvings on the front of the building which were carved by Eric Gill. Aren't they beautiful.

Cheers,

Ruthie x

'Delicious' Home Baking

How apt that today's prompt on HS:MS is delicious as I spent yesterday making some rather scrummy double chocolate muffins. One survived till today so I could snap it for today's 'Delicious' prompt.

Purely in the interests of authenticity I had to check that it was delicious, and indeed it was :)

You can pick the recipe up here.

It was a gorgeous weekend here and I managed to get a couple of shots for HS:MS SOS. I've been playing with these two pics in photoshop. I'm not sure if I like the effects or not. Any comments would be greatly appreciated.

This one uses a fake Lomo effect, the tutorial for which I picked up on the Elements village forum.

This one is my own recipe - going for a bit of a vintage vibe and mixing a few techniques.

Perhaps 'less is more' would be a better approach. At the moment I'm a bit like a child who's got in a grown up's craft box and can't resist throwing the entire contents onto one piece of work! At least photoshop has an undo function.

Cheers

Ruthie x

Row n Float

Just a flying visit to catch up with HS:MS challenges for Row and Float.

First is the row of columns on the opera house in Madrid.

Second is some boats (which hopefully float) on the front at Morecambe. I will run out of photos of Morecambe eventually!

Must dash, off to make a thank you card for the joiner who is making a fab job of the crafty blogger kitchen and to see what's happening on Corrie.

Cheers

Ruthie

The Felt Obsession Continues

Well, I just can't get enough of felt on my cards at the moment. I just love cutting it in my Cuttlebug. I think I may be stuck in a bit of a style rut to say the least. It was my mum's birthday this week and this is the card I made (festooned in felt of course).

Papers are SEI, letters are Cuttlebug red tag sale and I added the stitching using embroidery floss.

I am once again lagging behind with the HerSpace:MySpace prompts, but I did manage 'bag' with this shot of my totally lurverly Paul Smith Mini holdall. It was a pressie from Mr Crafty Blogger :)

Had a totally fab evening yesterday. The sun was shining and we headed of to Morecambe for the evening as there were fireworks as part of the Morecambe Seaside Festival. Before the fireworks we had a walk along the prom and a drink the the fabulous cafe at the Midland Hotel.

It's not the greatest photo but it does show how fab the bar is. (This is straight out of the camera so if anyone has any suggestions for how I can improve it using PSE 5 I would be really grateful.)

Of course we had to wait for the sun to go down before the fireworks could begin, but in Morecambe that means you are treated to the most fabulous sunsets:
Here's a couple of shots of the fireworks which were set off from the end of the Stone Jetty.

As it's Sunday it's also SOS day on HerSpace:MySpace and my entry is another shot I took last night.

Morecambe has the totally fab 'Sunset Ices' which parks on the prom near the Midland Hotel. Check out their website here, it's fab. It would have been rude not to sample one so Me and Mr Crafty Blogger both opted for the Stem Ginger ice cream which was yummy.

Cheers,

Ruthie

Purple Patch

On HS:MS we were challenged to find purple in our space. As I am back at work today that didn't leave much time for photography. Added to the fact that the weather is pants (very wet pants!!) I was left having to trawl through some pics from earlier in the summer. I was flicking through some of my new garden when I came across this one.

The reason it's tarted up with the border round was because I used it as our change of address cards when we moved. Obviously it said 'Change Of Address' rather than HS:MS Purple. The shot was taken in May this year in the garden of our old house. I love this plant, but when it flowers it only seems to last for a couple of weeks. At least it was in a pot so we have brought it with us to the new Crafty Blogger HQ.

Anyway I must go and dry out. I cycle to work and got caught in the biggest torrential downpour of the year on the way home. At least it has proved that my bargain £10 Aldi cycling jacket really is waterproof. The same can't be said of my trainers who may be receiving the last rights later.

Thanks to everyone who has commented on my blog. I'm hoping to catch up with you all and your purple adventures later. Unfortunately I've agreed to make Mr Crafty Blogger tea first!

Cheers,

Ruthie

I've Done It Again - another card and more photos!

Well, I'm on a bit of roll, I've managed today's promt on HerSpace:MySpace and joined in the this week's dare over on Daring Card Makers.

First, the card. This weeks dare was sponsored by Funky Hand and the challenge was to make a card using a template posted on the DCM blog (view here). I needed to do a birthday card ready for when I go back to work tomorrow and so it provided some much needed inspiration. Here's the finished item:

I used K&CO Amy Butler papers, hobbycraft ribbon, cuttlebug cake die, cuttlebug bloom dots embossing folder and more Sizzix felt flowers.

Today's HerSpace:MySpace prompt was 'Sweet'. I don't need much encouragement to find 'Sweet' in my space, although I found these babies down at the Spar this morning and decided to give them a good home.

I love Tunnocks tea cakes and I've found out via the wonder of the interweb and the fabulous I Like website that they have a tea room at the factory. A trip (further) up north beckons methinks! (Check out the I Like pics of the tea room here)

I also found another sweet in my space courtesy of my sugar pourer as I have been doing lots of brewing up for the joiner who is working hard on the new Crafty Blogger kitchen.

Over the last week I've also discovered the joy of Flickr. I hadn't really used the site before but I registered to post my pictures of the Midland Hotel and Morecambe. I'm loving the whole 'group' thing. A couple of my pics were picked up by the admin for a Midland Hotel group which introduced me to the whole concept, but today I found that 'Jug of Tea' has it's own group, so I just had to join and post the pic I had taken on my birthday trip (see earlier post). It's great that a derelict seaside tea hut has been photographed by so many people.

I've made a card (and taken some photos).

Well it's time for another HerSpace:MySpace catch up. I started the week with good intentions of joining in with all the prompts as I've had a week's holiday from work. However as you will see I only managed 'Enter'. I do have an excuse as we are having a new kitchen installed at Crafty Blogger HQ and I seem to spent most of my time this week in various hardware and DIY stores.

Anyway here's 'Enter', followed by an SPS and SOS.

This SPS was taken a couple of weeks ago when I was messing with my camera in the garden. I was just looking through the lens when this little cutie wandered into shot. (You can tell it was taken a couple of weeks ago as it's dry!)

Now for the SOS - another one of the Midland Hotel which I've done a B&W conversion on.

And finally, yes I have made a card (in between trips to DIY centres). It was my Dad's birthday on Thursday so I made a card inspired by his favourite footie team:

Cheers,

Ruthie x

'Gate' and a catch-up

Just a quick post to catch up with HerSpace:MySpace. Today's prompt from Anita is 'gate'. When I saw it I knew just the pic. I took this last year, not long after I got my DSLR. It's the gate of former methodist chapel near where I live. Here's my SPS from Saturday. It's my OH on the steps of the Ritz Hotel in Madrid. I'd like to say we stopped there, but the budget would only stretch to afternoon tea.

And here is the afternoon tea. Not a great pic, I struggled to get a decent shot because of the light. It didn't help that I forgot to alter the settings on the camera and just shot in auto (you live and learn; you also learn quite a bit about photoshop in cases like this :) )

Finally an SOS - nothing exciting but I just love where it is. (It's Petanoi Bay on Kefalonia)

Cheers,

Ruthie x