WOYWW 180

This week I have on my desk for your perusal a layout I started at a crop on Saturday which I finish yesterday.  I have a card that was inspired by the paper roses I made for the layout, two samples for the template I have just put in my internet shop and all the halloween bits and bobs waiting for a box to magically appear and tidy them away!!  Will it arrive before Christmas I wonder!

Here is a close up of the layout.  I bought some fab papers from Jacqui at Crafty Island.  I loved the bright colours and they went perfectly with the Fun Fair photos - my little boy with the big Candy Floss is now almost 14 so it has taken me a while to scrap these!!!!  Just waiting for the perfect papers.

For a while now I have wanted to make you a video to show you how much I have learnt from the first one I took with my phone so I made a card with the same Cratepaper 'On Trend' papers that I used on the Layout and thought I would feature how to make paper roses in the tutorial.  So here is a close up of the card for those of you in a hurry.....

.......and if you have 10 minutes to spare here is the video tutorial.  Hope you like it.  These roses are so easy to make and look so effective.

I hope you are all having a fab week and thank you kindly for popping by.  Your words of encouragement always make me smile ;-)  I am off to desk hop starting at Julia's so follow me if you love to rummage on wonderful craft desks around the globe - don't knock it until you have tried it!!!!

Tag Tuesday - May 15

Hello to any lovers of tag art popping in to visit.

I found a fab challenge at Tag Tuesday where each week you can make a tag according to the theme for that week.  If you love a challenge and love making tags this is a great place to visit so follow the link ........ after you have had a peek at my effort of course!!

It is a popular challenge so I am an 'also playing along member' at the moment!!  So long as I can play too that's fine by me....  This weeks theme is gardening and I picked Land Girls as the inspiration for my tag as you can see.

I couldn't decide what image I wanted to use on my tag so I picked one and then used the others to make little cards that I popped into a pocket.  I used acrylic paint to transfer my image to my tag which is always a great way to get an aged look going on.  I decoupaged my Land Girl and even fussy cut around the prongs of her pitch fork without cutting them off!

I used glossy accents on the Womens' Land Army badge to use it as a cool little embellishment on my tag pocket.  Then looking for more charm or embellishments to adorn my tag I decided to make paper veg!  I have written a quick tutorial as I had fun making my carrots and cauliflowers and wanted to share - I wonder if this counts as two of my 'five a day"? :-)

So thank you for popping in to visit and thanks to Carolyn and Tag Tuesday for the Challenge.  It was interesting to read about the efforts of women during the war years.  It must have been a wonderful feeling to know you were supporting the men of the country off fighting the war.  Have a look at some of the great images of the Womens' Land Army out there on the internet - farmers never looked so glamorous!!

More Playing Cards!

As I have been learning to Blog I have been finding more and more interesting things that everyone is doing out there in Crafty Blogland.  I particularly love all the challenges I keep finding.  As anyone that knows me will confirm I love a crafting challenge!!!  It is like a creative workout - wish I relished a physical one as much.  I'd definitely be slimmer if I did :-)

I was thinking of entering a challenge I had spotted whilst pottering around in Blogland and as you know if you have popped in to visit me recently I have been working on card designs using up playing cards I had squirrelled away (for far too long to admit to!)  If you want to see the other designs follow this link and then this one!

Yesterday I started making a flower using larger playing cards.  I cut out petal shapes and threaded them on to a brad before shaping them and fanning them into a flower shape.  So here is another design using up playing cards and my entry into the April Challenge on the Truly Madly Crafty Challenges Blog which just happens to be Handmade Flowers!  Perfect.

Here is a close up of one of the flowers.  I love the way my flower centres worked out.  I had laid my design out and was trying to decide where I could put a greeting as there wasn't really much room when I thought I could put the greeting on the flower centres.  I printed out my greeting circles and cut them out before running my embossing tool around the edges of them the shape them into a cup shape.  I attached them to the flower centres and gave them a liberal coating of Glossy Accents.  

I have to do some work on my website today.  I have been putting it off as I am finding it hard to write the text.  I think I just have to do it and then update it if I need to.  Otherwise I am in danger of having a great looking website with no words at all!!  Stop stressing and start doing I think.  Wish me luck!

I Have Been Saving Fruit/Vegetable Nets!

I know some of you will think it was a strange thing to collect and others of you will think it is totally understandable.  I have been doing it for some time now as you can see looking at my collection and have been meaning to sit down to see what I can do with them.  So first of all I took them all and tidied them up a bit by trimming off all the labels and straightening them out (they won't stay that way for long!).

Before.....

After - Can you tell what our family eats from this photo?

Then I made flowers!  If you want to make these I have written a small tutorial so just click on this link.

Now what to do with them all.  I had a little think and I used the yellow flowers as the starting point.  I collected together some papers I thought would show them off and this is the finished card.

If I had used the black netting they might have looked like fishing net flowers!

If you like this card there is a tutorial available if you click on this link.  I like how my lemon net flowers have turned out and they were very easy to make.  I am going to have another think about what else I can do with all my nets.  I think they would make a neat alternative to ribbon so watch this space!!

I'd be interested to know what you can come up with or have already used them for.