Inspiration Monday #4

Here's the Inspiration Monday image I've picked out from Pintrest to take inspiration from this week....

original image source

Love this image, the colours, the summer feel, everything!

If you make anything inspired by this weeks image let me know & leave a comment so I can come and see.

xx Leo 

Something Old, Something New

The theme for this weeks Daring Cardmakers challenge has been set by Lythan and it's to create a card featuring something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue. Here's what I've come up with this week......

I love collecting vintage bits and pieces to use in my crafting so that was the first part of my stash I raided and picked out a vintage doily and a book page. I also had an old IKEA pillow case in my fabrics pile so I picked that out then decided to go for a kind of shabby chic kind of thing. For my new bit I picked out the last stash I invested in some K&Co Smash tape and paper tabs. The borrowed bit was tricky I was going to use one of my grandmas vintage photos, (well a copy obviously) but I couldn't get my printer to play so I had to think of something else. It's rather tenuous but the paper at the back of the card is one piece of Sassafras Mix & Mend and I cut out or 'borrowed' a scallop piece from the middle to use as a layer. I did the same with the doily cutting out the middle bit to use as one of the layers. The pillowcase fabric I used as a little banner. For the blue I added a blue rose brad, (American Crafts) and a blue pearl in the felt flower.

Play along with this weeks Daring Cardmakers challenge, leave a link so we can come and see what you've been creating! http://www.daringcardmakers.blogspot.com



Work Desk Wednesday

Hi
Just got in front of my desk for a little crafty play so thought I'd take a quick snap for workdesk Wednesday........

I'm working on my card ready for Friday's Daring Cardmakers Dare Gallery. Here's a close up, can you guess what the theme is from this? Bet you can't :p

I'm really enjoying being part of the team over there it's defo keeping my creative juices flowing because it's a fab push to make something every week. Pop on over to Julia's blog to carry on your magical mystery tour of work desks!

Inspiration Monday #3

Another Monday so here's another image to get inspiration from this week. I've had a rummage through Pintrest and picked out this image:

original image source

What's not to love? Great colour and texture and pattern. I love how the colours are bright but also subtle in the image. I'm feeling painty this week too so I'm defo going to take inspiration from the messy painty layers, yum!

Let me know if you make anything inspired by this image this week...

Let's Rock with the Daring Cardmakers

This week Kathy has set us this dare:

It's Kathy here with this week's new challenge:
Rocking All Over the World
This week I'd like you to make a Wobble Card - these are cards which have a curved base so that when you tap them they rock, or wobble from side to side.
Now what you put on your card is up to you, BUT if you're up for a bit more of a challenge, how about adding something of a pun, and giving your card a "rocking" theme too?

And this is the card I've come up with this week,

I wanted to make a little rocking boat on the ocean. I started making the base card with the rounded base and then cut out the wave bits from card and then covered them with felt and glued them on top of the card. I then thought it needed more texture to get across more feeling of movement so I added more pieces of fabric and papers and then stitched with the sewing machine all over the top. I had to cut my card up and make another base card though so I could cover over the stitching at the back, I just used more of the same colour card glued it over the back and then re-cut it out. The little boat I made with washi tapes and deco tapes and used fabric for the sails. The pirate flag is just a bit of deco tape wrapped around a pin that I popped down the middle.

Are you ready to rock? Join in with this weeks challenge and we'll come over to your blog and take a peek! http://daringcardmakers.blogspot.com/2011/06/lets-rock.html

xx Leo

Inspiration Monday #2

Time for another Inspiration Monday image. Today from my Pintrest I've picked out this image as my weekly inspiration:

original image source is flickr.com

I love the colour combination here the 'muddy' green, brown and turquoise and also the crochet we've got going on here, I just can't get enough crochet doliies just lately. Let me know if you've created something inspired by this weeks image. I'll get creating and post something up later in the week.
xx Leo

Smashing Sunday

Today I've been making some more pages for my altered journal and I've been playing at altering the cover of my Smash book. I loved the embossed pattern on the cover already so I just figured I'd try to bring it out more and used some inky spray and mists and rubbing over with inkpads. I also added some of the Smash tape down the side of the fabric. I'm defo going to end up adding more I'm sure.

I'm just going to fill it with lots of random things I love. If I try and make it too themed I know I won't fill it because I get distracted too easily so it's just going to be a complete mix. It'll be a great place to experiment with ideas and use some of the stationary/vintage bits and pieces I love collecting that don't get used in my scrapbooks. Some of the pages inside are really cute and inspiring.

I'm half way between the wanting to fill it up right now and wanting to save it for another day so I'm compromising and just adding little bits. I can see it being something that is constantly changing and being added to and covered over, kinda like a crafty diary more than a scrapbook/journal.

I've been making some more altered journal pages:

These ones need sewing up yet:

It's almost full up now. I took out some of the inner pages from the journal to take up the bulky pages so there's gonna be around 30 pages in there in total when I'm done. It's a big task but it's making my scraps pile go down tonnes!
Looks like it's going to be a very fun journally crafty couple of months!
xx Leo

DCM - Father Christmas

Now I love Christmas cards don't get me wrong but Christmas cards in June is a little too much for me. It's my brothers birthday on Monday and I always try and think of a fun idea for a card to make for him so when I saw Jo's dare for the Daring Cardmakers this week this idea almost straight away popped into my head.

The little Santa I cut out of a Cosmo Cricket paper tag I had fun browsing through my Christmas stash leftover from last year. I mixed in some other leftover bits and pieces of paper there's Lily Bee, Crate Paper and Bazzill card. The stickers are October Afternoon and Echo Park and Thickers - it's a real mix up!
If you want to play along with this weeks Daring Cardmakers challenge head over there now and check it out. We've got another giveaway this week of some lovely Echo Park papers! www.daringcardmakers.blogspot.com

xx Leo

Journalling

A number of things came together to make me start a new project this week. This post by Julie gave the push to get out one of empty notebooks and make a start on filling it. I pinned this journal to my Pintrest then went on to read about the 'remains of the day' journals and then I had this image from Inspiration Monday to give me a kick to start something. So putting all this together I've started a new journal. I picked out this book off my shelf, it's one of the books I got as a present I'd been saving 'for best' - the best time never really comes along until you give it a push though right.

Sid the (not so little anymore) monster came to see what I was doing and decided he loved this book too so I must be onto something.

He just loves anything stringy and dangley plus I think he wants his dinner, that's defo his I want my dinner face........

 Anyway back to my book. It's something I've been meaning to start for a while, I'd forgotten I'd wrote this a couple of months ago till I was flicking back through my ideas book:

 So it must have been swimming around for a while. I also wanted to make use of some of my paper leftovers I've really been making it a misson all year to use up offcuts as much as possiable. I used this as a starting point and pulled out a bunch of paper scraps.

I used the Inspiration Monday image as my starting point for the first page picking out the colours:

Lots of machine stitching going on, I've had my sewing machine set up for a while now I just can't seem to want to put it away. I basically collaged the paper pieces together and stitched over the top. Once the page was done I glued and stitched it in my journal.

I couldn't tidy away without making the next page:

 

I'll have to keep this up till I've used all these scrap pieces then I can get onto the fun of filling it up!
xx Leo

Inspiration Monday #1

Well I did try to start a regular post on Fridays but now Fridays are going to be taken over by DCM posts so I've come up with another regular post idea, 'Inspiration Mondays'.

I like many many crafters have fallen for the charms of Pintrest and have been pinning all my ideas and inspiration for kits, colour combinations, general fashion and cool craftyness but now I need to start using some of them! Since Monday is the day of the week where inspiration is needed most I figured I'd do a regular post on Mondays with an inspirational image taken from my Pintrest board ideas. Today I've gone for a fun bright summery colour combination.....

original image source, Countryliving.com

There's so much to love in this image, from the colour combinations of the cherry red, turquoise and pink to the pretty polka dot embossed bowl with the scalloped edge. Feeling inspired? If you make something let me know, I'll have a play and post something up later in the week.
xx Leo

DCM- Flowers for June

It's Daring Card Makers time again, blimey where has that week gone?? This week the challenge is:

This week we return to our First Friday of the Month series of Flower challenges.

The flowers for June are:
Roses and Honeysuckle
so we'd like you to take one or both of those flowers as your inspiration for your crafting.. With flowers like that to base your cards around we know we're in for a treat this week and we can't wait to see what you come up with.

So here's what I came up with:

I'm making up a nostalgicy kitschy 50's seaside kind of kit this week and I think it has rubbed off in my cardmaking because when I've gone digging in my scrap bag for goodies to use I've picked out similar nostalgicy/50's colours & patterns. I'm not sure why I like this card, I just do. I had some leftover pieces of card so I cut them into 6x4 and set about making a set of notecards. I cut the teacup out from fabric first. I set out with the idea to use the rose stamp in the background but it fitted on the teacup so I just stamped it on there to make it look kind of more vintagey. The rest of the card is just layered up paper scraps and deco tapes. I added the embellie at the end it's made with mulberry paper, a scallop of paper and bakers twine.

Go have a peek over on Daring Cardmakers Blog to see more goodies ---> http://daringcardmakers.blogspot.com/