Crafty As L

Back in November, my Mum reached a milestone birthday which warranted an extra special card.  For some time, I’ve been meaning to try out an easel card and also to create a floral wreath using the Jar of Love so I decided to combine the two. For this project, I used: Stampin’ Up! Jar of Love stamp set SU! Everyday Jars framelits SU! Large Letters Framelits & Letters For You stamps SU! Number of Years and Large Numbers framelits (sadly retired) 11½” x 5¾” Blackberry Bliss card scored at 5¾” and again at 2⅞” on one half 5¾” x 5¾” Blackberry Bliss card 5¼” x 5¼” Whisper White card 5½” x 5½” and 5” x 2” pieces of Always Artichoke (retired but I love it!) A couple of pieces of Smoky Slate card Silver embossing powder SU! Inks in Blackberry Bliss, Blushing Bride, Old Olive, Garden Green A 5½” x 2⅝” strip of DSP (I used one of the Frosted Florals pack) A scrap of silver glimmer paper Layered Leaves Embossing folder I started off by stamping ‘MUM’ in Blackberry Bliss ...

  Many years, when I was 8 years old, I began to learn to play the organ.  I had to wait until I was 8 as that’s when my legs were long enough to reach the pedals!  My first teacher was an old lady who focused on the theory of music and I did little playing.  My second teacher was a young man named Jonathan who taught me to play, taught me theory, got me though the exams to Grade 8 and also became a friend. When it came to choosing a career, I didn’t want to go into music as it was my hobby and has continued to be for almost 40 years.   One of the highlights of my year is having a gathering of family and friends at Christmas to sing carols and Christmas songs, drink mulled wine and apple juice and eat mince pies. Mr L. produced song sheets so no-one had any excuse for not knowing the words! We had a very enjoyable evening and it certainly put us in a Christmassy mood! So, the only thing left for me to do is to wish you all a very, Merry Christ...

One of the main things that gets my goat about wrapping paper is that it’s not recyclable due to it being shiny.  Therefore I thought I might try making some myself this year that could be recycled. I’ve made birthday wrapping paper for individual gifts using brown parcel paper but haven’t ever attempted Christmas wrapping paper.  A roll of white easel paper was purchased, which was a real bargain at 20m for £5, I put on one of my favourite Christmas movies (Miracle on 34 th Street) and set about making my wrapping paper using a selection of stamp sets and inks. I did some designs in a repeating pattern format and others in a random scatter pattern depending on the stamp set. I made some of the designs to coordinate with the tags from my previous posts. Plus, it spurred me on to make a start on my wrapping too.  Result!!    

  Last Friday I had the most enjoyable day when some friends came around for coffee, biscuits and wreath making.   Mr. L had been busy with his chain saw on our overgrown Leylandii hedge to give us some base materials and I had pruned the eucalyptus and rosemary bushes that I let grow large for this very purpose.  Between the rain storms, I’d nipped out and cut a little holly and ivy and from the hedgerow and I’d gathered some teasels from the scrub land next to our house and some pine cones from a local park.  There are no air miles attached to these wreaths!! Jane’s husband Dave also came along to offer words of encouragement and be a guest cat bed for Leia…. I’d watched a Gardener’s World video and made a wreath last year so I was the appointed “teacher”.   We started with a 12” wire frame and using binding wire, attached the various base foliage to the frame by winding the wire around the frame and foliage, wiggling it between the fronds...

The Christmas Traditions Punch Box comes in a gorgeous tin with 6 festive stamps, a coordinating punch, 2 ink spots and an acrylic block.  The tags are quite small so I wanted to pop them up as a feature on a larger tag so set to work making a background.  When I buy a new stamp set, I tend to use the main images and the smaller images don’t often get a look in so I thought I’d try making this background using only the small stamps from the Mistletoe Season stamp set.  I’m really happy with the way the festive foliage background turned out. For this project I used: A4 piece of thick white cardstock Scraps of green and red glimmer paper (from Joyous Noel glimmer paper pack) Gold foil paper A strip of white card for the sentiments Stampin’ Up! Mistletoe Season stamp set Stampin’ Up! Christmas Traditions Punch Box Stampin' Up! inks in Shaded Spruce Ink, Old Olive and Real Red Gold Ink pad Foliage dies Scalloped Tag Topper Punch 2m ribbon I started off randomly s...