Vellum overlay

For my birthday my OH bought, yes bought, me a lovely card. It was a vellum overlay with the center cut out away from the main picture, so I decided to use this idea myself. As it's my mother-in-laws birthday on the 16th of May (yes I do have a lot of birthdays in May) I decided to try this out. As she loves flowers, like myself (love visiting her as she always has some new plant to give to me:-) I got one of my 12x12 papers for this card as I wanted a good display of roses. Got a piece of vellum and drew around the center rose with white pencil, removed then cut out. Wrapped the vellum over the card before gluing to make sure it all lined up properly, it did so glued away. To try and emphasis (big word late at night for me) the flowers I coloured the white pieces in with my Sakura clear stardust pen, also coloured in the whites onto of the velum to try and marry the images together. Wrapped a fine ribbon around the spine of the card twice as 1 time just didn't look nice and put a silver peel off on top right hand side. Will need to go into town tomorrow to find a silver peel of saying "MUM" as I think that would just finish it of lovely. With the rest of the paper I cut and decoupaged the excess flowers and layered onto the back of the card to give it a more "professional" finish. I hope she will like it, will let you know. Karen

Something a Bit Different

It's my niece's birthday in a couple of weeks time and she will be 22 (I know a wee young time like me with a niece that age, blame my hubby). She is a very quiet girl and not really into anything - except for her fiance. I decided to use my new Heidi Grace papers to make something a bit different for her. Got 2 A6 cards and stuck them back to back to create a kind of gate fold (but not) card. Cut of the excess from corner to corner and that was the base to build my creation :-) With 2 co-ordinating ribbons to tie the card together, I used scraps of paper to mount onto my chipboard flowers. There is flocked, embossed and glittered card used here. To finish it of I painted with metallic paints a chipboard butterfly (love butterflies me), wound a piece of wire and somehow glued onto the back of the butterfly - to be honest that was the hardest part of the card getting the wire to stick. Wanted the butterfly to really stand out so I painted it with metallic paints. I'm very impressed with the way it turned out, even if I do say so myself.

Don't know what's happened with the colour of the first picture (note to myself buy a better camera for blogging) the colours in the second one are more realistic. Thought I would take 2 pictures, 1st closed showing the ribbons and 2nd open showing the dimensions on the card.

Needless to say, my OH is still tying his flies - working on pheasant tail nymph's (don't ask me I haven't a clue) - but he does have some lovely feathers that might just go walking into my craft stash some night he's working - lol.

1st Heidi Grace card - 65 today!

Well here is the 1st card that I managed to get finished. It's my Aunt's birthday in a couple of weeks and she will be 65 - fantastic looking for her age, must be the fact that she had no children...... umm.

Firstly I wanted to make a different shaped card, so I used a circle template and cut around it. Backing paper is from HG (sorry cut the name thingy of the papers - d'oh), layered some mirror card across the card and matted some flocked HG papers. Cut out some glittered flowers and 3d them onto page. Using my cricut expression Plantin Schoolbook cartridge I cut out the numbers 65 and the word today. Used whispers stroke pens to colour the numbers and letters in. From an old piece of HG papers, cut out a flocked heart and mounted onto mirror board. Finally added 3 brads onto top right hand rim just to add something different.

Its a really clean, smart, funky card and I think my aunt will be dead chuffed with it.Was thinking about adding some ribbon through the brads, but I don't know... what do you think?

About time!!

I did promise yesterday to post pictures of my new Heidi Grace papers and what I have made with them, but my OH and my son Joe have been hogging the computer and craft room all day. Trevor has been tying flies for fishing and he complains about the mess that I make, couldn't hold a candle to him - and as for Joe, although he is only 4 I sometimes think he knows more about computer than I do.

I did however manage to FINISH one card, and there are another 2 WIP's (work in progress). Hopefully I will get them finished tonight as Chelsea plays Liverpool in the semi finial of some cup or something? Don't know, don't care, crafting time!!!!

Birthday presents have arrived !!!!!!!!!

It was my birthday last week and I decided to spoil myself by buying some Heidi Grace papers. My lovely postman delivered them to me today, but I have not had a chance to play with them as I was preparing myself for our annual GFS display tonight. Tomorrow I promise to open them, caress them, then CUT them into something creative. When I have finished I will post some pictures and you can let me know what you think. Thought Kelsey might have phoned me tonight, but I suppose she is that tired that she just flaked out in her bed - ah God bless. Anyway hopefully I will hear from her sometime tomorrow. Speak to you all soon, Karen.

Kelsey's going away

It's 0515 on Monday 28th April, and I'm up this early to take my daughter to school. Yes it's her school trip and they are leaving at 0600. 40 children aged 10/11 and 4 teachers are heading this morning on the Stenna HSS to travel to Scotland and then bus it down to York. They are going to Scarborough. Come back home again on Thursday night. Kelsey has only stayed away from me for 7 nights in her whole life, and I'm going to miss her :-( So, anyway if you live around the Scarborough/York area and see 40 kids all wearing blue baseball hats just think my Kelsey is one of them :-)

I've just been TAGGED !!!

I've been tagged by my crafting buddy Kath. Why me?

I need to tell you all 7 interesting facts about myself that not many people know about me, so here goes:

1. I have 6 tattoos all in places that can be hidden quite easily, unless I want people to see them :-).
2. I am the first female in Northern Ireland to fife and I have been fifing now as 10 years and I love it.
3. I am a qualified accountant but gave it all up last year to spend more time with my kids, might go back on a part time basis.
4. I walked down the isle on my wedding day to the tune of ..... Jaws! Yes you heard right, my hubby to be and I wanted the event to be uplifting, everyone to enjoy themselves and we decided that this tune would make everybody laugh and be more relaxed. It worked too.
5. I love dulse sandwiches. Dulse is a dried form of seaweed and it was my late grandfather who got me addicted to the stuff, needless to say I am passing on this family tradition to my own children.
6. I played the part of Compo from Last Of The Summer Wine in a play for our church quite some years ago, but I remember it well.
7. I am or should I say was, a green belt in Kung Fu, yes I know you wouldn't believe it looking at me now but when I was 18 I lived on my own, was a feeble looking wee thing and decided that I needed to build myself self esteem and body up a bit so I started Kung Fu - and I would recommend anybody to take a martial arts class as I found it a more fun way of getting fit and learning to defend yourself it needed.

Well that's it for me, a few other bits and bobs but not going to tell you just yet. Now I have to tag five other people... I have decided to tag people who I find have interesting blogs and I would like to share them with you all,so .... Cury Cards ......... Katie ......Kool Krafts ..... Jane and finally Debbie. You are now officially tagged!

The Secret Craft challenge

The challenge was to make a card using the colour orange. Cut and scored a DL card, used my Fiskars templates and cut an oval shape out of the card. I then decided to use a marigold style stamp that I had. The layers of the stamp have been decoupaged and the final layer has been highlighted using my sakura orange startdust pen just on the last layer. Added a few self adhesive peals on the center of the flower and also the flowers on the paper. Finally added some orange organza ribbon up the spin of the card. A nice fresh card suitable for any occasion.

Kath's 5000 hit blog

My mate Kath has receiving an amazing 5,000 hits on her blog and as a "Thank You" she is giving away some amazing candy. The candy is:

1. "Now That's Funky" CD from Funky Hand.

2. Wire Winder with 6 design sheets from Fiskars.

Big thank you to Anice from Funky Hand and Jill from Fiskars for giving me these items for my blog candy.

3. Brenda Pinnick Pocket Page Album Kit with papers and ribbon; chipboard alphabet stickers; self adhesive ribbons; flowers, gems and lots of extra papers and embellishments.

All you have to do to enter is leave a comment on her posting. By hitting the title of this posting it will take you directly to it.

Good luck

Joanne's 5,000 hit prize giveaway

After jumping from one blog to another, came across this blog site of Joanne's where she is giving away some prizes as she has had over 5000 visitors to her site. The challenge appeared to be easy "make a different shaped card using a cute stamped image". No problems I thought until I went hunting for a suitable stamp. In the end I borrowed one of my daughters stamp as it made me laugh when I saw it. I have cut the card out with a "handbag" style, covered with some small flowery paper, used some twine to wrap around the handle to give it a more realistic look. Stamped the image onto white card and water coloured in using my sakura stardust pens. I knew it wasn't quite right so went hunting again, this time in my own stash :-) and found some shrink plastic, happy days. Stamped the image again and used same colours to match bigger image then shrunk - hey presto a small bag charm. Found some metal rope beads, threaded them through and finally put some flower ribbon on top and bottom. Reminds me of a very popular handbag design that would have a small Scottish terrier as their logo ;-) Hope you enjoy it.

Heidi Grace cards

After our Fiskars training on Monday, Jill (the CO) kindly gave me some of the scrap papers that we left. I managed to get using them tonight and these are the finished products with still plenty of scraps left. On the 1st card I split the card blank in 2 and put on some paper, cut out flowers that were left from scraps using my cricut Accent Essentials cartridge, finally added some green flower gems, cut the corner and added a gem on the inside. On the second card I picked up this idea from my mate Kath on Monday at the training, but in mine I used 1 peel off, coloured in with whisper pens and used both the positive and negatives in this card, waste not want not. I love Heidi Grace papers and find it very rewarding with the end products.

children's birthday cards

I was asked on Tuesday to make 2 birthday cards for my friends friends children - complicated. Anyway I was told that the youngest Matthew LOVES Power Rangers and that he will be 3 on his birthday, his older sister Claire will be 5 and she is into princesses. Happy Days I thought, I can play with my cricut expression Paper Dolls cartridge, and that's just what I did. Layered the papers up, cut here, a few gems on the crown, downsized the "superhero" logo and hey presto jobs a good 'un. 2 cards, fun making them, hope they enjoy them. Karen

At last

I have been trying as weeks to install a neo counter onto this blog and finally I have managed to do it. I think it might have been a problem with me having an AOL email account? don't know. Now I will be able to see just how worldwide this blogging business it.

Ta ta for now, Karen

Some cards I made tonight

After the kids go to bed, that's when I get to craft. Just finished making some cards, my niece Andrea has just passed her driving test so needed to make her something to congratulate her.

I am still working on wedding invitations for my portfolio. The first one was created using a plain cream card and I used my Fiskars deckled edge scissors, cut and "pulled" a piece of purple mulberry paper and put 2 butterfly embellishments onto it. Coloured in a silver peel off using my whispers permanent pens.

The second card didn't picture to well, but I stamped gold roses onto the ribbon, stamped a wedding cake image by papercraft4u onto white card and embossed using enchanted gold powder by Heat It Up!, layered it onto gold glitter card and glued 4 mother of pearl flower heads onto bottom left hand corner. Used my Sakura red stardust pen and coloured in the heart as I thought it needed something to lift the image a bit.

They both look clean, smart and I hope a wee bit different than the norm.

Anyway thank you to everyone who posted comments, emailed me and sent internet hugs for my birthday. I had a lovely day, worked in the garden planting my bulbs, cutting the grass and and put my new watchman into my oil tank.

Speak to you all soon

xox Karen xox

Noooooooooooo

It's my birthday and I'm 34!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am overweight, getting hot flushes as I've had a hysterectomy and my HRT isn't the right dosage (any story for another day), die my hair as I'm to grey for my age, still getting spots as I LOVE chocolate and everybody thinks my nails are false, which I may add ARE NOT, as I put gel over them as they are to soft.

On a more positive look, I am married to a man who I have loved since I was 17 although at the time we were both married to other people (took us 11 years to get together and have only been married 1 year 6 months and 28 days but who's counting?) have got 2 brilliant kids, Kelsey 11 and Joe 4, oh and Monty the cat that vanishes for 6 days, breaks my heart and re-appears as if nothing is wrong (grrr), have a lovely home which will be extended in a few months (awaiting planning permission) have a wonderful family who have supported me over the past year while I was under enormous pressure from outside sources, my business is slowly but surely starting to take off (mobile craft workshops for children and adults, still building the website) and I love love LOVE my crafting buddies who I have met over these past years, in particular Kath and Lorraine who live in Bonnie Scotland but are only and email away with support, inspiration, shoulder to cry on and a kick up the backside if I need it!!!!!

If I could have just 1 wish for my birthday, it would to have a magical rubber that I could rub out the things that I don't like about my body and re-draw myself. My hubby reminds me by saying "if you were a horse, they would have put you down years ago!" I know he's only joking but no matter how much time I spend in the gym, I'm never happy with the way I look and just can't justify nor afford spending thousands on the way I wish I was. :-( Plus I don't think I would stick the pain to well.

On a more positive note, I love my life now as I can do the things I want to do, when I want to do, live how I want to live, and spend more time with my hubby, kids and my crafts.

My late grandfather always said "SMILE as life is to short to CRY!!!!!!!!!" and this is true :-)

Back to Butts

Well after a very busy couple of days, I am now back to normal. Just finished all the washing and ironing, took 3 hours for the ironing, hate it big time.

Had a brilliant time in Nottingham meeting up with Kath, Lorraine and her mum Kay. We stayed at a nice hotel in Nottingham but outside it sounded more like Miami Vice with all the police sirens, car chases going on outside. No sleep and up and about from 5am.

When we got to our "training" hotel with all the other Fiskar Frillies :-) we were all pretty tired and the last thing we wanted to do was work, but needless to say when all the Fiskar toys appeared, the lovely Heidi Grace papers we could feel our eyes opened wide and were ready to take on the crafting challenges that had been set for us.

Unfortunately the time that we had for crafting, 4 hours, went to fast as normal and soon Jill (our commanding officer) was telling us to leave everything past :-( I did however manage to persuade Jill to give us some of the papers that we could continue playing at home, and at the bar the 3 frillies (Kath, Lorraine and myself) split the goodies that we had just received.

At the end we were all given our official Fiskar aprons and I sneaked a few pics of Lorraine and Kath wearing theirs, although I'm not quite sure what they are trying to do in the second picture? I think they were trying to re-act a scene from Dirty Dancing, naughty girls. Now don't be cross with me you 2 as you knew fine well that I would be posting these pictures.

Anyway I have so much more to put onto this blog in the next couple of days, please keep watching.

Karen

Away to Nottingham

Well my dear friends, this weekend has been manic so far and it's not over yet!! Had my first "official" Arty Party yesterday and it went really well. Will do a new posting for it in a couple of days but something more important is about to happen - I'm meeting up with my fellow Scottish Pals Kath and Lorraine for some catching up on the goss, oh and yeah doing some Fiskars training also.

The 3 of us originally met each other in September 07 and have stayed in contact ever since so it will be really good to share a wee drink or 2 with them. Flying out today at 2:30 pm leaving kids with my dad as mum is insisting that she goes with me (Lorraine's mum Kay is also going and they 2 Mothers act more like kids when they are together - embarrassing)! Not be back in home until late Monday night, 10pm I think?

Anyway, won't see my husband now until Monday night so I have left him a wee message under the duvet that he can find tonight, nothing naughty just a wee note to let him know that I love him and will miss him, all the sloppy kissie things you do.

Have to wash the kids clothes for school on Monday, hoover and dust the house, pack my suitcase, tidy up the mess from yesterday, pack my suitcase, iron the clothes, leave them past, oh and yes PACK. I hate packing but it shouldn't be that bad this time as I'm only goin' for 1 night.

Will take my camera and leave some pictures of us on a new posting on Tuesday/Wednesday, when I get time I promise.

Anyway, please don't forget that it's my birthday on Wednesday the 23rd, St George's Day, Shakespeare's birthday and also the anniversary of my great grandfather dying. Told you my life was depressing, he passed away 10 minutes before I was born and my mum wanted to call me Willamina as his name was William, thank goodness that my dad decided on Karen, much plainer I think. Anyway I was going to see how many people actually do read this blog site and leave a comment for my birthday as I only get 3 cards :-( would love some "blog" cards if you want to, the choice is yours.

Ta ta for now, Karen

Oh I have to pack and leave in 2 hours, kids still in bed, still in my pj's and it's raining HELP :-(

Birthday Candy

Mornin' all, just be blog hopping and found this brilliant site called pinkangel. To celebrate Tracie Jane's up coming birthday she is giving away rubberstamps to celebrate. All you have to do to enter is post a comment on her site and leave a link on your own site. This is open to everybody and the closing date is the 30th April, so go ahead and give it a go. If your not in you can't win !!!! Just click the "Birthday Candy" link above and it will take you straight there. GOOD LUCK:-)

Free stamp give away

Found this wonderful site http://katharina1704.blogspot.com/ and to celebrate Katharina's 30th Birthday she is giving away one brand new, original Hänglar and Stänglar stamp! Yes, you are reading right a real stamp of this very hard to get beauties. I know from experience that it is very very hard (especially in Northern Ireland) to get a hold of one of this cute little Hänglar stamps and here we have someone giving one as free blog because it's her birthday? I LOVE HER!! :) So please go and take a look, wish Katharina a happy birthday, and you could win this wonderful stamp!!

Just messing with my Sakura

This is another decoupage that I bought at the trade show recently, but to jazz it up a bit I have water coloured my sakura stardust pens over the blue flowers (don't know if the picture can show this). I have used a K&Company backing sheet (yet another new purchase) used some clear stardust and souffle pens to highlight some of the areas. Layered the flowers onto blue glitter and then onto matt silver paper. I didn't use mirror board as I thought the dullness of the silver paper highlighted the flowers better. Just to finish off I wrote "Love" using my black souffle pen. I like the way that your eye is drawn towards the flowers and that the backing papers are just lifted slightly. It's amazing what you can do when all the ironing, house work, dishes etc are left alone (oops better get them done before my hubby comes home as I am out tonight) :-)

It's like Christmas come early

Well after 7 months waiting my Fiskars demo kit, it finally arrived, 4 days before training may I add, better late than never I suppose. After kids went to bed I started to unpack everything and see what had been supplied. Originally quite disappointed as I have a number of the items already but maybe our kits will improve with time. Played around with their new wire shapes last night and these are 2 samples that I came up with. The first one was using some gold wire that I have and their flower template, a few brads added into the center of the flower and stem to hold the shape in place. Mounted onto black card with foam pads behind the brads and decorative scissors down the edge to break the blackness. The second card was using their stars wire template, black stripped card, black ribbon as boarder, peel off and black brad. Not bad I thought for 1st attempt, maybe after time I will get better at it, who knows?

New fresh look

I decided last night that i should brighten my blog up a bit, the pink and black was a bit dull and boring looking I thought, so hence the new brighter me! What do you think? Found a fab site http://www.rachelleannemiller.com/ that you can download pictures from, hence my true love pictured above. Take a look and see what else you can find.

Just a few of my cards

Purple tri fold decoupage

After spending quite a few pennies at the Stitch & Craft show on Friday with my mum. I decided to make this card with one of the decoupage papers that I bought. I have never used the pre-cut type before so this was a first. A very simple card really, 3 folded a purple A4 piece of card, cut 2 strips of ivory card and put a fancy edge on using my fiskars easicut and template, mounted the decoupage onto another piece of ivory card and cut out the shape of an oval, finished the oval with gold peel offs. The "Happy Birthday" is cut out of mirror board using my cricut expression machine and the cartridge Accent Essentials. It's a very plain but classy looking card for a more mature person.

My Little Bro's birthday

Well it's my youngest brothers birthday soon and as he is a chef, I decided to make him a "kitchen" related card. I noticed in last month's Papercraft Inspiration that the free papers were of a cooking theme, so I downloaded and printed off 2 backing papers, mounted one onto chipboard and printed out his name is blue polka dots, the backing paper has kettles, saucepans, jugs, rolling pins etc on it, red gingham overlay and a small red heart with "baked with love" inside. Finally put some silver & glitter peel offs around the edges to take the sharpness of it. Looks better than in the picture, think I need to invest in a more up to date camera!!!!!

Monty is back!!!!!

Can't believe it, hubby got up this morning to go to work, and there was Monty sitting at the window waiting to get in. The kids and I are so delighted that she is back, you don't half miss them when they aren't about. So normal crafting business will resume as I am now able to stay in the house every night rather than out searching for a cat. Thanks to everyone who emailed/contacted me, your kind words have been very comforting to me. xox Karen xox

Monty is Missing, please help us!!!!!!!!!

Hi peps, sorry I haven't been on my blog site but my cat has gone missing and I'm out every day and night trying to find her. If you live around Ballymena in Northern Ireland, please keep an eye out for her as she is very much loved and misssed from our home. Karen

Sample Wedding Cards

Firstly, I would like to apologise for not posting onto my blog for a few days, my life is just mad at the minute. I have been asked to make some samples for a friends wedding for next January, so I have came up with these 2 options. I decided to use an accordian card as something a bit different, I think the colours work very well together and the small bouquet just sets it of. The picture card with the coolness of the white on pink represent the time of year that they are getting married. I don't know what colour her bridesmaid dresses are so its just like a stab in the dark at the minute. If any other bloggers out there are wedding cards, why not post a link in my comments so that we can see all the different aspects of wedding cards available. I promise not to leave it as long next time, but kids are still off school and can't get peace to work - xox Karen xox