New Year, new set of projects...

Amongst other things craftwise, I'm joining in with a Tag Swap online, making sets of tags which have to abide by certain rules. Colourwise they are following each months birthstones, but our hostess puts a twist to each month with other things to be included.

January's tag was Garnet, so nice deep reds were to be used on each tag. Along with the Garnet we had to use a Black and White colour theme - the twist being somewhere on each tag we had to use a snowflake or two as well.



Here's my tag for January, black base cardstock, deep mottled red patterned paper for the rosette (diecut with Tim Holtz' rosette die) and his large flourish stamp embossed in white underneath. Two snowflake brads, one at the top for the ribbons to go thru and one at the bottom, and the month also stamped/embossed in white.

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The birthstone for February is AMETHYST so nice shades of mauves and purples were to be used on each tag. Along with the Amethyst - we had to use a lacey effect somewhere on the tags whether this was real lace, paper punches, stamped lace effect etc - the twist being somewhere on each tag we should include a LOVE quote as well.

 Here's Februarys tag - and I realised after I'd sent them off that I'd totally forgotten to put the lace on - had a lovely strip pulled out of my ribbon box all ready and waiting to be stuck along the join between the music paper and the tag - and somehow I totally forgot to do it!! Dozy mare or what...

Anyways, base cardstock is pale purple, the Cupid from Tim Holtz' Seasonal Masks set applied to the upper centre and Dusty Concord Distress Ink applied around it. A torn strip of music paper stuck to the bottom couple of inches, and another TH rosette made from some pearlescent lilac paper stuck on top. The ticket is die-cut using Tim Holtz' ticket die and stamped with the Valentines Day stamp from his Odds and Ends stamp set, which were all designed to fit the ticket die. Gotta love that man, designing everything to fit with everything else - very canny! The ticket was threaded onto some thin purple ribbon and tied around the rosette. Lastly, I applied Dusty Concord Distress Stickles over the top of the Cupid and stamped/embossed the month in white along the side of the tag. Shame about the lace - but it was very pretty... :-)

March's tags (I got greedy and put my name down for two sets) went in the post today so I'll sort pics out later. But they're nice - well, at least I think so...

ATC's

To my shame, these are 2 ATC's made a year apart... but I still love 'em both!

Halloween 2009 first,




then November 2010's 'Anything Goes' ATC swap... shame we're still all waiting for our ATC's to come home...

Crafty creations from 2010

Might as well try and bring this blog up to speed with some of the crafting I did last year... better late than never!

Took part in another cybercrop, this one was Monopoly themed, and I was in the Thimbles team. Here's a Thimbles ATC I made,

along with some thimble inchies made by casting some resin thimbles using UTEE and Mold'n'Pour.

The mystery kit had papers from Sassafrass Lass in, not quite my style but I did do this rather wintery (for April!) layout,

 

as well as producing my page for the pre-crop challenge using colour-blocking.

Here's an A4 layout done of my Number 1 Dad, not used paint on a layout before and boy does it show... not sure whethere I'll try that again or not!

Another class, this one using custom hand-cut frames

A trip to Hanningfield Reservoir nature reserve during the summer was the inspiration for another class,

and I think that this night-time shot of our hotel in Ostend goes so well with this 'Black Market' paper!

Warning - infrequent poster alert!!!

Just had to share this pic of the sunset taken from my balcony the other night... all those aeroplane trails in the sky make me want to save my pennies and go fly somewhere again myself!

OK, so I've not updated for a while - just goes to show that time really does fly when you're having fun!

The cybercrop went really well - got some nice layouts done and am pleased with the amount that I did. However, that was over a month ago now and I've still to finish clearing my craft desk off (oops...)

Went to a funeral of a friend who played in a local band during the week, and on Saturday our local pub had a tribute night to him, his band Hair of the Dog played with some guest singers and players, a very enjoyable evening. 

Crafting-wise I'm making "inchies" - inch-square pieces of artwork for another swap online. I'm doing 30 in 3 batches of 10 and so far the first set have come out just about ok, but the second set have gone a bit peculiar... not quite sure whether I can rectify the problem or whether I should just start again...

Where did the time go?

They say a week is a long time in politics... It's also a long time in Blog-land too. Not quite sure how I got through this week, so much seems to have happened!

Tuesday got my car MOT'd - so I'm good to go for another year. 

Wednesday stayed in and watched The Match on the telly - it's funny how I've lived in Southend for 22 years almost and have never yet been to a match at Roots Hall...

Friday we went down to our local to see a live band called Replica. Not seen them before, they weren't bad but not as good as other bands we have seen there.

Today? Going to spend the afternoon crafting - I have 2 sets of Artist Trading Cards to make for swaps I've signed up for online and ONLY THEN can I start playing fully with the cybercrop mystery kit I received on Friday - I've got a few ideas on what to do with it but can't play until I've done the ATC's...