I started my new job at Benenden Heath Care society on Wednesday, working in the member services department helping people with information and benefits. After having a busy week learning new things I had the weekend to look forward to – I went to a friend’s wedding and got loads of lovely shots, like this one!

Our friends Matt and Lauren were the lucky couple and it was a fantastic day. We met Fran (one of Jon’s old friends) at about 11am and drove down to Derby. After getting lost a couple of times and guessing what the ceremony was going to be like, we got there on time and ready for the wedding. After the ceremony I broke out the camera and staked out the best spot much to the annoyance of the hired photographer. I got some really great shots – this one’s of Lauren and her Gran, and I knew exactly what post production I wanted to do with it.

I wanted to make it look like an old film photo, so after a few tweaks in Lightroom I put it through Photoshop to get rid of some rubbish on the floor, make it greyscale and add some texture. I’m really proud of how it turned out.

From the church we headed to the lodge where the wedding breakfast would be held, and had a fantastic three course meal – the cheesecake was huge! Afterwards the hired photographer got Matt and Lauren to run towards him as he snapped some photos, so I took advantage of this and got a rather good photo of the couple; I just love the look of determination on their faces.

Right up to the end of the day everyone was laughing and have a good time, even when Lauren threw the bouquet you couldn’t help but laugh when you saw all the girls jumping for the flowers.

Have a great week – let’s hope I have chance at the weekend to do some father’s day cards!

Sam

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

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

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

Since my last post I’ve been to clickoncrafts’ big sale, and I mean big, I got another gorjuss girl stamp for 3 pounds. I also got two wood ware clear stamp set for £5 each, as well as some other stamps including some brilliant tree stamps that I just fell in love with.

This first card one is my favourite of the bunch. I had a look through my My Minds Eye papers and found this beautiful one with a mannequin on it and fell in love with the colours. Cutting, inking, stamping and sewing, this card was soon finished, and I really happy with how this one turned out.

Pink is not my strongest colour! I look at it and think “what the heck am I going to do?” because I tend to think of baby cards when I see pink cards. So, facing my fears I got out a pretty pink backing paper – My Minds Eye of course – and started putting elements in place. When I was finally happy with the layout everything was stuck down.

Have a great weekend!

Sam

With this card I wanted to do a shabby chic look, I have never really been able to pull it off but I think that this was a fairly good go at it. To start I got out some card stock for my stamp and coloured her in with Pro Markers.

After inking the edges I got out a few die cuts that have been sat in a box unloved, I also grabbed a couple of buttons and some twine. I arranged everything on some backing card to make sure the whole lot was in the right place before sticking everything down. To finish off the card with a sentiment I inked the edges of some card, rounded the corners and stamped “love you”. I wanted the sentiment to look like a frame using some brads I pinned that down.

Hope you guys like it!

Sam

I started by gluing buttons to the tree from my rather large collection of different sized buttons. Then while that dried, I got down to cutting and layering the different papers that were out of the Green Stack cardstock set. Next I put some brads on that highlighted the colours in the cardstock and placed a “with love” stamp that was from the Papermania sentiments set.

When everything was ready to put together I started matting the layers and placing everything on to the card, the finishing touch was to get one of my dark brown ink pad and lightly brush the edge of the card to complete the look.

Hope you guys like it!

Sam.