Some of The Baby Gifts I Hooked

I found I had a few (rubbish quality) photos of some of the things I made for baby Charlotte on my phone so I thought I would share them just now.

This is my absolute favourite blanket!  When I saw it again on Thursday in the hospital I was so proud of it.  My sister-in-law's boss (and friend) had a wee baby shower on her last day at work.  I was on holiday from work that week and wanted to take something I made myself, so I made this pram/car seat sized blanket IN TWO DAYS!   It is a small version of the Granny Stripe blanket from Attic 24.

This is the biggest baby blanket in the world ever!  I got a bit carried away doing the chain stitch and had to keep going on the rows until it looked in proportion.  Obviously this gives away the fact that I knew baby was going to be a girl even though my brother didn't, so it was top secret.

Again it's from Attic 24, the neat ripple pattern.

Cute little headband with flower, which is more likely to fit round her waist just now as she is teeny-tiny.  I can do flowers now! Yay!  Haha that was my initial goal when trying to master crochet a few years ago, to make pretty flowers for my cards.  Anyway, the headband is from Bezencillia.

And finally, the cutest little ugg type booties.  These were a bugger to master, I kept getting a hole in the sole, a smaller hook sorted this out.  These are from I'm Topsy Turvy

I've also done a cardigan for her, but it has mega long arms like it's made for a monkey even though I followed the pattern to the letter.  Once I frog some of the arm rows and sew it back together I will share.

And I have an infinity cowl for me which I haven't photographed yet but it's so cosy and quick to do so I have a load of yarn left for making some for Christmas presents.

These photos really are quite shoddy, I have an old iphone 3gs which I used to take the pics, no flash or anything.  Must get my camera looked out for next time.

Has it really been over 2 years?!

I can't believe it has been over 2 years since I wrote on this thing. Where have I been?

 Well, been pretty busy and not really feeling much love for making cards for the past 6 months or so. I think I need a new style, I made a couple yesterday for my brother's birthday and wasn't too pleased with them. I fancy clean and simple ones, they might be quicker to do too, so if anyone is listening and has suggestions please leave me a comment.

 Been loving my kindle which I was first introduced to in 2010.

 Been playing Sims 3, would love to say I unleashed my creative spirit on that but I am pretty pants at building houses and stuff.

 Baking, oh how I love baking, almost as much as I love eating the finished results!

 Mastered the knack of crochet and have been a very happy hooker these past few months making stuff for my beautiful niece who was born yesterday on her daddy's birthday!

  Swagbucks! OMG it is addictive and a good way to earn points to redeem for Amazon vouchers to fund my kindle habit, or Paypal vouchers should I ever decide to buy more paper. You just have to watch short videos, answer surveys, etc and the points rack up.

 And that has been about it really. Maybe with the crap weather coming in I will sit and work my way through my piles of paper if only to use it up!

 I really should get some decent photos of the things I made for baby, and I will, and I will post them just not tonight.

 That's me dipped my toe in the puddle of blogging, lets see if I can wade further in again.

Secret Crafter - Annie With Wreath

Happy weekend everyone, my mojo has been missing again hence my lack of blogging lately. But, the Christmas adverts have started showing on telly already so I thought I'd better get my booty in gear and start thinking about Christmas Cards.
The other weekend I went to a demo by my friend Erika who works for Personal Impressions. She made some fabulous things and I haven't been able to stop thinking about copics since then. So, as I had sold my small collection of copics and promarkers I just had to go and buy some more which arrived today. Of course, there's always one or two pens you end up forgetting to add to the basket so after a bit of help from Kirsti I discovered that there is absolutely nowhere to buy them from locally :(
So, rather than shop at the two stores I had just bought from and look like a total addict, I searched again and found you could also get them for a great price and service at Secret Crafter. When there I checked out the Challenge blog and this weeks challenge is nice and easy - DISTRESSING.
I distressed the edges of my layers just using the blade for my scissors, a distressing tool is on my list but I keep forgetting to go and get one.
The Annie with Wreath stamp is coloured using Copics, and I think my shading is getting better this time round but still lots of room for improvement...
The papers I used are from Dovecraft Christmas Fancy, I thought these were quite good for the money. I am often put off Dovecraft as it has a tendency to look like wrapping paper but they seem to have improved.
Thank you for looking :)

A Long Overdue Post From Me

Good morning bloggers, how are you all. I am ashamed to say that I have barely been near my craft desk in the past several weeks, I just haven't been feeling the love for it. I think I need some new things to play with, I did get some cosmic shimmer mists which are fabby and then I got some more. If anyone has any suggestions of something new and exciting for me to play with please leave a comment here.

Yesterday though I did make these ATC's for the ATC trail swap on UK Scrappers. I never thought I would ever make an ATC, I just couldn't see the point in them. But I do now, they are a great way of experimenting and then you send your experiments to someone else and they send you theirs in return. So, in theory you could end up with a fabulous collection of different techniques, etc.


So, as I had typed up a note of what I did to make this one I thought, hey, I could blog this too, so here are the instructions on what I did. The ATC itself looks way better in real life, all the embossing creates the camera glare from hell.

I cut the Damask from Cricut Stamping Solutions cartridge and used it as a mask to chalk around. Then I covered the lot in versamark and a clear embossing powder. Before that cooled I used some sparkle embossing powder and then before that cooled another layer of clear. Once it had all cooled I cracked the embossing by bending the card several times. I then took a tiny bit of Vaseline on my finger and dipped it in a pot of cosmic shimmer powder, rubbing it into the cracks and wiping off excess with a tissue. After that I added some more plain cracks. Butterfly cut from Stamping Solutions too, once in lilac card and once in acetate which I ran through the cuttlebug d’vine swirls embossing folder. Quote I found online.

Thank you for looking, and don't forget to leave suggestions of anything you can think of which will get me back at my craft desk. BTW I have tried Promarkers and digi stamps/anyas, but decided that look is lovely but not me.

Go Wild

Here are those wild cards I made and promised to share with you. This is a great cartridge once you get your head round it. Though I recommend that you get the 12x24 mats and try and find some 12x24 paper for some of them. You can even make matching envelopes too and line them, but some of the cards can be put in an ordinary envelope, like my doily cards I have been cutting at 5 3/4 inches so I can pop them in a 6" square envelope.

This is the graduation cap card, I think its quite cute. I think I will be making a few of these soon as every year for the past 3 years I have made graduation cards for the nursery class at my nephew's school. The teacher asked my brother the other day if I could make them again this year even though he is coming to the end of Primary 1 now. The congrats was cut from Stamping Solutions cart.

Here is the present card, I cut this at 7 1/2 inches. I got inspiration to make this card from this blog. I had been surfing looking at Wild Cards while I was waiting for my expression and Wild Card to arrive and I fell in love with this version. I printed the paper from scrapbookscrapbook and the flower was punched using my EK Success punches. The tag is really cute too and I did a bit of faux stitching round the edge.


This card is the Birthday card cut. Now I didn't like the way the machine had cut it as the back part was larger than the front so the card kind of leaned to the front. I made them level and now you can see it kind of leans over to the side like the Tower of Pisa. I put a piece of acetate in the opening, under the layer of DCWV paper and attached my paper flower with a brad. The sentiment is a Stampin Up stamp.

Thank you for looking, I have to take my mum to hospital today as she is getting a heart op tomorrow, I hope all goes well with it.

Create A Critter #9,10, 11 and 12

Hi all

Back with a quick lunchtime post to show you a few more critter cards I made last week that I thought might be best shared on one post. My favourite is the Zebra I think.

First up we have the little duck, I thought the umbrella was cute and that it would make a cute Get Well card, so I printed the sentiment on the computer. The paper I used was Fancy pants and it was double sided so I used the back of it too.

Then we have the dog, I used paper which I downloaded from Sweet Shoppe as I couldn't find anything suitable in my pile. The sentiment is A Hero Arts clear stamp.

Here is a cat card too, again with the same bundle from Sweet Shoppe, I will dig out the info for this download bundle after work as it had quite a lot of great things in it. The sentiment is an old Elzybells one.

And finally the Zebra, I downloaded the paper for free from Scrapbook Scrapbook and stuck it to the Doily card from Wild Card. I added some faux stitching round the edges by drawing dots then lining them up. It doesn't matter if you go wonky as it makes it look more realistic - well going on my machine skills anyway lol! The sentiment is from Stampin Up.

Thanks for looking. I hope to have something more interesting to share with you later. I never managed any crafting yesterday after work as I was knackered.

TTFN

Create A Critter #8 - Poodle

Here is my card for this weeks Friday Sketchers challenge. Yet again I used a critter – the poodle this time, along with the WRMK Tiffany papers. I cut the Victorian Oval frame from Stamping Solutions and the branches were cut from this cartridge too using the blackout feature. The sentiment stamp is from Hero Arts and the little flower is an EK Success punch.

I did some cool cards with Wild Card yesterday, no critters were used. I will share those later.

I can't believe I am back to work today, boooo.

Thank you for looking.