It started with Pinterest!

OMG I just love Pinterest!  My huge guilty pleasure at the moment, and I can just sit and browse in awe at the images that people have pinned.  The photography and the craft related images are the ones that I am most interested in.  So one night, I found a great pin showing how to make these paper roses, and I opened the site and started to play around with the strip of paper trying to follow the tutorial!  

OK! - It might be me (probably is!) but I found this tutorial hard to follow, and it was a big fail for me, but I did keep messing with the paper and finally got something that kinda resembles a flower.

Anyway - the reason I shared all this info with you was that I get very carried away with myself and I had taken apart a gift a friend had given me.  It was a wicker heart with a small wooden chalk board hanging inside.  The ribbons were red and did not go with any of my decor, so I took it apart and had a little shop in A. Rubesesque for ribbons (be still my beating heart!  I have died and gone to heaven when I go to that shop!) for Teal ribbon and went home with 17.00 worth of ribbons for my stash.

So after altering the colours of some items in the house with ribbons I had the bits left over and I got the wicker heart I had saved (but not taken a before photo!).  I went for a rummage and found some hessian that I had bought, a bunch of white sticks I bought for Christmas and got the glue gun out and started to play!

I love it and it's hanging up in a temporary home until I finish my photo wall and add it to the layout of the photos!

Well do my roses look like hers?  Not really but I tried and happy to keep trying too!

This card....

This card is one of my favourite ones of the year!  Everytime I look at it, I think it's clean, crisp and a happy card and one I think I am happy with.

4 hearts folded and glued together, and fanned out to make a 3d heart, and then repeated.  The dies are all Papertrey Ink and the stamp is theirs too!

This card is one for this weeks challenge on the Crafty Blogger Network - pop over and have a go!

Right running off to do a school run!

Project Life.....2012

I've thought about whether to share this or not, but in the end I've decided to see how this goes, and if it's ok I might share some more.

So the PL big white box was stored under my desk for the last 6 months waiting and waiting for the time to come to open it.  So after Christmas I took it out, stroked it a little (OK a lot!) and went looking for inspiration on the web about how to tackle it.  So after a little blog hopping, I got the idea and went ahead and filled the folder, added the cards and stamped the weeks with the date stamp for the whole year.

Turquoise PL Folder...

This was a cover I found on the Cathy Zielske Blog...

Week 1

Week 2

 Week 3

Week 4

Due to the fact that we foster, there are some things blanked out on the PL and  sides of the page totally left out due to the content not being something I am free to share.  But you get the idea.  I have 5 other pages waiting for some of the new plastic envelopes from USA, a story about going to our holiday home for the weekend, one about having to have our much loved cat put down, a 12x12 page with the other photos of the month of January that I have made into a collage page and will get printed to add in at the end of each month.  Also I asked us all to complete a questionnaire and this will go after the title page which gives you an idea of what we are all like at the beginning of 2012.

Feel free to click on the photos to have a better look - I am printing the photos with the same teal shade border to keep the whole look uniform.  I do a photo a day and am journaling for each of the photos.  Not exactly like it's done on other web sites, but it's the way I feel comfortable with it.

Ta M

Challanged by the Orient....

The current challenge on the CBN is Oriental!  This was not a happy place for me, I put off making the cards due to lack of inspiration, and then after a quick root thru my stash I found a set of stamps I had won and they came in so very useful.

This first card was one I started and struggled to finish....  It just would not come together for me, and I left it down.  The base for this card is a piece of packaging from some Prima alphas.  It just seemed right for the card, and was the colour that I wanted. 

So with time running out, and the card set aside on the table, I started to make another card, with a hope that I could actually finish before my deadline.  The same set of stamps and here is what I came up with.

Once this red and black card was finished, I was able to look at the first card with fresh eyes and saw what it needed to finish it, and from having nothing to submit, I ended up with 2 that I was happy to submit... Strange eh?

The sickness is still hanging around in my house, truely fed up with it, and wish it would just pack up and leave us.  The list is growing by the day....  6 chest infections, 5 vomiting bugs, 2 throat infections, 2 sinus infections and 1 ear infection, all since Christmas day.  I think the only thing I can do is to reward myself with some lovely crafty purchases from Papertrey Ink - might be the only thing that will put a smile on my face after the horrible month we have had!

I might share my Project Life 1st month with you next....  It's not the polished and styled ones you mght see around the web, more of a nuts and bolts version, that is a direct interpretation of our family life at this time.  Which is the reason I am reluctant to show it, as it's not "souped up" and perfect as those I have seen around, but it has taken me out of my comfort zone to even do PL.  I do not like my own handwriting and typing all the journalling would be the easy way out, but I am putting my bias aside to write my journal cards and tell the stories of the days in my own handwriting.  I will mull this over a bit more and see what happens. 

Thanks for looking - your visits are appreciated!

DIstressed!!!

I am on a DT for the Crafty Blogger Network and we post a challenge every week.

Over Christmas with the kids being sick and other family stuff,  got behind and started to worry could I keep up when life just gets so mad?  I took a deep breath, dug deep and tried to catch up.  I did the blog comments and got just about up to date on the card challenges.

Here is the card that I submitted for last week - Distressed.  Now I am not a distressed inks girl, not my thing at all but I did distress the edges of things on this card and that was my interpretation of the challenge.

Woops!  Sorry the copyright logo went a bit mad on that!  You get the idea!!!

I've been playing in my photo studio and will post some of the photos for you.  Had a theme of Guilty pleasures to shoot for and this was one of my options.....Sugar Lips... Photo of my oldest daughter!

Right things to do and people to see!  Thanks for stopping bye!