Kool Kitty Musings

52 Cards challenge - Week 5

Welcome to another week on the 52 cards challenge - hard to believe we are reaching the end of January!

Well done to everyone who has been playing along! :)

For this week's prompt there is one main theme.

Make a card featuring some sort of aperture.

Here's what I made:

Paper: My Mind's Eye, October Afternoon
Dies: PTI, MFT, Stampin' Up
Stamps: PTI, Hero Arts
Felt: PTI
Kraft pocket: Joann's
Other: Promarkers

To make my aperture detail I used a small kraft paper bag. I bought a pack of these in Florida a while ago and they are similar to coin envelopes that you can get over here.

I first masked the inside of the flap at the back with a post-it note so that I could stamp the woodgrain background on just the front.

I then die cut the pinked circle from felt and cut a smaller circle inside the pinked felt piece. I cut the same sized circle from the kraft paper bag and attached the felt border round the circle.

I created a tag to go inside and when it's pulled out you can see the yellow arrow paper that I stuck to the back of the kraft baggie to cover the die-cut hole on that side:

Also when making this card I wanted to use up the 2 sheets of 6x6 paper from my MME pad entirely, I managed that by using the left-over bits to make the yellow details and the cloud tag. Always nice when you can use up a whole sheet of something. I just love MME 6x6 pads as their double-sided papers are really versatile.

Anyway, I hope you have fun coming up with some aperture ideas. :D

Wishi-Washi...

Jo has set a fab dare over on the DCM blog - to use washi tape on your card. :D

I didn't have any tape in my stash, but lucky me, I remembered that Jo had done a great tutorial on her blog showing how to make your own with tracing paper.

Well, this is what I made (shame about the photos, I cannot wait for daylight to return so I can photograph projects on a weekday! lol

Paper: Digital papers by Crystal Wilkerson (Vintage Cupcake), MME, Fancy Pants
Dies: PTI
Stamps: PTI
Rub-on: Basic Grey
Resin flower: 3D Jean
Twill: The Ribbon Girls
Other: Double-sided tape, tracing paper, distresser, 3D foam, Corner Chomper

Sharon's card on the DCM blog uses another cool idea - patterned vellum to make your own tape, I see a whole new opportunity for using up some of that ca. 2002 vellum stash!

A cracking read

Finished it this evening, and wow... just proves that the other Lucy Dillon book I've read (Lost Dogs and Lonely Hearts) wasn't a one off.

Fantastic characters, a few familiar faces, and some canine characters you wish you could adopt. Not your usual chick lit, there are everyday triumphs and tragedies, big and small, that make you reach for the tissues. My kind of book. I will cry at most things in books, but it makes the blubbing all the more worthwhile when it's such a great read.

I have Lucy Dillon's first book, The Ballroom Class, on my to be read pile, and just need to get hold of Walking Back to Happiness to complete the set, but I want to savour these two as she has only written four books so far. I'm not complaining, in fact I hope there will be many more!

52 Cards challenge - Week 4

Happy Monday everyone!

This week's prompt is a sketch created by my own fair hand, hence it is rather simple!

Here's the card I made based on this design:

Paper: MME
Dies: My Favorite Things, PTI
Stamps: Hero Arts, Waltzing Mouse Stamps
Pearls: Kaisercraft
Other: 3D foam

I managed a play with my new doily die from My Favorite Things, I rather like how you can use it to full up white space without totally overwhelming the background. :D

And on a similar theme, I made a second card but mixed up the sketch a little:

Paper: Crate Paper
Dies: My Favorite Things, Spellbinders
Stamps: My Favorite Things
Sticker: Crate Paper
Brad: Crate Paper
Other: Distressing tool, sander

So you see, you can create a card that follows the sketch exactly, turn the sketch design on its side, or mix the elements around a little. I look forward to seeing how you interpret it! :)

Happy creating!

Short, but sweet

Well the weekend is almost over, I've not managed anything exciting since Friday night's crop, but the house is a lot tidier, boring tasks have been completed and well... I managed to finish this book at last:

It was a pleasant enough read, although I wish we didn't have to wait so long for the next in the series as I am rather intrigued to see how things develop. :o)

I also started this today:

On page 200 now and really liking it. :)

Now, I did manage to make something...

Paper: MME
Sticker: MME
Stamps: MFT
Die: MFT
Felt: PTI
Other: 3D foam

Love that lime twist polka dot paper from MME, yum yum aqua colours. :D

Right, I had best get back to my book. ;o)

Something's cookin'

Over at the DCM blog today. :D

The theme of the week is Kitchenalia in honour of Kathy's new-look kitchen - lucky girl!

Here's what I made:

Paper: Crate Paper
Printable: theprettyblog.com
Stamps: PTI
Stickers: Crate Paper
Die: PTI
Ribbon: The Ribbon Girl
Other: Svarovski gem, 3D foam

For the cuttlery I used a wonderful placemat printable I found online:

Source: theprettyblog.com via Natalia on Pinterest

 

I resized it so that I could print it onto my die-cut label, and then used a journalling sticker from Crate Portrait collection as the plate.

Hopefully the hostess in question will like it. :)

Nice brown paper packages...

Or Jiffy envelopes...

Some nice things arrived in the post today:

Some dies from MFT purchased in their NY sale, including the doily die. :D

These stamps were free with my order, and will be very useful - some nice greetings there. :D

I also have this yummy spring country landscape die to play with from memory box dies. A nice alternative to the winter version. :)

And at long last I have managed to get C.O. Bigelow items in the UK. Have been after a new hand wash as my yummy lemon one is just now running out.

Speaking of lemons I have regretted not buying this ever since Florida 2009 when I had the chance to get it in Bath and Bodyworks but thought my baggage allowance would be tipped over... it wasn't, I could have got this. But anyway, I shall be using it tonight in a nice long hot bath!

Now, I need to remember to buy a new CD thingy to house the new dies and get some more magnetic tape as I'm all out... a die reorganization session is in order!

52 Cards challenge - Week 3

Morning everyone!

This week's inspiration is tied together by a common theme and is brought to you with the aid of Pinterest. :D

The theme for this prompt is bunting, banners, pennants and flags.

Now before I show the photo inspiration don't worry too much, remember you can take any aspect of these photos as your inspiration. I would love you to try to incorporate bunting, banners, pennants and flags in any shape or form in your project, but if you really can't manage it focus on another area of inspiration from these photos.

We have some lovely bunting combining stripes, and dots, and my favourite combo of red and aqua:

Source: hostessblog.com via Natalia on Pinterest

 

We have banners that are tied at either end:

Source: tinywhitedaisies.tumblr.com via Natalia on Pinterest

 

We have little flags on sticks:

Source: frolic-blog.com via Natalia on Pinterest

 

We have DIY banners and pennants that use a neat technique:

Source: danielleflanders.blogspot.com via Natalia on Pinterest

 

If you have a Fiskars scallop border punch check out this wonderful idea by Danielle Flanders.

We have pennants of all shapes and sizes:

Source: littlebirdiesecrets.blogspot.com via Natalia on Pinterest

 

In fact, you can do just about anything:

Source: abeautifulmess.typepad.com via Natalia on Pinterest

 

The possibilities are endless!

Here's what I came up with using my new Paperheart collection from Crate. :D

Paper: Crate
Stickers: Crate
Pearls: Kaisercraft
Dies: Spellbinders, PTI
Stamp: PTI
Other: Sewing machine, chalk ink, distresser

I ended up cutting the banner with the pennant die from Nestabilities, a nice and quick way to get even, uniform pennants. Stuck them down where I wanted them with a touch of repositionable Herma and ran the card through the sewing machine. :D

Today would be a nice day to...

...stay tucked up in bed or on the sofa in front of the fire with a good book.

But I'm out for dinner tonight and there are a number of things I need to get done before then, and I have already spent too much of the day playing...

I don't know why I am such a sucker for time management games, since I am so rubbish at it in real life!

But continuing on the theme, I had Grey's Anatomy season 3 disc 1 from Lovefilm to watch. I was really enjoying Really's Grey's Anatomy from the beginning, but they stopped at the end of season 2 and well, I wanted to keep going!

So if and when I finally get to do something crafty today I shall have to pop it on, otherwise Captain America is the other disc of choice. :)

Miraculous social networks

Or the dare that stumped a lot of us!

Yes, the wonderful Zuz set a dare this week to use social networks as your inspiration.

Well, after initially thinking of going with some "hip" text speak stamps, I suddenly remembered that I had something in my stash that looked very much like the Twitter logo on my phone.

And so a card was born:

Paper: October Afternoon
Journaling card: October Afternoon
Die: PTI
Stickers: October Afternoon
Stamp: My Cute Stamps
Other: Sewing machine, distress glitter, 3D foam

So yes, the twitter birdie and a "tweet" ticked the box. :D

Don't forget to check out the rest of the design team's wonderful cards!

Ready for December

I had to trundle off to the sorting depot yesterday to pick up this:

My lovely Crate collection pack from ebay arrived, the lot also included the matching buttons, alpha stickers, trim, and dimensional accents.

I am one seriously happy scrapper now. In fact I am rather sad I can't start making my 2012 Christmas journal now! LOL

I'm not sure if it will be a daily one, or simply one that includes 10 to 15 photos and that's it.

We shall see... but I love this collection, even the papers I wasn't sure about and didn't order first time round, yum! Glad I am now all set with two of each plus what's left of the papers I used for cards last year. :)

Decisions, decisions...

I'm in a bit of a nothing mood tonight.

There's plenty of stuff I could be doing, but I just don't have the energy...

So, there has to be some zero-energy-requiring past time I can do...

I finally managed to pick up the new Nora Roberts at the library last night:

But the Great British Sports Relief Bake-Off starts on BBC 2 tonight.... hm.... Can I manage both before nodding off?

I have a stack of books from the library that I had all over Christmas with the very good intention of getting caught up on my book pile, but I hardly made a dent...

I've also got some more Lucy Dillon books out, I loved Lost Dogs and Lonely Hearts:

And have the latest one:

Well, I suppose I'd best choose something and not get wrapped up in Donkey Kong on the Wii again! LOL

52 Cards challenge - Week 2

Wow, what a fab start to the challenge we had last week! So many people joining in and getting creative! :oD

This week our prompt comes from the trusted prompt jar:

Remember you can interpret the prompts in any way!

Here's the card I made to congratulate a friend on the lovely news that she and her hubby are expecting a baby boy:

Paper: MME
Die-cuts: MME
Stickers: American Crafts, KI Memories
Die: Sizzix
Other: Corner Chomper, 3D foam

So red-yellow-blue as my primary colours inspiration, the handmade embellishment is the rosette made with the aid of a die and altered slightly, and the journalling spot was used for my greeting.

Happy creating!

Look what arrived in the post!

Exciting eh? My lovely prize from Crate's Christmas giveaway. I couldn't wait to open it up and have a good stroke of all the contents.

Very yummy indeed and I love this paper in particular:

Cannot get enough of this chevron design at the moment, plus grey shades. Most stylish.

The stickers have a different finish to Portrait, a bit shinier but the designs are fab. :D

Just need to find time to sit down and play! Chance would be a fine thing at the moment as it has been really busy with work. ;o) But I have a couple of cards I need to make, so more than likely I will find a way to use my fab new stash.

A new year, a new monthly theme...

..over on the DCM blog that is! :D

Yep, after birthstones and flowers the dare on the first Friday of each month will be a colour challenge.

I just love all the colour inspiration photos and palettes on Pinterest, not to mention the blogs where they are originally posted.

To kick off the monthly colour dare, Fran has picked this palette - perfect to chase away those January blues!

My take on this allowed me to play with a couple of Christmas presents from my lovely die-addict-in-crime, Angela. She knows what I like and what I almost bought until she told me not to!

Paper: MME
Dies: Marianne, Memory Box Dies, PTI
Stamps: PTI
Seam binding: The Ribbon Reel
Other: distresser, pattern wheel, 3D foam, Distress Stickles

I am rather taken with that "snowflake" die, but I think it could work as a nice doily-esque accent and not just a snowflake.

Hope you get chance to play along!

So long gingerbread family!

It's time to move with the seasons so my blog has had a little face lift to see us into spring. :D

Hearts and birdies courtesy of the wonderful Nancy Kubo - boy would I be happy if she had some new digi sets coming out. ;o)

And on the theme of hearts and birdies I see that Pinterest is awash with Valentines ideas at the moment. It's not a big holiday over here, but I very much enjoy the eye candy and ideas.

I keep saying that one day I will do one of these projects:

Source: blissfulb.blogspot.com via faryle on Pinterest

 

It hasn't happened yet!

I don't think I'd ever have the skill or patience for this, but a lovely take on bunting:

Source: lindaalbrecht.typepad.com via Arantxa on Pinterest

 

I love these plain linen cushions with button designs:

Source: allaboutyou.com via Lianne on Pinterest

 

I am even loving crocheted hearts!

Source: etsy.com via origami on Pinterest

 

Totally amazing heart biscuits...

Source: weheartit.com via Earline on Pinterest

Now all I need are some heart doilies and I will be a happy girl!

Is it Friday the 13th or something?

It has been a very odd day in these parts, not only have I feared that the roof would fly off at any minute with the gusty storm blowing outside, but I have been fraught with random clumsy disasters and some very strange goings on.

The latest victim of which are my lovely old-school icicle lights over the lounge window. Not only did my angel Christmas lights die just before Christmas (after a week on the tree) but now the next set seems to have died. I heard some pinging noises the other night and some of the bulbs just started blowing, but I thought nothing much of it as the rest were still on. This evening while cooking my tea I put the tree and lights on again to try and enjoy every last moment before everything gets packed away for another year, only to hear another ping and then something falling, then something else. Well, low and behold some of the icicles had melted straight off and dropped to the floor, others have melted and twisted about. I unplugged the set straight away but have never seen anything like this and previously when bulbs have blown they've not caused any overheating. Kind of scary really!

So looks like this set will be destined for the fairy light graveyard in the sky once they're taken down and I can see the full extent of what has happened to them.

I also managed to unplug the fridge-freezer instead of my ramoska oven after plating up my tea, but thankfully noticed when I went back to wash up after scoffing my jacket spud. I am always completely paranoid about leaving this and the slow cooker on. Even to the point of knowing that I have switched something off but being half way to somewhere and then being convinced that I may have forgotten to switch it off. Well, this time I'd done just that and mixed the plugs up. Grrrrr but thankfully no harm done.

While washing up one false move ended up with me managing to tip the best part of the washing up bowl onto myself rather than into the sink. Now have one very clean and recently washed kitchen floor.

Oh and my mother rang to say their TV had finally conked out (it was going rather green at times over Christmas but thankfully didn't go out then!) and she was trying to convince my dad that now would be the time to buy a new HD telly...

I am really hoping tomorrow will be a more successful day, not least because I also had umpteen time-consuming technical problems working from home today and I've fallen behind quite a bit from where I need to be. :o\

All fun and games! But what a start to the year!

Mind you I am now back on my stash spending diet after splurging on a few dies in the post-Christmas sales, oh and er... purchasing some new dies direct from MFT and well... I am also all set for next year's Christmas journal (yep, I reckon I am an even-yeared Christmas journaler as nothing seems to happen in odd-numbered years!) with the purchase at last of the Crate Peppermint collection kit plus lots of goodies to go with it. :D I reckon if I can get the album made in advance I should be good to go come December.

52 Cards challenge - Week 1

Happy New Year everyone!

So here we are in a new year and back at week 1 and if you're new to the 52 Cards challenge, here's the info I posted on UK Scrappers about how this works. :)

What is it?
A no-stress challenge aimed at getting you to make a card a week in 2012.
Each week I will post prompts here on my blog - these will either be:

• 3 prompts randomly picked from the prompt jar
• Photo inspiration from Pinterest, etc. (that you can interpret in any way that you like: colours, layout, design elements, product - it's up to you!)
• Design elements or themes
• An existing card design that you can use as a sketch to create your own interpretation

All you need to do is use the prompts as inspiration to create a card - if you can't include all the elements of a prompt, don't worry - there are no rules, the aim is simply to get creating!

Where are the prompts?
All prompts past and present can be found here on my blog or by clicking on the 52-card challenge tag over there on the left.

When are they posted?
The prompts go live every Monday morning at around 8.30 a.m. Due to work hours I schedule the blog post for challenge prompts so it's available at the same time and same place each week. And time permitting I will include a card with my own interpretation of the prompt. :)

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

So on with the show, this week's prompt is a design elements and theme prompt:

1. Theme = New (new beginnings, baby, home or simply using new stash - the choice is yours!)
2. Circles
3. Scallops

Here's what I came up with:

Cardblank: DCWV
Paper: My Mind's Eye
Dies: Sizzix, Spellbinders
Stamp: PTI
Other: Glitter cardstock, twine, button, pattern wheel, distresser, chalk ink, 3D foam

So the new element of this card, is using my new Sizzix edger die for the zigzag and scallop borders. And I am sure the other scallops and circle are easy to spot. :D

I hope you have time to join in - happy creating!