Just A Little Late For The Deadline

Well, it'll teach me to read things and translate them to print properly.

I came across a blog the other day and thought I'd have a go at the current challenge (#31) ~ BRADS or EYELETS. In my haste, I thought two things: 1) that the blog was called simply 'Secret Crafter' and 2) that the deadline was tonight. Wrong on both counts. The blog's actually called 'Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge' and the deadline; surprisingly, was last Friday.

Oh well, here's my crafting anyway. I've made a mini-book to house the latest crafting I hope to do from various internet sites and blogs and for the information for the Design Teams I'm on. It's A5 size and I've made dividers to make it easier to find things (I hope): Design Teams / UKScrappers / Blog LOs / Blog Cards / Blog Various / All Others. Eyelets have been used on the holes for the book-rings and fibres. The 'C' stands for Craft / Challenges / Create.

Still having to use the borrowed camera and even with photo editing, I still can't get a really clear photo. Might try scanning next time.

Thanks for looking.

Take care, love and hugs

Sarah C xoxoxo

Another catch-up - UKS Whodunnit Cybercrop

UKScrappers have a cybercrop week-end on the 6th, 7th and 8th February. To warm us up, we've been given a pre-crop LO challenge and daily challenges. Each daily challenge earns us a doughnut which we've been told we get to eat at the end LOL

Doughnut (yummy!)

I'm in the Lady Julia Grey Special Branch team

So far, there's been 8 daily challenges (excluding today's) and here's my daily crafting

Day 1 - make a bookmark

Day 2 - fingerprint and interrogate someone

Day 3 - Construct a 'usual suspects' LO using yesterday's evidence

Day 4 - Make a tag

showing hidden compartment

Day 5 - Decorate a bag

Day 6 - Use mini-doughnuts (eyelets) to make an embellishment

Day 7 - Prepare some interrogation questions for a teamie
(this was done completely digi)

Day 8 - Use spray mist or spray ink on a layout

I've been having great fun with this cybercrop and getting to know some of the other detectives on my team. I can hardly wait for the week-end's crop to come round. Prior notice, I will be away from here that week-end, but will be back to catch -up with you all and to show you what I get up to.

Love and hugs,

A birthday card

I made this gatefold birthday card for my cousin's birthday on Friday. I used wire to hold the flowers onto the topper, eyelets to hold the ribbon and stamped the Happy Birthday greeting.

Another LO & Some Rare ATC's

I have weeks where I craft a lot and others that have hardy anything done in them. I was crafting a bit on Thursday evening and yesterday and this is what I did.

Firstly, it was my turn to set the challenge on 3C's on Wednesday. I chose a 2 part challenge and completed the first part yesterday. My challenge was:

The saying goes “March winds and April showers, bring forth May flowers”. Heading this, my first challenge is:

To do a Lay-Out using a photo of flowers or plants. Easy? Maybe a little too easy, so I challenge you NOT to use: glitter, bling, pink, photos of people or pets

I used small photos of various flowers in my garden. I stuck them onto a piece of yellow Bazzill and doodled around the edges and the top using orange and green brush markers. I also used those pens to draw wavy lines and to do the journalling. I didn't think the LO needed a title and will be used as the front page for an album about my flowers and garden.

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I used to make and swap ATC's until some people started getting very fussy and nit-picky about what they looked like. I always thought an ATC was a way to show case your work using whatever medium you liked to use ~ papers, inks, stamping, watercolouring, stitching, beading, rub-ons, peel-offs etc. How can you say that someone's ATC is not good enough or right if it's what they like to do? So, I had quite a long break from making them and decided to just 'go for it' and join in again. If the recipient doesn't think my work is good enough for them and feel they have the right to say so, so be it. If I like it, then surely that's all that matters. These little works of art aren't often made with the recipient in mind, they are made to your tastes, with your craft loves and techniques on.

Here's 3 identical gatefold ATC's I've made for an organised swap. I haven't shown the right hand side of the open ATC as that has my contact details on. To make them I inked a piece of white card using orange, yellow and green VersaColor cube inks. I then cut the ATC's out and gate folded them. Inside, I stamped an image of roses using orange, green and brown brush markers. I tried to do yellow roses, but they didn't show too well. I added written details with the brown brush marker. To make the band thing (yes I know it has a technical term, but Ive forgotten it!!) to hold it closed, I inked some more white card and cut 3 lengths of it. I wrapped them round each ATC to get the sizes correct and stuck the overlaps down to form a wrap. I punched a hole in each at the joins and used eyelets to hold blooms which I'd taken from dismantalling layered blooms (from a cheap shop).

Sangria

Last June, my friend and her DH had a b-b-q for his 30th birthday. His birthday was on the Friday, so they had the party on the Saturday which just so happened to be my birthday. Their neighbours came and us ladies were kept topped up with Sangria all night. It was so lovely, but I didn't realise how much I'd drunk until the next day when I saw some of the photos I'd taken.

When I saw the UKS weekly challenge I decided that this would be the perfect opportunity to scrap it. The challenge was:

1) To celebrate the birthdays of three of our members, we challenge you to scrap a celebration theme (5 points)

2) Because you cannot have a celebration without some bling, add some bling to your layout (5 points)

3) To practise your creativity, add some stamping (10 points)

4) And finally we challenge you to use the sketch designed by our teamie Marie (10 points): (http://www.ukscrappers.co.uk/photopo...0&ppuser=12276)

1) birthday b-b-q ~ 5pts

2) stickles on the circle frame and on the journalling and sakura glitter pen on the stamp ~ 5pts

3) stamp on the bottom left corner ~ 10pts

4) sketch ~ turned 180 degrees ~ 10pts

Full marks for The Ruby Snippers

I used Bazzill Card for the base, chipboard circles to highlight the date, PP for the blue circle (can't for the life of me remember what the PP is though), vellum and silver eyeletts.

Birthday Dottie

My friend's birthday was the perfect excuse (not that I needed one) to use the Birthday Dottie download created by Lou and available in the Fun Time Set from Charmed Cards and Crafts.

To make this card, I:

* printed Dottie out, coloured her in using my new watercolour pencils, cut her out and stuck her onto some red paper before cutting round her again.

* used 2 contrasting patterned papers for the background and stuck Dottie on top using foam pads. My friend likes peel-offs so I coloured a birthday greeting with permanent pens to make it red and added this to the card.

* tried a technique I had seen on Create and Craft using acetate to create a dome. It worked (yippee, meant I didn't have to re-do the card) and I used ribbon down either side of it adding yellow eyeletts on the four corners. (You can see the curve of the dome in these next 2 photos.)

I made a box for it to help protect the acetate, but forgot to photograph that before sealing the jiffy bag I put it in (it's being posted). I just hope she likes it.

Somerset Hols

The weekly challenge on UKS this week is:

In April 1581, the first circumnavigation of the globe was completed – although sadly, Ferdinand Magellan, the man who planned and led the expedition, never saw his goal.

* So … use a map or plan of some kind on your LO = 10pts

* The sailors must have sailed a lot of seas, so for using the colour blue = 5pts

* Use a hand-made embellishment = 5pts

* Use ink on your LO (eg stamped image, inked edges etc) = 5pts

* Use eyelets and/or brads - 5pts

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I Googled and printed out a map of the area of Somerset that mum and I travelled while on our hols. I had to print it on 3 pieces of paper and jigsaw it together to get the whole area big enough to see the tiny villages (such as Mark) that we went to and drove through. I then printed out some small photos that I'd taken and grouped them round the map which has hand-drawn scallops round.

As for the challenge:

* Map ~ Somerset = 10 points

* Blue ~ Blue Bazzill card for the background = 5 points

* Handmade embellishments ~ the arrows are hand-cut, doodled on with black brush marker and have stickles (diamond and black) added = 5 points

* Ink ~ a black brush marker which contains ink = 5 points

* Eyelets and/or brads ~ top left corner embellishments are white eyelets = 5 points

Full marks (of 30 points) for my team The Ruby Snippers

LO's

On UKS, the current weekly challenge set by the Spring Chicks is:

It’s World Health day today, 7th April, and marks the founding of the World Health Organization (WHO) and is an opportunity to draw worldwide attention to a subject of major importance to global health each year.

World Health Day

As their website site is blue, orange and white, please use 2 of those colours in your layout = 10 points
Use the sketch below = 10 points
Use any sort of ribbon = 5 points
Use 7 brads, eyelets or embellishments on your LO = 5 points
Your LO can be on any theme and we’ve deliberately left the sketch simple as it’ll be interesting to see how you interpret it.

I did this LO, then realised I hadn't used the colour combination, so I had to think again if I wanted maximum points. I did fulfill the other requirements though. I used the sketch, used green ribbon on 2 of the corners and used 7 eyelets (6 on the corners and 1 on the tag). The tag covers some journalling.

This is my second attempt at the challenge and the one I'm claiming full points for for The Ruby Snippers.

I used orange and white, the sketch, yellow/orange ribbon (down the sides of the coloured paper) and 6 orange brads (on the ribbon and in the centre of the flower).

If I end up doing 2 LO's for each weekly challenge, it won't take me as long to scrap all my photos. Will still take years, but as long as I enjoy doing it, who's complaining? Not me, that's for sure LOL