End Of A Long Weekend

This weekend I actually managed to get out in the garden and do some much needed re-potting of the sunflowers (they’re getting very big now). I have also been very proactive with my card making as well, and made 3 cards today.

I managed to get a couple of nice photos out in the garden of my Thyme and Bleeding Heart, the latter of which has come back with a vengeance this year after we cut it right back before Christmas.

Our Thyme plant has started to flower, so I couldn’t resist getting out the big camera and doing some macro shots of the tiny purple flowers. When I got in close I saw this tiny orange spider going from one stalk to another and just had to get him in the shot.

After we had had a tidy in the garden, Jono and I went up to the study; while he played on the computer, I sat and made cards. With this first card I wanted to have a play with making my own flowers using my scalloped punch.

I think it turn out quite well!
After I had cut everything out, crumpled up the paper and laid it back out again, I put a brad through the middle and just inked the edges with a dark brown colour. I used an old book which I bought at a car boot sale to do the flower.

My other favourite card today was another grungy one but this one was quite simple – it was just a case of cutting and matting everything into place. I did my new favourite trick, which is to stamp onto a patterned piece of paper, cut out the shape and stick it down on the another stamp to create a textured effect. See what you think!

The only really big effort was to sew the buttons onto the card, which I find very satisfying when it turns out right. With the buttons I also used a bit of lace that I have wanted to use again because it looked so effective on a previous card that I’d made.

I hope you have a great weekend – Happy Crafting!

Sam

Bank Holiday Weekend

What a miserable start to the weekend, but it’s a bank holiday – what more did we expect? So in true bank holiday spirit I have played games (namely Blur), put some photos up on Flickr, had a little nap and made cards. I had actually managed to get my hands on some Prima flowers and being so inspired by the flowers themselves I made this card using one of my Gorjuss Girls stamps.

I wanted to do something a bit different from just colouring in the stamp in just one solid colour. So I stamped a bit of patterned paper, cut out her dress and stuck it down onto a plain stamp, then coloured in the hair and skin. After that I then got my new Prima flowers and started selecting the colours that fit the paper that I had used for her dress.

After crumpling paper, inking edges and making sure that I was happy with the layout of the card I stuck it all down. The bottom Prima flowers are actually raised as is the tag with “happy birthday” on it; I didn’t want to have just a flat card!

I’m quite happy with how this one turned out. What do you think?

Happy Crafting!

Sam

Summer at last!

Hows everyone’s weekend going? I have been shopping for clothes at Monks Cross in York with my sister and spent a lot of money in New Look.  I got a few tops for my new job, smart yet casual. After that we headed to Evans and Dorthery Perkins where I bought a shirt and a wasitcoat. In amongst the clothes shopping I was supposed to be looking for a new pair of shoes but when we got to TK Max I got some new trainers because I think mine have seen better days.

When I saw that they had Ecko Red trainers there I just couldn’t resist and got two pairs, one black and red the other white and blue. After that we headed to pick up the laptop that Jono had reserved at PC World – our old one has lasted 6 years and has been though some rough times so we thought it best to retire the old girl and get a new one.

With Jono doing all his little projects and me doing Flickr work and this blog it was time to get either a second computer or a laptop. So we got the laptop and its very shiny and fast. We also had a bit of a shuffle of the study/craft room aswell to fit my good old blue chair so I have somewhere to sit and blog.

So after moving the computer we had a whole corner ready for my chair to sit in. As you can see my craft desk is as tidy as ever! With everything now plugged in and working it was time to lug the chair upstairs which was a lot easier then I thought it was going to be, I thought that it was a lot heavier then it actually is. I’m so very happy with my little blog corner, its nice to have somewhere to just sit and type now instead of being sat at a desk, which is not always inspiring to type at.

After getting the chair and room sorted we then headed to Jono’s parents for a BBQ, I took my camera with me to get some shots of the garden in bloom aswell. There were some beautiful colours in that garden this year and some flowers that I dont remember from last year. With this first photo I must  have taken at least a dozen shots to try and get the angle I wanted with the right amount of depth of field. I just loved the pink of this flower.

Wandering round the garden I found this beautiful bunch of tiny white flowers. They were so small and cute I just had to go for the bokeh shot and I think that it came out great, I love the effect it has on the photo and with a bit of softening in Lightroom gave it a really dreamy effect.

And last but not least I just had to get a shot of their cat Lexi, who was laid out in the heat that didn’t agree with her. The way that she laid just reminded me of Lolcats.

I hope you’re all enjoying the sun and I’m going to Brimham Rocks tomorrow so I shall share some pictures, also have a look on my flickr stream because I’ll be putting a few up tomorrow from todays venture into the garden.

See you later!

Sam