The White Poinsettia

From a pattern by Kay James in Parchment Craft 'Cards for Christmas' Magazine - 2011

A true Workshop Wonder

I know I have labelled a few of my efforts at Judith Maslen's workshops as wonders but this one truly is and Judith will testify to this as she definately had a hand in it.
Debs is now on her way home from me so I am getting my posting done before she gets home.
We all had fun - as always - at Judith's workshops and I wouldn't miss them for the world. The first project was a new pattern entitled 'Oriental - Fine Feathers'. A beautiful highly coloured bird with very long tail feathers - perhaps a Parrot? Now we had to use felt tip pens and brush for the colouring and this is certainly my most unfavourite discipline in parchment work. I have never really liked felt tips and even less on parchment. So there might have been a little muttering from me as how I wasn't pleased with what I was doing - to Judith's and Deb's amusement and I said to Judith that this weekend's effort would not be one of my Workshop Wonders. I then proceeded to mark the parchment with a dot of green in the wrong place and to make matters worse ruined it - as I thought - by smudging the wet black eye up above his head. Judith to the rescue. She gave him a cockscomb which I coloured and embossed and low and behold a beautiful bird - a true Workshop Wonder..................and then they all wanted one.

Here he is....

The two dragonfly brads are - 1 to cover the green splodge and the other to balance the first.

The second project was hassle free and I was a happy bunny as it was using my favourite polychromos pencils and spreading medium. Not a felt tip in sight.
Here are ' Christmas Candles'.

CD Sunday - On Safari

I love all the different cards our design team have come up with for this challenge - and this one is my contribution.
I used Diane Dorward's 'For men' CD for the pyramage and Ooh La La for the backing paper. The word tiles, footprint ribbon and Journey tile all come from Fruit Pixie.
We had some great entries in our 'Tree' themed challenge and I hope you enjoy this challenge as well.

12 Days of Christmas

readers of my Blog may remember that last year I stitched the 12 Days of Christmas on cards. One of the ladies who attend my monthly lesson wanted to stitch them as well so at class and as homework all 12 were made and mounted. When it came time to put them on to individual cards my friend decided that after all that hard work she didn't want to send them off in different directions never to be seen again so we put our heads together and this is what has been done with them.

They do look amazing. It is always difficult to photograph something behind glass but we have done the best we can. These are now going to be given to her daughter as a Christmas present and I am sure they will become a family heirloom.

CD Sunday - Trees

Gosh the weeks seems to by flying past at the moment. The run up to Christmas always seems a bit hectic and busy. We didn't have quite so many entries last week. Perhaps you were all very busy with these preparations or Paisley wasn't to your liking as much as we hope this weeks theme of 'Trees' will be. There are some beautiful images of trees and Autumn scenes to be found on many CD's as well as oodles of Christmas trees in all shapes sizes and media to be discovered and used.

For my card this week I have used Joanna Sheen's 'Dancing with Shadows' CD for the image and BP. I also used some card candi just to show that I have some as well. The charm doesn't show well but it is a penny farthing from Fruit Pixie.

Mixing it up

In between sessions of finishing my parchment homework - a card started in our lesson on Wednesday evening

I have been finishing off a project started at the weekend. I was fascinated by a stand at the NEC where they were selling 3D die cut kits of famous buildings. Lo and behold they had a model of one of my favourites - St Basil's Cathedral in Moscow.
I just had to have it. My sister and I started it at the weekend and she quickly renamed it Fawlty Towers - and here it is finished.

All I have to do now is find somewhere to put it. At a tad under 2' high - not easy.

CD Sunday - Paisley Fun

For our theme this week I have made a DVD Gift Box. I used Elusive Images 'Damask Delights' for the box and tag - printed on to 280gsm card and 'Butterfly Bliss' for for the butterfly which is in three layers (top parchment) and glittered. I used a Robert Addams pattern for the box. Robert has various envelope, gift bag and box patterns on many of his CD's and I find them very useful.
I made this one for our theme a little while ago and it started me off on making all those colourful butterflies.
I enjoyed our Sunset theme last week and I look forward to seeing who our winner is from amongst the great cards that you all made for the challenge.

By the River - at the NEC

This handsome duck is one of the images from Deb's/Judith Maslen CD from Debbees CD's - 'Fairies are everywhere'.
This Cd was launched for sale at the NEC. All Debbees CD's are simple jpeg format so it is so easy to take out a single image and resize and generally play with it. I used one of the topper images and printed it direct to the centre of A4 parchment and then added a border using a Pergamano Multi Grid. The lovely painting was then embossed and I stitched it to some rainbow backing card using beads I bought from Riverside Beads. They were right next door to us so that was easy.

I have just about recovered from our trip. I always thoroughly enjoy the general buzz, chatting to old friends and making new ones. It was especially nice to see fellow CD Sunday DT members as well as various friends from forums I belong to. I managed to make plate cards, easel cards, ATC's and quite a few sparkly butterflies.
Debs will be at Bluewater next year and all being well I will be there again on her stand.

I hope you enjoy looking at my work and your comments are always welcomed.

CD Sunday - Sunset

It is already the 1st week in November and as usual we have a generous Sponsor at Cd Sunday. This month we have Caroline - of Carolines Rubber Stamps and Digi images.
Caroline very generously gave the design team a 'package' of her own digi images to play with and above is what I have done with just a few of the many images we received and MCS Best of Vol 1 - Walk in Wonderland.
The prize that Caroline is offering is a digi image of the winners choice.
Don't forget that Caroline also has some gorgeous rubber stamps as well. That lovely butterfly I stamped on parchment was designed by Caroline.

Using digi images is a fairly new adventure for me and I had a lot fun designing my card.
This post is a timed one as hopefully I will be dashing about getting ready for our last day at the NEC. I hope it works well.
I will catch up with everyone from Tuesday onwards.