crafts – Page 2 – where the journey takes me 2

November 26, 2019

dear dairy :: more celebrations

Hello everyone, I thought I would be back sooner than this but I have had no time to even switch on the computer in the last week or so. I moved from the 1st birthday event to preparing for the christening, the Crisis Christmas coffee morning at my local church, and my daughter’s move to her new house. Phew!

After spending two years in the middle of nowhere, other than a few isolated farms in the distance, my daughter moved to a nearby tiny village with people and neighbours around her. We will all miss these stunning views she had from her house across the valley and over the resevoir but it really is far more covenient where she is now and for the first time little L will have playmates around. These might be my last pictures of Leighton resevoir – the reflection of the bridge in the water was just superb.

So the weekend before last saw me scrubbing out her new rental property ready for the move last Thursday and for most of that time I had my head in the oven – never have I seen one that was so bad on the inside – even a bottle full of cleaner could not shift the welded on grease and grime on the roof of the oven. After all that cleaning the oven does not appear to work and there is a missing rubber seal round the top oven door. So the appliance man has been called for by the landlord, but I have said to push for a new oven as I would condemn that one as not fit for purpose.

With our part in the move completed I turned my attention to creating something to sell at the Crisis coffee morning which took place last Saturday morning…the day before the christening. Time was quite tight with so much to do so it had to be something quick and easy and that I could make within an hour.

Remember the free pots I got from the lady in the village where our cottage is? I used six of these and a bag of 18 mixed tulip bulbs from Sainsbury’s for £3 to fill them. I stuffed each pot with a little crumpled newspaper and made up a cellophane bag (those that birthday cards are wrapped in) containing three bulbs – added a hand stamped label and nestled the pack of bulbs on the top……tied a piece of raffia around and …voila.

Most of last week was spent baking for the christening on Sunday. I made batches of fruit scones and cheese scones and three different quiches. Most of the other food was bought from M&S or local farm shops.

All was going well until we had a phone call from the vicar to say that the church boiler had broken down…is irreparable and warned us the church would be very cold during the christening and we might want to warn people to wrap up well.

It could only happen to us!!

And this was no understatement – it was freezing even though we were huddled together wearing thick coats, goves and scarfs (and in some cases with blankets over our knees and a hot water bottle for my poor mum). You could visibly see the congregation’s breath in the air as anyone spoke, and never have I seen steam coming off the water in the baptism font! A kettle of hot water had been added to warm it up a bit before ladelling over the baby’s head…..but little Freddie was so good and hardly flinched.

We had him wrapped up cosily in a warm shawl – here are the proud parents and Little L holding the baptism candle for her cousin.

The church ladies had baked our little party a few buns and made us a welcome cup of tea after the service which was such a nice guesture and helped to stave off the cold for a while. Once we were all in the heated village hall for the christening buffet we all began to thaw out a bit.

I was too busy on the day organising and laying out the food for our guests to take any photos of the hall with all the tables laid out – shame as it did look lovely – but I have a few pictures taken whilst I was making up the little jam jars of posies for the table settings and having a practice run at home the day before.

I used more of the ‘free’ pots for each of the five tables as centre pieces and filled them with dried hydrangea heads, carefully hiding the battery pack of the string of fairy lights in each pot.

We deliberately decided against the traditonal baby blue colours and instead chose muted autumnal heather colours of the dried hydrangeas. The posies of fresh flowers, hypericum berries, eucalyptus and thistle gave us the rich dark purple tones highlighted with a few cream roses and lisianthus.

The effect was just what we wanted and the warm glow from the candle votives and dotted fairy lights surrounding each centre piece really gave the whole room a lovely cosy autumn feel.

Everyone enjoyed the day – it is always lovely when all the family from both sides can come together for a catch up – we even had a cousin come all the way from Somerset.

So now it is time for a rest for a day or two and get my house back in order – then it is back up to North Yorkshire again next weekend to my sister’s to attend the talent show in her local village hall. My sister is taking part with her ‘secret’ talent but has also volunteered to replace a person who cannot make it – she is not sure what this person’s talent is yet but I hope that person is not the knife thrower….even worse…. the knife thrower’s assistant!!!

I have a lot of catching up to do in blogland as I have no idea what all of you have been up to – normal commenting from me should be resuming shortly!

Have a lovely week and welcome to my new followers. x

September 17, 2019September 18, 2019

beaching :: getting used to this slower life

We started in the garden early today, well early for us; the sun was shining and we didn’t want to miss the opportunity so we had breakfast then I did a few floor exercises, as I have done every day, to loosen up the tight lower back muscles; not easy to do squeezed in between the table legs and the seating (space is hard to come by in a caravan),

It was back to weeding around the pond today, what you can see of the pond, as over the summer we had a bit of a primula explosion amongst other things. DH took off the leggy branches of the Fuschia that overhung the pond – shame – but it had grown into a tree and really got far too high but it will grow quickly again next year. In fact we are feeling a little exposed in places now as we have pruned many a tree and bush over the course of the week – some of our plants must be suffering from shock after being plunged suddenly into the sunlight.

After lunch we read, I actually dozed off for a while – unintentionally of course. We decide a brisk walk to the village would waken us up; as the tide was in we had to go by the road rather than along the beach. For a change we took the main high road past all the houses – I like to have a nosy now and again to see what everyone is up to. There are always plenty of new delights to spot.

We walked up to the village store and bought an ice cream and fresh rolls – I resisted the temptation to buy one of the Christmas magazines on display – each one had a few free goodies enclosed in the plastic wrapper and I could have chosen between chocolate moulds (might be handy) or coasters and any number of those rubber stamps and dies; but it still felt a little early so I put them back and just bought cake – Eccles cakes – my favourite.

We then strolled on down to the harbour and along the shore road cutting through the little garden of the end cottage (they don’t seem to mind) that takes you down through the sand dunes and onto the beach. By now the tide had receded enough for us to get back round the bay to our cottage.

I love hunting for little treasures amongst the pebbles, bits of sea glass, unusual stones and shells – it is amazing what you find. Today I collected a few small pearl shells and an empty crab shell.

As the tide had only just gone out the sand was all rippled and I managed to capture the photo above where the wind was blowing the shallow water in ripples across the sand.

Once home and a cup of tea later I went foraging around the garden collecting flower heads and berries. Even though I forgot to pack my flower press I didn’t want to miss out on some of the colourful flowers that are in bloom at the moment. The fiery oranges of the monbretia appears everywhere in our garden and certainly cheers up the dark corners – it makes wonderful confetti too when the petals are dried. The pretty blue campanula is still scrambling around and flowering – brilliant ground cover and so dainty.

In the absence of my press I had to improvise by using the pages of my moleskin gardening notebooks to sandwich the petals between. I will transfer them into my press when we get home.

These pretty hydrangea petals are even lovelier when they start to get the speckled vintage look. I had the idea that I might make some cards and gift tags with them, it is a long time since I made pressed flower cards so I am looking forward to having a go again. Time willing!

Tomorrow will be a final rush around the garden to finish off what we can before we go home. As always we could just do with another week here.

Hope everyone is having a good week – and welcome new followers.

April 12, 2019May 3, 2019

crEAting ~ simple Easter cards

Before I begin apologies for the photo quality – I was losing the light by the time I took the pictures.

If you remember from one of my previous posts (click here) I had covered a number of blank cards in a variety of pretty papers from my craft pile to try to use them up. I set aside one or two to finish as Easter cards. This time, rather than buy the preprinted ‘greetings’ labels, I made my own on the computer and printed them out onto some card.

If you want to make your own I use a Microsoft word document where you can select a text box, a font design and a suitable size of type for the card. I then add a border around the greeting and once printed cut the labels out carefully, almost but not quite, to the border line leaving a small white edging.

I selected colours to match in with the prints and used different typefaces. I also added a ribbon decoration to some of the cards to finish them. Extremely simple and easy to make but I quite like the simplicity.I was then left with these little card motifs in my craft box of embellishments… Cute little cut out Easter pictures… I am not even sure where they came from but I have had them for years now and they have escaped going into the give away box once or twice. So this time it was either use them or lose them.

I stuck the rabbit, chicken and sheep onto the Easter egg shapes and then placed them onto a small square card blank. There was no room to add a printed greeting so I decided to use my little alphabet stamps and just stamp straight onto the card. There was no need to be too exact – I actually like the lettering more when it is a bit wonky!Once dry I stuck the little motif in place and voila….…these little bits have now made four delightful little Easter cards for the children – Libbie, Sweetie, Freddie and my great-nephew.On the back of each card I make I have a little stamp to say it is home-made. This one is my favourite from Vista print and given to me by my daughter one birthday, but I do have some rubber stamps too.Remember the birthday card made from a piece of decorative packaging I found – it may have been an old Panettone box from Christmas or something – I followed the design and embellished it with some of those stick on jewels in golds and rich purple colours. As well as stamping on the back of the card I often make a printed slip for the inside with a message. I think it gives a more finished look to a card and although I didn’t have time for this one, as I had to get it in the post, they do look lovely if you add a print too using a rubber stamp.So even if you do not have any expensive equipment you can make some really simple cards using any decorative paper or card, a Pritt stick, some double-sided tape and a sharp knife. If you do not have a printer you can buy sheets of greetings labels; but equally you could get a rubber stamp and stamp onto some plain card and then add a border and cut out.

I am enjoying doing a few more creative things when I have the time and it does reduce the mountain of crafty bits and pieces I have been storing all these years – I was thinking of getting rid of some of it but that seemed a shame when in an afternoon I can make something useful. I like the challenge of creating something from very little so I think my next project will be using up scraps from junk mail, magazines and even the decorative parts of the inside of an envelope to make some cards.

A day spent creatively sticking and stamping. x

March 24, 2019May 3, 2019

crEAting ~ turning scraps and off cuts into cards

I must be on a bit of a roll creating things. On Sunday afternoon I sat down with a box of card blanks and a pile of decorative papers of one sort or another to make some cards.

Normally, I would make cards from some of my own paintings and sketches. This is one I often make for friends and family celebrating a special milestone birthday. It is a concertina card with a verse running through it and folds up into a little keepsake book. You could easily make something similar using some of those ready printed pictures on sale in craft shops. …but I wanted to use up the some of lovely scraps of papers I have collected over time and do something rather different.

I especially like the fact that I am saving money at the same time as saving the planet by recycling pieces of old wrapping paper (you know those little bits that are too small to wrap a present) and cards that are given to me, and even nice pieces of printed cardboard from packaging items.

Anyone can make these cards it only takes some card blanks and a roll of the double-sided tape, a Pritt stick and scissors (though I would strongly recommend a ruler and a scalpel for a sharper clean-cut). You do not need any specialist equipment or any expensive craft papers.

The cards below are made from some lovely wrapping paper I had with delightful paintings of china teacups. These off cuts were too nice to throw away so I made each of the cups into a card. The two smaller cards are firstly covered in a piece of decorative backing paper that come in packs or pads from craft shops as it is a good weight to stick thinner wrapping paper onto; then the teacup picture is stuck on top of this in the centre and finally I cut some striped paper into thin strips and made a simple border to complete. The larger one is made by using one of those blank cards with a pre-cut window – so you mount the picture behind the window – very useful for cross stitched panels – in this case it nicely frames the teacup. The two below are actually made from some lightweight card packaging – I can’t even remember now what the packaging came with but again I saved it thinking it would come in handy for something. I was able to make matching tags too and I will add a greeting or other embellishment when I find something suitable.The next two are made by recycling cards that were given to me. I cut the front off the card on the left and placed some pearl pink paper behind before sticking it down on a card blank. The one on the right is a card front stuck onto one of those accordion card blanks and I will decorate the inside of this too by adding some suitable prose. For these and the ones above I used the double-sided tape here rather than Pritt stick to stick one onto the other as the old cards and packaging I am sticking down are a heavier weight than the papers I used on some of the smaller cards.Once I began there was no stopping me and it was one of those afternoons when you really feel you are ‘in the flow’ if you are familiar with the expression.

Whilst in The Range I bought a packet of those ready printed messages that say – Happy Birthday or Thank you just to embellish them a little.

So I added a little greeting to some of them – but some I will leave blank and then when I need a card I can add the most appropriate greeting at the time. Others I will make into Easter cards if I can find some Easter greetings in town. Most of these are just the tiny Papermania cards – just less than 4″ square – and although very simple I think they are quite effective and a good way of using up old papers. So far I have made about twenty-five but I have card blanks and papers to do many more.