Luca's Clock. . . . . . . .

Good morning bloggers. Hope you are all well?

Thank you for your lovely birthday wishes. The day passed uneventfully, thankfully but I didn't have a great night following and so very tired typing this. You can't win em all eh?

Had some fab cards and pressies and Lewis Hamilton didn't make the podium so it was a good day.

Now today, we have the clock I made for baby Luca (it doesn't have a line across the top, its the reflection on the glass). Some of you have mentioned looking forward to the clock tutorial but they really were as straightforward as I detailed on Lilia's post here, so I'm not quite sure what other detail I can add. If there is something that isn't clear or that I've missed in the explanation, please let me know so that next time I make one, I can perhaps add more detail or photos to help. However, I have now bought this gadget from The Works for £2 to cut the large circle next time so I don't have to use a pair of compasses and hand cut it. It cuts circles up to 30cm (about 12 inches).

Hope it works.

Ingredients

White,blue, yellow, taupe and grey card

White card sponged with Tumbled Glass D/Ink

Poundworld clock (though Ikea also do one with a clear frame for £1.50)

SW Stitched Animals dies (Loaned from Mr Lockwood, thank you!!!)

X Cut Alphabet die

Number dies were a freebie with a magazine

Funky foam

Blue acrylic paint

Brown and grey ink to ink through the animal dies

This is the clock before I re-attached the frame.

The second hand has also been painted with blue acrylic paint.

Side view. Frame painted with blue acrylic paint (its silver plastic in its original state).

A couple of garden photos to tease June and Maureen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

And this is a huddle of baby garden spiders nesting on my washing line. These things are literally each about the size of a pin head and scatter when you touch the web.

Weird little critters.

A final snap, this time of the birthday cake Mr D bought for me. My favourite biscuits are Custard Creams so when he saw this, he thought it would be apt.

Yum!!!!!

Hope you all have a good week.

TTFN

Ang x

MAWTT Challenge 46. . . . . . .

Good morning folks. Its me again. . . . . . . . . .just as you thought it was safe to come blogging lol!!!

Thank you for your comments on my tutorial. Glad that you will find it useful.

Thank you also to Myra, Marie and Mrs J for stopping by to comment. We are a friendly bunch, although Maureen can be a bit unruly at times and she and June are both trying to steal my wisterias. Hope you can pop by again soon.

Now, today we have another challenge over at MAWTT and Amy's choice of theme is . . . . . .

GRADUATION

That was a bit of a curve ball for me as I don't have anyone I know of an age to be graduating from anywhere so I had no bits to work with and didn't want to buy any either, so this card is the love child of Heath Robinson and Blue Peter lol!!!

I cut out the shape for the top of the mortar board using an SB Diamond die. I then cut out the bottom piece by hand. Hope it looks reasonably like a mortar board shape lol!!! I topped it with a CE dazzler (the Jelly Tot sized one) and some Kumihimo cord that I frayed at the end and bound with some very fine gold thread.

The scroll is just rolled up card bound with some gold and black striped ribbon and some thin shamballa cord.

Ingredients

White and black card

Soft gold card (Limetree)

Memory Box Alphabet dies

That Special Touch Border Mask (used to emboss)

Black and Gold striped ribbon

CE dazzler

Black pearlage

I cut the letters into the card and did a little play on words with the "Congradulations" and popped some black card behind the "Grad" to draw attention to it.

Hopefully, you feel inspired to join in the challenge or at least pop over to MAWTT to have a look at the other DT cards.

Have had a few up and down days but still managing to do a little gardening and popped to our local Ikea yesterday where I managed to get another orchid for the princely sum of 30p. . . . . . . yes, that's right, 30p. It was in their Bargain Corner and is still in flower. I will take a photo for next time.

My birthday is coming up at the weekend. I'm facing it with trepidation as two years ago, I had Chicken Pox and last year the A/Fib started on my birthday too. Not sure what this year will bring. . . . . .Lassa Fever, Beriberi, Dengue, who knows lol!!! I'm hoping things don't come in threes on this occasion and I can just have a quiet and peaceful day with an alcohol free lager or two (it is my birthday lol!!!) that doesn't involve scratching or an ambulance ride lol!!!

But after Monday's sad events, I'll roll with the punches as there are folk a lot worse off than me.

On that note, enjoy your day and see you soon with Luca's clock next time.

TTFN

Ang x

Inverted Triple Stamping Tutorial. . . . . . . .

Good morning folks. Hope this finds you well?

I know this post was supposed to be Luca's clock but I remembered some of you asked if I could do a tutorial on how I do the inverted triple stamped cards like the one above. If I didn't do it now, I'll probably forget.

Now, I must warn you, this is a photo heavy post. Also, I use Presscut Large Square dies to cut my layers,

Firstly, I cut a piece of card to the size that I want. I then draw pencil lines from corner to corner.

I then stamp my design . . . . . . .

After deciding the width of my layers, I then line up the corners of the dies with the pencil lines which gives you a precise lining up.

Close up of the corners lined up with the pencil lines.

When you run this through your cutting machine,you end up with this. . . . . . . .

I then place the largest piece onto a layer of the coloured card.

I then pop in the next size die down to create a pink edge.

And after cutting, you end up with this. . . . . . . . . . 

Repeat this with the other 2 layers using the card cut from the middle each time (No wastage on this blog)

Rub out the pencil marks then stack the layers on top of each other, starting with the bottom layer first.

You can pop this onto a card as is so its nice and flat for posting or foam pad each layer, going higher with each outside layer.

By foam padding it up, you get the effect of the original card . . . . . . . . 

Hope that all this makes sense and that you haven't fallen asleep lol!!!

That's it for now as I'm sure that I've bored you enough for one day, hahaha!!!

Back on Thursday for a new MAWTT Challenge.

TTFN

Ang x

Tick Tock. . . . . . . . . .

Good morning everyone. Hope you are all ok?

How about taking one of these and turning it into one of these. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

Bet you were a bit puzzled when a photo of a naff clock appearing on your reading list thumbnail lol!!! (Mind you, you may think the decorated version looks naff too???)

Now, you may want to get a beverage and biscuits as this is a long, but hopefully, informative post . . . . .  sorry!!!

I made this and another one for our next door neighbours kids. They are moving house soon, only about 100m down the road thankfully as they are a lovely family (one of the normal ones in our road lol!!!) and I thought it would be something different as a gift for the kids new bedrooms as Mum and Dad get the bottle of fizz but, usually, the kids get overlooked (in my experience).

Its a clock from Poundworld (don't ask how much it cost, its not big and its not clever!!!) and I have painted the outer casing with 2 coats of acrylic paint, which dries very quickly.

I am assured by Lockers The Craft Guru, that gilding polish will also work beautifully but I didn't have any pink.

Its fairly easy to take apart as the inner bit sits in a ridge on the outer frame so you just need to carefully pull the outer frame away slightly to release it. I say carefully, as there is glass involved.

This snap is of the clock without its frame.

Ingredients

Cheap clock

Cream and various coloured card

Flower dies and punches

Foliage dies

Number dies (freebie with a magazine)

X Cut Alphabet die

Funky foam (for letters and numerals to raise them up a bit)

Card-io stamps (for the butterflies and dragonflies)

Bling butterfly (from a pack as a gift from Wendy (Spanish Crafter))

Pearlage and teeny bling

I also painted the hands in purple acrylic paint and the second hand in pink. These just pull off the mechanism. You need to make sure, with the flowers and letters, that there is enough clearance for the hands to move or they will trap. you can bend the hands up slightly if you need to.

None of my extra large circle dies were big enough to fill the aperture so I bought a maths set from the pound shop too and used the pair of compasses to draw the circle and cut it out carefully by hand.

Lilia is 10 this year so hopefully, its a unique gift that she will like. You could obviously make them for adults without the personalisation.

Next time, I will show her brother Luca's clock (you may remember the personalised gift wrap I made when he was born last year (or click here for a reminder).

Thank you for staying with me this far, hopefully without nodding off, dribbling or too many comfort breaks lol!!!

Apologies for not doing blog visiting this past few days but sadly, a dear friend of ours passed away this week and although he had just recently reached the magnificent age of 90, it was still a shock. He was what I call one of life's good guys, a real gent with a twinkle in his eye and always a kind word. 

So, head has been elsewhere but I will get round to everyone's blogs today and tomorrow, I promise.

Just to round off, a couple of snaps of my beautiful bargain bin hibiscus that is still blooming its socks off and has done since last September. There was 5 huge flowers on it with another 5 about to pop open. All I have done is water it, no feeding and its been a bobby dazzler. Not bad for £2 eh?

Yes, that is the wisteria in the background June, but mitts off!!!

Now that you have all missed half the day, I shall pootle off.

Have a great weekend, and I promise I will now be on visiting duties.

TTFN

Ang x

Language of Flowers 11 & Last One . . . . .

Good morning everyone. Hope the weather is better with you than it has been here. At the risk of sounding like my Mum, I refuse to say "the garden needed the rain" lol!!!

Met Davey yesterday for a skinny, decaff cappuccino and catch up. He showed me some more photos of his Japanese trip, of the wisteria and cherry blossom. I did warn him about June's husband, should he decide to get one for his garden.

He's off to Georgia in about 3 weeks (so I guess you could say he's got Georgia on his mind, boom boom!!!) and then a cruise to the Fjords a couple of weeks after that . . . . . . . . . I told you he was like Judith Chalmers with a hairy chest!!!

Not seeing much of Nesta at the moment as a very dear friend of hers is very ill in hospital. You always wish there was something you can do or say to make things better but sadly there never is.

Now, here we have the last in the series of samples I made for John. This is another scraper board creation but is actually a card this time (the framed one was just the scraper board mounted with layers of card). I should have added last time and the same goes for this, I gave it a coat of Cosmic Shimmer Clear Matt Finish Glaze for 2 reasons;

1. to protect the surface from further unintentional scratches and 2. to protect the surface from finger prints as it is prone to them marking the board. I have now added this information to the framed sample blog post.

Ingredients

Cream and black card.

Cream card edged with a copper Sharpie to get the copper layer.

Copper scraper board

John Lockwood Lily rubber stamp

John Lockwood sentiment stamps

SB Matting Basics A

Picket Fence Distress InkCosmic Shimmer Clear Matt Finish Glaze. 

For those who weren't quite sure what I used or how, the above is the product I used. You can buy pre-printed ones where you can just scrape the pre-printed picture of a lion or tiger or whatever but I bought blank boards so that I could stamp what I liked on them.

They come in a variety of sizes (I got 5x7) and colours. The top layer is black and you scrape that to reveal the copper or silver, or whatever colour you have chosen, underneath.

Hope that clarifies it.

I really enjoyed using this medium and with 4 boards left, I will be having another go soon. When I do, I shall take some photos of each stage as some of you asked for a tutorial.

After a quiet time in the street, Flash has some competition. 

I was about the close the curtains in the front bedroom the other night on my way to bed, when I noticed Patch, the cat who lives over the road, pawing at her front door. She is a sweetie so I was thinking "Aww, poor thing wants to get in" as the front door opens partially, she puts a paw over the threshold and then legs it back down the path.

I thought this was a bit odd, then the door opened fully and there stood the woman who lives theres new boyfriend, naked as the day he was born. I can only assume that Patch was shocked by the view and that's why she scarpered.

He then tried to entice her with a tidbit (Maureen, don't !!!) but she was having none of it. At that point, a chap walked by with his dog and I don't think he could quite believe what he was seeing but the bloke continued to stand there on display for another few seconds before closing the door.

All I can say is, that must have been a very painful tattoo. (And I was yet again reminded of the jar of pickled walnuts).

I don't know why this road has attracted such a plethora (big word of the day) of exhibitionists. Its a wonder property prices haven't plummeted ............... mind you, maybe that's why they have gone up lol!!!

June, I too have Billy bookcases in my craft room in red. I also have some white Gersbys. Welcome to the MAWTT design team too.

Maureen, I have just discovered the delights of alcohol free lager. Mr D, who is a connosieur of such things turned his tongue up but its quite refreshing with a dash of lemonade. May try the alcohol free wine next.

Jackie, not the result I wanted in the GP but yes, it was indeed a race this time. Looking forward to seeing Jenson Baby in Monaco next (well, Monaco on the telly at least unless we win the lottery this week).

On that note, I shall leave you to your day. Have a good one.

TTFN

Ang x

Language of Flowers 10. . . . . . .

Good morning everyone. Hope you are well?

After a bit of gadding, I've not had a briliant couple of days but you have to take the rough with the smooth. Mr dentist managed to repair the tooth thankfully with minimal fuss. I'm in Denplan and it does come in handy sometimes, especially with more costly treatment.

I will do a pictorial of how I did the inverted triple stamping as a couple of you good folk have asked about it so that will be in a couple of posts time. This is the other card here that I featured on the blog sometime ago using this technique.

Now, I was going to show this creation last out of the samples I made for John as the other one was also a scratchboard creation but a lily card. However, the photo that I took showing what I did with the stamping of it, was of the peony so I thought to made sense to show this first (Hope you were all following that lol!!!)

As soon as I saw this stamp, my first thought was "What would this look like in copper" and rather than go down the embossing powder route, I decided to be different (You know me).

I stamped the scraperboard with Picket Fence white Distress Ink to give me the outline to scratch around. Also, the ink rubs off when you buff it up at the end so all you see is the copper.

Ingredients

Black, cream and copper card

Copper Scraperboard - 5x7 sheet

John Lockwood Peony rubber stamp

Picket Fence Distress Ink

Cosmic Shimmer Clear Matt Finish Glaze

8 x 10 Black frame from The Range

Something to scrape with (I started with a pokey tool, then used a DIY nail) 

I gave it a coat of Cosmic Shimmer Clear Matt Finish Glaze for 2 reasons;

1. to protect the surface from further unintentional scratches and 2. to protect the surface from finger prints as it is prone to them marking the board.

It was a beggar to photograph with the glass but it is my favourite of all the samples I made.

It was also John's favourite and its currently on the wall in Chateau Lockwood as he asked if he could keep it. It seemed to be popular on the shows as well.

I will probably do another one for myself as I love it too.

Maureen, I've not been able to touch the Vino Collapso for nearly 12 months since the A/Fib started. I've got bottles of fizz in the cupboard that friends had bought for my birthday last year (I would say it was a "special" birthday but after the year I've had, they'll all be special from now on lol!!!) but that was when I took ill and before I touched a drop.

June, please don't be sensible, its not mandatory lol!!! Tell Mr F, thank you but the wisterias will be well taken care of.

Sue, is Doncaster ready for you and Sue Two lol???

You all know that John and I are good friends and after this weeks' news,  I know that some of you have been in touch as you have been concerned about him but I shall say that he is just fine, positive and keeping busy.

Spanish GP today, so I shall be keeping out of earshot of any sports news until I can watch the highlights tonight. Would love to go to that one sometime as Barcelona is one of my favourite places.

Anyhoo, have a good day and hope the week ahead is kind to you all.

TTFN

Ang x

Language of Flowers 9. . . . . . . .

Good morning guys and gals. Hope all is hanging well? 

I have been gadding about in this lovely weather . . . . . . . I feel the urge to gad when I'm feeling well. Not major gadding, just to the local garden centre or retail park.

Will be gadding to the dentists on Friday morning as part of one of my teeth decided to fall off yesterday. Thankfully, its one of the back teeth so fortunately, I don't have the look of Steptoe about me (well, not in the dental department anyway, lol!!!).

Hopefully meeting John for lunch today. The lure of a 33% off voucher at the Harvester was too strong for us. At least it should, in theory, be a healthier lunch than the Maccy Ds last week, with the lovely salad bar.

Have been chomping on yummy cauliflower couscous for the last couple of days. I just blitz the cauli florets in a food processor and add grated carrot and radishes, diced cucumber, chopped baby corn, sultanas, pistachios, flaked almonds and a dressing of EV olive oil and apple cider vinegar. Its lovely topped with diced feta cheese.......ummmmm!!!

All chomping now on the right hand side until I've visited the dentist.

Now, enough of the cookery lesson. Today, we have number 9 of John's show samples. There are only 11, so don't think its like the Christmas overload again lol!!! (though, I think there are still a couple of festive ones lurking I'm afraid).

Ingredients

White and pale grey card

John Lockwood Michaelmas Daisy rubber stamp

John Lockwood sentiment

Spectrum Noir alcohol markers

Teeny bling

Hadn't done the triple stamping thing for a while so thought I'd see how it looked with this gorgeous stamp.

When I do it, I tend to invert the layers rather than having the centre as the top layer.

Littlelamb, I think these stalls cost in the £100's as it is a regular event run by Excalibur.

June and Maureen, I'll take some snaps of current blooms on the lilac and white wisteria but it is now padlocked and has a 24 hour G4 Security Patrol. My garden isn't that big but I suppose its all relative. Its about 6m wide and about 25m long.

SuzzieQ, thank you for reminding me about all you paddlers being Duckadees. Its a long time since I used that expression lol!!! Truth be told, one of the reasons I wanted to buy this house was the wisteria lol!!!

Jenny, I am very concerned about the effect Brexit is going to have on the foam pad industry so I may have to get rid of my shares lol!!!

Well, th th th that's all folks. Be good and see you soon.

TTFN

Ang x