New stash - Buy it, Use it

I may have to make this a regular feature ...... how many times do we buy something we simply must have - only to put into a drawer and forget about it?

Recently I bought a butterfly stamp from Visible Image.  I already had a previously inked and stamped background, so decided to stamp and emboss the image using Verdigris embossing powder.  I then added some spots (also Visible Image) in copper over the body of the butterfly.

Now to die-cut the image - I had also recently bought Nesties Labels One, after seeing a project on Pinterest that used them (!), it turned out that the largest in the set fit nicely around the image.  Unfortunately, I wanted to mat it .... so I also bought the Grand Nestabilities Labels One and used the smallest die from that set for a mat.

To make up the card, I embossed some cardstock and cut to fit the card blank, then rounded the corners of both blank and cardstock.  The matted image was attached to the card with 1mm foam tape and I added a peel off sentiment.

So this card uses three new purchases.  Not bad :-)

Embossing powder index

Today I thought I would share with you my system for indexing embossing powders.  Not only can you see which ones you have, it also shows the end colour, which is not always possible to see from the 'raw' powder.

I have this many powders .......

I didn't dare count, but it must be somewhere around 70.  Plus a few I haven't got around to indexing yet, still waiting patiently on the desk for their turn.  Then there are the ones languishing in a drawer because they don't work very well, yet I can't bear to throw them away......

Luckily, a few years ago, I hit on a system.  I bought an A5 pocket display file and cut several pieces of white card to fit inside.  Then I sorted the powders into colour groups and assigned a page to each group.  Each embossing powder has a stamped/embossed sample A B C in the book and I write the brand and colour name beside it.

Metallics

Greens

 

 

Each card is only stamped/embossed on one side, but two cards fit back to back in the pockets.  It's proved absolutely invaluable over the years, as I can check for the right shade to match whatever paper I am using.

I really must get around to indexing the ones on my desk....... ;-)

Throwback Thursday

One of the suggestions on the Blogtoberfest list of prompts, was to have a 'Throwback Thursday' and look back at some old work.
It was quite interesting to look back through old layouts, I don't like half of them as much as I did when I made them .....LOL. 
I have chosen the two pages from 2007 below, DS1 and DS2 because I love the photos - they are so neutral even though they have colour in them.  For DS1 returning from uni for the holidays, I used a strong colour for the background paper and circles.  I probably wouldn't do much differently with this photo today, maybe a couple of layers and doing the title in another way.  For DS2, in an underground car park somewhere in London, I did the opposite and used monochrome papers.  Again I wouldn't change much on this page. 
Both pages, if I made them today, would have many more steampunk elements on, I think!

Return of the Prodigal

Industrial Cool

Sun and Moon Dragons

For the first day of Blogtoberfest, it seems right that I share this project, as it has been so long in the making and now is finally finished! 
About 12 or 15 years ago, I bought a self-published cross stitch chart booklet from a charity shop.  It was called the Moongate Book of Dragons and I painstakingly copied the Moongate Dragon chart into my cross stitch software (Easy Cross) to make it easier to work from, then stitched it.

It was my intention to then change the colours to make a Sun Dragon and flip the chart so I would have a pair of dragons facing each other.  But before I got around to doing that, we had a computer crash, I had to re-install the software and all my previous files had been corrupted.  It meant putting in the entire chart again, square by square and I couldn't face it at the time!

Fast forward 12 or 15 years ....... I bit the bullet (been doing a lot of that recently .....) and redid the chart.  Stitching in my car before work every morning and also putting in a few hours at crops, meant I finished it in three months, which is probably something of a record for me!

Here is the Moon:

And the Sun:

Both together:

Hung in their final positions above the window:

The Sun Dragon is stitched on light blue fabric, though it does appear white when hung next to the other one LOL.

I am so pleased to have finished them off, finally!

Blogtoberfest 2014

I have (perhaps foolishly) decided that I am going to participate in Blogtoberfest 2014.  A blog post every single day of October.  This is a bit of an undertaking for someone who has just recently started posting again after a two and a half month gap .....

It's all Karen's fault.  She has persuaded myself and Sy that it will be fun :-)

Do, or not do.  There is no try.......

See you tomorrow!

Steampunk wall art

I haven't blogged since mid July ..... where did August and September go??  A severe lack of mojo combined with (or perhaps because of?) pressure at work meant that I made hardly anything during that time.  Some half completed pages at crops, some half finished cards.... but no real inclination to finish anything.  I have managed to cross stitch for 10 - 15 minutes every day, sitting in my car before work, which has resulted in a couple of finished pieces, more on those tomorrow :-)

The steampunk piece below is a class kit which I started at the Merly Impressions retreat, back in June.  The original class item was this frame, covered with flowers ..... so not really my thing LOL.  I brought it back home with the paper (Kaisercraft, not sure which range) attached to the separate pieces and that's how it stayed for, ahem, a couple of months.  Finally I bit the bullet and put the pieces together, painted the mini frame, found a nice quote from this site, added the keys, the crystals and the other metal bits.  It still needed a little more, so I made an interrupted border from silver nailheads.

Here it is in its final position:

I am very pleased with it :-)  also I have made a great discovery - Cosmic Shimmer glue will stick metal to metal, now that is something which will prove very useful in future!

Deco 'celebrate' birthday card

I needed to make a card for a 50th birthday, but was in a quandary as to whether to use the number 50 on the card, or not.  DH agreed that it was a dilemma, then suggested that I could do something with a champagne glass and the word 'celebrate'.  Well, that was just an inspired idea and here it is :-)

The deco fan is a Silhouette cutting file, reduced to 30p from 59p, what a bargain.  The champagne glass is made with a Britannia die, the sentiment tag is a Nestie.  The word is spelt out with individual 5mm peel off letters, from Craft Creations.  I added a couple of crystals onto the tag, and then a few tiny ones for 'bubbles'.
It was a little fiddly, not to mention more time consuming than you would think, assembling all the pieces.  But I really like it, I think having two glasses on an anniversary card would look good too.  Incidentally, the card and fan are ivory, rather than white as they look in the photo, it looks a lot warmer in real life :-)