Martial Arts for Little People

Hi, I'm just using the extra hour in bed to catch up on my blog...like I said I have been crafting even if it doesn't look like it here!

So my nephew was just 7 and this is the card I made him.  Apologies for the blue tinge on the seven...the glossy accents wasn't quite dry when I took the picture.  The weather during the week has been so dull that it has been quite difficult to get photographs done and I literally had to put this in the envelope as soon as the glossy accents were dry.

The stamp is a lili of the valley stamp.  I asked them to do a little karate kid a while ago and sure enough the next release of boy stamps included this little chap.  I think that he is one of my favourite boy stamps that they do.  He was stamped in black soot distress ink and coloured with copics.  I've had the backing papers for some time now so can't remember who's they are, but I suspect they are papermania.  I distressed the edges with Pumice stone distress ink and in ink splat stamp from Paperartsy.  I find this stamp so useful that it is permanently on my desk.

To add to the oriental feel I added an Asian coin.  This is made from air dry clay.  I have a great Asian coin mold which works well with the clay or UTEE.  I like using the clay because you can paint it really well.  I painted it with black acrylic paint and then using a finger rubbed some treasure gold over the top before buffing it with a cloth.   For a little extra interest I tied a piece of paper twine around the centre of the coin before attaching it to the card.

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:
"Clearly Inspired - Ribbon or twine"
"Crafty Catz - Male card with a number"
"Poodles Parlour - Anything goes"
"Addicted to Stamps - Make your Mark"
"Paper Pretties - Masculine"
"Stamp n doodle - ribbon/twine"
"Tanda Stamps - all things manly"
"Anything goes challenge - home made embellishment"
"Craft-room challenge - Oriental", I know you don't do cute Zoe, but this was the closest I was going to get to the theme this week.

Last Rays of Sunshine

OK I know I've been a bad blogger...I have been crafting...just not managing to get it on the computer though!  The odd thing is now Em is off in Falmouth I should have a bit more time on my hands!  Having said that I am back to ferrying Sarah backwards and forwards to school, clubs etc.  Em phoned the other night and finally she has admitted that she realises how hard I do work looking after the 4 of us...she is struggling to look after just herself, she hasn't done any ironing yet, she's only got her room to keep clean and she doesn't have a large garden to tend!

Anyway I digress!  I'm here to share the card I made for my Great Aunt.  She was 100 yesterday!!  Not sure that she is totally happy about being that old, but she is incredible.  She still lives in her own home and cooks and cleans for herself.  Her major niggle is that she has lost some of her vision, from what I can make out I think that it is her central vision that is going...she says she cannot see peoples faces when she looks at them. 

With this in mind I decided to make her a very textured card so that she can feel it rather than see it.  The inspiration for my card came from memories of eating sand sandwiches on Hayling Island.  I remember when I was very small Auntie and my Grandmother used to rent a beach hut and we used to go there sometimes.  It was a lovely spot, but there was just sand everywhere....and sand gets into everything including the sandwiches!

Hence I made her card a beach scene using Crafty Individuals stamps. I stamped in Black Archival ink and then water coloured the images. The card is built up of layers.  The base is a square of watercolour paper, to which I added a wash of colbalt blue and then used tissue paper to take out some of the colour to make clouds.

The next layer was stamped with a row of beach huts (crafty individuals) and pebbles (art impressions).  the roofs of the beach huts were cut out and this layer was painted with watercolours.  I stamped the girl onto a small piece of watercolour paper, painted her and cut her out.  Having dyed a few lengths of seam binding with distress stains I stitched across the bottom of the beach to make waves positioning the girl so that she looks as though she is paddling.  To give the impression of foam on the breaking waves I ran stickles along the top edges and added silver accent beads.

The speech bubble was die cut and stamped with an art deco style Happy Birthday (Tanda Stamps) before being coated with glossy accents.  The 100 was a Tim Holtz die, again coated with glossy accents.  Not being able to get enough of glossy accents I also coated the beach huts and the girls parasol with the stuff! 

Having assembled the card I stamped the seagulls (crafty individuals) in the sky and distressed around the edges with weathered wood distress ink.

I would like to enter this into the following challenges:
"Chocolate, coffe and cards - Stitching"
"Clearly inspired - Ribbon or twine"
"Fussy and Fancy - Anything goes"
"Stampin for the weekend - anything goes"
"Delightful Challenges - Stitching"
"It's all about the vintage - make your own background"
"Paper-crafting journey - Ribbon or twine"
"Alota Rubber stamps - Birthday Celebrations"
"Crafty bloggers network - Anything goes"
"Make it Monday - Anything goes"
"Stamptacular Sunday - No Rules"
"The squirrel and the fox - must use ribbon"
"Penny's paper crafty - ribbon and or buttons"
"Whimsy Creation - Sparkly", my sparkly bit is the stickles on the waves
"Flourishes - Create a birthday card"
"Through the craft room door - Anything goes"

What to do with a dead PC

Ever wondered what to do with a dead PC to make it safe to throw away? We have had a dead PC lying around for years, not knowing how to get the hard drive out and destroy it. Well the answer is here....

My daughter's PC kind of did a wobbly when we moved it up to her room and we just couldn't seem to fix it, our neighbour's son who is studying computers couldn't pin point the problem and we didn't fancy sending it to someone we didn't know.

Then my boss gave me a name of a guy he trusts....and bingo the computer is now tickety boo and she hasn't lost any of her photos.

When I went to pick the PC up I took the old dead one with me to ask how to destroy it....Make coasters was the answer! This guy took out the hard drive disks for me and said here you go two shiny coasters.

Well I wasn't sure that they would be that secure in their shiny state..so I decided to go a bit further with the re purposing....I painted one side of the discs with ecofriendly paint, allowed it to dry. Then I applied pearl adirondack daubber, allowed it to dry. Once dry I applied alcohol inks and silver mixative, dried again then stamped Tim Holtz crackle stamp in black stayzon all over. Again I allowed it to dry before spraying with matt varnish.


Et Voila! Two coasters that look like they might be core samples drilled from Labadorite!

So there you go......that's one way of recycling your old PC....the rest of the carcase went to good use...the guy kept it to use as a test machine...apparently he regularly blows them up!

I would like to enter this into the following challenges:

"Craft Room Challenge - Alter it"
"Deep Ocean Challenge - anything goes"
"Through the Craft Room Door - Anything goes"
"Crafty Bloggers Network - Anything goes"
"Anything but a card - Shiny, sparkly, blingy"
"Challenges 4 everybody - Anything goes"
"Catch the bug - Anything goes"
"Alphabet Challenge - R is to Recycle-Re purpose"