Funkie Junkie Poinsettia...

Hello there Peeps!!!

Long time no hear I know.  I have been such a bad blogger lately but I am hopefully more settled now and hope to get back into the swing of things.

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend and that the Easter Bunny came to visit you.

Something I always try to keep up with is my making cards ready for Christmas and I usually join in with Mo's Rudolph Day.  There is still time and so I am sneaking this one in.  I had started to make it before Christmas but didn't finish it due to circumstances so I am sharing it now....

I was making it for the Funkie Junkie Challenge but missed it.  There are so many Snippets in there too so I am taking it to the Playground.  I hear Parsnip was dressed up as an Easter Bunny too and covered in choklit.  I had better take the wet wipes!!

To make the card I first of all stamped the background with versamark and my NBUS Stampendous poinsettia stamp and sprinkled it with gold embossing powder.  I die cut some card snippets with my TH die, inked the edge with versamark and again used gold embossing powder along the edges.  I used some hessian ribbon across the card, stamped a "label" sentiment and tag before adding some snowflakes both wooden and paper.

A peg to hold the label on and hey presto card was finished ready for sending.

Thanks for calling by.  I hope to visit you all very soon.

Hugs

Hettie

NBUS Birthday Card

Hello there

I know, I know, I have been a very bad blogger lately.  My blog has been badly neglected, save for my Friday Funny posts.  I have visited a few of you, but time has simply been running way ahead of me lately, but hopefully the lure of working outside will not be so strong now as the nights are drawing in and it is getting a little on the cool side now.

I wanted to share my Christening cards I made recently, but I appear to have lost the photos.  Shame as they were gorgeous.  For one of the cards I used the same stamps as this card (well it seemed a shame to put them out too soon!) so I guess I can stretch the NBUS rule as this was only the second time I used them.....

The Lilies are Sheena Douglass stamps that I bought AGES ago and not used them - shame on me.  This was also the first time I used my new Abandoned Coral DI which I LOVE!!!    I inked up the stamp with Versamark and WOW white embossing powder.  I then used Abandoned Coral  and inked the background.  Spritzed and flicked some water, trimmed and adhered to the front of the card.  I needed a little white so used a MB die cut that was in the Tin of Shame.  I used some Snippets to stamp the HB and inked up again, Can you see it is different card as it is darker?  I mounted this on to a slightly larger piece of white snippet having first tied a little ribbon around the card. 

Some pearls spotted around and there you have my card.  I do love this colour and those stamps are not going to be back in their packet for long!! 

 

Right then....off to join in on the following Challenges!

 

NBUS

 

 

Addicted to Stamps Challenge

Snippets Playground

Thank you for calling by.  Please leave me a comment so I know you have been.

 

Hettie

Sympathy Card for a Friend

Hello

I had occasion to send a sympathy card to a friend who lost her brother recently.  I have a lot of envelopes which were given to me that takes cards 4.25" x 8.5" so I needed to make my own cards.

I used my NBUS Spellbinders die that my Special Friend picked up for me at a Stamp Show in US.  Isn't it just gorgeous.  The die cut at the bottom comes out of the centre.  There are two other cuts too, and I will no doubt share those with you another time. 

 

The sentiment is a stamp I picked up quite by chance on a stall in our local market, it was second hand, but just what I needed.  I used DI to stamp it.  I just love the punched details on this die set.

 

 Here is a close up of the die cut with all the detail.  The flower and butterfly die cuts were made with my Memory Box dies, the flower was from another Special Friend who gave it to me when we met up earlier this year.  You know I love it Kath!!  Again, coloured with DIs.

 

Right then, off to play in the Playground as there were lots of white snippets used on this card.  I am grateful to Miss of the Playground, who advised use of wax paper for fiddly die cuts, and boy is this a fiddly die cut!  Worth the trouble though I think!  I am also entering this into the Cuttlebug Challenge which this week is "Anything Goes".

 

Thanks for visiting.  See you on the swings!!

 

Hettie

WOYWW 316 - Sat at the Sewing Desk today....

Hello there!!

Now let us see if I have internet for more than five minutes today shall we?

Hello there and Welcome to One and All to my Humble desk today.  Today is Wednesday and I am joining in on WOYWW!!  Today I am viewing life from the Sewing Desk!!  

 What happened was....... I spotted a Pin on Pinterest...... I am having too many of those moments aren't you?  Well, going back to my story, I saw a Pin and Pinned it.  Then I had the opportunity to order more Sizzix dies for the quilting group I belong to and chose some that I wanted including a triangle.  Well, a week last Sunday (15th), when I had nothing better to do I decided to play with the triangle die so that I can show other members of the group a way of using the die and a quilt was born.

 Do you like my new mug?  I love it.  It was a birthday present from my buddie and it is perfect for preventing threads and pins landing in my tea!  For the eagle eyed among you, yes I am using Christmas fabrics!!

After just 9 days I have made 43 blocks!! This quilting malarky is addictive and FUN!!  Here are some of the blocks waiting to be sewn together.  I will share the finished quilt top when it is all stitched together which will hopefully be before Saturday (I want to take it to quilting).

Well that is it from my desk today except to show you a pic of the two WOYWWers I was lucky enough to meet up with on Monday....

Yes, our very own Wispo and Twiglet.  They are as lovely IRL as I hoped.  Can you believe they dragged me kicking and screaming into a fabric shop?  Yep, I really did not want to go in there!!  Thank you ladies.  

I have a photo of someone else at my desk from recent weeks, and fear not I will share that with you again....that camera is not handy and I am losing the will to live to download the photo to my computer and blog!!

Off to join the WOYWWers minus the Leader Julia as she is of on her jolly holidays.  You would think she would invite us wouldn't you!

Catch you later!!

Hettie

Happy Birthday Steph...

Hello there

 

How ya doing Folks?

 

Now we are finally having what we can call a summer, though there are some intermittent dull days mixed in.  At least on those days we can leave the watering to nature!!

 

I want to share a birthday card I made for a good friend a little while ago...

I used my lovely Artistic Stamper stamps and a mixture of Distress Inks including Antique Linen, Peeled paint and Gathered twigs as well as Potting Shed Archival ink.  For the marigolds I coloured them in with Copics.

The base paper is some which I received as a freebie from Prima.  Most of the pieces were from the Snippets drawers and the leaves die cuts were from my Tin of Shame.  A little piece of ribbon to finish it off and I am now taking this down to the Snippets Playground.  I am also going to share this with the Artistic Outpost Challenge too. 

 

Thanks for calling by. 

 

Hettie

Happy Birthday to Two Special People

Hello There

 

Well, that weekend went whoosh ...and then it was gone!!  Had an exciting one too as I went to the WOYWW Crop on Saturday.  I will share photos with you on Wednesday.  On Sunday I played Apprentice Beekeeper and pulled off our first small batch of honey for 2015!!

 

Tonight I want to share with you some cards I made last month for two Special People who had birthdays last month within a week of each other.  I used my very new Lavinia Snail stamp.  Well, I was ordering a stamp for one of my Special Friends, so I may as well as take advantage of justifying the postage!!

 

 

The star paper is some from Crate Paper which has been in my stash for several years. 

 

The images were all stamped using Potting Shed Archival ink and I used a selection of DIs including Brushed Corduroy, Gathered Twigs and Walnut Stain.

 

Also NBUS were the sentiment cards which I bought last year on my USA trip.  I have been hanging on to them so I thought it was about time they were used.

 

The little stars were made using my Simon says Stamp die and dark brown card used for matting were all from my Snippets box.

 

I had fun making these and I do love the snail image.

 

As I used some Snippets I shall be popping down the Snippets Playground to see what my fellow playmates have been up to.

 

Thanks for calling by.

 

Hettie

http://pixiescraftyworkshop.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/pixies-snippets-playground-week-177-and.html

Scrapbook Tuesday...WaTer on Tuesday...

Hello

 

Yikes!  I better get a shuffle on while it is still Tuesday!  As we had a Bank Holiday last weekend, I planned to catch up on some sleep and have a play in my room.

 

I am not showing you the evidence of my sleep catch up but I will show you what I made in my room....

It has been ages since I did a scrapbook layout and I really enjoyed this one...

 

Aren't these die cut flowers darling?  This is a NBUS  Poppystamps die and was bought for me by a Special Friend.  You know who you are.  Now you know for sure that I love it.  I coloured them with Picked Raspberry, Mowed Lawn, Abandoned Coral (NBUS), Spiced Marmalade, Peeled Paint, and Pine Needles DIs.  I also cut some MB flowers used with the gutted piece of background.  Some of the flowers to the left of the photo are Prima, some punched card and manipulated and one is layered paper flowers, spritzed, scrunched over a brad and prayed with Brushos when dry.  Things I do for a layout ey!!

These pink flowers are ancient.  Heidi Swapp bought from a craft show many moons ago.  The corner is a Susan Wilson die.

The papers are MME and ...oh darn I forgot.  There are also lots of Snippets used.  This butterfly was "borrowed!" at a retreat several years ago and has been nestling in my Tin of Shame. 

The letters were cut on the Cricut.  I glossy accented them and sprinkled some micro beads on them, as well as the centres of my die cut flowers.

This red flower is a brad by Tilda (NBUS again) which I bought when I saw them in a shop in Prague.  I really didn't expect to see brads in a fabric shop in Prague!!!!

 

 

Right, it is still Tuesday so I am joining Elizabeth for her T on Tuesday, though I am upping my water intake for May as I am conscious I don't drink enough.  Joining the Girlies on the swings at the Snippets Playground too.

 

If you think you may have seen this photo before, you are right.  I scrapped the same some time ago.  However, last year I entered it into my work's Wildlife Photography Competition and it won!! Well, I had to scrap it again as it was a shame to waste the photograph. 

 

Thanks for calling by.

 

Hugs

xx

Sealed with a Kiss....Layout

Hello there

I have to apologise to my blog for neglecting it for the last few days.  I have been a little under the weather with the lurgy after someone very kindly coughed and sneezed on me last week.  I came home from my Quilting Group on Saturday feeling dreadful and got generally worse.  I am not going into details ok, but I did not get out of bed much until today.  Though I did have a shock when the person concerned phoned me yesterday to apologise!!! 

Anyway, a few weeks ago I promised to share with you a little layout I had done so here it is...

 This is most probably the last layout of my Wedding Album, but note I only said "probably"!!  I have so many photos left still!

 

 

So where do I start?  The background piece is a piece of black cardstock and I took some of my stencils, my old white ink pad and an inkie paddie thing (can't remember what you call them now...made by that Tim chappie!) and swooshed some ink through the stencils, one of which is a NBUS bought from US by Memory Box...the one with butterflies on.

The die cuts are a mixture of some that were kindly sent to me by my Buddy over the water and some from my Tin of Shame.  The TH clock one was originally a wishy washy beige colour when I started.  I smooshed some TH DIs Tea Dye, Gathered Twigs, Brushed Cord, and then rubbed some Treasured gold wax on top.  

The PPs are bits left over from previous layouts so Snippets...yeay!!  The corrugated card is from a package that had arrived a few days before (again inked with some DIs as above.

I put the little birdies on top as a nod to the pair of seagulls we kept seeing on Guernsey where we got engaged.  Now THAT is another story and why there are two seagulls in our bathroom!!

Now the flowers.  The one at the bottom of the clock and the others like it are NBUS and by Prima.  I only used a few as they are soooo nice.  Can you see the little seeds popping out from behind the flower towards my arm?  There are a few of these dotted around and they came out of my Happy Post I received just before Christmas, along with the sparkly heart...Thanks again my Friend.

The other flowers were made up from flowers in my stash, brads in the middle, some of which are years old, sprayed with Glimmer Mists, Perfect Pearls, layered and scrunched up. 

The MS Monarch butterflies came out of the Tin of Shame and there are others that I made using old books and my SU die.  

I wanted a little bit of watch parts in there and I saw a key somewhere when I was gathering things up so thought I would throw that into the mix too along with a NBUS TH card.  I tied the ribbon with a little bit of silver grey ribbon that was actually adorning a present my friend gave me at Christmas.  Waste not and you will want not.  Lace came from Funkie Junkie.  Only a little piece as it is too nice to use all in one go!

The leaves you can see were punched out of Snippet using my MacGill punch and inked up with DIs.

Finally I used my Cricut to die cut the  title which I cut twice to give it a bit of oomph!  Then I smooshed some more wax around and spritzed a little perfect pearls on there. 

Love the layers you can see in these last two photos.  

Hurrah!  You have made it through to the end.  Well done you.  Unless of course you skipped and just looked at the photos!  I don't mind but please leave me a comment to let me know you have been.

I am taking this over to the Playground for a ride on the swings and then cosy in front of the fire.  I am also entering this into Shopping our Stash as they are looking for old brads...mine certainly count as they are ancient!  And I will flutter past the Butterfly Challenge as there are some hexagons on my layout.   Not very often I get to link up with a few challenges!!  Woo hoo!!

Thanks for being patient.  See you all soon.

Hettie

Hubby's Christmas Card - Funkie Junkie no 5

Hello there!

As I was packing the decs and cards away last night I realised that I had yet to share Mr Hettie's Christmas card with you, nor looking at my camera had I even photographed it, so I took some quick shots in the dim morning light and pronto before I came out to work.  So without further ado....

And this is the tag from the Funkie Junkie Challenge which gave me the inspiration...

I took the stars, silver and rays stencil as my inspiration.  I did not have the same die, but I borrowed the carolers die from my friend, cut the piece from a Snippet and then embossed with several layers of silver embossing powder.

The background was from a downloadable which I found on Pinterest (NBUS to me!).  I did not have the TH stencil so I turned to my trusty Silhouette and cut one using a piece of laminated plastic that I had left over from some laminating I did for my boss!  I know!  So I wondered if it would cut and it made a fine and dandy stencil.  I took my Versamark and inked through the stencil and added clear embossing powder into which I had sprinkled some Martha Stewart glitter, then I heat embossed it.  Once it was cool, I added some NBUS Scattered Straw DI to give a bit more of a yellow glow to the background.

Around the edge of the background I then stamped my Hampton Arts dotty stamp and embossed with some silver embossing powder.  

The lamp is TH which I again used Snippets to cut out before adding some stickles to the red berries.  I used my SSS stars die to cut the small stars out using Snippets of gold glitter card.  The sentiment was cut using the Penny Black with Festive Berries DI and clear embossing powder.

Hubby loved it and actually so do I.  I wonder if Lesley will let me borrow the die again?   Maybe if I offer her some eggies in exchange?

I am too late to join in the Funkie Junkie Challenge due to an array of reasons which I will not bore you with but I am going to finish the 12 so watch this space.   I can now join in with the Snippets Playground and Darnell's NBUS as there were both Snippets and newbies on this card.

Thanks for calling by.

Hettie

On the Ninth day of December....an Alteration for Bran Tub pressie!

Hello there

Is it me or is December just chomping along at a fast rate of knots?

On a previous post I mentioned that I was at our quilting Hope Lunch and that we traditionally have a Bran Tub.  Well, it has got around that I usually make something and so couldn't let them down this time.  I had bought some ribbon and some needle threader/cutters and now I just needed to "present" them some way...

 Take one tin that has been hanging around in your craft room for several years waiting for a project.

 Take some chipboard that has previously been on the back of a notepad in work.

 Take some VOS K&Company paper and cover said tin, find some Snippets and TH and Paperartsy stamps, half of a dummy torso that you had left over from a previous project, some buttons and flowers... jumble it up a bit and you get this...

 Do you like it?  I know Elaine did.  So glad she got it as she does love owls.

And the side didn't get ignored...

 Nor the base.  I was sent these stamps from a very kind blogging pal and this was their first time out.  Do you like my Handmade stamp too?  Only just received it from Etsy.  Love it!

 And here is inside the lid...

 Inside the box...

 Oh yes...I added some more ribbons.  The cards were also cut from the TH die and inked up with DI ink.  Some bells, buttons and pretty pins too.

Thanks for calling by and please let me know what you think.  Off to share this with the Pirate Cap'n Miss Di and her parrot called Parsnip as there are oodles of Snippets used in this project. ....last seen looking for another tin to make one for Mum for Christmas....

Hettie

Assorted cards...with NBUS

Hello there

Sunday evening here again and I am waiting for Downton Abbey to start.  Nowt on TV but on BBC 4 there is TOTP 1970s - boy I feel old as Police and Roxanne is playing from 1979!! I was still in Comprehensive then!!!!  Sting looks a little younger too!

Tonight I wanted to share two little cards I made recently, one to send to a friend as a kinda Hello card and the other a birthday card...

I used a NBUS Tim Holtz stamp that my Buddie Kim picked up for me. I stamped it with versamark ink and embossed with WOW white embossing powder.  I blanked out the "Birthday" word to make it non-birthday-have-a-cake kinda card.  The little die heart and star die cuts are made using Snippets and a NBUS Simon Says Stamp die which I collected from Kim recently.

And here is the Birthday one.  The Smile and Enjoy die cuts are NBUS Penny Black dies from Absolutely Everything.  Gosh...Blondie!!!!  I cannot believe I remember her first time round!  Of course she is now Deborah Harry now!  The purple cards I have had forever so they are VOS.

Now I am going to hit myself with a Rhythm Stick and do myself some cocoa and look for my zimmer frame while I go down to the Snippets Playground to see if the Young Ones have cleared up after last night's bonfire!  If they haven't perhaps I will thwack them with my stick!

Have a great week everyone.

Hettie