Inspired by Nature

The challenge this week for Make My Monday is to use nature as inspiration and I've chosen butterflies for my card.  There are some lovely ideas on their blog and also a very pretty card for mid week motivation so do take a look by following the link. Backing paper is from My Mind's Eye and the stamp is from Penny Black with the flower heads stamped twice and cut out for dimension.  The butterflies were also stamped and cut out.

Covered Notebook

I really must apologise yet again to my followers and friends for my lack of blogging - 'things' seem to have been ganging up on me one way and another, culminating with my car breaking with a resounding bang and I'm debating with myself whether I should give up driving or get something to replace it and keep going.  Anyway you don't want to hear about my problems and I have been visiting blogs but sadly not always finding the time to leave comments.  I've also been doing a bit more stitching rather than making cards and I thought I'd show you a little covered notebook made from some cute fabric available in my local shop and a scrunched flower motif made using a clever Clover template.  Not exactly rocket science but it is a handy little slip on cover so that when the notebook is full it can be replaced with another one (I bought 5 for £1 recently - bargain I reckon).

Some Stitching

I've been stitching various bits and pieces recently and thought I'd share pictures of a cover for an e-reader or tablet taken from a design by those clever Clover people - I do have a weakness for their products!!  The outer fabric is a Kaffe Fasset print and the lining is a toning batik stype cotton fabric, both purchased in my local store. There isn't much to say about this really as hopefully the pictures are self explanatory.  The little strips of elastic hold the device in place and the clever strap arrangement either holds the holder closed like a book (with velcro) or the strap doubles as a strut so that the tablet stands at an angle for easy viewing of films etc. Some of you might have spotted Jennie Rayment recently on Create and Craft showing how this is made - she usually has a patchwork/quilting show on Sunday mornings at 8am, well worth a look.

Make My Monday Challenge

I can hardly believe just how long it has taken me this morning to make a card - the elements here (and others) have been shuffled around so many times they must be dizzy!!  The challenge at Make My Monday is to use ribbon and buttons and I decided straight away to use the Memory Box die cut tree and some tiny Papermania buttons but it was the rest of it which seemed to cause me problems.  Eventually I settled on Nestabilities and some die cut corners combined with punched ones and a piece of spotty paper from my oddments box.  All I can say is that it is a good job I'm not paid piece work - come to think of it I'm not paid full stop!! I do this for fun.

Something for Valentine's Day

How fortuitous that the theme for Chocolate Baroque 'quintiles' this month was Valentines - here is my second heart offering.  This time I used some Tim Holtz tissue which was scrunched up and added to a piece of card using Glue and Seal.  Once dry it was spritzed with gold and red Glimmer mist.  The heart is a CB stamp and the treble clef is a Marianne die.  The quote (the first line from Twelfth Night, W.Shakespeare) was produced on the computer.  You may recall I mentioned hating English literature at school and Shakespeare was no exception but somehow this useless piece of information has remained embedded in my brain for ?? years - I'm not saying how many!!  Both tiles have now been posted off to the organiser and I wll receive two surprise ones in due course.

I hope the postman brought lots of lovely Valentine cards for you all today, but if not here is one from me.

Two Birds with One Stone

No - not literally, I wouldn hurl stones at the two birds here (or any other birds for that matter)!! This week the challenge on Make My Monday is to 'add a charm' and as I also have two Quintiles to make on a Valentine theme for the Chocolate Baroque February swap I've managed to combine the two themes on this one.  The background is a beautiful love letters download from CB printed onto gold lustre paper; the heart is a CB stamp which I embossed and then coloured with twinkling H2Os; the 'love' word is one of their stamps also.  The bow was cut from some of the left over backing paper using a die-namics die; birdcage charm was from my stash and the little lovebirds were cut using a Memory Box die.  Do take a look at the MMM challenge blog to see what their design team have offered us for inspiration. I'm now working on another Valentine themed quintile so that I can pop them both in the post to meet the deadline.

Cheery Get Well

This is another bright card made using the free owl stamps which came with a recent magazine purchase.  Again I've raided my scrap boxes to come up with all the bits to die cut the layers and the striped backing paper is from a Papermania pad which I've had for quite a while. Luckily I was able to pick scraps to match the colours in the stripes.  Have a good weekend and I hope that the threatened snow doesn't materialise.