Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all of you.  Hope you had a lovely time over the festive season.

I've no excuse for my recent absence, except for being a bad blogger!  It has to be said I've also been quite a bad crafter and my mojo had very much left the building!   Even Christmas card production was very limited this year.  Why do you always get the urge to do Christmas cards in August and then it evaporates by mid October?

Anyway, it's a New Year and I will craft.  To prove it here's my first card of 2011.  Nothing spectacular, but hey I made it!

Ingredients: Scruffy teddy die cut from ebay, K&CO paper, Cuttlebug red tag sale alphabet dies.


As well as venturing into my craftroom (briefly), I've also started another project and blog.  I've finally jumped on the bandwagon and started a photography 365 (photo a day) project.  If you are interested in photography take a look here The Crafty Blogger's 365.  If you are doing a 365 yourself please leave a comment over there as I'd love to take a look.

Butterflies and Bunting

I've just come back from a week's holiday to hideous weather up here in NW England and so all I want to do is hole myself up in my craft room and play.

With this in mind, this morning I went on the hunt for a challenge to inspire me and this week's challenge on Daring Card Makers fit the bill perfectly:

This week it's me (Kathy) here to set the new dare and I'd like you to

Come Fly With Me

My theme is All Up in the Air, really ;-) - I'd like to see the main elements of your card being things that fly, flutter, hover or waft about "up there" in the sky.

The hideous weather I've come back from holiday to has made me crave sunny days and afternoon tea parties with bunting flapping in the wind and butterflies hovering over head.  So this is what I came up with:

It's a card for a friend whose birthday is not until late October, by which time I think we will all be craving sunny days and blue skies!


Ingredients: Papers October Afternoon (Fly a Kite range - even that fits the dare!), Quickutz alphabet dies, Cuttlebug cake die, Nellie Snellen frame die, American Crafts ribbon, pen stitching, garden twine from Wilko, punched butterflies.


Just a note on the 'stitching'.  One of the comments on my last post asked if it was real stitching on my cards.  It isn't!  After thinking I had broken my sewing machine the only time I tried to stitch a card I always stick with my pen stitching method: piercing the card/paper with a map pin and then drawing in the 'thread' with a fineliner pen.  (It's much less stressful.)


As I said at the start of this post I've just come back from holiday and I can say there where we were there was no shortage of sunny days and blue skies as Mr Crafty Blogger and I spent a fantastic week on the beautiful Greek island of Santorini.  I don't want to bore you all with the hundreds of pics I took so here's a storyboard of just a few of them:

(storyboard created using a template from Coffee Shop)

We stopped at THIS fantastic hotel in the capital Fira (or Thira).  Not only were the facilities excellent we also had amazing views of the Caldera (volcano) and the sunsets which Santorini is famous for.  (I took the photo on the top right of the storyboard from our balcony!)


Although we stopped in Fira, we managed to get around the island very easily by bus, including a  number of trips to the beautiful (and very photogenic) village of Oia which is where three of the storyboard photos were taken.


I promised not to bore you with the photos, but before I sign-off I just want to share one of my favourite shots from the week:

If you are interested I have put a few more shots on my Flickr.

Thanks for looking,

Ruthie x

A Couple of Cards & A Bit Of Girly Indulgence!

Well, my get ahead of myself campaign is continuing and I've done another couple of cards ahead of time. First is this one which is my Mum's Mother's Day card for this year. I'm so far ahead I don't even know what date Mother's Day is this year!


Of course there is felt on there, and some of it is thanks to my Mum. She found a load of pieces in a cupboard at home and gave them to me to use on my cards. Free felt, love it!

The pearl topped pin is from a new addition to my crafty stash. I've been meaning to get some for ages and found some on one of the haberdashery stalls on my local market. (Much cheaper than buying the 'Scrapbooking' ones). I also picked up some nice ribbons at the same time but I've not used those yet.

Ingredients:
Paper - Basic Grey 'Gypsy'
Felt flowers cut using Cuttlebug, Quickutz and Sizzix dies
Dovecraft brads
Coffee cup sleeve
American Crafts ribbon
Pearl topped pin
Inking and pen stitching

Yesterday was Daring Card Makers Challenge Day, and it was Lythan's turn to set the Dare:

I just love, love, love patterned paper so this week I dare you to join me in
Patterned Paper Passion
I want to see 3 different patterned papers on your card.And to be extra daring, why not see if you can use 3 different lines of paper!

Well I wimped out on using three different lines of paper and stuck with three from the Basic Grey 'Infuse' range:

It's another Mum card, but this time it's for my MIL's birthday next month; you see I am really getting ahead. My sister is getting married in August, at this rate I'll be making the wedding card next week!

Ingredients:
Paper - Basic Grey 'Infuse'
Felt flowers cut using Cuttlebug dies (leaves also cut with a Cuttlebug die)
Papermania brads
Papermania felt ribbon
Tag - Cuttlebug die
Scalloped and plain oval nestabilities dies
Lettering - Quickutz Katie Skinni Mini dies
Pearl topped pin
Inking and pen stitching

Now for the bit of girl indulgence - new SHOES!!!! Contrary to what Mr Crafty Blogger will say, I am not really a shoe mad girly girl, but when I saw these babies I just had to have them:

I have got them to go with a cocktail dress I am wearing for a black tie ball in a couple of weeks. The planned ensemble may end up looking hideous, and I may end up looking like I've gone in fancy dress at Dorien from Birds of A Feather (as Mr Crafty Blogger suggested when I told him about the shoes), but I 'll take a chance.

Just to prove I'm really not a girly shoe girl, this is a pic of how my feet are usually attired (when I'm not at work). Forget Manolo Blahnik and Jimmy Choo, Dr Marten knows a thing or two about shoes!

Finally, I have moved my new DAB radio/I-Pod dock to it's permanent home in my craft room so here's a pic.

Have a good weekend,

Cheers

Ruthie x

HS:MS: HS and Mid-week Catch-Up

I thought I would just check in with a quick catch-up.

I am a regular reader of the HerSpace:MySpace:HisSpace photo challenge blog but I don't get to play along as often as I would like, particularly at the moment when it's dark when I get in from work.

Anyway I popped in today and the prompt was 'Tip'. I could have taken a photo of my craft room which is mostly a complete tip, however I opted for the tip of one of my new set of fineliner pens.

As you know I love doing fake stitching on my cards and so I have been on the look out for suitable fineliner pens so I can stitch in colours other than black, so I was delighted when I found a set of 10 0.3mm ones in my local Sainsbury's. They are in a really clever pack which means you can stand them up on your desk as I demonstrated here (can you tell I love stationery?)

My crafty mojo seems to be in residence at the moment and last night I set down to have a go with my new Sizzlits owl die. I only intended cutting one to see what it was like, but I ended up making a full card!

Ingredients:
Sizzix Sizzlits owl die
Ovals cuts using Nestabilities
Basic Grey 'Infuse' paper
Coffee cup sleeve
Papermania brads
Inking and pen stitching (using one of my new pens)

The lovely Ellen commented on my last post, asking about the recipe binder. Yes, I have started it, but it's still a work in progress. I decided to start the one for my friend's birthday first (as I am on a deadline with that one). Here's a quick pic of it as it is at the moment:

I have done the cover, and one of the dividers but I still need to do the rest of them and design and print the recipe cards themselves. I will post full details and more pics (taken in better light) when it's finished.

I found the idea for it here: http://cathyzielske.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/09/if-you-like-foo.html

I almost forgot, Ellen gave me an award too:

It's the Marie Antoinette Award, but Ellen if you read this can you let me know what it's for :)

Cheers

Ruthie x

Getting Ahead of Myself

This morning I've managed to make a card in plenty of time, wonders will never cease. I think it may be some kind of subconscious New Year's resolution! It's a birthday card for a friend. Her birthday is not until the end of the month but I can post it here as she doesn't read my blog.

It also fits in nicely with this week's dare over on Daring Card Makers:

We'd like you to do your bit for the planet and make a card using some recycled items.Yes, we know we've done similar challenges in the past, but some things are good to revisit and this is one of them - it gets us looking at stuff we might be throwing away and asking ourselves if there's some card-making mileage to be had from it.And besides, it's FREE! If you can use something rescued from Christmas rubbish (scraps from cards, decorations etc) - then you get double points! lol

Here is a couple of shots of the finished card:

As you may now from previous posts I am an avid collector of coffee cup sleeves, so they quite often find there way onto my cards. In addition to this I printed the greeting onto a scrap of card which was lying on my craft desk, and the chipboard flower was made using a scrap of mount board which was also lying around.

Non-recycled items on the card are K and Co Amy Butler papers, Dovecraft brad, and Papermania felt ribbon, felt flower cut using a cuttlebug die, with inking and pen stitching to finish.

Yesterday morning I ventured out in the freezing cold with my camera hoping to get some nice frosty shots in the garden. I didn't find anything frosty worth shooting, but I did find some fungus on a tree stump:

After seeing these shots Mr Crafty Blogger declined my offer of a mushroom risotto for tea. I can't think why!

In the afternoon I ventured out with Mr Crafty Blogger to the East Lancashire Railway to take photos of trains and ride on them. (It's a Mr Crafty Blogger thing, although he has said if I come along then he doesn't need to worry about the photo bit as I take care of that, and he can presumably concentrate on riding on the train, which obviously takes a lot of concentration.)

It wasn't a brilliant afternoon for photographing, but we still stood in a field in temperatures hovering around zero and I did get one shot of the afore mentioned train:

There was method in my madness for venturing to the East Lancashire Railway as there is a craft shop right opposite the train station at Ramsbottom. So on the return journey I left Mr Crafty Blogger and his friend on the train so I could have a look round the craft shop. Everyone's a winner - he gets to stay on the train for another 15 mins and I get a peaceful mooch round the craft shop.

I did make some purchases, the felt ribbon used on the card above, and some friendly plastic. I have to say the friendly plastic seems to be harder than it looks and we are not quite getting on at the moment! More practise needed I think.

Cheers

Ruthie x

Back To Normal

Well the holidays are over and things are back to normal for me. The trees came down yesterday and it was back to work this morning. I can't complain really after two weeks off.


I have managed one quick card since my last post. I am not really happy with it, but I needed to do something quickly on Friday night so I could get it in the post.



Cartoon image is a download from Tigerfrogg, paper is Basic Grey and the ovals are cut using nestability dies.



The reason I was in a rush on Friday night was because we went to Edinburgh for the day on Saturday. I did take the camera but most of the shots I came back with were quite rubbish it has to be said. However, I am prepared to share this one, just for the name of the shop:


I have to say that I was amazed at the amount of souvenir (or tourist tat) shops Edinburgh has, it seems like every other shop was one, but the name of this one did make it stand out. I really should have gone in here to add to my fridge magnet collection, but I didn't think at the time.


We didn't have that long in the City, but we did manage to wander down the Royal Mile; debate who would actually pay to go in the '3D Loch Ness Experience' and walk up to the castle and admire the view:

We also went to the pub for a very nice haggis lunch (no pic of that though).

All in all a very nice place to spend a crisp winter Saturday. Id like to go again when I have more time to look round, and I will remember to buy a fridge magnet too.

Cheers,

Ruthie x