New Template

Welcome to my new folowers, hope I can keep you entertained now and again. Leave a comment, I do like reading them.

I have just changed my blog template. I have been thinking about it for a long time and today I "bit the bullet" and went for it. I am sure there are lots of things I can to to improve and I am sure I will over time. There is one thing, the font colour, is it too light? I think it's okay but maybe a little hard to see for some people - and no I do not mean you!!!!

Let me know what you think, please. I would like to thank those who commented on the change of justification a few weeks back, I like the centre justification so I will stick.

Hope you like,

A card today

I have a very simple straight forward card for your perusal today.  I made it for a crafty buddy whom I lent some spellbinders too. Hope she enjoys playing with them.

It is a square card, and all I did was to attach some designer paper to it.  I then just blinged it all. I outlined the butterflies and stars with some Glamour Dust, boy does it life up to its name! I added Papermania. glitter flowers to cover the flowers that were there already.  I also added gems to the little dots outlining the flourishes.

"Easy peasy, lemon squeeze."

But it looks lovely and effective, bright and colourful. Yeah! I know I say so myself. lol

Recipe:

Backing paper: DCWV - Blossoms and Butterflies

Flowers: Papermania - Capsule collection

Gems: Martha Stewart - clear gem stickers

Glitter: Decoart - Glamour dust

Hope you like,



"Every cloud" 'nd all ...

Today's blog is not craft or card related, just thoughts and reminiscing.

As the saying goes "Every Cloud has a Silver Lining".

Just over a week ago we were preparing for our sons confirmation. We painted the ceiling in the kitchen on Thursday, on Friday, I went into the hot press to find that the timber around the hot water tank was wet! Yep, our tank had sprung a leak. That in itself was bad enough but the hot press is situated over the kitchen - yeah you guessed it, the newly painted ceiling had a brand new major water stain. Bummer.

Now for the silver lining -

I had to remove lots of clothing and "stuff" from the press including a box of clothes.  Clothes that I had put away "in case I would wear them again".  I emptied the box just to see what was in there and low and behold there was my wedding garter in the bottom, now this is something I had never intended in wearing again so I have no idea why it ended up in this particular box! In fact I had forgotten that I still had it. We celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary last November.

This made me think about  the other wedding cloths I still had.

My dress is still hanging in the wardrobe, my shoes are back in their box on the top shelf of another wardrobe. We got married in November; I had a little jacket to wear over my dress, that too in hanging in the wardrobe.  I did not wear a full veil in stead I wore a hat with a veil at the back and that hat is in its box on top of "the" wardrobe. What do I do with them?

I wore the hat again to my SIL wedding, also put on the shoes but they were so uncomfortable that I had to come home again after the church to change them. lol

The dress and jacket was a present from  my mother, she got it made for me. It was made with the intention of shortening it and dyeing it so it could be worn again as a "going out" dress and the bottom of the skirt would have being made into a christening robe. Now, as it happens, we never had birth children so we never needed a christening robe.

I have thought about selling them or giving them to a charity shop but I just cannot do it, it was such an important day that I just cannot bring myself to get "rid" of them. So I think they will remain in the wardrobes and my garter shall join them.

Hope you like,

Mothering Sunday

Last Sunday was "Mothering Sunday" here in Ireland and other parts of the world also know as "Mothers Day". Usually I have to post the card to my Mom but this year I was lucky enough to have her come visit us here. This is the card I made her.

I tore the right edge, just for a different look! Than edged it with pink ink.  The backing paper, strip in the middle, is a down load for Pink Petticoat. The pink ribbon I got from my SP (Secret Pal) last year.

The image is a stamp that I have for an age, but don't seem to use much of. I stamped it first with black ink onto a scrap piece of paper, then with watermark ink (I did wipe most of the excess ink off the stamp first, as I did not want to damage the watermark inkpad) and then heat embossed with clear embossing powder. That's why the "clear" embossing looks grey. I then coloured the image with ProMarkers. I cut it out with a oval nestibility die cut.

The sentiment, "Joy, Hugs and Smiles" comes from a PaperTrey set. I cut this out using a label 4 nestibility die cut.

Actually it looks much nicer IRL.

Recipe:

Card: Stash.

Backing Paper: Pink Petticoat download.

Image: Papermania - Love Jesse Edwards.

Sentiment: Papertrey - Simple Sunflower.

Colouring medium: ProMarkers.

Ink: Watermark.

Embossing Powder: Clear.

Die Cut: Nestibility-  Classic Oval and Label 4.

Ribbon: Friend - Martha Stewart

Challenge entered:

Card Crafters Circle - Challenge #15 TIC TAC TOE

Hope you like,

 P.S. I have decided to put all post justified to the centre, what do you think, is it better or should I leave itjustified to the left? Let me know what you think, please.

V.

St Patricks Day Parade

Last Saturday was 17th March and being Irish we celebrated St Patrick's Day.  As usual we headed to Dingle for the local parades. Here are a few photos of our VERY local parade.

Of course we have to start off with "our" St Patrick!

A "lazy" trad. band taking a ride instead of marching. lol With the regulation Leprachaun in the back of the trailer.

Another mode of transport! You cannot see here but there is a little chimney in the caravan and the fire was lighting, as it passed you could smell the turf burning - either that or it was burning rubber!

Along came "Jedward" to entertain the crowd.

A more up-to-date mode of transport.

We had some local wild life.

More domesticated animals (A special Kerry Cow). lol

And, here, to round up our parade, some drum music, not very Irish but good. :)

That is just a short version of our parade. Being a local parade there was lots of other groups and businesses represented, too many to show here.  It was a fun day and the weather for once was not blisteringly cold or wet.

Hope you like,  



A little Rant....

Spring has arrived here. After many months of having to dry clothes on clotheshorses by the radiator we can now hang them outside to dry. There is such a difference; between drying clothes by the radiators and drying them outside, there is such a fresh outdoors smell from them plus they seem so much softer while clothes dried inside are hard and smell.... well weird!

Now here is the rant; we live in the country, in hill sheep country. And this time of the year when the weather warms (a little) and there has being a few days of dry weather, out come the farmers and start burning the gorse on the hills and mountains. That in itself is okay- they are allowed BUT I have clothes on the clothes line and now they stink of smoke instead of nice fresh breeze dried freshness.This is 2 days in a row it has happened. :(  IT ANNOYS ME. Rant over.

***************

I have being tiding out my photo files and I have come across this card I made for my Grand-niece on her Christening day.

All the backing papers are from Pink Petticoat in pink. The image is from StitchyBear Design, it is lovely set for Christenings and such. Even though it is called Baby Girl, it could be used on boy baby cards also.  The only embellishment I used with this image, is some glue gel just to highlight the folds of the dress.  I used 2 of the fancy tags set when layering the sentiments. The sentiments themselves are computer generated. I cut out the main image and layering's with Nestibilities Labels 4. The panel on the left of the card is punched with a Martha Stewart punch. Behind it and around the second layer on the image,  I put a satin grey ribbon just for a bit of contrast.

Recipe:

Backing papers: Pink Petticoat.

Image: StitichyBear Digital Stamps.

Die Cuts: Nestibilitie Label 4, and Fancy Tags.

Ribbon: Local Haberdashery Store.

Gems: Papermania Adhesive Gem.

Punch: Martha Stewart - Scollop Dot.

Hope you like,

Second Commissioned Card.

Well, I did such a great job on my first commissioned card that I got a second, yeah, blowing my own trumpet here, will stop now. :0

It is a card for my neighbour whose son is having a birthday soon. She asked me on Tuesday but I had other things on so I did not get it started until yesterday and she needed it today! It was not a difficult ask but when I got down to designing it and getting an image suitable for it I ran into major trouble.  Could not find an image of a man using some dumbbells or some such thing for the life of me. Spend the day going through all the digital stamp sites I could think of or on google.  In the end I asked some really intelligent people, the wonderful ladies on Paper Craft Planet and they were great.

This is the front of the card, the image I eventually found is from Bonibleaux Designs, I coloured it in using ProMarkers, think I should have given him a redder face but was afraid I would over do it. I used those particular colours as they are our county colours and also the colours of the county in which he now lives.
The little ancorette and brad was a gift from an online friend last year, they are so cute and come in a variety of different colours. They come from Queen&Co a supplier of some really cute stuff.

And the inside.....
Don't think the recipient would be very impressed if I just had a puny image for him. lol This image is a google download.

I am much more comfortable using simple layouts, in future if I do a layer card like this I would mount the main image with sticky foam pads, its a little mountain and valley-ee around the layered blocks.

Recipe:

Plain Backing Paper: DCWV Cardstock.

Backing Designed Paper: DCWV The Blossoms Butterflies Stack.

Image (front): Bonibleaux Designs - weightlifter Wayne.

Image (inside): Google download.

Sentiments: Computer generated. 

Brads: Mini Sprinkles and Anchorettes - Queen & Co

Hope you like,

If only it was Halloween....

Look what "Sonny" took last night.  It is such an atmospheric photo.

Would do for Halloween.

Hope you like,