Anything Goes at Make My Monday

This week on Make My Monday we are being asked to produce anything but a card and I did have great plans to decorate a box with all sorts of loveliness.  However in view of the nice weather I thought I just had to work in the garden while it is dry so sadly the box is still in my head.  I recently made some items using fabrics sold by my local craft shop as part of a show/demonstration weekend so I'm sharing this patchwork owl and baby with you in the hopes that the lovely people on MMM will consider it OK for inclusion (it definitely isn't a card!!).  The pattern was spotted in a recent magazine and was just crying out (or hooting) to be made so I had a go - first time I'd actually seen a marsupial owl but there you go, artistic licence I guess.

Tall House

I've been raiding my oddments boxes again and came across this image which I printed off a while ago and sadly cannot remember where it originated from.  Apart from the background paper which came from my stash all the elements on this card were from the oddments boxes.  The ribbon is actually a very pale pink but looks white in the picture for some reason.  It is so nice to see the sunshine and blue skies today.

Missing in Action - Again!!

My blog seems to have been sadly neglected of late but I have managed to take a look at most of the ones I follow although sadly not always had time to leave comments so apologies all round.  My time management skills seem to have deteriorated but hopefully I can soon get back into the swing although with the slightly warmer weather the garden is 'bursting out all over' and calling for attention so that is another thing to add into my busy schedule.  If anyone has any good suggestions for dealing with a large lawn which is looking more like a ploughed field covered in badger toilets I'd be grateful - a load of ready-mix concrete comes to mind!!  I'm sure mowing it must be classed as a health hazard.

This card was made as a commission for a man with an interest in woodwork and motorbikes - mention was also made that he used to milk cows but I was unable to include them as well.  I thought I had a woodgrain embossing folder but sadly not, so used another one which I thought looked vaguely like wood when used on Kraft card.  The motor bike stamp is one I've had for ages and came from a 'grab bag' of unmounted ones many years ago when wood-mounted stamps were the norm.  I used to cut my own wood blocks and mount them up would you believe.  The chap on the bike reminded me of the AA men who used to ride around with sidecars to come to the aid of stranded motorists - they wore peaked caps and would salute anyone with the AA badge on their vehicle (ought not to own up to remembering that - showing my age!!).  As the recipient of the card is 90 years old I felt he would be likely to remember them too.  The lady who asked for the card to be made was very pleased anyway.

Beading for a Change

I thought I'd share my latest bead weaving project with you today - a simple necklace using cube beads in two sizes.  I spent an enjoyable morning at a quilt exhibition with a friend and have come home with all sorts of ideas buzzing around in my head - particularly some of the machine embroidery projects made me realise this is a technique I've not done in ages which is a shame because I have plenty of exciting fabrics and threads to use up being the hoarder that I am LOL!!  We all say it I know but oh for more hours in the day.

Make My Monday challenge

The challenge this week on Make My Monday is to use the colours of blue and brown.  This wonderful bear character is Wellington from Docrafts and he is surrounded by blue flowers so just right.  The entire card was produced within their Digital Designer programme, partly because I felt like dabbling with the computer and partly (well mainly really) that my desk space has shrunk to almost nothing so no space for regular crafting.  This was a bit of displacement activity  to avoid the tidying but but I will get around to that tomorrow - just didn't feel in the mood today!!  There are some beautiful examples from the design team so follow the link to take a look.

Patchwork Cushion

Well it is a little milder this weekend but has been raining steadily ever since around 10am so not all good.  Today I'm sharing with you another of the samples I made for my recent stitchery demonstrations using various Clover templates.  I spent quite a while thinking of different of using the little puffy circles obtained by using the Suffolk Puff (also known as yo-yo) template and this cushion was just one of them - there are one or two other items not quite finished but I will get them done and share them another day.  This cusion was made from lots of odd scraps of fabric cut into squares and stitched together.  I then added a yo-yo to alternate squares with some miscellaneous buttons from my (large) mountain of odd buttons. I am trying really hard to use up oddments in all departments of my crafting but the mountains don't shrink by much!!  Enjoy the rest of your weekend and hopefully the weather is better for some of you than it is here.

Backgrounds

The challenge this week on Make My Monday is to make a background from scratch (no designer backing papers allowed) and there is a mid week motivation post with ideas and of course the usual lovely work from the design team.  My background was made on watercolour paper with distress stains, water and salt - once dry it has been overstamped.  The image is a Creative Expressions stamp designed by Sam Poole, coloured with matching Distress colours, cut out and popped onto a piece of embossed Core-d-nations card (sanded, inked and overstamped).  Apart from the little bee which is a Chocolate Baroque stamp all the other stamps used were from Creative Expressions by Same Poole.