As the previous post was quite long, I decided to do a fresh post. On Tuesday, QVC had one of their regular Craft Days. Sometimes these are good value (like the aforementioned BP kit) and sometimes they are just fun to dip into and get ideas. This time though I was committed to watching quite avidly as Tim Holtz was appearing, having travelled over from the USA. Tim is an inspirational crafter and with Ranger, is responsible for a range of goodies including alcohol inks, distress inks and all sorts of other great kit, in fabulous colours. He's particularly well known for his "grunge" look but to be fair, many of his techniques and products can be used/enjoyed by any crafter who enjoys messy play. During the craft day they had a selection of goodies from Ranger that were tempting, and as the prices were good, I succumbed. I ordered a selection of 12 Stickles, a fabulous glitter glue in amazing colours which never clogs, drips or spurts. I also ordered a pack which included 3 different Distress Metallic Crackle Paint and matching Distress Stickles. Plus the TSV, which was Tim's new book, bundled with an assortment of goodies, including several products that I had seen before but never actually tried, so figured that now was the time to take the plunge. Previously, when Ranger stuff has been stocked, they've sold out very quickly, so I waited up until midnight on Monday, then ordered via the web, to be sure of getting what I wanted.

The rest of the craft day went well, as I was relaxed about having my purchases safely bagged, and could enjoy the various demos including lots with Tim and his new book. Fast forward, and on Thursday morning, the first of my parcels arrived. QVC do not bag up separate items - they always deliver them in separate packages - I was very impressed with the speed of delivery and sure enough when I opened it, it was a stack of goodies. The new book is brilliant - loads of tips, techniques and ideas, all very inspiring, both for browsing and for detailed technique following. For instance, I didn't know you could use alcohol inks to colour metal charms, so tried out this on a butterfly charm and it seems to have worked brilliantly.

On Saturday, we went out for lunch with my great aunt, leaving the dogs in the house. The postman pushed through the letterbox, two Jiffy Bags with the remaining items while we were out, and Andy decided to do what he does sometimes, and attack the post. We are actually in the process of sourcing a mailbox to affix to the side of the house, as we quite often have letters with teeth marks, rips and so on. Anyway, his teeth punctured a pot of Antique Silver Distress Crackle Paint, so when we came home, the hall was a picture. Piles of ripped and munched post, with paint everywhere, including all over the criminal, and a selection of doggy footprints in Antique Silver on the wooden floor, paint all over the hall rug, and worse of all, paint all over the sofa in the living room, which has loose covers. Clearly, having had a good munch, he decided to go and have a lie down on the sofa and rest after all the excitement.

My feelings were very mixed, to say the least. A combination of laughter (it really did look ridicolous), annoyance at my paint being wasted, and worry over the dog being poisoned by the paint, plus concern over clearing up the mess. We managed to find the pot, and reassuringly it had NON TOXIC written boldly in big letters - did this apply to greyhounds, we wondered? The criminal was bouncing round quite happily when we got home, so it obviously was not a fast acting poison (if at all) so we decided to focus on cleaning up. The hall rug is a complete write off but as it was a very cheap one from Ikea, we are not too worried about that. We stripped off the loose covers from the sofa, and immediately washed them, and worked on the floor - fortunately that came clean immediately. The guilty dog was covered in dried paint on his legs - we've now started calling him Twinkletoes since there have been no ill effects. Unfortunately, however, the paint has not come out from the sofa fabric, so we now need to check our insurance policy to see if it is worth making a claim.

Today, I've been playing with my new purchases, very happily. Andrew and Twinkletoes went for a run together this afternoon, and enjoyed themselves. I'll probably post more pics as projects get finished. All I can say is that I've started work on a little chipboard book, and am having lots of fun, involving paints, squirts, sprays, rubs, stamps and general fun.

Quite a bit to update on, some of it overlapping with my other blog. Firstly, I've completed a scrapbook of our trip over to Germany just before Christmas. I had wanted to go for a long time and we had a great time, just doing a long weekend. I took pics and wrote about it in my main blog, but had decided it would make a lovely subject for a scrapbook. I ordered prints using my credits from Photobox (they are an excellent company), they arrived in the New Year, and I've been waiting for the right moment to get started.

I may have previously mentioned two bottomless Brenda Pinnick kits I bought from QVC about two or three years ago, one Christmas themed, the other more general. Using the general box, I decided to use the 12 x 12 scrapbook. There were lots and lots of matching papers, in various sizes, plus a panoply of brads, ribbons, chipboard shapes and letters, stickers, alphabets and die cut cardboard shapes. Getting it all out meant making a huge mess in the craft room, so once I started on it, I kept going rather than swapping between different activities as I do more often. Having been lavish with the papers and embellishments, I appear to have made no identifiable difference to the box, and in fact when finished, struggled to get it all back in. I also used some papers that I bought a while back for Sarah's 18th - a DCWV stack called "Once upon a Time". The fairytale castles were actually very much like the ones on the Rhine, along with the medieval buildings and general feel, so in some cases these papers were used instead. Along with the photos, I included other mementoes such as our tickets, luggage labels, itinerary, beer mats and so on. I attach some pics of the scrapbook, and a couple of the pages.

Boola, our recently adopted greyhound, celebrated his 10th birthday a couple of weeks ago. He got sent a fabulous card by our nephews (aged 10,8 and 6) featuring popup rabbits they had drawn. I made a card to send them to say thanks, featuring a photo of Boola, with a thought bubble coming out of the side. I layered it up on some paper scraps, added the photo and bubble with foam tape, then rubbed over the top with Rock Candy Stickles. Next, I punched a hole and added a grommet, then threaded through some blue ribbon, with a chipboard star attached that I'd inked and glittered. Photo attached.

A combination of things to write about today. A little while ago, I ordered some papercrafting goodies from Cardcraft Plus, in particular some cardmaking supplies for the GRW shop. In their most recent catalogue there were two very pretty sets, one of a Oriental theme (lots of cherry blossom, pretty turquoise and delicate pinks, all with gold foiling) and the other was a very versatile set of butterfly themed papers and cards with a palette of chocolate browns, russets and caramels. Both included lots of die-cut, foiled toppers and labels - so plenty to make quick cards for the shop, but also enough to use as a base for a more creative afternoon.

Anyway, this week I passed my ECDL and I'll be popping back in next week to say Thank you to my lovely tutor and to return the workbooks I was using. I'll probably also get her either a bottle of wine or a box of chocolates. So, I decided to make her a card using the new sets. After a bit of dithering over which set to use, I plumped for the chocolate butterflies and spread the cardstock over the bed to look at it and choose, before working here in the spare bedroom. Big mistake. While I was working away happily, Andy the greyhound decided to enter the bedroom at high speed, take a flying leap onto the bed and start chewing at the cardstock with great interest and curiosity. I quickly realised what he was doing, dashed in there and we had words. Much chastised, he skulked off in disgrace and I have been considering the damage. I won't now be able to make any A4 cards from the cardstock (unless teethmarks suddenly become an accessory) but with some trimming I'll be able to salvage most of the cards from the wreckage. After that excitement, here's the card pictured above.

I started with a cream landscape A5 card, and covered it with a piece of the printed background paper in a a lovely chocolate brown. I affixed a Thank you message with foam pads and then pressed out and layered up a pretty decoupage series that came with the kit in a lovely russet brown. Next to this, I attached some more die cut butterflies and finished off with some adhesive gems on the butterflies and a pretty chocolate organza ribbon around the side of the card. And of course the moral of this story is that greyhounds and craft do not mix!

On the fabric front, I have still not photographed my little bag, but will do so during the week. In the living room, we have a quilt over one of the sofas that I use for snuggling while watching TV or reading or stitching. You may remember I made it from a lovely Moda charm pack from the "At Water's Edge" range. Just after Christmas, Andrew announced (much to my surprise) that he wished to commission a similar quilt for his sofa and that I should proceed with its manufacture. So, at a recent visit to Busy Bees, I purchased a charm pack from Moda, this time in the Mill House Inn range - really pretty florals, in soft dusty pinks, spring greens, tan and some berry colours. My thinking was to make a similar quilt to the one I made for my friend Penny for Christmas, based on a nine patch square with sashing between. Anyway, yesterday afternoon I made up my nine patch blocks and summoned dear husband for an inspection. After looking at them for a bit, he has decided that the square is not going to be big enough and the quilt should be larger. So, I am going to get another charm pack of the same fabric and have an eight block quilt rather than a four block. Deep down I suspec this is so he can wrap up not only himself but any passing greyhound who happens to be sharing the sofa with him..

I attach some pics of the made-up nine patch blocks completed so far - the colours are really pretty. What I haven't yet decided is whether to leave the blocks as they are or do what I did at Christmas and do the cutting and turning into quarters, making a more complex looking block. Decisions, decisions......

It's been a busy weekend craft wise. I'll start with the papercrafting. Regular readers of my "life" blog will know we keep in touch with the lady who adopted our beloved foster dog, Murgatroyd, and we met up with her before Christmas for a lovely day out and walk at Pembrey Country Park. We took lots of pics and I promised Rhian that I would send her copies. I uploaded the photos to Photobox, the photo website I use, and we had the prints back, in the early part of the New Year. I made a little wallet for the photos, just from a piece of A4 paper that I folded and then used some invisible tape on the sides. I also stuck a little sticker on the front. Just seems a lot better than sending them loose or in a plastic bag.

I kept back one of the photos and made it into a little calendar. All I did was layering up of card and paper with some pretty little fabric flowers stuck to the card by using brads and attaching a mini calendar pad to the front, over a strip of ribbon. On the top I affixed a ribbon loop for hanging.

Then I made a little card to go in with the goodies. Keeping the same palette of browns, yellows and orange, I used a peachy base card, with a strip of pearlescent textured card down the middle, topped with some patterned K & Co paper. Then I took another piece of tan card and stamped the image of the tree on it, which was then coloured in with Sakura pens, one Gelly Roll and one Metallic Gold glaze. This was then mounted on the top. Finally, I affixed some square gemstones in amber colouring.

Two more cards to share. One is a birthday card for my aunt. I took a K & Co patterned base card, then added a tag, ribbon, and some stick ons. On the bottom, a sticker. Very pleased with it. Also a similar card to say "Thanks, we're coming" for a lovely person we know who just invited us to her book launch (how exciting!!!!). Again, a printed K & Co base card, a sticker and a tag, with some pretty little stickers on the top plus a ribbon which I swiped with an ink pad to turn it an attractive pumpkin colour.

So, Tuesday is the birthday of a dear friend. I've already posted about the table topper I have made for her, and on Saturday we went into Cardiff and I bought some L'Occitane goodies for her. I am also stitching a sampler for her - this is not going to be ready for her birthday but I don't want to post it anyway, and will give it to her when she next visits. Attached are some pics of her birthday card.

I took a tall, narrow pink pearlescent base card and started by layering up some striped paper. Then on a piece of white card I stamped the image of the owl and the greeting in a dark blue ink and rounded the corners. Then I used colour from ink pads to gently smudge paler blues and violets around the card background, giving a sort of cloudy effect. Then I spritzed the picture with a blue glimmer spray and dried it with a heat gun to give a subtle blue shimmer. I used a Gelly Roll metallic pen to colour the little flower on the owl's head and ran a dark ink pad round the edges of the card before mounting it onto the card base. Below, I added a horizontal ribbon and then using my pokey tool made a hole for the yellow flower, and attached it using a small pearl centred brad. Finally, I used some crystal Stickles brushed over the petals to give a shimmery dewdrop effect to the flower. Once it was dry, I wrote in the card and posted it - yippee!

So, a few new things to post. First, the sympathy card. There isn't really a great deal to say about it; I've written before that these are definately the hardest and least pleasant cards to do. This one is for one of Andrew's colleagues who has recently lost her mum.

Below is a thank you card I made for my great aunt. I cross stitched a picture of a teapot as not only does she like drinking tea but she also makes the most wonderful hand knitted tea cosies. This is mounted in an aperture card. For the card front, I used some ink pads to swirl lots of blues and lilacs around (to pick up the colours of the pot) and finally finished off with an adhesive ribbon and a little message. I was very pleased with it - pretty colours.

And finally the birthday card in the top picture. This was for a friend's 19th birthday. It is an A4 card, so plenty of space to fill. I started by layering the card with a beautiful piece from a 12 x 12 stack from DCWV with a medieval theme. This piece has lots of gorgeous glittered paisleys on it,with a rather nice sort of timber framing. On top I cut a piece of A5 white card, which I then coloured gradually in misty layers using ink pads. I put a 10 pence piece on the top so as to leave a circle white, and then with the coin still in place, I spritzed the design with my shimmer sprays and then dried it with the heat gun, giving a beautiful glimmery finish. Lifting off the coin meant there was now a lovely moon in the top of the landscape. The design was completed by randomly stamping lovely vegetation images across the front in a charcoal shade. This was then mounted onto some gold card which was then in turn put on to the main card. Finally, I added a ribbon into the side, and twisted in some purple beads on gold wire as the recipient loves purple. I've subsequently heard the recipient likes it very much which is lovely.

I had so much fun making the little log cabin table topper that I decided almost immediately to have a go at the other little Honey Bun from the box. This is the "brights" roll and I love the zingy colours and happy prints. I decided as I was making it to give it to a friend of mine as a birthday present - I don't think she reads this blog, so I should be safe in posting details. As before, the little log cabins were great fun to put together. This time, I assembled and finished the whole thing in one afternoon - lovely. I have so enjoyed making these two - just the thing to get my mojo back after a hectic Christmas time. I attach some pics.

I have also been cross stitching two little motifs to go into cards, these will be mounted up tomorrow and I'll photograph them then. And tonight, I have started cross stitching a pretty sampler featuring handbags that I am going to make to give to the friend I made the table topper for. The sampler was always going to be the main present, but as she is such a good friend, I decided that an extra gift wouldn't be a problem. The design is one taken from The World of Cross Stitching - I will photograph it as it progresses and of course when it is finished.