Paper packaging

Whenever I place an order with SU you can guarantee that the products come well packaged with lots of brown paper.  Most of the time I have to confess I have just put it in the recycling bin but this time I decided to try and make use of some of it.  The end result was a garland to go across the beam that once used to be the dividing wall between our kitchen and our dining room.  The dining room has a large range of units which houses most of my crafting stash and it is the dining table that I work on most of the time.  I thought it would be nice to have this garland hanging up to define ‘my space’.


The ‘flowers’ were created using just two strips of the brown paper and I folded them in a concertina effect, tied them round the middle with some bakers twine and rounded the edges with scissors.   I then teased the strips apart to make the flower which reminds me of a sunflower.  I’ve cut out a different coloured scalloped circle from SU’s Bold Brights paper pack, added a white circle and then cut out the letters using the Cricut and Storybook cartridge.


It’s been a pretty miserable day today so putting this up brought a little bit cheeriness to the day.

3 down 9 to go

Remember me talking about making coffins ready for Halloween?  Well here are the first three made, just got a little bit of decoration left to do on them.  I got the template from Martha Stewart, although I haven’t lined my boxes but intend to fill them with shredded tissue paper in appropriate Halloween colours and then fill will sweet treats.  I have used a web embossing folder for the tops of the boxes to give them some texture. Not sure whether to add the RIP tag on all of the coffins or to leave them blank - what do you think?  They are really simple to make so hopefully shouldn’t take me too long to make the other nine I need for all my work colleagues.

Graphic 45 workshop

As promised here are the photos of the Graphic 45 zig zag tag book workshop that I went to on Wednesday.  I’ve now got to go through my photos of the grandchildren for the past few years and add them to the back of the many tags that I have made to go in the book – this is an idea I will use again for other outings/events in the future.  More photos can be found on Clare’s blog of the whole day..

Everything Eleanor

I thought I’d play with my Everything Eleanor stamp set as well as a few other sets that have been sitting around idle for a while.  I’ve used what has to be one of my most used background stamps En Francais which was inked up in Crumb Cake and then I added a couple of flourishes in Always Artichoke (2nd generation stamping for all the elements on this card).  The label was also stamped in Always Artichoke and then the sentiment is from the Petite Pears set and stamped in Melon Mambo. I’ve used a couple of the flowers from the Everything Eleanor set which were stamped in Melon Mambo and Pink Pirouette.  All of the edges were inked with Soft Suede and then the card was finished off with some Crumb Cake seam binding and a vintage brad.  Hope you like it.

Yesterday I was lucky enough to spend the day at a Scrapbook Magic in Mullion which is owned by the lovely Margaret.  I took part in the Graphic 45 workshop that was being taught by Claire Charvill who is the only UK Design Team member for Graphic 45 – some of you may have seen her on Create and Craft.  It was a fantastic workshop where we made a zig zag tag book using the Graphic 45 Steampunk Spells papers which are gorgeous.  I will post photos on my blog at the weekend as I just need to finish off a couple of the pages in the book. It was a fabulous day and Claire had lots of lovely samples from the Graphic 45 papers that she has created - one very talented lady and so much fun.

A new discovery

Yesterday I took my friends Allie, Jacqueline and Jane down to a little place called The Dragonfly Tearooms.  I’d picked up a postcard advertising them when we went to the Mad Hatters Tea party back in July.  It’s in a wonderful setting in the country and while not very big kept us entertained for quite a few hours.  The owner Sue made us all very welcome and when we arrived we had a quick look around at the items Sue had made and the items that she had for sale.  We sat outside the tearooms and had coffee and cake while looking at the workshops that Sue has coming up in the future.

We then went and had another look around the little shop, I bought a couple of fat quarters in autumn colours and a two of packets of buttons.  I also bought a hanging bird decoration – there were so many lovely handmade items to look at and we were very inspired. 


Jacqueline and I decided to book ourselves onto a workshop in October on how to make  a lovely drawstring craft bag.  We are both looking forward to learning how to make it – we’ve just got to decide now whether to use up some of the fat quarters that we already have in our stash or whether to buy some new fabrics for the project instead LOL.


Another cup of coffee/tea and more chatting and admiring this little gem of a place and then it was time to head home.

Curtain Call Challenge–Back to School

With capital letters all over the place in my blog title perhaps that’s where I should go!  I’ve kept the card very simple for the Curtain Call challenge but it has enabled me to use up a scrap of SU paper that has been on my workspace all week – the paper was double sided.  The image is a Whiff of Joy and I have coloured it in with my Copics.  I haven’t added a sentiment to the card as I thought it could also be used as a young boys birthday card as well as a back to school card – keeping my options open.

Friday I called round and saw Colette, Logan and Savannah who were all really pleased to see me.  Logan has a place at nursery starting next Friday for two afternoons a week and he is really looking forward to that.  It will be nice for Colette to have time with just Savannah each week.
Friday evening we went out for drinks and a meal with my BIL and his girlfriend and we had a really nice time.  We met up late afternoon – about four, enjoyed some cocktails first and then some food and then went home – we were back home by nine.  It felt better doing it that way round rather than eating at 8 or 9 in the evening.
Yesterday I managed to get the inside of the advent calendars made and today I have been punching out the doors.  I finally managed to pick up some Hershey’s Kisses on Friday to go in them.  I only bought a couple of packs to try them out and see how many were in a pack.  I’m now on the lookout to buy bigger bags of them as altogether I will need at least 350 kisses – I’ve found a couple of places on line where even with the postage it works out better value than buying them from the shop in town.  I’m hoping the calendars will be all finished (apart from the chocolates) by the end of the week.  My next production line project is making Halloween coffins.
Hope you’ve been having a fun weekend too.

Scrap cards

From the LO scraps on Saturday I managed to make a couple of cards.  Included with the monthly Scrapholix kit was a crochet doily which I used to mount a flower onto created with my scalloped nesties.  I finished the flower off with a button and a tiny strip of cardstock which I curled at either end.  The butterfly is an SU punch and also the sentiment. The leaves are a spellbinders die.

The second card was made using the SU Just Believe stamp set – one of my favourite and just matted and layered and added to a strip of patterned paper and some SU ribbon.

Work has been incredibly busy the past couple of days and I have come home with a headache on both days.  Hopefully with tomorrow being my day off it will finally go away.  Nothing exciting planned during the day but I have some crafting friends coming round in the evening so that will be fun.

Simple Layouts

Saturday was the 100th meeting of the Exeter  Scrapaholix group run by the lovely Julia.  We all took along some party food to share at lunch and had a fun time.  Julia gave us the challenge of trying to incorporate ‘100’ somehow onto one of our layouts.  I went with some photos I took at the Mad Hatter’s tea party at Cowslip’s back in July and the title of 100’s of hours of stitching.

My other simple layout is of some flowers I took a long time ago and discovered while looking for something else one day (as you do).  I’d managed to get some orange ink onto some of the white base card so the LO was created so that I could cover up those marks – so a few strategically placed stickers was required.  Nothing fancy but I had a great time as usual playing with paper and chatting with friends.