Moses parts the Red Sea Cupcakes

Apologies that I have been absent from the blog a lot recently. Now I'm back at work I'm struggling to fit in blogging. Add to that a busy time at church, making a wedding cake for my friend, and that really leaves no time at all. It's not that I haven't been crafting, I have, but getting the time to sit down, sort photos and then blog about it is a struggle.
Here is a quick post to show some super cute cupcakes I made for my Sunday School class when we were doing about Moses parting the Red Sea!
A simple vanilla cupcake with some blue buttercream piped down the sides to be the sea being held back by God and a tiny Wilton gingerbread man decoration for Moses. The kids (and adults!) really liked them. I promise once things calm down I'll be back posting about all my recent crafting!

Give Thanks to the Lord Cherries Card

This was a card I sent to Lebanon with a care package of the new Cadburys marvelous creations chocolate for a good friend of mine who is out there helping engineer some projects.

We met when we were both 18 and taking a gap year before university and doing a Year in Industry at different engineering companies, but right next door to each other. Why did we hit it off? Because we both had WWJD bracelets on and had an instant connection.

I was excited to break out my Country Labels 4 stamps again, and especially these super cute cherries.
I stamped the background cherries using Memento Lady Bug ink and pearlised green ink. I used the same green to stamp the labels 4 shape and also on a scrap of card I stamped an extra cherry to fussy cut to embellish. I cut the labels 4 with my Nestabilities die, and a larger one to layer onto which I embossed with Cuttlebug swiss dots. Some lovely dotty ribbon and  layered onto black card and it was finished!

New York Silhouette Skyscape Wedding gift

Here's a paper cut I designed for a very good friend of my DH.

The New York theme is because he proposed there.

I bought the main background file from Silhouette Store, and then made some alterations to it on the silhouette software to adapt the buildings and the windows. I added in a heart shape to the windows on one building.

The bride has a couple of cats, so I sneaked one under the Brooklyn bridge, which I designed the cut for using a photo from google.

Here are wedding rings and love birds, and this shows the dimension I got between the black and grey.

And finally the good old Statue of Liberty! I bought this from the silhouette store too.

I hope you like this, I was please with how it all worked together.

Peter Rabbit First Day of School

This week was my son and nieces first day of Primary school. The card I made for the Waltzingmouse Pajama party here I gave to my son. For my niece I cracked open a new stamp set from Crafters Companion and printed this Peter Rabbit, and coloured with Promarkers. I used my Country Labels 4 stamp for the mat, and also the tiny apple stamp from Teeny trees for my background (I thought it tied in well with the school theme). I cute the mats with Spellbinders Labels 4 and embossed with some circles. Some tiny buttons to embellish it finish it off.

This card is being entered into the Waltzingmouse Bedtime Story Sketch

I hope you like, and please go look at the other entries into the sketch challenge.

Waltzingmouse Pajama Party

I'm excited to be taking part in this months pajama party, especially because I wasn't sure I'd be able to play along, partly due to time constraints, but also because at first glance I couldn't come up with anything for the 4 categories. In actual fact I started to come up with an idea, and it led me to try and incorporate all 4 challenge themes in one card!

The themes are:
1. Tie a knot in it
2. Get Nauty(cal)
3.  Colour inspiration
4. Golden Oldie stamp sets.

So here's my card

So here's how I did it.

I stamped the cloud shape in versamark, from my oldest WMS set,(the awesone Teeny trees!) I think its a tree outline, but it makes a great cloud!  I heat embossed with white embossing powder to act as a resist to the blue ink I sponged for the sky. 

I used my Silhouette to cut the pirate ship(I bought the file from the silhouette store), and then stamped some detail onto the ship using an Offbeat Background stamp to look like planks. I also sponged the sails and added the pirate detail to the flag. 

I cut some blue paper with Spellbinders edgeabilities scalloped borders and then stamped onto it with another Teeny trees stamp to give a wave effect.

I added some extra details with a burgundy crows nest, some Card Candy gold port holes and a hand made anchor.

Here's how I met the challenge themes:

1. Tie a knot in it - My anchor is hand made from silver wire and twisted and knotted. It took me a couple of attempts to get it to look like this!
2. Get Nauty(cal) - The pirate theme!
3.  Colour inspiration
4. Golden Oldie stamp sets. - My oldest WMS stamp set is Teeny Trees.

I hope you have enjoyed seeing what I created, I love to hear your feedback. If you'd like to see what everyone else made pop over to the Waltzingmouse blog.

CAS Anniversary card

This is my CAS anniversary card for my husband for our 9th Anniversary (9 hearts!). I'm lucky that my lovely husband loves the CAS style, so I don't have to spend hours slaving over a card for him! In fact this one was super quick once I'd decided what I wanted to do. I was inspired by this image which I have on one of my pinterest boards, and knew if I made it with 9 hearts and 'love' it would be perfect. It was so easy to do on my Silhouette Portrait. I raised the top layer off the red card to give it some depth.

My husband loved it, hope you do too :)

Cbeebies Mr Tumble Card

Today is my little man's 4th birthday! Here is the card I made to send to the BBC for their Cbeebies channel.

Its done to look like Mr Tumbles spotty bag, and has images from Octonauts, Chuggington, Tree Fu Tom and Number Jacks on it.

There he is, under the 4!

Unfortunately they can't show every card that gets sent in, so its a bit hit and miss. Last years card was a miss, which when you've spent hours making it, and spent about £5 sending it comes as a bit of a blow (especially when you have a little one waiting expectantly by the television!). Here's hoping it gets shown!

Happy Everything Goes!

Here is a card I made for my sister in law whose birthday is tomorrow. After being inspired by the recent Pajama party to use my Folk art medallion set with some vivid colours I set about finding the perfect combination of colours. After some experimentation I decided to go for Distress Inks in Seedless Preserve, Forest Moss and Chipped Sapphire.

I took the tiny pennant from the set and stamped along the central section with alternating colours.

I also embossed some purple card with Swiss dots and stamped an extra medallion and some leaves for embellshmenst. Finally the sentiment is Paper Smooches from the set Simply Said.

I'm entering this into the Waltzingmouse Pajama Party Bedtime story sketch

and the Paper Smooches Anything goes challenge

Pajama Party! - Kraft art folk Happy Days card

Welcome to the First Waltzingmouse Pyjama Party! 

It's a late night (UK!) blog party which replaces the Blog party/Blog waltz. I'll be honest, I'll miss the old format on the 17th, but I do welcome the broader range of the new challenge, as some months I was really struggling to find a way to play along, sometimes meaning I just wasn't able to, but the new format means that will be much less likely.

Personally I'm not a night owl, so will probably be one of the last to link up my cards, but hey ho!

I chose to do the In The Background challenge, and stamp one of the small Fold Art Medallion images.

Here is the card I made for a friend who is starting a new phase in her career and I wanted to let her know that bright days are ahead. I think Folk Art Medallions is one of my new favourite stamp sets from Waltzingmouse, and it's SO versatile. I stamped up the background super quick using Walnut Stain distress ink and it was straight forward using a grid acrylic block. I actually stamped straight onto the kraft card base. I then stamped the Folk Art Labels 25 onto some cream cardstock using more walnut stain and the sponged all the edges. The sentiment is from an old set of Banana Frog stamps, but they are now discontinued. A lovely chocolate brown ribbon edged in gold finished off this card.
I hope you like it, do check out the other cards over on the Waltzingmouse blog.

W Week Fun

So this week was the first of the Summer holidays, and as it was the first time since EJ was born that I would have both boys 24/7, 7 days a week I decided I needed to get organised!

You see when Joey was in Preschool every other day I didn't mind him watching TV and doing as he pleased in the afternoons he was with me at home, especially since we were out in the mornings at play groups. Unfortunately play groups finish over summer, and so does Pre-school, so I didn't want him just wasting the summer away and us not doing anything other than watch Disney films and build a bit of Duplo! 

I also have a slight ulterior motive that I'm trying to get him more in to craft and baking, but shhush, don't tell anyone!

So I remembered reading, a long time ago, a blog written by a mum who home schooled her kids, and she went through the letters of the alphabet week by week and explored all the different things beginning with that letter. I remember thinking it was a great way of getting some structure, but allowing you to be flexible with what you choose to do.

I put all 26 letters of the alphabet in a hat and let Joey choose one...he chose W!

My mind went into over drive. What could we do?

I listed all the things I could think of beginning with W, and as, after all, it is the holidays, all the possible films we could watch beginning with W! (I eventually expanded this to include any film with a W character, as we only had Wall-e!)

I printed pictures of animals beginning with W, characters we like (Winnie the Pooh, Woody,Wendy,Wall-e, Wallace etc). We coloured some in.

We made Winnie the Pooh shaped cookies (with walnuts and white chocolate!), we went for a walk, went to see a windmill. Ate new W foods: Watermelon (didn't like), Waggon Wheels (didn't like!) and Waffles (unsuprisingly he liked these!).

But my favourite thing for this week was making a Whale (with a snail on its tail of course! Thanks Julia Donaldson!)

I'll be honest. 90% of the whale is my work. He stuck about 4 pieces of paper on before he'd had enough, and I had to plead with him to even paint it (but he was pretty good at the in the end!), but he absolutely loves it now its finished!

Here's a picture tutorial to how I made it!

We started with a ballon and some scrap paper which was shaped like the tail. We added paper using a 50/50 PVA and water mix. We then painted him (the last photo shows it stood in a jug to help stabilise it whilst we painted, otherwise it would have meant paint everywhere!). The blue paint is normal poster paint mixed 50/50 with PVA glue to make it more lasting, but the white paint is acrylic, as I was worried it would go muddy if I used poster paint. I used a Sharpie to add the final details

Here he is, proud as punch, and I'm sure he'll be telling everyone he made it!

He's already asked if next week can be W week too!

Fantastic Ribbon Design Team Wonderful Washi objects!

This month the Fantastic Ribbon Design Team have been using Washi tape around the home. 

I know for me I love to see inspirational and aspirational projects, some of which are complex and time consuming. I also like to browse Pinterest and see things I think I could definitely have a go at quite quickly and easily. This month I have gone for the latter! I have made 2 picture frames for gifts and used washi tape in two different ways, one on the inside of the glass, and one on the frame, but both are super quick and super easy!

The first frame I was making was for my sons nursery teacher as he left last week. I started off with a basic black picture frame (I picked it up from The Range for a few pounds)

 Very simply I wrapped some washi tape over two sides and secured at the back.

To finish it off I used my Silhouette to cut out the words and date in some coordinating colours.

I rarely use mirror board. but for this space themed frame I thought it worked well.

The picture in the frame was only temporary so the teacher could put her class photo in the frame!

The next gift was for a very good friend who was moving jobs, and I wanted to give her one of my favourite photos of the two of us. Again a basic frame, this time with a larger mount inside.

This time I simply removed the mount board and wrapped the washi tape around the top and bottom of the board and secured at the back.

A small embellishment which says Friends Always made from Waltzingmouse Country Labels 4 stamp and cut with a Spellbinders Label 4 die is all that I added to this.

I hope you like the way I transformed two plain frames and made them into something truly gift worthy!

The Washi tape I used was Green with Clear dots and can be bought over at Fantastic Ribbons here.

To see more household projects from other team members just visit the blog.

Pretty Banner Card

Here is the card I made for my beautiful niece who was 1 a few weeks ago. This card is almost entirely made on my silhouette.

First I cut a number 1 from pink card and embossed it with cuttlebug Swiss dots. I also cut a coordinating white number 1 to layer onto. I also cut little banner triangles from white card, and some patterned paper I got in a magazine last year, each one with a letter of her name. 

I placed some pink card behind the letter banners to make them stand out. Each little banner is attached to some twine so it falls like a real banner.