Making the most of it when I have it!

The run to Christmas and then Christmas was a bit of blur - sick kids, sick mom, accident and surgery and family time meant that I was not as prepared for Christmas as I wanted to be and then after I just enjoyed doing family stuff with the kids.  Once they all went back to school life went back to normal, and I caught up with the house and now I seem to be able to find a little time to craft.

To get the creative inspiration, there is nothing like a deadline or challenge to get your craft on!  So a friend asked if I would make a name garland for her niece / god daughter, and as I was invited to the Christening it was a great chance to make a gift for the baby.  Unfortunately, I cannot make the Christening as I am taking photos at a friends wedding blessing on the same day, I was so happy to be able to make the garland.  Truly, I sat there looking at the supplies, and was not feeling it at all, and then after getting some chipboard out of the press I then realized where I was going and what I was doing.

The paper I used was one I picked up in a pack from Ikea - and they are on special at the moment, probably cause they did not sell very well.

I punched a lot of strips for the edging and ruffled them and glue gunned them in place - no better glue to hold them!  Sticks and sticks of glue later they were all in place and I cut the name out using my Cricut machine - it's such a fab machine that I need to use a bit more because it is amazing!

Close up of each of the hearts and I used a new Martha Stewart punch I bought in USA it's a collection of small flowers that I pushed and layered up and topped with pearls.  They added just the right amount of embellishment for the garland.

This card has been made a few times by me - only on special occasions as it takes so much time to make.  Around 50 small had made roses on this card, 4 colors and some embellished with little pearls.  I love how this cards looks, it is worth all the effort.

Close up of the rolled roses....  I did a tutorial here of how to make them, they are really easy and once you know how to make them they are a fab addition to crafty projects.

Two girls who I love and admire need two special cards for their 20th Birthdays - I came across this dress tutorial on Pinterest and had to have a go.  Love the cards for the girls, all they need now is the addition of the birthday money inside and they are good to go.

I hope the inspiration has not gone and it stays around for a while, as I love it so much and really love making time to make things.  

Where have you been?

Yes you might ask where have I been!  I wanted to try and explain the series of events that kept me away from blogging but decided that a photo line might explain the long absence.....

Travelled to Florida on a plane!

Visited the mouse in his house....

Did loads of this till we got hit with a tail end of a hurricane!

 Tried to tame this mad child with the angelic face!

Took some photos for a friend's Christening

Took photos for our Christmas Card

Met this charming young man!

Baked this massive Salted Caramel and Chocolate Birthday Cake and threw a party (Never AGAIN!)

Photographed this show - AMAZING and Megan (daughters BFF) stole the show.....

Two bold girls got a delivery of an Elf to tell Santa how good or bad they have been!

Hosted an Elf - Froddle for a month who caused havoc but also entertained us!

Got to work with a model and some new lighting skills

Met this little lady who was a little dream

Shannon had to have emergency surgery on a tendon in her hand after a sisterly fight with a glass Christmas Santa - 4 days before Christmas, the 7 stitches come out on Friday!

Got over Pneumonia just in time for Christmas!

 Delivered these just in time for Christmas to a happy Tommie

Happy Christmas and New Year from me to you!

My wish for 2013 is less drama, more fun, great family days out, happy kids, a calm home and secure jobs for us all!

Love Michelle xxx

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!