Beaded Needle Case

No it's not your eyes which are playing tricks it is my dodgy photography - problem with this little needle case is that it didn't want to stand up on its own so I did the best I could with the object in one hand and camera in the other.  All in all a bit of a disaster but as I've not posted for a couple of days I didn't want my friends worrying where I am so apologies for the fuzzy result.  Beading a wooden needle case is something I've not tried before and I thought it would make a change from jewellery - I have enjoyed making it. - The wooden 'blanks' come in packs of two so I might well make another one before I put the remaining one away in a safe place and probably forget where I've put it.  I friend kindly loaned me a couple of books with various designs so plenty of choice some much more elaborate and detailed than others. Today has been blue skies and sunshine and what I should have been doing is mowing lawns but hopefully the dry weather will last at least until tomorrow when I really must do them before I get sidetracked into any more crafting fun. No prizes for guessing what I'd rather be doing than mowing lawns!!

Edited to replace the 'fuzzy' photograph with this one - why didn't I have my brain in gear yesterday to photograph this lying down - definitely a senior moment.

White Flowers

... and here is the card with white flowers used as embellishments which I mentioned yesterday.  I used the Chocolate Baroque Haberdashery and Lace stamps, again on the Tim Holtz Vintage Shabby paper - I'm trying to use up as much of a sheet of paper as I can when cutting into a new one rather than put the pieces into my 'bits and pieces' boxes.  Mind you there are always some small pieces left which I can never bear to throw away!! The backing paper has been overstamped with some of the small detail stamps from the set and the pincushion was placed so that I could pop the punched oval sentiment onto it.  The lace strip was embossed with white detail EP and cut out with scissors; the dress form image is on Nestabilities.  You already know the story of the white flowers and as you see these have been added along with black swirls cut with  Marianne dies.

Make My Monday Challenge 48

The weather yesterday was so horrid to start the day that as soon as I spotted a post from one of the DT at Make My Monday I decided making a card for the challenge would be my first job of the morning. There is a new theme this month of FLORAL and specifically LILY OF THE VALLEY (or other white flowers) this week.  I knew I didn't have a lily of the valley stamp and after trawling through several CDs to no avail I thought I would 'think outside the box' and made a card adding a selection of white flowers as embellishments. When the post appeared from MMM I saw that the flowers should be the main feature of the card and not just embellishments so it was brain back in gear to come up with something more suitable.
It was a case of 'if in doubt read the instructions' and I then used a resist technique with this Penny Black floral stamp by using Versamark and clear embossing on white card which was then sponged with Distress inks in brushed corduroy and wild honey.  Bakcground paper was from my stash and as the image is quite large all that was needed was some ribbon seam binding and a sentiment. The little punched border in white came about because I'd punched it specially to use the 'waste' tiny white flowers on my original card!!

Do take a look and see the lovely cards the Make My Monday DT have posted for inspiration this week

Lucky Win

I was so lucky last week and excited to hear that I'd won a set of Glenda's latest stamps - Lace Fragments available from Chocolate Baroque.  There is also a great Haberdashery set as well which tempted me as I can see great potential for these sets working so well together.  For my first try with the finely detailed lace stamps I decided to go for black and make a sympathy card, often difficult to make but sadly necessary from time to time.  Backing paper is from Tim Holtz Vintage Shabby collection, overstamped with some of the lace with the addition of some black ribbon.  The main image was stamped and embossed onto paper from the same collection and layered with Nestabilities.  A computer sentiment was all I felt was needed to complete this card.

Enjoy your Bank Holiday Monday whatever you are doing and I hope you are having better weather than here where it is raining steadily and looking very dismal and grey.

J is for Journey

I'm early this month getting my two alphatags made for the swap and once I'd decided on what to do for the letters they seemed to come together without too much hassle.  For this one I used a Tim Holtz distressed/rusted technique for the background then overstamped with stamps by Crafty Individuals and Chocolate Baroque.  The various smaller tags were cut using a sizzix die, inked with Distress inks and stamped using various stamps from CB Teeny Tiny collection. The wording was produced on the computer and has been popped behind a bookplate frame which comes with the large tag Sizzix die.  A little swallow charm was added and the tags were attached with brads.