Becki’s Ramblings

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.

I haven’t mentioned the wonderful ladies on the Crafts Beautiful forum yet. Such a friendly bunch, and soooooo talented too! The forum is based around all things crafty, but I tend to spend most of my time browsing and joining in with the card-making posts. I find the links to other crafters’ blogs inspirational, and find myself quite humbled by just how clever other people are with their crafts. On days when I’m lacking in “oomph” I find there’s always something on there to give me a kick into starting creating again - so, if you’re reading, girls, thank you so very much!

Here are a couple of ATCs I made for the Crafts Beautiful forum’s March swap. I have never made ATCs before, but found that I thoroughly enjoyed myself doing these. The theme was “Oriental”. The butterfly one I called “Butterfly Dreams”, and the pretty one with the blossom and the parasol is called “Cherry Blossom Breeze”.

I used an oriental script paper that I printed off from the Card Creations Plus “Platinum” CD-Rom, together with  elements from a couple of Paper Nation Decoupage Sheets. I then embellished these using Sakura Stardust and clear Glaze pens and added some iridescent flowers and gems. The butterfly had his wings curled and then raised with 3D foam pads, and the edges of the ATCs were inked with co-ordinating pigment inkpads (I have some wonderful cheap ones that are ideal for this - from Tesco, of all places!). I’m so pleased with how they turned out and am starting to understand why the craze has taken off in such a big way.

Yaay!! It snowed today! Only a flurry or two, and it only lasted for a short while, but it snowed!! Sooooo pretty..

Beautiful sunshine for the rest of the day, though it was blowing a gale and absolutely freezing. I’ve had a rotten headache for most of the day, so I tried to sit outside with a cup of tea in the hope that the fresh air would do me good. Too fresh by far - I lasted about five minutes before retreating to the warmth and shelter of my conservatory. Not hardy enough for that kind of temperature, however sunny it might have been.

Alan’s in Wales, on a course. I won’t get to see him until next week and I’m missing him like mad. To add insult to injury, the meeting he was supposed to have had this morning, which prevented him from coming over last night, was cancelled at the eleventh hour. Not impressed! Thank goodness for mobile phones and the ability to text.

Rosie’s been funny today, sitting at my bedroom door WILLING it to open so she can snuggle on my featherbed. Trying to be a magician cat, Alan said. You can just imagine her trying, “Open Sesamiaow!” She’s given up now and is asleep on the ottoman downstairs. Here’s a picture of my gorgeous little girl - in the garden, looking up at a hot air balloon that went over last summer:

Not had the time to write anything here for a few days. Alan came up on Friday afternoon - we sat and crafted together for a couple of hours, which was great. It is nice to have someone to craft with, even if I don’t have much energy to spend long.. Rosie wandered around the dining room like a little lost soul, miaowing and pawing at bits of paper we had dropped, before finally “flumping” onto the floor in disgust at not being cuddled, and going to sleep. Poor girl! She’s been so used over the last year to having me to sit with her all the time that now I am able to potter a bit more she feels abandoned. We made it up to her by sitting on the sofa later on, cuddling her. She loves Alan to bits and always seems to prefer his lap to mine. I try not to take it personally!

I’ve been doing more sorting-out of my stash. Reading through one of Alan’s “Let’s Make Cards” I came across a tip for storing ribbons. It suggested coiling the ribbons and then clipping each coil together with a tiny peg. I’ve got loads of those pegs and never have used any of them for carding, so this seemed ideal. I’d already collected all my ribbons together in a rather pretty octagonal tin, and now it’s even more organised than before. Hmmmm…. Am I a storage junkie I wonder? Ahem.. Next question!

Here’s the Mother’s Day card I finally finished for Mum last week.

I couldn’t get my head around what to do for ages, my original plans of something gilded and opulent just WOULDN’T come together. I need to spend more time just crafting for the sake of it, rather than just carding when I need to send something out. Hopefully as my energy levels increase I will be able to do more playing..