Flowers that bloom in Spring and Painting With Light

DCM Little Extra this week as set by Sue again

Our midweek Little Extra is titled ‘The Flowers That Bloom In The Spring’ and we would like you to create a card with flowers. Simple? Aww but hold on…….there’s a little twist because we don’t want to make it too easy for you. We want your cards to have flowers on but we don’t want to see any Prima’s or shop brought blooms. The idea of this dare is for you create your flowers yourself, so let’s see what you can come up with.

I stamped a flower image, coloured in with Twinkling H2O's, and the small little flower charm on the ribbon was punched from Shrink Plastic, inked with StazOn, sanded and then shrunk.Unfortunately, I can't find my set of greeting stamps anywhere. I had this cool little MSE set with loads of greetings that were great for cards and I can't find them anywhere. I think I lost them at Crafteire. So i had to handwrite the greeting and I don't really like it.


I've just started Cheryl Johnson's Painting With Light course. Part of our first assignment was to take a self portrait to include our name. Here's mine.

TFL, Jan

DCM Its all in the Game

Sue set the dare this week.

Tiddlywinks, playing cards, dominos, jig saw pieces…….the list goes on and I’m sure that most of us have a drawer somewhere that has the odd one or two of these lying around in.Well now’s your chance to use them because I dare you to make a card using some of those pieces.Oh and no, you don’t need to throw a double six to start playing.

So this is what is what I did.

This was a card I needed to make in a hurry. The Happy Birthday was cut on CraftRobo. The PP is BG Hang 10 and I was delighted that Jane's card reminded me of the Scrabble type letter tiles I have.

BTW Jane, I totally beat your score!!!

TFL, Jan

DCM Teen Spirit Little Extra + a few cards

The Little extra over on DCM last Friday was Teen Spirit ste by Rachel

"Well I thought we have had plenty of flowers and hearts and girly things so I would like some cards with some teen spirit please."

When I saw the title of the dare the first thing that came to my head was the NIrvana song Smells Like Teen Spirit. I googled the song lyrics and images and was inspired by the Nirvana Smiley/Stoned face logo like this

So I went with the black and yellow theme (which is waaaay out of my comfort zone - I'm more pretty pink and pastels).

I stamped a swirly image over and over and embossed it with yellow embossing powder for the background. Mounted this on yellow and stuck it on the card. The star in the centre was doen on the craftrobo. Stuck this on black cardstock and wrapped the ribbon around it. I was a bit stuck for a greeting. The only one I had that would fit in the space was 'birthday wishes' in a lovely script font that I didn't really think matched the feel of the card. So i cut the celebrate out on the robo too. Great that I'm getting the use from it.

I've done a few other cards in the last few days too.

The first two are for my BF's aunt

The red and white one is a cardlift of some cards that Littlebit (on Craftsupplies) did for the birthday club this month. I loved the design and wanted to try it myself (with her permission of course)

The next is a trifold card (tutorial on Splitcoast Stampers) that I've been dying to try out for ages. the flower embellsihment in the centre was done using the paper clay technique that Jane Dean taught at Crafteire.

The last one is another birthday card. The background on this was done using versamark and chalks. It was a demo Jackie did at one of Lainey's crops ages ago.

Have to say This is one of my favourite cards. I just adore the colours in it. I nearly don't want to give it away.

Anyway, TFL, Jan

DCM My Favorite Things

This weeks DCM challenge was set by Mel

What you need to do is use one of Mel's favourite things on your card (embroidery cotton/thread, buttons, felt or fabric) and combine it with one of your favourite things



One of Mel's favourite things I used was buttons.
Of my own favorite things to use on cards, I couldn't narrow it down to one. I'm loving Cuttlebug embossing folders at the moment so you can see the centre of the flower is embossed with the D'vine Swirls folder. I love it.
I'm really liking scalloped circles too and I used a template that Shanaravery kindly posted over on the UKS Craftrobo forum as the flower. What a fab template.
You can see the edges of the patterned paper and the circle in the centre of the flower are inked. You'll find inked edges in almost all my cards, I really like the effect.
And last but not least I love ribbon and had to include it somewhere in the card, so I used it for the stem and leaves of the flower.
So there you go, just a few of my favourite (cardmaking) things.

TFL, Jan

Blog Makeover, Crafteire and a few unfinished LO's

Since my last post you may have noticed I've given the blog a bit of a makeover. Well really I just chose another template but I did create the new banner myself. Hope you like it. Pink is just so much more me. : )

I was at Crafteire the weekend before last and had a brilliant time thanks to KateG and Mireille who did a fab job of organising it yet again. Myself and Orla drove up on the Friday, after spending about 45 minutes trying to get into Cork city to drop Matthew off for a class we eventually abandoned him so we could get on the road to Tullamore. We arrived up just in time to drop our bags off in the crop room and order dinner. Tigger had organised dinner again this year and loads of the girls were there. It was great to meet all the old faces again and put faces to some of the new names on the forums. After dinner we spent the evening scrapping away until the early hours. Kate and Mireille had set a challenge to create a LO using only 3 sheets of Sassafrass Lass pp which we had been given, a photo, adhesive and pens. This is what I came up with.

I did add pink cardstock for the journalling afterwards. I had a title too but I didn't like it. The photo really isn't all that significant. Its just of me standing in my Granny's kitchen and the journalling is just all about things I remember/like about her house. Any ideas on a title???

Anyway myself and Orla toddled back to our B&B, the Dinnis Cottage, at around 1am and we conked for the night. Up early enough the following morning. I had Beckie's Rusty Pickle class at 11.30. Won't post a picture coz I haven't added any photo's but we did an accordian album using RP Heirloom papers I think. The album turned out lovely and I must try to get some photo's into it soon. Might even try another one if I can get my hands on it. They really are fab. All prescored and put together for you almost.

Had Amber Jane's Fancy Pants class after lucnh and it was really great. We got gorgeous kits with lovely papers, die cuts and rub-ons. Here's what I made in the class.

Slightly different from Amber's but I think it suits my photo better. This one is off my Granny and again I haven't put in the title, will probably go the boring route and stick with My Granny or Nana Betty if I an fit it in somewhere. Don't really want to cover over the lovley rub-ons.

After Amber's class it was straight on to Eva's class where we used Sassafrass Lass Felicity papers to make a LO where we focused on the photo. I have to say I really enjoyed this class because it wouldn't be my style usually and it was nice to try something different and I really like Eva's style.

Here's the LO I did and again it was slightly different from Eva's. I used plain cardstock as the base rather that patterned paper.

Have to say I love how it turned out (probably because I actually finished it). Thanks Eva.

I managed to get a spare (well almost spare) place in Amber's othe class., Hey Sunhine using KI Memories pop culture papers. It was a fantastic class and again the kit was brilliant. Don't have a photo of what we did because i haven't yet added photo's to the LO. Thanks to Tigger and Mireille for squeezing me in to this class and sorry for upsetting the applecart.

Saturday eveing we did Jane Dean's master class in the crop room. What a class. I don't know how this lady come up with her ideas. We were each given a sheet of Efa Plast , which is a sort of air drying paper clay. Well we rolled out the clay, stamped into it to create an image/texture and let it dry for the night. This gave us lovely tiles to paint and decorate. We used them to embellish the lid of a little box we were given.

Again there was a few scrapped into the early hours of the morning. I managed to get 2 non-class LO's done over the weekend. Well actually one was a class from last year's Crafteire that I only put together this year.

It was using the kit and most of the instructions from Amber's class last year with a few of my own variatons.

Again no title, again no ideas. Suggestions anyone???

Here's the other one I did. And this was all my own work. Not 100% done but very close.Have to say I was delighted to get so many LO's done (or thereabouts anyway). Usually I don't have photo's that suit.

On Sunday morning we finished off Jane's master class by making a piano hinged mini book to put in the box we had decorated. I didn't finish this off but I loved the idea of it. So different.

Overall this year's Crafteire was really brilliant. Different from the previous two years but just as good. I liked how there were no classes on the Sunday apart from Jane's one in the morning, which gave you plenty of time to finish off things you had started yourself or in classes. Initially I only booked for 3 classes and the masterclass so I would have this time. If I had realised it i would definitely have tried to get into Linny's class. She did the most beautiful chipboard and acetate mini album. All the one's I was turned out fab. Her make and take was fab too. Made a beautiful actetate keyring/photoframe. It was really lovely. The other make and takes were fab too. Beckie's Rusty Pickle mini album was so cute and I had great fun with the Grungeboard that Crafteire provided too. It was a pity I didn't get a chance to play with the Bind-It-All Annamarie had but I figure Orla will let me play with the one she bought.

Other than Crafteire I got some crafting in at Caroline's last crop. One is totally finished, surprisingly enough.

The other one needs a title and jornalling.

Her next crop is on the 30th of March and I'm looking forward to it already.

On the card making side, my friend ahd a baby boy last week and this is the card i made for her. Not the greatest photo but it was taken in a hurry before I gave it away. The card and the baby were cut on the CraftRobo. The 'It's a Boy' bit at the end is ribbon.

So that's all. Must be my longest post by a longshot,

TFL, Jan.

Valentine's Cards

Well I was away skiing for Valentine's Day but had been asked to make a crad for a friend for her BF.
I made this on the CR.

Its hard to see (because its such a bad photo) but its kind of 3d. The front of the card folds back onto itself and the hearts kind of pop out of it IYKWIM. The red bit on the left hand side is fabric from an old book of samples I got in a shop while I was shopping for curtain material. The 3 hearts have Truly Madly Deeply stamped onto them (from a Heidi Swapp roller stamp)

This is the one I did for my BF. A bit of a quick one really since I only realised I'd be away for Valentine's Day the day before we left and so i had to make one in a bit of a hurry to bring with me.

I like the way it turned out, its kind of rustic or natural or something.

Anyway TFL, Jan

Really Bad Blogger

Ok so i've been a terrible blogger. After all the Christmas cards i made i was kind of allergic to crafting for a while. Did get a few bits done mostly cards though, which were done under pressure and i don't think i photographed any. They were just about done in time to give to people, never mind showing them here. The last few weeks since I've gone back to work have been hectic too.

Christmas went really well, if not too fast. I got a CraftRobo from my BF and his family and i have to say I love it. Still haven't explored half of the drawing/design capability but I'm getting there thanks to the wonderful girls on UKS


Last week the camogie club had a dinner dance/awards ceremony. It was really only an awards night for the U-16's since the Senior team didn't win anything. Anyway, there was a bit of running around done in the lead up to that.

I got an award for Senior Personality of the Year which I was really thrilled with. I did put a lot of effort into the club and training this year and it was really nice that i was noticed and recognised in this way.

I'm also trying to do my room up at the moment. I've picked cream and pine furniture like here. I'm after choosing very plain duck-egg blue/turquoise colour curtains with a subtle pattern and i'm hoping to get some nice bed-clothes in that kind of colour too. A lot of my spare evenings have been spent looking around fabric and carpet shops. I had lookled in loads of fabric shops and had decided on the fabric for the curtains but when i was looking for a carpet I came across another fabric that Iliked better so I changed my mind (I'm very indecisive) SO i'm now driven made looking for a carpet. I was thinking of trying to get something to match the curtains but then I'd be really tied to that colour scheme, then Mum suggested a cream colour but i'm afraid it would be a)to bland with the cream furniture and b)I'd have it ruined within a week because its such a plae colour. Any suggestions on a postcard please!!!My Dad is now trying to get me to pick a colour for the walls which i haven't even begun to think about ARGGGHHHH! I'm beginning to wish I'd just left it as it was.

Ok so I know i said this blog would just be for my crafting stuff but I just thought I'd fill you in so you'd know I do have an excuse for not blogging.

So back to the crafting

Here's a LO I did recently enough using BG Mellow. Its of my dog Minor.
Just this week I made a card for a woman I work with. Her niece won a state science fair in California and she wanted a card that had something to do with that in it. I cut out the California shape and LAcey on my CraftRobo and i design the science flask type things on it and cut them too. I have to say I was happy with how it turned out and thanks to the girls on CraftSupplies for their great ideas which really helped.

Oh and here's a wedding card I did over Christmas

I actually cut up the wedding invite for the gold (there was a spare page at the back of it) and the black was lovely velvet card that was from our Christmas crackers, and the beads too. So it was an almost completely recycled card.

Oh and Dad got a Canon EOS400D as a retirement present in November and as part of the package there was a free training course which I went on today because he didn't think he'd follow it. He sent me in the hopes that I would and now he has no reason to know how to use the camera he'll just have to ask me everytime he wants to take a photo LOL. In fairness to him though he is starting a photography night class soon and hopefully it'll be a good one or else i'd say we'll come to blows over him asking me the same thing over and over and me not showing him properly or going too fast.

So anyway that's really it for now. Hope to be back soon,

TFL, Jan