Sunday 7 September 2014

Happy Halloween!! (Sort of)

Hello!

Yes, it's me, I'm still alive! Sorry I haven't blogged in a while, I haven't really done anything particularly blog-worthy; well, I have but I can't show you it because although it's for someone else, I'm making the same thing for my sister as a present and I don't want her to see it!

Anywho, on to today's project which is a little treat or gift bag I made using one of the new LOTV stamps coming out tomorrow in our mini release.


I 'recycled' an old LOTV bag for this and simply cut a piece of the black spotty paper from Father Knows Best and some orange from my stash big enough to cover the logo on the bag. I then tied some black, orange, green and purple ribbon from my stash around the handles.


Aren't they adorable! I love the ghost with his little eyes!
I coloured the image with Amber, Apricot
Arctic Blue, Black, Burnt Sienna, Cocoa, Cool Grey 1, Cool Grey 5, Forest Green, Grass, Holly, Indigo Blue, Lemon, Oatmeal, Pine, Pumpkin, Royal Blue, Sky Blue and Soft Lime Promarkers and added some weeny googley eyes to give it an extra halloween-y feel!

Hope you like it and don't forget to check out the new launch tomorrow at Noon!
=)

Thursday 17 July 2014

Gorgeous New LOTV Goodies!

Hello everyone! Hope you're all OK?

Just popping in to show you my latest card which uses lots of gorgeous new Lili of the Valley papers!

Most of the papers on the card are brand new this week and are from the five gorgeous new Summer and Autumn NitWit paper pads available from LOTV for only £6.50 each until midnight on Sunday along with all of the older NitWit and Raspberry Road pads too!



So, here's the card I've made:


When I saw the cute little cloud papers in Up, Up and Away I had to make a little outdoor scene and this image was perfect! The gorgeous image is from LOTV's Here Comes Annabel Art Pad and the little bird in the tree is from the same image I just chopped him off the top of the tent!
The floral papers on the base are from Pastel Dreams, the yellow papers on the base and for the sun are from Cottage Meadow (which is definitely my favourite). 

The grass was cut with a Joy! grass die using papers from Bonnets and Bowties - Solids and the tree was cut with a Marianne tree die with papers from Pressed in Time.


I made the sun using an X-Cut Star die and punched the sentiment from LOTV's General Sentiments Art Pad.


I also added a little sentiment to the stopper using LOTV's Simply Sophisticated stamp set and stuck two little pearls on from my stash.

Hope you like the card and don't forget to grab the gorgeous new pads while they're on offer!

Erica

=)


Thursday 22 May 2014

Tea and Books

Hello! Hope everyone's alright?

Well, Buzzy has gone back home again after his little adventure last week; Mum got back from Paris on Wednesday but was so tired she just got on the train without saying she was back home so she got the message from the vet saying the dog was missing before I had chance to tell her he was fine!
I cried quite a lot down the phone at her because I hadn't had a proper cry since he went missing so it all just came out! She kept saying she was really sorry that I'd had to go through it all without her and that I couldn't have done any more to find him.
But he's fine and he's home and quite glad to be back I think because he was beginning to miss it and the cat was apparently missing him the whole time too!

Anywho, I thought I'd show you all my first ever paper pieced patchwork block!
It's using two different block patterns from the fantastic website Fandom in Stitches who create and share geeky themed pattern blocks for nerdy sewers and they are so amazing!

So here's my first block:


If you can't tell it's a tea cup on a pile of books! The blocks I used were numbers 9 and 27 from their Harry Potter Project of Doom Quilt which is incredible and one that I plan on attempting to make at some point!
I wasn't quite sure I made the right choice for the background fabric when I'd put it all together but I thing it looks quite good (It's meant to look like wallpaper!) and it was much easier to put together than I thought it would be except for getting the angles right when folding the fabric back on itself and worrying I was going to pull the stitches out when taking the paper off the back!

(What is paper piecing? Here's an explanation and tutorial from Jennifer from FiS)

When I (eventually) make the full quilt I'll definitely be using a much lighter fabric for the background. I have about 50 other blocks that I would love to make from Fandom in Stitches they're all so gorgeous but my next one I think is going to be a Captain America quilt using their shield pattern.

Hope you like it!

Erica

=)

Wednesday 14 May 2014

The Mystery of the Missing Pup!

Hello everyone! Hope you're all alright? Just thought I would share a little news with you today.

I've mentioned him before but in case someone doesn't know who I'm talking about, we have a family dog called Buzz who is a Jack Russell cross, he lives with my Mum and I'm looking after him for a couple of weeks while she's in Paris.

This is he and isn't he adorable?! =D

On Tuesday evening, just before I finished work my housemate Lee rang me to say that a couple of hours before another housemate Nathaniel had been walking Buzz when he had completely panicked for no reason and bolted out of the little park he was in. He ran straight through traffic along a busy road which meant that cars were beeping at him which scared him and made him run off again. Nathaniel kept running after him but even though he has little legs, Buzz is ridiculously fast and Nathaniel couldn't catch him.

Lee and Nathaniel looked for him for a couple of hours before telling me just in case they found him and they didn't want to worry me if they didn't have to. I got back from work and immediately started to look for him around the last place he was seen, Lee, Nathaniel and his girlfriend Francesca were all out looking for him too and when our other housemate Joanna got back from work she started looking too.
I looked for about four hours then went home and made some posters to put up and went back out again, getting home about 12. We'd called the Dog Warden, all the vets near where we live, the RSPCA, I told two Police Officers I saw but they can't look for lost dogs unless someone reports one running loose.

I got up early the next day to start ringing all the vets within 10 miles to see if he'd been taken to them and while I was on the phone I got a call from a lady asking me to ring her. They'd found him in their neighbours garden late the night before and had taken him to the vets where they'd scanned his microchip. Unfortunately the details on the chip are for Mum but she isn't at home but the lady who found him had taken him for a walk and seen one of the posters I'd put up.

I burst into tears when she said she had him and then found that they were only about eight streets away so he'd almost managed to circle back on himself from where he was last seen.
I've never been so happy to see him in my entire life! I burst into tears again when we picked him up, he was so happy to see me and Lee who came with me although he did look quite ashamed of himself!
We've been having lots of cuddles since I got him back and had a nice long nap after we got home. We've been for a walk but I didn't let him off the lead in case he got spooked by something again. He's fast asleep at the moment, he's so tired after his little adventure. Lisa at work said I could take him to work for the rest of the week which I might do because he'll have been scared and lonely last night until he was found.

I'm so glad he's home!


Erica

=)

Monday 28 April 2014

Papertake Weekly White +1 Challenge

Evening everyone! Hope you're all alright?

Can't believe it's been a month since I posted anything! There isn't anything amazingly interesting to report unfortunately except that we have two new housemates, Joanna and Nathaniel, and I've FINALLY swapped rooms with my housemate Lee! I think I've mentioned this before but if I haven't I'll explain in full at a later date! Basically, he and his girlfriend Issi had the big attic bedroom but now Issi has moved down to Bristol and Lee is waiting to go down as well he's saving a bit of money by moving into a smaller room so I get the attic room, hooray! It's fabulous and it has it's own bathroom (which in a shared house is so unbelievably fantastic!) and there's so much more space for crafting in!
I didn't think it would be particularly difficult moving my stuff up one flight of stairs but it's essentially moving house all over again but only taking everything up one flight of stairs!
It was a nightmare! Lee and Issi had a month to sort everything and I ended up moving in at 7pm the night before our Joanna was meant to be moving into my old room! But I got everything moved and it's basically sorted and I'll show you all a picture of my lovely new crafting space soon!

But anywho, it's on to today's card! Yey! =D

I've made this one for this week's Papertake Weekly challenge of 'White +1' and I've chosen my favourite colour combination of white and red.


I've used a little 4x4 card for this one and then simply used my new Spellbinders 'Feathers' dies with First Edition 'Family Ties' papers, stamped a sentiment from the 'My Cup of Tea' set by Clearly Besotted onto white card die cut using La-La Land 'Folding Banners' dies, mounted everything onto foam pads and that's it!

I don't know why I love red and white together, I just think it looks gorgeous!

Anywho, hope you like it!

Erica

=)

Saturday 29 March 2014

A Recipe to Take Note Of!

Hello! Hope you're all alright and having a nice weekend so far?

I'm at my Mum's again this weekend to help her (hopefully) finish sorting and organising her new craft room; she's got to the point where she can't really move anything without someone to help and she needs more bookshelves up etc, etc so I'm back again! It's also Mother's Day over here in the UK tomorrow

It's my last 'Biggest Fan For March' post today for Bugaboo Stamps *sniff sniff* but it's been really good fun and I really enjoyed taking part in the challenges.

Well, this week it's a 'Recipe' challenge hence the first half of the title of this post, and I decided to make a little sticky note holder, hence the second half of the title! (I was clutching at straws a bit with this one! Ha ha!)

The Recipe is 4 Layers, Ribbon, Flowers.

And here's what I made (Please ignore the grey 'smudge' in the pictures, it's actually the shadow from the flower!):
I used Stella Tidbits - Drown Your Troubles, which I actually laughed at quite loudly when I saw it! =)
I used Matchmakers 'Brights' 12 x 12 Cardstock Stack from DCWV for the holder; the four layers I used were pink, orange, purple and aqua and if they look more luminous that 'bright' that's because they are! They definitely didn't look quite so day-glow on the website I bought them from!

I coloured her with Promarkers (oddly enough!): Apricot, Arctic Blue, Azure, Emerald, Gold, Honeycomb, Lush Green, Magenta, Maroon, Mulberry, Sky Blue, True Blue, Plum and Pumpkin.

As I've said before, I don't really do flowers so I decided to just add a little one in her hair to make her look nice a tropical!

I wasn't sure where to put the ribbon so I snuck it onto the spine of the cover to make it a little more interesting!

I even stuck come magnetic tape to the back so it could live on the front of the fridge!

Anywho, hope you like it!

Back to shifting boxes for Mum!

Erica

=)

Thursday 27 March 2014

Rocking Horse for Baby Ella

Hello!

Hope everyone's alright? I've just got a very quick post today to show you a card I made a little while ago for my landlady and landlord who had a baby girl, Ella, a couple of months ago.


I used the adorable little Rocking Horse stamp from Lili of the Valley (of course!) which is my favourite of the baby stamps. The papers are from 'Animal Antics' by First Edition and have lots of really cute little animal and baby type designs.

I coloured her with Promarkers but unfortunately can't remember which!

Hope you like her!

Erica

=)

Saturday 22 March 2014

It's Photo Time at Bugaboo!

Hi everyone, hope you're alright?

First day of Spring on Thursday so I'm hoping the weather's going to get a bit better because I really want to get some gardening done; I bought some lovely new perennials yesterday so I'm hoping to get them in this weekend!

Anywho, it's time for a photo challenge over at Bugaboo Stamps and this week the inspiration is...


...and here's the card I made...


Isn't this little guy so adorable?! He's called 'Lion Topper' and he is so gorgeous you just want to scratch his ears!
I decided to keep it quite simple and use three different papers from a Lily Bee Design 'Memorandum' pad and popped them on foam pads with the middle strip slightly lower than the other two.
I fussy cut the lion (almost losing a few whiskers along the way!) and mounted him on to more foam pads to make him extra dimensional.


I coloured him with Promarkers in Caramel, Cocktail Pink, Mustard, Raw Sienna and Sandstone.
I made the sentiment in Word using the 'Chalkboard' font which I think is a standard font on the Mac and popped the lion on top so he was peaking over the edge!

Hope you like him and don't forget to check out the fabulous DT inspiration over at Bugaboo!

Erica

=)

Friday 21 March 2014

A Little Bit 'Supernatural'

Hi everyone! Hope you're alright?

I realised the other day that I'd completely forgotten to show you the Christmas present I made for my sister.

Now, we're both a weeny bit obsessed quite like a programme called Supernatural, my favourite character is called Dean played by the gorgeous Jensen Ackles and my sister's favourite character is Cas (pronounced 'Cass' not 'Caz'!) played by the equally gorgeous Misha Collins so I decided I'd make her a mini Cas doll for Chrimble.

I'd never made anything like this before so it took a while to figure out how I was going to make both Cas and then his clothes but I think I managed to pull it off quite well.
On the plus side, it did mean that I got to stare at this lovely man for quite a while to figure it all out!

From: http://www.supernaturalwiki.com/index.php?title=File:Castiel.jpg
And here's the little guy himself!

Isn't he so cute! I'm so pleased with the way he came out and I didn't think his hair was too far off.

I decided to leave out his suit jacket this time as I didn't know if the trench coat would go on over the top.

showing off his coat tie and collar...

...his cute little tie...

...he even has little cuff buttons!

I didn't think to sew his hair down all the way round before sewing him together and turning him inside out so it ended up a bit ruffled and sticks out at the back.

I did really enjoy making him so I'll definitely be doing others like this but I think, as this wasn't as horribly boring or time consuming as I thought, I'll be including more little details next time.


Hope you like him!

Erica

=)

Saturday 15 March 2014

Bugaboo BINGO!

Hello everyone, hope you're all alright?

Just a quick post today for this week's challenge over at Bugaboo Stamps as I've got to show a potential new housemate around later! 

This week it's BINGO!


And here's the card I made:


I used the left hand column of the BINGO grid; ribbon-text paper-scallop. I used dotty ribbon from my stash, text paper from LOTV's Candles and Cake pad and Spellbinders A2 Curved Borders One for the wavy scalloped bottom to the paper. The red backing paper is also from the Candles and Cake pad.


I used the one of Bugaboo's wonderful Stella digis for the image, 'Make it Snappy - Stella Birthday Old Fart' and coloured here with Promarkers Aegean, Amber, Apricot, Berry Red, Blush, Bright Green, Carmine, Cyan, Grey Green, Honeycomb, Leaf Green, Maroon, Marine, Mulberry, Oatmeal, Plum, Poppy, Pumpkin, Salmon Pink, Sunflower, Tea Green, Turquoise, Warm Grey 4, Warm Grey 5 and Yellow.
I also added some Glossy Accents to her glasses and the balloons to give them a bit of shine.

Anywho, hope you like it, I'm off the finish tidying!

Erica