Paper Chamfer frames.....

Recently I have become obsessed with MME Miss Caroline collection of papers with wooden floor design on it.  I have used it a lot lately and kept a few bits on my desk already cut for another project that I ended up not needing them for.

Again I played with a chamfer edge and made a frame to go over a very small canvas that I painted and spritzed and prettied up and then decided to cover 98% of it with paper!!!

(Agh my logo - Sorry!!!)

Back to the frame - it was a slow process, just playing with it for a few minutes a day when I had a moment.  It had no purpose or no deadline until my cousin and her partner came over for a weeks holiday and then I knew that it would be getting a home with a photo of them taken on their trip to Ireland.  (Ironicially we had 1 hour to get somewhere to take a photo and we scooted to Malahide where it was overcast, dark, drizzly and misty!) but we took some photos, they were not great but we got what we got!

I raised the edges of the wooden paper frame up a little to give dimension and then layered some Papertrey Ink die cut flowers up and stacked them on the edges.  Some colored pearls gave the flowers a lift and I felt it needed a splash of color so I added the butterfly and the title.

Here is the nearly final result!  I finished it and had it sitting in the kitchen for a couple of hours and kept glancing at it as I thought it still needed something.  There was a tiny little tag left sitting on my desk and I added it to the top right of the photo (below) and at the same time mad a small flower shaped tag and just before I packaged up the frame to give it as a gift, I added a small tag nestled inside the paper flowers as I thought it needed a pop of the warm red.

Yet another Papertrey Ink order is on the way to us again - really adore that stuff but I console myself with the cost of the purchases as I really do use the stuff!  The dies that cut the flower, the tag die and stamp and the title sentiment and die were all Papertrey Ink.

Not much else sitting on my desk at the moment, apart from some tags which are not very interesting and some cards that you may not have seen, but I hope to share some more interesting stuff soon.

Use it or spend hours looking for it!

Things that make me happy!  Happy kids laughing....a clean house and making things!  There are many many more but these 3 are worth sharing today.  So I ventured out to my craft room the other night, and sat down to make a few cards.  It's been a while since I had the time or interest in making anything and I sat down and played.  

Now I would be ashamed to show you the first card that I made - not me, very strange and will not be shared, but the second card was one I was happier with and came together a little easier than the first and I am not ashamed to show you.

It ticks all my normal boxes, pretty (tick), neat (tick), happy colors (tick), creative (little tick!).  I like it, and it was a start and felt a little bit happy and soothed inside when I finished.  I needed to make a 50th Birthday card for a man - not an easy task for me as I find it hard to do cards for me.  So off I went into Pinterest for a look around and half an hour later I got a start point and this card was what I came up with while leaning heavily on Pinterest.

Using the My Minds Eye Miss Caroline collection I made a chamfer edge frame from the wood design papers and added the tickets on the side.  I was happy that the card was masculine enough for the receiver (Happy Birthday Peter!) and pretty enough for me to be happy to give it away.  

My teen and her friends celebrated their fab Junior Cert results and had a lovely night out!  We had a little party for them before they headed off and took some photos of them with their mums!

Shannon turned 8 and had a HUGE party here at home with all her class mates invited and a magician to keep the 30+ of them amused!  Before the madness I got a few moments to snap some photos of the two small girls.

 Last week I got to do something really fun - I was asked to take some photos for my husbands company of the cockpit layout of their new plane - it had to go on a test flight and instead of getting off and waiting for them to come back to Dublin I got to fly in the jump seat with them!

Lots of fun experiences for all of us!

Mad about Ruffles....

I am truly a girly girl!  Love all the pretty things and always wearing bright girlie colors, find it hard to wear black and this really shows in my crafting.  So todays blog post is an homage to girlie, pretty colors, bows and ruffles!

The summer holidays are nearly over and my life will go back to normal soon and I will have a bit more time to craft, at the moment my full time job is being a referee between a 4 and 7 yr old who would argue about two flies climbing up a wall!

Here are two cards that I recently completed.  One was started weeks ago and the other was dragged out of me as I found it so hard to sit and craft and worried I would never be able to make a card again as my mojo was shoved so much to the side I could not find where to start!

This first card was made for my daughter as she was sitting her Junior Cert Exams and we wrote her some notes the night before....  (do well or else!!)

Love these colors and all papers and chipboard pieces are from Crate Paper.

This second card was made for my mother's birthday and was the one that I had such trouble with.  First I saw an origami bow tutorial on PInterest and spent 2 hours trying to make pretty bows! (The link I gave is a great one, and not the one that I was using originally..... Doh!!!)  Once I had perfected them I then made 3 for a card idea that I had in my head and once I started the card I realized that I was going in a completely different direction and had to make more!

Only 4 more days to go till school starts!!! Yah!!!

Summer time is time consuming....

As a mum of 3 girls, this summer is busy.  Last week we had 3 trips to the beach, summer camp for 3 of the last 4 weeks and next week is action packed too.  Just how I like it!

My crafting is taking a back seat, along with my photography as I just cannot do it all and frankly it's an easy choice to make.

These two cards were made for specific reasons rather than a crafty whim.

The wedding card was made with scraps of paper from my scraps bag, embossing folders and my Papertrey Ink Dies and stamps.

The one above was for a lovely friend who had her birthday just after mine.  This card is all Papertrey Ink - from the stamps, to the inks and to the sentiments!  Love it all!

Happy summer everyone - we have run out of camps now and I am starting my holidays with 3 days a week off on hols, so cannot see more crafting being done!

Teachers Gifts

I found this little idea on Pintrest, and loved it so I made a few of these little pencil signs for the teachers and coupled them with nice rose bushes and a lovely plant holder pot that I found in Ikea.

Seriously so easy that anyone could make them.

When I went back for more roses they had none so for the Primary school I got some sun flower plants that really seemed apt for the part about "helping me to grow!".

The girls are on holidays from school so time to craft will be hard to find.  I hope to share a little more of what I have been doing but take today, two cards were made and not photographed and are now in the post.  So time to make more me thinks!

Just for Val and Imelda.....

Sorry for absence, there was a little grumble in the background that I had not blogged and it's not because I have nothing to show, its due to being busy.

Here is are two cards that were made and delivered last week....  One is a wedding card and I was at a bit of a loss on what to make and then I took a little trip onto Pintrest and found something, and this card was born.  Simple card that looked fab in real life.

My husbands niece was 21 last weekend and this was the tri-fold card that I made her, all made from Crate Paper Pretty Party collection.

Lovely card and Eamonns niece was thrilled.  She asked me to make her a cake, and this was a copy of one that I made for my own daughters birthday, 7 colours and 2kilos of icing sugar later......

Great to be able to use my paper stash to make the bunting for the cake.... Probably my favorite cake ever!!!  Made quite a statement!!!

Random stuff....

Like most weekends here, it's busy!  Over the last week I have been running around (as per usual) but I would not have it any other way really!

Here are a few cards that I made recently.  I wrote a list and needed nearly 10 cards for a variety of things, so I gave myself a full night and made a bunch of them.

OK variations on a theme but I had some new Papertrey Ink dies and stamps to play with and well you really just have to!  

The one above is my fav of the ones I have made recently.  I used up all my bright red card and that perfectly teal card and cannot make anymore but I will be looking to buy more of these colours as they are just magic!  The inspiration came from a top that my little one Lea was wearing, and these colours just worked so well on the top that I had to combine them on a card.

Boy cards always a hard thing to make, so this was my card for my nephew Conor for his Confirmation, I hope it was not too girlie for him, but I did my best!

Mastering time management!

Time is funny - my motto is generally to stuff as much as I can into a day and keep going till I fall down.  The last few months have been particularly hard, and probably due to a steep increase in the amount of photography requests coming my way - and if you have a moment pop over and see what I have been doing!

www.michellelagruephotography.com

So what have I been doing?  Well school runs, hospital visits, meetings, school gym and dancing displays, baby shoot, running all over ireland on a wild goose chase, Parent council meetings, preparing for the schools First Holy Communion, making cards (6 in one session!) etc. etc. etc....  I cannot remember the last night I just sat on the couch and relaxed!

This is me at a recent wedding I had the pleasure of taking the photos for - just a quick snap a friend took with my camera and the other one on my shoulder!  (Note I did not liquify my body, to make me smaller, but I was tempted!!)

 I am keeping up with the Project Life - just about 10 days behind now but a night on it will sort that out and we all love it!  It's such a fab thing to do and the girls love lookign at the photos of themeselves, but I have to say the plastic folders are a bit flimsy and not as tough as I would need them to be.

 

Some recent card to share - loads more to photograph but it's been raining non stop here and need a nice bright day.

Michellexxx

Pretty Shabby Chic

New blogger is giving me a run for my money, been locked out, stumbling along and then it posted a very strange layout so trying again.

Not much spare time recently but my diary is getting back to normal again and I can see the wood from the trees again, and have done more crafting and will show you soon.

This card was made for a special friend Audrey who has always cheered me along with my crafting.  She likes hand crafted stuff and I enjoy making it for her.

I was thrilled to play with some papers from this company The scrapcake and I had great fun ordering these paper thru a Polish site, using google translator and making loads of mistakes but the papers are fab, great quality, lovely colours and designs.

Will be back soon!  Promise!!!

This card....

is one of my favourites.  I just love everything about it and I recently submitted it for publication and Yah it got selected.

The full article is here, and there is a lovely story to go with it.  There is
even a step by step guide to making the card if you feel inclined.


More coming soon - Promise!

Babies, babies and more babies....

I have been having a fun time photographing some newborns and enjoying it.  Now I have my new camera a 5d Mark III it's time to start taking this seriously.  This is my new Logo and OMG I adore it (I did not make it myself so I can say how much it ROCKS!)

So more to come from me when I get myself sorted!  But I just wanted to share some Baby Announcement cards that I just made as a sample for a new mom!

Thank you for coming for a look - it's appreciated!

.....working my way back to you......

Been a while - so sorry but here is a little update....

OK not much crafting going on - even a full morning with the girls crafting could do much for my mojo, I pushed paper around tried to make a card and then covered the pages of a mini album that has sat on my desk since.  So maybe in the next few days when the kids go back to school things will get back to normal.

Two weeks off school = 2 weeks of play referee!  Seriously no fun for all of us, after 2 days I de-camped to Leitrim with the girls and we arrived home just in time for Easter and there is a basketball camp planned for 1 little bear tomorrow which will help.

So what have we been doing...  Well I found a local pet shop that has some Meerkats and I adore them so I have been going to visit them....I think I like it more than the kids!

I have taught myself to crochet - so this has been keeping me busy at night when I would normally go to the office and play with paper.  Without any plan I tried to crochet a granny square and when I got the hang of it, I went and got some lovely cotton and as the plan came together in my head I needed 96 squares, and over 30 balls of cotton.  Its been a labour of love and really good therapy and the helped to get me over my little "moment"!  So it's nearly finished, just small bits of string to be tied off and sewen in place and I will be able to do the big reveal.

Crocheting is great for passing the time early morning when you are forced to watch Blues Clues on Netflix at silly o'clock.

 We went on a picnic to Powerscourt waterfall and had such a fab day. 

I got a new camera (so spoiled but adore it) so I was able to get the use of a hotel room for an afternoon, and two willing (fab fab fab!!!) models and I styled and shot a Boudoir photo shoot and OMG I had so much fun.  I just want to sit and edit and swoon over the images, which turned out better than I could have ever wished for.  (Just before I left I had a mini moment thinking I had bitten off more than I could chew and I was in over my head but so glad it worked out).  On the same week I got to photograph a lovely new baby boy and OMG baby J gave me a workout!  Not your normal sleepy, limp limbed baby, this boy was wide awake, not happy to be posed and had already gotten control of his arms, legs and head!!!  This time I had a serious mini moment and wondered if I was going to have anything to show Baby J's parents!  Will promise some photos but have to be sure parents and models are happy for me to share.

As they say - I WILL BE BACK!  Next time I will share some crafting that I did before my dry spell and some stuff I did for a design team (I resigned recently as I felt this coming on!).

Thank you for everyone who kept stopping bye - I hope you will keep coming!

Nite all!

Lost it again!

Yup - yet again my crafting motivation has packed up it's bags and gone for a hike.  Sitting down and trying to put something together is such hard work and when it's hard I am less likely to even try.

I also have to admit that I have been dealing with a few family issues that have put me in a spin.  For other people it might be something that would not cost them a thought and they would pick themselves up and brush it off, but I am not that sort.  Unfortunately I take it all in and I am sick with upset and my poor head won't stop turning the problem over and over - but one thing I do know is that time will help and I won't feel like this for long.

This card was something I saw on one of the Papertey Ink sites - the folded banner is stamped on both sides and then folded and stuck in place.  Loved the ides so much that I had to have a go at it.

The card below is one I made at one of our evening crops - I had only little bits of the My Minds Eye papers left so it was perfect to make into a quilt style card.  It looks much better in real life but the light here in Ireland is so poor at the moment the photos look grey and dull.

This last card was the one I made and sent out for St. Patricks Day - I think I made 6 of them in the end. The shamrocks are cut out of felt and sewed into a circle and a small button put inside.     

Hopefully things will return to "normal" and I can find my lost mojo!  Wishing you all a lovely happy St Patricks Day!  

Love Michelle