Sweets for my sweet....

Sweets (or candy) ...one of life's essential food groups!

..and no Valentines Day should be without it.

Here is my card for the Shabby Tea Room 'Candy Hearts' challenge



I've been experimenting a bit lately with making my own background papers ...largely because so many of the papers I buy are just too yummy to cut into... and with a high turnover of products in the shops once you've used your favourite gorgeous paper ...its gone :(

So I made a pink gingham pattern on some card for the background and used some Tim Holtz distress ink to make it a bit vintage ...and indeed a little bit retro to go with my 'Love Hearts' themed card... these Love Hearts (remember these?).
Wouldn't try eating these ones though...


The heart stamp set is from We R Memory Keepers and the all the lettering is made using a cute set of alphabet stamps - tiny little stamps mounted on wood... it was quite difficult getting them to line up though! I nearly used the &?.! it comes with! But they are the sweetest little sets and come in a few different fonts. There doesn't seem to be a link to the product on the suppliers site but here is what a google search finds.

I hope everyone gets some love & sweets, chocolate and/or food of one's hearts contentment this Valentine's Day. No sweet heart in your life? ...treat yourself!

When life gives you lemons....

..or rather lemon cakes (which myself and autistic son made)

..make a lemon cake box!


I made it using Judy Hayes' template from the July/August 2011 issue of Papercrafts magazine. The template can be downloaded here. Such a simple design but very effective and cute (when made with cute/gorgeous paper)
I simply printed off the template, drew round it onto my paper & cut it out with scissors!

I used some yellow card/paper that was just lying around the house, lined it with some nice crepe paper, punched a frilly heart, stamped it up and put a cake in it with the intention of saving it for my other son. Sadly, we had to eat it as he wasn't due to visit. ;)

Thanks, Judy for making the template available. I think I shall be using it alot!

I have also decided to share this project (though not the cakes, they're all gone ;p) for the Shabby Tea Room 'candy hearts' challenge ...we have hearts, punched & stamped ..and the food theme... well it was there til we ate them all!

A love letter to my heart

What could be more romantic than a bundle of old postcards tied up with string, a frilly heart and a rose. Well, that's my entry for the 'love is in the air' challenge from the Shabby Tea Room. I have used pink, red & a little white, although mainly 'white' aged with distress ink. And a little light brown/sand colour for some of the lettered stamping.

And since I won't be getting any Valentine's cards (ahhhh!) this card is to me!
The writing stamped on the heart is made using a stamp from Prima Marketing Inc. Romantically, it has both New York and Paris on it ..though I had to stamp quite carefully to get them in the right place. May be I will go there one day.


The background paper was also made with a Prima stamp and the Post Cards were made with watercolour paper, Tim Holtz distress inks and a post card stamp from 'Clear Choice' stamps.

The gorgeous rose image is from some wrapping paper I have but will mostly never use because it is too lovely! I stuck it to some layers of card, edged it with gold, put a thin layer of glue over the top to give it a sort of lacquered/enamel finish & sprinkled it with glitter.

I might buy myself some real roses & chocolates to go with my card

Love, me!

Peachy!

This weeks "Gorgeous Gateaux" challenge from The Shabby Tea Room girls was indeed a challenging challenge with the requirement to use the colour combo of peach, lilac, pink and grey. Also to be used are lace and metal.

Here is my effort.




Believe it or not the torn paper piece with the words stamped on are washed in a very pale lilac acrylic paint - camera hsn't picked it up properly. I stamped it with grey, peach and pink ink with the words 'love' and 'divine'.

I embossed the cake shape with a cuttlebug polka dot embossing folder (and an, ahem, rolling pin).

I so loved the large peach flower in the inspiration photo I decided to make one myself. Didn't turn out too bad. I made it by painting tracing paper (for the right texture) with a wash of pale peach acrylic paint then using a flower punch to make some flower shapes which I then snipped a bit to make the petals a bit more spiky.

There is pink lace and for my metal embellishment I made a hat pin with lilac, pink and pearl beads on it and I twirled the wire stem of the pink rose.



The orange (variation on peach!) polka dot paper is from Making Memories Chloe's Closet.

All in all not quite gorgeous but it does have a cake on it!

Vintage Beautiful Boudoir Bliss

I've been so busy making other things I almost didn't make this challenge in time...


How timely and how beautiful this Shabby Tea Room inspiration photo is.

I recently got some free clear stamps with a craft magazine. It had a tailor's dummy in it which I couldn't wait to use.

And since part of the challenge was to use a sewing related embellishment ...what better than a tailor's dummy. I printed it in bronze ink on some paper I had painted a sort of duck egg blue. Also included is a piece of lace and a button which I had which were the perfect colour. Of course, I also just had to use my Sew-Easy tool to make the holes for the sewing on the edge of the paper.



(the second photo was before it was assembled)

This photo shows more detail of stamp...


Unfortunately it doesn't feel like it will last long ...although it is a clear stamp it is very jelly-like and I am certain to break or damage it in some way ..if not from overuse. See I just had to use it inside the card as well!


The tag is a standard office supplies tag to which I added a punched butterfly stamped with a Kars butterfly stamp. Amazingly for those of us on a tight budget they do some small packs of stamps for a couple of pounds. I can't resist buying a new set each time I visit the craft shops.


The project was begging for one of those miniature white frame embellishments to be used as there are a couple of white ornate frames in the inspiration photo and also lots of ornate carving on the chest of drawers. Since I didn't have any of those frames and unlikely to get to the shops to buy one I decided to try to re-create similar using stuff I already had. So I used some finely corrugated card for the frame and for the ornate carving on the frame I used some plastic foliage which I once blagged from a homewares store. They were moving their display of artificial flowers and lots of bits had fallen on the floor and were being swept up ..so I asked if I could have some! I painted the whole thing with white acrylic paint and voila! you can almost hardly tell the difference.

The 'canvas' background for the frame was something from an earlier experiment gone wrong (watercolour paper scrunched and stained with tea - see here) - never throw anything away!

Joy - the name of the woman whose boudoir this is has done some altered art herself and cut out the original picture from the frame and placed in a rose - something which she clearly loves.

I love these roses - they look good enough to eat. The packet just bears a company sticker with 'Sweet Lilac' printed on it.

The polka dot paper is Melissa Frances Fifth Avenue and the other paper which is like an image of some fabric is Laura Ashley paper. The pink rose and the polka dot paper adds a hint of contrast colour to an otherwise almost monochromatic scheme.

All in all a fantastic challenge with a beautiful photo for inspiration. The photo shows a boudoir as it should be - beautiful and blissful and shabby and vintage all at the same time.

Christmas catch up

Just a few cards and wrappings I made over christmas...
...an old rose I made from crepe paper...


A gift bag I decorated with some Fifth Avenue paper, pink netting and some pink tinsel bought at reduced price...


A Christmas card..


Some food labels for mother's Christmas Eve buffet...


My Christmas tree from the garden (the top off one planted a few years ago)..


Didn't make these.. cute little glittery birds perched in my tree...


My brother's birthday card..


Inside birthday card..


Birthday pressie..


A thank you card...


A New Year card...


Another thank you card..

I hope 2012 is sweet for you

Over at The Shabby Tea Room the New Year challenge is to create a card or project on the theme of 'A Colorful and Shabby New Year' using the colours pink or red and green, blue and yellow with this photo as inspiration....

So to try to capture the sense of fun and exuberance in the image I created this ensemble for our New Year Celebration...

There's a goodie bag of sweets and a carton of juice to sweeten the party mood.

The stripeyness of the challenge photo just begged for the use of some Baker's string. Unfortunately I have been unable to source any locally so I used what was in a spare ironing board cover - red and white string is used in such covers to gather, tighten & secure the cover around the ironing board.

I did find however some cute yellow stripey buttons ideal for the project


The cute, cute clown is an image from The Graphics Fairy which you will see I have edited quite a bit. But he/she is just soooo cute.

The bag is my favourite thing to make - its an origami folded bag made with light green paper (though you can't really see it in the photo) with the front decorated. The handles on the bag were taken from another shop paper bag & re-used. I also added some crepe paper streamers inside the bag as extra decorative packaging.



I put sweets in a cellophane bag and added some paper to seal the bag. Inspired by some of the ideas in my Jan/Feb 2012 copy of Papercrafts magazine.


Somewhere, either in a mag or on a blog (if someone can point me in the direction I will add a link) the question has been posed as to what our favourite papercrafting tool is. Well, for me, although I only just got it, it has to be and I feel certain it will be in the future this Sew Easy Stitch Piercer. I love seeing the stitching on other people's projects but am not confident in my sewing skills nor my rickety old sewing machine to risk gorgeous papers being chewed to shreds in the process. This gadget pierces holes just in the right places for you to be able to handstitch using the holes. Simple but very effective!

All the challenge colours are there in the papers used which are appropriately enough Bo Bunny Sweet Tooth Collection (the wavy stripey one) and the polka dot one is from Melissa Frances' Kitschy Kitchen collection.

So much fun and colour I tried to incorporate I fear my project may just resemble a rather loud party. Great fun doing it though! Hope you all have fun too looking at it.