JFF- Tea Cards

Over at Just for Fun this week the theme for the challenge is Tea Cards

little cards that are 1 1/2 x 2 1/2 inches.

I cut my pieces of card from white card stock as I wanted to use the colours

from my Vivid Ink collection.

I added the colours and then added some cute little images

from a Mary Englebreit pack of atc papers.

I love the bright colours with these kiddie images

kiddies with attitude really.......

Thanks for stopping by my blog and I hope you have a lovely weekend.

The Scrapbook Garden , Tando House

This little house was in my design kit for the Scrapbook Garden, its so cute. Ive spent the last few days putting it together

It comes all flat packed as a little kit and you can find it online at the Scrapbook Garden here

I wasnt quite sure how to decorate it but hunted out some ideas around blogland and also at Tando and came across quite a clever idea

It was to cut 2 square pieces out of the 2 side panels and make space for a pull out photo collection in each side.

The chipboard is excellent quality and I drew out the piece to be cut out with a pencil and ruler as I found it had to be cut slowly so as not to make the cuts uneven.


I ended up with my 2 side panels as shown below

There are grooves cut in the chipboard so the main body of the house just simply slots together

quite quickly and with ease. However its a snug fit , and theres no need to use any glue at this stage.

As ive found with other chipboard pieces it can be quite pourus, so not wanting to lose any colour from which ever medium I decided to use I thought it best to give the whole house inside and out a coat of Gesso, this sealed the chipboard and also gave me a nice white base to work with

This needed to dry overnight just to be sure , although it was touch dry quite quickly.

I decided to use acrylic paints thinking they might be a bit more hardwearing, as unlike scrapbook pages that are in albums and covered this was going to be standing out on a surface and could get dust

I decided on a delicate shade of pink for the main part of the house which I thought looked a bit like a little cottage dolls house that my daughter once had with a bright red roof

So then came next....the bright red roof. I added a touch of black ink to the edges of the roof just to finish it off a bit better

The chimney went together in the same way, 4 sections which slotted together without the need for any glue.

I remembered I had some brick effect paper and it seemed ideal for the effect on the chimney pot

Covering the chipboard with the paper made no difference to it slotting together so using paper to cover the main part of the house would have been an option also.


 

My house needed a door , so I set too and cut a door shape out of some spare chipboard just slightly bigger than the opening on the front of the house.

I then sliced through the door and created the effect of weeden planks , I painted them and edged each one all the way round with black ink to creat depth in the door. I added a number 16 as this was the number of my childhood house

I added a brad to act as a door handle

I cut a panel of chipboard to fit within the centre of the main body of the house and covered both sides of it with a contrasting paper.

I also did the same for the base.

I attached the house to the base using Glossy accents

this is a good strong glue and as the edges of the base were very narrow I needed something that would hold strong and fast

Next I glued the sides and the base of the middle panel and eased that into place also/

I cut 2 lengths of co ordinating paper , scored it with my paper folder and folded it up concertina style. The two piece that had been cut from the side panels at the beginning had one side painted with gesso and then the acrylic paint and the other side covered with the co ordinating paper to match the centre panel

Next I took some black acrylic and painted in the window frames to give the windows some depth, this is where I found out I didnt have a very steady hand lol

Turning to the rear of the house , on the example I was following they had attached a chipboard tree which looked great, however I didnt have one of those but I did have this rubber stamped street lamp which was a perfect size. I also found a garden fence , so I added some flowers and the cute little watering can.

On each end of the folded paper I added some double sided tape , attaching it to the centre panel and also to the piece that I had cut from the side panel at the beginning.

All this needs to be done before you attach the roof as you need to be able to get to the inside and this is the only way you can do this

Next using the gloosy accents once again I added the roof and the chimney pot.

Afterwards I added another contrasting paper to the folded paper , a harlequin design, it is to these squares I will add my images , pictures of my children and grandchildren.

It had been my intention to maybe add some embossing to the roof to give it some texture , but I feel this would have been better done before I had attached the roof , as once again the edges that were to be glued were very narrow

I painted the under side of the roof also as you can see theres a slight over hang.

I added a little pot of flowers by the front door to make it look more homely. Again if you wanted to add any embossing to the front panel around the door maybe I would advise doing it while the panels were still flat

And thats it , one little house. I did add to the length of time by adapting the side panels but I wanted more to it than just the little house as once the roof is on you cant get inside.

Theres a bird house in the same range too which i think would look fab as decoration inside a conservatory maybe, you can find it here

I found it did take some time and patience to complete but it was worth it in the end and as I said I added to the time frame because I had altered it, without the modifications I would have been finished alot sooner.

Thank you for stopping by my blog and for leaving a comment its much appriciated.

Have a peep at the range of chipboard over at the Scrapbook Garden its so reasonably priced its a bargain.

The Scrapbook Garden - Moments

Apologies that there are only a few images with this post blogger seems to be acting itself again.
After sitting for 2 hours this is all I can get blogger to accept, I think there may be some outstanding issues from when blogger went off last week.

The 12 x 12 layout over at the Scrapbook Garden named Moments should be here if you are unable to view any images after I publish.

This is another one of the delicious Crate Paper range called 'Bridesmaids'

I decided to team it up with my own contrasting cardstock using 4 different colours.

The photo is one of my Dads brother Alan , with my Grandmother and her sister. There wasnt alot of detail in this picture to match it up with embellishments etc, which made me use the shapes in the 4 contrasting colours. Its a lovely paper and with such a nice print I didnt want to add another printed paper which was why i decided to use the solid bold colours along with it.
For the title I used chipboard letters from my stash and found a Tim Holtz tag which had Moments on too so it matched in perfectly.

If you havent been over to the Scrapbook Garden to have a look at this range of papers pop over now its here

Well once again apologies for this image problems hopefully I will be able to add the extra images as soon as blogger is fixed which i hope isnt much longer.

I hope you have had a lovely weekend , Im on holiday from work now until next sunday so im hoping to get the rest of my crafting projects all finished off.

JFF - Postcard

This is my entry for this weeks Just For Fun which is Postcards.

Anyone who knows me well, knows I dont care alot for holidays, Im very much a home bird and being a bad traveller dont wander very far. We love Disneyland at Paris as the journey is a quick one so I dont have any trouble. But for years if I went away postcards home never said 'wish you were here' they always said ' I wish I was there'

I dont like the sun either , Im sure I should have been a vampire as Im happier when its dull and gloomy.
As soon as I saws that the challenge was 'Postcards' the first thing that sprang to mind was 'I wish I was there'

This is my Postcard which was made with a 6 x 4 piece of photo paper which I dropped alcohol inks onto using colours which made it look gloomy and rainy stormy weather.
I added the umbrella man which I cut out in white , sometimes when i look at it , it looks as though Ive used an umbrella man mask and inked the paper around it, but its not, its just attached over the top. Of course my Postcard wouldnt be the same if it didnt include my ' Wish I was there'

Hope you have a lovely weekend its work for me soon till midnight then back at 8am in the morning , thanks for stopping by my blog its much appriciated

The Scrapbook Garden- ' Traditionally - Happy Birthday '

These cards were made for The Scrapbook Garden with somemore of those delicious Crate Paper designs. This paper is called 'Traditions' and its another lovely paper.
To be honest I think you would be hard pushed not to like any of these papers they are all so lovely.
I made 2 different cards with the same paper, the first one with the Tim Holtz sewing room die cut on it, I liked the idea of just the dressmakers dummy on the front so I added the cotton bobbin and the button to the inside of the card to carry the theme into the card.

The next one was different I used a slither of the traditions paper down the inside of the card to draw the theme inside. The lady in the image wore a pearl necklace so I added the pearl buckle and black ribbon to the front edge to finish it off and make it a bit more classy. I hope I achieved this .

Ive really enjoyed working with this kit even though Im behind the rest of the team, there doesnt seem to be enough hours in the day lately.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend and thanks for stopping by my blog its much appriciated.

The Scrapbook Garden - Tulle Ribbon Cards

I really enjoyed making these Tulle Ribbon Cards for the Scrapbook Garden.
I always like black and white together , I always think it looks classy.
The ribbon is Bazzill Tulle in Raven (black) and White and it was perfect for this project.

I decided to use these rubber stamps as they always look good and they are two of my favourites

This image went well placed on an accent cut from the Crate Paper Portrait Collection that ive been working with of late, proving that they are not just for vintage work.

I placed the stamped images onto some Crate Paper Portrait collection 12 x 12 cut down , the pattern is called 'Pearls, its black with a teeny dot on it. I tied the Tulle ribbon around it and secured it with some tape at the back before matting it on black cardstock.
The bows tied beautifully first time and i didnt need to fidget with them they stayed where I put them straight away. That was a bonus for me as sometimes its hard to get ribbon to look perfect, but not with this , so I was very impressed. It feels nice and its lovely to work with, its soft too so i believe it would be nice used on lots of projects. I will certainly use it again.

The 2nd rubber stamp was that of a small quote with an image, again its one ive used many times but it always looks the part i think.

Thanks again for stopping by my blog , your comments are always appriciated.