October Card Club

 This month's card club was all about the stamp set Flowering Flourishes, we each picked a colour to work with and this time I chose Daffodil Delight.

Here's the cards we made....

•  Daffodil Delight cardstock
• Whisper White cardstock
• Daffodil Delight ink
• Flowering Flourishes stamp set
• Sassy Salutations stamp set
• Jewels Basic Rhinestone

•  Daffodil Delight cardstock
• Whisper White cardstock
• Daffodil Delight ink
• Flowering Flourishes stamp set
• Sassy Salutations stamp set
• Jewels Basic Rhinestone
• Daffodil Delight seam binding

 

• Daffodil Delight cardstock
• Whisper White cardstock
• Daffodil Delight ink
• Flowering Flourishes stamp set
• Sassy Salutations stamp set
• Jewels Basic Rhinestone
• I Love Lace stamp 
• Modern Label punch
• Word Window punch
• Daffodil Delight seam binding

•  Daffodil Delight cardstock
• Whisper White cardstock
• Daffodil Delight ink
• Flowering Flourishes stamp set
• Itty Bitty Banners stamp set
•  Honeycomb embossing folder
• Bitty Banners framelits
• Ovals Collection framelits
• Daffodil Delight seam binding

 Next month is Lovely As A Tree, 3d projects and an afternoon of crafting....looking forward to it!

Seaglass Lantern

 Over the last couple of years I've gathered quite a lot of seaglass and never really figured out what to do with it. I'm just fascinated by it, the awesome colours you can come across and how colours vary depending where in the world you are looking for it.

 After gathering even more seaglass on our recent trip to Spain I found my jar at home to be too full to add my most recent stash to it, so I had to start making something with my seaglass.

I decided to make a lantern to sit as a table centrepiece or on the sid rtable in our lounge. A cheap glass vase and a tealight holder from Ikea, electric tealight, baby oil and an hour of my time and this is what I came up with.

The baby oil is a total necessity otherwise the seaglass will be frosty, losing the lovely colours and shine you really want to see.

 Here's how the lantern looks when it's dark and the tealight is illuminated. Much better than I expected it to come out so I'm very impressed with it.

My seaglass jar is now almost empty so I need to satrt collecting again, roll on the next Spain holiday or UK beach trip somewhere known for seaglass!

Shaping Dough Bread Class

 At the end of September I went along to another Blackbird Bread baking class....this time I went as a helper not a student, though I did get to do some baking too.

The workshop this time was all about shaping dough, so maing pretzels and bagels, I had to pick which I wanted to make so I chose to go with pretzels as I wanted help learning how to twist them to the right stape.

We started with the pretzels, which were surprisingly easy to shape after a couple of attempts. They grew so much on their final prove as pretzel shapes!

 While we waited for the pretzels to finish their final prove we went about shaping our sundried tomato and basil ciabatta that we would be having as our supper during class.

The ciabatta smelt amazing when they came out the oven and tasted even better when we had them still warm with some cheese and a little wine.

Here's how the finished pretzels came out... shame a few lost their pretzel look but for a first attempt I'm happy and I know for next time to leave larger gaps in the shaping now I'm aware how much they grow in the final prove.

 Here's all my wonderful bready bakes of the evening...well minus the 3 ciabattas that had to be eaten between us as they were too tempting to resist...there was also a very ugly pretzel that I refused to photo after it came out the oven, was more a blob than a pretzel!

September Birthday Cards

 So there's 2 birthdays in September in the family (well 3 if you count me) so I made some cards.

The first was for my boyfriend and like me he likes planes... I found a use for the Stampin up set Plane and Simple that my demo friend hunted down for me..added a little bit of Gorgeous Grunge and this is the quick card I came up with.

 Then we had his mum's 50th birthday at the end of September so I dragged out some more Stampin Up favourities of mine. Love the Petite Petals punch and Sassy Salutations stamp set so of course they had to be used. The pearls and card blank aren't Stampin Up but all the card for the flowers was made using little offcuts from other projects using Crisp Cantelope, Pistachio Pudding, Strawberry Slush and Coastal Cabana cardstock.

Baby Present Bundle

Some friends recently had their first child and they decided to keep it a surprise rather than find out the gender before he/she was born so I had to make a bundle of gifts that weren't too girly or too boyish.

Turns out they had a little boy, called him Oscar, as they had a surprise they didn't have many things that were blue, lucky for me I did a few blue bits and pieces.

So heres my first ever attempt at making a diaper bag, I used the tutorial over at Sew Much Ado that can be found here. A days work and cursing at the sewing machine....how much of a faff are pockets and elastic tops to the pockets?!  

I stuffed the pockets full of all the other goodies I made for baby Oscar...well after all the time I spent making the pockets right I decided I had to use them.

Normal style bibs, bandana bibs, burp cloths and a soft door closer were the goodies I stuffed into the pockets.

    They seemed to like their goodies so hopefully we shall be seeing them in use soon. The last batch of bibs I made for my nephew were in full use out in Spain when they came out on holiday too, so it's good to see all the bibs are working well and being used.  

September Card Club Pt 2...

 After a lovely sunny holiday in Spain I came home to another September card club....making CHRISTMAS cards...far too organised for me lol!

 This month's stamp set was Holiday Home with the matching framelits and the Northern Flurry embossing folder. We also bought some Dazzling Diamonds, 1/8" Silver Ribbon and a glue pen for all our glittering.

 Such a lot of sparkle going on!

Love the Confetti Stars punch we used for this card and the thinlit for creating the flip fold in the card is really starting to grow on me too.

 The final card was CASED from the Stampin' Up catalogue. By the end of the night I was covered in glitter all over, perhaps helped by the fact the other 2 ladies decided to wipe the pages used for tipping excess glitter off of all over my hair and shoulders.

I recently saw an idea on pinterest using the Holiday Home stamp set where the houses were stamped as a wobbly shape, the joy of photopolymer stanp where you can manipulate how the stamp sticks on the clear block...must try that soon!