Made another 8 cards this week

I am really enjoying crafting at the moment, especially Christmas cards, as I enjoy the weekly challenge to make at least 1 Christmas card a week for Snoflake's Christmas card challenge on Docrafts, here are the 7 cards I made along with my father in law's father's day card.

I coloured a donated stamped image with promarkers, mounted it onto foiled patterned card, then onto an Anna Griffin shaped Christmas card, and added ribbon and a sentiment.

Hunkydory die-cut decoupage mounted onto foiled patterned A5 card

Traditional Christmas decoupage layered onto glittered card, holographic card, patterned paper and A5 card, finished with peel-off sentiment.

Donated stamped image, coloured with promarkers, layered onto foiled and glittered card, satin card and square card base, sentiment added.

Donated stamped image, coloured with promarkers, layered on foiled patterned card and onto DL card base, finished with sentiments and glittered brad.

decoupage layered onto holographic card, patterned paper and 6" x 6" square scalloped edge card, finished with matching sentiment.

donated stamped image, coloured with promarkers, layered on foiled patterned card, satin card, patterned paper and onto pearl card base, finished with sentiment and brad.

 Die-cut forever friends decoupage, layered on holographic and satin card and onto square card base, finished off with buttons from my stash.

8 Christmas cards finished in one day!

Two weeks ago, when I wasn't feeling well, I sat in my orthopaedic recliner and cut out decoupage to my hearts content, find it very relaxing, especially when life is stressful, which is often! Then I layered it all up and coloured lots of digi stamp images but that was a s far as my crafting went, they just sat next to my chair until yesterday morning. I had a restless night and woke at 3am, tried to get back to sleep but gave up at 5am and felt like crafting, so I got out all the toppers I'd made and sat and crafted in the early hours when there was no sound except the birds singing their little hearts out, they had started at 4am, wasn't so thrilled to hear them at that time though.

I used different sizes and styles of card blanks, glitter card, mirror card, embossed card, patterned papers, sentiments, DST and 3D foam and here they are:

having major problems with my pictures and edit in windows 8, asked for one image it put all images I'd uploaded, and many in their wrong orientation, so sorry.

the first 8 are the Christmas cards that I made yesterday. then ladybug card sent to a DC forum member to help raise funds for a zoo that had a bad fire, the last 4 Christmas cards were made last week, again when I couldn't sleep in the early hours.

Photos of my spring garden

this is my first post since last November. I have been battling continuing poor health and also bipolar disorder which is so crippling.

One way I try and help myself is to do a little bit of gardening. Last autumn I planted lots of spring bulbs and my garden is looking so pretty right now, I garden on a tiny budget so wait for special offers from bulb catalogues, here are some photos of how my garden looks today, the bright colours make me smile even on dark days when I don't feel up to doing anything. Last Sunday I managed to re-stain part of my picket fence, I sat on the pavement in my own little world, I find it very relaxing and therapeutic.

this last photo was put on the docrafts forum last week, think it came from a newspaper originally, I loved it so much as it made me smile so I've made it my screensaver, now I can see this cheery, cheeky little chappie every day, he looks so glad to be alive!

thanks for any comments, fi x

Two autumnal swap tags

After making 2 tags yesterday, I was still in the crafty mood and made both of my autumnal swap tags for October.

Both tag bases were made using cream pearlised card and stamping a Personal Impressions Chestnut leaf stamp, stamped using VersaMagic Mango Madnesschalk ink pad, Tim Holtz Shabby Shutters & Fired Brick distress inks. The tags were also edged with the Fried Brick distress ink.

This first tag was also stamped with Personal Impressions Swallows stamp using Fired Brick distress ink & the tag was embellished with coloured lace and leaf brads and finished with ribbon.

this second tag was embellished using tiny flower brads and die-cut leaves, and finished with thin red ribbon.

Two 'Back to School' swap tags

I am quite behind on my monthly themed tags for the swap on the scraboooking forum on the Do Crafts website, mainly due to poor health, but today I sat and really enjoyed making two tags for the September swap.

                    The first tag uses House Mouse decoupage.

I layered the decoupage onto Websters Pages 'Petite Papers',(a 6" paper pad which came free with Simply Cards & Papercraft magazine) then onto copper pearlised card for tag base.

I embellished the tag with a Docrafts 3D tag, a leaf brad, paper scrabble letters which came free inside a craft magazine, and finished the tag with chiffon ribbon from my stash.

This second tag, I used a donated stamped image of a schoolgirl (sorry don't know the brand name) and coloured her with Promarkers. I 3D'd her onto lined floral school paper and again used the paper scrabble letters (both free in a craft magazine), then onto copper pearlised card for the tag base. I finished the tag with East of India maroon twine.

I enjoyed my crafting afternoon and aim to make some more tags tomorrow, Fi x

where has the year gone since I lost my best friend Deb?

On 29th October 2011 my dearest friend Deb died and left many broken hearts behind, she was only 55 years old, she was so full of life and lived each day to the full, too young to die.

 Tomorrow those who loved her will cover her grave with wreaths and tears, these are my flowers for my best friend, love you forever Deb, RIP, Fi xxxx

Made 4 tags for monthly swaps this week

It a bit of a week, on Tuesday teatime our irgin tivo crashed, along with their internet and our landline phone. Most houses in our road were reconnected in 2 hours, but 2 houses weren't and one of them was ours! We were finally reconnected on Friday lunchtime, butonly after the 2 Virgin tecvh guys came back 3 times.

One bonus to not having any internet, meant that instead of chatting to my dear friends on DC, which I really missed, it gave me the excuse to craft whilst watching DVDs we had had for ages and never got round to watching, my favourite was 'Atonement', but I also loved the cartoon 'All dogs go to Heaven' (our daughter is called Anner-Marie, like the girl in the story, and she had the film on video as a child and then bought it on DVD for her daughter, and mum!)

I belong to a monthly tag swap on the scrapbooking forum on DC, but had had no mojo and some poor health recently so had got behind.

August's theme was magical, we make a tag for our swap partner and the host.
This first tag is the tag I made for Kelly

It features, a ready-made tag, fairy pyramage, holographic peel-off butterflies and Papermania adhesive gems, and finished off with pale blue satin ribbon.

My 2nd tag was made for June our host this month

I coloured a donated stamped fairy image with promarkers. The tag is made from white hammered card, I stamped a frame acrylic stamp with clear embossing powder and brushed over it with Perfect Pearls 'Blue Patina', the first time I've used Perfect Pearls, saw the technique when Chloe was demonstrating on her Ideal World craft show last month. I used 3D sticky pads to attach the fairy to the tag and finished it with blue fibres.

September's theme is 'Back to school', which had me stumped, then I found some pyramage of a teacher. This tag is for June, my 1st partner for September. I aim to make my 2nd partner and the host tag for September next week.

This is a very simple tag, just using pyramage and red satin ribbon.

In December we are going to make 11 Christmas tags, one for each partner we have swapped with all year, so to save postage I made June's Christmas tag.

I used a donated Penny Black Christmas mouse (adore this image) and coloured it delicately with promarkers, I embellished the image with Papermania adhesive gems and layered it onto pearl card then made the tag from Kanban 'Blue Christmas Paisley' card, I finished the tag with with pale blue fibres.

we are away all weekend visiting our son Dan and his partner who live in Bristol and are in their final year of their law degrees, so will try and leapblog a bit Saturday morning, before we go, but then will try and catch up on Monday, have a wonderful crafty weekend everyone, and thankyou for any comments, your comments are so encouraging and each one is so appreciated, Fi xx