Christmas Kit Club cards

Lazy post coming up!

Kathleen sent the fattest, most detailed Christmas card kit EVER for the November challenge, and I spent all my spare time using every tiny last piece - 36 cards! No time to post them all again so if you want to see my cards and everybody else's, have a look at the SJ Card Kit Club post HERE.

There will be no more challenges until January now, to give everybody a chance to get Christmas out of the way without added stress. But I have to say, I'm looking forward to the next one already.

Thanks Kathleen!

Kit Card Club

Have a look at this new blog that has just started with a group of card-making friends? http://sjcardkitclub.blogspot.co.uk/ There are 7 of us, and we take it in turns to make up 7 identical paper kits to send out to each of the other participants. We then each create as many cards as we can, and they get posted on the blog by the lovely Nora.

This month's theme was Critter Craze, created by Nora. Here are the cards I made:

If you get a spare few minutes, drop by the blog, check out everyone else's cards and leave some love - there are some lovely ones on there.

A quick card

I've been up since 4:30am on an unscheduled early work shift but I was determined to do some rare crafting today. Despite the sandy eyes, I threw some scraps and leftovers together to make this. It's more purple than the photo shows.

It is for these challenges:
Cute Card Thursday: monochrome
Papertake Weekly: purple and sketch #76
Simon Says Stamp: anything

Pollen calendar

Is anyone else suffering with hayfever as DH and I are? Something has just started flowering, and from 2 days ago we've both been miserable. I was doing some searching and I found this fascinating calendar which seems to indicate that we're sensitive to lime tree pollen. And according to the cheerful little titbit at the bottom, a glass of beneficial red wine is not going to help. D'oh.
Source: metoffice.gov.uk

ETA: Very interesting. Both of our noses started behaving in a more civilised fashion around the third week in July. According to this chart, that seems to imply that the problem could be lime trees. We haven't got many limes close by, but there are a lot in the park about a mile and a half to the east of us. We've had more winds from the east than usual this year so maybe, just maybe, we've found our answer.

Dragonflies

This month my work has come between me and crafting, and so has the garden. While the weather has been kind, we've been spending lots of time trying to tame it into something that looks as if we intended it to be that way. All our time outside has inspired these simple, universal cards. I'll stamp them with the appropriate greeting outside, and/or sentiment inside, when the time comes.

They are for:
Cuttlebug Mania: bling (it's hard to see but the borders are gold with glitter and the centre dragonflies are gold with hologram shine)
Less Is More: metal (the pearlised dragonfly brads) and welcome Anita!
Papertake Weekly: blue and green, bling and glitter
Simon Says Stamp: anything

ETA: Drat. 30 minutes late for the LIM entry. Ho hum.

Forever Friends

A quick card to show you after such a productive day that my feet are aching. This is for my sister-in-law's birthday next week, and I'm entering it into these challenges:

Cute Card Thursday: lace
Cuttlebug Mania: ribbon
Papertake Weekly: in the garden (I hope the watering cans and resultant flower-gathering are close enough - I seem to spend half my time in my garden with a watering can so it seemed appropriate.)
Simon Says Stamp: colour swatch in pinks, blues and aquas
Sketch Saturday

Angelina Ballerina

My cousin's two beautiful girls have been Frozen-crazy since it came out. But that means that if there is any Frozen merchandise that they DON'T own, then the chances of my finding it for a birthday present would be minuscule!

My cousin was telling me about how much they loved a recent children's ballet performance of Swan Lake a few weeks ago, and that gave me an idea. I hope she won't mind my sharing her text, because it's hilarious and deserves airing. A was convulsing all those within earshot of her with her audible running commentary; "he's not got any trousers on" and "the swan is behind you" and "I need a wee". Bless her!

But I digress. A's 3rd birthday is tomorrow and I'm Frozened-out so I picked Angelina Ballerina instead, and went all girlie with pink, aqua and glimmer. I used a technique seen on YouTube for cutting half a shape into a fold. I quite like it, but having the Cuttlebug which is smaller than the Big Shot, the card height is limited to 15cm.

Cute Card Thursday: brads
Cuttlebug Mania: stamping
Papertake Weekly: anything
Sketch Saturday
Simon Says Stamp: sentiment
Stamping Sensations: flower power (the pink paper is also embossed with flowers, but it's hard to see)

Hoppy birthday MIL!

I may have said this before (like every year!) but my MIL is a bit of a frog fanatic. Their house is a shrine to frogs of every shape, size and colour, which makes birthday cards easy. The main challenge is finding a different design each year, but after going to the Oyster Stamps craft retreat in Daventry in March and spending rather too much on goodies, this time I had it in the bag.

One of the dies I bought was this delight from Memory Box. I couldn't wait to play with it. I cut the frogs with my Silhouette and the bullrush (called Cattails from Die-Namites) I cut in half and placed on each side. Eucalyptus Stickles and a hand-cut lily pad finished it off, and MIL was almost as pleased with it as I was.

Challenges:
Cute Card Thursday: sentiment
Papertake Weekly: Take your pick (I chose White Plus One colour, and am hoping that silver counts as a variation of white)
Simon Says Stamp: anything

Mini for Mother

I've been thinking about making a religious mini-album for Mum for years. I've had umpteen ideas about how to do it, and have bought parts and allocated materials for several of them. However it took Georgina's gift (thank you!) of 2 little black mini albums (I already have 3!) to make me get my act together and actually produce something more tangible than ideas, notes and bags of bits.

I've just realised that it's largely a Stephanie Weightman book, too, with the Large Flourish Tattered Lace die from magazine #6, and her Floral Textures paper. The other dies are X-cut book-plate, QuicKutz Nested Circles and Scalloped Circles, and Spellbinders Lacey Circles Nestabilities dies. The Bible quotes and hymns are computer printed and the gems are from various different packs.

I haven't given it to her yet, but she doesn't read this blog so it's safe to show you first!

Mothering Sunday

In the UK Mothering Sunday is 2 weeks before Easter, which this year fell last weekend. I decided to try out the mini exploding pop-up box for both MIL and my Mum, using some of the beautiful card and papers that Georgina gave me when she came to visit for a wonderful weekend. Thank you G, and yes I have linked up to your blog so you'll just have to update it now!

I used this tutorial from The Craft Spa, and came up with these little delights.

Both of them were intrigued and quite charmed. They like getting something different from me, and it's getting more and more of a challenge to find new techniques. But you know me - I like a challenge.

Talking of which, I'm entering these into the following challenges:
Cute Card Thursday - Spring fever
Cuttlebug Mania (I just discovered this through Pixie's Crafty Workshop - thank you Di!) - Freeze frame
Papertake Weekly - Happy anything
Simon Says Stamp - Spring Pinterest Inspiration

Catch-up

As you know, work has been getting in the way of my creativity and my blogging. No making = nothing much to blog about. Then I went from no making to not doing anything else overnight, and that's why you haven't seen me. It's also why my house is covered in a thick layer of dust and little bits of paper, and looks as if the complete contents of both our wardrobes have been moved into heaps in and around the ironing basket, and every door has creased shirts hanging from it.

Just after we'd waved goodbye to the visiting family after Christmas, a chest infection came to stay instead, and it stuck around for a long time. I had 10 days with a fever that paracetamol and the first antibiotics combined didn't touch, and 3 weeks of attempting to sleep sitting up. I haven't been that ill since I had something that wasn't glandular fever, when was living at home with a father who smoked. That's maaaaany years ago.

Once the second course of antibiotics kicked in and I was starting to get back on my wobbly feet again, I was asked if I would produce a farewell scrapbook for our Team Rector, who was leaving us on March the 8th. March the 8th was the only date on my calendar for the next 7 weeks. There was no life after it. "Ask me again after March the 8th" became my catchphrase. While I was deep into it, with the study floor mosaicked with black card-stock, photos, luggage tags, and printed die-cut labels (sorry and THANK YOU DH!), the Team Rector himself asked whether I would make him 60-odd hearts for the Parish Open Day on Valentine's Day. I couldn't really say "well actually I'm teensy bit busy at the moment" so I took a couple of days out and came up with these (and another 24, but you get the idea).

Meanwhile, as I had suspected might happen, the album grew into a bit of a monster. By the time I had finished it (officially at 9:40pm on March 7th) it had 50 pages and had taken upwards of 180 hours. Its sections featured the clergy and churches, parish events, parish groups, and 16 pages of messages from the people (blood out of a stone, anyone?) and matching photos of them. Sounds easy doesn't it? Nope, had to rally round volunteer photographers to snap them while the Rector wasn't about and also while he was. Subterfuge and deception right under his nose, in the very house of God!

Here are a few pages from it. I'm not going to show the personal pages, obviously. The colour scheme was black with the liturgical colours of red, green, purple and white, with the alternative colour of blue. I added gold touches as well, and used mostly the same die-cut fonts throughout for cohesiveness.

 

Here are the Team Rector and his wife receiving the album on the dreaded March the 8th. It's not easy to see here, but it's a good 3" thick and weighed enough to need both hands to hold it. I received a lovely little e-mail thanking me for it. I'm very proud.

 

That's what I've been up to. I've also made some cute Mothering Sunday things, but they will have to wait for another day. Watch this space!

Just sayin'