Morning and welcome to snippets Sunday!

Morning all,

 

Yesterday I was AWOL pretty much all day as I was meeting a couple of crafting and blogging buddys at the Stamp Attic in Wantage ... it was a nice run for my car, which normally just does short journeys. We had arranged to meet just before lunch, find somewhere nice to eat and natter and then .... SHOP! Want to see what mischief we got up to?

Who knew Wantage was so cute?

The scene of the planned SHOP!
How kind of the Stamp Attic to paint their store in my fave colour

They've even borrowed Geoffrey from ToysRUs and decorated for Christmas!!!

Are we having fun - you betcha!
We managed to persuade Wendy to take this pic of the three of us
I've cropped half of me from the pic - the other two know why!!!

My modest stash haul!!!

 

Apparently, we narrowly missed Anne (one of the LIM DT) who knew we were coming and "sort of" waited about in order that we could meet ..... but Cherry had got herself a bit lost and didn't get to meet us till 12:15 - first order of the day then turned out to be lunch!! So sorry to have missed you Anne and hope we might liaise our arrival better next time - now we know our way there! We went to the BUZZ CAFE and ordered our panini's for lunch - there was a bit of a delay because they ran out of one lunch item - we weren't rushed so just sat and nattered - imagine our surprise when they turned up with three complimentary slices of cake by way of an apology for the delay - how lovely and so much nicer as it was so unexpected too - thanks peeps ..... sadly, they don't have a web site so I can't post a link but they're in Mill Street just off the main Market Place - if you are in the vicinity.

I don't know where those few hours went - it didn't feel like long before we were waving goodbye and threatening to do it all again ... soon!

After a recent rummage (that involved the removal of drawers to see inside!) I found a lost image and thought I should use it again, sharpish, before I lost it again!

 

Over at Pixie's Crafty Workshop Di has launched her latest "snippets challenge", number 153 ...... so, here's my make this week, using said lost (and found) image :-
 

 

 

 

Materials used:

• White card snippets die cut in to 5cm diameter circles
• Blue card snippets and red card snippets die cut in to 6cm diameter scallop edged circles
• Craft Stamper free stamp image stamped on to white card using Versamark ink before liberally sprinkling razzle dazzle gold embossing powder and heat embossing
• Crop-a-dile used to punch small holes and set eyelets

 

Tags are such a great way to use up snippets and, at this time of year, EVERYONE needs tags!! I'm undecided whether to stamp "TO" and "FROM" on the reverse at this time or whether to wait and see how long the recipients names turn out to be!! It may just be easier to write it .... any thoughts peeps?

 

Can't believe it ... only one more sleep till December! How are you all doing with your Christmas preparation? I posted off the "foreign" cards so they will all, hopefully, arrive in plenty of time for the holiday - Royal Mail permitting. I weighed them all last weekend and just five envelopes (containing seven cards) cost me £7.34 to mail!!! Be assured I shall be reviewing my mailing options in 2015! What a price?!?!? Thank heaven's I've not that many parcels to post this year. I see Royal Mail are already setting our expectations for parcel deliveries - you might want to think about mailing earlier rather than later .... I sent my last packet using MyHermes - worked like a charm!

Edited to add: Woke up to a real pea souper this morning, so glad it wasn't like that for yesterday's foray ..... it's now 09:00 and still looks like this - normally we can see houses and trees in the middle distance!

 

 

Have a great Sunday everyone

 

Saturday and challenge day!!!

Morning all,

 

The Purple Princess is away from her desk today ..... and where (you may well ask) am I? Well, I'm meeting up with two crafting pals at the Stamp Attic in Wantage .... we'll shop and "do" lunch and natter and maybe shop some more!!! Wish us luck .... I imagine our credit cars are already cowering in our wallets! The three of us are leaving our partners at home and on self catering duty - those of you who know me personally will know this is no hardship to my hubby as he does over 90% of the catering in our house anyway!

 

Before I go though ... a little crafting to share with you - it's been a dry week on the crafting front and I blame Cherry!!! She set a monthly challenge over on Craftbubble 2½ (registration required) to produce something featuring both FOOD and SHADING. Now it's not that I didn't like this challenge more like I simply couldn't make a decision .... Christmas/non Christmas, Pro Markers/water colouring ..... I went with water colouring and then thought brushos/Distress Inks? See what I mean? I've even gone for shades of green ... simply because I hardly ever do and I do have quite a few greens in my armoury! - but ... actually? I really like it. Some of you may even recognise who this card may be for but it will involve keeping it a while!  Initially, I wasn't sure about the water colouring process but wanted to give it a go ... I'm just a little disappointed with the "bleed" around the neckerchief but, all in all, I'm pretty pleased with it.
 

 

My card

 

 

And a closer view which I hope will show some shading - chefs whites presented me with an issue but
D.I. weathered wood came through for me!

And my co-ordinating insert and envelope

Materials used:

• 15cm square white, 250gsm, card blank and matching sized envelope
• 14cm square panel of white and light green card
• Offcuts of black and green card for matting and layering
• Art Impressions "chef" image stamped on to water colour card and using Ranger Archival jet black ink
• Kaisercraft sentiment stamped using Ranger Archival jet black ink
• Distress Inks: antique linen, peacock feathers, iced spruce, weathered wood, black soot, wild honey, picked raspberry, squeezed lemonade and salty ocean - applied water colour style with a brush
• Crafters Companion Spray and Shine to protect and seal the water colouring

 

I'll be entering this card for the following challenges:

1. Craftbubble's CMLI group Monthly Challenge - "Food and Shading"
2. CASology - "EAT"
3. Southern Girls Challenge - "CELEBRATE" - who doesn't celebrate birthdays?
4. Simply Less Is More - 200th challenge!!! - "CELEBRATE - as above

 

Have a fab Saturday - I know I plan to! And, since it's only two more sleeps till December, I was rummaging in the box for the Christmas cards and came across some battery operated lights and my fibre optic USB tree so they're UP!!! SORRY!

 

 

 

Welcome to the last Friday in November!! And, of course, the Friday Funny

Morning peeps

 

Hubby had a funeral to attend yesterday, which went as well as these things ever do ... seems to be "that time of year" again as I fear I may have one to attend next week. We already had a lunch planned, with friends, and had to head off immediately after said funeral .... we met our friends here, and enjoyed a great catch up with our friends as well as a pretty tasty lunch!

All in all it's been a funny old week with not too much crafting ... aside from a handful of tags .... long story short? No craft project to share with you but I hope you will stop by and leave me a cheery comment anyway peeps. 

 

And now for this week's Friday Funny, brought to you this week courtesy of Wynneth - thanks mate, you're in the draw.

 

 

Drunk Driver : A story from Australia.

Drunk Driving....THIS is absolutely brilliant! Only an Aussie could pull this one off!

A true story from Mount Isa in Queensland .

Recently a routine Police patrol car parked outside a local neighbourhood pub late in the evening. The officer noticed a man (Luke Sandery) leaving the bar so intoxicated that he could barely walk.

The man stumbled around the car park for a few minutes, with the officer quietly observing. After what seemed an eternity and trying his keys on five vehicles. The man managed to find his car, which he fell into. He was there for a few minutes as a number of other patrons left the bar and drove off. Finally he started the car, switched the wipers on and off (it was a fine dry night). Then flicked the indicators on, then off, tooted the horn and then switched on the lights.

He moved the vehicle forward a few metres, reversed a little and then remained stationary for a few more minutes as some more vehicles left. At last he pulled out of the car park and started to drive slowly down the road.. The Police officer, having patiently waited all this time, now started up the patrol car, put on the flashing lights, promptly pulled the man over and carried out a random breathalyser test.

To his amazement the breathalyser indicated no evidence of the man's intoxication.

The Police officer said "I'll have to ask you to accompany me to the Police station - this breathalyser equipment must be broken."

 

 

"I doubt it," said the man,

 

 

 

 

 

"tonight I'm the designated decoy"..

 

 

Found out one of my cards got showcased over at Simply Less Is More too - thanks ladies, I'm honoured to have made your selection with my card. Can't recall the card (and why should you)?

Well, it was THIS one!

And wishing you all a very Happy Black Friday (BLACK FRIDAY = biggest shopping day of the year in the U.S., for SOME brave souls!)

 

 

 

The Friday Funny is intended to be just that, a funny, it's not intended to offend or upset anyone and I hope that no-one will be upset or offended by it

Welcome to Thursday

And HAPPY THANKSGIVING to those who celebrate it ... will you all be heading out to do your Christmas shopping tomorrow - BLACK FRIDAY?

 

In the meantime .... since we're rolling towards Christmas - I thought I should make some tags:-

And on the reverse ...

Materials used:

• Snippets of white card and black card die cut in to tags
• Inkadinkado snowflake image stamped on to the black tags using Versamark ink, sprinkled liberally with razzle dazzle gold embossing powder and heat embossed
• To the reverse of the tags I stamped the Fiskars "to" and "from" using Encore gold ink
• Hero Arts tree image stamped on a white tag using Versamark ink before sprinkling razzle dazzle green embossing powder and heat embossing - didn't like this too much so changed tack ...
• To the remainder of the white tags I stamped the Hero Arts tree and greeting using Ranger Archival cobalt blue ink before spraying with Crafters Companion Spray and Sparkle iridescent to seal and sparkle!, sadly, the sparkle doesn't show well in the photo - the light's been just DREADFUL this past few days - hardly worth drawing the curtains for!!!
• To the reverse of the white tags I stamped the Fiskars "to" and "from" using Ranger Archival jet black ink

I spent time looking for a wooden mounted "TO" and "FROM" before settling on the above clear stamp from Fiskars but, actually, I think I prefer it - perhaps I won't be too upset if it stays lost then!That should see my wrapping finished nicely with hand made tags!, you're right, this DOES mean that I don't have many left to wrap. I really MUST put as much energy in to tags in 2015 as I do to the cards!

Happy Thursday

Welcome to What's On Your Work Desk Wednesday

Morning all .... even if it IS only just!!!

 

Been faffing about this morning - spent a happy hour chatting with a pal but otherwise - just faffing!!

 

It's a dull and grey day - murky too - nothing for it but to stay in and craft!! So that's what I've done - run up a quick Christmas card although I fear I HAVE now started my 2015 quota!!!

 

My twinkley card

And my matching (though less twinkley) inside and envelope

 

Materials used:

• White C6, 300gsm, scallop edged card blank and matching sized envelope
• Inkadinkado sentiment stamped using Ranger Archival jet black ink
• Craft Stamper free image stamped using Versafine crimson ink
• I sprayed the Crafters Companion Spray and Sparkle to the front of the card but just the Spray and Shine to the inside and envelope to seal, protect and, in the case of the front of the card, bling up!!!

 

I'll be entering this card for the following challenges:

 

1. Addicted to Stamps and More where their challenge is "HOLIDAY"
2. Party Time Tuesday - "Anything Goes"
3. Trough the Craft Room Door - "Anything Goes"
4. Try it on Tuesdays - "Christmas is coming"

 

And now - here is how my messy desk is looking this What's On Your Work Desk Wednesday - time for a tidy?

 

 

 

 

Happy WOYWDW

Welcome to a lazy Sunday morning

Morning all,

Yesterday was a funny old day .... full of domesticity and dullness (and a fair bit of rain too!) once I'd made my one card for the day ...... after loads of laundry, bed stripping and re-making etc it was time to settle back down to the crafting again aided by a beer ..... and had a rummage through my stash - finding a really cute image seldom used, and I've no idea why as it really IS pretty cute. Is it just me or is anyone else thinking about the penguins from the movie "Madagascar"????

 

My twinkly card

 

And my co-ordinating inside and envelope

Materials used:

• C6 Kraft card blank (300 gsm) and matching sized envelope
• Kraft card, white card and red card snippets
• All night media sentiment stamped on to a small white card snippet using Ranger Archival jet black ink
• Art Impressions penguin image stamped on to a slightly larger snippet using Ranger Archival jet black ink
• Alcohol inks to colour image
• Black/white bakers twine knotted well off centre
• Crafters Companion Spray and Sparkle to add bling and to seal my project
• For the envelope and inside I used a Sparkle and Sprinkle sentiment, stamped using Ranger Archival jet black ink

 

I'll be entering this card for the following challenges:

1. Pixies Crafty Workshop - "Snippets challenge" ......... lots of snippets
2. Crazy for CAS - "Presents" .... a sleigh full of presents!
3. Hiding in my craft room - "Any Holiday" - Christmas is my holiday of choice!
4. Addicted to CAS - "Sketch" - see below .... as you can see, I turned my sketch

 

 

Been cracking on with the present wrapping but sort of ran out of tags so thought I'd best make a couple - need to get my head round this project earlier next time round!
 

 

 

 

Materials used:

• 2 x white tags
• Uptown Designs image stamped using Ranger Archival jet black ink
• Distress Ink in festive berries and mustard seed used with a paint brush, to water colour
• Crafters Companion Spray and Shine (iridescent) to both seal and sparkle!

  

And deployed on the present ....

It's for surrogate grandson ....

Happy Sunday

Welcome to Saturday/challenge day!

Morning all

 

Saturdays are normally challenge days for me and today (I hope) will be no different .... this week, however, the weather has been the challenge. I'm sure it's not just me who finds it more difficult to get decent photos of projects when the weather is dark, dank and DISMAL!!

 

In my last post I showed a card I had made but said it had gotten too dark to make the insert and co-ordinating envelope .... as my friend would say "it was as black as nookies knocker"!!! We've had conversations about the origin of this phrase and it APPEARS to originate from a time when Newgate Prison figured prominently!

 

Anyhoo ...... suffice it to say, it was too darn dark to make much headway so, that left yesterday ...... well hubby and I had a few chores in the morning and I was out in the afternoon, meeting  pal for coffee so, it was about as dark when I got round to the insert and envelope so I hope you will forgive me .... for playing catch up with some of my "finishes":-

 

 

 

 

Materials used:

• 13½cm square of white card and Kraft card, for matting
• Creative Expressions star image stamped numerous times using Encore gold ink.

 

I've left the sentiment off as I feel it may well be appropriate for several occasions so will wait until I decide which one to use it for and will then stamp appropriately ....

 

My regular readers may also recall recently that I bought some ladder yarn and crocheted a necklace in shades of grey. I did this whilst in Florida but I knew I had some similar yarn and some beads so, once I got home, I thought I would make another and incorporate some beads. Turns out that this yarn is quite a bit finer than the original so, despite the same number of strands, looks thinner - not sure which I prefer, if I'm honest .....

 

My necklace - I incorporated a strand of the inevitable PURPLE in this one too!!!!

And a close up to show the beads

And this was the ORIGINAL make

 

There are lots of fab challenges out there today so ..... I'm off to check out my stash for one or more of them:-

1. Crazy for CAS - "Presents"
2. Simply Less Is More - "Jingle all the way!" ....... Jingle bells!!!
3. Gem of a challenge - "Kraft + ONE other colour" ..... my other colour is BLACK!
4. 52CCT - "Paper Piercing - must be a Christmas card"
5. Crafty Hazelnuts - "Getting ready for Christmas" .... well Santa has to get ready too!
6. Sketch Saturday - see sketch below
7. Addicted to CAS - see sketch below

 

 

 

And so ..... here is my card which will fit challenges 2, 3, 5 and 7:-

My card

And a closer view so you can see the sparkle

Materials used:

• Kraft C6, 300gsm, card blank and matching sized envelope
• Snippets of card in white and kraft
• Bakers twine in black and white
• Crafty Individuals image and Kaisercraft sentiment stamped on to white card using Versafine onyx black ink
• Crafters Companion Spray and Sparkle added to both protect and bling it up!!!

Happy Saturday

Well here we are at another weekend - hope you'll stay for the Friday Funny too!

Hi there peeps,

 

Hope your Friday goes with a bang (in the nicest possible way) and leads on to a splendid weekend too. How are you all doing with your Christmas shopping? Christmas card making?

 

I started wrapping last week, whilst struggling with my mojo ..... needed to be doing something and at least wrapping presents is faintly creative!!! Now all I need is the tree to put them under - not surprisingly, my husband says it's far too early to put the tree up!! - and (in my heart) I KNOW he's right but ..... part of me (the part that just LOVES Christmas) would really like to ..... and I started writing my cards - this will prove whether I made enough or too many then!!!

Hubby got the Christmas dex down from the loft! Before you pass out with fear that we might have put the tree up in mid November .... don't panic. The plan was to site the outside lights on a fine dry (and hopefully, not too cold) day and not necessarily to connect them yet. The weather forecast seemed to advise a period of cold weather so Thursday seemed like the last window of opportunity for maybe a week so ....... hubby was able to find the box that contained just the outside lights and now those are fixed across our dining room roof and across the garage roof too - not wired in though we did test them to ensure they would be ready.

Now it's back to the present wrapping and card writing!

Wednesday evening saw us at our favourite Indian restaurant, Raj's. How we miss our favourite dishes when we don't go for a while .... our last trip was ...... SEPTEMBER!!!! It was great to be in familiar surroundings and experience the flavours of our fave dishes too - thanks guys! We were with our pal, Debbie, and I'm pleased to say she enjoyed her meal as much as we enjoyed our own.

On a crafting front though ..... I was blog hopping and saw a challenge that tempted me to my craft table and here's how it panned out:-
 

My card

 

And a close up to show the twinkle

Materials used:

• 15cm square white, 250 gsm, card blank and matching sized envelope
• 13½cm square white card panel and white snippet for image panel
• Kraft and black card for matting
• Distress Inks in antique linen and tea dye applied to the image panel using a Tim Holtz mini blender and foam panel
• D.I. in tea dye applied through the star stencil (by Heidi Swapp)
• Creative Expressions Grungey star image stamped using versamark ink and then gold dazzle and shabby white frontage (and iridescent frontage particles) liberally sprinkled over the inked image before heating from the back
• Crafters Companion Spray and Shine to seal the water based inks

I will, of course, be making the insert and envelope match but it went dark before I had the chance so that will be  job for today!

I'll be entering this for the following challenges:

1. Cute Card Thursday - "STARS" - oh yeah, I count at least 20!
2. 4 Crafty Chicks - "Make it Sparkle" - razzle dazzle gold embossing powder is super sparkley
3. Time Out Challenges - "Embossing with the optional twist of Sparkle" - as above!

 

And now, on to this week's Friday Funny which comes to us courtesy of ScrappyJacky - thanks matey! Hope you will all enjoy, as I did!

 

 

If you can always be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,

If you can resist complaining and boring people with your tribulations,

If you can eat the same food every day and be grateful for it,

If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you the time of day,

If you can take criticism and blame without resentment,

If you can conquer tension without medical help, or drugs

 

If you can relax without alcohol, or good pot, 

If you can sleep without the aid of medications. . . . .

.


.

.

 

 

 

Then You Are Probably The Family Dog!

 

Happy Friday - have a good one!
 

Welcome to midweek!

Morning all

 

I'd like to welcome a couple of new followers Asha and Hazel, thanks for following and I hope you will find the time and inclination to stop by again sometime soon.

Yesterday saw us setting an alarm!!!! Not something that happens too often at the purple palace, I can tell you! Car in for service 15 miles away so we headed out and were thwarted at every turn!! - with every single set of traffic lights at red!, road closures and traffic backing up - we seemed to be destined not to reach our garage in time .... despite the law of sod being very prevalent we DID make it only a little late and dropped the car off .. I even got to pet a delightful little beagle/Jack Russell cross dog who was patiently waiting whilst her owners car was in for service! An added bonus! Sadly our late breakfast/early lunch sausage sandwich was completely disappointing but hey ... life's like that sometimes don't you find? Car was ready when we returned, all good - thank heavens! So that's all done till next year.

Now that my cold is well on its way I found that my energy levels are returning and I felt like heading to the table of craftiness. Some of you may know that I'm a fan of both monochrome AND Clean And Simple so it ought to be a doddle to work out what's coming next then ......

My card

And a close up to show the twinkle of the Spray and Sparkle!

 



And my co-ordinating inside and envelope



 

Materials used:

• C6 white, 300gsm, scallop edged card blank and matching sized envelope
• Snippets of white, black and grey card
• Images by Stamplorations stamped using: Ranger Archival jet black, Versacolour silver and Memento London Fog inks
• Sentiment on front of card by Kaisercraft and sentiment by TPC Studio inside and on the envelope stamped using Ranger Archival jet black ink
• Crafters Companion Spray and Shine to seal the envelope and Spray and Sparkle to seal the image panels

I will be entering this card for the following challenges:-

1. Not just cards - "Anything Goes"
2. Everybody Art Challenge - "Use a circle" .. oh yeah - think I got that covered!
3. Partytime Tuesday - "Anything Goes"
4. Clear it Out Challenge - "Anything Goes + Use THREE of the same thing" (used that Happy Birthday 3 times and the circles and squares more than 3 times AND three layers to my image panel - white/black/grey!)

 

It's also What's On Your Work Desk Wednesday and I actually have "schtuff" on my desk, so I'll share a piccie ....

OOPS! Back to needing a tidy!

Have a fantabulous Wednesday peeps

Kathy

Late post from me this lazy Sunday ...

Hey there readers,

 

Normally posting at the crack of the crafting day but ... having had a head cold this past week has kept me away from the table of craftiness for one reason or another and, since you've done nothing to offend me, I shall go in to no greater detail!!!

 

We had pals popping in for a late lunch on their way south so my priorities this morning were clearing a space for them to sit and chat and clearing away dust so thick you could plant potatoes!! No, honestly, it was a bit bad in the lounge - we'd been away too so it hadn't been "attended to" since SEPTEMBER!!!! Sounds awful when put in to the written word, doesn't it? Still, an hour with a vacuum, a duster, a feather duster and some febreze and the place looks fit to receive visitors now. A quick change of the beds too and I was free to hit the table of craftiness with a clear conscience ....

I don't often use blue and yet I seem to have quite a few "blues" and a pal who simply loves the colour - not sure what set me on this path today but .....

 

My card

And the inside and envelope to match

My image panels

Materials used:

• 15cm square white, 250 gsm card blank and matching sized envelope
• A4 card in white and blue - to cut down to make two mats each for the front and inside of my card .... you could argue that the strip left from the larger mats WOULD have been snippets which I then used on my image panel so there was NO WASTE card!!! Don't you love it when that happens?
• Distress Inks in tumbled glass, salty ocean and chipped sapphire pressed on to a non stick craft mat, spritzed with water and my smaller snippets of white card "smooshed" through, dried and "smooshed" again till I was happy with the colour before setting aside to dry
• Carabelle image stamped using Ranger Archival cobalt blue ink and then I ran an old credit card through the ink pad to generate some "random" lines
• Kaisercraft sentiment stamped using Ranger Archival cobalt blue ink
• Goosebumps shimmer texture spray used to seal, shimmer and texturise this card

 

I'm not sure whether the lovely Di will allow this as an entry for her snippets challenge at Pixie's Crafty Workshop but I'll have a go! I will also be entering it (because of the white space) ... over at the Clean And Simple challenge over at The Paper Players - wish me luck!

Our guests have just left, it was so lovely to see them too, been a while. Anyway, I can now post this thread and pop over and enter those challenges too - thanks for stopping by

Enjoy the rest of your day