Poundland!

Don't you just love that shop! You can usually pick up some crafty bargains there, whether its kits or mini scrapbooks and of course four rolls of Double Sided tape, in the DIY section, for a pound. Who needs sticky dots eh! Heres my latest, some fake flowers that are going to be disassembled and used as blooms on cards.

I had a lovely few hours in the garden yesterday, and after I'd finished and was sitting having a cuppa in the sun the cats came out and posed for me! I'm no photographer but Im quite pleased with these, theyre such cuties! And the garden's not looking too bad either.

Friday!

We have had such a cool dare this week. To play with absolutely gorgeous papers from Self Addressed and a fun template, it doesn't get much better than that. The papers and kits they do are scrumptious and I've often gone green when Kathy, Lythan and Lynne get the latest droolable kit so actually seeing them in real life and getting to stroke them was such a treat. A sub is very high on my wishlist after the wedding! Still on a stash diet until then, poo!

All the card and paper is from SA except the blank, some inking , a few blooms layered, 2 ribbons and a couple of Sassafrass Lass stamped brackets is pretty much all I added. Finally a dovecraft brad coloured with chocolate embossing powder to attach and thats it. Its quite a busy card for me and has lots going on whereas usually my cards are a lot simpler but Im pretty happy with it. You can catch up with a whole host of impressive cards on the Daring Card Makers blog. Thanks Jenn for sponsoring out dare, it was great fun.


I had a lovely day teaching yesterday and my students produced some fantastic cards that were out of their comfort zone. It was really enjoyable to see how much fun they had! If you're in Dundee at a loose end on a thursday afternoon I still have a few places left, get in touch for details.

Its such a sunny day now and I think its time to tend to the veg patch and leave the inside work for another day, I love being self employed! Enjoy yourself whatever you're up to :)

Tagged! 7 Facts about me!

My thumbs much better now, its amazing how much quicker a clean sharp wound heals compared to one done with my blunt craft knife. The shoes are being broken in, not as I type though, just when Matt's not around!

Ive been tagged three times! By Sheila, Susan and Marmaluke so here goes... 7 facts about me.

1. I'm a country bumpkin. I love peace and quiet and can't hack the pace of the city anymore.
2. Ive been crafting for as long as I can remember, as a toddler the highlight of staying with my Grandma and Grampy was that they'd give me huge piles of scrap paper from their business so I could draw to my hearts delight.
   
3. I hate cooking so my fiance does most of it in this house!
4. We have two cats, they're our babies and get treated like royalty.
5. I like playing World of Warcraft and still enjoy fancy dress parties, 28 going on 8!
   
6. I'm scared of heights but I have abseiled over a kiddie cliff and it was terrifying!
   
7. I love crocs and hardly wear anything else since Lythan and Kel introduced me to the wonder of them.
   

Its too late for my little sleepy head to think of who to tag, so if you're reading this and you haven't been tagged, take up the challenge and let me know you've done it by leaving a comment!

Fiskateer Scissors

Hooray, my fiskateer scissors arrived yesterday. So straight away I started using them instead of my 18 year old pair of fiskars scissors to do a trimming double sided tape job. Oooo theyre sharp and new and make that lovely swoosh sound when you cut.

After a while they got gunked up with sticky goo...

So I cleaned it with a baby wipe as I usually do...

And these are brand new and VERY sharp...

Yep I sliced my thumb nearly in half, ouch, very very sore. The thing is I've done this before, not for a few years but you think I'd learn eh!

In the afternoon I toddled off to the Bridal shop to try on shoes, oh wow, I really have to reccommend Rainbow Club Bliss shoes. Theyre just so comfy, even with heels and even when I mostly wear crocs. So now Im ready for my first fitting!

Monday monday

Some exciting news I can finally share! I'm now published, very exciting! Im designing for The Wedding Crafter who do loads of fab bits for wedding stationery. Its a very exciting opportunity and its getting me all wedding-ed up. Ok, I know its not a word, but how else do you describe it!

I'd just like to say thank you all for your lovely comments. Its great to know who's reading my blog! I had a brilliant play over the weekend with the goodies Sarah sent me and it was great fun. Thanks again for making my weekend. I used Becky Fleck sketches for inspiration, I love her Page Maps library, its fabulous. If you haven't seen it, its worth a look.


The wedding planning is going really well, so much is organised already and I'm surprisingly calm. I'm planning on getting the invites finished over the next week or so and my shoes have arrived in the shop! 3 of my favourite styles in my size for me to try on and choose from, fab! If youre local, its Elegance in Letham, so friendly and helpful. How high a heel can I actually walk in though, lol.

I was so glad it rained this weekend, I was starting to think it would never happen, and now all the trees have finally burst into green. It was so odd having the May blossom out when the leaves were still in bud. Plus, it gave me the perfect excuse to hide away crafting and meant I didn't have to do my 8 watering can round!

Fuzzy Felt

Do you remember fuzzy felt? That strange velcro like board with loads of coloured blobs to make little stories from. Well you can still get it, all be it with disney characters and any other kiddie brand deemed financially rewarding enough, but its still there! Apparently, Nic says you can still get the shapes too if you look hard enough, they were the king of fuzzy felts!

Gillian set a brilliant Daring Cardmakers Dare this week, to use felt! And heres my contributions. Im not particularly happy with the first one with the sewing, I just think it needs something a bit more, but I dont know what... maybe it needs less!
This one uses a Dovecraft Paper from Craftspirations, how gorgeous are these papes, I love them and they're a bargain too at 3 quid for a 6 inch square pack. Felt flowers and a bloom all attached with Papermania brads. Super simple!
Ive had a lovely afternoon eatting cookies, drinking tea and talking craft and weddings with Nic and Lynne this afternoon. A welcome change after a morning spent learning how to do tax returns, you know they say it doesn't have to be taxing... they lie! Thanks for a fab day girls.

CPS#9

I had to make a Thank you card last night and as I had no inspiration, (thats what making a gazzillion wedding invites does for you!) I had a look round some of the fabby sketch blogs that are going. This is the Card Positioning Systems sketch of the week and it's lovely and simple, so nice and quick for me!

Thank you is printed using 2peas Garden Girls font and papers are Basic Grey Blush, a few primas and brads and thats it!

I'm so lucky

Thank you so much Sarah for my gorgeous blog candy package that just arrived! Absolutely gorgeous ribbons, papers, buttons and flowers, and the cutest little tag and leaf brads, they're fab! With saving for the wedding there's not been much opportunity to go craft shopping so I'm really going to enjoy playing with this little lot, thank you. The world is such a fabby place full of lovely kind generous people. Sarah also sent her Clarrice Cliff inspired card, and its even more fantastic in real life. I love that you sewed on the buttons instead of sticking them, such attention to detail!

I spent the gorgeous sunny weekend in the garden digging. I need some of the veg patch to grow flowers to cut for the wedding and we've decided, a bit late really, to do some easy veg this year so the whole lot's getting turned over. As if we don't have enough to do! The seedlings have made their way outside now for hardening off and I'm resting my blisters on our wedding invites.

I'm actually looking forward to a rainy foggy miserable day so I can get some craft play time!

Crossing Cultures

Ive been so busy I havent had time to upload this til now. Weddings and business both seem to take up a lot of my time, so my internet allowance has suffered. Still its all good, The sun is still shining, my seedlings are sprouting like mad and Im working my cotton socks off! Actually I'm back to Crocs sans Socks, its been that warm and its only April! This weeks dare...

I (Saffa) come from a very multicultural background and love being
able to see them all from within and this is what has inspired
this weeks challenge....take a deep breath...
I would like you to make a card that celebrates and reflects
a festival from another culture to your own....

So here are some ideas to get you started:
Chinese New Year
Eid
Hanukkah
Persian New Year
Diwali
Sinhalese New Year
Kwanzaa
St. Patrick's day

So you get the idea....Good luck...

I wanted to make a card for a festival I'd never heard of so I allowed myself an hour of surfing and found the Hindu festival of colour, Holi. It sounds like an amazing time, when everyone gets covered in bright powder paints and celebrates the coming of spring. This silk paper I'd made a wee while ago seemed to fit the colour theme perfectly. Its pure silk so it shines and glistenes beautifully and makes the colours so vibrant.

If you fancy a go try googling silk paper making or email me and I'll look out some links. It makes a great canvas for embroidery, not that I have the patience for anything so time consuming!

The Aum symbol seemed to fit this perfectly as it is placed and said before and after most sacred Hindu texts and its symbol appears to be a standard sign for Hindu philosophy and beliefs.

Not that I know any of this for sure though, so feel free to correct me if my internet research is flawed!

Silk paper background layered on coloured card with Aum symbol handcut from card. Simple! Thanks Saffa for a fab Dare and I can't wait to see what you all come up with.
Rhi x

Wow!

Thank you for all your lovely comments about my art dare card. I really appreciate each and every one :) I have been busy crafting but can't share it at the moment so you'll just have to take my word for it!

I am gobsmaked by the wonderful entries on the dare I set so I thought I'd share the contributions up to date here, its amazing to see what everyones come up with. To think I nearly didn't set this dare cause it was too way out!

Sarah

Sheila (manicstamper)

Esther

Ruthie

Paula

Lynne

Wendy (Anntaurus)

Rainowgirl

Kitty

Lisa Olibob

Andrea(frog)

Jayne

Marmaluke

Tracey

Annikki

Monty's Mum

Sharon

Angelnorth

Mary-beth

Pearl (Maisymary)

Art Attack

It's my turn to set the dare again! I can't believe how quickly this has come around since last time. The design team as always came up trumps and produced some amazing cards, check them all out on the Daring Card Makers Blog.

So to create a card based on a work of art... The first time I saw a piece by this artist was in the Millenium Dome. Yes it cost a lot of money but I loved it there and spent a good 30 minutes calmly sitting in a bubble of light created by James Turrell that gradually changed through the whole spectrum. It was amazing, you really couldn't tell it had changed til it had arrived at a new colour. I can't find any photos of what it was like and it would be one of those things impossible to capture in a photo anyway. Since then James Turrell has been an Artistic Hero in my life. He has made so many amazing spaces I could rabbit on about it for days, but just have a flick through here instead if you're interested! This was the piece I based my card on...

James Turrell Deer Shelter at Yorkshire Sculpture Park

I do like to set muself a challenge picking an installation artist who works with huge spaces to inspire a card, but here's what I came up with.

Its a card that uses light and 3D space, in the same vein as James Turrell did, but on a much smaller scale. All the card is white and all the colour is painted with light. I originally intended to have it self lit with electro-luminescent-fibres, a material I played around with a lot at Art College, but my samples had perished so I had to have a rethink. The colour comes from acetates, like the ones used on nightclub lights, as the light shines from above. And it really does open like a proper card too incase you were wondering! I can't wait to see what you come up with, but remember you dont have to make life difficult and pick an installation artist, lol!

Wednesday Stamper

I've finally had a bit of time to sit down and play and I decided to do this weeks wednesday stamper. Ive been a lurker on their blog for a while, but this week I decided to get my watercolours out and have a play.

This was a technique I used a lot in my early stamping days and had forgotten about in favour of new fangled things, it was really nice to try this out again, and I finally used this stamp that I've had for ages and never used! Its by Magenta.

It's still sunny here, hooray, I can feel the gloom of winter lifting and being replaced by happiness and sunshine, and some of my seeds are sprouting already so another summer of flowers!

I hope it's sunny where you are today!

Colour Change

What a gorgeous weekend! It was so nice to have the sun out, a real taster of the summer to come. Went for a lovely walk on the beach and remembered the camera too, we're so lucky to have this so close by. Then speaking to my Dad last night they'd been to the beach too, and one of my little brothers had been in swimming. They may be 18 and all grown up but they're still my little bro's. Mad going in the sea at this time of year though, not even in a wetsuit! They're made of sterner stuff than me, I didn't even take my coat off. Maybe they have their own little mini heatwave going on over the west coast!

Not much indoor creativity this weekend, but I did make a new blog banner last night which Im very pleased with, the other one was a bit autumny and I never got a good wintry pic to replace it. Also, better late than never, got my flower seeds started off. The cats are totally peeved bcause their windowsills are now covered in trays and plantpots. The gardens looking great, if messy but at least everythings starting to grow, and I'm remembering whats coming next. Lots of blue, cream and white annual flowers this year for cutting as Im going to try growing as many of our wedding flowers as possible.

I hope you had a lovely weekend, what did you get up to? Its lovely to hear who reads my blog so leave a comment and I can come and visit you too!