Polar Party

On Saturday Linda and I attended the Stampin' Up All Day Craft Extravaganza with Mrs Wonka (Zoe Pierson) and Natalie O'Shea in Crawley. We had a great day making cards and other things for Christmas.

One of the classes taught by Zoe was a tag, box and card using the Polar Party stamp set. Such a cute stamp set and together with these fab papers they made some super gifts.

The Card

Box

and tag

Stamps - Polar Party

Inks - Memento, Tuxedo Black

Pens - Promarkers

Papers - Paper Stack, 2011 - 2013 in colour (Island Indigo, Lucky Limeade, Pool Party)

Glitter - Stickles

Punches - Crop-a-dile, Corner Rounder

Bigz Die - Two Tags

Ribbon - Ruffled Ribbon Pool Party

Cardstock - A4 Smooth Cardstock Pool Party, Lucky Limeade and Island Indigo.

I was lucky enough to win the stamp set in the raffle, so can make lots more!

These treats were on our tables when we arrived, a bag of sweets and a bottle of water.

Thanks girls, great day all round.

More to follow.

Happy Birthday Karen!

Hello, here is an easel card I made for my friend and fellow DT member Karen (KazC).

I wanted very gentle colours for this card and found a tutorial on the Lili of the Valley blog for blending one colour with white.

Close up of easel stopper, greeting from Craftwork Cards.

Close up of image to show colouring, with stickles added 

I'm entering this card into this weeks challenge with Lily of the Valley, which was to choose a line from the bingo card and include the three elements, I chose ribbon and lace (paper lace hearts as I am away from home and have no lace with me), gems and flowers.

Card Blank & Greeting - Craftwork Cards

Punches - Martha Stewart & Stampin' Up

Patterned papers - Kaiser Craft, Bonjour

Other - butterflies, paper roses, gems,  ribbon & Chalk inks.

I also made Karen one of my Aprons.

Thanks for looking.

Happy Birthday Karen!

A Canvas for Simon

Just a short post today - Having made a canvas each for the triplets Oliver, Hannah and Lucy, I decided to make one for big brother Simon too.

I like this black and white photo of him sailing in Cornwall, so added that to some Beach Babe, Fancy Pants papers and blue acrylic paint on a 10" x 12"canvas.

The letters and images were all cut on the Cricut using George and Basic Shapes and Life is a Beach cartridges.
Thanks for looking.

Soak Up The Sun

I saw a layout by Miss Fancy Pants on Scrapbook.com that I really liked some months ago. As I already had the papers (but not the other embellishments) that were used, I saved the link intending to have a go myself, and I have finally got around to doing just that.

Patterned papers- Beach Babe - Fancy Pants

Die Cuts - Life is a Beach - Cricut

Punch - Scallop circle - Woodware

Chalk inks, flat backed pearls and Perfect Pearls

Cardstock - White - Bazzill

Black Pen - Sharpie

The photos are my daughter, Catherine on the beach on the Isles of Scilly, messing around while posing for Alan and the camera.

Here is a photo of the original layout by Miss Fancy Pants. The background here is made from a flocked transparency. Her layout is called Beach Beauty. It also has chipboard stickers, journal embellishments and filter flower papers.

Thanks for looking.

Sapperton Tunnel

Beryl & Alan at Coates Portal

While in Gloucester last week we visited both ends of the Sapperton Tunnel. In the middle of the Thames & Severn Canal, the tunnel was first used over 200 years ago (1789).  At the time it was the state of the art in canal technology, being then at 2·17 miles,the longest tunnel ever dug in England.  It has no towpath; narrow boats were propelled through the tunnel by legging.

Coates Portal

It took five years to dig (mostly by hand though gunpowder was also used through the rocky sections) which was only a year longer than originally intended, and was much faster than most contemporary tunnels. It was difficult and dangerous work and there were many fatalities, though it does not appear to be recorded as to exactly how many.

The disused canal by the Coates Portal

The tunnel's completion allowed the passage of boats through to Cirencester laden with cheap coal from the mines of the north and west, which had hitherto been transported expensively by road. By the 18th November 1789, the whole length of the Thames & Severn was open, allowing the relatively quick passage of boats with their varying cargoes between the west of England and London, as well as to the many towns and villages in between. Trade flourished, and despite problems with the construction and water supply, the canal and Sapperton Tunnel remained in use until the early 1900s.

We walked along the towpath to the Daneway Portal 

On top of the Daneway Portal

The Coates Portal itself, rebuilt in 1976/7, is also worthy of a close look, as is the newly refurbished Daneway Portal , two miles away. Also not too far away is the Source of the Thames, where in wet weather, the water almost fountains up out of the ground.

It was a beautiful autumn day and we had a good walk around the area surrounding both portals, taking pictures, and ended up in the Daneway Inn!

Alan lost his Beer!

Henstead Exotic Garden

Alan heard about Henstead Exotic Garden and took a look at the website. He was impressed with the story behind the creating of the garden and the fantastic pictures. He contacted Andrew who is responsible for this wonderful acre of exotic plants and trees including bananas, palms, tree ferns, streams and their own special buildings, and made an arrangement to visit. Without watch, phone or Internet (just cameras), we had a private guided tour of the gardens and took hundreds of photos ourselves.

We were so lucky with the weather, (which has been promising to change), which was sunny with blue skies.

The garden also includes rock filled ponds with waterfalls, large palms, Thai style viewing pavilion on stilts, amazing bamboos, a 30 foot tiered wooded walkway and a bespoke gingerbread summer house where the tea and cakes are served from.

I'm sharing a few of our photos here, but urge you to visit the website, or better still take a trip to the garden on one of the open days next year.

This area is quite exposed at present where plants have recently been cut back, and new land in the background has been acquired. So much more work to be done.

That's probably enough photos for one day! Back with photos of the walled garden another time.

My Little Scholar

Really catching up now with the layouts from the Cardinal Colours Retreat lat month. This double layout was again designed by SJ. The papers are from the Dots and Stripes Collection by Echo Park and included three double-sided papers, as well as letter stickers and element stickers. I flipped the red and blue papers and used the dotty side, rather than the stripes, but kept the stripes for the green paper. The kit also contained Metal Art, flat backed self adhesive brass effect, squares and dots by K & Co. The photo looks a bit wonky, but the layout is quite straight - honest!

Your Journey as a Scholar

The photos show our son, Andrew on his first day at St. Paulinus Primary School, then his first term at Dartford Grammar School and then Just about to leave home for University last Summer.The journalling tells a bit about each place and wonders what will be next. Wishing him well with all his studies and future.

A closer look at each page

This is SJ's original:

Thanks for looking and please leave a comment.

Beautiful Beryl

We have just returned from a lovely long weekend visiting Alan's cousin Beryl who lives in Tetbury, Gloucestershire. We were very busy discovering both ends of the Sapperton Tunnel on the Severn Thames Canal (more of this in another post). We also spent a great day visiting friends in Worcestershire.

While we were with Beryl we spent some time working on the family tree, something I have neglected to do lately. Beryl gave me this favourite photograph of herself, to scan in and add it to the tree. I also printed out a copy and was pleased with the results. It was taken around 1948 to 1950.

While at the Cardinal Colours Retreat last month I helped out with SJ's classes and one of them was this patchwork class using Glitz Design papers (8"x8" paper pad) from the Love Games collection. The base is Kraft Bazzill, the squares of patterned papers are 3" x 3" squares, with a few cross stitches added here and there. The hearts were punched and the flowers cut free-hand, crumpled, inked and with hand drawn stitches. I started the layout at the retreat but without a photo, Beryl's picture seemed the perfect thing.

Letter stickers - Prima

Gems - Giant Rhinestones - Glitz

I added two silver decorative pins

Here is SJs original layout:

Thanks for looking.

Happy Birthday Mum!

Wishing you a very happy birthday Mum, sorry we won't see you today, but hope your card has arrived safely.

Rubber stamp image - Lily of the Valley

Patterned papers and letter stickers - Basic Grey, Nook and Pantry collection

Card blank and greeting - Craftwork Cards

Punch - Stampin' Up

Pens - Promarkers

Ink - Memento

Other - 3D foam pads,Stickles, Perfect Pearls and flat backed pearls

Eyelets Everywhere!

... at Scrapology with the latest challenge set by Sue Roberts, better known as Doogle007. She challenged us all to make cards with Eyelets.

This is Sue's example card.

I made the next two cards with a shaped Bodylicious cards from Craftwork Cards.

The panels of this accordian card are joined with eyelets and ribbon.

Pop over to Scrapology to see more details of the challenge.

There is a prize for the winning entry:

Good Luck!

Happy Birthday Beryl!

This is the card I made for Alan's cousin Beryl.

Rubber stamp - Lili of the Valley

Pens - Promarkers

 Card bank and greeting - Craftwork Cards

Papers, gems and cardstock - Holly Berry Bouquet - Stampin' Up (left over from the Christmas class)

selection of blossoms, perfect pearls, stickles

Happy birthday Beryl!.

Holly Berry Bouquet

Here are the promised details for the Christmas card class Zoe and Natalie from Stampin' Up taught at the Scrapology Crop on Saturday. The class was to make a folder to hold four cards and envelopes.

Here is the front of the folder

The inside of the folder with cards in place. 

Card 1. 

Card 2

Card 3

Card 4 

All the products were Stampin' Up.

Cardstock Crumb Cake, Wild Wasabi, Naturals Ivory and Cherry Cobbler

Self adhesive, flat backed gems - Jewels Basics

Rubber stamps - Contempo Christmas

Patterned papers - Holly Berry Bouquet (some are glittery, all are double sided)

Punches - Ornament Punch, Decorative Label, Extra Large Oval

Inks - Chocolate Chip, Cherry Cobbler, Wild Wasabi, Crumb Cake

Seam Binding Ribbon - Cherry Cobbler

Really pleased with the finished set.

Thanks Zoe and Natalie.

First Scrapology Crop

Linda and I planned, shopped, scrapped, baked, packed, arranged furniture and generally prepared for our very first Scrapology crop. We held it at The EllenorLions Centre in Dartford on Saturday. We had lots of locals and other people traveled from as far as Southampton and Eastbourne.

Buckets of sweets and scrapbooking embellishments ready for marking each scrappers place.

23 scrapbookers getting started at the beginning of the event.

The ladies brought their own scrapping to work on, and along the way some had help with using masks, ribbon work, using die cutting machines and more. Lots of techniques we have covered on the Scrapology blog over the last year.

Linda made cakes for everyone.

Robert was a star in the kitchen cooking lunch and washing up too!

Thanks Robert.

Zoe Pierson and Natalie O'Shea came along too They taught a card making class using Stampin' Up products, which was great fun and good value for money. We have lots of products left to make a few more cards.

We had a shop provided by Cardinal Colours.

This is what we all made, a folder of four Christmas cards. More details to follow tomorrow on this class.

We had a great day and the feedback we have received confirms that everyone who attended enjoyed themselves too.

So I guess we should get planning again!