Parents Big Birthday

Both my parents celebrate a big birthday this year, within 6 weeks of each other, won't tell you which, that would give my age away. LOL
We (siblings) decide to celebrate in style and we decided to have a party in one of my sisters houses for them.
Here is the invite we sent out to the guests.



It opens down by untieing the ribbon.
I got the idea for this invite when I attended a Card Making Workshop run by a wonderful crafter Jackie Mooney . She holds monthly workshops in Dublin, Ireland but as I live on the other end of the country I do not get up to them. :(
I am delighted to say the the invites were well received by all. :) so much so that my Mother asked my to make the Thank You cards.

My Morning Walk

Most mornings I go the a local beach, Beal Bán, for a walk with our dog, Tiny. This particular morning there was a shower of rain coming in from the sea and with the sun rising from behind and shining into the shower cloud gave a real strange colour to the beach and cloud. Following is a slide show of some photographs I took. The first few photos were when we arrived, just before the shower and the last of the photos were taken when the shower had passed and the sun was out.
And yes, we got soaked. lol

Hope you like,

Time lines - whats that?!

A little while ago, when my niece started college I thought I would make her a Recipe Book, where she could record some of her best recipes together, especially, as she was moving away from "Mom's cooking" for the first time. Now, nobody ever told me I was a fast worker and this is especially true for this project. My niece, in question, went off to college last September and it is only today I completed the Recipe Book. I have never done anything like this before and I think that is what delayed me. I had an idea in my head but I always find it hard to get it completed.

Here are a few photos and descriptions of what I did.




This is the cover of the Recipe Book. I had hoped to get screw type hinges but could not find them anywhere so had to use rings. I still put a "binding" edge to the book in case in the future I do come across these hinges. (I know very technical descriptions. lol.)



Most of the pages in the sections are blank so she can write in her own recipes or she can print recipes and just stick them in.

I have divided the book into 3 parts, Breakfasts & Starters, Main courses and Desert & Snacks. I used designer paper as separators and each separator has its own index page. I also "inked" the edges of each page in a different colour just to differentiate the sections more. I used Tim Holtz inks for this.




I have started her off with some different recipes that I hear students like, easy but filling recipes - just like an adult to put that in :lol:



I used Graphic 45 - “Domestic Goddess” as the designer paper. The tabs are cut with Spellbinders Nestabilities Labels 4 and then folded in half.




The paper I used for the “binding” I also used for the back cover.

The pictures are not all that clear but I hope you get the idea.

The next thing I must do is to post it to her.

Hope you like,

My Christmas Makes

I was not really slacking over the Festive Season, even if I was not communicating with all you good people out there, I was busy elsewhere.

My Hubby also does some crafting of his own, timber work. He attends lots of craft fairs leading up to Christmas and while he was doing those I decided he could sell some of my cards and paper crafts. The following projects kept me busy for a while.





I came across these Purses or Bags on Maria Bells blog and thought they were wonderful if not a little hard to make, so I read the instructions on her tutorial and found that they sounded easy enough. Yeah! I gave them a try and voila! these are the results. I was very pleased with them.



This is a stationery box I also make for the craft fairs. They are boxes which holds 5 cards, 4 gift cards and a little pocket to hold stamps. I got the idea from Dannie Graves, mind you Dannie has a lot more in hers, hope to get around to completing one like hers in the future. They look much more impressive than mine.

Who am I......?

LOL, I have just completed a "Which Jane Austen Heroine are you?" I am Elinor Dashwood.

"You are Elinor Dashwood of Sense & Sensibility! You are practical,
circumspect, and discreet. Though you are tremendously sensible and allow your
head to rule, you have a deep, emotional side that few people often see."

I don't sound very exciting but that is who I am. LOL

If you wish you can do the quiz yourself, the link is at the end of the side bar.

Welcome 2011

Hope you are all healthy and happy and that 2011 is treating you well.



I am starting off the new year with a card challenge. Enfys of Going Buggy is having a major party on her blog this week. She is celebrating a major milestone in her blogging life. Congratulations Enfys. Enjoy your week. Pop over and celebrate with her, after you read this of course. lol

I have to apologise for the quality of the photo, we had a dreadful dull, wet and windy day today so had to use the indoor lighting to take the photo, will have to organise a light box for taking photo's indoors.

It is a tri-fold card using plain white card stock with Pink Petticoat papers and image. The little image is coloured using ProMarkers and Sukura gel pens.

Hope you like,

And these are the last......

Once again I have taken inspiration from Deneen of A Path of Paper. This little man is made using circular Spellbinder Nestabilities, I used 3 in all, the edges are sponged with Tim Holtz's "broken china" ink. The arms are just drawn on, as are the eyes and mouth using ProMarkers. The nose is cut from orange card stock. The ribbon is from stock.


I made a bunch of these cards also, so simple... The backing paper is from Pink Petticoat "Fairy Lights" kit. The sentiment is cut using Spellbinders Christmas tree Shapeabilities. I added a little ribbon from my stash just to finish the bottoms. I left the inside of the cards blank.

Hope you like,