Good day sunshine!

Hello and happy Wednesay to you :) We are being treated to a glorious day of sunshine here in  Ireland after the weeks of rain and gale force winds!

Today I would like to show you a layout I created and framed for a present. It includes a photo of my two cheeky girls ;)

Recipe:

7 Dots Studio - Night's Fever paper for right background

Tim Holtz Sizzix Honeycomb die

KaiserCraft Clear Stamps "You!"

Project Life Journal card (numbered 1-9 on Left side)

From my stash:

Red card to layer the photo, buttons and gems.

Thank you so much for stopping by, hope you have a wonderful day :)

Eithne

Die-ing for Spring challenge CFTC

Hello :) I am still here, and only now getting back to blogging! I've been blogging over on my challenge blog, Craft for the Craic. Been a crazy few months, but now hopefully things are calming down.

Over at Craft for the Craic this month, the challenge is "Die-ing for Spring or an Easter theme". Here is the card I made for the challenge:

 I used a Bigz lace die, a tag die and the Happy Birthday tag die. I also used a doily lace cut out in lime green, in the background.

 Also used some vellum, and stamped the music notes onto it, and used the music washi tape. (Every project seems to need washi tape ;) ) 

 I cut out the age, 11,  with some glitter foam and used a butterfly charm tied on with bakers twine. I also used some green thread to add some texture by sewing.

 Layering some flowers, and using a gem as the centre piece really makes it pop! The cerise pink paper in the background was embossed and torn to create a non uniform backdrop.

Of course I couldn't resist adding some embellishments and buttons for a bit of dimension!

Hope you have a wonderful Friday, and thanks so much for popping by. If you are doing some crafting and it meets the challenge theme, why not give it a go?

Happy Crafty Friday!

Eithne

Craft for the Craic's May Challenge

Hello and welcome :) Hope you are enjoying your Friday, wherever you are :) Today the new challenge for Craft for the Craic goes live, and the theme this month is 'Something for a baby'.

At the beginning of last month, my niece Anna was born. I made this for her, and that in time she could put it up in her bedroom.

I used a combination of papers, tore them and stuck them onto some cream board at the back. It created a patchwork affect. Then I punched the elephant paper into the circle, inked it and stuck it down in the middle. Using two different tones of vellum, I created an area for Anna's name to go. I cut out Anna's name with the same board as per the base (although it is rather hard to see, it is so well covered ;) ) I sewed some pink thread up each side, and stuck down a serious of buttons, gems and other bling.

I created this flower with some quilled paper and a flower embellishment.

My aim is to make Anna's older sister, a similar, but not so 'babyish' one, so in years to come when they are sharing a bedroom, it will be fair!! ;)

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hoped you like my creation. Why not pop over to Craft for the Craic and join in, in the challenge?
I hope to enter a few challenges.

Have a brilliant weekend, in Ireland we have a long weekend! Woohoo!!
Happy Crafting,
Eithne

Craft for the Craic Challenge #2

Hello, thank Crunchie it's Friday :D :D :D Today the new challenge over at Craft for the Craic begins. This month, in honour of St. Patrick, our Irish patron saint, the theme is:

Our challenges are open to ANYTHING crafty or arty - cardmaking, scrapbooking, altered art, crochet, knitting, sewing, baking, painting, drawing, candle making, jewellery making, whatever makes you craft or be creative we would like to see it!

I made a folder as a gift for a friend. (they have yet to receive it as I'm making cards to fit inside!)

This started out as a rather large sheet of SRA3 card (450mm x 320mm) which I then folded and cut down to the final size of 260mm x 150mm.

Here are some side profile pictures.

I round cornered the edges, and corner punched some green card for the front. I die cut a doily from a Sizzix Bigz die.

I then proceeded to embellish - 

I embossed a tag, and used a wooden word 'live' to it. I undid the twine on the tag and threaded through a flower and button.

I used a strip of the left over base card for the punched border in the background.  I punched and die cut some flowers of different shapes and designs, layered them and used either flat backed pearls, buttons or swirls as the centre piece.

Thank you so much for stopping by. Why not visit the rest of the design teams projects -

Michelle - Emily - Katya - Geraldine - Pixie/Margaret - Sylvie

or give the challenge a go?

Have a wonderful Friday and a fantastic weekend :)

Happy crafting,

Eithne :)

Craft for the Craic #1

Hello again,
Hope you are enjoying your weekend :)
Here is a step by step of the card I made for the first challenge on the new challenge blog I started, Craft for the Craic. Have a look at Michelle's beautiful projects and why not take part?!

This is the card I made, it's an A5 landscape card. First I used some distress ink and a mask to do the dots on the background.

With a heart doily I inked the edges with the same ink. Using my nested dies, I cut out the largest heart shape and a smaller one within the large heart. Roughened the edge of the heart with a broken scissor (very advanced tools I use :D ) and then inked the edges with the same distress ink as per the background and doily.

 I also die cut out the doily from a different paper pad that had complementary shades. 

I got these beautiful wooden words as a Christmas present, and couldn't wait to use them on a project! It worked really well with the colours and shades of this card.

 I am a huge fan of washi tape. I LOVE LOVE LOVE it! This is a roll I got to push myself out of my usual colour comfort zone. The shades of peachy/pink and light teal are not a colour combo I would use often, if ever, so it was a great way to adventure with it. I cut the arrow edge on it, and did the inverse of it on the top left hand corner (photo below)

I couldn't make a card without some buttons, so I glued some in the middle of the die cut heart. I remember years ago some bride-to-be informed me that, anything wedding wise/love should have three - it represents three words 'I love you'. But alas, I am not that romantically-inclined and just felt the uneven number suited the look of the card!! :D

Thanks for stopping by, and would love you to join in the challenge.

Have a wonderful, crafty day :D

Eithne

Birthday wishes to Anita :)

Happy Birthday Anita! Today's post is part of a surprise blog hop for Anita. It is her birthday today, and as a surprise all her design teamies made a birthday card. This is the card I made:

I was spoiled this Christmas with beautiful gifts, a lot of them crafty stuff :) How blessed I am! With a few new supplies, I decided to try and incorporate them. I got this beautiful washi tape, and HAD to use it. The colour combo is not one I would usually use, so I decided to work with it.


I embossed some grey paper with one of my favourite embossing folders - Cuttlebug honeycomb folder. With some pink art paper I punched the edge with a Martha Stewart punch ( I used this same punch for the border on the inside sheet)

Using my Sizzix Framelits 'Label, Ornate no. 2' I die cut with the largest and 3rd largest die. I cut the smaller shape for an opening, and folded it back on itself. I purposely used double sided paper to show the reverse side. (I normally can't stand to use double sided paper as I feel it's such a waste to hide one side when it's stuck down!)

I stamped the sentiment onto some white board, and die cut it out. I got some pink bakers twine and threaded through the tag die cut, and also looped a charm through it.

For the bottom right hand corner, I added three buttons and a flat back pearl, in colours to complement the card.

Please check out all the other beautiful cards on the surprise blog hop, from my design teamies!

Lucy

Lisbeth

Net

Debs

Rebecca

Teresa

Lynne

Nicola

Sian

Darcy

Ashley

Fiona

Jacqui

Me! ====> You are here!

Pam

Sylvia

Sara

So Anita, wishing you a wonderful day, and hope today is a great day, filled with laughter, fun, happiness and LOTS of cake. ;)

Eithne

x

Use your craft stash

Good morning, and happy Monday to you! Hope everyone survived the weekend ok :)

This week over at Through the Purple Haze Challenges, we have a new challenge 'Use your craft stash'. This week we have two kind sponsors - Encino Stamps kindly sponsoring digi stamps for first, second and third and My Mums Craft Shop sponsoring a £10 gift voucher for in store.

We got to work with some beautiful digis this week from Encino Stamps. Here is what I made with mine:-

As per usual, I didn't have a photo to fit the Love Love Love frame! This 8 x 8" layout is for my two little girls bedroom, so I'm going to get a lovely photo of the two of them and frame it.

 This paper pack I bought when I first fell in love with paper ;) I LOVE the colours, but I am sometimes afraid to use it!! Last year a good friend of mine gave me another pack of the paper, so I am trying to use it, because the patterns and bold colours are a joy to use!

 

Here's the beautiful Gerlinde painted and ready to work with.

Here is the beginning of the layout.

 I have some silver glitter glue since the beginning of time!! I normally don't have the patience to use it as it is quite thick and takes a while to dry. As the frame was separate from the layout, it allowed me to continue working, without destroying the glue (as per usual, I quickly forget it's still wet!)

Some lovely bright coloured buttons to complement the rest of the layout.

 This hearts I have quite some time. The biggest one had a slight blemish on it, so I decided to use pink glitter glue this time.

I decided to keep with lovely fresh, bright colours and love how all the colours work well, although conventionally I wouldn't use them together. From now on, for kiddies projects I'll definitely combine this colour palette. I think it lends itself and is beautifully bright!

I am in the process of doing a step by step of how I made this project, so please call back on Wednesday to see it :)  (If I'm really adventurous I might even make a small video save having a 40 photo post!!! )

I hope to enter this into some challenges.
1) Anyting but a card - Craft my Life
Why not give Through the Purple Haze Challenge a go? Great prizes up for grabs :)

Thanks for stopping by, hope you have a wonderful day.
Eithne

All you Need is Love :)

This week over at Eclectic Ellapu, the challenge is "Inspired by a Song". I chose 'All you Need is Love" by the Beatles, can you see the title in the tag on the right hand side? When I was about 12 I discovered The Beatles. My Dad had some old LP's and my cousin copied them onto cassettes. I also had the score for 'Abbey Road', and being fascinated by how the music was written, I used to listen to the music while looking at the score. Oooh goodness, what that started was a mega, mega, mega love of the Beatles music.

Unfortunately/fortunately ALL of my family also had to endure my love of their songs, so all five younger siblings and my parents got to know EVERY. SINGLE. WORD. from all the albums :) What a great attribute, right? I educated them and bombarded them with the Beatles at every possible occasion - I sang the songs and played along on piano or guitar, I listened in the car to the music, I watched all the Beatle movies, I read any book or magazine I could find on them. I truly became obsessed with The Beatles. Thankfully, a few years after I discovered the Beatles they came back in vogue, and the whole world (well almost) went a little Beatle mad again :) :) :)

Whilst on holidays a year ago, I came upon a stamp set 'Love Love Love' and with 'All You Need is Love' in a gigantic craft shop. I could not pass it. Then a while back I registered for a challenge through Crafting Ireland in conjunction with Daintree Wedding Hub. It was to create a wedding project. When I got more details regarding the challenge, I soon found out I needed to heavily base my project on some papers and ribbon I received from Daintree Wedding Hub. I received beautiful handmade papers, and three different ribbons, all in a brown/copper/cream tones. I decided to make something for myself, rather than a gift for someone. This is the photo from my wedding day, over 6 years ago! My how time flies!! ;-)

The tag - the song inspiration for my frame.

I die cut a circle frame from the kraft paper and embossed it. To highlight the embossing I inked it up a little. 

A canvas flower cut out that I inked up to colour it, and used some skeleton leaves, and ribbon flowers to add a few layers.

In the sunlight you can see the glitter and highlights on the paper.

Thanks for stopping by today. Why not pop over and take part in the challenge?

I would like to enter these challenges:

Autumnal Colours - http://mytimetocraftchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/

Autumn - http://ali-craft.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/ali-craft-monthly-blog-challenge-4.html

Autumnal Colours - Rogue Redhead Designs

Leaves are falling (skeleton leaves) - Creative Corner Challenges

Emboss it (the circle die cut frame is embossed) Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge 

Have a wonderful day :)

Eithne

Anything Goes Challenge at Through the Purple Haze Challenges

Hello fellow bloggers :)

Hope you are having a great day. I recently had the privilege of meeting up with a crafty friend. I had tried several times to visit, but it just never worked out. On my way home I was buzzing with all the ideas I hope to work on - the inspiration I came away with that day was incredible. Being able to talk through and share ideas was such an uplifting and inspiring time, I can't wait to go back on another visit. 

This week at Through the Purple Haze Challenges, there is an Indigo Blu challenge, and an Anything Goes sponsored by Joanna Sheen.

Having come back recently from holidays, and having seen my friends beautiful scrapbooked pages, I was determined to start scrapbooking my memories. So this weeks alternative challenge at Through the Purple Haze Challenges of Anything Goes, couldn't have been a better week to start! Here's what I started with:

A Zutter Cover All 8x8 Flat Spine White

Some strips of coordinating paper, and some white paper with a border punched out.

This is it all stuck down.

Some embellishments and die cut numbers.

One of these beautiful papers had a large image of the ice-cream in the corner. I cut it out and layered it with some cerise pink cardboard.

I cut out part of a photo from our holidays and punched a slightly larger blue card with the beautiful Martha Stewart corner punch.

I stuck the layered paper onto the cover, and stuck on the layered ice-cream.

I then stuck on some letters to spell "summer" and "2013". I also put some washi tape down where I would put the photo, just to make it interesting! ;-)

Here it is with the layered photo in place:

I found some lovely embellishments that tied in well with the colours. Whatever colour I needed for an embellishment, if I did not have something suitable, I just punched out a flower in the same card as the letters.

Finished product:

 So why not pop over and check out the blog "Through the Purple Haze Challenges", the first two challenges go live today 15th July at 10am GMT. There are some fabulous prizes up for grabs - for the Anything Goes the prize is some lovely Joanna Sheen goodies, and the prize for the Indigo Blu challenge (you can see my entry here) is an Indigo Blue prize.
Well worth a check!
I am entering this project in the following challenges
Challenges for everybody - anything goes
Pile it on Challenges - water 
Heck of a challenge - The Sea (1/8/13)
Our Creative Corner - Captured Memories
Seema Crafts - Holiday/Vacation
A*Muse Studio Independent - Summer theme

Anyway, that is all from me. Hope you are enjoying the summer weather, and thanks for stopping by
xxx