25 Years

Today in my parents' silver wedding anniversary. Twenty five years of marriage! Congratulations Mum and Dad!

{The card we will be giving them today.}

Revealed

I surprised myself with how quickly this project came together once I got started. I bought the fabric a couple of months ago with this in mind - it caught my eye whilst I was rummaging through the remnants bin. It took me a bit longer to borrow Mum's sewing machine but once we got it home it only took me a couple of spare hours slotted in between jobs and...


I'm looking forward to it's first outing of the summer - T's PhD graduation in just under a week!

Sneak Peek

I have a new project starting up. Just like the painting I embarked on at the end of last year, sewing has never really been my thing. But why say "I can't" when an idea has popped in to your head...?

Big Blog Card Swap Show and Tell!

The Big Blog Card Swap is finished now, and hopefully everyone has received and sent their cards! Here are some of the cards people have received, thank you for blogging about them ladies...

Hannelore from Paper, Beads and Inspiration sent this card to Sketchstitch who posted about it here.

{I love the perfect folding of the paper. It's simply lovely.}
Hannelore herself received this sweet card from Hilary at Molly Moo designs.

{That owl is adorable, and it is a lovely touch to include a sticker to seal the envelope.}
Pam received this card from Sarah at DottyDaisies:

{Sarah has used so much recyled stuff in this card - recycled card, sheep poo paper and old catalogues!}
Pam sent one to Myfanwy:

{I love how the flower picture tones with the card, so pretty.}
Sarah, my co-organiser received this card from Helen and posted about it here:

{So creative to mix media and use embroidery in a card design, thanks for the inspiration Helen!}
Kellie sent me this card:

{I love the matching gift tag with this, and that Kellie has used a card which has two flaps opening in the front, so unusual.}
I sent Vicky this card which she posted about here:

{Glad she liked it, I had fun making it!}
Vicky sent Kellie this card:

{This design is from Vicky's anonymity range, I love her style!}

Marice posted about the card she received from Mary at Quite Contrary Crafts here:

{I love that the simplicity of the colours, without embellishments makes the cutout the centre of Mary's designs, it's beautiful.}
Marice also posted about the card she sent Jenny:

{Those buttons are great, I love how the colours tone in this one.}
Jenny and her daughter Dakota get special mentions for being our furthest away participants, they live in New Zealand!

Thank you to everyone who took part and Sarah for being my lovely partner in this. We've had a few requests for another swap so keep your eyes open...!

RSVP

We got two wedding invitations in the post last week and so I spent some time on Friday making RSVP cards. I decided to make little cards and used some with apertures that Mum had passed on to me months ago. I trimmed them down a little so they would fit in some small square envelopes (which happened to be left over from the RSVP cards and envelopes we sent out with our invitations!).

I tried to match each one to the wedding invitation and theme. With one that was easy, I know plenty about the wedding, it has a green theme, the invitations had hearts on. Easy peasy.

{Doubling up the hearts adds a bit more interest.}
The other one was slightly harder. It was just a thick sheet of paper with the words printed on. Very simple and classy, giving nothing away before the big day. So I came up with a simple design to use on both, and for the second one just used neutral colours and wedding papers.

{The hearts are punched from a wedding favour box I saved from one of the weddings we went to in December. I love the black and gold together.}

Painting - A Castle in the Sky

I'm really enjoying painting at the moment. Every now and again an idea starts to appear in my mind and it's fun making it appear in real life. Of course sometimes it doesn't work out quite how I picture it - I have one abandoned painting on top of the bookcase that I really should get back to and fix sometime soon. And I had originally started painting some flowers on this canvas, but they weren't working so I started again.

{A castle in the sky.}
The sky/sea in the background is a bit lumpy from the first painting I started and then abandoned but overall I was happy with how it came out.

Let the Card Making Commence!

The Big Blog Card Swap is now closed! Thank you to everyone who signed up, we will be drawing partners soon and will let you know asap! Cards should be sent by Thursday the 6th of May - that is two weeks from now. So get creating!

Introducing...

The Big Blog Card Swap!
Over the last week I have been chatting and emailing with Sarah from Wrapped Up With String. She posted a mini review of Craftrak and it got us thinking - why not organise our own bloggers card swap?


If you make cards, or want to - we'd love for you to join us. All you have to do is send your name and address to bigblogcardswap@gmail.com by midday (GMT) on Thursday the 22nd of April. Then we will draw the names and will email you the name and address of someone else. You make a card. You send it to them (by Thursday 6th May). They send one to someone else and someone else sends one to you. It's like a big card sending circle of bloggers.

The idea is to share inspiration and ideas so hopefully at the end we'll be able to collate some pictures or posts of different people's cards.

So - if you want to get involved, please email us! If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments here. If you want to share this with your own readers, please post the info on your own blog, linking back to here or Sarah's blog.

Finally, we totally promise not to give your info out to anyone outside the Big Blog Card Swap. That would be rude. And we're not rude, we're lovely. So join in!

Four Days

We had a lovely weekend with my parents and sisters. The two extra days made it feel like a proper holiday - golf, tea, chocolate, church, Doctor Who, chats in our pyjamas, murder mysteries, computer games - and these highlights...

We had fun at home:

{Croissants and pain au chocolat, board games, birthday cake and craft.}
We walked around the garden:

{Flowers.}
We went out for a birthday lunch:

{Cheesecake, duck salad, creme brulee, fish and chips, sea view, lamb shank.}
We visited a ruined castle:

{Castle fun.}

Cheep Cheep

Happy Easter everyone! Have a wonderful weekend!

Castles in the Air

As part of my art/book project last week I wanted to do some painting. And it kind of hijacked the project, meaning that it took me about ten days instead of five, and I only actually produced two bits of art. I finally finished the painting last night and now it's time to share again.


The book is Little Women, an old favourite I rediscovered last summer, and these two pages are where the girls are discussing their dreams, and how they want their lives to turn out - what they call their "castles in the air". Some of them change what they are aiming for, others achieve what they hope for. And as I painted, I came up with my own castle. Just a little one. But one day I would like our own house. And in that house I'm dreaming of a wall of bookshelves. A little like this one:


Only more full of books. But like in this picture, it will also have photo frames, and vases, and sections that will break it up and make it look pretty. And in one of those sections, I'm going to put my painting. And that, lovely readers, is my castle in the air.

Art Challenge - Day 2

A busy Thursday today, so I thought I'd share one of my favourite projects with you, in keeping with the book/art/making theme. This is my recipe book, started shortly after we got married.


Some of the recipes are from my Mum. This one is an old favourite that reminds me of home, and is in my opinion the best fruit cake recipe ever.


This one is from T's Mum, and is the only recipe in the book I've never actually made. I love this dessert when she makes it and I'm worried that if I make it sucessfully I'll eat it every week and end up too round to leave the house.


This one was discovered at university, passed from person to person in our church and friendship group.


Some are from friends. This one was made for us on a great holiday we took last year, and after tasting it I had to add it to the book.


Some are very short, and don't really need to be written down, but I like having them in there. It's not just a reminder of the ingredients, quantities and method, sometimes it's just good for inspiration.


A few of them have pictures. This recipe is from the internet, and one I've shared before.


So that's my BOOK for today - a growing collection of memories and inspiration. Do you have a recipe I should try out and maybe add to the book?

Art Challenge - BOOK

Once again, my eye has been caught by one of Kal's arty challenges. This one is called Art 5 days - 5 ways. You pick a word - mine is BOOK. And then interpret it in a different arty way for the next 5 (week) days. If you were going to do the challenge (and please tell me if you do!), what would your word be?

Yesterday was Day 1 and as I found some chalk while tidying up I decided to make that the first medium. I'm not very good at drawing, and don't do it very often, but as the point of the challenge is trying things out I gave it a go anyway...


{The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Red Lotus and Her Fearful Symmetry}

Who showed you how to work the needles?*

In my current spirit of trying new things, I stopped by a charity shop on Friday and bought myself a new hobby. The lady behind the counter was very helpful and encouraging in the face of my cluelessness and I went away with a smile on my face, a bag of blue wool and a pair knitting needles. (I'm pretty sure real knitters don't put their new wool on the floor to take photos but I have years more photography than knitting behind me so I did.)


Next stop was this website to refresh my memory - the last time I tried to knit was when I was about six or seven. It took a few goes, but I'm getting the hang of the rhythm now. Poke, loop, hook, pull, slip, poke, loop, hook, pull, slip.


After a phone conversation with my mum this afternoon I have decided that after I learn casting off, I should try pearl stitch. Oh and that my sister also knits and is part way through a scarf. She can be my instructress if the website fails me on pearl-ing. So far I have learned not to make the stitches to tight as it makes it very hard when you get to the next row? Does anyone have any knitting tips for me?

*Kudos to anyone who can tell me which film the title of this post is a quotation from.

I Can

Last September I set myself a few goals, one of which was to start (and finish) a painting I'd had in my mind for a while. I love making and creating things but I'm not very good at finishing them - often they get put aside when life gets too busy, or another projects captures my imagination. Which is why it's taken me four months to finish a painting that admittedly is not complicated or very detailed. But this week I did finish it, and here it is:



These are some of the "work in progress" shots:


My main creative outlets are photography, cooking and collage-type books and cards. I wouldn't class myself as artistic - I definitely know my limits when it comes to drawing and painting skill. But last autumn I wanted to try to push those limits a little, and to not be afraid to try things I think I'm bad at. And I was pleased (four months later) when I did finally finish this project. So this year, I'm going to try to push my self-identified limits a little more, in all areas of life. And we'll see what happens.

Do you have areas of your life you impose restrictions on by saying "I can't"? Or have you said "I can" to something and surprised yourself?

Wedding Cards

Now that our trio of winter weddings are over, I thought I'd share the wedding cards we gave them. I think people put so much of their own personality and how they want their wedding to feel into the invitation so it's great to use that as inspiration for the card if you're making one.

This is the first (invitation above, the card I made below):


I took the colours and the relaxed swirls of the invitation for my design too. The font they'd chosen was quite simple and modern so I echoed that in their initials.

The second wedding invitation stated that the ceremony would be followed by "dinner and ball". It was formal and traditional in the colours and fonts but they'd made it unusual by having four triangular "petals" that opened on the front (invitation to the left, card to the right):


Again, I used very simple, traditional colours, keeping the creativity in the textures and patterns. I used ribbon roses to make it extra special.

The third wedding, just gone. The bride and groom had clearly chosen red and gold as their wedding colours (invitation to left, card to right):


Again, I took similar colours and included their initials in a swirly, handwriting, similar to that on the invitation.

I would love this to be my job!

Documenting

One of my favourite things to do this year has been to collect together photos, leaflets, papers and ribbons and make mini books documenting our adventures. I've decided to follow the example of a very creative lady and make one for the whole of December:


Mine is very low effort so far - just papers punched and tied with a ribbon. I went for Christmassy greens and creams with gold highlights as the theme. I think December will manage to fill and festivise it as we go...

Autumn Goals Update

1) Add all my favourite summer photos to the digital photo frame.

2) Take a photo every day of September and post it here. I'm not nearly disciplined enough to do Project365 but I might just manage a month.

3) Make something new in the bread maker machine.

4) Sew the pretty new buttons onto my winter coat.

5) Finish the wedding scrapbook. Start honeymoon ones or put the photos in an album at least. I have put the honeymoon photos in an album! And I've started putting our wedding cards into an album.


6) Send surprise post to three people. I did this! And it was so much fun. Here are three of my parcels ready to go. And I also sent some extras. It was lovely to surprise people.


7) An arty project.

8) A blog redesign.

Last night we went to a play called Origins and Lemons. It was a very lighthearted take on Genesis chapters 1-11. It was nice to do something different in the evening. And tonight we're off to London to go on the London Eye - something different again!

A Lovely Day III

So last post I mentioned that my mum and sisters were coming up to visit for the day. It was lovely. We started with tea and these bisuits...


I found the recipe on the Lakeland website. It's like shortbread, but flavoured with almond extract and topped with flaked almonds. You make the dough into balls and flatten them with a fork - giving Almond Fork Biscuits. They're good. I got fifteen out of this recipe and they're almost all gone. They're easy and yummy - try them!

Anyway, moving on from the biscuits... After a while T came home and had lunch with us, which was lovely, and then after he'd gone back to work we spent the afternoon crafting and chattering.


It was so lovely to be able to spend the day with them.

A Card, Some Rain, A Book.

We spent two really lovely days with my parents and sisters this weekend. We ate, played games, snuggled on the sofa and watched films. I even made some cards with Mum - I was especially pleased to make the last wedding card for our trio of upcoming weddings. The bride and groom are stylish and creative people and I was lacking in inspiration until I saw some lovely papers in Mum's supply. Once I had all the elements it still took ages to figure out a layout, but we had fun doing it and here's a little look at it.


Today it has been dripping rainy wetness all day. I loved it. It makes sitting on the sofa now feel even more warm and snug. New stripy socks also made me happy today.


I am reading Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris. So far I like it, although I have a strange feeling that I've started it once before and didn't get very far. Just a hint of deja vu - but clearly this time it's gripping me more. I'm intrigued by the secrets and hidden past that the narrator is hinting at.