CSQ Blog post!

Well, this month my Craft Stamping Quartet sisters and I have all had mega busy months and apart from Judith none of us has yet finished our projects. I've managed a sneak peek by the skin of my teeth today but won't manage to post the finished piece until after the weekend probably. I'm quite pleased because I didn't start mine until last night and once my OH drills me a couple of tiny holes it won't take me long to assemble it. I'm really happy with how it's turning out and it is definitely going to look much different to the boring block in this photo, Lol! The other two sneak peek pics are more interesting honestly.

If you want to see something really beautiful though, please pop across to our joint blog and take a look at Judith's beautiful cube. It really is gorgeous!

Have a lovely Bank Holiday weekend and don't let the weather get you down. With a bit of luck the forecast might be wrong, Lol!

Hugs
Lesley Xx

Here We Go Again!

I'm really sorry if I'm boring you with this series of male cards but unfortunately all my very close male family members have their birthdays very close together. This time the card is for the number 1 man in my life. He's the one who made my craftroom possible (by forking out the cost so thankyou my Love) and puts up with me spending hours in there. Actually, I think he's quite glad because I leave him in peace with the TV remote and I wander through the lounge every so often to make us a coffee, Lol!

As you can see I've used similar materials to my previous two men's cards except that I've used another TSS mould and paper from a fab Tim Holtz Retro pad that I bought when I was at Ally Pally. The papers (well they're really lightweight card) are gorgeous colours and perfect for men. I distressed the DP with a multi-pronged scratching tool and blended some Distress Ink round the edges and then over stamped with PaperArtsy stamps and some of the new Distress Inks.

All the stamps I've used are PaperArtsy, the roses and leaves are from the latest stamp releases which I bought from their stand at the NEC. This was my first attempt at making metal roses after watching Leandra demoing the technique (also at the NEC) and I'm chuffed to bits with the way they turned out. I had to put them on the bottom of the card though because they are quite heavy so the card wouldn't have stood up otherwise.


The only bit I'm not really pleased with is the sentiment which I tried to make as unobtrustive as possible because I had to use peel offs. I really must look for some good personal greetings stamps as the only 'Husband' one I have is not very nice. If anyone can recommend a set of really nice greetings for the loved ones in our lives I'd be very grateful.

I hope everyone has been enjoying the lovely sunshine we've been having over the past few days. This is just my sort of weather, nice and sunny but not hot. I definitely don't do hot! Yesterday I went up to my daughter's in Harrogate as she had asked me (and her Dad too, but he had to work unfortunately) to go with her and her partner, Tony to have a look at a possible Wedding venue. We went to look at the Sun Pavilion at Valley Gardens in Harrogate. I have seen it from the outside quite a few times but never inside and it's lovely. It has the most beautiful glass domed roof and a lovely central grand staircase. I'm not sure if they will decide to have the Wedding there or not as there are a few things that might not fit in with what they had in mind but it would be a wonderful setting for a Wedding so I hope the problems can be sorted.

I just thought I'd add this photo of the smallest paper rose I've made. Isn't it cute? All the people who have been making them for ages kept saying how addictive they are and I know what they mean now, Lol.



Many thanks to everyone who visits and takes time to leave a much valued comment. They really are appreciated and also it means I can visit you back.

Hugs
Lesley Xx

PS I NEARLY FORGOT!!

Glenda Waterworth, owner of Graphicus and Elusive Images has some gorgeous new rubber stamp plates up for grabs on her blog. There are four altogether and this is one of them. You have until the end of the month to leave a comment and be in with a chance of winning them.


Here's a photo of a Memories Box I made using a beautiful cross and flourish stamps from another of the plates. I tried to post a photo of the stamps but for some reason Mr Blogger wouldn't let me.

A Card for my 2nd Brother and Alexandra Palace

Just over a week ago my Craft Stamping Quartet sisters and I went to Alexandra Palace for The Big Stamp and Scrapbooking Show. Jo found us a lovely apartment at very reasonable cost for a one night stay and including a scrummy English breakfast so we were able to go for both days of the show. It's the first time I've been to Alexandra Palace and Jo totally spoiled me as she arranged our train tickets and found and booked the apartment and generally looked after me for the weekend. My craft buddies and I don't get together very often and I've only previously met Judith once and Elaine not at all but because of our shared crafting blog and the numerous emails we send each other, it didn't feel like that at all. In fact, it felt like getting together with friends I'd known and loved for years and I had a really special weekend. I also got to meet the lovely Jules of Always With a Heart fame whose blog I love. Unbelievably, although we have never met she managed to pick me out of all the people that were at Alexandra Palace on the Saturday and we had a lovely chat. The only downside was that we didn't have long enough but it made the day even more special and I'd love to see her again sometime. I'm sure we could have talked till the cows come home, Lol!

The show itself was wonderful and I watched some really inspirational demos by lovely people - Linda Elbourne, Linda Brown (LBCrafts), Hels Sheridan. There were quite a few more I watched and a few I was sorry to miss, like Barbara Grey of Clarity Stamps and Sheena Douglas. I came home on the Sunday evening with a lighter purse but a much lighter heart and heavy bags from all the purchased goodies. I just need to stay at home a bit more now and get to play with the lovely things I bought :0). I also got some beautiful pressies from my buddies too and I'll take a piccy of those for a later post.

And now to the card I have to share with you today. Don may be my 2nd brother by birth but not in my affections. My brothers are lovely men and my youngest and 3rd brother 'is' just as much loved and very much still missed as he died just over 10 years ago.


I used the same basic elements for this card as I did for my son Jamie's card a few weeks ago. I just changed the colours and used different stamps and TSS mould. The cogs stamp is by Paper Artsy and goes perfectly with the cogs Ten Second Studio mould. I used some more of my Graphic 45 paper (perfect for men's cards) and Tim Holtz Ideology pieces. I also used an EK Success punch and a Tattered Angels framed font piece.

I hope you like this one. My brother did and when he rang to say thankyou he said he'd never had an interactive card before, Lol!


I hope the blooming weather is nicer where you are than here in sunny Nottinghamshire - I don't think :0( It's been raining all morning! Never mind, at least I'm not stuck in an airport like some poor folk.

Have a good day everyone.

Hugs
Lesley Xx

A Biiiiig Apology

Hi Everyone,

I just thought I'd post a big apology to everyone who visits and also to all the lovely people I usually visit in Blogland too as I have been mega tied up for the past couple of weeks. All of it has been lovely stuff, like two days at Alexander Palace and three days of visiting from my daughter and granddaughter plus some crafty stuff I can't show you yet. I'm off up to Barnard Castle to help Graphicus celebrate their 10th Birthday at their Open Days tomorrow and Saturday (staying at my daughter's overnight) so it's going to be Sunday or Monday before I'm able to get back to blogging. I do have some things to show so I'll try to do a post on Monday at the latest and get some visiting done too.

In the meantime, I hope you all have a wonderful weekend whatever you are doing and I hope it warms up a bit too. It's been quite nippy this week I think.

Big Hugs
Lesley Xx

Another Arched Aperture Card

I made this card recently for a friend who was in need of a little support. It was quite simple to do by blending Distress Inks to create a little sunset scene with Elusive Images stamps. The colours I used were suggested by a photo I took of a sunset (over the sea rather than land) when my OH and I were on a cruise a few years ago. I've tried to find it again amongst the several hundred we took over that two weeks, Lol, but so far without success. If I do manage to find it I'll edit this post and add it.


I love these arched aperture cards and I think I'm going to be quite reluctant to use the last one when I get to it as I've been unable to find any more.



I just wanted to remind you that it was my turn to post my art doll project today, over on my shared blog. I'd love it if you have time to pop over there for a quick look. Elaine posted her lovely lady a couple of days ago and Judith and Jo will follow with theirs over the next few days.

Thanks for being kind enough to visit.

Hugs
Lesley Xx

A Card for my No1 Son. (edited to remove a photo)

Hello everyone,

We had a weekend of two birthdays, Saturday was Alexa's and Sunday was her daddy's, our Son Jamie. Although I find male cards quite difficult like most of us card makers, making Jamie's is more of a pleasure than most because as some of you will know if you've visited his recently set up blog, he is an artist and therefore not only likes 'arty' type cards, he's interested in how they've been made.

I really enjoyed doing this because I got to use some of my favourite products including Ten Second Studio tools and techniques. I got the inspiration for the metal piece from a lovely piece of artwork by Hels Sheridan. Her blog is full of lovely, lovely artwork and she makes me chuckle which is always welcome. After embossing the piece of metal using a TSS diamond mould I sanded it, sprayed with a variety of Glimmer Mists, rubbed in black acrylic paint and then polished a lot of it off again before adding some more GMs. As you can see I used some Tim Holtz Ideology pieces too and a Tattered Angel framed font.

The paper behind the metal and the strips on top are a double sided sheet from my lovely pack of Graphic 45 and I made a Grungepaper flower using an Elusive Images stamp. The base card has been inked with Distress Inks and then stamped with an Invoke Arts stamp. The sentiment on the tag is also Elusive Images.

This card was a real labour of love because I got to use all the stuff I love best but mostly because it was for my Son.

Most of the products were from Graphicus except for the metal sheet, the Invoke Art stamp and the Graphic 45 paper, which were from Once Upon a Stamp.

These are a couple of my favourite photos from our holiday in Orlando last November.




 
As always thank you for your much appreciated visit.

Hugs
Lesley  Xx

My Card for a Cheeky Little Monkey

I've just uploaded the few photos I managed to take on Saturday so I've edited this post to include a few.

This is Alexa making good use of the little table and stools her 'Dadad' and I bought her for her birthday together with an IOU for a days outing when the weather improves.


Here she is watching her favourite bit from the films taken in Orlando last November. The Shamu show! You can see where much of the pen ended up. It's a good job they are special washable pens.


And finally here she is moving in to give her cousin, our lovely Isabella, a big smacker of a kiss!




Saturday saw the 2nd birthday of our gorgeous little Alexa who is currently going through a very cheeky stage. She's absolutely adorable and knows exactly how to twist everyone (including complete strangers in restaurants as we discovered on Sunday) round her little finger.

This is the card I made for her.


The first photo was taken in electric light so the colours are not exactly true but it shows the shine of the 3D gloss on the letters and the gently glittered design on the purple paper. The alphabet capitals and the 'appy irthday' stamps are from Dimension Fourth. I overstamped the letters with some stamps from the Funky Florals themeplate from Elusive Images, coloured them with Copics, cut them out and shaped them before adding them to the card with silicone glue. It's the first time I've used those letters and I'm really pleased with how they came out.



The fairy image was one of a set of three I got from QVC when I first started stamping and I coloured her with pencils and Sansodor and then added a touch of Sakura Stardust clear which, of course doesn't show on here.

I recently bought two new Martha Stuart border punches and got the chance to use them both on here and I used all the teeny butterflies from the border to decorate the rest of the card.

Unfortunately, I've had the pretty papers a long time and as per usual, I chopped the manufacturers name strip off the bottom to get them in my storage box more easily so I haven't a clue whose they are.

It was my son Jamie's (Alexa's daddy) birthday yesterday so we had two celebration days and I will post his card later in the week.

I hope all you lovely visitors had a great weekend too and that the weather was as nice for you yesterday as it was here. It was so mild I went out for lunch without even a jacket. Big change today though with a cold wind and lots of showers.

As always, thankyou for any comments you have time to leave. I really appreciate them and like to visit you back when I can.

Hugs
Lesley Xx