O for Orange Origami Owl

Good morning bloggers, followers new and old and all you lovely ladies entering the Craft Barn Alpha Challange.  The letter for this page is "O" and my chosen word is origami with an owl and some orange thrown in.

My grandchildren have been staying for two weeks and not much crafting has been done, I am pleased the page got finished in time before the end of the two weeks and the arrival of the next letter challenge, here is my origami orange owl and not so ornate wallpaper page.

 

Firstly I made an origami owl and coloured him with spiced marmalade ripe persimmon and tea stain  distress ink, using the spiced marmalade distress ink and some masking tape I highlighted my chosen word and made a branch for the owl to sit on. Mister owl was mounted on the branch and a few origami leaves added to make him more at home.   Next came the three origami flapping birds which were coloured with broken china and salty sea distress ink and mounted on a background of striped orange wallpaper created by using strips of masking tape and spiced marmalade distress ink  again.   I wanted them to look like the Beswick flying ducks, which were popular in the 50's/60's (or was it even earlier),  just to add a little fun.

Really enjoyed doing the origami it has been years since I made the flapping birds for my children and was able to show the grandchildren how to make them, the owl was a little more complicated but I am sure they will master the techniques, my grandson suggested "O" for ostrich, not sure how an origami ostrich would turn out with those long legs!

Artfull Times Challenge - Twinchies

Good afternoon followers, friends and all in blogland, here I am back after a short break looking after my grandchildren,  I did manage a little crafting but mainly things with the children.   Now I have time to do some blogging and another challenge I haven't entered for a while is the Artful Times Challenge, this challenge ends tomorrow and the theme is Twinchies,  how can I not enter a twinchies challenge.

I have been working on some twinchies with the children just to keep them quiet (in my dreams LOL) and made a few Autumn twinchies myself which I thought would be ideal for this challenge.

I coloured the twinchie bases with distress inks in autumn colours, stamped Tim Holtz mini blueprints leaves and acorn onto acetate with black Stazon and fastened it over the coloured twinchie.  I have quite a few autumn twinchies so made a wallet to keep them in.  If you want to know how I made it there is a tutorial HERE.

I will be back again shortly with some of the children's crafting and one or two other things I am working on, off now to publish this post and get my Artful Times Twinchie Challenge entered.

A sketch and some Neapolitan Ice Cream

Good afternoon blogland, followers and friends, today I have been making a card for the Passion for Promarkers challenge where the theme is use the sketch below.  I also wanted to enter the Charisma Cardz Challenge which is "Ice Cream".  It's some time since I entered a card into either challenge and as usual I only have one day before the end of the Promarker challenge.

Here is what I came up with for my ice cream card using the sketch, my flavours are vanilla, chocolate and strawberry.

I made a top fold card 15cm x 15cm using kraft card which I purchased from The Papermill Direct.  The images are from Pinkpetticoat and I printed them onto kraft card and cream textured card (again from Papermill) and coloured them with Promarkers.  I cut a piece of pink ribbed card, bought years ago from Craftwork Cards, slightly smaller than the card blank and sewed round the edges then distressed them a little.  The cream and printed kraft card were sewn together adding a strip of cream ric rac.  The ice cream image was layered onto kraft and pink card and sewn round too.  The sentiment, again Pinkpetticoat, was printed in brown and cut out with a circle die then mounted onto a kraft circle.  The elements were attached to the card and three pearls were attached to the top corner, I added some Glamour Dust to add some sparkley sprinkles and glossy accents to the cherries.

An insert was made for the card with pink and cream paper printed with the ice cream and sentiment then coloured with Promarkers.

Can I say a big thank you to all you lovely ladies who have commented on my last three posts, your comments are much appreciated.  Busy with the grandchildren for the next fortnight but will try get round you all to return the compliment.

Midway Reminder for the Show Us Your Twinchies Challenge No 7

Good afternoon blogland, followers, friends and all you twinchie fans.  Today I have a few more ideas for you on challenge number 7 - Holidays and Destinations - home and abroad.  The twinchie challenge still has two weeks to run so come on get your thinking caps on and run up a few holiday twinchies just for fun.  If you have children to look after why not get them making a few, we would love to see them.

Just a few holiday twinchies today New York, Rome (Did Paris 2 weeks ago) and Egypt, I used a Papermania stamp set, Judikins cube stamp and distress inks for these.  Thinking of how to store my twinchies I came up with a little folder to keep my treasures in and thought you would like to see how I made it.

 

To make the outer cover cut a strip of plain or patterned card to 10 1/2" x 2 1/2" 

Score at 1", 2", 2 1/2" 5", 5 1/2" and 8"

This give you the outer box to hold your twinchies.

Stamp and colour the strip as desired.

Fold the top 1" down onto the second 1" and stick with glue or tape.  I added a brad at this stage to use as a fastener to hold the box shut, just put the brad through the front section and stick down to hide the prongs.

Fold over the two 2 1/2" sections, adding a brad as before and stick down with glue or tape. You now have the outer shell of the box.

 

 Now to make the concertina inserts to hold your twinchies.

 

 Cut a strip of paper 5" x 3", score one short edge 1/2" in and one long edge 1/2" in.  This is the turned in edge that holds the pocket together.

Fold over the 1/2" edges and fold the strip in half, stick the two folded edges together to make a pocket.

Using a die or punch cut a half circle from the top edge to enable you to get your twinchies in or out.

 

To join the pockets to make the concertina holder just add a strip of double sided tape to the center of the pocket and stick another pocket on top, continue adding pockets.  I found 10 pockets fitted the box nicely.

Attach the pockets to the back of the box in the same way with a strip of double sided tape.

The finished item and how the concertina insert works.

I hope you can follow my tutorial, if not drop me a line so I know where I have gone wrong.

Alpha Challenge "D" for Dragonfly

Good afternoon everyone, I have been working well today and managed to finish The Craft Barn Alpha Challenge "D" page.  My chosen word for "D" is dragonfly, dragonflies are so beautiful they are one of my favourite insects alongside butterflies.  I recently bought the Tim Holtz dragonfly stamp and have been looking forward to using it and the letter "D" gives me the chance.

As well as the Tim Holtz stamp I used two others which were free with magazines many years ago,  a grasses stamp from  Lavinia Stamps and a Stampendous swirls stamp.  I stamped the images in black Stazon and coloured them with distressed inks and some perfect pearls in blues, greens and golds.  The wings of each dragonfly were stamped onto acetate with Stazon, cut out and attached to the relevant dragonfly, a bit of a mistake because they hid the beautiful colours of the wings.  The background was coloured with distress inks in, squeezed lemonade, mowed lawn, broken china, milled lavender and a little peacock feather.  The swirls were stamped in various colours and the grasses in brushed corduroy.  

 

 

Off back to the pile of projects waiting on my desk, hope to get some more things finished before the end of the day.  

Two Krafty Floral Twinchies

Good morning followers old and new, friends and all in blogland, I am back after a short break visiting my son and family and have a pile of projects waiting to be finished.  Nothing was done while I was away and I am finding it difficult to get going again.  So to get me going I have done a few twinchies for the Twinchie Challenge where the theme is "Florals".   I just love twinchies and am so glad there is another challenge out there for all you twinchie fans, pop over the the Twinchie Challenge and take a look at the fabulous DT twinchies created to give us inspiration.

My twinchies were created on kraft card, something I am enjoying playing around with lately.  The stamps were freebies with Craft Stamper magazine and were stamped and heat embossed with white embossing powder.  I coloured the flowers with distress inks them added a little DI to the background and edges of the twinchie.

Lots of crafting to do over the next 2 days and keeping my fingers crossed I can fit everything in, I have the grandchildren staying for two weeks so hope to get caught up before then but if not the children will have to help me with my crafting, it will be interesting to see what we all come up with. 

A Special Card for a Special Person

Hello blogland, friends and followers old and new.  This year my mum is 90, she doesn't want a fuss just a nice meal with the family which means I will not be organising a surprise party for her, this is a shame because she has so many friends who would love to celebrate her birthday with her. 

I have been working on a card for her this week,  she is not a fussy person and likes plain and simple with no frills, so I thought  a card in the same style as the naming day card I did recently would fit the bill.   This is what I came up with using a lovely Lavinia flower stamp,  I thought this elegant flower stamp fitted the card perfectly.  The stamped image was dusted with a little Glamour Dust, I had to put a little sparkle on there I didn't want it to be too plain.

As The Lavinia challenge this month is anything goes, I am entering this card, it is very CAS but I think the Lavinia flower stamps lend themselves to this style of card, they are gorgeous for cards like this, but also look fabulous on the more colourful and complex cards like the design team samples on the Lavinia Challenge Blog site.

Playing about with my stamp and the cream and kraft, which I love at the moment, I came up with a second card which I also like, choices, choices, at least I have a little while to make my mind up!!

 

I didn't notice the tiny fly that landed on the flower stamp, must have thought it was real LOL.

Thinking of You - Have a Treemendous Day

Another blog post from me today, this time my card for the "Less is More" challenge which is a picture inspiration, pop over to the site and check out the fabulous DT cards they are fabulous.

I love the beautiful colours in this picture and remembered I had a few paint strips in my work box which might match, I also had a tree embossing folder which has never been used, this is how I used them.

Using an off white felt card I made a 15cm x 15cm square top fold card.  I embossed a paint strip, in similar colours to the picture, with a tree embossing folder and also embossed the tree on a dark brown piece of card.  The paint strip was lined up on the brown card which was mounted onto a piece of the white card.  I mounted this onto the card blank and added a simple greeting.

I am trying to get things tidied up and blog posts posted as I am away for a few days.  Don't know if I will be able to get wifi so I will try check out your blogs to see what you have been up to

when I get back.

Inspiration Monday over at Crafty Bloggers Network

Good morning friends, followers and passers by,  Here is my DT card for the Crafty Bloggers Network Challenge Inspirtion Monday.  There is still just over a week left for the challenge to run so pop over and check it out, this month the theme is "My Favourite Things" and is sponsored by Sarah Hurley, the prize for the winner is the Bookworm Kit myself and the DT have been showcasing throughout the month.  

The DT have been very busy and you can find their fabulous cards, and the challenge details HERE.   As you can see I have used papers and elements from the "Bookworm" digi kit, there are papers, embellishments and digi images and I tried to use some of each in my cards, my favourite things at the moment are Kraft card, distress inks and bakers twine, all of which I used on the card. 

I matted and layered papers and images from the kit onto a kraft card, finished with a LOTV sentiment, Papermania button and bakers string.

The next card is a plain and simple card made with matted and layered patterned papers, decorated with the stars from the kit and a banner to which I had added the sentiment digitally before printing.  I printed off a few of the stars and glued them together to make the button, punched two holes and threaded it onto bakers string which was tied with a bow.

I added two brown rhinestuds to the banner to finish and added an insert with the dotty patterned paper.

A little Gift Just For You

Good morning all you crafty ladies out there, hope the weather in July was not too hot for you to get into your craft rooms, I find my work was being done in the evening when the sun went down.  Well into August already, where does the year go, and I am here with my DT card for the Crafty Bloggers Network Challenge and this month it is "My Favourite Things", you can use your favourite technique, embellishment, stamp etc. so lets see lots of your cards and find out what you all like best.  The DT have been busy and you can find their fabulous cards, and the challenge details HERE.  This month's sponsor is Sarah Hurley and as you can see we have been playing around with one of her digi kits "Bookworm", there are papers, embelishments and digi images in the kit so plenty to work with.

I chose a gift card for my DT sample, the card was cut out using my Silhouette Cameo, made up and then covered with the fabulous Sarah Hurley papers back and front.  The quote was computer generated and printed onto the shaped panel, a bit tricky but I stuck it to a piece of copy paper (just the top edge with repositioning glue), lined up the verse to print where I wanted it and sent it through the printer, job done!  One of my favourite things is distress inks and these were used to edge the panel and colour the images before they were attached to the card.  I attached a shaped panel to the back of the card for the greeting.

I placed 8 Marvey Markers in the box because they were to hand, but depending on the recipient a variety of items could be placed in the box.  My grandchildren love reading and this card would be ideal for them, three of them will be staying over the holidays I will make up all three with a book to read, a colouring/drawing book and some pens to colour with and hope it keeps them busy for a short time lol.

Let your Dreams Soar Birthday Boy

Today I have a card I made last night for my son who's birthday is next wek.  This year I have been so behind with my birthday cards most of them are being made a few days before the event so ideas that pop into my head not pre-designed cards adapted for the recipient.   

This is a no frills card, my boys do not like fussy.  I embossed my card blank with a Papermania tri-bosser folder and coloured with broken china and scattered straw distress inks.  The indigo blue balloon stamp was stamped in brown Stazon and clear embossed on kraft card, the top of the balloon was bleached out and coloured with the distress inks.  The trees were stamped in brown Stazon onto a strip of cream card and added to the card with the image at an angle over it.  Happy birthdy was stmped on the watch (didn't quite manage to gt it on the rim) and the computer generated tag was attached with sticky pads and embellished with brown rhinestuds.  The cream insert was edged with distress ink and a tag  printed on it with the words Happy Birthday. 

Here is another quick card  for my nephew who is eleven.  I used a digi image from Pollycraft ,  the wording and image were printed directly onto the card and coloured with Promarkers, greeting and image printed on the insert too.  Very simple and quick card.

The card for my son uses some of my favourite colours, I am using kraft and cream a lot recently must think of Christmas cards next, maybe cream, kraft and red, we will have to see.