Ever had one of those days?!

All I wanted to do was change the way my blog looks.

Could it be that hard?  Really? No. I've done it before so I know it's straightforward.

Not a good idea.  Not today anyway, as you can see from my sidebar.....!

This is after 2 hours of trying.

Enough said.

Off for a lie down in a darkened room.  Oh, and my laptop says the attery (yes my letter 'b' is sticking too) is going to run out in a min).

Joy of joys.

Ellie Maggie x

New Page - The Crafters' Barn

Hello everyone, Yes it's been over a month since I last posted and I won't drone on about why I've been absent.  Suffice to say I'm back  (enough with the groaning) and have added a new page to the top of my blog which I truly hope you will kindly take the time to read.  Please??!!!  (Can you tell I'm grovelling here?)

Goodness me  -  I'm back, I won't tell you where I've been, and then I have the outright cheek to demand something of you!  All done in a split second and not even a greetings card to show you either - what a bl**dy nerve eh?!

Anyway, it's my doze time (yeah, right!) and while I attempt to cat nap with the dog - hhhmm that sounds a bit skewwiff -  I shall leave you to learn all about the contents of my new page called Details About The Crafters' Barn.  Look, yes I am fully aware that you could just click onto the picture in my sidebar - I'm not daft - well, just don't ask the family for a second opinion on that please, but I've taken days, hours, a quick flash to type it up - please just humour me, ok?

Crafty hugs,
Ellie Maggie x

D'Arcys Diaries Card

It's officially the weekend, even though it's still Friday, but the Bank Holiday has started here in the UK - yaaaaayyy!!!  We have an extra crafting day, whoopeeeeee!

Yesterday, wanting to do something different to my usual, I bought two D'Arcy's Diaries digi stamps for the first time.  I'd come across the site a few days ago and I know I'll soon be buying more!

She's called "Hat'titude".  As usual, a few teaser photos before the end result!  I cut the intricately patterned butterfly out of K and Co's Wild Saffron paper, isn't it beautiful?

These buttons were attached with 3D foam pads.  I coloured the pads with matching Promarkers to avoid showing the white foam.

These gorgeous glittered papers are from My Minds Eye - Laundry Line

A coloured wooden peg holds the foiled sentiment in place.

Promarker in Pastel Blue highlights around the image

 The finished card - the swirls were also cut out of the KandCo Wild Saffron paper.

 I loved colouring this image and the final card measures 6" x 7".

Hope you like it!

I am entering this card into the following challenges:-
 D'Arcy's Diaries Challenge - Buttons and Bows
Flourishes - Butterflies
Papertake Weekly - Anything Goes

Have a fantastic Bank Holiday weekend (UK crafters!)

Keep popping in,

Bride Wedding Card

2nd post today!

Another commissioned wedding card, this time decoupaged. I printed onto Centura Pearl card which gives a beautiful golden shimmer.

The veil and head-dress are highlighted with Glamour Dust

This card's colours are beautiful rich creams which haven't shown up very well on these photos.  The self-adhesive pearls were all that were needed to finish the front of the card because I didn't want to overshadow its pretty background design.  A beautiful verse was on the inside.

a) the rotten wind has blown down our fence panel, b) the dog doesn't want to go out to do what a dog has to do! and c) at his teatime we realised there wasn't enough kibble for him - poor thing!  So good old hubby, he's younger than me so he's definitely not old went to shop for dog food and then braved the elements to take said dog up the garden, bless.  He bypassed the fence panel, don't blame him in this wind, if he had picked it up no doubt he'd be skydiving over next door's hedge. 

Meanwhile I longingly stared out my front window waiting for a hunky fireman to float down the road in a dingy to rescue me from this crappy weather and whisk me away to warmer climes - yeah right, not gonna happen honey.

All that remains for me to do (without a fireman to hand) is to get all excited for tonight's The Voice - I love, love, love it!  Especially Will.i.am - who knew he was so stinking cute and overflowing with kind words of goodness?!

I've been around your blogs ladies, so I'm off to my favourite other place.....Pinterest!  Why not come join me?

UPDATE: This card design was from CraftsUprint.

Keep popping in,

Wedding Easel Card

This easel card is one of the commissions I've made this week and as the wedding was yesterday, I'm quite safe showing the photos now!

This is from the groom's parents and was made to their requirements. 

Small 'pages' which act as a stopper to prop up the card's 'front pages'.

The left-hand 'main page'

The top front pages

Side view, the three page layers and message tag are shown well here

Underneath the 'main pages' I've made a tag holder...

..and here's the tag with printed verse!  I left the reverse side blank for a personal message.

The folded card inside the box

Box lid with an acetate window

Card design -  Interactive easel card from The Clipart Fairy

White Smooth Card - 260gsm from local supplier

Flowers - Wild Orchid Crafts

Wedding Bells, Ribbon, self-adhesive pearls - my stash

300gsm Centura Pearlescent Card - Crafters Companion

Apparently the rain held off either side of the church ceremony and didn't start again until they arrived at the reception - perfect!!  They couldn't have wished for better.

Hope you've shut all doors, windows and cat flaps, put the fires and heating on, got your favourite winter bloomers on and are staying in the warm on this horrid wet and windy day.....it's a great excuse to get more crafting done!

Don't forget to take a peek at my Yum Yum...Food! new page at the top of this blog!

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New Page

Look, up there, at the top of the blog - there's a new page called 'Yum Yum.....Food!'  Please take a look.

Oh yes, and there's new cards in my shop too!

That's all folks, I'm in a rush (for a change).  Thanks for looking,

Keep popping in,

I'm such a slow...

knitter, amongst other things!  After reading  Dawny P's  plea for help for the 'fish and chip' babies, the story totally knocked me sideways and tugged away at my heart strings.  I knew there was nothing else for it but to dust the cobwebs off my knitting needles - which haven't seen the light of day since my teenage years - and make a start on the very easy knitting pattern to help these poor babies.

My knitting goes at such a slow pace, but I've been spurred on by Dawny's news that the shipment won't be sent out until September, so I reckon it should be finished by then! 

More jumpers are needed so if you would like to know more click on her name above, or on the photo of Dawny's jumper in my right-hand column.  PLEASE consider knitting one of these jumpers they are so easy, if you can knit and purl then you can easily follow the pattern in her link.  It is such a small jumper and would use up those odd balls of wool lying around.

So that's reason number one I've been a bad blogger lately. 

Reason No.2 is cardmaking commissions and I can't post photos of those until after the Big Day!  I'll be back to show you soon.

In fact there is a third reason I'm a bad blogger just lately - Pinterest!  It is totally addictive and I happily get completely sucked into it each time I go into that wonderful, beautiful site!  Why not see what I mean and take a peek at what I've 'pinned' on my virtual boards by clicking on my Pinterest button - it's just up there, on the right-hand column. Go on, it's great!

Keep popping in,

Baby Girl Card

Happy Saturday everybody!   Ooooh babies, I just want to munch 'em (in a nice way before those Social bods come a-knocking).  Babies create lots of washing, but it looks cute on this washing line, don't you think?

Although I don't know of any babies due I couldn't resist using this image on a card and putting it into my shop.  For inspiration I used one of these sketches by Vicky and tweaked it a bit to add my own style. 

I used my Promarkers to colour these images -

Pale Pink and Rose Pink for the babygro

The sideways 'Baby Girl' sentiments are chipboard mounted on foam pads from my stash

Promarkers - Soft Peach and Pastel Yellow for the vest

The attention to detail with this image is lovely, especially the water drops!

Promarkers - Putty, Tan and Soft Pink for the bunny

Ta dah!

Promarkers - Antique Rose, Yellow and Cool Grey No.1 for the towel

Blue ink was sponged for the sky with a few areas masked off with torn paper for clouds.

This adorable image is Baby Line by Just Inklined

The dotty papers are from the Papermania Retro Floral pad that's not been used in a long time, the stripey card no longer has it's name attached (sorry!) and the plain pink matting card is from Papermill Direct.

I can feel a baby boy and neutral versions of this coming up in the near future too - they just have to be done!

Enjoy whatever you're doing today,

Keep popping in,

Birthday Celebrations

I've chosen a tall card because I think it suits this Club Kid by Kenny K Downloads so well.  If you recognise it, I've done it once before in different colours on an A4 card under the heading "Kenny K Cards for Someone Special".  I tried to link it for you because I'm good like that you know, but it linked to the top of my blog obviously not good enough, sorry 'bout that!  Scroll down and you'll see it.

Brace yourselves for another apology, this post is picture heavy! I'll keep my ramblings to a minimum for a change.  Ok, clunk click for those old enough to remember that (!) I read it somewhere ;)  here we go...

Firstly the card

I added a WOC two-tone rose to the centre of a flat flower from my stash.

I glued the edges of some petals together to give dimension and highlighted it with

 Stickles glitter glue.

Magnolia Doohickey Swirl edged in Stardust Stickles

Secondly the box lid

Cuttlebug Circles and Happy Birthday embossing folders results look fabulous here.

The green DP was edged with Anna Griffin ink pads.

Happy Birthday embossed on a Scalloped Nestie

and thirdly the card sitting in box base with box lid

Papers are Summer Goodness by Raspberry Road Designs

Hang on, let me put my Gypsy Roseylee well I do luv a cuppa scarf on.....oooh yes, I can see baby themed cards coming - keep a look out for those!

I have added this card to my shop and will be stocking my 'virtual' shelves throughout this month!

Keep popping in,

Just want her to know.....

I'm thinking of her.  An extremely dear lady who is like a second mom to me has terminal cancer and I'm unable to visit her for reasons I won't go into on here.  Myself, along with her friends, are keeping in touch with the family and I just want her to know I'm thinking of her so I used this sweet image to make her a card.....

This pretty little bird is from A Day For Daisies  

I really like this as it's so versatile (excuse how I've coloured it as I may have designed a new variety of bird here!)

In a previous post here I used some very pretty ribbon from Lidl and said

I would be using it again in future - well here it is in blue and green. 

So pretty isn't it?

This high quality embossed card feels just like fabric.  It's from my local craft supplier.

Although this card's nothing like I'd imagined it would look, I'm pleased with the end result.

* * * * *

Got a lovely free pad of Raspberry Road papers with Quick Cards magazine for this weekend so I'm colouring these Kenny K images again in colours to match the new papers.  I'll post them as and when they're done.

Keep popping in,

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter to you all! 

May you eat yourselves silly with choccies galore, sweeties and everything calorific that is perfectly allowed by law today.

Once I've climbed over the mountain of choccie eggs in our house (not all mine, of course) I can munch my way through the bag of fudge bought for me, oh I love the bloomin' stuff.  I think the family clubbed together to buy this as a large hint that I should stop trying to make my own fudge.

You see my efforts to make some over the past few weeks have been a complete and utter disaster. The reason why seems to have come to light today when showing mom the recipe, because I just happened to mention that instead of using granulated sugar I didn't want to waste the bag of soft brown sugar sitting in my cupboard, so I used that instead oops!  When I'd made it I did my happy jig around the kitchen as you do because it had actually 'set', it cut beautifully, BUT on biting it it instantly disintegrated straight back into grains of sugar!  Yuk, soooo wrong.  It did taste good though.

My other attempt didn't even set, but was delicious soft, gooey caramel that with much sadness I HAD TO throw away because I just could not face us eating the whole 8"sq tin full of sweet nectar and weighing 4 stone heavier as a result. DH was mortified it had been discarded on his return from work, I felt really mean. On the plus side, at least he had looked forward to it, so it can't have been all that bad!  He said not to worry because one of these days I'll get the recipe right - too kind!

So I am reduced to eating shop bought fudge for the time being. 

 I will not be beaten by this recipe......I hope.

Is there anything you've tried to make and not given up on it until it turned out right?

Look out for my A Day for Daisies card tomorrow.

Enjoy your yummy goodies and a Happy Easter to you,

Keep popping in,

Kenny K Cards for Someone Special

My son asked me if I could make a card for his girlfriend's birthday - not only did I feel touched and honoured he had asked me, but I felt a great responsibility to step up to the mark.  I didn't want to let him down and knew his lovely girlfriend had her own particular style which I wanted to capture in the card.

I used Crafter's Companion pearlescent card and cut it to A4 size.

I got to thinking and decided Kenny K downloads would be the way to go.  A few of the images got a "Hmm I don't think so mom", or  "Nah, that's no good" and I knew I was well off the beaten track when I got a "Nope" - straight and to the point eh?!  Just as I was doubting my decision to go with Kenny K, we found the perfect image...

Worked hard on my shading here!

It's great isn't it!

Does he look like that? It's probably best if we don't know!

All foiled sentiments from Hunkydory - a QVC TSV special.

I wanted to make one from DH and myself and found another one that could have been modelled on her - she stands exactly like this!...

Paper flower and ribbon flower from stash.

I used soft muted colours throughout as she's no girly girl, has amazing skin and is so pretty.  Thankfully DS was delighted and she loved both cards.  Mission accomplished - phew!

I am entering the first card above into Kenny K's Crafty Girlz Challenges - April Fool

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