Becki’s Ramblings

The postman has been really kind to me again this week. Here are some of the lovely things I’ve received from my wonderful Crafts Beautiful friends:

A huge thank you to Queenie, Sher Lynn and FairyPrincess - and to Martine for organising the image swap (and all the lovely ladies who stamped the images I received). I love all of them and it’s so great to get pretty things through the post.  

And here are a couple of Christmas cards I made yesterday. I love these stamps - details of how the cards were made are on our Particraft Blog.

I looooooove these stamps!!

No Alan this weekend. He’s away at V and I MISS HIM!!!!!!! It seems so odd to be here at the weekend without him here. Hope you’re having a good time babe, and can’t wait to see you next week..

Can’t believe how long it is since my last post - how lazy!!!! But seriously, I’ve been so busy! Alan and I have been starting to plan our wedding, and have been visiting venues, drafting out guest lists and getting quotes from all and sundry. We’re aiming to get married in May 2009 and I just can’t wait! We’re looking at a registry office wedding and then a small wedding breakfast in a restaurant afterwards. Even with keeping it low key, though, there’s an amazing amount to sort out. Great fun though - I can’t wait to go an look for dresses!!!!

Talking of weddings, it was my Mum and Dad’s Ruby Wedding Anniversary earlier this month. Here is the card I made for them - I’m so happy with the way it turned out. The stamped image of a lily is from PartiCraft - I watercoloured it and then stamped all over it with Perfect Medium and embossed it with Cosmic Shimmer Clear Embossing Powder, to give it an enamelled finish. I’m still experimenting with watercolouring but I think I’m getting better all the time. I loved making this one…

I feel so guilty - I’ve been really behind with my Crafts Beautiful swaps recently, owing to a rotten headache that lasted for ages and seems to have knocked my recovery back a bit. And yet my postman has been kept busy busy busy delivering lots of lovely swaps to me.. Here are the photos:

These are of a fab RAK I got from Louise (PinkPuppy) on the CB forum. The ATC is just lovely - I wish I knew where the butterflies came from - and the papers are so scrummy! This made me smile so much when it arrived.

This is a gorgeous 6×6 scrapbook page made for me by SilverCustard, showing her “Great Aunt Alice - 1920s Flapper”. I love the photo and the pretty layered look achieved with the flowers. Really must work on my scrapbooking!

This fab wedding cake is the bookmark that Glitzzy (Maureen) made for me, for the May CB Bookmark swap. It is SO detailed, and I just love the “CB” on the top. This will get sooooo much use. Lovely!

One of the newest swaps on the CB forum is of Button Fairies. I have never made one of these before, and am running very late with mine. Here is a picture of the really pretty one I received from KarenL for the May swap - isn’t the “Lilac Lady” just gorgeous?!

She’s so delicate, and I’m planning where I can put her so she sill be on display but not risk being damaged. I love her!

Just had a horrid few minutes. Tried to preview my last post - and it disappeared! Nowhere to be seen for ages! Aaaarrrggghh! The thought of having to type all that over again - nooooooooooo!!!! Keep calm, Becki, keep calm. Really. Keep calm.

Then (thanks be to Blogland) all of a sudden, there it was again. Don’t know what happened, but I’ve learned my lesson. Save, save, SAVE. Scary time - I’m soooo glad it reappeared. Can you see me putting the flags out from where you are???

Anyway. Back to blogging. And saving regularly. (Did I say I’d learned to save?).

I realised a couple of days ago that the deadlines for various CB swaps were almost upon me. Don’t know where the time goes to, honestly. Frantic hours of trying to plan and to BE CREATIVE. Really ought to know by now that it really isn’t the best way to do things. Okay. Sit down. Cuddle the cat. Have cup of tea. Have chocolate (thanks Laura!). Maybe have another chocolate. And another. Oh crumbs - where did they all go? Surely little ol’ me didn’t eat ALL of those!!! Move away from the chocolates. Further away. That’s better.

Creative juices flowing again, I managed to get everything done and posted in time. I can relax now, and leave it all to the postman. Putting out of my mind the fact that last month’s ATCs went walkabout for weeks…

Here’s what I came up with:

This is for the May bookmark swap. The theme was cakes - I had these gorgeous little cake embellishments hidden away in my stash. The pale pink paper was in my “bits” box - I’m finally remembering to check there before I cut into any new paper, just in case. I was so pleased it went with the cakes.. I hope whoever gets it likes it…

For the May card swap, the theme was “female birthday”, and this is what I came up with. I have a whole case ful of scrummy border punches that I bought from Ideal World ages ago, and I really don’t use them enough. This is only really simple, but I think it’s effective for all that. I hope Nessa thinks the same when she gets it!

I’m pleased with these ATCs. The theme for this month was butterflies and I used shrink plastic for the butterflies (coloured in with the trusty Sakuras), then some tiny little stamps for the flowers. The sky was some more paper from my bits box, left over from a page I printed out from my Crafters Companion Florals CD ages ago, and the grass is layered up using green paper and funky foam, cut into to give it the right kind of texture. On each one, one of the “layers” of grass” has been inked over with a darker green ink, and the funky foam has been inked over at the edges with blue (odd, but seemed to work, somehow).  I didn’t want to send them off, so I hope the post doesn’t lose them!

Oh goodness, I’m not very good at this blogging lark. Every time I think I’m on top of it I have a blip and find that I haven’t blogged for AGES!!!! Must try harder……

Those lovely ladies on the Crafts Beautiful forum have excelled themselves again. I have had such a wonderful week for receiving swaps and RAKs, and they are all gorgeous! Here are the photos:

These first two are of a gorgeous RAK that I received from Max62. The papers aer just gorgeous and crying out to be used for lots of lovely things. Just can’t bear to cut them up yet! Are all papercrafters the same? I just sit and stroke new papers, and look at them for ages, before I can actually bring myself to USE them!

And these are from Ultramum (Eve) - the ATC is really pretty, with a three dimensional heart on a fabric-covered mount. Very touchy-feely. I  keep looking at the feathers and sequins and want t ouse them in something really special - though Rosie has her pretty feline eyes on them too, and I have to keep telling her that they are Mummy’s feathers, not a bird for her to play with. She doesn’t look convinced, I have to say.

This stunning Victorian lady is from Twiggy Peasticks - isn’t she pretty! I love the backing paper of pale cream lily-of-the-vally against a green background too..

I’ve joined in with the CB 6×6 scrapbooking page swap and this is the pretty page that I received from Glitzzy. The flowers are very painstakingly decoupaged (must have taken ages!) and the whole effect is beautiful. I love this page - a very spring / summery feel to it. Now, where did I put my purse?! But that’s not all that came in the envelope….

There was this lovely ATC too (such pretty ribbon!)….

And all these sumptious papers! I nearly cried when I opened the package - such a generous gift from Glitzzy. You really are amazing people, all you CB forum folk. Thank you!

My amazing week continued - I am so lucky! This was next to arrive….

This was also from Glitzzy! One of the swaps on the CB site is a postcard swap - just started up - and as things would have it, this lovely lady was above me on the sign-up list and so sent hers to me. I love it! A really serene but comforting picture. It’s beautiful! But this generous lady wasn’t content with sending the postcard on its own -

Isn’t this a beautiful ATC! I love the pearl hearts and the glitter-embossed details. This is just crying out to be displayed on a wall somewhere. Beautiful!

I love it when the postman brings me some PROPER post, rather than just horrible brown envelopes and routine stuff! Today I received my CB Bookmark and ATC swaps for April and they are just lovely! Here they are:

The bookmark is from Tracy Fury and is just gorgeous - the fibres are soooooo soft!! The pink ATC is “Spots 1″ from Sheila king (Sheils on the CB forum), and I love the wirework and colours on this, the dots on the paper have a holographic sheen to them. The pretty blue one is “Dotty Daisy 2″ from Susie Blackwell (SusieB on the forum) and has gorgeous embossed daisy paper layered over dotty paper, the flower being layered acetate secured with a big dotty brad. Absolutely beautiful, all three of them, so thank you so much ladies!

Today is Caroline (Cupcakedaft)’s birthday, and this is the card I sent to her, using some pretty paper roses I had been wanting to do something with for ages. Only simple, but I like the effect. Happy Birthday Caroline!!

 

Where has the week gone?? Alan said to me today, “I can’t believe you haven’t updated your blog since the eighteenth!” - and I couldn’t believe it either. I meant to be so good and organised when I got back home, but it’s over a week since my last posting. Must try HARDER!!

Alan took me shopping last weekend. We went to Sir Stampalot in Peterborough (so much gorgeous stuff!) and I had to be very self-controlled. I did buy some white opaque Stazon and a clear Sakura Stardust pen, both of which I’d been after for a while. Alan bought a couple of gorgeous stamps, some watercolour paper and various other bits and pieces. I had to restrain him from buying a Wizard, which both of us want to get but can’t quite afford just yet. One day…. After Sir Stampalot, we went to Tescos - supposedly to buy food, but Alan treated me to loads of crafty stuff while we were there. What a lucky girl I am, to have such a lovely fiance!

Here’s a photo of all the stuff I can now play with:

So I spent a good deal of last week playing round with the watercolour pencils and the Whispers Strokes Alan bought the previous week. Having seen the gorgeous work produced by the lovely CB ladies, I decided it was about time my colouring-in moved forward a step or two. I’m pleased with the results though. The watercolour pencils are just gorgeous, and so easy to use, and I’m also getting better at watercolouring with my Sakura pens too. Here is the birthday card I made for Dad, using a Pink Petticoat download coloured in with chalks:

The backing papers are from a Dovecraft collection I have, and I’m please with how it turned out. Dad loved it, though he did say he wasn’t too impressed with my portrait of him! Typical!

I used the same download kit from Pink Petticoat to make the following bookmark, too, which is for the CB April bookmark swap. The theme was animals or sweetshop. Couldn’t resist the frog! He is coloured in using my lovely new watercolour pencils. The green ribbon is some raffia I had in my stash and coloured with an inkpad - first time I’ve tried this technique and I was pleased with the result:

More watercolouring - this time on an ATC I made for one of the lovely CB ladies. I used one of the pretty stamps Alan bought me from Tescos, inked it up using the vintage Whispers Strokes and then used my waterbrush to brush the colours in to make the overall effect a little softer. I love this technique!

The dotty ATCs I made for the CB April swap seemed to have got lost in the post, but turned up just after I had made two more to replace them. Ah well. Here they are anyway, similar to the last ones but a bit different too:

Alan had an arty weekend too last week, as well as buying lots of nice crafty stuff for me. I have an old set of dining chairs that I picked up years ago in a junk shop and have been meaning to get round to covering. Alan took my into the big new Dunelm Mill shop in Peterborough and treated me to some beautiful fabric. He then spent ages while I was resting, covering all four chair pads. They look absolutely gorgeous - look!

He also bought me a square canvas and covered that with some of the rest of the fabric too, to make a matching picture for above my mantelpiece in the dining room:

What a star!!

This weekend brought Alan’s Uncle Jack and Aunty Eileen’s 50th Wedding Anniversary party - my first chance to meet the extended family. This is the card I made, using a Keepsake board, fine peel-offs and a lovely embellishment from my gorgeous CraftyBitz stash:

I didn’t have time to make a box for it, so we wrapped it in some pretty gold paper and tied it with a ribbon, so it looked a little like a gift. Forgot to take a picture of that though…. I hope they were pleased with it. The party was certainly very enjoyable!

Finally able to blog again.. I’ve been in France for nearly four weeks, then had a cortisone injection in my right shoulder when I got back, which meant only being able to use my left had for a while. Which meant no serious typing. Which meant no blog. So looads to catch up on!!

Did very little crafting when I was in France. I did make one card though:

It was a bit of an experiment, because it’s very unlike my usual style. The aperture card blank is one from a huge pack I bought ages ago but have used very few of. I edged the card and the aperture with fine peel-offs, which I something I’ve wanted to try for ages but didn’t have any fine peel-offs at home. The butterfly is a bit of a collage: his wings are made up of small hearts cut during a test run with my Craft Robo, the green centre was made with a butterfly punch and his antennae are made from garden wire “rescued” from Mum’s box of bits and bobs. The stars are waste from a box cut with the Craft Robo (stupid me forgot to photograph that!) and embellished with star peel-offs. Finally, the flowers in the aperture are layered up from ones in a QVC kit that is part of my French craft stash. A bit of a mish-mash really, but on balance I’m pleased with the result.

When I got home I had some fab surprises waiting for me in the piles of post on my doormat. While I was away, the Crafts Beautiful March ATC swap took place, and these are the gorgeous little pieces of artwork that I received, all with an oriental theme:

Aren’t they beeeauuuutiful?! A big thank you to Alison (AlisonS), Marie (SewSimple) and Claire (SilverCustard) - the ones from Alison and Marie are my swaps and the one from Claire was an RAK; she sent one out to everyone as she was hosting the swap. I shall treasure them all, ladies. thank you so much.

Also waiting for me was this lovely necklace, sent to me by Emily13 (another lovely CB lady):

I can’t wait for the weather to be warm enough for bright little summer tops - this will be just PERFECT! Thank you Emily, such a kind thought.

I got another RAK yesterday, an ATC from Renata from CB. It’s gorgous, look, with my name all beautifully written in perfect calligraphy. I love it! Thank you Renata!

The April ATC swap on the CB forum has now closed. I’m a bit worried, as mine don’t seem to have got to Steph yet, and I’m hoping they haven’t got lost in the post. Here they are anyway. The theme was dots, and I love these. The dots on the background papers are glazed with a clear Sakura 3D gel pen (took ages!), while the daisy embellishments were a lovely discovery, tucked away on my stash. I’d forgotten I had them! The ribbon is from a Crafty Bitz kit I bought from QVC (or Create and Craft, can’t quite remember which now). Oh, I HOPE they turn up! It would be a shame for them to be lost…

While I was making these, Alan (my lovely fiance) asked me what size an ATC had to be, and then disappeared with some card cut to size. When I went into the living room a little while later, this is what he had made:

Isn’t it fab? He stamped the circles with Stazon and the lid of the pen I use to write on my kitchen noticeboard, then coloured them in and embossed them using the clear Sakura 3D glaze gel pen. The little places wherethe colour has run was originally unintentional (impatient boy waving the card around to dry the gel pen!) but he liked the effect and repeated it. He calls it Cosmic, and I think it’s fantastic. I love the fact that he crafts too. Except for the fact that he can draw and I can’t. Hmmm.

I bought some shrink plastic last weekend, at Craft Central. I’ve been longing to try it out. Mum has some, but she’s lostit, so we couldn’t have a go when I was in France. Not fair. So now I have my own. Because my heat gun is in France, I put it in the oven to shrink and it was SUCH fun watching it squirm before finally settling. The rose stamp is a Crafters Companion one from their florals sets, and the other is a Dawn Bibby clear stamp from a set that I bought a while ago and absolutely LOVE. Both were stamped with black Stazon, then the rose is coloured in entirely with Sakura Stardust pens, while the other is a mixture of Stardust and Sakura Metalic for the leaves, with Whispers Permanents for the flowers. I’m so pleased with how they’ve turned out, and only wish I’d punched holes in them before I shrank them, so I could use them as a charm. But they are so pretty, and so sparkly too. I wish I’d tried this ages ago!

I have so many things to do for Crafts Beautiful challenges that I was worried I’d lose track (head like a seive nowadays, unfortunately). I actually wrote myself a list yesterday, with dates when everything is due so I’m feeling very smug at the moment. One of the first things I need to do is a bookmark for the April swap. The theme is “Animals” or “Sweetshop”. I think I’ve worked out what I’m going to do, so will start on that just as soon as I’ve finished my Dad’s birthday card. A crafty weekend coming on, I think.

I’m surprised Rosie hasn’t been up here while Ive been typing all this. Since I came home she’s been so clingy, miaowing every time I move, sticking so close I nearly fall over her when I go anywhere, and becoming positively distressed if she can’t see me. Hopefully the fact that she is downstairs happily snoozing means she’s feeling more secure. Poor girl, I do hate leaving her. I found this photo of her the other day, when she was a few years younger, dozing in my running clothes drawer. I had to take a pic before I scooped her out!

We’ve had some sad news. One of Mum and Dad’s lovely pet goats has had to be put to sleep. Hannah was the youngest of the three, at eleven years old, but her digestive system had stopped working and, although the vet managed to get it going again, she had just given up and wouldn’t stand. Apparently that happens with goats, and when they won’t stand up their lungs and heart get put under too much pressure to cope, so there is nothing that can be done. It seem odd that only ten days ago I was feeding her and having a bit of a cuddle from her. Bye bye Hannah, we’ll all miss you..

Right. Off to have a rest now, then to get Dad’s card finished. Hopefully I’ll be back later to post some pictures of the finished results.

What a gorgeous day it is! The sun is out and I’ve actually been abl to put my washing on the line outside - spring is really starting to arrive. My daffodils are out and so are my primroses and grape hyacinths, and the pear tree blosson is just waiting to burst into life. And I feel so GOOD today! I’m sleeping much better, getting eight hours at night, rather than lying awake all night, only to find I can hardly keep my eyes open in the daytime. Definitely on the mend, I think. I hope…!

I had the most gorgeous surprise with my post today. After a week of brown envelopes I found a white, hand-addressed one on my mat. When I turned the envelope over I was surprised and thrilled to see that it was an RAK from Sara, aka Fairy Princess on the Crafts Beautiful forum. Sara, if you’re reading this, thank you again for making my day! It is so beautiful - just look:

I’ve made a couple of baby cards for Freehartz, one of the ladies on the CB forum who lives in Canada. She had asked for donations to help her with her special children’s charity. I wanted to make more, but I go on holiday on Sunday and have so much to do before then. Here are the cards I’m sending:

 

These are really just very simple cards, using embellishments that I got with a kit a while back. The yellow and green one uses some lovely sunshiney eyelets that came with my Crop-a-Dile. I haven’t made any baby cards before, so this was a nice project to tackle.

My amaryllis is in full flower on my conservatory table at the moment. Actually, it’s the second spike that is in bloom now, for some reason I forgot to photograph the first one. The bulb was a Christmas present three Christmases ago from a lovely lady who is no longer with us, but the flower is doing better and better by the year and always reminds me of her. Here are some pictures of it - it’s just so gorgous, sort of iridescent and waxy looking, but so soft and silky to the touch.

The second two pictures are taken using the micro setting on my camera - I find the centres of flowers fascinating. So beautiful in their compexity - I can see the individual grains of pollen on the original pictures, so I hope this comes out okay on this blog.

Having got the bug again for taking pictures of flowers, here is one of a lovely cream gerbera that forms part of a bouquet of flowers that Alan bought for me last week. The rest of the bouquet is a little past its best now, so I didnt take a picture of the whole lot, but these are so beautiful:

I’ve been a busy bee today. Well, as busy as needing to rest for half-an-hour every hour-and-a-half allows! Here is the card I made for the current “Fantasy Card” challenge on the Crafts Beautiful website.

  

I really enjoyed making this. It’s the first over-sized card I’ve mde and took two sheets of A4 card. I used some papers I bought a while ago from Create and Craft and have been meaning to get round to using. They’re so pretty - all fairies and butterflies and glitter. The inside of the card is a whole sheet of backing paper, stuck onto a sheet of A4. The front is another sheet of A4, folded round and stuck to the back of the first sheet, and covered with part of another of the same backing sheets, trimmed to match up with the inside paper. The topper is made from the front of one of the cards in the kit, matted onto some lovely pale gold mirri card with a little frame and picture of a fairy inside it, on 3D foam pads. The tag is also from the kit, mounted onto mirri card and then hole punched with my lovely Crop-a-Dile. The tag is mounted onto 3D foam pads and the ribbon tied onto it is secured at the other end by an epoxy butterfly sticker. I added a beautiful iridescent glitter to the pretty fairy on the inside, and some GORGEOUS iridescent adhesive gems to the mirri card frame. The whole card was then edged with pink ink, to define the borders a little.

I’ve posted the pictures on the website and now have to wait until the competition ends. This is the first cardmaking competition I’ve entered, and I’ve really loved having a brief to work to, rather than just having to come up with something from scratch.