Happy Birthday Nan: Felt corsage broach and card

It's my Husband's Nan's Birthday next week, I wanted to make her a unique card which was a little less grungy that my more recent creations and a little more chintzy but I also wanted to send her a gift. I needed something that was easy to post, and so I reached for the felt and beads and came up with this corsage broach;

 

I have to admit I've really missed sewing, I made one sock monster and got halfway through a Shelf Elf at Christmas before we all got poorly and then Christmas cards and tags took over.

 

Somehow along the way I started designing a card around the broach, using a slightly glittery floral paper, prima flowers and paper lace, and punching two holes in the card to allow for the Broach back to be fastened inside the card.

 

Before adding the prima flowers I was starting to doubt myself but I think it works in the end, not sure my sewing is good enough to unleash this sort of design in the shop just yet, but if you can't make a special effort for family and friends who are you going to make it for?

 

 

Some old and something blue tag

Been rather busy with the kids lately (today we've been out in the snow all day today) and I'm helping design wedding stationary for a friend's wedding, as well as trying to add to the card and tag designs in my etsy shop.

 

 

I did however find time today to created a new tag based on a lovely new stamp of mine with the Bridal mantra "Something old, something new, something borrowed & something blue". It was cut with my Big shot, aged with distress inks, stamped with archival ink and embellished with diamante. It is available now in my etsy shop but wanted to share it here too. I even got to use my own personal 'something blue' for the photo shoot; my lovely (blue soled and lined) Irregular Choice 'Mrs Lower' heels :)

Back into some sort of routine and adding to my Etsy designs

A whole week back at school, and finally I feel like I'm getting back into a routine in my day to day life - just need to sort my blog life now, lol. I might be a little quiet at the moment as I'm helping a friend with her wedding stationary and trying to build my designs in my etsy shop now that the Christmas tags have been cleared up. I've had a few commisions over Christmas including items that have winged their way as far-a-field as Spain and Australia :) I'll be adding more as soon as I can. I'm trying to stay true to my deign roots with lots of Kraft and Twine, here are some of my favourites:
 



Today's Tie is...

I'm back after the Christmas & New year break, and am starting with a shameless plug :)

 

My Dad is an avid Tie collector, and first time blogger, he has challenged himself to wear a different tie to work every working day for a year - and there are seriously quirky ones in there. Keep track of his progress [HERE]

 

 



Christmas Eve Mincepies

It's a tradition in our house to make mince pies on Christmas Eve, often we make gingerbread too depending on time. This years design is based on Lorraine Pascale's pinwheel stars, and they came out quite well.

 

 

 

All you have to do is cut your pastry into squares, snip/cut at each corner, a spoon of mincemeat in the center, fold every second corner into the center [like this] dab a little beaten egg on the join and top with a star, glaze the rest of the showing pastry, bake, cool and then dust with icing sugar :)

Melted snowman fruit cake gift

One of the many lovely things Josh brought home from nursery this year was this melted snowman fruit cake. Technically this is a 'handmadebyjosh' and his teachers project, but it was such a good idea I thought I'd share.

 

 

 

About 3 weeks ago we were asked to send in empty clean 220g bean tins. I couldn't work out what sort of craft a nursery class could make with them - I had visions of them being used as plant pots or candle holders. And was very happily surprised to receive this cute cake. Very simple to do, you just used them instead of a baking tin. The cake is removed once cool, turned upside down, topped with a disc of icing, a ball of icing and decorations to look like a melted snowman and dressed up with corrugated card an cellophane to make a really sweet gift.

 



Happy Birthday Jason: A masculine travellers card

I need a card for the birthday of one of Mr S's best friends, and found this wonderful scrapbooking paper at my local crafting store. I couldn't resist sprucing it up with a bit of a travel theme and voila this card was born. One of the most 'me' cards for a long time, rather pleased it came out so well. I love the blue accent colours, although I wish I could have picked up on the red somewhere too.