Something a bit different (and a card)

Hi folks I know at the moment I'm being really terrible with my blog posts and they're all a bit hit and miss. Last week I ended up having to stay at my sister's house for a couple of days to look after the twins so I wasn't even around to blog. On top of that I'm working on a bit of a project and I haven't had a whole lot of time to blog but hopefully I'll be able to tell you more about it on Wednesday. It's nothing exciting but it's taken up all spare time.

So, after seeing some of the things I've been making these last few weeks my OH had a bright idea that I could create something for his friend for her birthday. Being a glutton for punishment I said I'd give it a go and so I created this.  

It's a Nintendo inspired keyring which I created out of Fimo and UTEE. Now I've never ever used Fimo before but for some strange reason I have a ton of the stuff. I think sometime back in the day I wanted to give modelling a go and then promptly forgot about it. For a first attempt I don't think they're too bad, you can tell what or whom they're meant to be at least! The recipient of the gift was very happy with it so I think I can count that as a success.

Along with the keyring I made a card. As you may have guessed from the keyring, my OH's friend is a gamer. So I made her this card.

Whimsie Doodles - Epic Birthday

DCWV - Generation Tech Stack

I'm a real fan of this digi it's clean and simple and perfect for any gamer in your life. 

Well that's it from me. I hope you're well, thanks so much for popping by.

Five

It's time for a rambling post, hooray! So, here are five things that happened to me whilst I was away from Blogland.

1. Adopted a cat:
After Seth died I was rather distraught. I'd had Spence neutered in the summer and we'd been working on letting him come into the house, as we had tried to get him into a shelter with no success we basically went with the inevitable and adopted him. He's a great, grey oaf and very loveable. But he has a naughty streak, as the scar on my leg from where he bit me proves. Having said that the biting has now stopped but he still has mad moments where he attacks me (in a playful way) from under the kitchen table.

2.Tried to save an animals life:
Sadly I was unsuccessful and the whole incident put me into a really, really deep funk. A very sweet cat that lived across the road from me was mauled by a dog. I have to say that this is one of the worst things I've had the misfortune to hear (thankfully I didn't see it). I went out to help in the aftermath (it was past midnight and at first I thought someone was fighting on the road and went out to see if I needed to phone the police). The poor cat had hidden under a car so I got it out for his owner (people were scared to put there hand near the cat in case it scratched or bit them) and held him whilst she sorted out an emergency trip to the vets. Sadly the little guy did not survive.

3.Saved an animals life:
The very next night after finding out the cat had died Spence caught a mouse and although I love cats dearly, I hate it when they play with their prey. So I took this extremely small mouse off him to let it die in peace. It was soaking wet so I wrapped it in a paper towel and held it against my chest so it could pass away quietly. Then I felt it moving in my hand, I thought I was imagining it but when I opened out my fist it jumped onto the bed. So I recaptured it and put it into a cardboard box with an old scarf, a cotton ball soaked in water and some cashew nuts. I demanded that the OH let me keep it (probably due to the fact I'd lost Seth and that poor cat had died). To rationalise this I told him we had no idea where it came from and it could barely have been two weeks old as it had very little fur and it had little chance of survival if we released it. I moved him into a glass aquarium that we'd had for our pet rats. So now I have a pet mouse - he's called Zoos, as in the shortening of the Spanish pronunciation of Jesus (Hay-soos) and no, not because of him miraculous return to life, he's named after a character from Gravity Falls.

4. Adopted a cat 2.0:
If you are a reader of my blog (and if you are thanks for sticking with me!) you'll know that there were two stray cats in my garden this year. Gus is a very small tuxedo cat. When I first started to befriend both him and Spence in May Gus would have nothing to do with me. He'd run away if I went into the garden and hiss if I got too near him. In July he had a massive abscess on his face and when we tried to catch him for treatment he totally freaked out and disappeared for a day or two. Well in October I got fed up of going out in the rain to feed him so brought him in to eat. He hated it for about a five minutes then realised the benefit of being indoors. About a week later he was staying indoors for about an hour to get warm, a week after that he was sleeping overnight in the house. So last week he was neutered, I was worried about how this would make him react to us but for some reason he seems to have barely noticed and definitely loves being in our house, to the point of really NOT wanting to go out at night.

5. Made  a card:
Ok I know this is a craft blog so here's a card I made for our cousin who got engaged in September!

Craft Stamper - Free Stamps Oct. 2012 and April 2013

Clearly Besotted Stamps - Basic Banners

La♥De♥Dah - Photo frames

Gems and glitter from stash

As you can tell I've very much decided that I like CAS cards. I find something of a challenge to get the placing of the elements of them right but I just love the style so much so expect to see more in the future.

Thanks for popping by and reading through all the waffle to get to the card. I hope you're well.

Edit: My OH read my blog during his lunchbreak and just informed me he never posted this card even though I gave it to him two months ago. So Em if you happen to be reading this, sorry you got to see your card before you even received it.

Crafty Cardmakers Challenge #105: Clean and Simple

 

The latest challenge at Crafty Cardmakers is being hosted by Viv and she'd like to see your CAS or Clean and Simple creations.

Clean and Simpe is defined as:

 A design of card with clean lines, minimal elements, areas of white space and few or no embellishments, most often single layered or minimal layers.

The Less is More challenge blog has some really good descriptions of white space etc. if you're not fully sure of what we're looking for.

We have two great sponsors for this challenge.

Di's Digistamps

with a $10 Gift Voucher

    

and 

The Stampman

with a £10 voucher to spend at their store, it can be used online or if you're lucky enough to visit them in store or at a show!

This is my interpretation of the challenge:

Personal Impressions - Marion Emberson's "On your special day"

Brilliance Ink - Pearlescent Orchid

Versafine - Onyx Black

Pearls from stash

I created a one layer card with a lot of white space. I really love CAS cards but I actually don't find them very easy to create, I have to sit and think about the layout quite a lot before I get going. Having said that, they're actually my favourite type of card, I think they're very stylish.

Well I hope that you will join in with our challenge this time round. Make sure you check out Crafty Cardmakers for lots of inspiration from the very talented design team!

I get up again

Whoa I can't believe it's been so long since my last post. No excuses from me I've really just not felt much like blogging so I haven't. I've still been making cards whilst I was away from blogland so I'm going to share one tonight that I made for my dad for his birthday.

Indigo Blu - Bare Forest

Clearly Besotted - Happy Days

Dienamics - Sentiment Strips

Distress Inks - Fired Brick, Spiced Marmalade and Wild Honey

Versafine - Vintage Sepia

Mister Huey's Colour Mists - Shine

A pretty simple card to make really, I just cut out a frame to match the stamp and coloured a piece of kraft card stock with distress inks. Over stamped the "Bare Forest" image and used the Clearly Besotted "Happy Days" stamps to create the sentiment. Once I was happy with how the distressing and stamping looked I squirted a touch of colour mist over it, job done. Actually it sounds simple but it took me a ton of tries to get it perfect.

Anyway that's it from me. I'll be back tomorrow and hopefully I'll have some time to do a bit of catching up with everyone.

Thanks for stopping by.

Crafty Cardmakers Challenge #101: Cute and Furry

I know that my post is almost a week late but I've been ill with one of the flu like viruses that seem to be doing the rounds at the moment. That's what you get when you sit in a crappy ice rink watching hockey on a weekend.

So our challenge this time has been set by the lovely Jackie and she wants to see your "Cute and Furry" creations. So it's simple, just make sure your focal image is cute and has fur!

We have two sponsors 

Di's Digi Stamps

 

with a $10 gift voucher 

and 

The Stampman

with a spiffing £10 voucher for their store

My take on the challenge, a CAS card which I made for a friend of mine. He loves cats but he's a manly man, so this is cute, but not too cute if you know what I mean.

Lindsay Mason - Everyday Cat Purrfect

Random paw stamp from my stash of stamps

Papermania clear "Shimmer Dots" coloured black with a Promarker due to the fact I'm too skint to afford those enamel dots that are all the rage at the moment

A little close up of the image, I think s/he's pretty cute and furry

So that's it from me. I'm still recovering from this horrible bug so I'm keeping it short and sweet (well maybe sweet is going a little far). I hope you're well, thanks for popping by for a visit.

Quick Post Is Quick

It's time for a really fast post as I'm meant to be playing Animal Crossing: New Leaf with the hubbie before he has to go to bed.

I made a card for the challenge over at Clearly Besotted and this time Stephanie wanted us to create our own backgrounds. So here is my take on it.

Clearly Besotted - You Are

Actually looking at the card now it seems a bit meh, but it's the best I could come up with.

Thanks for popping by for a look see.

Crafty Card Makers 100th Challenge: Winged Things

Sorry this is a day late, I got a new computer yesterday and got rather engrossed in setting it up. Seriously, it's crazy how quietly it runs - I love it!

We've hit a milestone at Crafty Cardmakers as this is our 100th challenge which is being hosted by Viv, who has chosen the theme "Winged Things". She would like to see a creation with something with wings as a focal point, not a tiny butterfly charm or a small bee in a corner! So something with wings must be the main focal point. Fairies, angels, birds LARGE butterflies, birds etc would qualify.

We have two awesome sponsors as usual for the challenge, firstly

Crafts and Me

with a choice of three digis for the winner from their fantastic range 

and also by 

Woodware Craft Collection

 

with a prize of £12 to spend at your favourite Woodware stockist

Once again I'm pretty jealous that I don't get a chance to win a prize!

So, onto the project I was inspired to create by the theme.

 Sheena Douglass - A Little Bit Scenic: Flying Colours 

Distress Inks - Peacock Feathers, Seedless Preserves and Squeezed Lemonade

Heat It Up! - Silver Pearl embossing powder

Canvas board from The Works

Gems from stash

I made the background using the "Wrinkle free" distress ink technique, you can watch the GrandMaster Holtz demonstrate it here. I then finished the edge with Seedless Preserve (my new fave colour) and also stamped randomly with a small butterfly in the same colour. I spritzed those images to create a faded look. I then stamped over those with another larger butterfly and the scroll stamp that comes in the set using DI embossing ink. I could pretend that I waited for the canvas to dry but I didn't which allowed a nice messy edge all round with the embossing powder which I actually like. Finally I used Stazon to stamp the sentiment. Then I went to town and stamped the large butterfly on acetate, stuck it onto a Crafty Notions double sided adhesive sheet and chucked glitter at it then cut it out and added to the canvas. The last item was the gems to help balance it out. 

 close up of the butterfly

I do hope you will join in with the challenge and help us celebrate our landmark. Make sure you check out Crafty Cardmakers to see what other inspiration the DT can provide.

Thanks for visiting, I hope you're well.