Tearing Purple Holes for Christmas

Wow, it's Friday again, somehow the weeks seem to be flying in! Friday has always been my favourite day, because I'm a very lucky girl: most Fridays, my 3 darling daughters go to visit my lovely in-laws! For the whole afternoon!!! I am so grateful! Dedicated me-time, which I used to spend shopping, watching telly, lazing about, but for some time now it's become craft time. And now it's craft time with a purpose, because there's a challenge to take part in. And without further ado, here's my effort for today's challenge by the DCM.

We were asked to make a Christmas card using the colour purple, some torn paper and a hole. Quite a combination, but I had fun playing with some new paper and dies. So the card blank is purple, and there is some purple in the pp. PP itself is Dovecraft and has a torn edge, and the holes are punched snowflakes along the bottom edge, which in real life are nicely set off by the white insert. Apologies for the poor photograph: methinks I need to practise a little more, and I need to find the right place to take my piccies in. The light just never seems to be right when I try to take photos of my cards.

Well, so much for now, I might be back later, as I've still got a birthday card to make. If I'm not, I'll be enjoying a glass of wine with friends. Aaaahhh, the life!

You Big Softie

I'm rather pleased with myself today - no, I haven't cleaned the house from top to bottom, but I did manage to make three cards! My husband thinks my priorities need sorted out...

The first one is for the Daring Cardmakers Little Extra, and I did struggle with that a little bit. I'm not really a softie, I'm more one for straight lines and symmetry - and this is part of the reason why I've started doing these challenges, I want to try and be less regimented. Not quite there yet, as you'll see below...

I used felt letters and some fluffy fibres wrapped round the pp bits, felt came from John Lewis, fibres from a Lakeland pack and pp are Rob and Bob/Provocraft. Picture is not great as it was taken in the evening when the light was getting poorer.

The next card is for a friend who asked me to do a "New Home" card for her, and with this one, I followed a sketch from Beate Johns . When my husband saw it, he said "Did YOU do that? That's really good!" Hmmmhhhh.... He explained that he was just surprised because it wasn't my usual style... Men!

Papers are Rob and Bob again, house is a Cuttlebug die and stamped message is MM magnetic letter stamps.

The last one is for another friend who asked me to do a card for a wee boy who has just had a baby sister. Again, it's probably a bit different from what I normally do, but I think it's quite fun and should appeal to a wee boy. Train engine is a Sizzix die, I handcut the track and used some punched stars to jazz up the background a bit.

It's been a very productive day, craftwise :)

Back in the real world, I had the pleasure tonight of attending "Meet the Teacher" night at my daughters' primary school. I went last night to listen to a presentation by our new headteacher and meet middle daughter's teachers and tonight, to meet eldest daughter's teacher (was allowed off the HT presentation). Overall, the presentations were informative and helpful. It's nice to have a slightly better idea of what goes on during the girls' day at school, because once they're home, it's virtually impossible to get any information out of them. Me: "What did you do at school today?" Daughters: "Can't remember." Some things come out eventually, but usually a few days after they would have been useful to know... So apparently we're meant to ask "What did you LEARN at school today?" I'll give it a go, but I'm not holding my breath. The new HT has lots of ideas and plans for the school, some sound good, others maybe not so workable, but time will tell. I'm just always wary when lots of buzzwords are used and like to wait and see if they're actually followed up with actions. Cynical me, I must be getting old.

I'm away now for a cup of hot chocolate and then off to bed for an early night (kinda confirms the sentence before, doesn't it?) Thanks, everybody, for looking, and thanks to all of you who left such lovely comments on my last post, I'm still a little stunned.

Finally, a break!

Yay, crafting time! Well, like I said in my last post, my parents were visiting and crafting time was virtually non-existent. But that's fine, that's as it should be. However, now that parents have returned to Germany AND youngest daughter has started nursery, crafting time has suddenly become available again! Well, for this week anyway, from next week on, I am intending to implement a new housework routine, in the hope that the midden we call our home will eventually become a little more presentable... (A vain hope, I hear my mother saying... )

Anyhow, seeing I didn't manage to post anything on last week's DCM challenges, I wanted to be quick off the mark with this week's. And since I have actually made cards for last week's challenges, I'm just going to post them as well.

So, this week's challenge is entitled " A Trio of Welsh Barbers", and too right, explanations for this cryptic clue were needed. And then I thought, oh well, this shouldn't be too hard, die cuts are really my bread and butter, I use them all the time and have a disturbingly large collection of Sizzix, Quickutz and Ellison Design dies... But when you want to be creative and do something special, inspiration doesn't always strike. I have made a card, but I'm not entirely sure whether I like it. Like the tag, not sure about the rest. Here goes:

Die cuts used are: Thick Cuts tag, Quickutz hearts, QK ricrac, QK flower, and a wee heart punchie. Papers are DCWV.

And here are pictures of cards for "Who's pushing your buttons" and "Take a letter, Ms Jones" which I never got round to entering, but am quite pleased with, so you're going to have to look at them anyway :)

Buttons first: They are 3 blue flower buttons and a little red button that I found in two big lots of buttons I ordered from ebay not long ago. Went back to the colour combo of my dots and dashes card, still liking it. I suppose this card could be entered for the die cuts challenge as well, as it's got Sizzix tags, QK flower stems and QK sentiment!

As for "Take a letter", I went for the letter S and made two cards, in a bid to get my Christmas card production rolling. Well, they are still the only two I've made so far...

Anyhow, blue card: stripey paper, scalloped edge, snowflake paper, squares, snowman, snowman sticker, snowflake sticker.

Red and green card: stripey paper strip, spotty paper strip, squares, stocking, stamped sentiment.

That's it on the card front for today, but I shall ramble on a little about what's been going on in this little corner of the world. My parents' visit was very enjoyable, and I had 3 very upset little girls when Oma and Opa went away on Wednesday morning :( My parents do very well, they don't see their granddaughters all that often, but somehow, they have managed to build the same relationship with them as the girls have with their other grandparents whom they see on a weekly basis. Makes me very happy! - It was a busy week, we had excursions into Edinburgh, the local shops, to Blackness Castle and to a couple of concerts at the festival. A good time was had by all :)

The other big thing was that youngest daughter started nursery last Monday. She was extremely excited about going and feels like a really big girl now! She settled so well, it was wonderful - from day 3, she was in for the full time, including group time, and was even happy to be taken to nursery by my friend whose daughter goes there as well. You may think this is nothing so special or unusual, but when you have two other daughters who, at the same age, used to regularly cry and had to be dragged into nursery/playgroup kicking and screaming, who didn't want mummy to leave and would by no means entertain anybody else taking them to nursery, then a laid-back child who happily just gets on with life, is a very welcome change. I'm very proud of my little one, and I'm slowly getting used to the fact that I have a couple of hours every morning in the house when I'm on my own. Crafting time.... :)

Back for more

Yup, I’m definitely trying harder! Before I show my effort for the Little Extra from the DCM, I just want to say I really enjoyed taking part in the last challenge! Receiving so many positive, friendly comments was great, really encouraging, and I want to thank everybody who stopped by to look and/or leave a comment!
On to the midweek challenge of dots and stripes, I decided not to be lazy and made a new card, although a wee bitty further down my blog, you might find a card that fits the bill rather well… But I had been wanting to play with the colour combination I used for a while, and then today, with my copy of Scrapbook Inspirations, I received this lovely striped ribbon that matched the colour scheme perfectly. So off I went, and here’s today’s effort.
I’m quite pleased with the result, and it’s going to go into my lovely, decorated bargain birthday card store (grin).

Unfortunately, crafting will have to be put on the back burner for the next week, as my parents have just arrived from Germany for a week's fun and frolics with their grandchildren and two visits to the Edinburgh Festival. My dad is a real music lover, and ever since I moved here, he has been talking about visiting during the festival. It's only taken him 14 years...

Eldest and middle daughter went back to school yesterday and are taking it quite well, and youngest daughter will start nursery next Monday. Yay, more crafting time!!! Or housework time? Hmmhh, I wonder which one will win out...

Until next time, then, and thanks for visiting!

Oh yes, I've got a blog!!!

Oh dear, oh dear, I've barely started this blog thing, and now I've not posted for absolute ages. Tut, tut! Well, it started because we went on holiday. And a lovely time we had, too. Weather was mixed at first, then really sunny and hot, we did loads of different things, and the girls didn't want to come home in the end. Once we were home, the usual washing-and-ironing-clothes marathon started, then the weather here was quite good, so kids were outside all the time, and youngest daughter does still need to be watched when she's playing in the front with all the big girls. So no housework and no crafting got done for a long time, so nothing to post about either. Well, that's not strictly true, I made a few gifts for friends of ours who were returning to the US, but they were made in a last-minute rush, so I never had a chance to take photos. And so the weeks dragged on, and now the kids are nearly back at school, and I'm thinking "what have I got to show for my holidays?" So here are a few bits and pieces I've made today.



Well, this one is my first attempt at a challenge from the Daring Cardmakers Blog. This week, we were challenged to use frills on our cards, anything from lace, ribbon to paper frills. I made a flower from sheer ribbon, with a bead in the middle, another one with loops of ribbon and I added a length of lace to the message panel. Hope this qualifies. Paper and cardstock are DCWV, ribbon, lace, button and bead are of unknown origin. I inked all round the card and patterned paper panel to tie the whole design together.

I also made this card, just to have some more cards to hand for card emergencies, and it nearly ended in disaster. There is a greeting neatly hidden under the butterfly panel - I experimented and it went disastrously wrong. Well, it's hidden now, the greeting is on the other side, and I think it's actually quite a nice little card.

And then I decorated this neat little expandable file which I bought at ASDA for the bargain price of £1.47! It holds A5 size paper and has 12 compartments, so I thought it would be a great wee place to store birthday cards for the whole year (if I'm ever going to be organized enough to make cards ahead of time and not last minute...)

Finally, I've also started a kind of mini-album following Ali Edwards' project "Daily Something". The idea is to establish a daily creative routine and tell one of the many stories we experience every day. So it's not like a diary, really, you just pick one thing and document it in whichever way you fancy. That appealed to me: I do want to craft more regularly, and small, manageable project seem a good idea. I grabbed an A5 ring binder, decorated the front and started working. It's become a nearly daily thing - some kids' stuff put a halt to it middle of this week. But I'll pick it up again, and I'll show some photos once I've managed to take some good ones.

Well, that's it for today, and I will try to be a better blogger and crafter from now on!

Off on Hols

Yep, we're off on our "summer" holidays for a fortnight, to join middle daughter in Germany and then to go to Center Parcs in Holland. Unfortunately, the weather has been just as "wonderful" over there as it has been in bonnie Scotland, so we're packing the waterproofs...
Once we're back, I'm planning on crafting much more, also with the girls, and finally plucking up the courage to do some challenges.
See you then!

Another wee card

I've finally finished the card for eldest daughter's friend's birthday - hurray! And I did do it yesterday just hours before the party... Bad crafter! Used papers from a DCWV Scrapbook stack that I come back to every so often, and finally put those Thin Cuts dies to good use, have had them sitting in a drawer for a while. Note the scalloped edges again, I really like that look.

Middle daughter made it to Germany safe and sound, ably looked after by my mum, and despite the horribly early start of 3am, she never once lay down for a nap. She was in her bed at 6.30pm, however. Had her on the phone today: she's played on all the toys in the garden, she's been to the local softplay centre and she's had slush puppy - heaven for a six-year-old! Hope she enjoys the rest of her week as much, but will also be pleased to see the rest of us when we join her next Sunday.