Flower Power

Hi all, it’s been a week or more since I last posted but that doesn’t mean that I’ve not been busy, just that I was making things that I couldn’t show you just yet.

I’ve also been out and about, first on a day trip to the Hampton Court Flower Show which was spectacular but silly me forgot to take my camera with me.
The show gardens were amazing and so was the flower marquee but unfortunately because of the rain it was packed solid with people trying to avoid the showers. Still, it didn’t spoil the day and I saw lots of beautiful and strange plants.

This Mauve and White Clematis ‘Florida Sieboldii’ caught my eye first because of it’s really large flower heads.

What made it really unusual was the fact that as the White petals fall off you're left with a sweet little Mauve flower because the centre is still intacted, so you get two for the price of one.

The other very unusual flower that caught my attention was this odd looking one.

It’s a Tacca Chantrieri, also known as a ‘Bat Flower’…………very strange!


I was visiting even more gardens last week because I went on a four day break down to Ferndown, in Dorset to visit my aunt.
We had a day out at Compton Acers, near Sandbanks, which has lots of themed gardens to walk round and it's well worth a visit if you’re ever in that neck of the woods.
I won’t bore you with all my photos because I took loads (think I was making up for not having it with me the week before, Lol!) but here are a couple of the Italian Garden and the Woodland walk to give you a taster.

Now then, onto my main reason for visiting this afternoon and the card I’ve made for this week’s challenge over at the The Daring Cardmaker’s.

Can’t say I’ve ever heard of Pinterest before but Nat would like us to find a picture on the site and use it as inspiration for a card.

I picked out this one and tried to use the same colours.

Patterned Papers
Artylicious Peacock Summer Party

Rubber Stamps
Papermania - Hampstead

Other Equipment
Craft Creations – Embossed Hammer Card Stock
Craftworks Cards – Greeting
Martha Stewart – Brownstone Ink
Promarker Permanent Ink Pens

Stashrganza Ribbon
Brown Lace
Blue Gems

Oh What A Night (late December back in 63) and WOYWW (#108)

Now can you guess where I went yesterday?

Yep, to see ‘The Jersey Boys’ in London.

I have to say it’s the best show I’ve seen in ages which is borne out by the fact that the lady I was sitting next to in the stalls was watching her fourth performance and Ryan Molloy who played Frankie Valli had the most amazing voice. It’s well worth a visit if you get the chance and I can promise you an evening of well know songs to sing along to. We finished our evening off with a nice Italian meal before heading home on the tube so all in all we had a fab afternoon and evening.

Then just to finish the day off well I turned on my computer to find a lovely message on my blog from Brenda (Butlers Abroad) telling me that I was the lucky winner of her gorgeous blog candy that she was giving away in celebration of her 500th post so how fab was that and what a great end to my day.
Thanks so much Brenda.

Now then, on to What’s On Your Workdesk Wednesday, the weekly blog hop hosted by Julia, over at the Stamping Ground and on my desk today you can still see what I was working on the day before yesterday.

I really seem to have become hooked on stepper cards at the moment and with my new Hougie board they are so quick and simple to do but look like you’ve spent ages making them.

The two you can see are both the same but done in different colours and I also made this Lavender one which my friend Susan asked me to make for her mum’s birthday.

There’s not much else on interest, just the Promarkers used to colour the Butterflies and a few ink pads and other pariphanailia that I seem to accumulate on the desk when I’m working. I often wonder if I had a bigger desk to work on would it still get cluttered as much but I think we all know the answer to that one don’t we, Lol!

Here’s another stepper card, a wedding one this time, using a Digital Stamp Boutique digi stamp as the main image and I’ve coloured it with my Promarkers again.

I also have something else to show you.
Do you remember a couple of weeks ago I showed you this gorgeous box designed by Alix Waterhouse and was a project in Craft Stamper,

well I’ve finally finished mine.

Just a few differences in that I stamped my own backgrounds instead of using patterned papers and I made all my own little boxes. I just need to find something to fill them all with now!

Hope you all have a great week, see you next time.
Sue
x

Something Old, Something New…………..

Something Borrowed, Something Blue -ooh-ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh-ooh, I've still got memories to cherish.

Just love that old song by The Fantastics and thanks to Lythan I can’t stop singing it now. Just as well you can’t hear me, Lol!

Now before I go any further can I just say a big thank you to everyone who commented on my post on Wednesday about the quilts for the hospice. I’m glad you all liked them and the hospice were over the moon and said they will be well used, so thanks again for all your lovely comments, they are really appreciated.

Right then back to Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue because it’s the theme for the dare over at the The Daring Cardmaker’s this week and Lythan came up with it because she has a family wedding firmly on her mind. She’s challenged us to include all four things on our cards if possible but some aspects are a lot easier than others.

Something old was the cardmaker!
Ok it was really the paper pad from G.C.D studio that I had for a while.
Something new is the little heart charm. They were a nice little barging from The Works….6 for 99p
Something Borrowed was a little more difficult and I don’t know if I can get away with this one but I ‘borrowed’ an old March 2007 card sketch from Page Maps to work from. Oh, just realised that’s another old!

Last but not least I think the Something Blue part speaks for itself really as I used Blue papers, Blue Organza ribbon and even Blue Pearl embossing powder on the Sentiment and stamped flourishes.


Patterned & Plain Papers
G.C.D Studio – Ella Blue

Rubber Stamps
Artemio - Arabesque 2
Imagine That – All Occasions

Equipment
Craft Creations – Embossed Hammer Card Stock
Martha Stewart Punches - ?//Border Punch, Frond, Hydrangea & Carnation
Spellbinder Nestabilities – Labels 5
Ink – Versa Magic (Aegean Blue)

Stash
Organza Ribbon
Clear and Silver gems
>br>

The culmination of one year’s work (WOYWW #107)

Today is going to be quite a hard day for me, but tinged with the sadness that today would have been dads 88th birthday is a good and happy feeling too. You know, the kind of feeling you get when something you’ve been working on for a very long time is finally finished and you can sit back feel proud of what you and some very special friends have achieved.

By now you must be thinking, what the hell is she going on about, it’s Wednesday and we're only here to see what’s she has on her desk, but today I’m not going to show you my desk at all.

What I am going to show you though is my sofa because it’s covered with nine beautiful lap quilts and thirteen cushions that have been made for the hospice that cared for dad in his last months.

Dad and I came up with the idea while he was having his treatment at the hospice because we wanted to give something useful back to them as a special thank you from the family for all the kindness and care they gave to dad. Mind you, I couldn’t have completed the project if it hadn’t been for some very special people and I can’t thank them all enough for making my insane idea of making nine quilts and matching cushions happen.

There have been a few road and air miles involved in this project too.

Four sets of the squares were cross stitched by two lovely ladies in Holland, Marg and Marie-Thérèse.
I didn’t even know them until my friend Nicki suggested that they might like to give me a hand with the cross stitching, so I sent them all the threads and material they would need and also one square stitched by me. The reason for that was that I wanted to have at least one piece of my own stitching on each and every one of the quilts so I also stitched all the logo's.

I myself stitches all the squares for another four sets and also some of the Gerbera’s squares for the final quilt which was being stitched in Bristol by my other wonderful friend Sharon.

As we finished the sets of squares we sent them out to Nicki in Switzerland, another very special friend and very clever lady with a sewing machine, and she stitched her magic with the fabric that dad paid for himself and made all the squares into the beautiful quilts and cushions.


Last week they all arrived back in the UK and later this afternoon my two brothers and I are making a very special journey to the hospice on dad’s birthday to deliver the quilts and cushions together with this card that I’ve made.

Following this are some close ups of all the quilts and cushions if you would like to see them but be warned, there’s a lot of photos and later today I hope to have a photo of us actually handing over the quilts.

Thanks for stopping by this week and don’t forget to visit Julia to see what everyone else is up to this Wednesday.

Have a great day and…………
Happy Crafting!
Sue
x
Quilt #1

Quilt #2

Quilt #3

Quilt #4 -

Quilt No5

Quilt #6

Quilt #7

Quilt #8

Quilt #9

Update

I have one final photo to share with you from this afternoon.

Right to left - Essie, one of the nurses who spent an awful lot of time with dad, Michael (middle brother) Keith (eldest brother) and me. (didn't realise just how White my hair is now)

The nursing staff were overwhelmed with the quilts and cushions and we spent a lovely hour on the unit catching up with the staff who looked after dad.

Thanks once again girls for all your stitching and making a very personal project so very special.
Sue
x

What’s On Your Workdesk Wednesday (#106) Little Boxes

So here we are at Wednesday again and it’s time for another hop around some of the spaces that my fellow crafters use to make their beautiful creations.

My desk is as I left it last night and it looks like a bomb has struck which is not unusual. Lol!

Over the last few weeks I’ve been itching to get my teeth into a slightly more testing project from the normal cards and LO’s that I do, so I’ve been flicking through my pile of old and new Craft Stampers and found just the thing, this fab five sided Etui with little drawers inside, designed by Alix Waterhouse.

I spent ages going through my stash trying to find suitable papers and stamps and in the end I printed some papers from the Glenda Waterworth Artylicious ‘Seasons Greetings’ CD , not that my box is going to be Christmas themed.
Stamp wise I fell back on my old faithful flower stamps (sorry, I can’t remember who their by) and I just love the Wrought Iron Gates from Paper Artsy but I didn’t have them. Needless to say…..I’m awaiting a delivery!

Once the stamps arrive I can finish the outside but my project for today is to make all the little drawers for the inside. The one in the mag is done with covered matchboxes but I don’t have them either so I’ve found a template on the web and am going to make them from scratch, so wish me luck.

Don’t forget to visit our esteemed leader Julia over at the The Stamping Ground for the list of everyone who’s joining in this week and go see what everyone id up to but beware, it’s addictive!


I’ll be dropping by later but until then…………
Happy Crafting!
Sue
x

Fancy Folds

Yet another challenge card………I must be on a roll!

This one is for Stamp Something where the team are asking for cards using punches or die cuts.
I’ve made a Diamond Fold card and called my Nesties into service for this one.

I’ve also had a play with digital stamps again and used a gorgeous Fuchsia stamp from Sketching Stamper as my main image and a conventional Penny Black stamp, which I just love, to do the two side panels. Both were coloured with Marvy Le PlumeII pens.

As there wasn’t really enough space on the side panels to add a greeting that I wanted I’ve decorated the back of the card as well and then can add the greeting to the central panel when I’m ready.

Hope you’re enjoying a creative day.
Sue
x

I’ve used:

Patterned Paper – My Mind’s Eye, Wild Asparagus
Stamped Image – Penny Black, Bush Fuchsia
Digital Stamp – Sketching Stamper
Nestabilities – Large and Small Scalloped Circles, Large Classic Circle.
Craftworks Cards –Birthday Greeting
Ranger Distress Ink – Vintage Photo & Victorian Velvet
Marvy Le PlumeII – Iris Purple, Bubble Gum Pink, Eggplant, Pine Green, Olive Green & Jade Green

New Shape

I wish I was talking about my body when I say ‘New Shape’ but alas I’m not, it’s a new shaped card that I’ve made for the first time.

When I was visiting a few of my blog friends yesterday I noticed that the lovely Vicki and made one of those centre easel cards and had added a link to a very clear tutorial which has been put together by Frances Byrne, so I thought I would give it a go.

I have to say, it wasn’t a complete success because for some reason I couldn’t cut a straight line but I managed to salvage it and if I’m honest, for a first try it’s not too bad.

I’m entering it in the Paper Play challenge, where this week the theme is to make a card for a man or a Father’s Day card.


I’ve used:
Patterned Paper & Plain Papers – DCWV The Natural Stack
Stamped Image – Papermania Nostalgia Pastimes
Craft Creations – Embossed Linen Card Stock
Craftworks Cards –Birthday Greeting
Ranger Distress Ink – Vintage Photo
Marvy Le PlumeII – Various colours

Stash
Eyelets & Brads