Crafty As L

As part of my rehab following my surgery at the end of last month, I have to walk short distances a couple of times daily.  We’re fortunate enough to live close to a country park so it’s been lovely seeing the hedgerows change over the past few weeks and it inspired me to create an autumn wreath for the front door. The rose hips have been stunning and abundant this year.  There are about 4 or 5 bushes along this path.  This photo doesn’t do it justice but they look fabulous! I collected a few rose hips, teasels and some grass and weed heads during one of my walks and then collected some leylandii and eucalyptus prunings from our garden for the base foliage. To form the wreath, I gathered bunches of foliage together… …and then wired them onto the frame, ensuring the next bunch overlaps the base of the previous bunch. Lastly, I added the pinecones and teasels, wiring them in to the wreath with some floristry wire. I’m really ple...

My year of big birthdays is now at an end.  There’ve been five 50 ths (including my own), two 60 ths and one each of 70 th and 18 th .  I bought the Sunburst stencil from Sweet Poppy Stencils as I thought it might be useful for making masculine cards.  Indeed, it was when I made this one. It was whilst I was making this card that I thought it’d be fu n to try it with the deco gel and some foil.  The trickiest part with the gel was the circle in the centre – it’s quite hard to get an even layer of gel over that section.  Anyway, after it dried, I applied some rainbow foil and ran it through the laminator. I never grow tired of the reveal! Next, I got busy with the Cricut and made my letters and backgounds.  I use Inkscape for designing my lettering and the shadow outline is created by making an offset to the text and then import into Cricut Design Space.  There are really good tutorials for how to do both of these things on YouT...

Today is remembrance Sunday in the UK.  Since I’m stuck at home recovering from surgery, I’ve not needed a poppy to wear.  I saw a crochet poppy wreath kit on a website (it was sold out) so thought instead of a personal poppy, I could make a wreath for the front door.  After searching for a pattern, I bought one and then ended up following a YouTube tutorial instead as I preferred the shape of the flower.  To begin, I crocheted the centre in black with 12 dc into a magic ring, and then added some gold glass beads into the front loops. Next was to crochet the petals.  These are simply made by making 3 dc into the back loops of 3 stitches, turning, ch2 then 2dc in each of the 9 stitches of the previous round.   This is repeated 3 more times. To form the poppy, the tail from the petal is fed through to the back at the start point of the adjacent petal.  The ends are simply tied together in a few knots on the reverse to secure. ...

  The idea for a pinecone wreath card has been rumbling around my mind for a while and I finally got around to trying it out.  I used some of the £1 stamps from Lavinia to create this with a Stampin’ Up! sentiment. To begin, I lightly drew a circle for a guide and then stamped the pinecone repeatedly, changing the angles.  I used Versafine Clair ink in Pinecone as it’s waterproof and I planned to colour over the top later. The next layer was using the mini-holly stamp and Rainforest ink. I then used the sycamore seed stamp as mistletoe, again in Rainforest ink.  After the inks were dry, I used some water-based brown ink pressed onto my block and the Wink Of Stella pen to colour in the pinecones and add some shimmer. I coloured in the berries and then topped them with red Nuvo glitter drops to them.  I added some white Nuvo drops for mistletoe berries too along with a few green dots around the wreath. The panel was edged by dra...