Welcome to my blog

I hope you enjoy reading my posts, and please leave me a comment. I always enjoy reading them, and will try to visit you in return.

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You are welcome to copy any of my designs, as long as you do not take credit for them yourself. I am very happy for you to sell them. If I have used anyone else's design, I always try to give credit where it is due. If I have missed anything, please let me know and I will put things right.


This is intended to be mainly about my crafting stories, as a personal record of what I do. However, I interpret crafting quite widely, not just paper crafting but other things too. I have a butterfly mind and like to change from one thing to another depending on what I feel like on a given day - knitting, crochet, cross-stitch, cards, baking and several others, including my favourite right now, parchment, both traditional skills and Groovi, very relaxing and calming to do.

I have decided to put some structure into my blog so that each day will have something of a theme.
Monday- for Mindfulness; Tuesday - Tidy Up Day; Wednesday - What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday; Thursday - Technique and Tips; Friday - Finish Off Day; Saturday - Start Something New; Sunday - Anything Goes
These themes are not hard and fast and will be changed if I feel the need.

Sunday 12 June 2011

Another year gone!

I just want to know where the last year has flown off to.  I started this blog just one year ago yesterday without any idea of the number of new friends I would be making, or the number of new ideas I would be given.  Thank you to all of you.  I am so glad I met you.  And special thanks to Shaz (Silverwolf) who inspired me to try it, and who is always so generous with her help and tips.  Also thanks to her lovely husband who managed to solve my photo problem on the blog yesterday.

I had a great day with lots of visitors and some lovely cards and pressies.  I will photo some of them and post them later in the week.  My wonderful husband bought me the four Barbara Gray DVD's (number 5 is due out soon), so I can study her techniques and attempt to do better than I do now.

 This is a card I did recently for some friends who now live on a narrow boat, wandering the waterways.  I found a photos of their boat and printed it onto a piece of silk art card, thenn once the ink was thoroughly dry, I masked it off and brayered and stamped the border, using leafy stamps to create the lower areas.  (The nasty blobs at the top left turned out to be Krylon gold leaf on the scanner plattern - cleaned off now).  Then I removed the mask and drew a wriggly line round the picture with a fine line gold pen.  I edged the whole card with Krylon Gold Leaf and mounted it on green and red  card.  The numbers were printed and cut out and embossed with a glittery red embossing powder.

This card has not yet been delivered, but I don't think he will be looking at my blog.  This one went together very easily until I tried to decide what card to mount it on.  My room looked a wreck when I finally finished.  I have a lot of lovely card, but I am getting to the point where I have not quite got the variety to make choices easy.  The image is from My Craft Studio, and it was all designed and sized within that program.  Once it was all stuck together with Pinflair glue, I left it to dry before giving it a good dose of Spray and Shine, until it was really shiny.  Then I mounted it with a thin border of holographic silver card and then put it on to a silvery blue pearlescent card.  I shaped the boat and the sails before adding them to the decoupage, which, I think, gives it a more realistic look (and hides the glue better too).

This is another card that got the shaping on the decoupage, and a good dose of Spray and Shine  on the finished card.  Again the image was from My Craft Studio.  I think the Spray and Shine enhances the image and brings out the colour.  Because this has to go through the post, I did all the matting and layering within My Craft Studio and printed it out direct to the white supersmooth card.  The gold club and the ball were separate pieces of decoupage, shaped to give dimension without being too high.


We have got a new oak computer desk downstairs, so I have snaffled the set of drawers that belonged to the old desk to store things like my heat guns and things that really have no real place yet.  So I am off up to my room now to sort that lot out.  I suspect it will also become a place for another pile to start.  You all know what happens to clear surfaces in craft rooms.  Time will tell - very soon!

3 comments:

Jan said...

Scary isn't it how time flies! You've certainly been busy though with your lovely cards and I bet your friends were thrilled with the framed photo of their narrow boat. What a wonderful life to be able to drift off down the river! Not a lot of room in there I would imagine for craft stash though!!

Emma Williams said...

Congratulations on your first year of blogging and here's to many more!! :)
Can't wait to see how Barbara's DVD's inspire you and these cards & creations are absolutely wonderful!! Lovely work...
Hope you had a good weekend.
Love Emma x

Shaz in Oz.CalligraphyCards said...

Wow on year of blogging, Maggie, I must admit I did not know how much fun blogging would be and on 1.7.11 I will have been blogging for 6 months and you were one of my very early followers about number 4 I think, Eileen was my first! and Shazsilverwolf not long after you! i do love these card very nice especially the last tow.. thanks for sharing and BIG congrats happy sorting, Shaz in oz.x