Happy Mother's Day

Although we aren't seeing either my Mum nor my MIL on the actual day, I made a couple of cards and sent them off in good time ...

My Mum was due to come and spend a couple of days with me this week but unfortunately that has had to be cancelled, so she will have to wait a little bit longer for her pressie now ... but don't worry, I won't forget!

As Alex is working today, we spent the day together yesterday and she gave me her gift which I was delighted with, such a thoughtful gorgeous little box of bits and bobs that she knew I would love (and I do - thanks Lexie!)  Hayden bought me a cute little camera bag for my new camera which I also love, and allegedly, Phil is cooking dinner ...

Carole x

Male Birthday Card

Last week, my good friend Natalie's children both had birthdays.  Oliver turned 14, and being a boy the task was harder to begin with!  I had a little look on Pinterest, found a tutorial and made this card:

I loved how it turned out, so have already made my two Father's Day cards, but won't show those just yet!

For Amber, I couldn't contain my excitement to use my new Stampin' Up owl punch any longer!!!

It's not quite how I intended it to be due to my rotten stamping skills (!) so I had to add another strip of the pink wooden paper which I think is a bit much pink, but hey, Amber likes pink, so it's not all bad!

Carole x

Engaged!

We had some good news recently when Jamie asked my sister Jo to marry him :)  Not only that good news, but they have already set the date - for 1st September THIS YEAR!!!

So, obviously, I needed to make a card for the happy couple:

Quite simple, and inspired by something similar I found on Pinterest, but it did the job and they liked it :)  I liked it too, so modified it slightly and made Phil's Valentine card along similar lines ;)

Talking of Pinterest, I also found a fab photo that I showed to Jo, and she agreed to pose with Jamie, so after making a little sign, this is the result:

Luckily, we took this photo before they had an official pre wedding photo shoot with their photographer at the wedding venue last week!

More news regarding the wedding ... Jo and Jamie are coming down to stay with us for a weekend shortly so that we can make the wedding invitations ... I only hope that I/we can do a good enough job!  Will let you know!

Carole x

50 Years of Memories

My lovely friend Louise had her 50th birthday a couple of weeks ago.  Now I love Louise to bits, but she isn't the easiest person to buy gifts for :(  So, when I stumbled across this pin on Pinterest, I knew that I had to give it a go!

I obviously needed to draft in some help in the form of Louise's daughter Lauren who could sneak relevant information from her Mum's address book, and then we sent emails, made telephone calls and asked as many people as we could think of to write us a memory of Louise so that we could fill 50 envelopes ...

In the week before Louise's big day I was panicking as I didn't have enough memories to fill all the envelopes, but I needn't have worried as two days before, I had an influx of memories ... and ended up having to double up on quite a few envelopes!!!

I bought a tin with the words "Big Love" (thought that was appropriate) that the envelopes just fit in:

and wrapped the gift:

I also made 36 cupcakes for the surprise birthday party, one batch of coffee, one of chocolate and one of vanilla (with pink icing):

Since I knew that the surprise party was taking place, and Louise obviously didn't, I had left my card with Lauren to give to her on the actual day of her birthday (another Pinterest inspired card ... don't know what I did before I discovered Pinterest!!!)

The best news of all though is that Louise had a lovely day, and really enjoyed her 50 Memories, some of which made her laugh out loud and some that made her well up and some that were so lovely that she just smiled.  I was happy that I had managed to pull it all together for such a special friend.

Thanks Pinterest for such great ideas!!!

Carole x

Happy Birthday Alma!

Last week was my lovely friend Alma's birthday.  Being a fellow crafter, I wasn't going to get away with buying her a birthday card, nor buying a gift.  This is the card I came up with for her:

For her little gift, I searched Pinterest for some inspiration, and found these cute little OWLS.  They were originally intended to be little Christmas tree decorations, so I enlarged the pattern and made this one first:

Since he was my first one, there were a few bits I wanted to tweak (like only using one strand of embroidery floss instead of two), so he will stay here with me!  The two that went to live with Alma (who loves the colour green!) look like this:

and this:

I am delighted to say that Alma loved them, and they are now nesting with her in her bedroom!  I also love them, and love making them, although they did cause me a serious problem last week, when Arnold, one of my young cats, swallowed the needle and navy blue thread that I had kept by the side of my chair in a pin cushion :(  I rushed him to the vet where an xray confirmed that he had indeed swallowed a needle, an operation to remove it from his tummy followed, along with three nights at the vet, and a bill for well over £800.  Needless to say, I now keep all my needles and pins safely in a tin ...

Carole x

Two Cards for One Day

Yesterday was a big day in the Griffin household - HUGE in fact.  It was a life changing day, if all went well, for myself and especially for Alex.

In the morning I gave her this card:

and I hoped that in the evening I would be able to give her this card :

which I did!!!  She passed her driving test!  I don't know who was more nervous yesterday, her or me!  She wanted it so badly that she would have been devastated if she had failed, but I was so proud of her, not only was it her first test but she only turned 17 three months ago!

Loving my new Snoopy stamp!!!  I actually bought it some time ago, but had been saving it for this occasion, and I love it!  Had a thing for Snoopy when I was a little girl.

Hopefully back tomorrow with my first day of this years Christmas Journal!

Carole x

New Babies

Two of my cousins were expecting babies, about six weeks apart, one mid September, the other late October.  However, as is often the case, babies arrive in this world when they are ready, and who would have thought it, but they both arrived on the same day (which incidentally was what would have been my dad's birthday).  Even more spooky, one of the babies was given exactly the name that we had chosen for Alex if she had been a boy - William Paul (Paul was my Dad's name).

 Even though Isabella still hasn't reached her due date, she is now home and doing really well after a couple of weeks in hospital.  I haven't met her yet but she looks so dinky from the photos I have seen :)

Carole x

Hubby's Birthday Card

Just a quick post today before I start work this afternoon :(  (can't really complain, haven't been in since last Thursday!)  It was my DH's birthday a week or so ago, and this is the card I made for him, inspired yet again by a pin on Pinterest:

Part of the reason for not wanting to go into work this afternoon is that I have re-caught the bug ... you know the bug I am talking about ... the scrapbooking bug!  I managed to created two layouts yesterday, and another one this morning, and you know what it's like, now I'm itching to do more!  Oh well, that's life I suppose, so off to work I go!

Carole x

Happy Birthday Joannie

It was pointed out to me today by a couple of people that I haven't blogged for week or so.  How did that happen?  So, thought I had better get my finger out and do something about it!

Here then, is a birthday card that I made for my little sister Joanne ... another one inspired by a similar card found on Pinterest (I love that site!)

I think she liked it (hope she did anyway!)

Have a lovely weekend!

Carole x

Something a little bit different ...

Not a scrap of brown paper, nor any of the usual Carole touches here - and I quite like it!  It was also so simple and didn't take long - Yay!  I'm thinking that I might well use this design for my Christmas cards, just using Christmas papers for the stars and an appropriate sentiment - if I ever manage to actually get back into my Crafty Corner any time soon :(  It's been two weeks tomorrow since I last did any crafting - way too long for my liking.

Life should return to normal soon as my children both go back to school this week - Wednesday and Thursday.  However, it isn't good news for my littlest kitten who had to go back to the vet today to have his heart murmur checked out.  Unfortunately, he hasn't grown out of it, and so he has to go for a heart scan on Friday, bless him.  He has however, doubled his weight since his last visit (for his second injection) and he now weighs in at 3kg (compared to the 600g that he weighed when we first got him).

Carole x

Baby Shower

I've never been to a baby shower.  My cousin Jemma is expecting in October and she was having a baby shower and I was invited.  Unfortunately I couldn't make it (so I still haven't been to one!) but since I was invited I thought that I should at least make a little card for the occasion.  Here is what I came up with:

Just a simple card, paper pieced pram, die cut words and I sewed on a couple of vintage buttons for the pram wheels.  Not sure if this is appropriate for a baby shower, but I sent it anyway!!!

Carole x

Birthday Candles

I seem to have developed a bit of a "thing" for candles!  Two of my recent birthday cards have featured them - both for boys, one for my nephew Felix and one for my Dad:

I'm thinking that the one I made for my Dad is a fairly quick and simple design that I might well use for other male birthdays (love it when you find something to crack the male problem!)

Carole x

Recipe Card

A while ago, when I used to go on the Docrafts forum, I belonged to a group of ladies who would swap Recipe Cards each month.  I loved making the cards, and testing the recipes of the cards that I received!  When my lovely friend Suzie Boo dropped by unexpectedly recently, although I hadn't done any housework (and indeed, was mid craft!) I did at least have a homemade cake to offer with a nice cup of tea!  Suzie liked the cake and asked for the recipe, so I made her a recipe card:

Making this card reminded me how much I used to enjoy this swap ... so if any of my lovely followers would like to swap a recipe card with me (and I'm pretty sure that Suzie would like to be in on a swap too) then let me know and we'll sort something out!  If you're reading this from Dublin Suzie, hope you don't mind me taking your name in vain!

Incidentally, Simnel Cake is a traditional Easter cake (so Suzie's visit probably wasn't as recent as I thought!) but I think that I will make this cake as my Christmas cake this year as it is lighter than my usual Christmas one but just as delicious!

Carole x

Another Anniversary

Just before our anniversary, it was our lovely friends, Steve and Natalie's wedding anniversary.  This was the card that I had originally planned on making for Phil, but as I didn't know how many years S & N had been married (and anyone who might know wasn't available) I switched the designs around and made the 20 hearts for Phil!

This card was based on an idea I found on Pinterest, although I jiggled it around quite a lot.  I bought the glassine envelopes, and I love them!  I love that you can still see the patterned paper through them and then pop something in so that it kind of floats (or is that just me?!)

I used my old typewriter for the words on this card, and some Sugared paper from Basic Grey along with a bit of pink ribbon from my stash.  I think that I will make other cards similar to this one, just so that I can use a few more of those lovely glassine envelopes!

Phil and I had a lovely weekend in London even though I felt poorly for most of the time (and still do).  More on that in future posts though as I have today made a start on the mini journal that I wanted to put together about the weekend ...

Carole x

Happy Anniversary

This week, Phil and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary!  How did that happen?  We are going away for the weekend to London, and I am looking forward to it very much, although unfortunately, I have been really poorly this week :(  Hoping to manage to still do all the things that we want to do which is a different list to what we normally do when we go to London.  We usually go to Harrods and Liberty and often Covent Garden, so we are keen to do something different this time, as well as revisit some honeymoon destinations.  We were married on the Saturday 20 years ago, but didn't fly out to the Greek Islands for our honeymoon until the Wednesday, and so we spent the couple of days after the wedding in London.  We want to go and get some photos outside the hotel that we stayed in then as well as the lovely area (Shepherd Market) that we explored all those years ago.  I am intending to make a mini book of the weekend/20th wedding anniversary over the next couple of weeks ... so watch this space!

So, here is the card that I made for Phil:

I managed to find a page in my old book (about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table) all about love and marriage, and then punched out or die cut 20 hearts, one for each year of our marriage.

I'm very pleased to say that I have finally finished the curtains for Hayden's room and they are now hanging and making his room look very cosy.

Carole x

Lots of Love

I've been really busy pinning today.  However, not the highly addictive pinning on Pinterest my current most favourite website and source of huge inspiration.  No.  I've been making curtains.  We re-decorated Hayden's room about a month ago and bought the fabric just after and I have been trying to summon up the enthusiasm to make a start.  This horrible wet, typical English Summer weekend seemed like the right time.  Unfortunately for me, Hayden's room has two windows, so it's double the work.  Anyway, I have made a good start but I am going to have to give up my crafting day in order to finish the curtains ... and probably a few evenings of hand stitching the hems :(

So, here is a card that I made after being inspired by a similar one on Pinterest:

I reckon that this could be quite versatile and could be an anniversary (or wedding) card, birthday card, or like I have done here just to send some love to someone who needs it.  I made the envelope by drawing a square and using my compass to draw semi circles round all the edges - simples!  I couldn't help myself, just had to add the parcel paper and make the card my own!

Carole x

Picket Fence

Had a little play with my Sizzex picket fence die, and here is the resulting card:

I'm not totally delighted with the results, and not sure that it will be as popular as I originally thought, but I will have another play and will hopefully change my mind!  I also now think that I need the grass die as this grass was hand cut (as I'm sure you can tell!)

Carole x

A male birthday card

I struggle so much with male cards so my heart sank when I realised that I needed to make two this month, one being for my little brother (age 39, 6' 2"!)  I came up with this design:

The only thing I was slightly fed up about was the glue showing through the blue vellum, but actually once it dried some more, it was far less visible.  Note to self: don't use vellum on kraft again!

I opened up my pack of V&A papers for these cards and love the masculine feel.  Apart from the bird which is a Sizzix die, out came my compass for the circles and I hand cut the trunk.

Hope you are enjoying the weekend.

Carole x

1st Birthday

I was a little stumped about what to do for my cousin's little girl's first birthday, but then Pinterest came to my rescue (as I think it will on many occasions in the future, and the present!)

I made the monkey by cutting out two different size circles (head and ears), a heart shape for his eyes, and an oval for his mouth (the heart was a die, but the circles were with a compass and the oval was free hand) and then I matted him up on to some nesties cut from girly pink and white papers.  A lot of Cuttlebug action on this card, but it was worth it I hope!

Carole x

Happy Anniversary

It was our lovely friends Louise and Ian's wedding anniversary last week, and I created this card for the occasion:

Yep, a typical Carole card ... contains loads of bits and bobs that I love, namely kraft card, tickets, birds, book paper and twine.  Sigh.

Carole x