Up To Date With Orders......Yay!!!

Goody, goody.......now perhaps I can play a bit.......well once I have posted a couple of outstanding parcels and maybe cleaned my desks off to make room to work.

For the music card I have had to resort to peeloffs for the guitar and some of the music bits as I do not own one single instrument stamp. I do have a couple of musical score stamps though so I was able to stamp the background paper. Added a little chalk and Bob's your Aunty. The chip board circle is mountboard from my cutting session the other week covered in white paper and the circular greeting was a free stamp from a magazine.

Doesn't look so good on the scan but IRL it looks pretty smart so I hope my customer will like it.

The music score background is from the TandaStamps Backgrounds Set 1.

The Celtic card was pretty easy to do as I have a few stamps by Rubbadubbadoo. I've coloured some card with Adirondacks in Butterscotch, Bottle and Denim. I then stamped the tree of life down the side and added highlights with a white crayon and then a little white gel pen.
The Celtic knot has been stamped with Stazon and embellished with dots in white gel pen.
I found the Irish translation for Happy Birthday on the internet and then typed it up in a font called Celtic Gaelige which luckily I had in my font files. A very simple card I love the strong colour.
ROFL........ I just noticed I missed a small section of dots....must put that right before it gets delivered........lol!!!

Had a good day at the shop today as the boss opened a new set of Elusive Image stamps for me to play with for the morning. We didn't have a class until the afternoon.
The set is six backgrounds in squares........fell in love with them and had to buy them......what more can I say. They will be so useful as there is a good mix of styles including a mosaic tile effect, swirls, bubbles and lines, flowers, foliage and a wood effect. I'm getting a few ideas together for those.
Still no Cuttlebug. I've a good mind to book a flight on the first plane to Holland and go fetch it myself.......well I would if I wasn't so scared of flying.......lol!!!
Got some more storage boxes in the hope of sorting myself out.....ha blooming ha!!!
If I ever get this room anywhere near organised I shall fall over in shock. Maybe I should accept that I am untidy and just get on with it.....or at least until something falls on my head anyway.

It's stock up day at the local shop today so I had best go and sort the cards out that are going down and get the paperwork ready.

Bye for now
Sheila-x-

I Wanna Cut My Tongue Out!!!

What a strange title for a blog post I can hear you all saying.....lol!!! But as I seem to be unable to say the word 'NO' that is the only action that I can see that will stop me taking on commissions for cards that are just not in my line at all.
It seems when you make handmade cards that people think you can conjour up miracles and ask for the strangest and in some cases very specialised designs which is something I don't do. I tend to steer clear of doing things like football teams as I design cards I don't just buy stuff to put on cards. I did end up doing a football card the other week as a second choice of subject because the first one I couldn't find anything to make a card with on the subject of horse racing.
So anyway yesterday evening I get a call............ could I make two cards for a 50th birthday for Friday. Yes fine says I. Man or woman? Colour etc, etc. A man and he likes Celtic designs and can you do one with the green man on...........yeah......I'll just nip out and buy a sheet of green man peeloffs......lol!!!
Now thankfully I do have a passing interest in all things Pagan/Wicca etc so I did to some extent know where I was going with this one but it has taken me a whole day to come up with this design which has annoyed me as I had plans for some work I wanted to get done to get on top of things and I still have to do the Celtic card plus another order for Friday.
Next time I get a call for something odd would you all please shout 'Oi Sheila....NO!!
Anyway...that's the card I ended up with......up there. Quite chuffed with it as the green man is hand drawn and shaded. I then overstamped with a leaf stamp using Versamark and embossed with clear embossing powder. The leaf embossing on the green background is done with a Fiskars texture plate which I then cut to shape and edged with gold Krylon pen.
The larger background is a piece of printed vellum I found in my box and the shape has been marked out with a ruler and a circle shape. The inspiration for that came from those wall fountains you can get with lion heads on.

Well I will go and make a start on the Celtic card now which will be a breeze after that one as I do have some stamps on just that theme luckily. After that there is a 60th birthday with a red guitar........another example of my inability to say NO.......lol!!!

Bye for now
Sheila-x-

The Other Half!!!

The cards I'm posting tonight are the other half of the projects that were published in Craft Stamper.

Once again they are done with the TandaStamps Retro Women stamps......how I love those two sets!!!

The first card is called 'A Musical Evening' and is made to look like a programme along with tickets. The inspiration for that one came from the sheet of background paper which I found in a Paper Journeys 6 x 6 pad.

The second card.....and my most favourite, is a representation of a magazine cover complete with issue date and number. The scrummy lettering is done with my My Sentiments Exactly Retro Alphabets and Numbers which cost me an arm and a leg but I love them sooooooooo much.

As hubby was going to a works presentation evening this evening and didn't need feeding, DD and I decided to go for a ride out and treat ourselves to tea. We popped over to Derby Garden Centre and had the most gorgeous sandwiches with a bowl of salad from the salad bar and then nipped into Craft Central. I found a stamp I have been looking for for ages so I well pleased about that. It's a Creative Expressions stamp of an Oriental lady with a fan inside a circle. Can't wait to have a play with that.
Didn't buy anything else too exciting from there but on the way out I decided that I wanted a pair of gardening clogs to wear instead of wellingtons. So I had a look at the green ones which were pretty boring and decided I'd leave them for the time being and then I saw them........a pair of bright pink gardening clogs!!! Well I just had to have them.......they are soooooo cool..........and this is the woman who hates anything pink........lol!!! They do make rather odd noises as you walk in them so it's a good job I shan't be wearing them out anywhere.
When we left there we called at the supermarket and DD bought me a dinky little bucket in bright pink with bumble bees on..........it is very cute, but looking at the weeds in our garden I don't think it will hold much so I have it on my desk for putting all my bits of rubbish in.

Well I have a class tomorrow which is on using chalks so I think I am going to design a couple of new cards for it. It has been a pretty popular class for the last few weeks but you do get fed up of doing the same cards all the time so I shall do something new.
I hope the order with the Cuttlebugs comes tomorrow. It seems to have been ages since they were ordered. Knowing my luck they will be out of stock but hopefully I'll get my Cricut cartridge.....Fabulous Finds.

Right......a quick tidy of my desk and then I had best get chalking.

Bye for now
Sheila-x-

Sizzling Stockport

I had such a fab time in Stockport yesterday. The class went really well and the ladies were just so lovely. I came home completely shattered and have done nothing but sleep since I got back which is why I am a bit late blogging this.

The house where I did the class was in such an amazing spot with the most breathtaking views I have ever seen. And after seeing the view from the kitchen window I know that if I lived there I would spend my life washing up just to be able to look out of the window. On a sunny day it was awesome enough but I would love to see it in the snow.

That was my last engagement for a while. I am ready for a little break to have a play with some new techniques and stuff and to catch up with some urgent jobs in the house and garden.

The cards I have posted for you today are half of the article published in Craft Stamper magazine. A gift set using the TandaStamps Retro Women 1 set. I think these stamps are such fun for making girly cards. The set consists of a gift bag made from a manilla envelope, a card made to look like a hosiery shade chart and an altered coaster to pop into the gift bag.

I am about to do another set like like this as a workshop for the shop.

I'll post the other half of the article tomorrow as it is completely different and I think they look better posted as sets.

I am just putting away all of my kit from yesterday and wondering why it won't all fit back where it came from........getting meself in a right tiswas I am so the big clearout is going to have to be soon methinks to make some room in here.

Just want to say thanks so much to Rachel for the lovely message last night and also to let you know that I thought the work you did yesterday was fab.

She is a newbie at stamping and cardmaking but I tell you what..........she is a natural and has a wonderful colour sense.

Well it's been a bit hot and sticky here today with lots of nasty little black beetles flying around so I am off to soak in a cool bath in a minute and then I am going to laze about in the least amount of clothes I can decently get away with and watch TV all night for a change.

Having said that I will probably be bored after a couple of hours and be back in my room doing something......lol!!!

Bye for now

Sheila-x-

Busy, Busy, Busy!!!

3am and I expect all good people are tucked up in their beds where they should be.
Me.........I am packing all my stuff away for Saturday, ticking lists and ticking lists about lists. Hoping to have everything done by about 10am and then I can just spend the rest of the day messing about and making a start on my sort out.
Can't believe how nervous I am. I've never done a private class at somebody's house before but I am sure that on the day it will all be fine.

Very disappointed that the order containing my Cuttlebug and new cartridge for Jiminy didn't come today. I bet it will come tomorrow and I won't be at the shop......Sod's Law innit? Still it did mean that I came away today with my wages nearly untouched. Just had to buy a couple of things for Saturday....some glue sticks and a spare brayer.

The brayer is for the card up yonder which is going to be one of the class cards. Three techniques on one card so although it looks pretty simple it is quite work intensive in a class situation especially as tools and materials have to be shared.
The background is a wax paper resist which I think looks just like crushed velvet with the Denim Adirondack brayered over it. The small flourish background is chalked and the lady has been coloured using chalks with a blender pen.
You will not be surprised to know that I am doing a Bondaweb technique......lol!!! Then I am also doing the floorwax technique and if there is time a card using H20's.

I wish DD was taking me up as she is so good at helping out. Unfortunately she is on a nine night, night shift this week so will be in bed. Hubby is taking me and then going on to a classic car show at Tatton Park so thankfully he will be occupied for the day. When I did a demo down in Aldershot last year the poor fella spent all day wandering round the town until it was time to pack up and go home. At times like that I do wish that I had taken my driving test...........luckily for the world at large that wish is only fleeting and I spend the rest of the time thanking God that I don't drive.

Well best get back to work. Not that much left to do now really .
Bye for now
Sheila-x-