finally....

Adam's birthday card in all its glory - I was really pleased how this came out, after blogging my excitement about finding the kit. I will probably make versions of this all summer as all his friends have birthdays too.

A crafty weekend

Following on from my card making bonanza last weekend, this weekend was the same, with the added bonus that I finished off my birthday card reminder book and bound it (photos to follow).

I also made four cards, using up scraps, which is my remit at the moment as I have more than plenty! The results were as shown below - lots of fun to make, but still quite simple.

The plan is to pay myself for making the cards and then buy new stash with the proceeds - a win win situation as I save money that I would have spent buying cards (my rate is much lower!), I use up the bits that I have lying around, and I get a limited amount of new treats = less clutter!

Another School Trip

Nat and I went to the London Wetlands Centre today. Under grey skies and constantly escaping from crowds of marauding schoolchildren, we had a lovely time and got to see some birds we'd never seen before - a redshank, baby coots, reed warblers and reed buntings - and quite a few we had! My camera isn't up to telephoto lens standard so none of the above (apart from the coot) made it onto the photo gallery, but they were all so beautiful and it was fabulous to hear the birdsong, albeit interspersed with planes coming into Heathrow - but hey, that's urban wildlife for you.

Now resolved to find out more about birdcalls so I can identify more than the basic ones - duck, blackbird, robin, moorhen!

Now for the LOs :)

I love our Crop

National Scrapbooking Day last Saturday was spent with the lovely people at the North Cheam Crop. I so love this group of people, and everyone was there if only for part of the day. We started about 4 years ago, or maybe 5, and without exception everyone who has come to the crop has been lovely and fitted into the group and it just gets nicer and nicer.

We make noise, have fun, share stories and stash, critique and suggest ideas to each other, and eat delicious cake - Gaye's Strawberry and Cream sponge was to die for - yum!

The latest crop purchase - a scarlet sewing machine - with ready threaded bobbins - bliss! inspired me to use it on one of my LOs, something I haven't done for ages.

Today I've mooching around a few blogs and came across the perfect thing for Adam's 16th birthday card. I've not done much digital, but thank you Sarah Jane Dowsett for the perfect inspiration to try - and all for the price of a card on the high street! I will post if I get it right :) I have until Saturday so you never know - it might work!

The kit from Little Musings looks like this:

He loves high tops and has headphones permanently glued on so I think it will go down well.

Old Photos

Serendipity - does sometimes happen. I had an idea for my Sketchy Thursdays LO but no photo that matched my idea. I was looking for something else at the time when I accidentally pulled out a photo album from the Eighties and bingo! the perfect photo for my plans, and one I probably would never have got round to scrapping had it not been for this - big smiles all around.

And this is it - the sketch was the inspiration and is sort of mirrored and only has one photo etc etc. but hey! I am pleased with the result and enjoyed using my paint for the first time in ages.

I've also been sticking to my stash busting goals - not buying and trying to use up some of my stash - especially papers. I have started an envelope book to use as a birthday reminder and card holder book, and I have made a smash book (a la K & Co) using up papers I probably won't ever scrap with. My stash is also looking a lot more manageable at least on the paper front, although thanks to UKS Mary Anne, I came to the sad conclusion that I have an awful lot of coloured Bazzill and am veering more and more towards neutral backgrounds :( - needs a rethink as to how I might use my (much less than a foot) pile of Bazzill and other cardstock.

Make and Take

With all the tidying up of my stash, I have come across lots of bits and pieces I forgot I had and have been inspired by some of them.

Although I've not been one for handmade embellishments, except for the folded flowers, such as those on 'I love holding your hand' layout, but I've been playing.

Yesterday it was the net flowers - so simple yet effective. Then I had a play with coloured string stuff that I bought at Ally Pally and made the flower below:

Finally inspired by the Studio Calico sneak peak, I saw some toothpick pennants by Pebbles Inc and knew I could make my own.

Instructions:

1) Fold a piece of paper in half, so that the width is the size of the pennant length you want.

2)Cut triangles so that the long end is along the fold and the point is at the cut end (use a template if you need to) but I did mine by looking.

3)Lay the double pennant out wrong side up, and add a short length of DST across the fold.

4) Dab glue/Pritt stick on each point, then place the cocktail stick along the fold with one end just inside the paper (or sticking out a tad if you prefer).

5) Fold the pennant around the cocktail stick, and align points, pressing firmly to stick both sides together. Et voila!

A new wave of crafting

I've been reading a thread on UKS entitled "Too much Stash - is that possible?" - a sort of self help encouragement group allegedly for those who have too much stash but keep buying. It has some hilarious confessions which have kept me entertained over the past few days.

Having been to Ally Pally on the weekend and spent my money, I decided it was time for a stash purge. Neither finances or inclination make me a stash purchase addict, but over the years I have accumulated a certain amount of stash, some of which is definitely past its sell by date, at least for my taste.

It does however mark the various phases in my scrapbooking and previous cardmaking life, and a LO is under construction.

Having sorted out my stash, I then got excited about using up some of the scraps that I had so carefully organised by colour and size, and the birdhouse I bought in Sainsburys many months ago sprang to mind. A couple of hours later, I made a minor dent in my turquoise, blue and green scrap pile and the birdhouse is now gracing my mantelpiece.

On a wave of enthusiasm, I then made half a dozen cards using old stash which I will not scrap with, but that makes good cards - happy days.

Now to clear up my craft table!!