Laura Rumble - Crafter

After a really flat sleepy week I made a couple of cards today... They both fit with CASEStudy (design) and CASual Fridays (two circles) and I'm also going to enter them into Crafty Ribbons (clean and simple). I intended the buttons to be my two circles.  I layered them up with glue gel to give good dimension. I used washi for the grid lines on the card.  I used the offcuts of washi to brighten up the inside of the card... they looked like little flag pennants... and I can't bear to watse anything!! The letter stickers are circles too... so I guess I ended up with 7 circles instead of two... Now I'm really confused about the term Clean And Simple. What does it actually mean? How clean? How simple? How much 'stuff' is allowed? I'm going to go ahead and enter them and see what you think... comments on the cards and the whole Clean and Simple concept gratefully recieved!!

After a really flat, sleepy week I made a couple of cards today... They both fit with CASEStudy and CASual Fridays (two circles) and I'm also going to enter them into Crafty Ribbons (clean and simple).  Neon washi - my new favourite toy!! A couple of buttons attached with glue gel. Three thank yous.  Q:  When you use multiple cling stamps in a cluster like this do you put them all on one block and use it as one stamp or do you stamp each one individually?  The middle stamp is one from a Docrafts Marie Curie set from a few years back and the other two are bananafrog stamps from different sets.  The middle stamp seemed a tiny bit thinner than the other two and I think, in hindsight, I should have stamped it seperately to make it look its best. A peek at the leftovers jazzing up the inside of the card. The black and white washi is actually cut in half.  At it's full width it would have been too wide so I...

"What's that?" She asked inquisitively. "They are ATC's"  I replied.  And so a crafting session began... We had two cousinlets stay for the night, 7 and 10.  7 happily made a scrapbook page and carefully filed it away.  10 wasn't in the mood... She was fascinated by my brothers old vintage computer game.  My brother and I at 29 & 27 are only 20 years older but boy! have computer games changed in that time!!  This little hand held Nintendo Donkey Kong game only plays one game in which you are a monkey jumping over crocodiles and ducking under flying crows doesn't compare too well to the DS's that have multiple games and cameras and wi-fi and goodness knows what else!  Anyway 10 wandered off while 7 and I scrapped... Later when 7 had gone downstairs 10 came up and asked about my pile of WOYWW ATC's. I explained as best as I could and we had a go at making an ATC each. I used my new neon washi tape that arrived the da...

The last couple of days my internet connection has been so slow... it took all afternoon to upload these pictures!  Here is what I've been working on...   The frame is from Ikea.  It was passed on to me by a friend and has sat in its plastic wrapper for a few years.  This week it was taken out of the 'I can do something with that one day' box and sanded down, painted daffodil yellow (how appropriate!), given a coat of crackle and topped off with a coat of white.  The centre trumpet is made from loopy cord and a button.  I started out making a daisy... four lengths of ribbon, ends brought in to the middle and stitched.  I added the button and was playing around with the 'daisy' and as I pushed the petals up the idea of a daffodil struck.  I ran a line of glue gel around the edge of the button and pushed the ribbon up and hoped and held it until it was stuck.   And it worked!  I made six 'leaves' out of yello...

Hello, Happy Whats On Your Workdesk Wednesday !  As promised a picture of last Wednesdays 'work' finished off.  Post and more photos here . This week I'm showing off the beaded ATC I made... Tricky to photograph so your getting one with flash and one without... It was all parcelled up and sent off to Queen of Desks Julia .  Here is a basic of how it was made... (lots of waffle about wefts and warps!) I use a flexible beading needle.  It is mainly 'eye' so it is very easy to thread. And delica beads which are more regular and accurate than the better known seed bead.  They are slightly more rectangular than round so they line up better. Thread your needle with the weft thread.  (The cross ways thread that weaves back and forth.)  Pick up the beads... Pass the needlefull of beads underneath the warp (tight length ways) threads on the loom... ...and push each bead u...

I'm back with my second card for Retro Sketches  challenge... ...and I've gone all girly this time. I've used lots of different textures for the background, mainly in shades of white.  Then I have embellished with pastel flowers (brads and paper), an epoxy bird, a vellum butterfly and a swarovski crystal drop. The butterfly gives dimension as it's wings are free and not stuck down.  The swarovski crystal drop gives movement as it dangles.  It looks great when it catches the light. I like that is very feminine and girly with out being in your face pink.  In fact if you took away the pink brads it is the colour palette for a baby boy card. Thanks for stopping by, I'd love to hear your comments...

I love this weeks sketch over at Retro Sketches .  So much so that I have already made two cards and plan to make another!  Here is my first take: We (England) are playing football in the Euro Championships tonight and I've watched football everyday since the tournament started - Love it!  So football is on my mind at the moment... I've used a load of green offcuts and leftovers to represent the pitch, gold to represent the champions (alas that is Spain at the moment and not England!) and stars (as the World Cup champions are entitled to put a gold star on their kit.) I used a bubble sticker of a football (found in the kiddies section of a supermarket I think!), a football brad and some epoxy stickers in various shades of grey. To finish off the card I hand drew a border around the edge before I started sticking and stapling all the bits down. I think this would be a perfect birthday card for any footy mad boys... a...

If you popped by on Wednesday you will have seen this picture.  Well it now looks like this... I didn't really know what I was going to do when I started.  I had the basic idea of hanging beads from the loopy bits of the cord/lace and attaching that to a wider piece of ribbon to wear as a choker. It turns out if you attach things directly to the loops they pull.  I find sewing in to satin ribbon is not easy.  So I attached the loopy cord to some grosgrain, just a few random stitches in black thread so it is not visible. Then I did my beady thing and made some head pins with swarovski crystals and attached them to the grosgrain through the loops.  The loops aren't taking the weight of the dangles, the grosgrain is doing all the supporting. Then I strung some matte black seed beads and looped them between the swarovskis.  Again I made sure the grosgrain was taking the weight. Spot the mistake?!...

I was fortunate enough to visit  Crafty Ribbons HQ last week.  I was like a little girl in a sweet shop on Christmas Day on cloud nine!  (I can't think of any other sayings... I was   h a p p y !) We had a chat (lovely people)  and I had a nose and filled a basket... and another basket.  I came away with lots of pretties.  Just as they thought I had finished I piped up, "Have you got anything bright?  You know,  fluoro.  Luminous.  Really ridiculously bright?!" I think it may be my new thing.  The neon glitter, fluorescent ribbon, must dig out some highlighter pens too. Anyway Ali pulled out a basket of brights and this is what I came home with... very difficult to photograph, hard to capture their brightness! and this is the first project... ...a birthday card for my cousinlet. I'm going to enter this card in to this challenge: Lets Craft and Create - ...

On my desk this week... some lovely ribbon from the lovely  Ali .  It's the beginnings of a necklace, I think, a choker style, I think, but we'll see what it turns out to be... I thought I'd share the ATC's from the WOYWW anniversary swap... Huge thank yous to the ladies who swapped with me. This one is from Sandee and a lovely card... This one is from Helen This little dumfling is from Jo This one is from Janet And finally one from Kate It was so lovely to come back from my holiday and have a little pile of ATC's to open and admire!  Thank you ladies and thank you to Julia for the whole desk hopping madness that is WOYWW!