My Dear Mother-In-Law

I'm lucky to have a wonderful and very supportive Mother -in-law. If my husband and I disagree she nearly always sides with me. This is the last of my Mother's day cards for this year and just in time to post and arrive on time. I've had garden thoughts for the past 2 weeks with the weather in Vancouver mild enough to get the weeding done and the annuals planted. Last week I spread top soil, dug it in, and got all my planters done so it was on my mind to make a garden themed card. This is a variation of the potted plant with a pull out inserted card which some creative crafter thought up years ago.

I printed out the boots from Crafty Secrets "Garden Style" twice the second pair atop the first with the top band of the boots touching. They were fussy cut and folded in half. I then cut a slit along the fold line leaving about 1/4" at each side attached. The bottom 3 leaves and 2 flowers are glued along the top edge of the forward boot with the centres popped up on dimensionals. The flowers and leaves are from Crafty Secrets "Art Blooms" and everything is coloured with copics.

The sentiment is stamped on the insert which slides into the slot in the boots. As you can see the top 2 leaves and flower are attached to the insert. I glued 2 strips of folded paper between the boots front and back to stop it from opening too far. The sentiment is a Flourishes stamp that just happened to be the right size.

Thanks so much for dropping by, I love visitors.

Cheers,

Elizabeth 

Dear Mom

My 88 year old Mom is one of my heros. She is an incredibly warm and engaging woman who brought  up the three of us well and managed our home so well we didn't even realize we were being managed! My Dad was a concert pianist so she had him practising piano 8 hours a day at home plus he had his recording studio in the basement. Thirty years after WW2 was over she told us that she had been a decoder at Bletchley working on the enigma machines during the war and has fascinated us through the years with her many war time stories. She is a girly girl loving clothes, flowers, gardening, and of course the colour mauve. This card is for her.

The image is from Crafty Secrets "Family" which is a kit for $6.95 with an amazing 18 large images and a total of 54 images and a rubber stamp kit. Unbelievable, HURRY.

I cut the postcard shape and mounted it on this Spellbinders die (cut twice and hinged together). The roses are a Sizzix rose die which I watercoloured yellow in the centre and peachy pink on the outside edge. It was then touched with a darker peach on the centre. There is a little bit of Stickles on the edge of each petal. Lastly I glued a piece of ribbon freeform across the card and placed tiny pearls along the length.

Thanks so much for dropping by.

Happy Easter!

Cheers, Elizabeth 

Feeling Yucky

This week over at Splitcoaststampers our weekly Teapot Tuesday Challenge was to make a card for an ill child. No recipient was specified, it's just for a hospital's childrens' ward to give to any child who needs cheering up. Hopefully this cute little duck with his cherry flavoured medicine will bring a smile to a little face. I used Crafty Secrets "Feeling Yucky" stamp set for the front face image and Crafty Secrets "Spring Chicks" for the inside. Both sentiments are from "Feeling Yucky". The yellow gingham paper is also from Crafty Secrets. Both the front and inside panels are mounted on red cs.

 I used copics to colour the images and Diamond Glaze on the cherries and medicine. Everything is popped up on dimensionals. I wanted the bow to be a bit looser so I touched it with the heat gun. Just be careful if you haven't tried this before as acetate ribbon melts quickly and gets very hot. Don't burn yourself, or your house down for that matter!!!

Believe it or not I did not age the paper here. It is a crisp white but my camera decided to shadow the edges. Note I blame the camera and not the photographer. Once again the little ducks are coloured with copics. On it goes to some deserving child.

Thanks so much for dropping by, your visits mean the world to me.

Cheers, 

Elizabeth

Summer Lady

I have a fast and easy card to share with you today. Sandy Redburn, the owner of Crafty Secrets is very generous with free printables and I thought I would post one of my favourites.The link I provided takes you to the blog and if you scroll down the right side column you will see lots of fabulous free printables  I printed this on white card stock and coloured the lady in very delicate mauves. The wings are also in pastels with stickles on the wings. On the lower right border was printed "Summer Lady" which I covered up with a silver tag which reads "Happy Birthday". It's mounted on black cardstock and with a couple of adornments such as ribbon and pearls it's ready to pop in the mailbox for my SIL birthday. Start to finish this took me 10 minutes.

Another great thing about this card, which I forgot to mention, is that it is nice and flat for mailing which my cards rarely are!!!

Thanks so much for dropping by, you have no idea how much that means to me.

Cheers, Elizabeth

The Liebster Award

Liebster blog nomination for Paper Pass Times

What a great day! This morning, when I opened up my emails, I found out my blog has been nominated for the Liebster Award by my talented blogging friend Kathy Clement. Kathy and I met at Crafty Secrets where she is the fearless leader of our Design Team. Visit her blog Kathy by Design and prepare to be impressed.

The Liebster Award helps bring awareness to blogs with less than 300 followers. I have very recently entered into the world of blogging and this award would greatly help in sharing my hard work. Thanks for the honour and the hand up Kathy.

Rules for participating in the Liebster Award nominations:

- Thank your Liebster  Blog Award presenter on your blog and answer the 11 questions they presented

- Link back to your presenter's blog

- Copy and Paste the pink Liebster logo to your blog

- Nominate 5 blogs to receive the award, who have less than 300 followers and create a list of 11 new                 

   questions for them, and

- Inform them of their nomination

Here are Kathy's questions for me: 

1. Why and when did you begin crafting?

 Art has always been part of my life since my parents sent me to art lessons to learn oil painting. Paper crafting began for me when my niece came to stay with me one Easter. She has very bad asthma and with all the pollens in the air I wanted to do some indoor activities so I took her to a rubber stamping class. Funny thing was I gave us $100 each to buy some "stuff" after the class. Her career as a rubber stamper ended when the holiday was over...1600 stamps and 6 years later I am in rubber stamp heaven!

2. What kind of crafter are you: clean and simple, shabby chic, vintage, grunge, mixed media, etc.?

I love antiques, old masters, vintage anything so my natural progression as it pertains to crafting is Shabby Chic and Vintage although I have recently dabbled in mixed media.

3. What's my favourite time of day to craft?

This is a two part question for me. Night time is when I am the most creative so I plan and sketch in the evening. My husband likes TV and I very much dislike it so while he watches TV I sit with him sketching and planning the next project. I do the actual work part in the late morning/early afternoon.

4. What's your favourite crafting tool?

I am in love with copic markers.

5. Do you work primarily from sketches, or your own imagination? 

I've never worked from a sketch other than my own. I find someone else's sketch inhibits me.

6. What's your favourite beverage? 

If I'm to tell the truth here, it's homemade lemonade, however, if we are talking alcohol I just love sitting down at the end of a day with a cut crystal liquor glass full of Grand Marnier and a coffee.

7. Name 5 things that are on your desk top right now?  

My computer, a silver frame with a picture of the family, a box with scraps I want to use/recycle, my copics, my to-do-list.

8. Who are some of your crafting heroes, artists you follow?

Linda Duke, Dawn Burnworth, Didi Kowal, Christine Okken, there are many more.

9. What's your biggest crafting blooper?

We have the most beautiful and loveable blonde Chow Chow (dog) named Kodi. When I am crafting he often lies at my feet. Once when he was sitting right under where I was crafting with glitter I accidentally spilled an entire vial of gold glitter on him. I thought I had brushed it all out of him but that night when we went for our dog walk with at least 5 other dog owners he sparkled under the street lights like you wouldn't believe. That was at least 4 years ago and I still haven't lived it down!

10. What's your favourite crafting technique?   

Decoupage. Not real decoupage but cutting out parts of an image and popping it up on dimensionals for  a more 3D look.

11. What do you do when you are not in the craft room?

In reality, for me, at least this should read "What do you do when you are not at the piano". My first love (excluding humans and dogs) is playing the piano. I have a master's music degree in performance piano. I craft as a hobby and also to take "time out" from the gruelling physical demands from hours of practise. I play only classical music and my favourite composers are Beethoven and Chopin.

Here are my nominations for the Liebster Award:

- Lynn McCauley "Confessions of a Left Brain Stamper"

-Robin Clendenning "InkMagination"

-Katie Sims "The Inky Peach"

-Kim "Love of Flowers"

-DJ Rants "DJ's Creations"

I hope you'll take time to visit these amazing artists, I know you will be impressed.

Here's my list of questions for my nominees to answer:

1. Was there a single event that lead you to crafting?

2. What other art forms to you enjoy?

3. What other crafters have influenced your style?

4. When you go shopping in a crafting store what is the one weakness you can't resist? paper, ribbon, etc.

5. Have you influenced others in your family to also craft?

6. Do you work one creation through to completion or do you multi task with many on the go at one time?

7. What is your favourite colouring medium? Why?

8. What is the funniest thing that has ever happened while crafting?

9. If you could go on a crafting weekend with 3 other crafters who would they be?

10. Is your craft room tidy or do you like creative disorder?

11. If you could go on a holiday to any art gallery in the world, what would it be?  

Thanks so much for dropping by Paper Pass Times. I would be over the moon if you chose to be one of my followers by clicking on the "followers" label in the right sidebar. 

Welcome Baby Girl

I can't believe a whole month has gone by since our last Linky Party yet here we are in April. I don't know about all of you but the weather where I live (Vancouver) is fabulous. This is my favourite time of year as our region is one of the best for growing spring flowers. Presently we have all the spring bulbs out plus the cherry, magnolia, and camellia trees blooming. The rhododendrons are just starting. A feast for the eyes! With new growth and beginnings we are celebrating new birth and babies as one of our subject matters for April. My niece had a baby girl 2 weeks ago and the card I made for today is to celebrate "Hailey". For this card I used Crafty Secrets "Baby Girl Print and Fold".  It is gorgeous the way it is intended to be used, but I wanted to use a special frame I have been hoarding from AccuCut designed by our own Vicki Chrisman. One of the beauties of digital images is that you can print things any size you want. The doors weren't large enough for this project so I printed them larger and also the chest. I ended up needing 3 different sizes for all the elements.

This is a view of the dresser with the doors closed. I used the door fronts and cut out 2 more flower panels for the doors and the bib and popped them up on dimensionals. I also cut out the elephant ribbon "Girl" and added it. I used the Sizzix rose die for the flowers. Brads were used for the door handles.

This is a view of the inside with the doors open. The front of the dresser sits about 1/4" out from the mirror so I cut a thin strip for the top surface of the dresser. More brads for drawer pulls and a little pink organdy rose.

For the left inside door the little coat and slippers are cut twice and popped up. A tutorial follows for how to tie teeny tiny bows like the three on the coat.

For the right inside door the jacket and plush toy are popped up. The jacket has a wee button and the toy another tiny bow, this one even smaller.

TUTORIAL on making tiny bows

For demonstration purposes I have used a ribbon which a different colour on the reverse side so you can see better what goes over or under what!!! This bow is less than 1/4" across and the ribbon choice is essential. I use 4mm silk embroidery ribbon for these really tiny bows as they knot better. I have tied the bow on chopsticks. The ribbon lays across the top of both chopsticks from left to right, now wrap in around the back of both chopsticks right to left. Next to wrap the ribbon around and over the left chopstick from left side to centre (between the chopsticks). Now take the ribbon to the top and wrap it around both strands of ribbon from behind leaving the end pointing down.

Take the ribbon end and thread it through the loop you have created when you wrapped the ribbon behind both strands from left through to the right side.

Pull the two ends tight!

Voila! A tiny bow. I put a copic marker in the shot so you could see how small this is. With silk ribbon you can make them 1/4 this size.

Please come and join our April Linky Party where you can add a sample(s) you've created using any of our products and receive a $6.00 coupon and one random.org winner will get a $50.00 gift card!

Thanks for visiting Paper Pass Times.

Make sure you visit the rest of the design team! 

Kathy Clement Team Leader

Vicki Chrisman

Michele Kovack - 300+ Gallery!

Darlene Pavlick

Sheila Rumney

Cherry Nelson

Cheers, Elizabeth

  

Guardian Angels

This week over at Teapot Tuesday our cards are going to one of our own who is ill. I used the Crafty Secrets "Easter Floral Art Cards" for the frame. The frame was printed off twice and on the bottom layer I cut out the Easter message inside the frame and placed the Guardian Angel message from Crafty Secrets "Angel Blessings" in the frame. The second copy of the floral frame I fussy cut out away the white background from the image leaving only the flowers and thin green frame. The delicate frame is then popped up on dimensionals. Lastly I tied the ribbon around the frame and...voila!

Thanks for dropping by.

Cheers, Elizabeth