Sparkly Nails

I painted my nails last week and was really disappointed that they started flaking and cracking two days later! I had even applied base and top coat.

On the Pinterest site, I had seen this "Gel" Manicure you could do at home called Sensationail which comes with a UV lampbox. The start-up kit (including light box) is £70.00 from Boots so I thought I'd look round for someone doing it so I could try it first.

Nails Inc have a salon in House of Fraser, Bluewater, where they do it.

Its called a three week manicure but the lady who did it said it would last longer but there would be growth at the nail bed which would look wrong after that.

Here is the result. I chose the cherry red. There are layers of clear gel and coloured gel, each one is set with the UV lightbox. The magic thing is that the sparkles over the top can be removed with non-acetone remover and the red will remain - I thought this was quite clever.

The picture above is on day one so I will (hopefully) take another later and share the progess.

I'd be interested to hear if any of you have tried this out?

TFL

xxx

Granny Smith

I'm loving the new challenges on the Merly Impressions blog.

This month is a recipe card where you choose a line, see below, I chose to go across the middle which was Buttons/Flowers/Doodling.

I used Kaisercraft Madam Boutique collection which I got from Merly as a kit a little while back.

I have only used two of the papers here, one called Knickers! and the die-cut called Lace.

I gutted a circle from under the lace cut-out and then cut all the flowers out from that piece.

As you can see below, they are all layered together with some bazzill swirls and leaves.

The bazzill was also in the kit but was a little bright so I toned it with chalk ink.

I doodled around the edge of the page and also around the lace cut-out with a fine-liner pens, and also with some Mint liquid pearls to create swirls. I also added dots into the holes around the centre.

Buttons from my stash were threaded with twine and stuck along the photo's edge.

I also added doodling along the inside of the distressed edge.

This is the recipe card.

Thanks for looking.

xxx

A win, an award and two funnies!

Firstly I am pleased to say that I won a Sweet Pea Stampers challenge with the card below,

click here for more information :)

I received two really lovely stamps from Sue - Thanks :)

Then, I won the following award from Merly Impressions who not only have a lovely blog but are suppliers of the fabulous Kaisercraft papers.

This is the layout I entered.

Thanks to Chrissy, Emilie and team for selecting me :)

Then.....

I saw this and it really made me laugh - you can just imagine it!

 

Last but not least, this is the image that Robert found yesterday entering the kitchen!

George for some reason, unknown to us, decided the sink was a good place to sleep!

 

I knew he was mad but.....

Thanks for looking

xxx

1st Father's day card for Kevin

The lovely Claire that I used to work with asked me to make a father's day card for her husband Kevin.

Lyla was born last November and is their first child.

She wanted it to be red, white and blue so I thought the Portobello Rd papers would be perfect.

I think it's very appropriate seeing as we are having such a patriotic year with the Queen's Diamond Jubilee & the Olympics.

Claire sent me the photos to use and I printed and cropped them to 6x6 cm, matted onto blue dotty paper. The base is an 8x8" card with the Union Jack as a base. I printed the greetings onto the newsprint paper and cut them out.

The rosette was punched with a 1 3/4 circle and scallop from Stampin' Up. The ruffle is a Martha Stewart punched strip which I have fixed with the red double sided tape, the ribbons were added underneath.

Hope all the Dad's out there had a lovely Father's Day!

Inky Vintage...

Continuing with the Vintage Challenge on Scrapology, I also made the following card.

I don't do inky so this is not the usual thing I make but as Hels is a Ranger Educator I decided to get out my Tim Holtz bits and play!

The base card is a 6x6 black linen effect. I inked an old page from a book through a stencil (although you can't really see it!) then scrunched and stuck randomly on the page.

The tag is just a postal one which I have inked with Distress Inks then stamped with a set of Tim Holtz stamps which came as part of a kit.

I then stapled some lacey bits on and coated it with distress crackle paint in clear.

The bird is a punch from Stampin' Up which I also inked and added some detail with a black pen.

I stapled some more of the lace down one edge and added a message on a punched oval - also inked.

I added some raffia to tie the tag and twist down one side along with a paper rose.

Check out the challenge on the Scrapology Blog  :)

Scrapology June Challenge - Vintage

This months challenge was set by Hels Sheridan and the theme is Vintage.

I decided to use a sheet of decoupage I have by Walter Crane which I felt was perfect.

I layered the decoupage onto the backing sheet supplied and added gold mirri card.

The corners were cut with a Memory Box die.

The message again layered and added on 3d foam.

A small knot of seam binding added too.

Here you can see the layers of decoupage, I use 3d foam pads usually.

Hop on over to Scrapology to see what the DT have come up with this month and the fab prize Hels has supplied.

TFL

xxx

Kaisercraft Flutterby - Cards

As per a previous post, I have used the leftovers from my latest layout to make some cards.

My mission is not to have bits and pieces of papers hanging around!

This is what I made:



The message on this one is by Stampin' Up and punched with their large oval.

This one has a punched retro daisy and some branch fronds which have been inked slightly with turquoise chalk.

This one has punched daisies again witht he same fronds.

The centres are Candi from Craftwork Cards.

The message was on the cut-outs sheet, I have edged it with stickles.

The scallop and circle punches are the larger ones from Stampin' Up.

I still have some small pieces left but I ran out of time so will make them into something next!

TFL

XXX

Good Luck Lianne.....

My baby (lol!) has gone to Ibiza for the season to work and I'm really going to miss her and worry like hell!

She had a photo shoot done for her portfolio to take with her and this is one of the photographs.

I know I am biased but I think she looks gorgeous!

On the way to the airport she remembered that she hadn't said goodbye to George and was upset by this - we remedied this when we got home and sent her the picture below of him waving bye-bye!

Good Luck Lianne, hope you have a lovely time but be SAFE!!!

My other Mum

The Merly Impressions current challenge is a sketch, this is my version.

I used Kaisercraft Flutterby papers, Monarch and Painted Lady.

These papers seemed to be perfect to match the photograph as there is a saying that Butterflies are the spirits of those who have passed away.

Painted Lady is the base page and the frame around the photograph is from the die cuts on the reverse - luckily I had bought 2 sheets :)

The Stripes are cut from Monarch which has a multitude of butterflies on the other side which is where I cut mine from.

I added a strip of ruffled ribbon as I had made an error on the journalling - shhhhh!

Below are the cut out butterflies with Crystal stickles.

The title was cut with my Art Nouveau Cricut cartridge shadowed with brown cardstock.

I also stickled the butterflies on the main page.

This is the sketch, click here for more details although it does finish tomorrow.

The story is a little sad really, this is the only photograph I have of this lovely lady who was my childminder from being a baby through to Secondary School.

Shortly after I married (first time 1986) she lost her husband, Norman, and became rather reclusive.

I never got to see her much as she wouldn't answer the door if you called round. We did speak sometimes on the telephone but she never wanted to leave the house to meet up.

She never met Lianne, although I used to send photographs, which is a shame.

She passed away a few years ago now and it saddens me that I never got to see her beforehand.

Her only son, Andrew, died earlier this year with no other family that we know of.

I can only hope that they are all together now in heaven (or where ever you want to call it) and are happily reunited - May they rest in peace.

Thanks for looking and sorry for the sad story!



More Cupcakes

We had our monthly crop last Saturday and although I saw Lynn on her birthday, our crop friends didn't so we celebrated again!

I made these cupcakes for the occassion.

Vanilla Roses

A new recipe found on the internet for Coffee Walnut Cupcakes.

The recipe said makes 12 but the were very shallow so I unwrapped some and sandwiched them together with coffee buttercream.

And some with Glace icing as Sue doesn't like buttercream.

Here is Lynn with her candles :)

Happy Birthday again Lynn

xx

Royal Wedding.......

A year on.....what did you do on that date?

Did you celebrate the Royal Wedding? Did you watch?

This is what we did....

The papers are Portobello Road and are leftover from our Scrapology kit this month.

I created bunting with my left over ribbon by stapling the flags on then fastened it to the page with staples too.

I created 2 x tags for the names and date and added leftover letters from Anita's canvas class to make the words first KISS. The photo is taken from the internet.

I used the news print paper to journal over.

I added a further strip of ribbon saying home sweet home as that was our venue.

I remember a little bit of fun from the day too, a friend had put on facebook how to calculate your Royal Wedding Invitation name - (your Grandmothers name - first pet - road you lived on) mine was

- Lady Sarah Wilham Chatto - I rather like it!

I'd love to hear what you did and your Royal name too :)





Victory!

This months page on Scrapology was based on a layout by Ro Phillipsen.

We used Papermania Portobello Road papers for this months kit - available via Cardinal Colours,

e-mail for details.

I started with the blue dot and gutted the centre. The straw bazzill was cut to 11" and mounted centrally. The paper pack contains some die-cut flags so I used on behind my photo mount which is cut from blue patterned paper 5x8". The photo's are 4.5 x 3.1/4" and are copied from my Dad's collection, he thinks the street party is to celebrate VJ day but cannot be sure.

We won't mention the fact that my Granddad is dressed as a lady in these either!

I cut a strip of red bazzill and added a torn strip of the red floral paper.

We had some union flag ribbon so I cut flags off, distressed the edges with ink and stapled them to the strip along with some twin which I wrapped around.

Various elements from the postcard paper was cut and added, some on 3d foam.

The message was punched with an SU oval in three colours and offset with my notes on top.

I added some twine across the top of the page with staples and "hung the flags out".

Another piece of ribbon was added along the bottom of the photo mount, some ruffled with double sided tape.

Here is the original and the pagemap sketch it came from.

Check out Scrapology for more details of the challenge and see the pages created by the DT.

Hope to see your entries soon! Good Luck!

XXX