Roses and Pearls

The Shabby Tea Room have excelled themselves this week with their choice of inspiring challenge photo...


Gorgeous isn't it. I think I see some pink roses... my favourite thing.

So here is my card...

Here is a close-up...

Not sure if you can quite see it but I used my V and A stamp ...which is rapidly becoming a favourite of mine, to print on the heart shape I made. I then covered it with glitter.

I made the roses myself following a tutorial using a flower punch.


Thanks to the generous efforts of The Graphics Fairy for the image I used to make my backing paper and Carol Anne's Boutique for the rose and flower images. And thanks Shabby Tea Room for the beautiful inspiration!

School Time

Once again this week I have been frustratingly short of time for my crafty playtimes. So I thought I would try and combine the challenges from two of my favourite papercrafting blogs.

The challenge from The Shabby Tea Room uses the following photo for inspiration and asks for the creation of a project with a school theme


The Moxie Fab World challenge is to use this Moxie Fab photo for inspiration..

I used the school theme to create this card and used some of the more pastel colours from the crocheted afghan in the Moxie Fab photo...

The background paper is from Basic Grey ...I can't say exactly what its called because I seem to have managed to glue down on my card the bit of it which bears its name.

I thought the geometric design on the paper invoked a pattern one might draw with a compass but also echoed the geometric yet floral shapes on the afghan.

Given the crotchet in the MFW inspiration photo of course I had to include a Making Memories crochet flower ...and because they are so cute

I even had a go at crocheting my own flowers ...as a keen auto-didactic scholar of crafts I'll keep practicing!

The tag was made with some Making Memories paper from Chloes's Closet to which I added a lace bow and a punched butterfly stamped with some turquoise ink and edged with gold glitter.


Thanks to The Graphics Fairy for the handwriting and ruler image and Carol Anne's Boutique for the adorable schoolgirl and sheet music image.

It was indeed a challenge to combine the two challenges in this way but I hope it has added up to something nice.

Fresh and Fly

A V&A stamp was just right for creating the natural part of The Shabby Tea Room challenge...

Rouge

The colours in the Moxie Fab World Tuesday Trigger challenge photo are rich, dramatic and... theatrical.

So this is what I came up with...



Apols for poor quality photo ...had busy week and only managed to photo it in artificial light with mobile phone camera.

BoBunny Jazmyne Terrace paper was perfect for the backing paper and images from Graphics Fairy completed the Moulin Rouge look which that photo inspired me to think of.

Birthday Card

My card-making time this last week has been taken up making an actual card for my actual sister's birthday...



I made an envelope too because of the rose it wouldn't fit in an ordinary envelope..

Bag, tags and teabags

What a great idea for a challenge from The Shabby Tea Room again this week. Tags!

One of my favourite things in all the world, after the shabby and vintage style in everything, is drinking tea... especially out in style (...more of which later).

So here is my project for this challenge:

I used a needle to attach some linen thread to a teabag at one end ...and tag at the other. I added a sentiment, stamped edges and distressing to the tags.

Here are the tagged teabags in a bag which I also made using origami, ready to give as a present to anyone who also enjoys their tea.


Here's a close up of the edging made with a border punch which I added to the bag along with a paper rose and a lace bow.


And here is a close up of the bag...

All you vintage lovers would love my favourite place to go for tea. It is the Westminster Tea Rooms in Southport. The waitresses and waiters dress in black and white, the walls are wood panelled, there are beautiful glittering chandeliers which elegantly reflect light off all the silverware used to serve proper afternoon teas. Even the music playing in the background is vintage ..1940s style.

Afternoon tea is served on beautiful three tier silver cakestands with china plates on them filled with cakes, sandwiches and scones.
Here is a photo of it which someone has placed online.

Here is a picture I took...

Ancient and Modern

The Shabby Tea Room challenge for this week is Old meets New.

Since I'm quite new at cardmaking my stash isn't that old! Though I have been collecting nice bits of ribbon and paper for much longer ..and never knew quite what I was saving them for. Now I Know!

There were many contenders for the 'old' bit of the challenge. Me, for a start! Also, I almost used a button from my mother's button tin ...but it didn't quite go with the card I was creating. Although it would only have been half as old as me.

The label of oldest thing on my card is quite debatable. The background paper was created using old (circa 2003/4/5/) acrylic paints (at least the ones I could find which hadn't dried out in their tubes) and new mini-stamps from Papermania Persimmon collection. The handwritten sheet music image... in its original state however is without doubt the oldest ...indeed antique thing ...albeit printed using 'new' (not very new) technology ie a computer printer. Thanks to the Graphics Fairy for the image.

Something old, something new, something metal, something blue

I always love the submissions to The Shabby Tea Room challenges as shabby is my favourite card style. Though shabby isn't mandatory I do enjoy the beautiful creations in that style!

A very interesting and different Shabby Tea Room challenge this week has generated equally talented responses.

This week's challenge was a photo of a bracelet for inspiration and to use some metal.

Mine ended up a wedding card!

I picked out the turquoise colour from the bracelet to use as the colour scheme for the card.

There are actually two lots of metal on the card. There's the obvious one you can see which is picture wire which I thought looked nice against the tulle frill.

The heart is also metal. It was originally gun metal grey and was in fact a button until I snipped the eyelet off the back of it. However, its original colour dominated the card too much so I painted it white and buffed it with some gold ink. I also added a bit of gold ink to the rose and its leaf. I want to cover the world in gold ink and glitter!

Here's a close up of the heart and rose embellishment...

The image of the bride I got from here. I cut her away from the rest of the picture using my art software and changed the colour of the trimmings on her dress to blue.

A load of crepe

Oh how I love crepe paper. Which is a very different story to my memories of it from decades ago back in my childhood. We used it in a not very creative way just to cover boxes in. I can still only find it locally in a variety of garish or neon colours ...so I have white paper and add a little colour to it with ink pads.

Now I love to use it to make frills on things.

Here's a couple of simple flowers I made with some scraps.. which I think turned out quite sweet.

A crepe rose..

I made them from a strip of crepe leftover from making the frill on this card...


I was trying to make a background paper with a damask type pattern ...but the stamp I used (perhaps a little too much!) made it look like a bunch of old skool space invaders... remember these little fellas.

I put the sentiment inside like so...


Also here's a simple card I made while just trying out stamps. The stamp is a type of flower but for some reason it reminded me of a shamrock ...especially as I had stamped it on green paper so I made it into a good luck card.
I just added a little bit of glitter to it.

Tea for One

The title of this post was going to be 'tea for two' because there were so many elements to inspire different cards/projects in this absolutely gorgeous image...

...which The Shabby Tea Room chose for this week's challenge that I was going to make two cards.

There is the almost 'folk art' style motif from the bodice of the dress hanging on the dress form which could produce a very different card design. There are the fashion elements within the photo as well as the furniture. And not least those delicate roses. My other card was to include the dressform and hatbox.

Unfortunately I have run out of time and so offer only this one..




The room in the photo belongs to the fragrant elegant lady on this card. Her name is Madeline. It is her birthday and she is treating herself to Tea at the Ritz. She has been getting in the mood by having some nice tea for breakfast - probably Earl Grey. The dress she will wear is hanging on the dress form. On my card she is wearing the hat from the hatbox adorned with a pink rose of course! She also has pink roses for cheeks! She is beautiful...



The beautiful image of the lady was kindly provided by Carolyn at Antique Images. I hope you like what I did with it!

The backing paper is Madeline Painted Roses by K & Company.
The rose on the hat is Habico paper roses.
The stick on pearls are www.markrichardsusa.com
The frame and sentiment are (badly) handcut by me. Gold ink and glitter hide many an imperfection!

I may one day get round to making the other card I had in mind just for the joy of it. But right now I am away to have my own tea for one from one of these rosy china cups while daydreaming of Madeline taking tea at the Ritz. Sigh.


Then I have so many chores to do. :/

Peace is not just for Christmas

I have noticed that many people are already preparing for Christmas - in cardmaking that is. There was even a challenge ...Christmas in July!

Over in the UK we have a 'bumper sticker' which says ' A dog is for life not just for Christmas'

Both of these things have inspired my card for the Signs of Peace challenge at Moxie Fab World and the Peace sign gets pride of place (and some glitter) at the top of the Christmas tree.

Peace to all, always! ☮

All at sea..

Life's been way too busy lately to reflect and blog so I'll just post the pic...

Here's my card...


Featuring a proper real shell from Southport beach ...slightly enhanced with some glitter.


Also stamped around edges with gold ink using bargain £1.50 stamp with a scallop shell on it.

Home Sweet Home

What adorable creations The Shabby Tea Room has inspired with their week #21 'House and Home' challenge. All those bird houses are just the tweetest things (sorry bad puns again!). I loved everything about the challenge image -the soft colours, the shabby but homely feel to it. Reminded me of everything a home should be comfortable, well used and relaxing.

House and Home is quite the theme for us at the moment as I prepare my adult Autistic son for moving on. He will be going to a residential college in September and is needing much reassurance that he will still come home for holidays and be able to do all the things he enjoys and have around him all his familiar things which make a place home.

He is horrified however about the prospect of 'new house' ...which is some years away yet but eventually he will have to move out of the family home and in to supported living. I will not live forever. Nor will our home continue to stand forever ...its in a pretty delapidated state already. If I pull at the wrong piece of string for cardmaking the whole house may fall down around our ears!

However, the 'House and Home' issues which inspired (if that's the right word) me this week were the ones around those with lack of a home due to the floods in Pakistan...

Here is the card I ended up making...


I made it using brown parcel paper and bits of brown envelope but the rest of the paper was shop bought. Its meant to be a tent. And I was a bit messy with the glue (I need to get something proper to stick stuff with and practise precision gluing!). But my thoughts are with people all over the world without a home.

You can read here about the UK's Disasters Emergency Committee and what they do and also donate to their appeals.

There is also an organisation called ShelterBox who have been supplying tents to those affected in Pakistan.

Shabby Effort

I've haven't been cardmaking long and I'm not sure I can claim the honourable distinction of cardmaking yet ...am more at the experimenting with cardmaking stage. I hope to go on to be a fully fledged (just for the fun of it) cardmaker. Though with heavy caring responsibilities I'm not sure I'll find enough time to devote to this enjoyable pursuit.

Being at the just starting out stage I find all the challenges a very useful tool to focus ones endeavours.

Over at Moxie Fab World one of their challenges was to make a project based on one of five card styles ...you can read and see all about it here. In particular I am loving the shabby chic and vintage style cards and projects. I didn't participate myself but what delicious inspiration!

So I had a go at doing a bit of shabby (without the chic)/vintage.

I used the colours from the colour challenge set by Kaboodle Doodles - purple, red, green and cream.

While I love the colour combination of lilac and pale green it was a tough challenge to incorporate the whole set of colours.

Anyway here's what I came up with ....my shabby effort...



The lilac buttons were from my mothers very old button tin. The button tin is one I remember from being a child some decades ago! Its always been there as long as I can remember and contains very old buttons which are cracked with age and in no need of any treatment to age them ...to really awful 1970s buttons ...to more recent ones purchased for the items mother has knitted for my children (now both grown up). So quite a lot of history and it felt quite wrong raiding such a sacred object.

The purple flowers were from the sweepings of a local home furnishings store ...I asked if I could have them ...they had fallen from their display of artificial flowers which they had been moving.

The red card was from the inside of an A4 document wallet. Everything around my house at the moment has holes cut out!

And the lush silk purple ribbon was off a box of chocolates I got some time ago and saved the ribbon. Knew it would come in handy!

I know I should list the rest of the ingredients ...such as the stamp I used for the word love on the heart ...but I don't have the packaging and can't remember whose it is :(

I will try to be more organised in future ...

A bit of a shabby effort really.

Take a bow

What fantastic and amazing cards already entered in The Shabby Tea Room week #20 challenge.

Take a bow everyone! (pardon bad word play)

The challenge criteria is to use one bow, two buttons and three punches (I do have that the right way round don't I?).

And such wonderful interpretation of the instructions the challenge has inspired! .. such as the buttons on the dolly bag by Mrs A.

So here's my effort for this week (do scroll down for some of the ..ahem..finer details on the card)..

This card came into being through the product of a series of experiments as I try to learn some cardmaking techniques using alternative free stuff.

The design started off with the flowery frame thing which I printed off from some clipart on my computer. Unfortunately it printed off as blue-green ink as some of the ink on my printer was not coming through. So to hide the botch I softly coloured the border in with a purple pencil and quite liked the result.

The polka dot paper is also the result of the same printing accident! (I think it was meant to be pink)

I'm still learning at this and trying to do it on a low budget. Hopefully in time I will get better and build up a better collection of equipment. So for this card instead of having any embossing equipment I used a small flower punch with white paper and stuck the flowers also on white paper to try to create an embossed effect. So that was punch number 1.


Punch number 2 was another flower punch but slightly bigger and used it on some watercolour paper painted pink (more of which later).



The tiny green bits of foliage you can see I blagged off a local home furnishings store. They were changing their display of artificial flowers and in the moving there were loads of fallen bits of petal and stuff all over the floor so I took a tiny handful and asked if I could just have them.

Punch number 3 was a plain scallop. Look forward to purchasing in the future a fancier one.

The two buttons are at the top left corner of the frame (see flower detail pic above). One is the tiniest thing ever and was pulled off a birthday card I got last year. The other is a small pink oval button cut off an old cardigan (must stop cutting up my clothes I will have none left!).

Another thing I have been experimenting with is how to get the distressed look without buying the distress inks (or at least not too many all at once). So I dug my very old set of acrylic paints out of the cupboard under the sink and some leftover watercolour paper from another cupboard. I washed the paper with very dilute acrylic paint and scrunched it up to make it crinkled and left it to dry. The brown coloured one was done with tea and ended up looking more like a chamois leather cloth than anything you might want to stick on a card! I have also read that you can get an aged look on paper by holding a flame under the paper. May leave that technique for a few weeks yet :O

I used the result to make the topper/sentiment for the card which is a forget-me-not image and words from a handily already vintage-look notelet sent to me by my mother (she also gave me a full pack of them so they may feature somewhat in the future!).


I may well fail the challenge on the one ribbon rule however. Couldn't make my mind up whether ribbon meant bow or just simply ribbon in which case my item of ribbon is a pale blue ribbon rose and was made last week in my ribbon rose learnings. But I also have a bow on it which is not ribbon but some pink embroidery thread which came with a cheapo template stitch thing which I picked up in a craft shop. And not content with one bow there is also a second bowish-shaped thing which is just the net bit off some mucky lace (hence cheap) (I think its meant to be pale blue) I purchased a couple of years ago for no other reason than it was cheap and quite pretty. So technically that's two bows and a ribbon which isn't a bow (see flower detail pic above). Ooh I'm tying myself in knots here on the ribbon-bow conundrum.

Anyway, I certainly had both fun and frustration experimenting and this great challenge gave me the opportunity to make some order out of the experimenting and accidental chaos!