Christmas Message

After what has been a horrendously difficult year in our family we are hoping for happier times during 2010 and we will light a  candle for our daughter, Charlotte, which will shine during our Christmas lunch whilst we are at my Mam’s.  It is my nephew Jake’s 2nd Birthday on Christmas day so he will keep us all entertained and keep our mind on happiness.

As I will be away from the online world until after the big day, may I wish you all a very Happy Christmas and a healthy new year.

I’m amazed that I’ve had nearly 1500 blog hits so someone must be reading this – thank you. Its probably just my hubby!

Take care

Lisa x

Singing Vouchers

This post is for Jennifer who has ordered some singing vouchers from me. Each envelope and voucher has been specially designed to meet Jennifer’s requirements and it has been a pleasure dealing with you Jennifer. I hope you like the designs.

Bespoke gift vocuher and envelope set

Lisa

x

Christmas Spirit

We’re trying to get into the Christmas Spirit so have our decorations up. We dont have any presents under the tree yet (as they’re not wrapped) but we do seem to have a rather cute Ellie cat! She seems to have found a comfortable bed on the fleece tree skirt.

Our present under the tree!

 We have had the same tree for about 4 years and I love seeing it all decorated. This year, we have bought a couple of special ornaments in the memory of our daughter, Charlotte.

2009 Tree

As I’m typing Ellie is investigating in my craft loft. She doesnt come up here very often so its all very new and a great adventure for her!

The great adventurer!

Must go as I’ve got some crafting to do.

Take Care

Lisa

x

Paris and Cards

Eiffel tower on a wet dark day!

I have spent the weekend in Paris and whilst that sounds lovely I hasten to add we travelled there by bus which took 17hours and my mam was poorly all of the way there so it wasnt a good journey. The company my Mam used to work for before she retired arranges a Christmas market trip every year and this year was Paris.  The holiday inn hotel we stayed in on the southern side of Paris (velizy) was fabulous.The bed was the most comfortable I have ever slept in and the twin rooms all had a double bed for each person instead of the normal single bed which was fantastic.

The weekend was very busy. On Saturday we visited the markets in La Defense on the outskirts of Paris then we travelled onto the Champs-Élysées. Both markets sold the same things and were very expensive. Normally when we go away on these trips the bus is normally packed with things people have bought – not this time as there was nothing to buy. We had a short tour of Paris to see the sights which was good. On the Sunday after checking out we travelled to Lille for another terrible market after which we travelled to the wine warehouse and then to the Eurotunnel. The weather was terrible most of the weekend so all in all I was very glad to get home!

I finished hubbies Christmas card today. The main image is a digi stamp from http://squigglefly.com/ called Merry Christ-Mess, which is so appropriate as we normally have something to untangle. Its coloured using copic markers and distress inks. I’ve been using a lot of digi stamps lately as they are so easy to use and I enjoy sitting in front of the telly colouring them without having to take all of my stamps, inks etc down with me. For those who havent heard of digi stamps – they are images which you pay to download from various websites and then you can print them out as many times as you like, resize them, print and colour. Simples!

I’m trying very hard to get into the Christmas mood, however after a very difficult year it is proving quite trying. Hopefully the more cards I get sorted the better I’ll feel. So I’d better get back to finishing them off since its now December!

Take Care

Lisa

x

Singing Certificate Customer Sample for Jennifer

In a break from making jewellery and greeting cards, I had a lovely email from a customer requesting something a little different which is always a nice change.

Below is my take on a gift certificate. The size is 8″x4″ so it will fit in a DL envelope or if it is to be used with my voucher wallets it will fit perfectly if cut a little smaller.

As Jennifer is a singing teacher I have added a picture of singing angels. I have gone with a plain theme which could be used for all occasions.

Voucher sample

Close Up of text

 The certificate is printed onto quality white card.

The co-ordinating wallet to complete the gift.

The closed wallet

 

The open wallet showing the voucher enclosed

 

Catch-up

What with holidays and generally just being busy crafting things, I’ve had no time to update my blog or I forgot to bring my camera up into the loft (where my PC is) to upload any new photos.

I went to Hobbycrafts at Glasgow SECC at the end of October and bought quite alot of new stuff which has been keeping me busy.

I bought a couple of mdf plaques and some wood embellishments to make door name plaques for nephew and neice. The plaque is painted using brilliance metallic ink pads and while the ink is wet around the edge I used the plaque as a stamp on the background paper so I could cut out the correct size for the background (that find was a happy accident as I dropped the plaque onto the paper by mistake). They were easy to make and I think will make a lovely gift.

Name Plaques

 We stayed in lovely log cabin (www.gadgirthestate.co.uk) while we were in Scotland (Ayr). There are 4 lodges in a walled garden and was really comfortable. We stayed in Holly Lodge which is one of the two larger lodges.

Hubby thinking about lighting the log burner!

I always travel with my craft equipment and choose to only take my scrapbooking items so I could do some honeymoon pages – I managed to do about 4, heres one of them.

honeymoon scrapbook page

Hubby, mam and I visited London in October to go to Harrods for a spot of Christmas shopping and generally just have a look around (note the word look and not buy!) The decorations were lovely.

One of Harrods Christmas displays

 This was one of the many displays which caught my eye – a swarovski encrusted lamborghini for £1500!

Swarovski encrusted sports car

 Another new make, is bodacious bangles. You buy wood blank bracelets and paint them to your hearts desire!  Here are my first attempts which I hope to sell at some jewellery party in Nov/Dec.

Bodacious bangles (ignore my untidy desk in the background!)

A couple of pictures of our pumpkin carvings.

hubby's pumpkin

My pumpkin

We went to the Gosforth Park Race Course on Saturday for a charity event. Nemesis from Britains got talent performed as well as Same Difference (the brother and sister act from X Factor). They werent particularly good. The fireworks were good, but once you’ve seen Disneyworld fireworks nothing seems to compare!

Halloween fireworks

Well that covers whats been happening in my world so I must go now and get busy crafting!

Take Care

Lisa x

First art journal page

I have eventually completed my first art journal page. I made the mistake of mixing my acrylic and oil paints in a box and thought they were all acrylic . I’m no artist so couldnt tell the difference when I was painting with them – and I used some oil paints which have taken ages to dry! I wanted to use equipment I already have at hand so I havent bought any special paint. The background was firstly painted using brillance ink pads for a metallic effect. The pointy frame at the top of page was a plain piece of paper which I stamped with a text stamp and framed it further with faux stitching.  I drew the edge frame and bubbles with a sharpie marker and coloured them with acrylic / oil paint! All of the writing and outlining is done using sharpie marker and OHP marker pens. For the shading on the bubbles I used a black water colour pencil and blended it in to the background. 

My first art journal page

I’m pleased with my first page and hope to keep up the journal with various happenings. The book I have used for the basis of the journal was just a cheap watercolour pad from ‘The Works’ bookshop.  I liked it because it had the spiral top so the pages stay closed and flat when your working on them.

This week, I have ordered some wooden bodacious bangles and the associated paints to decorate them and cant wait until they come. I hope to have them early next week so I can play. I’m really enjoying trying a variety of new crafts lately including sewing, art and even baking.

Back to good old card making, I made this card earlier in the week for my friends little girl who was one year old on the 6th October.

The background paper is from crafters companion  summer stories CD. The girl picture is a rubber stamped image from Jolly Nation. The alphabets is from Crafters companion volume one CD.

1st birthday card

Take care

Lisa

x

Playing with Felt

Just a little post today. I bought a pack of felt a while ago and have finally managed to think about what to make with it. Here’s what I came up with for the festive season.

Padded christmas tree decoration

 

Christmas tree hanging on the fireplace

They took a while to make but were very therapeutic even if my finger is now sore from using the sewing needle!

Lisa

x

All kinds of stuff!

A productive day was spent yesterday making some Christmas cards using a lovely foiled kit from Kanban. Its the first time I have used their products and Iwas really impressed with the quality. The die-cut images are very detailed and printed on high quality card. The foiled card is that shiny you can see me taking the picture on some of the photos! I bought the kit from QVC before it was in general release. The cards are available to purchase in my ebay shop http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/Handmade-By-LJM. An example of one of the cards is below.

Luxury Foiled Christmas Card

Earlier in the week I searched the web for Digi-stamps which are images artists have drawn and then allow you to download the images for a small cost. The advantage of these as opposed to rubber stamps are you can resize the images however I sometimes like to heat emboss my images to make colouring easier, which you cant do with downloads. So I’m not a convert from stamping – its still a favourite technique.

I came across this blog http://sketchingstamperdigi-stamps.blogspot.com/. The artist, Chris, has some lovely unusual images which I chose and have made the following cards.

This card was coloured using copic markers. I’m still a beginner with them however I’m getting more used to them and the shading they can do so well.

For my crafty friend Sandra

 As a mini cooper S owner, I love this image. The tyre background was downloaded from the web.

Mini car card

I love old fashioned prams so had to have this image.

A gorgeous pram

The image is hand stitched on to felt. the lace background paper is from Joanna Sheen.

Hubby and I visited my mam over the weekend and I always take something with me as I cant sit and do nothing. This is what I came up with.

Christmas themed minibook and co-ordinating box

The box and book are both made through paper folding. I have made quite a few of these and found the pattern on ‘The Scrapbook Lounge’.

Simple paper folded minibook

This book is made using 8×8 christmas themed paper. You fold the paper into quarters then unfold the paper so it is flat and the plain side is facing up. Fold the bottom left corner into the middle and do the same with the bottom right corner. Then fold the triangle upto the top edge to form the pockets. Make as many pages as you require, then stick the individual pages together. For the cover and back I cut two pieces of card slightly larger than the folded book, stick a half metre length of ribbon to one side of the book before adding the cover, this will then tie around the book to keep it closed.

Wedding album 1

The above picture is of my first album for our wedding. I have about 400 pictures so have decided to cut down the pictures into themes and make individual albums. This one details all of the presents we bought for our wedding party. The album base was made using K&Co Hannah Scrap to go pad. I have used this pad for many albums and still have plenty of paper available in it. The paper is more like card stock weight.

Flowers for Charlotte

I made the above arrangement for our daughters grave as we are finding wet oasis arrangements stay fresher than cut flowers. It also allows me to make something for her, which I get a great deal of satisfaction and comfort from.

Goodbye Daisy

Today we say goodbye to Daisy as we are collecting our new Mitsubishi Outlander later today once hubby comes in from work. Hubby is sad to say goodbye as he has had her for ten years and she was once written off and he got her back to road worthy condition, so he’s very attached to her. By the way, she’s called Daisy as she’s an old girl and Daisy sounded like a good old fashioned name for her.

Well I didnt realise I had been making so much lately, however after this rather long post I can see I have been busy having fun with myself in the loft!  Well, best go and get ready for hubby coming in so we can leave to get the new car – photos will follow!

Take Care

Lisa

x

Christmas Planner

Using an idea from a recent magazine project I have made a Christmas Planner. It is 7″x5″ in size made with Die Cuts With a View textured card and the Christmas paper used throughout is by papercraft4you. The ribbons around the book rings have been in my stash for sometime now. They are the decorations from some old crackers – which I knew would come in useful at sometime. the inside pages are all hand coloured.

The pages are:

• Card list
• Food Shopping list
• December monthly planner
• Pocket with blank recipe tags.
• Gift idea list
• Pocket for receipts
• Gifts to make list
• Gifts to buy list
• Internet orders list. To keep track of online sites, order references etc.
• Two envelope pockets to store such things as vouchers, coupens etc.

 I have added the book to my ebay shop (item number 350257108899) to see if it sells but I wont be disappointed if it doesnt as it took about 4 hours to make so I’ll use it myself!

Take Care

Lisa

x