Best Witches

When surfing through Lifestyle Crafts' website (formerly Quickutz) recently, I saw a really cute Halloween card. Here is my own version, a straight forward, no-excuses 'card lift'. I used a bat background image from Linda Tieu at Back to Paper. I drew the witches legs myself and drew in the text before colouring it with Promarkers and highlighting with white gel pen. I used a few types of green and orange papers and some 'pumpkin' ribbon and orange buttons to finish it off.

Just a bit of fun, but atleast my daughter approves!

Spooky Goings On

This week, my children (well, two of them, my 7 year old son and 5 year old daughter) have been in a frenzy of Halloween excitement. I've never really paid it much attention myself, but their excitement is quite infectious. My daughter asks me about 5 times a day how many days left until 31st! I am not keen on them 'Trick or Treating' though as I know that many people do not 'support' Halloween for a variety of reasons and would feel uncomfortable opening their door to hoards of unfamiliar children on the trail of chocolate and sweets.

I am happy for them to carve a pumpkin - in a happy face though as we also have a 2 year old son and I am trying to keep the event as 'unscary' as possible. Our pumpkin is usually more about the autumn harvest than celebrating anything spooky. We'll let them dress up too, but in fairly benign costumes (most likely as a princess and Batman, rather than gore or horror - they are only little!), but instead of Trick or Treating, I have suggested that they visit the neighbours we know to deliver an edible gift. I'll warn the neighbours to expect them though. Our son has Asperger's syndrome and I know that he will not cope very well if every door he knocks goes unanswered!

My parents usually host a small gathering for all of their grandchildren at Halloween, complete with apple bobbing and eating doughnuts off of a string. This year, they are unable to host it as my Gran is very ill and they are visiting the hospital every day. Instead, I think my Mum is buying up half the confectionery aisle at the supermarket for the Grandchildren to share. I think my children will have enough sweets from them that they certainly won't need to Trick or Treat!

As we'll will be delivering little treats to our neighbours, my daughter told me firmly that I needed to make cards as well. I've made a few as I would never hear the end of it otherwise! I have to say that I have enjoyed it though, even if I am a bit of a Halloween humbug! In my defense, it comes from being at a birthday party on Halloween when I was 6 years old and the outside of the house was pelted with eggs and flour bombs as we left the party to go home. I know now that it was just mindless yobs who attacked a party of little children, but I was terrified at the time.

Anyway, on to the important bit of my rambling post - the card! It is made using the cute L'il Spook digi stamp from Pollycraft. Instead of my usual Promarkers, coloured this one with Aquamarkers and Stampin' Up! watercolour pens. I added doodling with a Letraset fineliner in black and a white gel pen. I layered the image on to textured yellow card cut using my lovely new Grand Nestabilities (I know I keep saying it, but I love large cards and large dies!). Again, I doodled stitching around the edge of the die cut. I made an A5 base card from purple card and covered the front in strips of patterned papers. I punched a star border along one edge of each strip and overlaid each one on the layer below so that the 'holes' revealed the colour below. I ruffled the edges of each strip a little bit to add texture too. The card was finished of with a double cross-over wrap of yellow elastic, a little green tag and a trio of yellow buttons.

Unusually for me, I would like to enter my card into a few challenges this week. Pollycraft's 'Spooky Goings On', Crafty Boots 'Autumn or Halloween', Daisy Doodles 'Halloween', Crafty Cardmakers 'Cute with a dark twist', Paper Creations Ink 'Halloween' and Top Tip Tuesday 'Trick or treat'. I only usually enter one at a time, but thought I would go mad today!

Girls, Girls, Girls!

Girls, Girls, Girls! That's the title of this week's challenge on the wonderful Pollycraft challenge blog. Cazza has set this week's fun challenge and has inspired me with her fab creation (as ever!!). The prize is sponsored by Sew Sweet who have a really great online shop for those of us who love to sew as well as play with paper.

As I had to make a card for a friend's birthday this week (hi Melissa - happy 21st!!), I thought I would also use it as my entry into the challenge. I am almost twice Melissa's age, so I guess our tastes are quite different. I hope she likes it.

I have used one of Paula's amazing digi stamps from Pollycraft- Cherry Kisses Li'l Miss Attitude. Not because Melissa has attitude, but because the gorgeous Cherry Kisses girl has beautiful curls just like Melissa. I envy those natural curls!

As usual, I have made a large card - this one is 8x8. I have coloured the image with a mix of pencils and promarkers and mounted it on a panel cut using one of my new Grand Spellbinders super-large dies (thank you, wonderful husband!). The lovely bright butterfly paper is from Echo Park and the russet-red flower burst behind is from one of my favourite paper stacks - the Green Stack from DCWV. The muted green cotton lace is from American Crafts and the flowers are Primas with some glass floristry beads glued in the centre. The sentiment is based on a blank top-note shape from SJ at Little Musings, which I added my own words, texture and colour to.

These colours are far from my comfort zone, but I wanted something really bright and cheery, not pink and fluffy. Melissa has had a tough year. She is a super hard-working single mum at just 21 years old, juggling caring for her toddler, working full-time and running her houshold. She is my carer and nothing is too much trouble for her. I look forward to her daily visits, which is why I decided on a bright zingy colour palette to bring a bit of cheer and colour to her day.

I hope she likes the card and has a fab birthday.

Craft Supplies Sale!!

I have had an Etsy shop for a little while now, but have never sold any craft supplies, only handmades. It's about time I cleared out some of my stash to make way for all of the beautiful crafty items I have been given for my birthday (which isn't actually until Monday 24th!).

Ebay fees are pretty high these days for 'amateur' sellers, so I thought I would list some of my crafty stash on Etsy instead (far cheaper fees!) in the hope that I can rehome it and make a little money along the way...

If you would like to pop over to my Etsy store to see what I have on offer, I'd love to see you there!

In Stitches

Sometimes it is good to send people a card as a way of letting them know that they are in your thoughts. More personal than the usual text or email. Certainly nicer through your letterbox than a credit card bill or road tax reminder!

I came across some old photos recently and I thought I would send a copy to a friend to remind her of old times and to let her know she is in my thoughts. Rather than just emailing them or posting them on their own, I have made a card which will help them to stay uncreased in the post.

This week's Charisma Cardz challenge has the theme of 'In Stitches', which can be real or faux and I am a fan of both. My card has real zig zag stitching across the paper to highlight the 'remember' sentiment, but I chose to make it quite random-looking to fit the style of the distressed paper. I also sewed the purple button onto the ribbon bow rather than just glueing it. I scrunched some damp felt and left it to dry overnight to wrinkle it before hand-cutting rough circles to make a couple of pink flowers. I stitched a pearly button on to the centre to hold the layers together as felt is a bit tricky to glue.

Shapely Card

My daughter is 5 years old. She has a boyfriend. It must be serious, they have been going steady for about 6 months now! She says she loves him because he is so handsome and sweet (which indeed he is!). Ahh, cute!! They are in the same class at infants school, so they see each other most weekdays, but rarely at weekends or in the hols.

Imagine my surprise then when she came home from school last week soooo excited saying 'Now I can see my boyfriend every single day'. 'How is that?', I asked her. Well, it's because his family have moved into the house across the street! Sounds like one of those cutesie teenage movies where the girl falls for the boy next door!

So, I needed to make a 'new home' card for his family. I never need much of an excuse to make a card and it is good to have a reason to make something other than birthday or Christmas cards.

And here it is...

I am really pleased with the mixture of curvy and angular shapes in the scallops and the houses, plus the roadway that I made in photoshop. I used offcuts from the punched scallops to make cloud-like shapes and made up a top-note shaped sentiment. With all of these shapes in mind, I would like to enter this card into the Papertake Weekly Challenge which is themed 'Get in Shape'.

I made a co-ordinating envelope as it is a very large card and I didn't have any ready-mades that fitted the bill. I added co-ordinating paper inside the card with an overprinted sentiment and more scallops just to tie it all together. I just love this ditsy daisy style paper from the very elegant Pink Petticoat. Even better is the fact that it is a digi paper, which means I can print as much as I need in a huge range of colours. I confess to sneaking it into as many projects as possible, along with their gorgeous apple and pear papers and the fab 'Grannies Wallpaper', all available in the same co-ordinating shades.

Aprons, Pinnies and Cover-Ups

I'm not sure why, but another of my favourite things is an apron. I have quite a few, mostly handmade. I have the traditional pinafore type, wrap-overs, tabards and 1940's inspired cover-ups. There is something quite personal about giving an apron (either handmade or shop bought) as a gift. It shows that you care about the person, that you know the sorts of things they like to do and that they like to stay clean while doing it!

Here are just a couple of aprons I have made recently. The red one was for a friend of mine who also loves to craft. I made a wrap over style with pockets for storing odds and ends whilst she is working. It is embellished with ribbons, yo-yos and buttons because she loves them as much as I do.

I made the ice-cream patterned pinnie for my daughter's 6 year old friend. It is made from beautiful quilting cottons, retro ice-cream print for a bit of humour, plus lots of pieces of Moda's Wonderland jellyroll just because it is so pretty and picks up on the ice-cream colours. I had fun with this one, using ruching, patchwork, fabric flowers, buttons and ribbon trim. I used satin ribbon for the ties to make it easy for little fingers to undo.

I have also made aprons for my son and his friends, so that they can wear it whilst playing the Nintendo DS consoles. They have a pocket to keep game cards in and a larger pocket to store the console in when taking a break. I made these from black and white checked print combined with New York Yellow Cab prints and another version featuring aliens and starscapes. I also made aprons for gardeners which I sold at a Christmas craft fayre. Maybe I am not alone in my liking for this most practical of garments?