Thank you Pinterest and Kristen Moore

Hello again!  Running short of time (as usual) and needing to make an anniversary card, I turned to Pinterest and was surprised to see so many lovely cards there for inspiration.  One in particular struck me and I visited Kristen's site for a closer look here

This was her lovely card designed in 2009 and I realised I had both the birdie punch and a heart die - woo hoo!




  
It took no time at all to make my card and no stamping or ink drying time needed!  Here's mine:

Thank you so much Pinterest and especially Kristen - you saved my day and I'm your new follower!  Margie x

Sew pretty - a little album for a friend

Hello friends.  I've just finished off a little album for a friend's 70th birthday this weekend.  She's a quilter so I thought a sewing theme would be appropriate.  Now I wish I could remember where I saw this idea for the binding but it was on the internet recently and I've lost the place!  Anyway, you will see from the cover here that I just wrapped twine round and round and then tied it together at the top and threaded the ends through a flower and a button to secure.

The pages are then just folded and slipped through the twine loops and it looks like this on the inside.

Very simple but effective.  I've just got a couple of the inside pages to show you as there's obviously a lot but there is plenty of space for pics and lots of little tags in pockets for her to write notes.

And of course, it needed a box and I had the perfect flower to top it! I knew it would find a home soon.

Hope you're having better weather than we are at the minute - lots of really heavy rain and a definite cooling in the air.  Feels very autumnal.  Thanks for popping in.  Margie x

Magazine page flowers anyone?

Hello again - I've been playing today making some flowers from cut up magazine pages.  I love the vibrant effects you can achieve just by selecting some lovely coloured pages (my John Lewis magazine was just perfect).  I then cut some squares, folded these in quarters and cut some four-petalled shapes.  The longer pointy petals were done by folding the squares one more time and cutting a long pointy shape! The trick is to remember where the centre of your shape is going to be and making sure you don't cut through that otherwise you'll be left with a pile of separate petals - not what you wanted!

Anyway - here's the picture of my finished flowers

I've used about 5 or 6 different layers for each flower and I love them both although the blue one has turned out really elegantly with that gorgeous button in the middle.  Once my layers were selected, I doodled each petal with black and white pens, curled the edges with a pair of scissors then formed the flower shapes by snipping down into the centre between two petals and sticking those two petals together - I'm sure you've all seen the Tim Holtz method of making flowers....... 

Once the layers were all stuck together, I cut a circle of paper and fringed the edge to make the centre and stuck a button with the shank removed in the middle - job done!

I think these will look great on gift boxes and I might even give them a coat of Mod Podge to make them extra sturdy but they aren't flimsy by any means.  Check out your old magazines for lovely coloured pages and rip away - you'll be hooked.  Thanks for taking the time to pop in.  Margie x

Meet Marianna ......

Hello friends.  You may have seen a few videos on YouTube involving wrapping a doll in plastic wrap and creating a papier mache bodice for an art dress?  Well, I looked at them and thought, hmmm, wonder if I could make a dress using the Tim Holtz dressform die for the base.

So let me introduce my very first art dress, she's very classy and I've called her Marianna,

I cut two of the dressforms from some mountboard then cut one of them in half lengthwise and attached these halves at right angles to the second dressform (does that make sense) so it was a 3D dressform which stood up nicely. I painted this white then I cut the bodice of the die several times from some nice shiny paper and folded these in half.  After glittering the edges I fitted about 8 folded pieces to make a nice curved bodice and then curved the edges.  Once that was done I set about making the underskirt with tulle - I used white but I think pale pink would have stood out better.  I just gathered the tulle with a running stitch and glued it round the dressform leaving a gap at the front where the paper skirt will fit in.

A layer of gathered wide lace site on top of the tulle and then this was decorated with pearl trimmed narrow lace.  The lovely folded bit at the front was done with music paper trimmed with pink lace and then glued in tiers into the space left by the other layers.  Much easier to do than it sounds and there's a video here if you want to see it for yourselves.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NVwBXujDz0

After fixing some roses at the waist and a little heart locket, I wanted to do some more with the back.  Here it is.

I fan folded a piece of cream paper and covered the back of the bodice with it before sticking in some pearl hatpins - it reminds me of the high Elizabethan collars.  You can also see the stand on this picture which makes quite a sturdy base for the dress.  Well I hope you like this - I really enjoyed making it and can't wait to make another one.

Thanks so much for popping over - I really appreciate your visit and any comments you might kindly leave me, they mean a lot.  Margie x

Love is in the air ........

Can't believe its almost August but I hope you've all been enjoying some fantastic weather lately.  We've had family visiting so not much time for crafting but I did have a commission to make a pop-up wedding card in a box which I really enjoyed doing and I'm sure the happy couple won't mind me sharing with you.  Here's the card standing up - I love all the layers you can achieve.

and here's a couple of pics where the card is flattened for posting - very clever whoever thought of it!

And while I'm on a romantic theme - here's my latest spreads for the altered book round robin.  This book was entitled Once Upon A Time so I chose a fairy story as my theme.  Here's the first spread,

I asked my hubby which fairy story he thought it was and he said Snow White!  Where did I go wrong????
Anyway, here's the second spread - it did actually click with him this time, think it was the glass slipper.........

Hope you've had some crafting time this month although with the weather being as warm as it has in the North East of England, its been BBQs and beaches for us!  Hugs, Margie x

Home is where the heart(h) is ...

Hello again!  Back with my latest altered book in the 12-month worldwide round robin I joined in January.  Getting much more confident about working in other people's books now and this one, entitled "Home" was right up my street LOL.  My first spread was inspired by a very lovely old reference book I picked up at a collectables fair for just £1.  Its called Home Lover's Encyclopedia published in 1933 and has some wonderful illustrations, one of which I used for the background.

The words are cut from magazine pages and the stamps are from a lovely new Eclectica 3 set from Sara Naumann for PaperArtsy (ESN01) which I'm finding very useful for my book art.

My second spread in the book was a bit more complicated.  I wanted to do a little folded house made from Tim Holtz Artful Dwellings die which worked brilliantly until I tried to close the book.  Ooops - too thick, so I cut the house in half and divided it between the two pages and now it pulls out on both sides and I think it looks fine.  See what you think.

The words are meant to signify the lengthy process of turning our old cottage into a home and we are now 37 years into a 10 year project so things don't move very fast round here!  The brass pieces in the pics are from my hubby's collection in his den and I just grabbed what I could to support my book.

Really enjoyed working on this book and its now on its way to Australia for the next participant.  Its costing a lot to send each book (over £11) so I'm thinking of setting up a UK-only based altered book round robin next year so if anyone would like to play along, please let me know and hopefully we'll get enough people to make it work.  Thanks so much for stopping by and looking at my work.  Margie x

Its been a while.....

Hello dear friends and I have to ask "What happened to the month of June?"  Here we are almost into July and its all passed in a blur - or is it just me......

Anyway, I've been very busy in the garden and crafting whenever possible, doing some workshops and learning some new things myself including silk art and glass fusing.  My next experience will be into machine embroidery so for someone who is afraid of their sewing machine, that's going to be fun.

My very good friend had a birthday recently and has a thing about Paris so I got her a lovely china mug but it came without a box so what does a crafty friend do?  Make a box that's what....

Love these stamps from the Oxford Impressions Dress Forms & Corsetry set!  I can see me using them a lot in the future.  Here's the box opened up

And of course her card had to be different too ....

I'm really enjoying making these pop up box cards - great fun and they fold flat for posting which is a bonus. 

Thanks so much for popping over to see me and I hope you've all enjoyed some lovely sunny weather lately.  Margie x