My first attempt at a channel card

Hello everyone. I hope that you are all well. Although the weather has been sunny here it has felt mighty cold. We had a great time on Friday watching my daughter take part in "Tesco Does Strictly". They didn't win but hey ho! it was for charity. It just proves how big an event it is for Tesco, they raised £10,000 for the charities British Heart Foundation and Diabetes UK. Saturday was spent looking for school uniform items for a "Back to School" Salsa event that is on this Wednesday. Sunday was a lazy, chilled day. I hope your little lad is better now Erika and Maureen, I framed each cross stitch for her. She had them up in her kitchen which she has just had redecorated and has just given them back to me to re-mount in different frames.

Today's card is my first attempt at a channel card - I don't think I've posted this before (apologies if I have) I printed the sentiment using different fonts onto plain white super smooth card, used a spellbinders bracket die and pink card from a kit I bought from Llidl. it was a huge learning curve for me, wondering how big to make the channel, mis-calculating the finished size of the white card to mount onto the pink, next one will be slightly smaller, so that there is a border all of the way around the top layer (you know what I mean!)

It is my daughter's birthday today and I should have shown the card I made for her but stupidly forgot to photograph it! Off out to celebrate this evening with the family

See you Thursday 

oldie for Fffriday

I'm glad you have called in and I am in a rush So I will post my oldie and come back later!See Erika's site that's the inspiration 

It's the first of a series of four that I made for my Sister in law for four consecutive Christmasses. She loves her garden and everything reflects their garden, their clothes/hair colour/that pesky cat! All inspired by the late, great Jo Verso
See you later

A simple card for a man

Hello Everyone

Thank you for popping by. I appreciate it, and value that you take the time. I am so sorry that I am posting late today. Every appointment I had just seemed to take twice as long as it should! Anyway, nails done and a quick "mooch" around the shops too. 

Tomorrow night my lovely daughter is taking part in "Tesco Does Strictly" It's a big charity event that Tesco do every year. My daughter  (the professional - not!) has had to teach a Tesco employee a dance. In her case (obviously) Salsa. They, then compete with another 9 couples and the audience text their votes which along with other stuff raises money for their chosen charities for the year. Ironically (for us) the two charities this year are British Heart Foundation and Diabetes UK.

So, on to today's card. I was asked for a card for a gentleman that loved sport but the person could not remember if there was any sport in particular. So I found some vintage photos of several sports and came up with this. I think it works

Ingredients

6x6 card blank

Script embossing folder - name escapes me

Distress ink - vintage photo

Spellbinders - Marvellous Squares

Spellbinders - large Classic Squares

See you Saturday

My box following Patricia's tutorial

Hello Everyone
Thank you for popping by. If you can leave a comment I am truly honoured that you've taken the time. I love your feedback, it helps me to improve my crafting. Talking of which today's post is a box I made using Patricia's brilliant tutorial on her blog here All I've done is vary the height of the box and depth of the lid. I made it for a friend's daughter for her bridesmaid gifts. I made it all in one colour to match her dress and the trims/ribbon match her wedding ring. I have to say that my previous attempts to make a box  were awful, with droopy sides and glue everywhere. I have to say that CS dries clear glue has become my new best friewnd!  But I'm very proud of this one as I did her trick of trimming a slither off two sides for the base and using a Hougie board to do the scoring.
On another topic, thank you for your lovely comments on my previous posts and to say that the Fun Run went well. We had exceedingly good weather and nearly got a Guinness Book World record for the most heart transplantees at one event. they were 4 short! such a shame but what an achievement! 

Ingredients

Centura Pearl card with a hint of ivory/gold

Silver glitter card from stash

Ivory ribbon edged with silver from stash

Spellbinders - lacy accents

Spellbinders - Marissa's Bouquet

Mei Flower flat backed pearls in ivory/cream (ish)

See you Thursday

Oldie for Ffffriday...

Hello Everyone, thank you for taking a browse and if you're able to leave a comment, I love the feedback you provide
Today's post is and oldie inspired by Erika at snappycrafts for Friday (I'm always late!) Her Saturday posts are hilarious too
We're off to Harefield Hospital tomorrow, I hope the weather improves! It gives us a chance to meet up with Gary's friends that we may not have been able to see through the year. Although, this year many of us met up in July to celebrate Gary's 35th birthday

It's a Wedding card that i made for a friend. One of my first easel cards. I used gold mirri card to reflect her invite. This must have been the last time I used mirri. It's gone out of fashion these days hasn't it - as mentioned on Sandra's blog http://cotswoldcrafter.blogspot.co.uk/ 

Here's the invite

Ingredients

6x6 card blank

Sue Wilson 3D bows - for strip along the bottom

Tattered Lace - Starlight Collection

Fun Run...

Hello All

Thank you for visiting and a huge welcome to Helen Hapsi, my latest follower. I truly value your feedback.

Thank you Jackie for your info re reactive lenses. I'm sort of tempted but I just thought I'd tell you all that when I spoke to the optician at Boots (I've been a patient there since childhood) she explained all of their lenses now have UV protection and therefore our eyes are protected without the need for sunglasses - certainly food for thought!

I hope you don't mind but I thought I'd post a photo of Team Gary. Every year we take part in Harefield Hospital's Fun Run in memory of my son. It takes place on the first Sunday of September. This photo is a couple of years old (I can't find the latest ones!) and sadly two of the people in the photo are no longer with us, my mum and the lady on the right hand side in the pale grey joggers. Julie was Gary's nurse and we stayed friends. She died unexpectedly in July this year, so we are running in her memory too.

 See you Saturday with an oldie
PS What are your thoughts on the new Hochanda channel? Apart from the teething troubles with sound etc I am enjoying seeing the clips of people that have created businesses from their crafts. I can't see me becoming a member though

Tinkerbell and cutting out/in the die

Hello Everyone

Thank you for popping in. I love to receive your feedback too

I had a very busy week end, with lots of dancing and we also went to a Music Festival in Hertford yesterday which was great fun. it was a bit of a pub crawl visiting different pubs to watch/listen to bands. 

I should have posted a photo of the card I made for my daughter's fiance today as it's his birthday but I forgot to take a photo. Perhaps I can "rescue" it and take one and post at a later date.

Today's card was made for my daughter's friend, who at 31, is besotted with Tinkerbell. I found a picture on the internet and printed it off using a Serif background. This is my first attempt at cutting out of the die, a technique I'd seen Julia Watts do. I didn't fancy fussy cutting the entire image but wanted her "wings" to be included. It's surprisingly easy to do. 

You place the die on top of the image and draw around the outside of the die up to the place you do not want die to cut. Then snip up to drawn edge. Place this part over the top of the die and cut. I then trimmed the wings. I hope you get the idea.

This is scheduled to post as I have an eye test. I want to find out about reactive lenses because I get fed up with swapping glasses to sunglasses (not that we've had much sunshine) and quite often don't bother which I know is detrimental to eye health. Have any of you ever had them?

Ingredients

5x7 card blank

blue background paper - Serif digikit 

Becca Feakin - Filigree Delights - outside die and oval die (the only oval die I own)