A blog for cooking and crafts

Tuesday 29 November 2011

Camera ...... Action!



My DH took these pictures of Little Girl running around the garden, they were all so cute I couldn't pick which to use ...... so I used all of them! The collage function in Picasa is a great tool for using lots of photos. I printed the picture with a black background (trying not to wince at all the black ink I was just going to cut off and throw away!) and cut around the shape of the collage.

The rest of the page is very simple, a nice black paper from stash (might be Creative Imaginations) and the title is done with American Crafts Thickers.
Posted by Picasa

Thursday 24 November 2011

Street Party



A bit of a red, white and blue post today! Little Girl celebrating the Royal Wedding with Grammy and Grandad. I even have a bit of journalling on this one - LG's Mum told me that the party was held in the same place as she herself had celebrated the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977.

The papers are mostly from stash, though I had to buy a couple of extras at the retreat! I punched out scalloped squares to make a patchwork pattern, then added a ric-rac circle and some buttons. I had seen the Union Jack buttons in Duttons for Buttons at York when we had been on holiday and knew I would use them for this page LOL.

I usually print borderless photos, but these looked better with the white edge. The title is done with American Crafts Thickers, also bought at the retreat!
Posted by Picasa

Tuesday 15 November 2011






The third class-based LO from the retreat :-) Very interesting to make this one - we had to cut flaps in the paper and fold back to reveal the pattern on the reverse side. I didn't do very well making the flowery embellishment from a strip folded round and round onto a giant glue dot, it's a little wonky but I have managed to tuck the worst side under the flap LOL.


Again I went away from the original design a bit - I put the scallop border at the top of the 'window', punched out circles and butterflies, then die-cut some swirls. The title is done with foam American Crafts Thickers. I used the twine from the kit to make a butterfly trail ending in two bows and a few pearls here and there to finish the whole thing off.

Monday 14 November 2011

Little Buttercup



Another retreat class. I changed this one a bit too, in the original there was a hidden journalling envelope and only one photo, amongst other things LOL. Well, I don't do hidden journalling, once my pages are in the protector, that's it, they are never to be touched again! No interactive pages for me :-) And of course, since this is a Little Girl page, there is no journalling anyway, hidden or otherwise.......

Now I don't usually do torn paper either, but over the weekend I was tearing and inking like a maniac! I really like the way the torn/inked edges look on this page, will definitely do it again, along with the windmill - I foresee several of those finding their way into this LG album :-) I added the pearly butterfly swirl as it had been in my stash for ages and I really wanted to use it up - it does look good paired with the windmill.

I think this is my favourite class-based LO of the weekend :-)
Posted by Picasa

Sunday 13 November 2011

Milk





Last weekend, I went to the Sarah's Cards retreat in Warrington. I was a bit nervous, both because of the long drive (five hours) and the fact that I didn't know anyone. No need to have worried though, everyone was very friendly and helpful! There were 6 classes all together - I didn't do the two Sunday ones as I wanted to leave for the five hour drive back straight after lunch, rather than at 4:30 after the last class, and the morning class would have taken too a long time to dry before being able to attempt to pack it up for transporting! So I got both the class kits and instructions to take home with me to do later.

I now can't for the life of me remember which class was whose, so a big thank you to all the teachers! I didn't produce an exact replica of any of the classes, but started off following the instructions, than wandering off on my own path LOL.

This class LO had us making flags and rosettes - there were two rosettes to make, but the process really made my hand hurt, so I just did the one....... it's not as perfect as it could have been, but it doesn't look too bad on the page.

Little Girl's mum had sent me a lot of pictures (after a gentle reminder!) and I now have enough material for about 24 pages. This one is LG and Big Sister enjoying a glass of milk.

Over the weekend I completed 9 LOs (minus journalling) and partially did two more, which were the class ones for which I didn't have any photos which matched the kits with me. I'm very pleased with my total!

And somehow..... I managed to also find the time .... to do a bit of shopping ...... well actually I made several trips up the hall to the shop, but I did at least stay within budget :-)

Thank you to Sarah, Lianne and the team for a great weekend :-)