It must be Spring.



The clocks have gained an hour, the sun has peeped out and the garden looks cheery with daffodils, hyacinths and primroses.

It must be Spring.

I don't know about you but with the slightly warmer days and more sunlight I always feel the need to spruce the house up a bit.  I have some longer term decorating plans for hubby but in the meantime I have made some fresh, cheery canvases.

I don't know if you can remember the decorating disaster of last year when we painted the hall duck egg blue but it wasn't really duck egg blue?  I had plans to have crafty projects hung on those walls but hadn't really found the right project.  So when i saw these three canvases in Wilkinsons I immediately hit on a plan to decorate them.

I dry brushed Ranger dabber paints in Willow and Pool with a brush over the canvases then when they were dry sprayed Cosmic Shimmers through a sun spray mask at intervals over the top. Next came a couple of Glimmer Mists over the top to tone it all down.  Gesso was smeared with fingers over the edges, stamped with lids from the dabbers and brushed through a number stencil. 

Papers were torn and stuck, overlaid with lace and pre-cut borders.  I then cut corrugated card with my Nestabilities dies, gessoed them and stuck a patterned smaller piece inside.  Random chipboard letters where covered in old dictionary paper and inked.  A few Martha Stewart butterflies with crystal trails fluttered their way over to finish.

I'm really pleased with them and think they brighten up the hall a treat.

Simple Pleasures

 

This week I am enjoying:

• Sunny days
• Wind blown washing
• Spring flowers
• Power walking wearing my MP3, listening to 'Running Trax' 2
• Lighter layers of clothing
• Chocolate cupcakes

I am not enjoying:

• A doctors visit
• DS's English coursework (or lack of it)
• Missing Zumba class as felt too poorly after Dr's visit.
• Weekend weather forecast (getting cold again)

Hmmm, different for me eh?  Sharing a slice of my little old life.  Thanks Sian.

So I can't leave you all without a crafty something so here's two Mothers Day cards for next week.  One for my Mum and one for my Mother in law.  Two mums who both deserve some love and special wishes sent to them.  My Mother-in-law has battled breast cancer this year and at this point in time has won.  I'm proud of my Mum who has become stronger and more independent since my Dad's ill health a number of years ago. 

I used a Lilli of the Valley stamp, promarkered, stickles, die cut tags and frayed lace.

Hope you enjoy your own simple pleasures today.

Rainbow days



I regard myself very lucky to have good friends.  Good friends are hard to come by.  Friends are those people you choose to be with and they have chosen to be with you.  A friend always listens and never tells.  A friend brightens your day and always makes you feel good about yourself.  A friend is a friend forever.

When I saw the Chicken Soup recipe this week here was inspired by rainbows I just knew straight away that a photo of my friend and I taken on a day trip to Gt Yarmouth last summer was just the thing to inspire a rainbow inspired layout.  It truly was a rainbow day, a day full of laughter, fun, good company, sand and glorious sunshine.

I already had die cut some felt into circles for a previous project and so cut a few more to scatter across the page.  As you know I love bright colours and patterned papers so the Ocktober Afternoon and Cosmo Cricket papers clashed brilliantly.

Looking forward to many more rainbow days soon.

Tea for Two

My friend, Kelie-Marie and I loved drinking our tea from the delicate bone china cups and using the retro 70's teapot when we visited a local second hand Emporium.

We pondered, mooched, chatted, laughed, oohed and aahed our way round that day.  There was so much to see that we stayed for hours.  All the way round we could smell bacon, making our mouths water.  So before going we stopped at their little cafe for bacon butties and a pot of tea.  The cafe crockery was made up of odds and sods from different eras.....I kinda liked it. 

I had fun with this layout finding papers with a retro pattern and  trying to make it aged and shabby.  As I don't like plain card stock much, I dry brushed turquoise and green paint where the photo's where to be placed to help them to stand out.  Frayed lace, pearl stickers, paper flowers and garden twine helped to pull it all together.

 I think another trip will have to be planned as I am hankering after a set of retro 70's mugs.  I just love the groovy, graphic patterns they have.

Little Ted

I have been wanting to do a layout about Little Ted for ages and so when I saw two LOs recently one here and one in the Pagemaps 2 book, I decided it was time to have a photo shoot.

  He now belongs to my son but was once my husbands, so he is forty odd years old now.  Time hasn't been good to Little Ted, all that hugging has caused his seams to fray and his stuffing to come out.  I would really like to send him off to a bear hospital but he may cry if he was away on his own (and so may his present owner even though he is 15).  Now don't get me wrong I love Little Ted as much as his owners have......but he has another problem.......he smells.  Apparently it is only me that can smell him. 

I chose a blue dotty bazzil paper and aged it by dry brushing gesso over it, emphasising the embossed dots.  The same range of paper in beige was used for matting and the journalling and a few red embellishments brought it all together to give a shaker style to it.

Cupcakes

The theme for this weeks recipe over on the Chicken Soup blog is cupcakes.  Need more inspiration than just the thought of those sugary, sweet delights?  Then head on over to here and see what the team have put together for you all.

This cute Penny Black stamp as you may remember has been used many times before and I still love it.  As usual Promarkers were used to colour the image. To colour the background in you need to start by leaving the Nestabilities die still in place after cutting out. Then using  distressing ink and sponge applicator apply ink around the image.  Take off the die and a lovely, crisp white image will of been created.

Hmmmm, now I am thinking about cupcakes and feel the need to make some.  I saw a Jamie Oliver recipe recently for Black Forest cupcakes and happen to have a load of Blackberries in the freezer picked in the summer.  How convenient....