UK Stampers Random Swap.

Remember those 5 random items I received from Pat over at UK Stampers?

We were supposed to create something using them as the main focal point so here is my project.




I created a box with the card and a pin to go in it.

Here is the pin in the box. Below show the back of the pin. the pin was made using embossed black card.

this project was tricky and I was really stumped at first but I think I came out with something creative. I have completed another project but because it is a submission I cannot post it yet. I will post it as soon as I can. It is really cool. So before I go I wanted to remind you about my blog candy and yesterdays post that has a few questions I was asking. As always, thnaks for stopping by to take a look and have a wonderful day. Angela

Catching up.....

Wow what a week. It has been really tough catching up after being ill for so long but I think I am nearly there. A few more sewing projects (8 more skirts and 2 boys dance costumes)and I should be good. In the meantime I am trying to work on some other projects. Here are the 5 random items I received from Pat for the Swap I am in over at UKStampers Forum. Everyone had to send 5 random items to a person on the list. then that person has to make a project using those 5 items as the main focus of the project.

Hmmmm, This will be tough. I have played with the items and have the project about half done. I am somewhat stumped thoug as to how to continue at this point so I have put it aside for now.

So now that brings me to the main reason for this post. I want to start working on another tutorial but need a nudge as to what to make it on. So my questions are ..." What type of project would you like to see a Tutorial done on" and " What mediums would you like to see? " Your response to theses 2 questions is greatly appreciated and will help me decide what type of tutorial to post next.

If you leave me a comment with your response to these questions You will receive an extra entry into my blog candy. That would be 2 entries for today.

So now I must leave you as I return to my projects. My goal.....To complete at least one of these many projects started on my desk.

Have a wonderful weekend and thanks for stopping in.

Angela

Blog candy as promised.

I know this is a bit late in posting but I have still not gotten over this illness. Seems to be going around because alot of the kids at school are out too. Once I can get rid of this nasty cough I am sure I will feel alot better but until then I have been wiped out. So I really do apologise for being so late to post this it was not intentional just bad timing with getting sick.

Now for the blog candy. This will run until February 15(My driving test). You will get 1 entry for every comment left on this post and any ones after this. You will also get another entry if you are a follower or become one. Just mention this in your comment. There are 2 prizes being given away here. One is shown here:
This first candy includes a 24 pack of Anna Griffin specialty papers, Ribbons, Lace , Glitter, Diecuts, Stickers, Quotes, Feathers, Prima flowers, Sticky gems and a chipboard album.

The second candy pack is a Mystery Pack. It will consist of various coordinating items and one handmade item but it will be a surprise. (All good stuff I promise)
Your will automatically be entered into both so that doubles your chance of winning something.
Good luck and thanks for visiting. Have a wonderful day.
Angela

apology and Love Blog Award

First off I have to aplogise. I know I said I would post a blog candy giveaway at the end of last week. Unfortunately I have been ill and not been able to do so. I promise I will have it posted tomorrow. Now on another note.
I have been given and accepted this award from my blogging friend Brenda at Bumblebees and Butterflies. Thankyou Brenda, I really appreciate this.

Here are the conditions for the 'Love Blog' award


You have been TAGGED and want to participate?

Create a post where you post the 'LOVE BLOG' image.

You should also blog the person's link that gave you the award and inform her/him that you accept the award.
You can then choose 3 - 5 favourite blogs which you also link in your post, then each blogger will inform you that they have been tagged.

I would love to give this award to all my followers, who without them I wouldn't be here, but since there are rules to follow I am going to pass this on to these 3 people who I haven't shared awards with before but all deserve exposure because they create beautiful things.


Poppet - Crafting when I can.

Rachel - Allsorts and Everything.

Christina - Inara's Art

I hope they like the award, it is given with great respect for the work they do. The aim of this action is that we bring unknown, good blogs to light, so I would ask you not to blog fellow bloggers that already have 3,000 followers.

Thanks for stopping in and have a wonderful day. Angela

UK Stampers Journal Challenge Week 3 and more....

Its week 3 on UK stampers weekly journal challenge. This weeks Journal prompt is School Days. The 3 Requirements are:
1 Jot down 10 random things about your school days.
2 Use lined paper
3 Add some ink blots and doodle in the margin.
So here is my page,

I used Dylusions spray inks dropped on lined paper for the background mounted on black card. I also added a strip of Daisy D striped school days paper across the bottom. The stamp is from Tim holtz. I also used the spray caps dipped in white acrylic paint and black ink for the circle stamps. I doodled the swirls, stars and some other bits and edged the entire page with black ink.

Now for a bit of fun!
I have signed up for this after seeing it on Sam's Blog.
I promise something hand made to the first 5 people who comment on this post. However to be eligible, you must repost this status, offering something handmade to five other people. The rules are that it must be handmade (homemade) by you and it must be sent to your 5 people sometime in 2011.
Ready, set, GO!

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The first 5 people to leave comments get a handmade gift, no promises when, but soon, remember you have to do it too- so I shall check before I make it and if you have not paid it forward I shall move to the next person on the list that has commented.

Now I shall leave you with a picture of the beautiful flowers I received from a friend as a thank you for helping out. How sweet is that! They smell as beautiful as they look too.

Thank you for stopping in and I hope you might play along with me on th pay it forward. Have a wonderful day and don't forget I will be posting some blog candy later in the week.

Angela

Recovering from a long...........weekend.

What do you get when you combine 7 girls, Pajamas, Chocolate, Popcorn movies and sleeping bags????


No sleep, that's what!

This weekend we had my daughters birthday party which happened to be a sleepover. Her and 6 friends got to tell secrets, giggle and stay up all night. they were in their glory. Mom on the other hand needs sleep desperately. I thought they would crash out by maybe 1am????? who was I kidding. 5 of them fell asleep by 3:30am only to be up by 6:30 and the other 2 did not fall
asleep till about 8am.
They may be exhausted but at least they all had a great time.

Now having 7 girls for a sleepover I knew I would get no sleep so I had planned on some crafting time through the night as I waited for the girlie's to go to sleep. That thought however got snuffed out on friday as I sliced my finger at school. Aside from the pain it would not stop bleeding so I could not do as much as I wanted to. Even typing was slow going until today when the bandages came off. So no new projects as hoped but I promise tomorrow I will be crafting a bit. I have to make up for the weekend. Last but not least for a bit of news. Be sure to check in later this week for a Sweet candy giveaway. It will be worth a peek. Now it is off to bed to get some much needed rest. Thanks for stopping in and have a wonderful day.

Angela

UK stampers challeng journal week 2 and ATC's

Today I worked on my week 2 journal page for UK stampers weekly challenge. This weeks prompt word is GIFT

1 Your best gift? could be any occasion and any time

2 Your worst? " "

3 Include some recycled packaging / recycled card on your page.
So here is my page.



The background of the page is stamped using Anna griffin fancy diamond stamp in a harlequin pattern. I then wiped it with a baby wipe to soften the stamping. The image is cut from our 1997 Christmas card and is created from a painted image I had done of Belle that year. So that is my recycled card. I also added some red stitching with my sewing machine and some gold star ribbon at the top. I then foiled around the title and page edges.

Next project I worked on today were my ATC's for The Stamp Mans January swap. The theme this month is Rhymes and Tales. I chose Star Light Star Bright.

I cut out and added pop dots to the image and top grass layer to add dimension as shown above.

The stamp of the girl is from Stampin up and coloured with promarkers. The grass stamp is from Tim Holtz. For the background I sprayed Dylusions spray inks. The star burst is done with Smooch pearl and a star cut from ribbon in the middle. I could not decide how I liked the title so I put it on white card on and handwritten around the card edge on 1.

Thanks for stopping in and taking a peek. I hope you have a wonderful day.

Angela

The stamp man Challenge and blog hop.

Over at the Stamp Man Challenge blog they are having a Blog hop, challenge and award event going on until the 13th of January. I am a bit late in joining in due to some personal reasons and having a hard time choosing my project. You can check out everyones favourite projects of 2010 here. As I mentioned earlier I had a hard time choosing just one. My most favourite project was a book I did for Craft stamper but I cannot show that so I had to pick another. Everytime I sat down to look through my projects I just could not decide. It was between the layout I did of the Easter Mom passed away and the flower I worked on with the children for a teacher who was leaving the school. Well after much deliberating the flower won so here is my favourite project I have done in 2010. It is a pin for one of the teachers at school.

It is not as fancy as some projects but for me I will never forget why and how it was made. As many of you know I work at the local school as a volunteer. Well at the end of last term one of the student teachers was leaving to teach her on class at a new school. Now I had grown very close to this teacher and wanted to make something very special for her to remember her class by and that she could keep with her. We made her a scrapbook but I thought we needed something more personal. This teacher always wore big flower pins so we decided to make a pin with something from each child. Now since the kids were all only 4-6 years old we could not do anything too detailed so I brought in some stamps and inks and had each child stamp their own petal for the flower. Here is a picture of what they looked like.

After I trimmed them up and layered them onto sticky back canvas. I then inked the edges and coated them with a few layers of clear coat. Once dry they were layered on top of each other large to small and I punched a hole at the bottom through them all, then I fanned them around and scrunched them up. Finally I added a final coat of clear and a pin on the back. Oh yeah I had each child sign the front of their petal too. It really came out nicely and was a very special gift for the teacher. So this was my favourite project that I am able to show to you from 2010. I hope you enjoyed it now hope on over to the blog hop and check out all the other projects. Thanks for stopping in and have a wonderful day. Angela

some Scrapbooking and 3rd times a charm.

Today was the last day before the kiddies head back to school tomorrow so we spent the day crafting. Belle had to finish her invites for her B-day party and I re-did my Jan ATC's for UK Stampers ATC swap. I seemed to have misunderstood the criteria again so I am trying again. I am hoping that 3rd times a charm. Otherwise I am throwing in the towel.(just kidding). The other 2 layouts are some layouts I did from Sketches in Scrapbook Magazine.



The fairy ATC uses Flower Fairy stamp. Coloured with Promarkers . I stickled the wings with Diamond stickles. the background is a piece of scrap paper from my paper bin. the Butterfly ATC uses a Mesh stamped background embossed with Gold then colored with Distress inks. the butterfly is from Tim Holtz and stamped on napkin paper then decoupaged on. Same for the word DREAM. The flowers and grass are Tim Holtz stamped with olive chalk ink. My 3rd ATC is Colored and stamped with Distress Inks and accented with Smooch Pearl ink. The border is doodled. the stamps are Tim Holtz and Stampin up.
This page uses BoBunny Papers, Prima Poinsettia, Rubons from Daisy and glitter letters from Making Memories. The border stickers are Paper Whispers from Mrs Grossmans. The flourish is a Tim Holtz Die cut used on the paper backing from a Making memories package. The picture is from Belles first time helping Santa at our shoppe.

This layout uses Disney princess paper and Bazzill. the border is punched using a Fiskars punch. the letters are from Making Memories. The Disney paper clips are from EK Success and tied with little Yarn bits. the gems are Basic Grey and Doodle Brads are from Karen Foster. the Sticker(TinkerBelle) is from EK Success. This picture was taken At Walt Disney World when we were getting ready to leave. She thew such a fit we couldn't help but take a picture.

So that's all for today. Now to finish cleaning up for the night and head off to bed. I head back to work at school tomorrow. thanks for stopping in and have a great night. Angela

My first journal page of the year

Over at UK Stampers Forum the weekly challenge this year is to create a journal page by page. Each week there will be a new list of ingredients for the current page. Each page is to be 4X6

This weeks ingredients are:

1 Three things you want to achieve this year

2 Handmade background paper

3 A photograph.



So here is my first page.

My 3 goals are written around the time pieces.

1. Smile more.

2. Finish what I start.

3. Create more.

My photo is of my hand holding a paint brush. The background is stamped with clock stamps and Black and clear Perfect medium. then embossed with Moon glow Angel wings Turquoise. The definition stamps are from Stampin up and stamped on white napkins and decoupaged on. the butterflies are a Tim Holtz stamp and also stamped and Decoupaged.

Today we celebrated my daughters birthday by making a cake and homemade pizza and spending the day crafting together. Tomorrow brings the last day before the kiddies go back to school and of course another driving lesson for me. Only 2 more to go before my Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day. Angela

Remembering 2010 in pictures

Well Last night we spent playing monopoly at home with friends, eating snacks and drinking champagne well into the morning. It was such a fun relaxing evening and way to ring in the new year. The girls enjoyed the evening too playing games and such. I spent most of today going through my pictures and posts for 2010 and I have compiled a few snippets of pictures of the year and grouped them(This took most of today). I hope you may enjoy viewing them as I have enjoyed revisiting the year in my pictures.
First is a grouping of some of my favourite projects I created in 2010. Some of the descriptions have links if you would like to view more about it.

1. This is the first year I finally had time to make a birthday cake for Belle. She had a fairy party so the cake is filled with handmade sugar flowers and snowflakes.
2. A mini book I made about Belles trip to Disney the previous October.
3. This is one of my favourite pictures of my Nephew.
4. The start of my Miniature Scrapbook Shoppe. It is still in the works.
5. My first Art journal page I attempted.
6. Page I did using paint, chipboard and handmade lace flowers.
7. Beach album .
8. Altered dress form.
9. This project was made as a gift for my Dad from a Domino box. The door opened to reveal a foldout album.
10. This was a flower I did for one of the teachers who was leaving to another school. 11. Belles Christmas dress I made this year.
12. A Shabby design frame I made with a favourite Easter Pic of Belle.
13. Page I did of Belle for an Anything Goes challenge using “B” theme.
14. A card I made that won me a signed Tim Holtz On the Edge Die.
15. This is probably my favourite layout from the year . It has hidden journaling about the photo. I have finally begun to scrap some of these photos from that period in my life.

There is one more project that was probably my favourite I made this year as I put allot of special touches in it and it was for my husbands B-day. I had also submitted it to the stamper of the year contest for Craft Stamper Magazine. It was shortlisted for the Scrapbooker of the year category so I had to mail it in. It did not win but they are holding it for a possible later publication in 2011 so I am waiting until it is back to show it. Fingers crossed it will get published.

Next are some of my favourite ATC's and Tags I had done in 2010.


1. Seaside ATC’s for ATC Swappers July Swap.
2. These were my September ATC's for the Stamp Man ATC Swap. The card in the middle(blue)was featured ATC of the Month from The Stamp man.
3. Stamp Man Swaps October travel theme.
4. ATC Swappers Halloween theme.
5. Tag I made for the 12 tags of Christmas Day 5 by Tim Holtz.
6. Another tag made for Tim Holtz 12 tags of Christmas day 3.
7. ATC’s I made using my new Napkin Collage kit from US Artquest.
8. ATC’s made for ATC swappers May.
9. A Christmas ATC I made using stamps from The stamp man and Basic Grey.
10. My first tag I made for this years 12 Tags by Tim Holtz.

The next set are my top 5 places we visited throughout the past year.


1. Filey Beach UK
2. Brugges
3. Roslyn Chapel – Scotland
4. Edinburgh
5. Hilton Head South Carolina USA

And finally is a group of my favourite photos and things throughout 2010.



1. Angel of the North – Northern England
2. Belle and Casey get a visit together while we are in NJ.
3. Belle(Fish Whisperer) feeds the fish at Burnby gardens.
4. The girls do some paper fashion designing.
5. Lighting a candle in Our Lady church for Mom, Gram and others we lost.
6. Fishing with Grandpa in NC.
7. Belle learns to swim in the deep end !
8. Going to see the Chinese Circus.
9. The baby birds we had above our front door all spring.
10. A card the kids at school made for me for helping out in class.
11. Driving up the Eastern English coast.
12. Hummingbirds at Dads in NC that come right up to your face.
13. A beautiful album made for me by a dear friend.
14. During a trip to the states Belle makes “Ice Art” with icicles and food dye.
15. A beautiful Sunrise after days of snow.
16. My loyal furbaby who is always at my side.
17. Belle learns to use the sewing machine and makes a hat.
18. Finding out about some of my family heritage on a tour in Scotland.
19. Our Halloween Party with lots of scary party nibbles.
20. Kissing cousins……
21. Snowman number 2 during the big snow in December.
22. A shot of the ice on spider webs.


Well 2010 was definitely a year of changes. It was our first full year living over here in the UK. I have made some wonderful new friends here and been missing some good ones back home while also losing touch with some I though would be there. It's funny how things work out. 2010 brought ups and downs although more up than down. It was a year of reflection as I have had more time to myself to come to terms with losing my mother some years ago and the other things that accompanied those few years. I think in all though that it has been a good journey and helped me to move forward. Health issues were in question as 2010 began but were resolved and we managed to end the year on a healthy note for a change. I have managed to be able to keep several of my plants alive in 2010 also and even had to re pot them (this is a major thing for me as I normally kill any plant within a week). in 2010 I found a new inspiration working and volunteering with young children at school. I have found I really enjoy helping them to read and learn. it is so rewarding. I have also had more time to focus on my art and even to teach my crafts a bit and definitely focus on my blog. I have met so many wonderful people though my blogging(Some I hope will become long term friends) and found so much inspiration. there have been many wonderful swaps and a new found love of ATC's. In 2010 We learned that my Brother and SIL are expecting (this is truly a miracle and a very special one at that)their little bundle of joy should arrive very soon and I cannot wait. So while 2010 brought changes it was still one of the best years we have had in quite a long time.

I hope you have enjoyed my review of the year and have a wonderful new year.And
Thanks to all my blogging friends and followers for helping make 2010 such a wonderful year. I look forward to 2011. Angela