Doggies having fun!

Hello again and I hope everyone is enjoying this fabulous sunshine while it lasts - we are forecast thunderstorms for the weekend!  Not much crafting getting done here - its far too hot in the house and we are spending as much time as we can in the garden or at the beach.  The dogs are loving their dips in the sea and rolling in the sand.  Not great for long haired dogs but worth the effort of getting them brushed again to see them having so much fun.

Here's a card I made for a recent swap which was to use die-cuts.  I love this set of X-Cut Haberdashery dies I got for my birthday and use them a lot.

I used a piece of striped material for the background to my kraft card, then wrapped that with some tape measure ribbon and some orange fibres.  The die-cuts have been enhanced with some rose quartz Treasure Gold which gives them a lovely metallic look.  I was particularly chuffed with the die-cut pin I cut in half and added to the Tim Holtz price ticket - love that effect.  The line of stitching down the right hand side of the card was also die-cut using a die in the set and there's another one with cross stitches .  Really, the whole set is brilliant, containing 20 dies.  I hope they bring another set like this - retro kitchen equipment would be nice!

Keeping my fingers crossed for a few more lovely sunny days!  Love, Margie x

Captured Memories - rubber band mini-album for Our Creative Corner

Hello friends and a special welcome to those who have popped over from Our Creative Corner.  Its really nice to see you here again.  Linda on our Design Team set us a lovely challenge this month.

Captured Memories
Memories are fleeting but photographs help us hold dear those special people and times. Our project this month is for you to share with us how you capture your cherished memories. All types of art are welcome: cards, tags, canvases, mixed media, etc., but your project MUST INCLUDE A PHOTOGRAPH. 

I wanted to make a mini-album to hold some treasured photos and I really enjoyed putting it together.

I was captivated by the examples shown by Paula Phillips (JournalArtista, Mixed Media mini books) and really liked the way she used the rubber bands to hold the pages which could then be pulled out to view the pictures like this.

So if you'd like to know how I turned an empty dishwasher tablet packet and four elastic bands into a super-easy album, read on.  But you'd better grab a cuppa first - its a long post!  First of all, I used a big craft knife to cut the empty packet slightly bigger than I actually needed then opened it flat and trimmed it with a ruler to the size of back and front covers I wanted  (12cm x 10cm) using the narrow side of the box (6cm) as the spine.

(Other brands will work just as well! )

You also need 4 rubber bands but more about them later on.  Next, the pages.  I made four concertina pages by joining strips of card and folding each length to make four 10cm x 10cm sections as below.

The super-easy bit is once you have decorated the cover (I used TH Kraft resist paper but I'm sure my artistic teamies would make a lovely job with paints and texture pastes) you just add the rubber bands to the spine as below.  I did use all brown bands in the end but used the red one in the pic so it would stand out.

Next, I decorated the pages.  Now, if you use 4 lengths of card as I did, that gives you 32 little squares to decorate and that's a lot of work!  I've actually only done 16 so far but will finish the rest later on!  A tip I really appreciated from Astrid was to cut a piece of card slightly smaller than your page, decorate that, then attach it.  This makes life a lot easier and you can juggle with the arrangement of your pictures before you stick them down.  I rubbed Rub'n'Buff round all the edges for that old fashioned look.  Here's all 16 decorated sections.  They include pics of my grandma, mum, auntie and a cousin as well as some "borrowed" family images.

My favourite picture?  Its this one of my Mum styling her friend's hair in their tea break!  Long, long time ago.... Look at her shoes!!

When you're all done decorating, you can slip the first section of each long page under its elastic band to hold it in place then concertina fold the rest of the sections into the cover.  I numbered my pages just so I could see where to pull them out.  This is one of the pages waiting to be inserted into its band.

Well, if you've got this far, I do hope you will be inspired to make a mini-album for yourselves.  The nice bit is you can add as many pages as you can fit in the cover - just keep adding rubber bands!

Thanks so much for visiting - I'd love to know what you think of my album and I also hope you'll join in this month with the Captured Memories challenge at Our Creative Corner.   Margie x

And now for something completely different - Magazine art!

Have you ever looked at that pile of glossy magazines, hating to throw them out but not knowing what to do with them?  Here's the answer - make art.

The original idea was to make a table out of four magazines but I haven't got that far yet.  If you want to see how easy it is though, take a look here at Freshly Found.  Amazing.  Thanks for stopping by to see me.  Margie x

New Crafting Challenge starting up shortly

Just a quick note to let you know about a new craft challenge starting up on 5th July.  Its being sponsored by Crafts-Too and you can read all about it here

Sounds like it will be fun!  Love, Margie x

Box of tricks

Hello from ever-so sunny Northumberland again - can't believe we are having such a good spell of weather when other areas are turning cold and windy!  The garden could do with a bit of rain though - preferably overnight!

Here's another project made for a swap at our craft class after the teacher showed us how to make these super-easy milk cartons.  I had a go with my new Wendy Vecchi word stencils and the grunge paste and think I just have to accept it being a little bit messy.  Had fun with the decoration and filling the box with lots of crafting goodies for the recipient.  The box I received in return was full of lovely quilled flowers and butterflies - a craft I have never quite mastered so I was really pleased with my swap.

Hope you are all enjoying a little bit of sunshine wherever you are.  Love, Margie x

Live, Laugh, Love

Well, the sunshine is still with us I'm pleased to say so I decided to change my blog background to give it a more summery feel.  Haven't had that much time for crafting lately but I did make this birthday card for my friend who loves to receive cards that "do something"!  Hope she likes this one - I went a bit overboard with the decoration.....

I really like the LIVE, LAUGH, LOVE free stamp with Craft Stamper this month and think I'll use that a lot.

Hope you are enjoying the sun wherever you are.  Margie x

At Home

Another lovely sunny day spent visiting an old mansion house in the Scottish Borders where the rhododendrons are just coming out in flower.  I've never seen so many colours from pale cream through to deep crimson and even scented gold ones!  It was amazing walking around the lake and then visiting the house with 25 bedrooms and the huge servants' quarters.  I was amused by the array of bells in the basement used to summon the servants to the upstairs rooms and wondered how long it took to run up and down the stairs to see to the needs of the masters.  There was even a bell alongside the roll-top bath!  Very Downton Abby.

Here's a simple card I made for my sister using one of my Gibson Girls stamps from Flonzcraft, a New Zealand company I was introduced to by my blogging friend Shirl

I think this Gibson Girl would have been very much at home at Manderston House today!

Thanks for popping to see me and I hope your day has been a good one too.  Margie x