Backgroung

Tuesday 27 March 2012

Bodiam Castle

On the Sunday, the sun was out, we went to visit nearby Bodiam castle.
This has to be one of my favourite places.





There are HUGE! coy in the moat...


And a king on the Throne...

TFL
x

Monday 26 March 2012

A weekend away

Robert and I went away for a short break down to Sussex.
We stayed at a lovely spa hotel called Flackley Ash in Peasmarsh just outside Rye.


It's a boutique type hotel and we had a gallery double room with en-suite facilites as below.


Unfortunately in the rush to leave on Friday night we forgot to pack our swimwear so 
were unable to use the pool :(  
Also the spa treatments were already fully booked, but then again, it was a last minute decision.


The breakfast was lovely, a selection of cereals, fruits, and pastries plus your choice of hot too.
Robert, of course, went for the full English!
I would thoroughly recommend this hotel and hope to return again in the not too distant future.

Saturday we headed into Rye.
Unfortunately it was a bit drizzly but we managed to have a good look around and shop-hop too.
The first shop we found just happened to be a cradt
I loved the character of this building with it leaded windows.

I spied it when having a coffee in this fun cup and saucer (makes you dizzy after a while though!)


At one end of town there is a fortified gate built in 1329 when Richard III made grants for defences.
It was one of four originally.


We braved the rain and visited Camber Sands, the tide was far out.


And the dunes....


which we had to climb!



Then back to Rye to dine at the George Grill.
Mmmmm, the lobster was devine but I forgot to take a picture.

Thanks for looking.
xxx

Thursday 22 March 2012

Happy Birthday Bob - I did it my way

My colleague Jan asked me to make a card for her husbands birthday.
He loves old legends so this seemed the perfect choice.
 

I'd had this decoupage sheet in my file for a while so was pleased to be able to play with it.
I used some papers from Bo Bunny which were left from a layout.
Keeping it quite simple I added a torn corner onto a black linen effect card from CWC (6x6") then mounted the image onto black bazill layered with silver mirri card.



A close up of the layers.
I added some black, white and diamante beads too.

Hope you have a lovely day Bob.

Monday 19 March 2012

No colouring zone

Another one....

I decided to leave this one as a printed image.
The papers are MME and were left over from a frame class taught by our lovely Anita..
It's a 6x6" CWC card which I covered with the dotty paper. I then cut a strip from the newsprint style sheet and added vertically, plus a square of the patterned which I added at an angle.
The image was inked at the edges and added on 3d foam.
The message is CWC which has been placed on an SU punched scalloped oval.

I may decided to colour him in after all - watch this space :)

Saturday 17 March 2012

Lianne's card - Another digi image


This is the card I made for Lianne's birthday using an image from Charmed cards and crafts for our card challenge this month.

I coloured the image with copic markers and cut her out.
The background is from a 6x6" pad, I can't remember which as they are all together in a bag.
I cut a frame using a Marianne design die in pink bazzill then added the image partially behind so it looks as she is leaning on the edge.
Behind the wings which are glittered with stickles, I added a corner cut with a Memory Box die.


Some paper roses and a strip of ribbon rose was added below the image.

I am pleased to say that Lianne liked it!

TFL
xxx

Thursday 15 March 2012

Shopaholic at Charmed

 Our March card challenge at Scrapology was set by Karen at Charmed Cards and Crafts.

She asked us to use digi images. I had bought a set from her ages ago and never used them so this was the perfect opportunity to find them on the computer and set to!

I chose "Louise" and the boutique background, printed and cut out to fit an 8x8 CWC card.
The base paper is from Bo Bunny Vicky B range.


The image is coloured with Copic markers.
The window area looked very empty so I found my Bella stamps and stamped light images to give depth, I think it worked quite well.
The pavement was blank so I used the chisel tip of several grey copics to create a paving then highlighted areas with a fineliner.
The canopy was white so I created a candy stripe and added a line of stickles.


The card looked too plain so I used a Martha Stewart deep edge punch with brown bazzill and created a trellis down the left hand side. I threaded some blossoms and a beaded stem through and coiled the ends.
Leaves punched with a McGill punch added the foliage.



Plenty of lovely cards by the DT on the Scrapology blog along with details of this months prize, so hop on over and have a peek.

TFL
xxx

Wednesday 14 March 2012

Award!

Browsing through Blog-a-thon on UKS I found that Gail at
Crafting for fun
had given me an award as one of 5 blogs she liked.
There are lots of interesting things on her blog.


Now that I have the award there are several things I must do, they are -
  • Pass the award on to five other blogs that have inspired me, they have to have less than 200 followers.
    My list is:
    Anita - Inky Blossom - Anita always creates the most stunning layouts.
    Lynn - A Moment in Time - an array of different crafts and interesting things
    Karen - Scrap-a-tabulous - a fellow DT member who's not short of talent!
    Sue - Paper ink and Glue - cards galore with layouts on top :)
    Zoe - Mrs Wonka and her crafting factory - never short of amazing!
    So many more I would like to have added but they are over 200 followers!

  • Put a comment on their blogs so that they know. 
    Will do.
  • Link back to the person who gave me the award & thank them. 
    Thanks Gail - I have linked back above.
  • Post the award on my blog.
    At the top of my post and soon to be added to my sidebar

Monday 12 March 2012

A dozen Roses

Lianne asked me to make some cakes for her colleagues at work to celebrate her birthday.

This is what I made, ready packaged to go....

A dozen pink tinted roses....


Vanilla buttercream with a tint of colour and edible glitter.


Hope you all enjoy them.


Saturday 10 March 2012

Scrapology March Challenge - G is for Glitter - A True Friend....

Scraplifting the lovely Anita and using the same papers -
Bo Bunny's Garden Girl - was a lot of fun.
Here is my version, altered to fit my photograph.

I cut the centre from the die-cut sheet and stuck the edge onto the bazzill cardstock.
The centre was replaced with a layer of foam tape once I had inked the edges.
I cut the long sentiment from the die-cuts sheet ready to add to the page along with "friends at first sight"  and "a lifetime...."
Once I had all the elements I needed I turned this sheet over and cut parts of the 6x6 frames out, gutted the centres and joined them over the photo. This was mounted again on foam tape.


From the Garden Girl paper, I cut some butterfly wings and flowers which I added the page.
The butterflies have rolled paper bodies and were mounted on 3d foam pads.
The sentiments were added then.


I layered the flowers in a swathe up the left hand side and added others below the long sentiment.
The "A Lifetime..." sentiment was adjusted to be thinner and then added to the bottom of the photograph to cover the frame joint.


There wasn't really anywhere to add journalling so I used further elements from the cut-outs sheet to create a tag. I stapled some raffia to the edge and tucked it in under the frame.
Magenta stickles was added liberally to the page to finish.

Still time to enter the challenge, pop over to Scrapology for details.
Thanks for looking.

Friday 9 March 2012

Happy Birthday Lianne - a pass and a fail!

Firstly - a very Happy Birthday to my beautiful daughter Lianne.
I will share her card with you next week (hint hint!)

When we went to Disneyland Paris last November, she and Chloe bought me a silcone mould of mickey mouse heads as a Thank-you. So, when asked what cake she'd like for her birthday, this was the choice.
FAIL!!!
The cake stuck badly to the mould and didn't come out well :(
Lianne doesn't like buttercream so I had planned on adding Glace icing and hundreds & thousands.
Here is the result - what a joke lol!



She said they tasted nice so thats good.

Then, I've been a little down lately - a few issues - so Robert sent me these absolutely stunning flowers to cheer me up!



Lastly, a pass!
These were made for a friend's Mums birthday.
I put them into a box I got from Lakeland and tied it with a double bow.


A close up below although it doesn't show the edible pink glitter very well.


TFL
xxx

Wednesday 7 March 2012

Happy Birthday Anita - a little early :)

On Saturday at Cardinal Colours Crop we celebrated Anita's Birthday - a little early I know but we won't see her again til the end of the month.
This is the card I made for her.
I used a 6x6" version of BG Nook and Pantry paper for the background and layered with an embossed sheet of white card then a frame cut with a Marianne die.


The image is House Mouse and is coloured with Copic pens aswell as some gellyroll glitter pens.
I distressed the edge and inked before adding with 3d pads.


A few roses from my stash were place under the image and a CWC greeting mounted onto an SU punched oval which I have stickled with gold.


I made Chocolate Orange Cupcakes for the occassion decorated with Orange jellies and Lindt Intensly Orange Chocolate pieces. Here they are ready in the box to go.
Oh, I forgot to mention the edible glitter too!


A close-up :)


Believe it or not I didn't have one as I have given up sweet things for lent, especially chocolate!

Happy Birthday Anita, hope you had a lovely day and will enjoy your birthday on the 21st.

Monday 5 March 2012

Just purr-fect - A pagemap challenge

This is another page made at Cardinal Colours crop on Saturday and another PageMap Challenge

I have used the same set of papers ~ Basic Grey- Sweet Threads ~ and larger images of the photographs to create a "double".
I ran a pen line along the edge of the white cardstock again and a rough double circle to tie them together.

The roses are stapled in place.
The same butterflies were also used along with some of the element stickers from the collection page of papers.

The flowers were cut from the same sheet as before.


As it's to match the other, I decided they would be purr-fect together, hence the title.

Thanks for looking :)


Saturday 3 March 2012

Miaow - A pagemap challenge

I enjoyed making the last page ~The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel ~ so much that I was thrilled to see
a very similar design in the March Pagemaps.

This is my take on the sketch.
I have used Basic Grey Sweet Threads papers and white dotted swiss bazzill.

The strip along the bottom has been cut with shredding scissors to create a fringed effect then random
strips added vertically. I cut the flowers from a floral sheet and raised some on 3d foam pads.
I used bubble wrap again to form a dotty pattern along with some splatter of cosmic shimmer mist,
then drew a rough double circle around a plate. I also ran a black line around the edge of the white cardstock.

Some ribbon mesh roses were added in two places along with some butterflies cut with a new Memory Box die set.


I'd had this spray of diamante for ages and decided to cut into two and add to the side.


The photostrip was created with the same app on my iphone, I love the way you can add existing photos to it aswell as create new ones.
A close-up below of the "bubbles" - bit blurry sorry :(


I know there are various ways to spell Miaow but I like this one the best.

Thanks to PageMaps for yet another month of fantastic images for inspiration.

TFL
xxx