Crafty As L

  As well as being a scorcher of a week in the UK this week, it has also been my Dad’s birthday.  It was sweltering in my craft room so I ended up making a quick fish-themed card, since fishing is one of my Dad’s hobbies. To begin, I die cut DAD using some large letter dies and cut the wavy, stitched edge to make the front shorter so that more of the patterned paper would show. For my card liner, I cut the same wavy edge and attached the offcut of patterned paper from the front of the card.  I found another offcut of the same paper so cut out the letters again to stick onto the envelope. The final steps were some simple sentiment-stamping and gluing the card onto the patterned paper and the counters (the cut-out bits) into the letter holes. I also made Dad a construction scene cake, inspired by one made by my friend Amanda, from Inspiring Inkin’.  (She also has an amazing chocolate buttercream recipe on the same blog post!)  Whilst I made the cake, Mr L bou

My late Aunty Kathleen used to make wine and had won awards for her Elderflower Champagne.  Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to get the recipe from her before she passed away but each year I see the elderflowers, I’m reminded of her so this year I decided to have a go at making some elderflower champagne. Now, it should probably be called pressé as it’s not technically allowed to be called champagne since it’s not made in the Champagne region of France from the appropriate grape varieties, but since it won’t be travelling any further than from my fridge to my glass, I think I’ll run with it! Whilst scouring Google for recipes, I also came across an elderflower liqueur recipe so added that to my picking list.  We have a Sambucus Nigra bush in our garden so I used the flowers from that for my ‘champagne’.   In the field next to our property is a large, wild elderflower bush, where I picked my flowers for the liqueur.  During my research, a couple of top tips were to use bushes t

  There are a few ‘big’ birthdays this year (myself included!) so I’ve been trying to think of celebratory cards.  I often use this die set for New Year’s cards and it makes great pop-up cards. First, I die cut the 3 scenes and added some glitter paper behind the holes for a bit of bling. For the background to the city, I blended Distress Oxide inks onto white card… …before stamping and heat embossing the fireworks from My Favourite Things 'Fireworks' stamp set. Next, I cut the strips to provide the pop-up mechanism and cut out the corresponding sections from the back layer of the city scene.   The other two layers were added and then the whole piece was glued onto the card base. To neaten the front edge, I added a road.  Here you can see the dimension of the pop-up. For these pop-up cards, I tend to keep it simple on the front as it’s the inside that’s the main event. So, here’s the finished card, complete with l

  A couple of months ago, my friend completed a Land’s End to John O’Groats virtual cycling fundraising challenge.  By her own admission, she is more of a “couch to couch” rather than ‘couch to 5K’ person, so she did amazingly well to complete this, ahead of schedule too.  During the same month, this kit came with my embroidery magazine so I thought this would make a great memento for Ruth. The kit came with the embroidery flosses, a pink embroidery hoop and the image pre-printed on some cotton fabric. The magazine gave instructions on which stitches to use for the different sections. Once the picture was finished, I thought it would be nice to add a few details to make it personal.  I designed the layout on my computer and printed it out, then, using my lightbox, transferred the design onto the fabric and embroidered it. To finish, I folded the edges of the fabric in and glued a circle of felt on the back to neaten.  Lastly, a loop of ribbon was added for