One day when I'm feeling blue

Northern Lights

2008-04-01T21:56:00.004+01:00

I've always wanted to see the Northern Lights ever since I was a little girl. This year, at the end of February, we had the opportunity to sail up the coast of Norway on the Hurtigruten and there was a chance (not guaranteed) of seeing the lights.

Hurtigruten is actually the company who run a fleet of small ships that cruise the Norwegian coast, essentially acting as working ships delivering and collecting supplies from all the small towns and villages right up to the Russian border and way above the Arctic Circle. We travelled aboard the 'Richard With'.

After rather miserable weather for the first three days, we were lucky enough to have beautiful sunny days for the rest of the holiday. It was cold (-16 degrees centigrade during the day at the farthest points) and there was lots of snow around, but the skies were mostly blue and there was lots of sunshine. By dressing up warmly, you could forget the intense cold and enjoy the breathtaking scenery.

And best of all, we saw the Northern lights on three separate evenings. It was absolutely amazing. We had a wonderful time on board, we visited an ice hotel, we stroked reindeer, we saw ice sculptures, had mulled wine and Christmas cake in a Christmas house in the very north of the country, and enjoyed breathtaking scenery, but the Northern Lights just made it so special.

Here are three of the photos I took. Bear in mind that I was on the deck of a moving ship, with strong winds blowing, the temperature well below zero and trying to keep the camera still for 15 seconds in order to get the shot.

Birthday card

2008-02-04T21:16:00.000Z

I was at the GMEX centre in Manchester at the weekend visiting the Creative stitch and craft show. I bought more stuff than I should, but don't we all! One of the things I loved (and had seen on TV) was the tiny stamps that you use to create a circle of flowers. They also look lovely round the edge of notepaper and envelopes. I bought them from a lovely lady called Wendy at Card IO. But you can also see them Rubber Stamp Tapestry.

Here's a card I used them on. I have based my card on one of the samples shown at Rubber Stamp Tapestry. The flowers are stamped above and below the ribbon. I also bought the swirly stamp at GMEX from a company called Dimension Fourth Ltd. They have an absolutely huge range of unmounted polymer stamps

DCM - Red & White

2008-02-04T21:09:00.000Z

Red & White is the DCM challenge set this week by 'the team'. "We want you to design a card using only RED AND WHITE on your cards- it doesn't have to be a Valentine themed card - it can be any theme- as long as use incorporate RED and WHITE on it.".

My card uses a stamp which I have had for a while but haven't really used. It's the squares background. I've stamped tiny hearts from my circle of flowers kit (see birthday card posting just before this one). I made the background paper on the computer and the letter stamps were bought from dimension fourth ltd (again see birthday card posting for details). I embossed the letters with white embossing powder and added a bit of red Stickles glitter round some of the squares.

Looking Back a Little - DCM mid-week

2008-01-30T19:57:00.000Z

Tuesday's DCM challenge: "This weeks little extra,-is all about looking back a little-at the last dare. We want you choose a card from one of the design teams cards submitted for the 'Foiled' dare and come up with a card using one or two of the same elements. tricky..."

Now when I logged in yesterday, I either mis-read the challenge or they have slightly changed it, because I don't remember it saying anything about using the design team's 'Foiled' cards, and thought it wasn't very clear, but meant the Hide and Seek challenge of the previous week. So my card was done with that in mind and uses Kathy's 'Let's Play Hide and Seek' card for inspiration.

Anyway, I'm not changing it now and apologies to Kathy for using the wrong card. I wasn't intending to copy or lift your design, just doing what I thought was the challenge.

BTW, the card is scanned and not photographed, so it hasn't reproduced quite as well as it should.

Recipe:
plain white card as base.
patterned paper - Papermania
letter stamp also Papermania
flower was a decoupage assembly using Dawn Bibby stamps on DCWV cardstock with a brad in the centre.
Matting card was DCWV.
Birthday text part was my own digital work.

And that's it :-)

Hats

2008-01-26T14:27:00.000Z

I found this technique via a craft video site that I really like. It's called Craft TV Weekly. they have videos of projects at least once a week and there are some great ideas. The original is here. It uses a heart stamp, but since I didn't have the right one, I substituted a hat and thought it more appropriate for a male birthday card anyway. I was very pleased with the effect.

The pictures show the card closed, opened and then finally the reverse of the card. I love the way the hats interlock to close the card.

The colour in the second and third ones is nearer the original. The paper inside is from a DCWV stack and the hat stamp was one in a huge box of them I got on QVC last year. Hope you like them.

Painting with ink

2008-01-26T14:21:00.000Z

I'm doing a watercolour class at the moment where we are using ordinary ink that you use in an old-fashioned fountain pen to draw with. You use lots of water to dilute the ink and then use diluted household bleach to bleach out areas. The bleach and ink both have a mind of their own, so the results are somewhat unpredictable, but the results can be stunning. Here's my first effort - by no means a masterpiece - but I'm still working on it and still learning the technique. I took the view from the front of a holiday brochure on Perth in Scotland. (It's not quite as dark as it looks on this photo.)

Foiled

2008-01-26T10:55:00.001Z

I've taken part in Jo's dare this week on Daring Card Makers, called 'Foiled'. Jo put it like this: "My dare this week is 'Foiled!' -I would like you to utilise some plain old aluminium (aluminum for our friends across the pond!) foil from your kitchen :). You can scrunch it, die cut it, emboss it, ink it, coil it, cover chipboard - or anything else that you choose!"

With all these birthdays in February, I've done a card for a man. I have someone in mind and I don't think he will be looking at my blog, but his OH might be, so I hope she will keep quiet on this one.

I found embossing the foil quite tricky at first until I hit on the idea of glueing it to a piece of card and embossing through the card. Maybe that's the way everyone does it.

I know there are gorgeous papers and embellishments out there, but I do hate buying things I can make myself or get for free. And besides, I just have too much stuff now and really shouldn't go buying any more (will though - don't we all!).

Recipe:
. stripy paper ( initially thought it was free with Issue 40 of Simply Cards & Papercraft - but I was wrong, so sorry to have misled anyone) Papermania Rich Purple Designer Pack - a Christmas present from my son and DiL.
. pink paper was from a pad of multicolours from Paperchase (so useful!)
. car and balloons were on an embossing board free with a magazine (can't remember which). Car was mounted with foam pads.
. wooden chipboard square painted with acrylic paint and silver embossed with Happy Birthday and a small holographic heart added (heart doesn't photo too well)
. blue mount under car was DCWV textured stack (again so useful). Edge inked with Lakeland's ink pad.
. a little extra doodling on the pink to match the balloon strings which just happened to be on the stripy paper.
. silver border stick ons to soften the pink/stripy paper split.

Back on track

2008-01-24T14:11:00.000Z

My blog has been left for so long due to many happenings at home, which I'm not going into here. But I am back!!!

My first post is for the DCM mid-week challenge which is called 'Sending in the Substitute!', the substitute because poor Jo was too poorly to upload the challenge. Kathy substituted with a design which you can see on the DCM blog.

We have lots of family birthdays in February and one of those is for twins who are 40, so I have started to make the cards in advance and Kathy's sketch made a good starting point. I'm afraid the twins will be getting the same card apart from a different flower arrangement. Unfortunately I can't just lay my hands on my camera, so I have had to scan the card in.

Recipe: 5" x 5" on white card; background completely done digitally using Serif PhotoPlus 11, then cut out and pasted onto card; Happy Birthday stamped with a stamp from a big box full I bought via QVC; flower - Prima I think, courtesy of Pearl at Maisymary's Findings where she picked my name in a draw.

I use PhotoPlus for all my digital work. I can't afford Photoshop but find I can do nearly everything it does with PhotoPlus and everyone at the Serif User Group is really helpful.

Dear Kathy - Happy Birthday to you

2007-09-15T16:14:00.000+01:00

It is Kathy's birthday today. She is one of the DCM team and so I have made her a card. I've used Serif DrawPlus8 which I'm trying to learn. So the card is produced digitally. The items on it are not copied from elsewhere (ie not clipart) - I have managed to create them myself.

Kathy I do hope you have a lovely day.

In a Word (or in my case in two words!)

2007-09-14T15:07:00.000+01:00

I haven't blogged for ages because so much has been going on and I have finally RETIRED from work.

It being Friday and having just an hour or so spare, I thought I'd do a quick take on the Friday DCM dare (see below). Unfortunately, I didn't read it properly until just now as I'm about to upload and I've just noticed that I am supposed to do ONE word, and mine says Thank You, which is obviously two words. Could it be interpreted as Thankyou I ask myself? Anyway the ladies at DCM will just have to accept my mistake and forgive me, cos I'm going to upload it anyway and I haven't time at the moment to do another.

So the dare was set by Rhi (who just got married) as follows:
This week I dare you to use a Word as the main focal point to your card. It can be a name, a greeting or just a word that inspires you. You can use other text but only one word as a main embellishment. So dig out your dictionaries, die cutters, alphabet stamps, rubons or download a funky font and show us what you can do! The design team have come up with some fabulous creations to inpsire you.

Am off to do some painting now.

Hermine's Challenge

2007-08-13T20:18:00.000+01:00

I found Hermine's site via one or two of the Daring Card Makers and thought I'd have a go at her challenge, which was to use her free background paper to produce a piece of work. We are expecting an influx of visitors from the US later in the week, so I have had to pack all my crafting stuff away to free up the spare bedroom. therefore I've resorted to doing Hermine's challenge totally digitally, using some free clipart (on a CD from a magazine) and playing around with transparency and text curving. I'm quite pleased with the result.

For my younger viewers, 'Trains and Boats and Planes' was a hit recording by Billy J Kramer way back in the 1960s.

Oh and by the way, I have been tagged by a couple of people, but just not had time to blog, so apologies for this. Promise I will get round to it, but might be a couple of weeks - or at least not until the visitors have left.

Venice with ArtRage2

2007-08-08T06:40:00.000+01:00

Hi

I wanted to share this painting with my viewers. One of my friends at the Serif Users Group (SUG) recommended ArtRage2 to me. It's a drawing program which you can use exactly as if you were painting, but using the mouse or tablet pen instead of pens and pencils. I was so impressed, I bought the program (only £12.95 + VAT). This is my first attempt and I was really pleased with the result. The picture I used was one we did on a painting course on holiday, but I drew the image freehand from my original painting, then coloured it in. You can choose different background papers (canvas, smooth, etc) and use oils, pastels, crayons and brushes, palette knives, felt tips etc).

Any comments?

All Checked Out

2007-07-30T20:07:00.000+01:00

Jane's DCM dare this week is:
For my dare you can choose any theme for the card BUT it must incorporate 'Checks', whether it be gingham paper or ribbon or squares, any thing really as long as it incorporates some kind of shape with 4 equal sides....... so go on- I dare you to think outside the square/step out of the box ..............easy as, eh ?!!

Here's mine. I ended up scanning it because every photo I took (about 20 in all) seemed to be really blurred. Probably because the daylight has gone now. Trouble with a scan is it loses some of the effect of the handiwork, for example the ribbon I used.

Recipe
1. Image was from Crafty Individuals
2. peach/green checks from K&Co.
3. Ribbon from my recent winnings which was posted from Ribbon Mad
4. Green matting with weave and zigzag patterns I made myself (acrylic metallic paints from Tesco children's area - love them + cheap stamps from In-Store children's section) I'm always browsing the children's craft areas for cheap and cheerful.
5. Orange matting layer some cheap paper I had lying around.
6. Thank You stamp from the QVC Today's Special Value about a month ago - proving very handy and nice clear stamps

Been out shopping today for new bedding for our new bed, plus matching curtains. Managed to find some nice stuff in BHS and John Lewis.

Off to see what everyone else has done now. Good night.

Pockets, ribbons and papers

2007-07-23T18:48:00.000+01:00

First of all, my son lives in Cheltenham and I have just phoned him to see how he is faring with the flooding in Gloucestershire. Fortunately they are not affected by flood water, although they have friends that are. But they have lost their water supply and according to the news may be without it for a week or more. This is England and summer and I don't ever remember anything this bad. So my heart goes out to any of my readers who are affected or likely to be, since the rivers are still rising and it may well get worse.

I have two reasons for posting. The first is that I was lucky enough to win with the scrapbook I did for RattyTatty's competition using her papers . It's on my Blog on June 21st if you want to take a look. Tracey has sent me this fantastic supply of ribbons as a prize. I was overwhelmed by the quantity, and the colours are fabulous too. There's everything from sheer organzas to rainbow cords. Tracey - I'm over the moon. Thank you so much.

Here's the contents of my parcel:

The second reason is to upload my DCM Friday dare card.

It's my turn - (Lynne) - to set the dare this week.
OoooOOoooOOooooOOOoo!!!!!!!!
My first Dare. I’m so nervous, I can’t believe that it’s my turn already.
I’ve gone for something nice and easy - had to break myself in gently.
POCKETS
I’d like to see lots and lots of pockets. Pockets full of posies, Brass in Pocket (love the Pretenders).Pockets on clothes, Pockets from clothes, Library Pocket, Pockets of this and Pockets of that.
Get the idea?
Pockets and Pockets of Pockets.

And here it is:

Recipe:

The flowers are some which I dried myself. They were rather fragile and so I arranged them with the striped pocket (which was a free paper given away by Cards and Papercraft magazine. - the paper says S.E.I Crazy in Love on the back) ) in a laminating pouch and laminated them together. I've noticed before that laminating seems to enhance the colours of pressed flowers as well as protecting them. I stitched round the pocket before laminating.
The flower pocket was then mounted with pads onto the blue trellis paper from K & Co
Next I layered this on some pink paper I had knocking around and then on to gold from inside a box of chocolates.
I added a pink ribbon bow and the stamped sentiment 'Friends are flowers in the garden of Life'. The stamp was in a box of 40 wooden mounted stamps in a presentation wooden case which was the QVC special value a couple of weeks ago. It's a nice varied, useful selection.

Oh and lastly, I was away in Edinburgh at the weekend and called in at Daintree Papers . They had just received some fantastic new papers which I just loved. I bought several strips at 18p a strip (about one third of A4 cut lengthwise) and also a couple which were Japanese screen prints. These were about 80p, so a bit pricey but absolutely gorgeous. The sort that you never want to use, just gloat over. They had only just come in and I don't think they are on their website yet, but do have a look at their stock. They do cards, hand-made papers, ribbons, hand-made books and a small amount of general craft stuff like brads. They have a huge selection of gorgeous do-it-yourself wedding stationery.

Here are the papers I bought...

And that's it until next time.

Faux everything

2007-07-18T07:47:00.000+01:00

A quick post before I rush off to work. This is for the DCM mid-week challenge called 'Faking it'. The challenge was

'Fee Fi Fo Fum.....
For our Little Extra challenge this week, we'd like you to "Go Faux it" Yes, all we want you to do this week is to use something fake on your cards. For instance you could make fake ribbon, fake brads or fake chipboard - we think you talented folk can come up with lots more "let's pretend" ideas so we can't wait to see your ideas.'

I guess I cheated really, because mine is fake everything as the whole thing, except for the background card, was done digitally, so none of it is real - eyelets, vellum, ribbon, chipboard flourish! I really enjoyed doing this. Unfortunately, the print is not quite as good as the on screen image and the photo is slightly blurred, so I'm posting both the finished card and the digital image. Hope you like.

Finished card:

Original digital image:

Haberdashery

2007-07-16T10:16:00.000+01:00

Good morning Monday and for once the sun is shining - well it was when I started to write this.

I haven't blogged for ages - just been too busy. But it means there's lots to say.

It's been our village scarecrow fortnight. It runs for two weeks in the summer and on the middle Saturday we have our fete. The weather has been just dreadful and our poor old scarecrow has been under a gazebo to protect him. But they say the sun shines on the righteous and the sun certainly shone on our fete on Saturday. We ploughed around the mud in wellies and hiking boots, but in gorgeous sunshine. We couldn't have wished for a better afternoon.

So the theme this year was Occupations. I did this scrapbook layout for the art competition. It was all done digitally.

And our scarecrow was 'Sweeney Todd - the demon barber'. Here's a photo of his head :-)

Before the fete, I entered two pastel paintings in an Art Exhibition in the next village. I'm a member of the art group there. The paintings were really good this year and although I didn't sell one, I was still pleased with my entries. Here they are:

My OH couldn't sleep yesterday morning and saw this fantastic sunrise:

And finally, to the DCM dare set by Gillian - g'day Gillian down under. I haven't done a dare for a couple of weeks so was really keen to get one in.

Here's the dare and my attempt is below:

G'day all, Gillian here, and it's my turn to dare you all this week
Your card can be any theme you like, just as long as it's got something you'd find in a Haberdashery Department on it
Alright then, grab that old sewing basket of yours or raid your sewing machine drawer, have a look at what creative bits are hidding away there....maybe it's buttons, a zip, hook & eye's, ribbons, braids, Dressmaking patterns, tape measures,Pins & Needles, lace, safety pins or embroidery thread....
so many wonderful little treasures just waiting to be added to your next card :O)
I'm going to add one more rule....
Yes you may stitch on your card, but that can't be your only haberdashery item....

Hope you enjoyed the pictures and my DCM dare. Do leave me comments.

Tagged

2007-06-25T13:17:00.000+01:00

It's Monday - the weather is dreadful - windy and wet and 4 inches of rain forecast for today.

Over the weekend I've managed to finish my two paintings for our local art exhibition and get them framed. I haven't exhibited anything for years, so hope these are okay. I may post them on my blog later.

I've also completed a card for a friend's 60th birthday, but I shan't be posting that.

However, I am posting this week's DCM challenge called 'Tagged'. I've done the double dare as this is definitely a man's card. I'm quite pleased with the result. As always, it looks better in the flesh than in a photo.

The dare was from Rhi as follows:

Everything we buy has packaging, some of it excessive, some of it beautifully designed. Tags, labels, stickers... all sorts of bits and bobs that we can recycle onto cards.

I dare you to make a card using a tag, label, sticker or anything else you can find, thats from packaging and would normally end up in the bin. Of course you can ink it, change it, distress it and add anything else you like!

If you're feeling brave, I DOUBLE DARE you to make it a card for a man!

Recipe
1. Digital paper - a freebie from Scrapgirls which I changed into greyscale
2. Edged with a digital grunge overlay from Sooze
3. The cowboy was digitally applied and then faded out so that he looks as though he is part of the wooden background. I found him at Art e-zine, which is in my links folder (for some reason for me this link works in IE, but not in Firefox!)
4. After printing out the above, I matted it on black cardstock and then applied it to a white card.
5. The button was also from Sooze's site.
6. The label was from a pair of trousers I bought a couple of weeks ago.

Rattytatty's competition

2007-06-21T21:11:00.000+01:00

Whilst browsing the other DCM darer's sites, I came across Rattytattys Paper Raving Blog and was amazed at how much she had written in just ten days. Rattytatty (aka Tracey) has some free papers to download and has encouraged her viewers to create an artwork using the papers, so 'I'll have a go' I thought.

I've combined two of the papers for the competition, with another which she has uploaded this afternoon. I've added one of my favourite photos ever. It's me and my two sons (who I hasten to add are now in their thirties) on holiday. They were watching me drawing. The photo had faded over the years and I digitally enhanced it some time ago, but it is still a little scratched.

The whole page has been created digitally. I turned the striped paper round so the stripes were vertical instead of horizontal and faded out the pale blue a bit so the stripes show through. I've used drop shadows on the text and photo to enhance them and added a dark blue border round the stripes to make the papers 'pop' more.

I've not done much scrapbooking and I mostly do traditional paper crafting, but I'm beginning to do more and more digital work. It's so quick and versatile and you aren't hunting around for just the right bit of coloured paper or embellishment - you just go hunting for freebies on the Internet or, even better, make them yourselves. I find it creatively very liberating.

Tracey - I do hope you like it.

Fabulous Embossing

2007-06-21T14:04:00.000+01:00

I've just had a brilliant holiday in Austria. We stayed in Niederau in the Alps, but went out and about most days. We visited Hitler's retreat, the Eagle's Nest, which was a bit disappointing. For a start, there was lots of low cloud, so although the views must be be magnificent, we didn't get to see them. Also, you always see those views of him on the balcony with Eva Braun, and I expected something very plush, but in fact it was rather dreary. I guess the valuable stuff was ripped out after the war. Still it was an experience. You go up inside the hillside in a lift which is completely walled with shining brass. Now that was plush!

Also visited Salzburg, Lake Achensee amongst other places. We had amazingly good weather - only rained when we were in the coach or at night! CNN news showed us that things were much worse back home, with floods and torrential downpours all over the UK, so I guess we were really lucky.

And now to this week's DCM challenge. I decided to mingle the mid-week and weekly challenge into one, so it's fabulously embossed LOL. Apologies if the card looks a bit dark. It's better if you double click and open it full size!

Lythan set the weekly dare:

Embossing.
Dry embossing with a light box or with a die cutting machine.
Using embossing powders or triple embossing.
Using pre-embossed papers.
Embossing with found items.
Just have fun playing!

And as I can't resist being a little (em)bossy -
why not see if you can get more than one emboss technique on your card?

and the mid week dare from Kathy was:

...and this time we have a Word Challenge for you to play with. So the word we want you to take inspiration from this week is FABULOUS.

My card recipe is as follows:
1. background - black card mount on a white card. Black card rubbed with red chalk which made it look a sort of purplish/brown. The hearts are dry embossed and then outlined with a silver pen.
2. Word 'fabulous' was embossed on ink-jet acetates, by printing the word, sprinkling with white embossing powder and carefully heating.
3. The Mulberry Batik design uses the technique described at Split Coasters. I used the same stamp as my last posting (Papermania PMA1027).
Basically, you emboss the stamp with Versamark onto white Mulberry paper, heating it very gently to avoid burning the fibres. You then damp it and pounce a damp sponge, which you have rubbed over water colour pencils, over the surface, drying it from time to time to stop it from falling apart. When you are happy with the design, you iron it between sheets of paper to remove the embossing and you get a Batik effect.
4. Finally I damped and shredded the edges and mounted it on a piece of white card, then on a bright pink card from a DCWV stack.

Hope you like it. There are some really good technique pages at Split Coasters.

I can see clearly now.................

2007-06-04T22:15:00.000+01:00

Ever so quick post tonight. Just completed the Friday's DCM dare. Not very sure I like it or not. Happy for other opinions.

The dare was: "Kel says- Okay, this week I would like you to use some acetate, vellum, plasma or anything else remotely 'see-through' on your card. That's it!"

Recipe
I just bought a new stamp from the local Do-Crafts stockists. It's one of the new Papermania Ornate Stamps. Stamped it with black Staze-on onto clear acetate, then stuck the acetate onto a colourful image of roses, torn from a magazine. Hand sewed two layers of transparent red silk onto a piece of white card using black embroidery thread. Mounted the acetate image on the top. Then created little beads of Black Diamond Stickles glue in the corners. Image is a bit blurred and doesn't do the silk background justice!

Black with one other colour...

2007-05-30T19:52:00.000+01:00

Very quick post today as I'm rushing off. Just wanted to upload the mid week DCM dare card. Rarely get time to do these, so have made a special effort this week. If you want to know the recipe - there isn't one really - then leave me a comment and I'll fill it in later.

Thanks for looking.

Working 9 to 5 ...

2007-05-28T19:34:00.000+01:00

Here's my effort for this week's DCM dare. The dare is set by Jo:

"This week it's my turn (Jo) and I'm going to dare you to use bits and bobs from the office for your cards. It's been a while since I had a 'real' job - other than being a Mum and of course playing with bits of paper... Reminiscing... I would like you to make a card using some thing that you would normally find in an office environment. Such as... staples, paperclips, paper fasteners, file folders, library cards, hole punches, lined paper etc you get the drift."

I shall be 61 (oops slip of the tongue, surely I mean 21 :-)) in September and have finally decided to retire at the end of August so I thought I'd do a card for myself to put on my desk, not that I shall forget the date - no way!. It was a hard decision to make and took me a long time to make my mind up, but now I've made the choice, I can't wait. No more workingy 9 to 5 and more time to craft and shop for stash me-thinks!

Recipe

Blue card from DCWV mat stack
Pen nib paper was free with Cards & Papercraft magazine I think by 'Design Originals'
Home made tag
Paperclips, Staples and string from about the house
Flower (RAK from MaisyMary (Pearl))
Brad
Text is handwritten

Whilst you are here, I'd love you to find time to look at the post before this. I was late on Thursday evening for last week's DCM dare and got missed off the list of those who took part.

Must run - my family are here for the weekend, baby grandson has finally gone off to sleep so need to go and make something to eat now.

Starting From Scratch!

2007-05-24T21:34:00.000+01:00

I've been so pushed for time the last couple of weeks that I just haven't had time to finish stuff and upload it, and I'm right up against the wire again as this week's DCM dare's deadline is tomorrow. However, I'm going to do three in one go, plus a card which had nothing to do with the Dares.

I bought this nifty little easel in IKEA the other week. It's just great for photographing cards and it's good for displaying any nice cards you have received too.

Card One - Beautiful
So card one was the mid week 'A Beautiful Thought' dare from a couple of weeks ago, which I combined with the mid week dare of '3 Little Things' the week later, the 3 little things being 1 piece of chipboard (bought or "faux")and 1 piece of metal, except I cheated and used four pieces of metal for the word 'Baby', and finally 1 piece of Chipboard! The card was made for the daughter of a close friend who had the baby the day before yesterday, although we knew it would be a boy in advance.

Card Two - Pink one
Card two (the pink, no-dare, card) was a wedding card for my husband's cousin's daughter who got married last Saturday.

Card Three - the bigger one
And finally the third card was for this week's dare from BondGirl

For this weeks dare, I dare you to "start from scratch" I want to you design a card with NO purchased/pre-assembled embellishments - that means no blooms unless you cut them yourself, no buttons, brads etc etc. I guess how easy this is depends on your usual style.

I've just realised that I have cheated by accident and used four buttons, but I did get them out of my grandma's old button box, so I didn't purchase them, honest!

Recipe

Serendipity paper created entirely on the PC (see image), which I then cut into squares. (I do like that image and may use it for something else as I think it looked good even before I cut it up.)
Blue mount was paper, well thick enough to call card really, which I made myself from recycled paper with a kit I have.
Created the turquoise background paper with the Happy Birthday border on the computer
Mounted 1, 2 and 3 onto a plain white card.
Cut more very thin strips from the serendipity paper and glued them along the bottom
Cut flower shapes from the serendipity paper and decoupaged them for the flower in the middle at the bottom
And finally, the cheat - stuck on the turquoise buttons.

Hope you like all three cards - do let me know and thanks for looking.

Wings

2007-05-07T14:58:00.000+01:00

Jane has set the DCM dare this week, and it's anything which has wings. (Maybe that could have been me if the balloon flight had gone ahead ;-)

So in more detail...

WINGS!

You can pick any subject, any colour but the card has to incorporate WINGS of some sort-so you can do - butterflies, angels, fairies, insects,birds........anything basically if it has wings!

Generally I'm not into faeries, but I have been tinker(bell)ing around with some stained glass effects from Rosie Hardman and I remembered that I had some free fonts of faeries which I could use as a template for a stained glass effect, so I picked one of the letters, enlarged it to about 240 size and sat it on top of several of the stained glass jpegs, using Serif Photoplus. After printing out a pink, a yellow and a green/blue copy, I decoupaged some of the images on top of the green/blue background. I then printed one sheet of the pink stained glass and mounted the whole image on top of that, added a flower (thanks Esther) with a press-stud centre, some hemp string plus a touch of glitter to highlight and voila wings.

Hope you like it.

Up, up and away

2007-04-30T11:08:00.000+01:00

I did hope to be posting some fantastic pictures today as the special treat was a Balloon Flight. However, you have to ring up after 11 pm the night before to check if the flight is running. Unfortunately, although we have this fantastic weather, we also have strong winds and they are too strong to take the balloons up, so our flight was cancelled. Anyway, we can book again anytime during the next year, so we will choose another day and I'll post the photos then.

Tasty Template

2007-04-29T17:52:00.000+01:00

Well the weather has been so fantastic, it's really far too nice to stay indoors and make cards. However, I decided to do this week's DCM dare and use it to make a birthday card for a special birthday for my friend Barbara.

The dare was set by Jane and it was completely sponsored by Self Addressed. Self Addressed very kindly donated papers, cards and envelopes (from various SA kits) to the whole of the DCM team to see what they could come up with. So Jane asked us to use our own papers but follow a template. I'm not uploading the template here, but you can see it on the DCM website at http://www.daringcardmakers.blogspot.com/.

The SA papers are scrummy, and the DCM team used them so beautiful, so reader, do go and take a look. However, as I don't have any, I used some K & Cos papers, which I got at Christmas time but haven't used until now.

My friend Barbara and I grew up together and our parents were also friends, so we have always known each other. Therefore I wanted to create a special card for an 'end in zero' birthday. I won't give away her age, although it is inside the card, but I'm not showing you that ;-)

Recipe

Papers and Chipboard letter are all K & Co. Hannah
Matting card, organza and satin ribbons from my stash. The organza ribbon came from Daintree Ribbon in Edinburgh. They happen to be near where my Mum lives. They were so helpful and they have a beautiful range of ribbon at around 37p per metre. Their website shows you all the colours and designs, so worth a look.
Pearlescent glitter highlights along the tear edge and as small dots on the bottom paper
Small flowers and oval jewels from Lakeland
Edged round the design on the bottom paper with a cheap Partners Gel pen
The red strip and bow are Dylon Dimensional Fabric paint with glitter. I glued the bow design on some thin card, waited until it was dry and then cut round it. The liquid is blue to start with and you can't see the glitter, so I was a bit disappointed until it dried but wow did it look wonderfully lush when it dried! It made a really nice 3D effect.
The Alphabet letter block is fastened on with foam. I'm currently using B&Q's Double Sided Foam Mounting Tape, which comes on a roll, rather than those fiddly foam squares. I'm hoping it will work out cheaper.

And that's about it.

I'm off doing something very exciting tomorrow, weather permitting, so watch this space.

2007-04-25T21:34:00.000+01:00

Oops I have been tagged by the friendly AngelNorth. Never been tagged before! Gotta start somewhere.

So, the rules are: Each player starts with 7 random facts/habits about themselves. People who are tagged need to blog about their 7 things and post the rules as well. At the end of your blog you need to choose 7 people to get tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them that they have been tagged and to read your blog.

Here goes:
1. I love chocolate
2. I need to lose a stone in weight
3. I have a gorgeous baby grandson who was eight months old yesterday
4. Yesterday was payday (thank goodness)
5. I love learning about anything for learning's sake
6. I put off starting things because I'm frightened of them not being perfect
7. I will have been married for 40 years next year (a lifetime's devotion - but not sure if it is him to me or the other way round). However I am only 21 :-0

Now the really big problem is that I only check the DCM blog and so don't know anyone outside of that and it looks like most of us have been tagged already, so very sincere apologies in advance to all those who are about to be tagged again. So now, who shall I tag? Well, let's go for: Smarty Glitterati; Ruthie; Tracey; Dawn (Scarpnnmo); Kelly; Samantha and finally Jay. You lucky lot ;-)

Fun, Funky, Fabulous FELT...

2007-04-23T15:27:00.000+01:00

With gorgeous weather for so long now, I've been spending time in the garden and have planted most of my veggies. The runner beans are now about 4" high in the greenhouse and the broad beans are also looking good. But it's too early to chance them outside yet. We could still have frost up here in the Peak District.

I made Sheila (Manicstamper)'s tomato and red onion flan at the weekend and we really enjoyed it. I was in a domestic goddess mood and also baked a cake, a mincemeat tart (sweet not savoury) and a French Onion tart, so the pounds are going on this week. I can't remember when I last baked anything.

Gillian from down under has set this week's Daring Card Makers Challenge.

"G'day everyone Gillian here, it's my turn to dare you this week, as you may have noticed felt is really hot in the crafting world at the moment, and it's available in so many ways now, in sheet form in a rainbow of colours, precut shapes, beautiful felt borders, even lovely patterned felt and felt with glitter...

So I reckon it's a great medium to dare you with.

So here's the dare, Make a card and include some felt,

the theme & style are entirely up to you"

Well I had a go, but I don't use felt and wasn't going out to buy some so searched in my bit box and found a couple of small pieces - one in red and one in pink. After browsing through some resource books I have I came across a stylised version of a fuchsia flower which shouted pink and red to me, so the result is shown. I added some hand embroidery and sewed on some beads and then inserted into an aperture card and added a rubber stamped message. Can't say I particularly enjoyed it (sorry Gillian) and this probably reflects in the result. ( My OH says it looks like an elephant's behind - nice praise!!). But you can't love them all.

DCM Crossing Continents

2007-04-15T08:40:00.000+01:00

Saffa's DCM dare this week is "I would like you to make a card that celebrates and reflects a festival from another culture to your own....".

So where to start? Saffa gave us some suggestions of festivals and after researching on the Internet I decided on the Hindi festival of lights or Diwali as it is known. Much of my information and inspiration came from this excellent site: http://www.diwalifestival.org/.

At Diwali, the goddess Lakshmi is believed to visit homes which are well lit, so people use candles and small oil lamps called diyas. People welcome the goddess and friends in by decorating the entrance to their homes with Rangoli patterns. These are made from coloured pastes of ground materials such as rice flour, white stone and lime.

Colours and shapes both have significance and these were the source of my inspiration.

Circles represent the endlessness of time
Flames represent the diyas
White is a symbol of peace, purity and tranquility
Yellow is a sign of prosperity
Red is considered auspicious
Flowers are used to give dimension to the designs
And my glitter is just for 'bling' :-)

So the Recipe

The base is an CD covered with black card
The white lace is pieces cut from lace borders from Lakeland Plastics (these are brilliant)
The flames were developed on the PC by me, then I used gold pen to highlight the centres
The flower is a free graphic brush which I found somewhere on the Internet
The corners were free from Scrap Girls, but I recoloured them red from blue
Gold glitter for the blobs and diamond glitter glue accents on the flower.

I have to say that, not only have I really enjoyed this challenge (thanks Saffa), but I think this is probably my best card ever and, though I say it myself, I love it. However, since unfortunately I have no Hindi friends to give it to, I'm going to take the CD off the card, drill a hole in it or stick a magnet on the back and hang it up at home and hope it will be auspicious for my family and bring prosperity.

Hope you like it too.

Midweek Recipe

2007-04-12T18:28:00.000+01:00

This week Kathy posted the midweek DCM dare: 'This week we have a very simple recipe for you to follow
All you need to do is make a card featuring 5 circles, 3 squares and 1 flower - that's it.'

So mine is here. I used some of the flowers which I won in MaisyMary's Candy draw. (Thanks again Pearl)

Esther's jigsaw piece

2007-04-08T09:41:00.000+01:00

Esther

Here's a preview of my jigsaw piece. Hope you like it.

One sunny day in April

2007-04-08T09:29:00.000+01:00

It's Easter Sunday and a gorgeous bright sunny day. Yesterday I spent most of the day in the garden planting veggies for our summer crop. Today I'm going to do some more in the greenhouse because here in the North West it is far too soon to put most crops out. We are bound to get some more frosts.

The garden is looking really good - everything springing into life. My OH took this picture of a small twisted bush in our garden (hazel or willow, I'm not sure - must check the label). It's a mass of small white flowers and is far more beautiful than the photo.

DCM Dare 'Art Attack'

2007-04-07T19:35:00.000+01:00

Rhi has set this week's dare as follows:

I dare you to make a card inspired by a work of art. If the original art is out of copyright (this happens when the creator has been dead for 70 years or more) then you may use elements of the original artwork in your piece. Otherwise its inspiration only. Look out for colours, patterns, textures, compositions, shapes or themes that inspire you, and remember to show us the piece of art that inspired you to create so we can see the common ground.

I have so enjoyed this challenge (so thank you Rhi for setting it) and am quite pleased with the result, though I'm not sure I would send it to anybody as a card. Still it might come in one day.

The first image (without flash) has come out rather darker than the original and the second does not do the strength of the flowers justice - the flash faded them out - but it is probably nearer the original. It's really quite a bright looking card and the foreground and flower petals are a bright orange.

My inspiration was The Scream by Edvard Munch.

I found this description of Munch's inspiration which was taken from one of his diaries:
The sun set. I felt a twinge of melancholy. Suddenly the sky became a bloody red. I stopped and leaned against the railing, dead tired, and I looked at the flaming clouds that hung like blood over the blue-black fiord and the city. My friends walked on. I stood there, trembling with fright. And I felt a loud unending scream piercing nature.'

Since the design is for a card, I needed to get away from the melancholy of the painting, so used the background as inspiration, but used bright colours and then added a flower at the front. The background was developed on the PC using Serif Photoplus, with lots of freehand drawing of the lines using my tablet. The flower is a Dawn Bibby stamp which I stamped in black then coloured in with Acrylic paint.

How Random

2007-03-19T11:56:00.000Z

Well the DCM dare this week was:

How Random!

This week the fantastic Kel has set a brilliant dare that is a real challenge.

Firstly make a list of 10-20 crafty items you have in your stash, whether it be brads, ribbons, peel-off's, craft robo, dies, stamps, glittter, buttons, flowers, patterned papers, paint... You get the idea! Give them all a number or print them out a sheet and pop them in a hat all folded up.

Next, ask someone non-crafty to either pick 3-5 of your numbers or pieces of paper from your from your hat.

Finally, make a card using ONLY the items chosen. A card blank, some sort of sticky stuff and your basic craft tools are allowed If you want to make it really challenging, list plenty of items that you haven't used in a while, or thought you may never use again!

And what a difficult challenge it proved to be. The first attempt went in the bin, and I am not entirely happy with the second, but I just can't bear to do it again!

The list I produced was: brads; ribbons; rubber stamps; acrylic inks; acrylic paints; tissue paper; patterned paper; eyelets; Perfect Pearls; embossing powders; glitter; dry embossing templates; peel offs; transparencies; Grand Adhesions stickers; cellophane; chipboard shapes; wire; pens and pencils; a book of small vintage images; buttons. That was 21 items in all and I numbered them from 1 to 21. My OH picked 5 numbers, but being lazy they were all consecutive.

So I ended up with the not very inspirational list of: Eyelets; Perfect Pearls; Embossing powders; glitter and dry embossing templates. Now I am NOT a glitter person, though I do like the Perfect Pearls and I have not had great success with dry embossing templates, seldom use eyelets and what do you do with embossing powders without stamps!!!

So I could use 3 to 5 of the items and the result was as follows:
dry embossed three separate images - the diamond design, the champagne and glasses and the corners. I then painted over the embossing using Perfect Pearls, because I don't find dry embossing on a white card very inspiring. Finally, I added some white pearlescent glitter into the Champagne bottle and glasses.

My son and his girlfriend got engaged last week, so it is winging its way over to them today to congratulate them.

Last week's dare was Heroes and unfortunately I didn't get it uploaded until Friday afternoon, so if anybody wants to look, it's below this post.

We had a mad week - a mystery trip last weekend which ended up in Jersey. It was an organised trip and we honestly did not know where we were going until we got to the airport. Fantastic weather, nice hotel and good company. Much enjoyed.

Then working during the week and then a visit from my son, DIL and grandson Thursday and Friday and then a brief visit on Mother's Day with flowers and pressie. Also the other son getting engaged out of the blue, although he and his lady have been together for a while now and we are very pleased. Well what a week!

Hope you like the cards.

Looking forward to settling down this week and getting chance to catch up on the other DCM cards.

Heroes

2007-03-16T15:46:00.000Z

Well the Daring Card Makers Blog was based on Heroes. Unfortunately I've had a really busy week so have only just got it finished and there will be a new challenge today. But so what - here it is anyway.

Following on from last week's out of the comfort zone, I decided to play around more with computer graphics, so this card is mostly done with the computer
Recipe
1. I made a collage of images of my heroes/heroines and merged them altogether in Serif PhotoPlus using sepia colours and added words to link them to the memory, eg famous sayings or the thing they were noted for.
2. I added the word Heroes again using PhotoPlus, playing around with text effects
3. I made a small block with the words 'Happy Birthday to my Hero' embossed, all again using PhotoPlus,.
4. I covered the card with some wood grain paper by Rusty Pickle which I got free in a magazine
5. I stuck on the two blocks attaching the larger graphic on a brown background before sticking on with Pritt Stick. The smaller block was attached with 4 small brads
6. Finally, I added a large paper clip to the top.

I really enjoyed playing around, but feel that it lacks something, but I'm not sure what .

I shall definitely be doing more PC graphic work. I love learning new techniques and was amazed at what you can do with the computer.

Hope you like it.

2007-03-04T19:22:00.000Z

Kathy - this is a row of Trulli's in Alberobello in Italy. Aren't they gorgeous. Each roof symbol has a different meaning.

Out of the Comfort Zone

2007-03-04T15:53:00.000Z

And to this week's dare 'Out of the Comfort Zone'.

Tracie said "So this week I dare you to step outside your comfort zone and have a go at something new - be it something you have never tried, or something you haven't done for ages."

Well I've always wanted to do something vintage and never yet done it. With Mother's Day looming close I decided to use a beautiful old photo of my mum when she was a little girl (she's 92 now!) and work with printing onto fabric and sewing which are also new in my card making world.

So here's the recipe...

Scanned the photo and printed it in sepia unsuccessfully on canvas with my inkjet. The canvas absorbed too much ink and smudged everywhere - so that went in the bin!!
Attempt 2 - printed onto muslin . Lovely effect - a bit like a transparency but on fabric not plastic. Wow I really like that.
Frayed the edges then mounted the actual image on plain white paper to intensify it. Finally mounted it on torn dark brown paper and ran some machine zig-zag stitch round the edges.
Found some free downloads of paper and ribbons which I had saved from scrapgirls (see links) and edited them in Serif PhotoPlus to change the colours and to put the ribbon on a brown background. (Haven't changed papers before either).
Stuck the paper on the card (A5 - bigger than I normally work) and then put the paper ribbon down the left and the picture top right, slightly askew.
Became really stuck with the lettering because I normally go to stamps or rub-ons and occasionally printed fonts. Eventually, decided to try printing onto some twill tape I had been saving, again in sepia. This worked really well. (Stuck the tape temporarily onto some paper with double sided sticky to get it through the printer.)
Mounted the tape on some more of the brown paper and zig-zagged it, then stuck it on the bottom of the card.
Stuck some small brown star jewels over the ribbon and in the top corner of the photo.
Inside I printed a slightly reworded message I found at http://www.poemsforfree.com/index.html and ran a strip of tiny pictures of mum's head which I had taken from the scanned photo, cropped and made into a sort of film strip.

Then mum phoned me up today to wish me Happy Mother's Day, which really threw me because I was working on the assumption it was 18th March not today. Fortunately mum was wrong and I was right, so I hope she will love it when she gets it on the 18th.

Looking forward to seeing everybody else's attempts at this. Scary but fun.

To blog or not to blog

2007-03-02T16:34:00.000Z

Well I created this blog a few days ago and then from yesterday I couldn't get into it. When I tried to login with Google it kept saying that Cookies weren't enabled. I've gone through all the Help stuff and followed their instructions but still couldn't get it working - and I work with computers, so that doesn't bode well for others with less knowledge!

In the end I tried on my old PC (windows 98) and that worked fine. So I downloaded a new Browser, Firefox 2 and installed it and low and behold here I am with no problems.

So it looks like a problem with Internet Explorer 7 and I am seriously considering ditching that for Firefox. We'll see how it goes.

Anyway - on to this week's DCM dare - 'Out of the Comfort Zone' - something you haven't tried before or are a bit scared of. Hmmm, sounds interesting. Might go for some machine stitching and using fabrics and try for a vintage feel - all new and things I want to try out, but are a bit scary. I've the whole weekend to go at it as we're not doing anything special.

Andrea (frog) has already uploaded hers - fast work. And the DCM team efforts are brilliant. I love Kathy's.

DCM Dare of the week - 20/20 vision

2007-02-28T19:21:00.000Z

Well here is the first card I have added to the blog.

The challenge was :

I'd like you to use 20 of one particular thing on a card - be it blooms, papers, brads, ribbons the choice is yours - you can use other things too, but there must be 20 of one item/component - not 20 things altogether, that would be much too easy.For instance, can you use 20 different papers on one card? 20 Ribbons?Or 20 Blooms - well surely that one sounds easy...

So I made some serendipity paper using 20 (or probably more) scraps of paper. Serendipity paper is created by glueing scraps of paper onto a background, then cutting it into squares and re-assembling them into a design. I used a selection of tissue, scrapbook paper, sweetie papers, cellophane and foil glued to an A4 sheet of paper. I then cut it into 2cm squares (20 mm!!!) and then took 20 of these and stuck them onto black card to achieve a stained glass window effect. Finally I used the Word Art feature in Microsoft Word to create the words 'Happy Birthday' in a shaded font which matched the window.

Quick Intro

2007-02-28T19:12:00.000Z

This is my first ever blog. I was inspired to start it after finding the Daring Card Makers (DCM) site at http://www.daringcardmakers.blogspot.com/. This is a group of women from around the world whose hobby is making greeting cards. Each week one of them sets a 'dare' - basically a challenge to make a card using specific criteria.

I have always enjoyed artistic activities and get a lot of pleasure out of experimenting. The 'dares' have helped me be more creative, in that I am now designing my own cards, rather than just copying ones I have seen in magazines. I don't sell my cards, just make them for friends and family - but who knows where it might take me.

So initially, my blog is to enable the DCM team and friends to see the cards I have made for the dares.