Tuesday 11 September 2012

Tag Tuesday

Oh dear, I think I will be sent to the naughty step! I thought that our theme this week at Tag Tuesday was autumn leaves, and it's autumn fruits..... Anyway, my tag is done and I don't have time for a new one, so this week it's autumn leaves from me! The background has been made with 7 Gypsies paper. The leaves have been die-cut from miri-card and gold paper using a Sizzix die. The miri-card leaves have been embossed, sanded down a bit, and then distressed with green ink. The bird on the branch is a TH die-cut. But I see there are a couple of berries hanging on my tag, woohoo! And perhaps the bird ate the rest of the fruit, or stashed it behind the leaves for later!




Have a good day you all, take care, and thanks for visiting!

Monday 10 September 2012

Some note-cards

Hi you all, hope your weekend weather was as nice as it was here. It was warm and sunny, and I spent a lot of time on my balcony, reading, painting and crafting. I even had my meals outside. Made a nice change to have such lovely weather.

Here are some of the note-cards I made last week. I thought I would package them up in little boxes or folders, and use them as presents. They each measure 4x3", and as they are small, it is possible to use up lots of small scraps to make them.











That was all for today, have a great day, take care, and thanks for looking in!

Friday 7 September 2012

Postcard Challenge and Paint Party Friday

It's Friday again, and that means it's time for Paint Party Friday, hosted as always by Eva and Kristin, and Darcy's postcard challenge, where the theme this week is Egypt.

Jason and Shannon have been very busy getting their shop ready, and next week they will be opening. In one of the boxes of ‘rubbish’ as Shannon calls it, they find a heavy, black stone statue of a cat, with Egyptian hieroglyphics round the base. Jason is convinced it must be a real antiquity; the rest of the family is sceptical. They take it with them when they meet for their daily fish and chips and sit round the table, with the statue placed rather incongruously between the salt and the vinegar.
Jason says, ‘It’s real, I can feel it in me guts!’ Shannon laughs, and tells him that he’s probably feeling the two portions of fish and chips in there! Cissie, Thelma and Queenie are not at all convinced. Cissie exclaims, ‘Well, first of all we’ll give it a good scrub, it’s filthy.’ Jason is horrified, ‘That ain’t filth, it’s patina!’ ‘Whatever, I don’t like it on my table while I’m eating!’ squeaks Thelma, ‘I bet it’s full of germs!’ Queenie makes a decision. ‘Well, put it back in the box for now, so that the germs don’t jump onto Thelma, and tomorrow you can take it to the British Museum and ask about it. If the people there don’t know, who will?’ They all find this a good idea, especially Latif, who has been eying the dirty statue on his clean table with very bad grace, and finish off their meal happily. On the way home they buy cream cakes for tea at the baker’s, and take them back to Cissie’s and Thelma’s flat.
The next day Jason and Shannon set off for the British Museum in Great Russell Street, and are completely overawed as they see how large it is.

Entrance is free, so they march in, holding their statue. They get stopped straightaway by the security. ‘Whatcha got there?’ asks the man.'You can't come in here with something like that!' Jason and Shannon explain, and after some phone calls, he allows them to go through to the Egyptian department, and says that someone will be waiting for them there.
They are very impressed just by the enormous size of the place, and Jason is thunder struck by all the Egyptian mummies and figures and other artefacts. ‘Blimey, I could make a fortune selling these!’ he says. Luckily, nobody hears him.





 They are met by one of the  museum’s curators, who is very friendly, examines their statue, and says it is very beautiful, but only a replica. He tells them that it is  Bastet, who was a goddess in ancient Egypt, and that cats were worshipped and even mummified. They can hardly believe their eyes when they see some of them in the museum! Bastet was the goddess of love, joy, music and dance.Her duties were to watch over the moon at night so that it didn’t get stolen, or eaten by mice, and she was the protector and patron of pregnant women. Shannon is totally starry eyed when she hears this. ‘We’re keeping her!’ she says. ‘A wise decision!’ says the curator. ‘It’s not an antique, but beautifully made of black basalt, and really beautiful!’ ‘Well, okay!’ says Jason. ‘We’ll put her on the table in front of the window, she’ll look nice there!’ They spend a couple of hours walking round the museum, and look for everything connected to Bastet.


(All photos courtesy of Wikipedia Commons)


After arriving home, they tell the story to Cissie and Thelma. ‘Well!’ says Cissie. ‘When it’s been scrubbed clean of the patina of antiquity, it might even look nice! Who wants tea and cake?'

This is the postcard they send home:




For Paint Party Friday, I have carried on with the Egyptian theme. I painted 2 triangular canvases some time back to use up some leftovers of blue and purple paint. Today I added the glitter, and painted the moon. The picture of Bastet has been collaged. It is not finished yet, and I am not sure which motive to use for the second one; time will tell!


That's all for today. Have a great weekend, take care, and thanks for dropping in!


Thursday 6 September 2012

More cards

Hi you all! First of all, thanks to all those yesterday who left me good wishes for my cat-scan. The appointment wasn't until 4.30 in the afternoon, so I tried to keep myself busy making cards and eating chocolate till it was time to go, as I was rather hyper....  I found a parking space directly in front of the radiologist's, so that was something. I was terribly nervous, I hate going into those machines, but the people were all very nice, and understanding, and did their best to calm me down. I didn't have to wait at all, so it was over in half an hour, but it was a long half an hour! Anyway, now it is over and done with, and I can go to my doc next week to get the results.

These are some of the cards I made in my nervous frenzy. The square cards are just under 7" square. I used a cream coloured card with a light shimmer. The first one has a background paper in 70s look, and some strips of different designer papers across the front. I once again used my umbrella man; this time cut from paper which had been painted and drawn on, and which I then cut up and used for die-cuts. I think the colours go very well with the background papers.



The second one is again various designer papers layered one over the other. 'Live' has been cut with a Sizzix die, and for embellies I used a gold-sprayed flower, a strip of gold embossed paper and a piece of thin ribbon.



This one has been made similarly, using different papers. The top paper is from Graphics 45, and the diamond in the middle has been cut double and decoupaged to give more depth. The word is again cut with a Sizzix die.



And here again, the same but different!



I am linking to Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge.

I think these cards could be used for men or women; whatever, I am slowly replenishing my stock of cards.

Hope you all have  great day, take care, and thanks for visiting!

Wednesday 5 September 2012

Inchies

The challenge this week at the 'Artful Times' Blog is to make inchies.  So, yesterday I decided to inch my way into the kitchen and get started. Good that Neet didn't ask for anything big, there was just about enough space left on the table to work in this small scale. I found some inchies made of mount-board - no idea where they came from, and used them as the foundation. The first two have been covered with scraps of some script paper. I then added the rose transfers, before giving them three coats with clear varnish. I did this with all of the inchies, front and back. I wanted to make them into magnets, which I will do as soon as I have found where those cowardly magnets have hidden themselves.

Here I have used TH fragments to cover two mini photos, left my Mum and that's me on the right. The 'backsides' have been made and varnished as before.


For these two I used some scraps of marbled paper for the front, adding a piece of old jewelry and lots of glossy accents on the left, and a stamped heart and a little key on the right.


I managed to find one little what-not or whatever it is called to make this one into a pendant. The background is again marbled paper, and the hand a little charm



And this is what the famous 'backsides' look like.


Was fun doing something different!

I am also entering the inchies into the first challenge at ABAC - anything but a card.
This afternoon I have an appointment at the radiologists for a computer tomography (cat scan) to look into my knee. I hate going into that machine, so please keep your fingers crossed for me that I don't take fright and b*gger off before they get me into it, as I had to wait two months for this appointment!
Have a good day you all, take care and thanks for visiting!

Tuesday 4 September 2012

Tag Tuesday -Circus

The last weeks at Tag Tuesday have not been easy for me, as there were a lot of themes which are not really mine! I think it will be getting better from next week. This week it is circus, and as I do not like circus or clowns or animals in cages and dressed up dogs and pigs etc, I decided to make another dimensional tag, this time of the big top. The background inside the tent has been decorated with some Graphics 45 paper , and some silver spangled ribbon for curtains, and a clown is peeking out to entice people in....I have mounted it onto a ribbon spool again - how good that I did not throw those empty spools away! - and the rim has been painted with green and 'grassed' with some green glitter-flock powder.





Here's wishing you all a great day, take care, and thanks for visiting!

Sunday 2 September 2012

Two Masculine Cards

Hi you all! Hope you enjoying a good Sunday. I slept late today - a real wonder - for which I was very grateful, as mostly I wake up before the birdies get going!
Over at 'Out of a Hat Creations' the ladies want to see us using our fave techniques this week. Difficult, as I have so many. But I decided on using layers, which is something I love, whether in painting, scrapping, card- or tag-making. I have made 2 more masculine tags in muted shades, using my much loved umbrella man from TH. I have used different papers from Bo Bunny, Graphics 45 and a steampunk freebie from 'free vintage digis'.









Okay, that's all for today! I will be back on Tuesday with my new circus tag. Take care, and thanks for coming by!