Father's Day cards

Two Father's Day cards to share with you today :-) They are both made from the bargain pack of ugly card blanks from that well known shopping channel, covered with papers from my scrap box. I have covered quite a lot of them now, and glimmer misted others, I only have about a quarter of the pack left so there is light at the end of the tunnel. One day I will be rid of them ..........!

I took my car into the repairers yesterday, for them to make an estimate to send to the insurers. They warned me that the insurers might not consider it worth repairing due to its age, I was quite dismayed as it runs so well and will keep going for a few more years yet! But today I got good news - they will pay for the repairs and it is booked in for Monday. Phew......... :-)

June Craft Weekend (part one)

The first weekend of the month was, as usual, our craft weekend. On Saturday Sy and I went over to Karen and on Sunday we went to the crop at Cardinal Colours. The journey over to Karen's was eventful - a mature gentleman pulled out of a garden centre entrance.... right across the road and straight into me! He hadn't seen me, he said. Luckily it was all at slow speed so my door is dented but I am not :-) I had to be plied with sugared tea and jaffa cakes once we got to Karen's though LOL.

I did some cross stitch and - with Sy's guidance - an accordion book on Saturday. The latter is for a colleague at work, it's not quite finished yet. On Sunday I did 7 LOs, most of which need titles adding but I did finish the above DLO for Little Girl's 3rd album. I found the "seaside" transparencies in my paper stash (had completely forgotten they were there!) and the paper is from Provocraft, their River Rock scrap pad - I bought it in the States a few years back, not sure if you can get it over here. The swirls are cut on my new Big Shot - (whisper) - DH still doesn't understand why I bought it when I have a craft robo....... The small shell stamp is the free one with Craft Stamper and the larger one..... well I have had it a few years now and I have no idea what it is! Oh and I should say this LO was based on a pagemaps sketch, though I did wander from it a bit :-)

A favourite LO

I had great intentions of a crafting and blogging Bank Holiday weekend.... however a streaming cold and hacking death-rattle of a cough rather scuppered the plan :-( So instead I am taking an idea from Karen's blog and sharing one of my favourite old (as in pre-blog)layouts with you.
This page was for a challenge born at our crop - the "fully loaded" challenge, otherwise known as "chuck it all on" in the style of Anita MacDonald (I don't have her blog address, but she is anitam on UKS). This is very far removed from my normal clean and simple style, so I approached it with trepidation...... but after chucking on a mix of patterned papers, mesh, scrolls, buttons, brads, eyelets, punched borders and chipboard letters and probably other things I can't even remember - I am really pleased with the result and it is still one of my favourites :-)

Venice ATCs

These are two ATCs which I have just sent off in a swap. The background is smooshed with 3 inks and crackle stamped. The photos are from our trip to Venice last year, tinted sepia in Picasa. The word "Venice" is cut on DH's laser cutter out of balsa wood and glimmer misted - bit tricky to stick down, I had to use very narrow super strong double sided tape!

Birthday card

This card is made using another of my "bargain" pack of yucky coloured card blanks, this time covered with paper. The lady is a Clarity stamp bought at Ally Pally, stamped onto a background smooshed with three shades of ink, then circle-punched out and matted onto a punched scalloped circle. A bow, a sentiment, and a few gems finish it off :-)

OK, I can't figure out how to put more than one photo at a time when blogging direct from Picasa....... but here are a few more ATCs I have swapped recently :-) When DH saw the "inspire" atc, he said "I like the swirls being on the metal and then coming off it .... *pause* .... was that deliberate?" He wasn't joking, either! The rose stamp is an old one, but so useful (stamped in Pearlescent Rust again!) and the harlequin border is new, as are the marble background and the cogs stamps. The third one is textured using my sizzix boutique and the butterflies are glimmer misted and then stamped with a swirl background stamp... actually the same one as is on the first ATC, come to think of it!

Another ATC

This is one of the ATCs I swapped recently. It uses a new stamp I bought at Ally Pally, stamped with a new inkpad (Pearlescent Rust) and a morroccan border punch. Not sure how this post will look as I am experimenting with uploading direct from Picasa........