CD Sunday - Travels Abroad

Thank you for your entries to our challenge last week.  I did think it was going to be a tad difficult but you all came up trumps again.  Lovely cards.  Now Sue is going to find it difficult to choose  just 3 from them all.
This weeks theme is 'Travels Abroad' chosen by Christine.  Now it was my turn to find it difficult.  I am sure I am not the only crafter  who finds sometimes that they have an idea and start to go down that road only to reach a complete impassse and there seems to be no way out -  or to work out what  final tweak is needed to put it right.
My fellow teamies came to the rescue and pointed me in the right direction after telling me nicely that I was being too critical -  and hopefully the result isn't too bad.

The tweak suggested was to change the colour of the watch face and I think it made all the difference.

I used Robert Addams - Vintage Transport CD for the three train 'stamps'. Tim Holtz papers for the rest and the watch die is also from  Robert Addams.

I am off on my own travels abroad in the not too distant future.   My sister is kindly taking me off to France for a few days shopping.  I am looking forward to the break and some serious retail therapy.

Carol xx

More cards from 'The Christmas Box' CD

All have some decoupage and some have die cuts.  My favourite die cut purchase for Christmas has been the string of lights.

Carol xx

'The Christmas Box' - ATC's

Here are just half a dozen tag ATC's made using the Gift Tag folder on the new CD by La Pashe - 'The Christmas Box'.  There are 20 tags in all to use.  I printed them out  ATC size, twice, so that I could use some parts for decoupage.  I have added the ribbon, some pearls in appropriate places and some Glamour Dust.
Carol
xx

Christmas Song

Another stitched card - pattern available here.  A nice easy one to do.  A tip for the eye and the musical notes.  On most patterns it suggests that you colour the eyes and, in this case, the shaped pieces on the musical notes with a pen.  This isn't always satisfactory as sometimes the card used absorbs the ink and it runs.  Sometimes we  just don't do it well.  So I now use the waste pieces from my peel offs when I can.  For these black musical notes I found the perfect shape on an Alphabet sheet - Goldlabel-023.  The tiny wee circle for the birds eye was fairly easy to find and was the fish eye from a sheet of black cats - Francoise Collection.
The background paper came from  'The Messy Rabbit Christmas Collection'  CD.  There are some wonderful backing papers on this CD. The sentiment is die cut.

CD Sunday - Fox and Friends

Good morning.   Thank you all for the many beautiful Butterfly entries we had last week. It was a pleasure to visit everyone and to welcome some newcomers to our Blog.  As Wendy is still not back with us (we are missing you Wendy) I do not know who is going to choose the prize winner but I am sure all that will become clear. 

Today we have a very different theme chosen by Sue T and entries are going to be quite interesting.  I must admit to taking an easy option but my arm was still sore when I tackled this one.
Here are my notelets with matching envelopes:

I used Pollyanna Pickering's British Wildlife DVD.  It contains some wonderful images several of which are of or contain foxes and I think a few of the team used similar images but in different ways.
Have fun.
Carol xx

Red Dragon

There is a little story behind this card but I will be brief.  I have a lovely friend - Pamela - who happens to be Welsh and when I saw this parchment pattern of a dragon by Judith Maslen I wanted to make it just for her.  Now Judith had coloured the dragon green as she had designed it for her series of Pub titles - 'The Green Dragon'.  But the true Welsh dragon is red  - so red it had to be.

The rest of the story concerns CD Sunday.  Pamela has very kindly sent me a parcel of goodies for CD Sunday to add to the prizes that we award.  As I had just finished the dragon for Pamela we decided to send it to her from us all at CD Sunday as a thank you for her generosity.

So thank you again Pamela from CD Sunday ........and me.

Carol
xx

Patterned Reindeer

I have created this Christmas card by using elements from different designs by two people.

The first is my tutor Marilyn who gave us a card of her design to make at our last lesson.  I missed the lesson but was kindly given the pattern at the workshop.  I loved the reindeer so I used him - filling in the sections using a diagonal grid and other multi grids.  The border is from a book - 'Parchment Craft Borders for Beginners' by Judith Maslen.  The sentiment was traced from one of Judith's Christmas Patterns. The snowflakes were made using a punch and embossing set that I bought last week at The Art of Craft and the gems are from one of Anita's Gem Wheels.

I enjoyed making it and I hope my tutor likes my use of her image.

Santa's Favourite

Pattern by Judith Maslen

CD Sunday - Butterfly

Actually I have more than one in my project.  This theme was chosen by Wendy.
Before I had my op I was convinced that it could be many many weeks before I could craft again so I made all my 'must do's' up to the end of September and didn't expect to be playing until November at the earliest.  When I saw my physio after 2 weeks and three days post op she was so pleased with me that she suggested I tried a little crafting.  I hadn't dare ask.
I really wanted to join in with the Butterfly theme so I have started with something that was half made so there was no undue strain.

Sometime ago I made and scanned a piece of backing paper - here - so I printed it out twice using A4 Fabric Canvas.  I deconstructed a wire bound notebook I had and covered the front and back with the canvas.  Then put it all back together using plastic spiral I just happened to have.  (Before our retirement we used to own and run a factory making plastic spirals for the stationery industry).  I used a die cut  label for the gold glittered letters and then attached 4 of the butterflies to the front cover.  I have seen so many add little bits of ribbon to spirals when making notebooks so I thought I would have a go.  I managed to make this project without having to use a guillotine or trimmer  which are still no goes for me at the moment.
Here is my Recipe Book project.

Hope you like it.  I can't tell you how much I enjoyed making it.


Since I posted this I have discovered that  Ooh La La Creations   have a challenge 'Things with wings' so I have entered my Recipe Book in their challenge.

Carol
x

Winter Birthday Card

This is the third pattern  in a series called  'Seasons' -  by Judith Maslen.  I have already done Spring and Summer -and now Winter, and I have Autumn yet to do.

I did this yesterday at our monthly parchment workshop.  We have this at the Art of Craft where we spent several hours working and chatting or perhaps chatting and not working.  It depends.  We have a great group who all love parchment.....and putting the world to rights.  Our tutor Marilyn is there in case we need any help or advice or to borrow something.

I enjoyed this card as it is just simple white work with no hard outlines to the embossed snowdrops.  A little bit of grid work to add interest.  I did all this plus started another Christmas card which I know you will like.  Should finish it soon.

The sentiment is a peel-off.

Carol
xx

Christmas countdown still ongoing

Here are some more Christmas cards this time using the new La Pashe CD - 'The Christmas Box'.
Yet more fabulous images that are a joy to use.

This next one was made using La Pashe - 'The Best of 2012' CD - for the image and 'The Christmas Box' CD  for the backing paper design printed direct to card.

And this last one was made using an image from 'The Big One' CD - Christmas Trinitage Set 2.

I am enjoying all this decoupaging. I haven't done any seriously for a while and it feels good to get back to it.  It doesn't hurt the shoulder and I can still craft.   A bonus.
Carol
xx

CD Sunday - To the moon and back

We are so pleased that we are being sponsored this month by Linda Chapman who is Creative Crafting World.  Linda has offered a great prize of a copy of  'At the Bottom of the Garden'  CD plus a pack of 20 5 x 7 Gift Bags and  a pack of A4 White 250gsm Card. A worthy prize.

Linda also kindly sent the team some folders for the team to use for our  'To the moon and back'  cards/projects.  They were all so pretty with the lovely soft colours that it was difficult to choose which one to use but I think we have each managed to find a different one.

Here is mine:

It was all there in the folder so all I added were three die cut stars and some matting card. The centre panel and the two daises were decoupaged.

We are welcoming Wynn back for a second visit as our Guest designer.  Wynn makes some lovely cards and has been a great supporter of CD Sunday and we are looking forward to seeing her work.

Thank you all for your super entries in our 1950's theme Challenge.  I am going to have to make some difficult choices.  I will let Jenny know my decision later in the week.

Carol
xx

The Village

This pattern is by Judith Maslen - and this is how she describes it -  VERY easy!  Traced with black pen and then embossed. 
You do need a Pergamano Moon tool though if you copy the pattern exactly but of course you can do any border that you wish.
I enjoyed using the pattern and here is my offering:

Carol
xx

Christmas Cat

I found this lovely stitching design here and couldn't resist it so I have used it to make a Christmas  card for one of my family.  I have stitched the cat in a colour as near as I could get to their own cat and it looks quite a good match to me.
It is a lovely design to stitch and doesn't take too long.  The hardest part was trying to find a suitable backing card.  I tried allsorts but finally settled on the snow from a Pamela West CD as the background colour is just about perfect.

The little paper baubles and bows come from  Carol Ann's Studio - CD-8.

I saw the surgeon on Monday and he says I am way ahead of schedule but as I start using muscles and tendons etc it is going to hurt a bit. He also said that I looked so much better than I did before the op.  I kinda like this man.  He is good for the ego. I can now drive again so I have my freedom back.

Carol
xx