Frogs!

I spotted some fabulous card samples over on the http://www.amom.co.uk/ blog which reminded me of some photo's I have kept to scrapbook.

I house sat a few summers a go and in the evenings you could hear the frogs croaking in the evening sun. I managed to creep out one evening and took some photo's.

There were too many frogs of all shapes and sizes to count, some of them scattered but this little chap enjoyed the sun too much to move.

A few days later I sat by a pond in the local park, it was another warm day and the water lilies looked beautiful. If you look closely at the photo on the right you will see that one of the dragon flies rested on a lily pad.

How could I resist these! I look forward to sharing my scrap booking page with you.

Cluck cluck

Some of the fun in creating is planning what you are going to use. The images, colours, mediums how will they look when you put them together? As I said previously.....decisions....decisions.

I bought these stamps from http://www.amom.co.uk/ when I visited recently. There are many stamps in the set so lots of possibilities.

I decided to stamp each piece on some scrap paper, then tore round each piece so I could move them round and make little scenes.

You could have pastel bird houses and a mother and chick for a baby card.

Using the flower head as a sun and introducing another chicken and foliage creates a scene.

The flowers included in the set would make some brightly coloured notelets.

Happy Easter or how about adding a bit of bling and turning them into a hen party invitations?

Happy Mother's Day

Looking at the latest stamp release from Woodware I was spoilt for choice when I decided to treat myself recently. This pair of owls remind me of a mother and daughter, a cute design for a mother's day card.

To paper patch stamp on to pretty pink and pastel papers. Cut out the coloured sections and stick them onto the background image with a paper glue.

 

Edge with lacy peel-offs and hand drawn dots and dashes in green and pink with little blue hearts. For dimension add googly eyes, candi and a little gem heart. 

Decisions... decisions!

If you were following my blog before Christmas you may remember a lull in blog posts while I decorated my lounge in Dulux White Daffodil paint, a pale lemon which looks very pretty in the sunlight.

Now spring is here I'm looking for some colourful curtains. If I buy two sets of curtains I only need three pieces so the spare piece would make some nice cushions or matching lampshades. I had my eye on a set decorated with large apricot and cerise flowers, the lamp shades in cerise and beautiful cushions heavily decorated in beads looked a picture in the shop display but at £200 in the sale I decided it was time for a reality check.

Look at this fabric, I spotted it in C&H Fabrics, a ceiling to floor length curtain in this would look quite a picture. Sadly not the right colours with my walls though.

Then I saw these in the new season range of ready made curtains in C& H Fabrics.

The flowers look larger on the curtain than in my photo and they have that watery ink effect which is so popular in crafting at the moment, a pretty set.

I'm still looking, with summer round the corner I might see something else that I like, floral but a little bolder than these.

Out and About

I spotted this sample made by Fran from Stampendous, while out and about. I have this set of stamps and was interested to see how Fran had used them to build a village, the scene reminds me of the High Street in Lewes.

Fran's design is made from card but it caught my eye because I could make a similar design as a cushion cover using all those little scraps of fabric that I have been collecting. The path between the houses has been stenciled. I could use a similar stencil and some fabric paint on the cushion cover which would give a nice contrast to the fabric.

Out and about (At A Maze of Memories)

If you have looked at the http://www.amom.co.uk/ A Maze of Memories blog you will see the professional looking projects that are made during their classes and there are plenty of cards, scrapbook pages and projects on display in the workshop. I can easily spend a few hours looking round.

Hanging across windows there are several banners tastefully made from dies, stamps and various accessories. Each banner has a theme for example the little flags on one were decorated using characters made using Marianne dies. Hanging from the ceiling I spotted this mobile.

For some months I have been looking for new curtains for my lounge and thought I would make a mobile for the corner of the room using the colours in the curtains as inspiration. The mobile displayed here is one of several different themed mobiles on display at A Maze of Memories it would look so lovely in my lounge!

Taking a closer look the word Nature runs down the centre and insects are resting on flowers. This butterfly is so pretty sitting on the flower, Is that a vine weevil in the corner?  

Looking at the array of flowers and dimensional insects its easy to forget you are looking at something made from card and paper. What a lovely project.

Out and about

As you know I have a love for House Mouse stamps, each image tells a wonderful story. These are a few designs from the latest Stampendous release.

My favourite two designs have to be these. Fancy putting sunblock on a mouses nose!

I'm sure this crowd moved into Dad's allotment last summer, what juicy looking strawberries.

Out and about

Look at this Singer sewing machine. When I was small Gran had one of these sewing machines it even had the same wooden case. Lift the machine up a bit and it reveals a storage area.

It was a heavy old thing but simple to thread and you wound the handle on the right to sew. The faster you wound the handle the faster you stitched. Viewing it as a child it was like magic. Gran made lots of cloths and toys when we were growing up, many were special orders. I don't have many photo's of gran so I'm going to put the photo on a scrapbook page about her.

Out and about

I had a great time visiting Christina and the team at A Maze of Memories in February and was lucky to spend time both at the shop and out and about with them. I'm not going to spoil the surprise by revealing new items Christina is going to stock all I will say is "Keep an eye on their blog!" you will find it at http://www.amom.co.uk/

For the next few days I thought I would share a few photos of projects I saw during my trip.

I would love to have this project on a shelf at home. Those cats look so quirky and very naughty! I took the photo as a reminder, We all have our favourite images so to build a scene using a few dies and accessories would be a fun project. Just look at the mix of colours the designer chose, such a clever project.

Unfortunately there was no name on the display so I'm unable to give the designer a mention.

Out and about

As I returned from a visit to see mum and dad yesterday the weather changed from bright sunshine to a dark sky. Peeping through a section of the station roof look what I saw.

The vivid colours shone from the dark clouds in the form of a beautiful rainbow and then the rain came!

Fortunately, so did the train.

Scrapbooking

Several years ago my sister, niece, dad and I went to a concert at the Brighton Centre, sorting through

100's of family photo's I decided to start scrapbooking these first. I love all the colours of the stage lighting and journaling could be some of the song lyrics. Having cut circles through the black card I have layered the back with blue holographic card which shimmers when the page moves.

The images at the back of the stage changed all the way through, this set has white trees/branches. A good excuse to use my tree die, just need to add a bit of journaling and a few musical notes.

The dancers in red stepped behind the lit frame while the black and white frames behind them grew and moved in time to the music. I have decorated my page with similar black and white frames leaving a black rectangle (bottom left) for white journaling.

Gesso

This gorgeous card was made by Sandra, in the flesh the colours and textures are sumptuous. I love how an imaginary land peaks out from behind the gesso.

If you haven't used gesso give it a go. One idea is to paste it through a stencil and leave it to dry naturally. Or, heated with a heat gun it rises, bubbles then pops so you can achieve different textures very easily.

Tip - Make sure you put your stencil straight into water and clean it with a small nail brush as soon as you have heated the gesso. 

Butterflies

When I started buying stamps I chose flowers and butterflies because the they can be coloured with so many colours and any medium can be used. Here I have stamped in Stazon ink and watercoloured using Kuretake Zig pens.

The acetate butterflies will be layered over top so they look like they have landed on the card.

Last week I visited A Maze of Memories http://www.amom.co.uk/ and was shown a beautiful way to use these Zig pens. Check back next week I hope to have some new samples using them!

This card was stamped in distress ink and coloured in pencils.

As I said in my last post, think warm sunny days, they are on the way!