Monday 17 December 2018

New Alphabet Photography

This last year or so there's been 2 reasons to make some more alphabet photography presents... a baby and a wedding!

My best friend got married this August so of course I made her an alphabet photography of her new surname to commemorate the day. All photos taken by me on my travels, from the village next to us to New York for these images. Her and her husband are total plane geeks like us so I had to include an aircraft letter somewhere in their surname, a propellor Y was the perfect choice.
Seeing as we moved before I got this black frame made I had to search out a new framer. After a false start I found a cracking local, little framers a few villages over who managed to get this made up for me super fast and at a reasonable price.

Another friend had a little girl last November so I made her an alphabet photography for her bedroom. Managed to sneak in another aircraft letter using an exhaust for an O. The Y is from a propellor at USS Intrepid, New York.

Can't wait for the next opportunity to make some more as these are such cool gifts to give and so far everyone has totally loved them. 

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Wednesday 12 December 2018

Our Wedding 17/3/2017

As you would expect from me a lot of our wedding was handmade. I thought I'd use this post to share some of the handmade highlights from our big day.

We are both total avgeeks so there is a very clear theme to the wedding and a surprising purple colourscheme that my husband picked. For any Stampin Up people, yes it is Blackberry Bliss, done at a time when it was a retired colour and my upline had to call in every favour she had to get me enough cardstock for all the projects.

Dan's Mum and Stepdad run a die cutting business and they made our cake topper, wine glass name planes and table confetti. 
 
One of the guys that works for them even made us our own marquee letter lights to go at the top table. These are so awesome and we totally need to find a way of using them again some time.
 Mum made wine glass charms for all of the parents and our wine glasses, sadly most of them were lost when the caterers took the empty glasses away.
I did a lot of card work, making all the invites, signs, table cards and venue seat name cards.
The invites were pretty simplistic but still very time consuming, the paperplane is 3D on all of them.
The little paperplane for the name cards was a stamp I bought from an etsy seller just for making these.
The card box was a cheapy one I bought in Home Bargains that I then covered in black and white photos of Dan and I from over the years together. A little throwback to some of the highlights of our relationship.
I asked the graphics department at BA (as I still worked there then) to help me with a backing piece for the table plan, they printed me a technical drawing of a spitfire onto plastic boarding.
The venue then made my table plan look even more awesome by putting it into a lovely frame outside the dining room.
 
 Each table had an aircraft name and a card that looked like the one below, amazing how much thought it took to pick who sat at which table just based on what plane they like best from the ones I p
chose to use.
 
I may also have made some of the guys who worked late shifts with me on the run up to the wedding help to make hundreds of purple and silver card planes for the table centre pieces. Rather than have flowers in vases we opted to have paperplanes on wire stems in gin bottles. every table had 2 gin bottles so that meant quite a few planes to make. There were no duplicate gin bottles either, so a lot of gin drinking took place on the run up to the wedding by a lot of friends and family to ensure we had enough bottles.
I'm so glad I'd started making all of these things early as I never would have managed if I started when we changed the date, 10 weeks wouldn't have been enough time to get everything ready.

So here is the reason why we did it all, powered through the stress of a short timescale and mass replanning of absolutely everything we had planned. All so Dad could be there and so that photos like this could be looked back on for years to come.
 Despite the somewhat sad aspect to the day Dan and I spent 95% of it laughing, which is something we do a lot. So many of our photos from the wedding look like the one below where once again we are cracking up about something on a serious occasion.
 To everyone who helped out and stood by us throughout all the stress, heartache and constant changing plans we cannot thank you enough.



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Saturday 8 December 2018

It's Been A While...


So a lot has happened since my last post, not even sure where to start explaining really.

In summary:
  • Dad became termianlly ill at the end of 2016, we lost him to the evil of cancer April 2018
  •  My now husband and I got married on St Patricks Day 2017 so that Dad could be part of our wedding day, rather than the June 2017 Antigua wedding we originally had planned.
  •  We both changed jobs and now work for the same company on the same site.
  • I became a Stampin Up demonstrator
  • We got a miniature Dachshund puppy called Otis.

So it's been a rollercoaster last couple of years so now it's time to start afresh and breathe some life back in to my blog again.



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Tuesday 17 March 2015

Another Knitting Bag

Making Mothers Day presents is not easy when your Mother is also a bit of crafter...but she's not really one for making things with a sewing machine so making her a bag is a good choice. She's into her knitting at the moment and apparently stashes her knitting in a carrier bag when she's done for the day...can't have her doing that.

For Mothers Day I made her a knitting bag to stash her unfinished projects in, using the tutorial over at Emmaline. I've used this tutorial previously to make my Nan a knitting bag for her christmas present, here's the post if you want to see it again.

This time I used a pair of circle handles rather than twisted rope effect, just means the bag will look totally different to my Nan's bag. The fabric is different too but I wanted to experiment and see how it would look using different handles as it changes the shape of the top of the bag.

Once again there's a pocket inside with one of my handmade labels sewn to it.

Hopefully Mum likes her new knitting bag and it shall keep her knitting safe in a more stylish manner than a plastic carrier bag.
 
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Sunday 15 March 2015

Mothers Day Cards

 Here's this years Mothers Day card design in a 3 different colourschemes. 

Each card uses:
  • Pistachio Pudding ink
  • Gumball Green ink
  • Stippled Blossoms stamp set
  • Sweet Laughter stamp set
This card used:
  • Coastal Cabana cardstock
  • Coastal Cabana ink
  • Bermuda Bay ink
  • Basic Rhinestone Jewels
This card used:
  • Strawberry Slush cardstock
  • Strawberry Slush ink
  • Pink Pirouette ink
  • Basic Pearl Jewels
 This card used:
  • Blackberry Bliss cardstock
  • Blackberry Bliss ink
  • Wisteria Wonder ink
  • Basic Rhinestone Jewels

Hopefully everyone liked their Mothers Day cards too.
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Friday 13 March 2015

Vintage Plane Cushions

 Last October I bought this gorgeous vintage aircraft print fabric from a craft show and I was going to make cushions from it straight away.... 6 months later I've actually got round to making the cushion cover I planned to do...well in the end I made 3 as the new cover made me hate 2 more old covers on our sofa cushions.

I used the tutorial over at Craftaholics Anonymous to make my cushion covers, you can get to it by clicking here.

This cushion used to be a plain coffee colour with a couple of applique birds I added to it years ago, safe to say it looked a little lifeless and sorry for itself so I whipped the cover off and measured it up ready for it's new fabric.
 The tutorial is easy to follow and they really are quick and dead easy to make...well as long as you're paying attention when you pin it all together and don't sew it together with a right side facing a wrong side, then not realising the mistake till you turn it out... Had to unpick it all and start again but that will teach me to pay more attention when I'm pinning... 

Please say I'm not the only one who has those days were you sew the wrong sides together?

After putting the new aircraft cover on the cushion then throwing it onto our cuddle chair I realised the 2 cushions on the main sofa also looked awful, the brown and red leaf pattern just seemed so out of place. So I ran off to my fabric stash and cut some more pieces out to whip up 2 more covers.

20minutes later this is how our cushions looked....much better..and I still have more of this fabric to play with but I think it may become a handbag for me as I've just bought an ace set of handles that need a purpose.
I'm thinking cushion covers could feature in 2015's presents for friends and family..simple, stylish and personal...something they won't be able to buy and that most of them don't know how to make themselves.

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Tuesday 10 March 2015

March Card Club

 Here's the cards we made at March's card club. This month it was all about the stamp set Flower Shop.

Card #1

We used:
  • Lost Lagoon cardstock
  • Whisper White cardstock
  • Lost Lagoon ink
  • Pumpkin Pie ink
  • Hello Honey ink
  • Gorgeous Grunge stamp set
  • Flower Shop stamp set
  • Petite Petals stamp set
  • Pansy Punch
  • Petite Petals punch
  • Basic Rhinestone Jewels
  • Petite Pairs stamp set
 Card #2
We used:
  • Blackberry Bliss cardstock
  • Whisper White cardstock
  • Mossy Meadow cardstock
  • Blackberry Bliss ink
  • Smoky Slate ink
  • I Love Lace stamp
  • Flower Shop stamp set
  • Bird punch
  • Pansy punch
  • Basic Rhinestone Jewels
  • Scallop Oval punch
  • Petite Pairs stamp set
 Card #3
We used:
  • Hello Honey cardstock
  • Whisper White cardstock
  • Hello Honey ink
  • Tangelo Twist ink
  • Gorgeous Grunge stamp set
  • Petite Petals stamp set
  • Sassy Salutations stamp set
  • Flower Shop stamp set
  • Basic Rhinestone Jewels
  • Pansy punch
  • Petite Petals punch
 Card #4
 We used:
  • Whisper White cardstock
  • Mossy Meadow cardstock
  • Mossy Meadow ink
  • Pumpkin Pie ink
  • I Love Lace stamp
  • Petite Pairs stamp set
  • Flower Shop stamp set
  • Petite Petals stamp set
  • Pansy punch
  • Petite Petals punch
  • Basic Rhinestones Jewels
Next m onth it's all about the Happy Hour stamp set!
 
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Sunday 8 March 2015

February Card Club

 Just realised I never shared February's card club pictures... We used the Celebrate Today photopolymer bundle so we had the stamp set and the matching dies to play with.

 Card #1
We used:
  • Whisper White cardstock
  • Pistachio Pudding cardstock
  • Pistachio Pudding ink
  • Baked Brown Sugar ink
  • Glimmer Paper
  • Celebrate Today bundle
  • Stylish Stripes embossing folder
  • Itty Bitty Star punch
 Card #2
We used:
  • Crisp Canteloupe cardstock
  • Whisper White cardstock
  • Crisp Canteloupe ink
  • Glimmer paper
  • Celebrate Today bundle
 Card #3
We used:
  • Coastal Cabana cardstock
  • Coastal Cabana ink
  • Smoky Slate ink
  • Glimmer paper
  • Whisper White cardstock
  • Celebrate Today bundle
Card #4
 
 We used:
  • Strawberry Slush cardstock
  • Whisper White cardstock
  • Strawberry Slush ink
  • Sweetheart punch
  • Glimmer paper
  • Celebrate Today bundle
  • Hearts embossing folder
  • Confetti Heart border punch
  • Happy Hearts embossing folder
  • Itty Bitty Heart punch
 I'd best get writing the post for March's card club now too!

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Monday 16 February 2015

February Birthday Cards

 There's a few birthdays in the family during February, I already had the women's cards covered as I have plenty of girly birthday cards made up ready to send...it's just men's cards that are awkward. Why are cards for men so difficult to make??

My Dad's birthday rolls up first so I thought I'd have a play with my new stamp set from February's card club. Really like the set and it's easy to make it look like a masculine card too.
I've used:
  • Celebrate Today stamp set
  • Balloon Framelits dies
  • Real Red ink
  • Marina Mist ink
  • Pacific Point ink
  • Daffodil Delight ink
  • Baked Brown Sugar ink
  • Early Espresso ink
  • Dimensionals
  • White cardstock
  • Yellow cardstock
  Then it was Baz's so I thought I'd use a humourous set from last years SU Sale-a-bration goodies.
 I've used:
  • Real Red cardstock
  • Baked Brown Sugar cardstock
  • Whisper White cardstock
  • Real Red ink
  • Memento black ink
  • Baked Brown Sugar ink
  • See Ya Later stamp set
  • Decorative Dots embossing folder
 That's it for birthday cards this month but there'll be more Celebrate Today cards from this month's card club being shared soon.

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Friday 6 February 2015

White Chocolate Cashew Cookies

I've never tried a recipe from Lidl before but they shared a recipe the other week for white chocolate cashew cookies and they looked too good to not try. Really easy to make and they taste really good.
 
Here's how to make them yourself if you fancy a go too:
  
Ingredients (for approx. 25 cookies)
  • 200g butter
  • 125g sugar
  • 1 pinch of salt
  • 1 egg
  • 200g plain flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 100g cashew nuts
  • 150g white chocolate
 Method
Whisk the butter, sugar and salt until creamy. Add the egg, flour and baking powder to the mix. Coarsely chop the cashew nuts and the chocolate, and add two thirds to the dough. Mix the ingredients together and use a tablespoon to make small circles of dough on baking paper on a tray. Cover with remaining nuts and chocolate then bake in a pre-heated oven at 175°C for approx. 15mins. Let them cool on a grid.

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