Another Christmas card - with a bit of a twist

Hi there,

It has been a funny day today, with the wind, rain and then sunshine for brief periods. And rather chilly too. I was hoping to get quite a bit of stitching done today, but haven't managed it, and I have to go and clean the mice shortly, then have a bath and head to bed!

So here is the second Christmas card I started yesterday. I had to finish it today due to waiting for the glue to dry, but I think it looks ok.

So this is a four-way card, which folds flat to post like a normal card. The tutorial can be found here: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/tutorials/fourwaycard/ and this is the current challenge at CCEE (1620). I used a Papermania Christmas patterned A4 sheet of paper and X-cut scalloped circle nesting dies to make the card base. The pieces were stuck so that two had the patterned paper on the outside, whilst two sides of the card were blank. On the first circle I added a decoupage paper sack from Papermanias At Christmas Time range, and finished this side with s sentiment from the same sheet. On the opposite side I stamped he image from Pepper and Friends, and coloured with promarkers (just using the nudes set). I then added snowflake sequins, a snowman and three jewels to finish.

I woudl like to show this card in the following challenges:

Crafting by designs - Get ready for Christmas

CRAFT #364 Christmas

Crafty Hazelnuts #282 Cute Christmas

Scrapbook Stamp Society #91 Layers

abc Christmas - J for Jewels

alphabet challenge - F for Furry Friends

Fussy and Fancy #164 Dies/Punches

Jingle Belles - Banish the holiday blues

Christmas @ Sweet Stampin' - Winter Fun

And also for the Quick Cards Die-cutting Challenge.

And here are three more of my mice to introduce to you - Capaccino is the one with an eye patch and is the oldest of the three being from the same generation as the mother of the other two. Crinkle is the ginger mouse, who is only seen peeking out from under my cross stitch chart, and she is the middle in age, being the half-sister of Cloud, who is the little grey one and the cheekiest of all the mice. If there is the slightest opportunity of escape she will take it without hesitation. The mouse I will introduce next time is nearly as bad, but not quite as sneaky lol. Cloud also has rex-like fur, and loves to have scritches (sometimes).

 Cloud

 Capaccino and Crinkle

 All three terrors!

Finally here are some pictures of the wildlife in my pond:

 Water Boatman

 Honeybee having a drink - can you spot him?

Pond Skater

Palmate Newt

Thank you once again for taking the time to visit my blog.

Hugz Tinz

Growing Astray with Christmas

Hi there,

We were supposed to be going camping this weekend, but have decided against it as it is supposed to rain all day tomorrow and with very little money and a tiny tent, this could just make it rather awkward. So I used the extra time to make some Christmas cards and take some pictures of my allotment (and its wildlife).

Here is my Santa Christmas:

I wanted a traditional image on a non-traditional card format. So I used a pink base card, with pink patterned Mulberry Wood papers. I then used a decoupage Santa from the Papermania At Christmas Time collection. A matching pink bauble containing the sentiment, from Papermania Mistletoe Kisses collection, finishes the card.

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas - #281 Pink

Winter Wonderland - Non-traditional Christmas Colours

CRAFT - #364 Christmas

Crafting by Designs - Get Ready For Christmas

My Time to Craft - #321 Sketchy Time

 

Jingle Belles Rock - Banish the holiday blues (no blue)

Open-minded Crafting - #5 Use your favourite technique (I love the effect of decoupage but find it very fiddly sometimes)

 

Today I would like to introduce you to Cap'n, one of my youngest mice. I will be introducing his mummy later on. This little guy lives on his own currently in quite a large cage, because he started squabbling constantly with his brothers. This could have been because the cage was all one level, or because there are female mice in the room and they could smell them. It would be lovely to find a vet that was happy to castrate mice as then there would be no problems lol. He is quite jumpy with fingers, but once he is out he is very happy to investigate you and anything you are doing. He was playing camera shy though!

As you can see he has a patch over one eye - hence the name.

Audio Book Review

Astray by Emma Donoghue

This is a collection of short stories, based through the 1800’s for the most part, with a general theme of characters that have gone astray, in one form or another. From legalities, to moving location and even a gender change, she covers it all. It is worth remembering that these are based during a period which is quite restricted and so the thought processes of the characters may reflect this, and differ drastically from the views held in current culture. All of these stories are based on fact in one form or another. Some are based around the actual character, whilst others are based upon the event, with fictional characters to indicate what might have happened with the people involved. I love the fact that each story has an explanation after it, so you find out what the facts are, and also that the author has explained why she chose the stories in the book as an afterword at the end of the stories. The shortness of the stories stops them from becoming more than a light read, and I think that works very well in this instance.

I will leave you with some pictures of my chilli plants full of flowers:

And some basic pictures of my plot today, beginning with the fruiting area:

 Onions and polytunnel containing carrots:

 Area that I am currently working on - you can see the strip that is cleared and the pile of horse dung that is to be worked in before I plant the cucurbits out.

 The bed that was covered for a year and the ants helped to work the soil nicely (although only the onions and beetroot seem to be doing anything as yet - except for the bindweed), with the bramble patch behind.

 Pond

 Closer look at pond.

Thank you for taking the time to look at my blog - and maybe read some of it too lol.

Hugz Tinz

Pearl bracelet with spikes

Hello everybody,

I decided to get my beads out for a change as I have not played with them for a while - so I made this alternative bracelet:

I used 4mm fake pearls in a ladder stitch for the centre band and then used basic seed beads for the tassels. I wanted something just a little different to the usual beaded bracelet, but I am not sure it is as elegant as I imagined it would be lol.

I have also completed my Margaret Sherry Free Cross Stitch Kit, whch took 8 1/2 hours in total:

I have another mouse introduction for you today. Meet Blondie. She is one of our mice that we rescued when her owners accdentally let their male mouse get into their female enclosure - resulting in Blondie and her sisters being born. Her brothers had already gone, so we got her and her sisters as well as the two mums (one of whom has unfortunately passed away since). She likes to watch you from any hidey hole, and absolutely loves yoghurt drops.

Thank you for looking,
Hugz Tinz

Fruity Assassin

Hello again,

What a strange weelend. It has been lovely in the sun but cold in the wind and when the sun disappears, with tempertaures dropping quite a lot overnight brrr. I had to put the heating back on briefly! However, I have made a birthday card - a one-layer, fruit based birthday card at that.

I made a shaped card from a mint base card (from the Works) using the largest X-cut Large Labels nesting die. I then ran the card through the Big Shot Plus with a Sizzix watermelon embossing folder. I used Papermania glitter pens to write the sentiment and colour the inside of the watermelon. Finally I used a Whispers ink pad in Royal Blue, and a cheap Lime green ink pad to highlight the embossed areas. Unfortunately this does mean I now have a blue fingertip due to the Whispers being a waterproof dye-based ink!!

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:

OLS #27 Fruit Smoothie

Artistic Inspirations 156 Use a die-cut

Art Impressions 184 Laughing with you

inkspirational #108 Mint and Navy

Simon Says Monday- Emboss It

diecutting divas #265 Water Safety (ok so I thought outside the box and used a WATERmelon)

CRAFT #363 Birthday (with blog hop)

Crafty Catz #324 Dies and punches

Creative Corner - Let's Celebrate

I did put my pea frame up and plant out my Pea Beans, which were getting rather large. I would have doen more at the allotment but this took 2 hours, thanks to my pea netting being all tangled! Unfortunately I forgot to take the camera to get a picture.

Finally, here is an audio book review:

Assassin by Tom Cain

I decided to go back to one of my favourite genres – Crime Thriller. This story is about Sam Carver, an ex-soldier and secret, secret service man. A couple of murders, one in Dubai and another in San Francisco, look like the work that Sam used to do as a hit man, however Sam is with his new girl and getting ready for his best friend’s wedding. Somebody is setting Carver up in order to isolate him and then take him out, as well as proving he is much better than Carver, by taking the ultimate hit job – the very popular US president. Carver must keep himself alive long enough to stop the hit, when nobody is willing to trust him completely.

A very good story, full of action and suspense. The only problem with listening to this sort of story rather than reading it is that you have to go at the pace of the narrator, whereas at high tension moments I will naturally skim the less important parts in order to get to the main part quicker.

Thankyou for looking at my blog post,

Hugz Tinz (Creative Moments DT)

Bloobell in Black and White, with a pop of....

...Green

...Purple

Yes, you guessed it - time for a new challenge over at Creative Moments, and our sponsor this fortnight is Bloobell, who provided us with two very quirky images to use - Frog Princess and Zen.

With the Frog Princess image Ithought it would make a perfect corner bookmark (fantasy childrens tales involving a princess needing to kiss a frog etc). I chose green as my one extra colour. The bookmark was made out of black glitter cardstock using the template that can be found at http://www.instructables.com/id/Cute-Corner-Bookmarks/. I did change the size to match my image size though, hence mine not actually being square. I layered the inside panel with washi tape, using a co-ordinating strip across the top and bottom. The image was coloured with promarkers and attached to the diagonal front piece.

The Zen image took a little more thinking about. I decided to go for meditative purple as the extra colour. I stamped the background using a crackle effect stamp from my stash and heat embossing with Heat It Up Black Sparkle embossing powder, on a scalloped card base.I die-cut the image using X-cut nesting large label dies, and painted the edge with my new Mica powders (obviously using the purple) which gives a lovely metallic shimmer. The image was coloured with promarkers and ribbon, bows and sentiment finished off the card.

I would like to enter the following challenges with these creations:

Artistic Inspirations 156 Use a die-cut (Zen)

Digichooseday 19 Anything but square (Princess)

I love Promarkers #308 Lace/Ribbon (Zen)

Simon Says Stamp Monday - Emboss It (Zen)

PFP 345 Sparkle and Shine (Zen)

Allsorts 362 There's magic in the air (Princess)

C4C335 - Emerald (Princess)

Here is an update on the height chart - 72hrs and counting:

And finally I would like to introduce Blaze to you. He is one of my younger boys who is now singly housed due to fighting. In fact this lovely little guy caused his two cages mates to require pain relief for a few days as he ripped their tails to pieces!! However, he is a very friendly little guy with humans and here he is trying to see what the camera is (hence the blur!).

Thank you for looking.

Hugz Tinz