At last something new

Wow what a weekend so far. Struck down by an evil achy cold at the end of the week. I did too much yesterday and ended up in bed from 2pm onwards. Today I dosed up from the word go and aside from losing out on yet another Ebay item we were bidding for I've had a lovely and crafty day.

I started off finishing a load more of the competition entries that have been occupying my time of late. A number of the cards have turned out to be unconventional in size so this morning was all about making envelopes. Then with the Spa grand prix as my back drop I set about crafting an engagement card for my sister-in-law. She announced her engagement a few weeks back and is having a party to celebrate next weekend. Alas Glasgow is a way to go and we are heading near there in a few weeks time so won't be going. As is often my way when at a loss of where to start I searched the internet for inspiration. I came across a 'silohette' style card and remembered a technique in probably Papercraft Inspirations and have just finished :) I'm rather pleased with the end design, hopefully they will like it to.

Capturing the First year

I am slowly recovering from a weekend camping trip. It was the first one attempted with a very lively 2 year old. I'd be lying if I said it was all fun but the weather held for bbq-ing and as it was a meeting of the clan Busby there was much jollity and too little sleep. My ds definately enjoyed himself so I expect that the tent will get more use in a year ot twos time.

I wanted to post up my early attempts at scrapbooking memories. I decided to make presents for grandparents and godparents that captured the 1st year of ds adventures. I found some lovely flip books from lippy chick (which no longer has a website but bits and pieces are available from various places). The papers used were K & Co. The whole process was a welcome distraction from a bullying workplace and a bullying neighbour (I know Ann is nodding her head at some of this ;) At least I am free from the work place now.

This shows 2 out of the 3. Due to being a plonker I forgot to get copies of the individual cases that I made for each one (might have to grovel to each of the recipients to correct this someday) and also the little extra 'pockets' that contain information like length, weight and birth time. All in all not bad for a first attempt perhaps :)

The 1st of the wedding boxes

Okay finally uploaded the other images on to my laptop. I went down very different routes with both boxes. For this first one I decided to have a play with a new medium (for me) fimo. Fortunately our friends have enough distinct qualitites about them it was relatively easy to create their likenesses. The lettering was then done free hand and 'coloured' in using smooch inks. They took forever to dry and I was worried at one point that they might not! One box left and a final wedding to make for what will I do next time - plenty of time though aws no date set.

The 2nd of the wedding boxes

My dh and I spent our weekend in Leicester at the Summer Sundae festival it was our 3rd time. Last time we took a 9 week old baby with us, this time we left a very lively toddler with my sister and his cousins. Needless to say he had a fabulous time and aside from feeling like I had lost a limb (it was my first time apart from him) I found it a relaxing and pleasant experience. There were only about 5 bands I was really interested in so I spent enjoyable hours following dh to the bands he wanted to see or just soaking up the atmosphere :)

This year we have had 2 sets of our close friends getting married. Being more established as many couples are when they tie the knot we were left with the quandry of what to get people who didn't really want a present - but feeling the need to mark the occasion. After considering and throwing away several ideas I decided upon memory boxes. I still need to upload the images of the 1st box I did on to my laptop but here is the 2nd box I altered.

I got the wooden boxes from Freya Design. The stamps are all penny black, all numbers and letters apart from the cat and ring which is from the 12 days of christmas set. They were coloured in using promarkers.

All about flutterbys

Hi, hope you have all had a good week. My dh went off to the states for a conference so baby and I decamped to my parentals for a few days. This was good, with lot of eyes and help Iwas able to get a lot if crafting time in - there are a couple of competitions I wanted to make some entries for and I had some good development try outs, more on those another time. I often find it easier when making cards to pick a theme and for birthdays this year I went with star sign toppers, more on those another time to. This works fine except when you get to July and have young people who have already had a difficult run in life and the last thing you want to do is give them a card with cancer plastered over it. So with the help of some free stamps, a brayer and my trusty promarkers I came up with this alternative which I enjoyed putting together.

A winning card

First week of the summer holidays and I pick up a bug that leaves me being sick all night and wiped for the next few days. Fortunately Timothy was in nursery the following day which I slept through. So from April here is a card I made for Quick Cards competition, I haven't entered one before or since - mainly because I don't want to end up with a load of stuff I don't really want or need and I haven't since been inspired by a subject. This one was 'seasons' - hopefully obvious. I did some searching and came across vector trees which set me on my path. I then wanted to capture either the most important thing/s about each season or what I liked best. I was thrilled with the result and so were the competition judges and I was one of 10 people to win some papermania storage stuff and some other bits and pieces :). Here's to a better 2nd week.