It's never to late to find out who you want to be!

For a traveller

What do you make for a man? I struggle with this regularly. The man in question is my daughter's GodFather. He is kind and very caring and I wanted to show him I appreciate all the postcards he sends from his travels not just to my daughter but my son, one each from all over the world - the cricketing world that is!

 I came up with this. I love the faded denim and weathered wood colour scheme and included some musical influences, watch parts and the travel theme. The main base is grey board and the circle the back of an art part. The stamps a mixture of Tim Holtz and Wendy Vecchi.

I did add a sari ribbon hanger at the top but forgot to photograph that, opps.

How do you say you care?

Making things has always been really personal for me. I have cried when journaling scrapbook pages and everything I make and give is intensely special. Some times you need to make things for sad occasions. I made this for a friend; I struggled to find the right things to say he's not a gushing type of man so I wanted to let him know we are here.

 I used the Tim Holtz Alteration Matchbook die, the larger of the two on the plate and cut it in grunge paper. This lovely flexible stuff worked well. I then coloured it with Broken China and Picket fence distress stains and distressed just about everything in sight with Vintage photo ink.

The stamps are a mixture, Paper artsy clocks 5, Tim Holtz and the Thinking of you a Creative Expressions wooden stamp. Some I stamped in Pumice stone Distress ink and others in Black archival to give the pages some depth. The last page I wrote on. To hold it all together I used 2 eyelets and a bit of twine to run through the eyelets. Not too frilly for him, now to pop it in the post! (I'm not always good at that bit!)

Bev

Postcard challenge!

Crafty Boots challenge this time is Postcards set by the lovely Gabrielle. However much I tried to convince myself I would not do the seaside I was drawn back!! I bought a Create a Scene stamp set - Seaside by Sheena Douglas ages ago. Not my normal thing but I liked the pier and have used that part of the stamp set.

I have spent many happy hours on the Norfolk coast at Winterton-on-sea and the ice-cream van than drives the beach is pink hence my inspiration. I used glossy accents to gloss the van windows and painted with worn lipstick to get that wonderful pink. To create depth I paper pieced the pink part of the van.

 It was good to play with perspective; I tried different colour inks to help this along with the pier in pumice stone and the foreground in archival black ink.

The sand is scattered straw distress ink and the sky broken china with salty sea as the sea. To give the corners dimension I used a sequin off cut and just added another layer of the same ink.

Have a go at the Postcard challenge and see what inspires you.

Bev

Not just the card..

I find that often once you have made a card you need an envelope or in this case a box for it to go in because it won't fit in anything else!

 

This was the box for a friends 40th card. The card above was made with 2 sheets of grey board and then covered with patterned paper. I then stamped butterfly's from the Dark Room door set - Butterflies  in Saddle brown and Delphinium blue Staz on ink. I stamped once and then again to get the depth  of colour.

  

The rosette on the card has Tim's paper tape with moths on it and after a friend mentioned a strip of it on the back of the rosette was a handy way to keep the rosetee together, I promptly manged to stick it on the wrong side! Saying that I liked it.. A large sparkly stickon from the pund store was the bit of bling I wanted. The stamp inside the card was another Dark Room Door set and was great for the friendship quote. The card was held to gether wither book rings and I tied as many ribbons as I could to it.

The Box was made using the Crafters companions Top score board with plain cardstock and then stamping the same butterflies on. I also used a small amount of Stickles in rock candy to jazz it up.

Thank you

It's the time of year when I want to say thank you.. a lot! To teachers, music teachers, Brownie and Scout leaders etc.

I used a really simple design with my new funky flowers set by Wendy Vecchi studio 490 purchased from the Crafty Boots stash savers club. I'd made quite a few and given them away when I realised I hadn't blogged them. The flowers were all different colours and I got a chance to try out my Tim holtz spring and summer distress inks. Quick simple and cute.

On a similar theme I did some bunting cards using the free bunting stamp from Craft Stamper which is just my favourite magazine at the moment. A little distressing with seedless preserves and a trio of pearl stickies finished them off!

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June's Crafty Thoughts class

I have really enjoyed these classes run by Gabrielle at Crafty Thoughts and never blogged anything from them so thought I'd start today. This months was great and I enjoyed even more than I thought I would. Gabrielle brought loads of stamps so we could choose our own theme for this great little ATC concertina book. We learnt several techniques that I know I will use time and time again.



I have a friends 40th (I have mentioned we are all hitting that age before.. Chuckle) to make for and thought I'd go steam punk for a man!













Thrilled by another great class - thanks Crafty Thoughts!

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It's a Creative World - sneek peak!

I am just so thrilled to have posted my first post for It's a Creative world.. a sneek peak is below. I am thrilled to be able to share ideas..

Why not go and have a look?

Bev

No girls!

Gosh what a concept! Crafty Boots challenge had me a little foxed on this but this is what I came up with..

 I used a craft card tag and a harliquin stencil to do three layers of colours with acrylic paint, brown, blue and white. Tumbled glass distress ink round the edges and a bit of vintage photo around the bottom edges.

I saw the lovely Lin Brown distress a name plate at the PaperArtsy stand at Ally Pally on Saturday and was inspired. I used a light blue acrylic then darker splodged on the top and sanded a bit away. I used a bit of distress ink round the edges not as graet as Lin's but I had a try.

The Fixed price man (nice concept) stamp was from Ally Pally from who I thought was rubber necker stamps - can't find the link to who I thought thay were. They sell lots of different stamps just cut up and unmounted, he appealed.I realised that I needed to stamp him on something different as the background was so dark. I choose white card and lightly distressed him with Vintage photo. The phrase the eyes see everything was from Mini 02 I masked the top of the stamp, thanks to Hels S who reminded me how to do this! I stamped another Paperartsy mini 56 at the top and then decided that some watch parts donated by a friend would sit beautifully in the circles. The name plate had an off cut of paper  and the watch hands jazzed it up. The brads I suspect may be woodware? I did n't noticed I had one screwhead and one phillips head, opps.

Thanks for the challenge Crafty Boots!!
PS - sorry about the sidewise photo's.. I have been having some trouble with blogger...

A special young man..

I don't often do children's cards or tags except for my own children but it was my Godson's birthday and I knew I had a stamp that would fit the bill completely.

 I cut a plain white card tag using Tim Holtz  trusty Tag and bookplates large die and stamped Guitar player, Lily of the Valley collection INCA stamp. I then used the Star free gift stamp from October's Craft stamper and a number nine from my super alphabet set by Papermania. All the stamping was done in black and then embossed using just plain black embossing powder. I love balck embossing for a clear image. I used my ranger pens to colour the stamp in (something else I rarely do!). I wanted a bit of glitter for my little star and used Broken China sticles on the guitar and crystal stickles on the stars.

A little distressing round the edge with vintage photo distressing ink and a red ribbon and hey presto! Simple but I liked the effect. It looked lovely on the brown paper parcel and with something funky Costco ribbon. Hope he likes it!

I'm going to enter this in the Fashionable Stamping Challenge #16 - Make it for  a child. Not as fancy or beutiful as most there but a bit of fun!

My lovely man..

My husband took me away to Venice on our 10th wedding anniversary and as we have just had our 16th I thought I'd make him a tag to remind him of that magical week! I cut a tag out of patterned paper K&Co Blue Awning paper and then stamped the Gondolier, B line Design stamps in Staz on saddle brown ( a bit of a favourite of mine) and distressed the edges with Tea Dye. It needed a little lift so I glossy accented to the waves in the water just to highlight the movement. I have been intrigued with stamping on fabric and decided to have a go with a bit of lining fabric from Ikea stamped with Unity Stamps "Remember" from their wonderful Beloved - Be still collection. All finished wff with an offcut of silk sari ribbon. I was very pleased with it, simple but said what I wanted!
I'm entrying it into the Simon says stamp and show one colour challenge.