At Last!

Apologies for my lack of blogging and visiting blogs but I seem to have had one of those weeks when I've been on the go all the time but not achieved very much - hope I don't get too many like that.  I've only just come around to making a card for the Make My Monday challenge which is the final week of the colour wheel theme - using split complimentaries.

Again I found these colours a bit challenging to use together but that's what it is all about really so here is my effort using papers and an image from Funky Hand.  I've done some paper piecing with the image, added ribbon and some flowers in the right colours and that's it - fairly quick to make once I'd decided what to do and could be a cheerful retirement card maybe.  Looking forward now to see what their Design Team have for us during August.

Edited - I've just re-read the MMM post and see they are having a well deserved break through August

Boofle

It was the first birthday of my great nephew recently and I made him a card using this cute Booful character. This was a bit of hybrid crafting with the backing paper and images printed from the docrafts CD, cut out using Nestabilities and layered onto the card.  The number was cut using an X-cut die set.  I just love those 'knitted' letters which I used to spell out his name before printing them off.

There is another tangle added to the Zentangle page

Give Away

It's worth popping along to take a look at the Studio 12 blog as there is a great give away - just follow the link to read all about it

Refresher Course

Yesterday morning I spent an few enjoyable  hours at a quilling course run by my friend Jill of Jills Quills. I'd not actually done any quilling for probably 8 or 9 years and my box containing all the paper strips has lain neglected on a shelf for all that time.  Well maybe it has been moved around a few times during some of my efforts to re-organise things but it certainly hadn't been opened so I thought this workshop was an oopportunity for a little refresher course.  The topic was quilled flowers and we were provided with a work sheet with divisions to fill with the various flowers.  As is usual with workshops there wasn't quite enough time to get it completed (maybe I'm too slow) but just to show Jill that I did my 'homework' here is the finished article - not perfect by a long chalk but it was a reminder of just how many different designs can be made using the basic quilled shapes and an incentive to practise getting  the shapes a more regular size.

 

Tangling

Still not managed to work out how to add a new post to a tabbed page but I've added a bit more ZIA to my Zentangle page.  When I see them enlarged on the screen it is a bit scary because I can see every 'wobble' and some poor filling in both of which are less evident on the small page of the original. I must try and slow down a bit and take more care with my lines although the hand isn't as steady as it was in my younger days .  I have tried the white card recommended by Paula (thanks for sharing the results of the tests on various papers and pens) and the solid areas do seem easier to execute than they were on my original sketch book paper.

Make My Monday Challenge

The colour wheel challenge continues on Make My Monday and this week we are asked to use analagous colours and specifically the BLUES which lie next to each other on the colour wheel.

I selected a piece of light blue paper from my stash and stamped some swirls around the edge, added  ink to one side of the Blooming Season embossing folder from Craft Concepts and embossed some white card to make the next layer.  I then cut a labels shape with  a Nestability die and swiped it through some watered down Distress ink, then inked the Agapanthus Cluster stamp (Stampendous) with two colours of ink, spritzed with water and stamped twice onto the shape..  Final additions were some Marianne die cut swirls, a greeting and a flower made from a die cut and a couple of odd ones left in my embellishments box. It's been interesting working these colour wheel challenges and there's one more to come this month before they move onto a different theme.

Shambala Style Bracelet

Who remembers macrame?  It was very popular in the sixties and seventies and I must have made countless plant pot holders, wall hangings, bags et al using huge wooden beads and heavy string.  Last week I caught a few minutes of a demonstration on jewellery making on the TV and it was macrame all over again but with very fine cord (1mm) and glitter-ball beads which I think is where the term Shambala comes in but not sure on this.   I don't actually have any of the glitter-ball beads - yet - but did find some 1mm cord knocking around and as you can guess I have loads of other beads so I just had to have a go, hoping I could remember how it was done.  This type of bracelet has a sliding section so that it can open up to slide over the hand and then you just pull the two small bead ends to close it although I'm not quite sure how you can pull both ends once it is on the wrist - it's not a style of bracelet I've tried before.  I had to resort to one hand and one mouth.  It was really nice to revisit macrame again and it is much more my style to work with fine thread on a smaller scale.  When I can get some more fine cord I will be using up some of my oddments in beads to make a few more and of course starting with longer lengths necklaces could be made too.