Ready for the weekend?

Well as many of you may know it's the firstof the Hen celebrations this weekend. 16 of us will be living it up at lovely York. I am sure I will have lots to 'show and tell' when I return on Sunday evening!
I have managed to submit my project for Craft Stamper Magazine. I willl let you know as soon as I get a date for its publication, but until then here are a couple of snippets for you.....

These two layouts are very flat and embellishment free, but I just want to start getting into scrapbooking some photo's and flowers and frills just didn't seem to work on the pages.

The photo above shows Josh all snug in the coat bought for him by my lovely friend Debbie, when Josh was first born. He wore it so much it was like a second skin!!!!!!!

And here is another of my favourite snaps of him, flat out, face all squashed, a classic! I just used a sheet of white Bazzill and added colour with acrylics and a dotty stamp. The title is painted and stamped chipboard. Simple, yeah, but better being in an album than stuck in a box.

Josh is still taking steps from person to person, but not yet set off on his own from the furniture. He's feeding himself finger foods and drinking from his own cup too. To think a year ago he still had 3 months to go until he was born just amazes me.

Bless his little heart..........

Sue xxx

Almost there.......

There is just over three weeks to go for Gina and Steves wedding (22nd May) and we spent all day on Sunday finishing off 'most' of the stationery. It was a great day. Even Paul got stuck in making boxes.

All there is to do now is the table plan then we can crack on with Faye's..........

Sue xxx

GO Josh, GO !!!!!!!!!!

Can't believe that Josh took 18 steps on his own today!!!!!!! He is not 9 months until 4th May!!!

Here he is, one sock on, one sock off, just walking from his Mum across to me. We couldn't believe it. Just wonder if he will do it again tomorrow or forget how to do it?

Here he is a few steps on, a bit blurred but he was moving so it was a bit difficult. No rest for us now eh?

Sue xxx

Tag, Layouts and JJ

The challenge on http://kardkrazy.blogspot.com/ is to recycle, re-purpose, re-use. This was right up my street. Her's the finished tag.

And a little close up of the flower and leaves.

I re-cycled some newspaper by gluing 8 layers together to create some 'hand made paper' to use as the actual tag.

When it was dry I gave it a coat of gesso, then cut out a tag shape as shown below. Following this I added colour with distress ink, added text (Crafty Individuals CI-161) and leaves by Magenta with distress inks. I also added an image from Crafty Individuals (CI-079).

This lace is on a skirt, (not mine honest) !!!!!! so I re purposed some of it by making a flower and trim. I added a button as a flower centre and antiqued it with acrylic paint.

I also used some old text as leaves, coloured with distress inks.

added some coloured up twists of paper and used them as 'fern' and ribbon as a hanger.

Another great challenge thanks Louise!

Here are two real, real, real basic layouts using a couple of photo's of Gina from 1988. They were taken in the playground at Macaulay School, hence the title 'Remember the days in the old school yard'. The black is actually part of the page.

I highlighted Gina by using two embossed slide mounts.

As shown here.......

and here.......

I'll leave you with a photo of Josh, now 8 1/2 months old, crawling all over and with two little teeth peeping through.
Oh the joys of seeing him growing up!!!!!!!

Sue xxx

Christmas???????

Jean and Malcolm of Crafty Individuals are on the ball! They have already released some Christmas stamps! Here's a small plaque made using one of them.

It started life as a boring bit of grey board which I ripped to a workeable size, added a couple of brads using my silent setter,then used direct to paper technique and created a background of red and green pigment inks.

I added three coats of clear UTEE, then kept heating up random areas of the background and sprinkling different coloured powders into it to add more interest. I stamped the image in timber brown Staz-on and coloured it with distress inks, using the water colour technique.

Before mounting the cut out image, I bent the card to create cracks, then rubbed white chalk ink nto them to make them show up more. Finally I added stickles around the edges of the board and on the pears, and tied a ribbon bow at the top to finish.

Here are the rest of the new releases from CI, three of which are Christmas. I have almost comleted a card using the row of houses and will post it soon.

Sue x

Tag Challenge

I love tags and I love sentiments as you all know, so the challenge at http://kardkrazy.blogspot.com/ was just my cuppa tea! Here's my entry, the quote being ' a memory is a photograph taken by the heart' I just love it!

The background on the tag was created by layers of paint, inks andcollaged papers. I hand tinted the roses on the old postcard with distress ink then distressed and inked the edges. I hand cut a corrugated heart, painted and sprinkled copper embossing powders onto it then topped it with a hand made flower. The sentiment was stamped in brown Staz on onto on shrink plastic so I could down size it a bit. I have had so much fun with this.

Class photos

It's now a week since we arrived back from our hols in Sharm, and we are already planning a return visit. The holiday was everything we could have wished for, lovely weather, food, people and hotel, however we did miss our little Josh. Just look at his big blue eyes!

Back to crafting now then.

Here are a few of the regulars, Jane, Jenny, Kath and Becky,

Debbie and Sharon,

Betty, and Jane and Debbie again.

These photos, although difficult to take well due to the folds,

all join together

to form

a 'star book'.

This is the view from above. I first learnt the star book with my lovely friend, Dyan Reavely of Art from the Heart http://www.afth.co.uk/ many years ago, and it has always been a favourite of mine.

Here are the ladies who travelled from Mansfield, Sheffield and the Nottingham area to attend the class.

Christina and Barbara, working very tydily, yeah ok!!!!!!!

And a group photo of (l to r) Ann, Sandra, Christina. Kath (From Grimsby) and Barbara. We had a great day, thanks for coming all this way ladies!!!!!

Sue xxx

Back in the land of blogging!

It's almost six weeks since my last post, which worries me slightly as it's only six weeks to Gina's wedding and eleven till Faye's, the time just flies..........

Here are a few snippets of the book we are making in the class tomorrow

Vintage, pale and dreamy colours

based around friendship

in the shape of a star book, one of the most popular of my classes.

Using stamping, cuttlebug, distressing, doylies, fibers,

old music sheets

old text and self adhesive pearls.

I am honoured to have four ladies travelling all the way from the Nottingham area to take a class with me, how exciting is that? Hope they enjoy the project and have a great time in good old Grimsby.

Just before I go, thanks for all the comments on my last post. It has made me realise that if I blog and leave comments, fine, if not I know it really doesn't matter.........

Sue xxx