It's Been A Long Time

My mojo took an extended holiday over the last few months, but it's slowly coming back. So much so, that I joined a CJ on UKScrappers this week. I'm looking forward to doing it as the circle's called All My Own Photos. The object being that we send photos with our CJ and these are what the others use in ours. I'm taking this opportunity of having a 6x6 album done of the wedding I went to last August. Had a job deciding which of the 130 odd photos I took to use in this, but I've got there. Just got to make my album and do my LO ready for the first posting day. I know I have a few weeks to do this, so that's ok.

So, what crafting have I done this year? The grand sum of 3 cards and zero LOs. That will change soon. I've used digi downloads from Charmed Cards and Crafts which are expertly drawn by Lou. Each download bundle gives you black outlined images plus those same images coloured. Some bundles give you backgrounds and sentiments too. I've used images from Sugar and Spice and Boy Oh Boy. You can go here and here to see more examples of how to use the images.

Here's my cards. One for a 2 year old boy and 2 for adult females.

(I scanned them and no matter what I did, it insisted on cutting the bottom off the female cards

plus the images are not this much brighter than the papers IRL.

They're raised on foam pads, so nearer the scanner bed)

I've used a Sakura glitter pen to add sparkle to the girl's bows and all the flowers and pink gems to the flowers the girl is picking.

Thanks for looking.

Love and hugs

Sarah C xoxoxo

all the leaves are brown, and the sky is blue

This is an old post that I realised I had taken off my blog as the LO went for publication in a DOCraft magazine. Well, it's been published now, so I can put the LO back on here.

Here's the original post:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I felt like doing a LO last night and thought I'd see what the bi-monthly challenge was on DoCraft. It's been a few months since I looked on there and I had a job remembering my password! But, I got there and loved what I read, so gave it a go. Set by greenhaze (Alma), this is what she said:

"The challenge is to use autumn colours brown, red, gold any colours that reflect the season.
Leaves.
A photo of your choice to reflect the season.
And nine or twelve buttons in autumn colours"

So, what did I do?

I definately used autumn colours ~ yellows and browns mainly
Skeleton leaves in brown
4 photos I took last month
9 buttons in shades of brown

Challenge met, here's the LO

Title is from the song California Dreamin' by the Mamas and Papas 1966 and printed onto Safmat. Journalling just tells when and where the photos were taken.

Thanks for looking

Take care

Love and hugs

Scrapping Challenge

Challenge this week on UKS by the Ready Steady Scraps was so brilliant and timely. I'd been snapping away this week and had loads of photos that fitted the bill perfectly.

So, the challenge:

Use sketch ~ 10 points

Use 10 of something ~ 5 points

Use an outdoor photo ~ 10 points

Use autumn colours (red,brown,orange,yellow,green) ~ 5 points

The sketch:

My take on the challenge is this:

Sketch turned on it's side

10 blooms

3 outdoor photos

Red, brown, orange and green blooms / brown flowers on PP, ribbon, ric-rac, brad, ink and journalling pen / green brad / yellow paper and brad

Full points earnt for my team The Ruby Snippers

Thanks for looking.

Love to you all

xxx

Catch Up, But No Craft To Show

Sometimes life is a series of hills and mountains that need climbing. After getting (almost) over my virus, I'm jobless!. I never got the one at Cambridge or one they put me in for at Histon. I got asked if I'd like my CV putting forward for one at Papworth, but I can't get there on the bus and don't have daily access to a car. So, here I am waiting to hear if I can get Job Seeker's Allowance and Housing Benefit again. Until then, I'm living off the money I saved from the work I have done this year! I did have details of a job that; if I got it, would have set me up for the next phase of my life. But, after ringing a mobile several times to be told the inbox was full, I found out that they'd had at least 100 people ring and were ploughing through them before opening it up again, if at all! Until a job comes along and inbetween job hunting, I'm free to talk to and see family and friends, catch up with my friends on forums, blog and blog hop and of course craft!!!

After 2 weeks of being mostly indoors, I've been lucky enough to have 3 days out and about where I've taken some Autumn photos. Don't faint, but I've even managed to update my photo blog with some of them.

I spent 2 days/evenings making some Christmas cards this week. One of my sisters had hoped to have a stall at a local fete. She asked if I'd like her to try and sell some of my cards in return for looking after her children while she did it. Of course I said yes. The chance to have some time with my niece and nephews was enough, but it had the added prospect of maybe making a little money. Unfortunately it never happened, so I'm left with quite a few cards looking for homes. My plan B is to see if David's Dad still wants some cards to sell at his church to raise some funds and split the proceeds. Will be good if he says yes, but I have a plan C which is to keep them and add to them over the year and then have a stall myself somewhere.

That's my catch-up. See you here again soon.

Take care, love and hugs

Flower Power

I've done a bit of scrapping this week or so, but wanted to show you one in particular. I'm lucky enough to have an A3 printer so printed the Hippie Dottie (from Charmed) coloured image directly onto 12x12 yellow Bazzill. Once I'd done that I took some photos of my flowers in my garden and cut round them before sticking them down. I added Prima flowers (from Charmed), handmade paper flowers and a few others. I changed her printed bunch of flowers for tiny handmade blooms and added a glass gem to the centre of some. The title is cut out on my Tag-a-Long and I used the Tootsie alphabet. To finish this off, I used diamond stickles on the title and butterflies, black gems for Dottie's eyes and black stickles for the beads on her necklace.

I'm on the look out for a 12x12 box frame now to put this in so I can hang it on my wall.

The rest of my crafting will be on here by the end of the week I hope. I need to go job hunting first.

Wall Hanging

My challenges on 3'Cs were to do a LO (which is here) and a wall hanging. I said "I saw this and loved it, but never got round to making one. Now’s our chance. But once again, can you do it without using glitter, bling, pink, photos of people or pets?" karen added the points and extras on a couple of days later, which were:

POINTS FOR THIS CHALLENGE:

COMPLETING THE PROJECT: 40 POINTS

BONUS POINTS USING ACRYLIC PAINT: 10 POINTS

I made my hanging before the points and extras were posted on the forum and didn't use acrylic paint, so off I went to get some. I stamped 3 flowers using it and stuck these on. The papers are all from K & Co's Hannah scrap pad to go from Charmed. I designed the wording and printed it from my computer, then hand cut the chipboard. I did the same with the frames. After covering them with the paper, I used a brush marker to edge them all. I used 3 of my favourite photos from my Somerset holiday to go with the theme of tranquil.

An award, a job, holidays and a catch up

Thank you to everyone who is kind enough to visit me and leave me comments. You are all so lovely. I've also been lucky enough to receive some wonderful awards from some of you. They can all be seen lower down on the right. Here's the latest award I've received from my blogging and forum friend Emma. We're all asked to pass it on to 3 fellow bloggers, so after deliberating for ages, I'm passing it on to Tee, Juliet and Shell.

I hadn't realised how long it had been since I blogged. My life changed overnight almost 2 weeks ago. I saw a job advertised on the JobCentre website at lunchtime one day and applied. In just over an hour I was in an interview and half an hour later, I had the job which started the following morning. Was great, but so quick. From being someone who didn't work and could choose how I spent my days, I became a full-time working lady with no spare time at all! What's my job? Well, I'm employed by an agency and at the moment am a customer services administration assistant. It's ok and should last until the end of June after which, I'm hoping that the agency will be able to find me something else.

Went away at the end of my first week working. My youngest sister's in Birmingham studying and invited me to stay with her for the Bank Holiday week-end. We had such a fantastic time. I went to my first all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet followed by a waltzer ride at the fair. I do have a few photos of that week-end (not many as the weather was mostly dull and rainy and I was too busy enjoying myself to keep snapping away!). Some of these piccies will be on my photo blog in the next couple of days. I got home Monday evening very tired and sad to have had to leave as I was having a great time.

I really want to do some blog hopping, but I'm too tired for that tonight and must do some crafting tomorrow. I will visit you all soon I promise. I'm so looking forward to next Monday (9th) as I'm off to Tee's for 3 days.

Hope you're all keeping well. See you here again soon
xxx

Where Has The Week Gone?

I can't believe it's been a week since I blogged! Well, I had a great day with my cousin last Thursday and spent the week-end visiting my mum and David's family. This week's just flown by even though I don't seem to have done much.

During this last week, 2 of my friends have had birthdays. Here's the cards I made for them.

I used purple checked paper, purple pearlised paper, ribbon brad, fibres and (saving the best till last) Dottie. I coloured Dottie in using my brush markers. Looking at the card, I need more practice. I hope the birthday girl forgives me as this was one of the first images I coloured in. I have my watercolour pencils now and have seen some tutorials as to how to use both.

Just in case you don't already know, Dottie and George have their own blog now. Check it out here.

To make this card, I've torn strips of contrasting papers and stuck them onto a green card. I coloured a Dottie using my brush markers, layered her on orange and green paper and stuck to the card using foam pads. Buttons were added as finishing touch. I handwrote the sentiment which says "I've worked out....." and inside it says "it's your birthday!" I hope the latest birthday girl likes it.

I have done some scrapping, but I need to take a photo. That's a post for tomorrow I think. My photo blog hasn't been updated for a while either. Oops. I'll see what I can find for you and get on to that soon.

Clacton-on-Sea

I've added some photos of Clacton-on-Sea to my photo blog.

I'll be back later to add to this blog as I'm off to do some crafting now.

New Blog

Now that I'm getting more and more into photography, I've decided to set up a blog just for my photos. At the moment, there's only the stones photo on as my blog header. I chose that photo as several of you said it was the best one out of the few I showed on here before. There will be more photos to post, but it's too late to do this at the moment. I need to try and get some sleep as it's just about 02:40 and I have to be ready to go out at 09:15 so I can't sleep in.

See you all here sometime soon. Thanks for looking.