Gratitude Notebook

Today I'm sharing a little gratitude diary I made for a very dear friend.  I find it very hard on those "difficult days" to remember all the many things I am grateful for, so I thought I'd make one of these to help.

The papers are from Botanical Notes by First Edition and they are beautiful. I wanted the diary to sit nice and flat, so I have very simply added some Project Life cards and notepaper in and left it at that.

Bound with my Bind-it-all, it's a simple project that was gratefully received.

I'm keeping this short and sweet today - it's been one of those days of frequently battling technology (and just an occasional bit of battling a toddler's willpower!).

Thanks so much for stopping by, and happy crafting,

A Very Big Thank You Card

Today I'd like to share a thank you 'card' I made for over 200 people to sign and write a personal message in.  As you can imagine, it turned more into a book!

I made it with two bindings to allow for extra space.  There were pages that folded out and some simple tabs, all left blank with a few stamped 'thank you' messages throughout.

The tree and grass on the cover were made using Memory Box dies and a combination of ProMarkers and SU marker pens.

Here it is all ready to give in its box:

I won't list the supplies as I can't remember all the names, but what I can is listed in the post labels.

I completely agree with today's cat!  What on earth is 'normal' anyway?!

Thanks for popping in to my blog, and happy crafting!

70th Birthday Card

It's not everyday you're asked to make a 70th birthday card!  I used one of my favourite paper stacks ever: the lovely Mariposa stack by DCWV.

Supplies
Card: Whisper White, Crumb Cake
Paper: Mariposa by DCWV
Other: Spellbinders Foliage dies, Timeless Type Junior Alphabet, paper flowers and green brads

Does anyone else struggle to use those really bold patterned papers?  Sometimes I've just given up and used them as wrapping paper for small gifts because I can't tone them down enough!  I think I got the balance right in this card though and as I don't make a lot with green as the main colour, I was quite pleased to get out of my comfort zone.

Have a great day,

Say Cheese!

Today I am sharing a commission for a 21st birthday.  The gent is a keen amateur photographer and I was asked to include this. Here's what I came up with:

Supplies
Stamps: digi (I'm sorry, I can't for the life of me remember who it's by and a quick glance through my digistamp folders isn't yielding any success either), negative frame by Inkylicious, sentiment (again, no idea who made it)
Ink: Basic Black, image coloured with ProMarkers
Card: Crumb Cake, white 8" card blank
Paper: Echo Park Everyday Eclectic
Other: SU speech bubble paper clip, Big Shot and Timeless Type Junior Alphabet dies

I use the four square grid layout quite a lot.  I guess we all fall back on our favourite layouts a lot of the time, which is why I love Pinterest so much because it gives me such great ideas. But what did we do before Pinterest?!

Thanks for visiting today, and happy crafting,

Serene Silhouettes Sunset

My last post about a card I made following SU convention made me wonder what other old makes I'd got lurking in my photo album, and then I realised I hadn't posted a picture of the swap I made.

The hills were inked using a paper mask and then I used ink dusters to add the sunset sky.  The silhouettes were stamped in Basic Black over the top.  I matted and layered this up onto an embossed piece of Crumb Cake card.

I made just over a hundred.  Here they all are, lined up and ready to go:

Supplies
Stamps: Serene Silhouettes
Ink: Crushed Curry, Pumpkin Pie, Cherry Cobbler, Early Espresso, Basic Black
Card: Whisper White, Crumb Cake, Early Espresso
Other: Framed Tulips embossing folder, Inkylicious ink dusters

Right, off to go and get My Little Crafter up.  Wonder what mischief she's plotting today!

Thanks for visiting, and happy crafting,

Hello Lovely Gorgeous Grunge

Today's card is from the dim and distant past! I made it at convention when I was a SU demonstrator and have found it in my photos just now.

Supplies
Stamps: Gorgeous Grunge, Hello Lovely
Ink: Crushed Curry, Mossy Meadow, Strawberry Slush, Coastal Cabana (I think)
Card: Whisper White, Coastal Cabana, silver Glimmer Paper
Other: vintage button, baker's twine, washi tape

I really need to wake up this morning; I still feel half asleep even though I've up for a couple of hours.  I don't like coffee much so I can't even top up on the caffeine, but if it looked like this, I might like it more:

Thanks for visiting, and happy crafting,

New Baby with Two by Two

We are blessed with lots of new little ones in our church and I made this card a while back for two new parents.

Supplies
Stamps: Two by Two
Ink: Basic Black inkpad, Stampin' Write markers in Basic Grey, Crushed Curry, So Saffron, Pumpkin Pie, Crumb Cake, River Rock, Baja Breeze, Bashful Blue
Card: Whisper White, Crumb Cake
Paper: Papermania

My Little Crafter would love this card now.  We're perfecting a number of animal noises: lion, sheep, snake, dog, etc. In fact, she loves doing them so much that we can't read her a bedtime story unless it has animals in it, and even then she only lets us read the first page before we have to point at all the animals so she can do the noises!  She has a special toy dog who she sleeps with and when I went to get her up one morning last week, she was sitting in the middle of her cot making 'woof' noises to him.  So cute!

Today's funny picture is a photo bomb:

Thanks for visiting, and happy crafting,