Two posts for the price of one.

First is a peek at the wedding card I have made for my nephew and his bride.  I am attending the wedding on Saturday in London.  I don't think they have my Blog address and anyway I think they will be too busy to browse.

I wanted it to be simple and uncomplicated so I chose a pattern that wasn't designed as a wedding card.  The photograph doesn't show it but the ribbon does tone with the background.

The second posting is the project for our parchment lesson last night.  I was so tired still from Sandown that I made a pig's ear of my work last night so I decided to sit quietly today and do it again.  I took time over it and I don't mind showing this one.
It is an old pattern and is for a Scented door hanger.  Two double layers of parchment with dried Lavender in the middle.

Show report - The Creative Craft Show - Sandown Park

Well, the Show is over for this year.  The next one will be in January 2012.
We had a very busy time chatting to many many lovely people about all things parchment.  Doing little demos and passing on tips, names of favourite websites and internet shops and all sorts of other stuff.  What came over very strongly is that there is a serious lack of parchment tutors in almost every area of the Country.  So many really want to try to learn about parchment crafting but struggle to do it on their own.
Here is a photo of our Stand.  My friend Debs is on the left,  my parchment Tutor Marilyn on the right and yes - you've guessed it - I am the gap in the middle.

CD Sunday -Black and Blue

This is going to be a timed post - hopefully it will work. Good Morning.  Yet another Sunday Challenge has come round.  I hope you enjoyed our Alphabet - M -  challenge last week.  I always enjoy Alphabet challenges.  We often have them in our ATC Club.
This week our theme is Black and Blue.  I think this was one of my suggestions so I am to blame.  For this challenge I decided to make a 'Sympathy' card.  A sad topic always but we card makers do have to make them from time to time.
Here it is:

I used 'Clip Art' Cd by Patsy May in MCS and printed the frame image on parchment.  I chose a font for the words to emboss and then added a couple of butterflies made using a Pergamano Multi Grid No: 17.  The 'Blue' part of the challenge is the blue backing card which just shows through the parchment as a blue haze.

I hope you will join in with our challenge and don't forget that a Cd must be used somewhere in the making of your project.

Sparkling Poinsettias

Our September Judith Maslen workshop was last weekend.  As always we had two new patterns to play with and this is the morning project.  I just had to finish off the stippling on the tree.  This always takes quite some time and I didn't want to waste valuable workshop time when I could finish this at home.

 
The second pattern for the afternoon session is a little bit special and I have some more work to do on it.  I am going to try and finish it whilst at the Show.  In between chatting to our visitors.

CD Sunday - Alphabets - M

Another week gone by and Wow! - didn't we have some beautiful entries in our 'Inspired by Peacocks'. Some lucky one is going to win those great CD's.  And I don't envy Wendy P her trying to choose just 3 for her Top 3.

Our theme for this week is another letter of the Alphabet - 'M' this time.  I have made a coaster for this challenge using an alphabet pattern by my own parchment tutor - Marilyn Pybus - and a backing paper from Carol Ann's Studio CD - 'Glitz and Bitz'.  The backing paper is a sheet of handwriting against  lovely shaded colours of pinks and purples.  Three of the ladies in my group of regular diners have names beginning with M so one of them will have this instead of, or as well as, a birthday card.

I am now on the final count down til the start of the Sandown Park Craft Show (details in sidebar) so it will be a busy few days chez moi.  Debs will be arriving on Thursday and then it will be three manic days which we wouldn't miss for the world. What could be better than spending 3 days with friends  talking about and demonstrating your favourite past time.

CD Sunday- Inspired by Peacocks

What a great challenge we have for you this week and what a great, great prize.  Jenny is right when she says over on our Blog that it has been hard to keep this challenge a secret.  Glenda  from Chocolate Baroque has been so generous with her sponsorship prizes.  Here is  Jenny's description.............

"Glenda has very kindly given each of the team a copy of her Peacock Summer Party to use and even better the prize is one I'm sure you will all want, three cd's! Your prize for this week is a copy of Decadent Brocade, Season's Greetings and Peacock Summer Party."

We also have a copy of Peacock Summer Party to give to the winner of the Top 3 - to be chosen by our Wendy P.

I started off my project with the full intention of making a card but when I had finished it it had become a picture.  I printed one of the fan topper sheets in parchment and embossed and cut appropriately and then started playing with this pack of beautiful white feathers I had.  The background is an A4 sheet of  one of the many many gorgeous backing papers on this CD.

I am so looking forward to seeing all the inspirational entries in this challenge and in the meantime I am going to give Jenny my Top 3 list for last week.  It was my turn to choose and it was  difficult to choose just 3.  For the winner I have a small gift of some of my parchment flowers - 6 x Poinsettia's and 6 x White sparkles and I hope you like them.


A big CD Sunday welcome to Hazel as our Guest Designer for September.  Hazel has started off with a fab card so please visit her Blog and those of my fellow teamies to see what they have been doing.

CD Sunday - Just Because

I love a 'Just Because' card.  Did you know that we as a nation are one of the Worlds biggest card makers and givers? (Can't remember where I read this - but I did).  It must be 'because' when we have run out of Birthdays, Get Well and Good Luck etc., etc., we always have 'Just Because' - which is a one of the best  reasons for sending a card.
Although mine is a Christmas card it is still a 'Just Because'...........

it is also my second favourite discipline - stitch cards.   The pattern for this one comes from Form-A-Lines - and the BP from Carol Ann's Studio 2nd Christmas CD - CD-8.
There are so many  reasons for a 'Just Because' card so I am hoping to see many, many entries to our challenge - esp as it is my turn to choose the top 3.  I am looking forward to what I know will be a difficult decision. I have a little bag of parchment Christmassy flowers for the winner.
Please have a look at my fellow teamies 'Just Becauses' - they are all so different and such great cards.
Sadly it is Deb's last week with us as our Guest Design Team member.  Her cards have been and are great and I am sure she will be joining us again.  Thank you Debs.

Christmas is coming -

and although we all seem to moan about starting preparations in August I think we have to -  to get all those handmade goodies and cards done in time.  In my case I need something more and  Christmassy for the Show next month.  The tree is already in a display case I have purchased for the purpose - so this last couple of days I have been making some Christmas parchment flowers - mainly poinsettias. This year I tried to make them more realistic and I hope I have managed to give that impression.  I used my usual pattern for the flowers and green and red parchment which I purchased from the Art of Craft.  After I had stuck the layers together I used some creamy yellow beads and stuck them individually into the centres.  Doing them one at a time avoided the bead hole showing uppermost.  I then just touched the top of the beads with a Sakura Brush pen in green and then yellow.  I used a new - to me - glue called appli glue.  It dries clear and is just thick enough to allow the bead to stand and not flop over whilst drying. In fact I have been using this glue quite a bit in the last week or so - I can recommend it.
I tried glitter on one of the poinsettias but it didn't look good.  They are better plain.

Here they are - mixed in with some others made using a special sparkly vellum.

CD Sunday - Nursery Rhymes

Another week has slipped by so quickly and here it is - time for another challenge.  I decided to make some ATC's for our theme of Nursery Rhymes and I sourced my materials from various places.Using allsorts of bits and pieces is what I love about making ATC's.

I used Joanna Sheen's  'ATC Assistant', ' Crafty Image Emporium CD'  and Ooh La La Creations -' Shoes in Bloom '  for my basic sources and then peel-offs, Flower Soft and a rubber stamp for the rest.  The clock face came from 'The Fruit Pixie' - a veritable Aladdins Cave for ATC enthusiasts.
We look forward to seeing lots more great entries to our challenge and it is even more fun now we have a top three each week as well as our monthly Sponsor.  Well done to Sue, Jocelyn and Caroline - our winners last week.  Who will it be this week? It is Jenny's turn to choose her three favourites. 

May I introduce you to 'Cordelia'

'Cordelia' is one of 4 Elegance patterns designed by Judith Maslen sold through the CC Collection. There are three more lovely ladies yet to do but this is my favourite and I had to make her first.

I love doing any of Judith's patterns  but I am really  pleased how this one has worked out.

I haven't decide on a mount or backing paper yet.  It needs a little thinking about.
I hope you like this lovely image as much as I do.  Thank you Judith for yet another gorgeous pattern.

Miniature Handbag - an extra

I have bought a handmade necklace as a birthday gift for a family member and I didn't really like the plain ordinary box that it came in so.................................

I made a bag  to match the necklace.
The pattern of course is by Amanda Yeh.  I found a beautiful toning backing paper  on a Carol Ann's Studio CD and printed it out on parchment.  To the centres of the embossed flowers I added blue nailheads and crystal gems.  The spotty chiffon ribbon is from The Art of Craft.
I enjoyed making this handbag as a personal gift - and even my son was impressed.

I am also going to enter this in the Allsorts Challenge - Anything But a Card.

CD Sunday - Only Ovals

Sunday seems to have come round much quicker this week.  We had so many great entries last week and as Jenny said it is going to be hard for Christine to choose her top 3 - a new feature at Cd Sunday.

We have a winner  though  - ChrisJW - for our Sponsor prize- Grandma's Button Box CD  - from Katy Sue Designs.  Congratulations Chris.  I know you will enjoy using this CD.


For my DT card this week I felt like doing some stitching and I found the pattern for the oval Sunflowers in an oval frame at Form -A- Lines . For everything else I used the 'Sunflower' folder on Ooh La la's CD - 'Shoes in Bloom'.  The wrapround on my card is the insert from the folder used as an outsert  and I just snipped around the edges of the two printed sunflowers to slip over the corners of the matting. I can't remember who makes the butterfly punch but as I suspect most of you have this  punch,  you will know the maker. I have backed my punched out butterfly  with parchment and then embossed from the back.  Added jewels for the body.
I hope you like the card and that  it will inspire you to think Oval.

Paper Lantern

A birthday card for a special friend who has a birthday today.  I hope it arrived safely - and Happy Birthday wishes Mandi.
The pattern is by Judith Maslen.

In my Summer Garden

A nice simple design by Christine Coleman in the September issue of the Parchment Magazine.  My copy arrived this morning and I just wanted something gentle to do.    Coloured on the back with Faber Castell Polychromos pencils using dry pencil technique.  (Fancy way of saying - just colouring in).
The black ink work should be finer than this.  I cheated and used a Staedtler Fineliner instead of mapping pen and ink.  I wasn't in the mood for a pen.  Am I bovverred?
xx

Oh Christmas - #86 at Ooh La La

I needed to start adding more to the very few Christmas cards I have managed to make so here is another one and I decided to enter it in the Ooh La La challenge - Oh Christmas.
I have printed out one of the toppers onto parchment  from the  'White Poinsettia' folder on Carnival of Colour CD (Ooh La La).   I have embossed the image and then used one of the backing papers for the oval and the rectangular mounts and then a sheet of the matching weave background for the card itself.  Peel off trims and sentiment  from stash and spotty ribbon from The Art of Craft..

CD Sunday - Buttons

I am very excited this week for quite a few reasons.  We have a great sponsor in and we have been given a copy of Grandma's Button Box CD to play with and I love the CD.  It is colourful, bright and fresh.  I am looking forward to seeing your designs on the Button theme.  I think buttons figure in our earliest childhood memories as who didn't play with Grandma's or Mother's button box?  We used to use my Mother's buttons as tokens for a great card game called Ha'pennies in, Ha'pennies out.
Gosh that dates me.
Also my great buddy Debs is joining us this month as our guest DT.  I have known Debs for about 4 (mad) years now and I will be on her stand again at the NEC in November.
And we are now going to chose the 'Top three' entries each week - starting this week.  Please see our Blog for more details.
I think our team has made some fab cards and I hope you visit their Blogs - and I hope you like my contribution.  I loved making it and here it is.

I have used the patchwork letters which are a particular favourite of mine on the Cd. There are sheets of large, medium and small in capitals and lower case.  I have printed them all out and slowly cutting them all out so that I have a ready supply to use.
Last but not least a thank you to Chris for for her great contribution as our GDT last month.
I look forward to more sessions of blog hopping.  I have found that when I go to look at an entry to one of our challenges I always look futher on the Blog and sometimes go off on a visit  to someone on their 'blog friend' list - and then some time later...............

Well - the craft room move was successful and look what I found

Packed away in one of the boxes.  An ' Antique Pansy' card kit from Ribbon Box.  I bought it at one of the craft shows about 18months/2 years ago.  So now I am relaxing in my lovely new cool and airy craft space I decided to have a go at this.  I still have the rest of the box to sort out but I have achieved something. I have a very kind and sweet next door neighbour who has been nothing but kindness itself to me since the day I moved in here and it is her birthday next month so this will be for her.

Monday 1st Aug
Oops! Following on from the above - when I was putting the remainder of the kit away (enough for two) I realised that I hadn't actually finished the card.   So here it is - finally finally finished.

CD Sunday - Bling it up

For our theme this week of  'Bling it up' I have chosen a parchment pattern by Judith Maslen of a pendant necklace. The extra bonus of this pattern is that you could match the gem colour to the Birthday stone of the
recipient.  This is a  pattern that is suitable for a beginner as it consists of gentle embossing and a little gridwork.  I have mounted it on to linen look miri card and then used a bp from Carol Ann's Studio 'Glitz and Bitz' for the base card -  printed on linen look A4 white card.
I look forward to blog hopping again to see all your lovely cards.  Please join in our challenge and also  do visit my fellow teamies.
Our sponsored challenge next week is very exciting so please keep watching.

Fan - free download pattern from Amanda Yeh

I had a few moments of  Will I? - Won't I? show this as I marked the work after I had finished.  I caught the parchment with one of my tools and of course the sad thing is that you cannot remove a mark from parchment.
You can hide it by covering it - what we call a butterfly moment - but on here it would look so silly.  I could have made one new blade  - as a friend suggested - but it was all finished and glued. So here it is - warts and all.
The pattern is available from Amanda's site

Finished Project - Parchment Christmas tree

So here it is - all finished and sparkly.  The pattern is one by Pauline Loweth.  I have been dying to do it for some time and I thought it would be nice to have it on display in September.  It has 9 layers and a star.  They are threaded on to an 8" kebab stick with parchment  spacers between each layer.  The scalloped edges and the star are all painted with clear nail varnish and glamour dust added.  The whole uses a night light candle as the base. The one I have used is a special sparkly Christmas one I bought last year and forgot to use.

Now I have a special wedding card to make for my nephew and his bride to be so I had better think about that as my next project - unless I get side tracked.

CD Sunday - Dreams

For this weeks theme of 'Dreams' I knew immediately what I was going to create - a dreamcatcher.  I am a fairly down to earth kinda gal but the concept of a dreamcatcher  has always fascinated me and I knew I had a stitch pattern that would be just perfect.  I have added the beads and the horse charm to the design and used a bp from Joanna Sheen's Cd - American Frontier.
Here is a close-up of the design

and here is the insert with the Apache Wedding Blessing

I hope you like my card as much as I enjoyed the making of it.  If I am not doing parchment then stitch and bead work is my next best favourite.
Please visit the blogs of my fellow DT members and perhaps join us yourselves in our CD Sunday challenges.  We are all so pleased to have surpassed the 100 followers and of course  we would love to see more.

The next project

on my worktable is ??  There are 10 parts like this in various sizes and a kebab stick is involved. 

Miniature Handbag No:18

Well - last one for the show.  I did say that I thought it ought to be going out with a bang or  a whimper.  Well I decided the bang would be the thing.  But halfway through this one I began to regret it but it is done now.  I am not 100% happy with the handles and I may well change them but they are as per the pattern.  They were just fiddly and I got frustrated with them.
So here it is and it is called 'Lace'

The outside layer is one piece of the lace as you see it - two circles of pattern  joined in the centre - under the bag.  I couldn't face using my mapping pen and ink for the red outlines so I chickened out and used  my Staedtler triplus fineliner.  These are great - not as fine as is liked by parchment gurus but fine for this and I am not sitting an exam when it would be a No No. I was getting a bit desperate during the pricking out and at one stage even thought - they don't know which one I have chosen to do!!
The red lining piece is plain parchment that I have printed from a  backing paper folder on a CD.
Hope you like it -  and my next project will be ????
Thank you for all the interest and kind comments.
xx

CD Sunday - Nautical

Gosh -Sunday does seem to come round quickly.

For this weeks theme - Nautical - I used  a CD from Crafty Computer Paper -   'Card Kits and Bits'.
I have a few of  their CD's and I consider them an important part of my crafting CD collection.  If you need a very quick card that is a little different - quirky even,  then this Cd is great.
So I don't consider I have done anything particularly clever, original or inspiring this week but I hope you like the card nonetheless.
I look forward to seeing some great 'Nautical' cards from you all.

Miniature Handbag No:17

This one is a pattern I have used before but the style is a favourite of my Parchment Tutor -Marilyn Pybus. It is called the' Knitting Bag'.    It is on Marilyn's stand at the Sandown Show - in September - where all these bags will be displayed.  This one uses two pieces of parchment, one plain and one coloured. For the coloured one I have used Debbees Cd - Paper Flower Boutique.  It is a subtle backing paper of mainly yellows and soft greens.  It doesn't photograph that well but it does look delicate and pretty in the flesh.
The ribbon is already attached to the bag so that it can be hung from the Fotofall.  Sorry about that.  It is a fiddle to thread the ribbon through the glass beads I use as weights and I  didn't want to do it again.

One more to go but I haven't decided which one yet.  I think I ought to finish  with a bang and do a really complicated one - - -but then perhaps not!

Miniature Handbag No: 16

I love this one and I think it is going to be one of my favourites.  This is from Amanda Yeh's second book and the patterns in this book take some thinking about.  You can tell Amanda is a Mathematics teacher as there is so much calculation and logic in her patterns. There is an outer and an inner sheet to this pattern.  The outer layer is like a net - which is the name of the pattern - and worked in plain parchment.  Three of the petals in the blossoms are part of that layer and then other three of the six are done as extras and attached with special fixings and then a gem added..  The inner layer I have worked on coloured parchment - a pattern printed from a Carol Ann's Studio CD.
I was just going to make 12 but now I have reached 16 I might as well continue to 18 as there are 18 arms on the Fotofall to fill.

Ooh La La Challenge #84 - Tag It

Lots of excitement here these last few days as I have finally bought a Cuttlebug.  I have resisted strongly these last 6/7 years but a moment of weakness at The Art of Craft last week was my undoing.  Debs bought a file full of dies and folders with her on Friday and we had a session so that I could get used to using it and at least have a few bits to play with.  I only bought 1 folder and 1 set of dies.
This afternoon I was going through the bits we had done  and suddenly realised I had a tag to play with and Ooh La La have a 'Tag It' Challenge so here is my offering

I have used Ooh La La's crackle backing paper for the card and the tag, Kanban blue linen look mirri card behind the parchment scalloped mat I made.  The tag and flower dies and the embossing folders belong to Debs so I don't know who made them.
I enjoyed making  my first 'Cuttlebug' card and I hope you like it.

Miniature Handbag No:15

This is from Amanda's second book' Exquisite Bags' - and is called Collection Bag.  Amanda has done hers in Pergamano Orange parchment which has a coloured side and a plain side so that you get different embossing effects depending on which side you use.  In her pattern you have to reverse the top half of the pattern so that the turn overs are deep orange compared with the rest of the bag.  I haven't got any such parchment so I use a very pale spotted sheet printed from one of my CD's. Nowhere near such a dramatic effect but I like how it looks.
I sat and made this yesterday after Debs had left to go home.  It seemed so quiet without having her to chat to so I resorted to a Poirot DVD to keep me company.

Latest workshop with Judith Maslen

Debs and I,  and another friend of ours, Charmaine, went down to the woods again yesterday  to another great workshop by Judith.  Actually it wasn't strictly  the woods -  more New Forest.
As always we had two new patterns to work with.  If you read Judith's  Blog you will see that she summed us all up pretty accurately when she said we would moan about painting.  Yep - we did but we promised her we would persevere and I am glad that we did.  I wasn't 100% happy with my painting but pleased with it as a first go.  Need more practice with moving the brush in circles to prevent a hard line.  But Judith came to the rescue and we were allowed to dorso on the back to diffuse some of the hard edges.  A great tip.  This morning when we finished our cards Debs and I also added a little Faber Castell pencil shading to the front and that made it much more betterer -  as my children used to say.

So here is the morning card - Boutique 'Frilly Dance Dress'.

 Our afternoon project was a very pretty whitework design called 'Trailing Treasure' from the Fantasy Flower series.

Just a little dorso work behind the part oval, whitework embossing and a little gold writing and bobbles.  A lovely relaxing card to do and another lovely design from Judith.

The extras I have used were a Martha Stewart punch and gems from stash on the first card and a fantasy flower of my own - with added Bedazzles - from Debbees Cd    - Paper Flower Boutique on the second card

CD Sunday - Handbags

Front:

Back:

My parchment Handbag is made using a pattern in the June Parchment Magazine by Mary G. Kerr.  I have used a BP for the main body of the card from  'Shoes in Bloom' CD from Ooh La La.

Well done to Linda H for winning the draw and I hope you enjoy your prize.
As we all seem to love having as many handbags as possible (and a friend of mine - more than most) we hope to see some inspired cards.

Blossom Fan - pattern by Amanda Yeh

This wonderful pattern from Amanda Yeh's book - 'Exqisite Bags in Parchment Craft' is not for the faint hearted.  But like all Amanda's patterns,  it is grid work through and through which is my favourite part of parchment work.  It was a question of now I have started I will finish and I was up til 2.am. this morning because I just couldn't leave it.  This second book of Amanda's is challenging to say the least but I think the result is worth it.  I have mounted it on 10 x 8 ready to be framed.

Here is a close up of the ribs and bow

  I hope you like it.

(sorry Debs - I'll try and get back to some more flowers xx).

More from ' Paper Flowers Boutique'