Something new

I love learning new techniques.  Over the last week or so I have been trying to improve my rubber stamping.  More to the point, I have been trying to improve the colouring of my stamped image. I have tried coloured pencils, paints & pens but have had limited success . . . . then I came across Copic markers – all I can say is wow (and why didn’t I try them before??).

I love the way that you can blend the colours (though this took a bit of practice!!)



I am pleased with the results that I have got so far and I am looking forward to practicing a bit more with these markers.

A handbag

As regular readers know, my MIL keeps all the cards that I make for her and my FIL in a handbag.  Occasionally, I try to get a handbag somewhere into the theme of the cards that I make for her. (Mother’s Day 2010)

This year, I made a handbag to use as the gift wrap for her present.

Mother’s Day

Happy Mother’s Day to those celebrating today (our Mother’s day isn’t until May here).

Here is the card that I made for my MIL

I made each rose – time consuming but well worth the effort.

Dinner gift

It is customary here to take flowers or a nice pot plant when going to friends for dinner.

We had been invited to dinner by our newly married friends and we decided to do something a little different to the norm – but it still involved a pot plant.

1 year on

It is a year today since we said goodbye to our MLC Winnie. 

21

This weekend, my cousin’s son celebrated his 21st birthday – where have the years gone??

The design for the card was based around the Chinese symbol for “good luck”.

Valentine’s card

Hope you all had a lovely day yesterday.  DH bought me a lovely Valentine’s card and we had Chinese takeaway for dinner – yum!

In true Krafted Keepsakes style, I made DH’s Valentines card.  DH loved his card and I quote “it has the wow factor”.  Nice to know I can still surprise him after all these years!

 

Happy Valentine’s day

Happy Valentine’s day – have a wonderful time with your “someone special”

Snorlax update

Here is the latest picture of Snorlax, taken on the 1st February. As you can see, he continues to thrive and seems to be growing daily.  We think he is about 2 months old now (best guess).

Birthday & Ruby Anniversary

Yesterday our friends, Paul & Hazel celebrated their Ruby Wedding anniversary and Hazel celebrated her birthday too.





Apologies for the lack of blog posts recently – I am just getting over a nasty bout of flu.

paul said...

we loved them and will be special in our collection of cards, thank you so much

8 February 2011 20:17

So special

Last week I celebrated my birthday.  I had a wonderful time – pampered and spoilt by DH & DS (thank you boys x x ).   I had lots of lovely cards and presents and I received a beautiful handmade card from my dear friends, Paul and Hazel.  As you may already know from previous posts, Paul and Hazel have taken up card making together and their creations are wonderful.

This is the card I was lucky enough to receive last week and I think it is the first card that I have ever had with my name on it. It is a joint effort (I made sure that I checked this out with Paul so that credit could be given correctly). I love the fact it has cats on it, especially one grey and one ginger (just like my terrible twosome!!).  I love the unusual background and have asked Paul where he found it.  All in all, a stunning card – thanks to you both x x

First birthday of 2011

My MIL and I both have birthdays in the first couple of weeks in January.
As usual, I have made MIL’s cards – one for Mum and one for Nan.  I have used a variety of techniques and I am pleased with the results.  Hope Mum likes them too, especially as she keeps all her handmade cards  (see here).  It is largely due to the comments from Mum, my dear aunt and my dear friend Paul that Krafted Keepsakes came to be (thank you x x ).

Happy birthday Mum! x x

Mastered!

As you will know from an earlier post, DH made 3 large florist bows for me as I couldn’t seem to manage it myself.  I was thrilled with his creations and very surprised as DH is not at all crafty.  However, I refused to be beaten. 

Having watched DH making the bows, I decided to have another go myself.

Result!! Florist bow mastered!!

Snorlax

Finally, a picture of my baby plec!

Happy New Year

Wishing you all a very

happy & healthy 2011!!

Message from me: I am not sitting at my 'puter 1 minute into the New Year - this is a scheduled post and as this is posting I will be seeing in the New Year with a drink in hand!!

Fishy news. . . .

My two bristlenose plecs have been busy making babies – well, they have been practicing a lot and the eggs have failed to survive. (See here)

On Tuesday evening, I was sitting at the computer and I happened to glance over to the fish tank where I saw something unexpected. On top of the “beehive” was a tiny fish!  On closer inspection, I discovered, to my amazement, that it was a bristlenose plec.  Obviously, “Daddy” plec has mastered the care of his eggs and one has survived.  Baby plec has been (temporarily) named Snorlax by DS.

Further investigation revealed another batch of eggs underneath the bog wood, being well guarded by “Daddy” plec.  I wonder if Snorlax will soon be joined by other baby plecs.

As soon as I can get a picture of Snorlax, I will post it on here for you all to see.  He is currently 1cm long and very camera shy!!  I hope (fingers crossed) that he survives.

Happy Birthday

Today is my FIL’s birthday.  He is a fan of jazz, which I used as a theme for his birthday cards.

Season’s Greetings

Merry Christmas

and a

Happy New Year!!

A Christmas Wedding

Friends of ours are getting married today.  How lovely – a Christmas wedding, but not in all this snow and cold but in warmer climes in South America!!

Using one of my wedding themed rubber stamps, I stamped the image onto parchment.  I then spent hours (well, it felt like it!) carefully embossing on the reverse to raise the image. I then added the colour.  The parchment piece was then mounted on the silver frame and the whole thing was glued to a self-cut aperture card blank.

. . . . and another

Ribbon bows and gems make the tree, a gift embellishment for the pot and a star to finish.

First Christmas as Mr & Mrs

This one speaks for itself. I made this for my cousin’s son and his wife – they married in October (see October post).

Used:  Sizzix Texturz Polka Daisies, Ellison Thin Cuts Alphabet Tiffy Taffy, the holly came from the Christmas pud in theSizzix Sizzlit Christmas set.  The berries are crystal gems.  The greeting was printed on the computer.

Noel

This card was made for our dancing teacher.  I think he deserves a special card as he has to put up with a lot from us during the year, and it’s a nice way of showing him that he is appreciated.

Used:  Sizzix decorative strip alphabet Wingo Zingo, Sizzix originals (green) Holly & Berries, Sizzix Texturz Polka Daisies.

First Christmas

A first Christmas deserves a special card (any excuse eh?)

It is an easel card and I have used my lovely skiing snowman stamp as the basis of my design (as he is sooo cute!!).  The letters were cut with my Sizzix decorative strip alphabet “Wingo Zingo”and the number was cut with my Sizzix decorative strip “Frosting Numbers”.  I coloured the snowman with brushmarkers and the background with pastels.

Parents & Grandparents

 

More

Krafted Keepsakes tales of the unexpected

DH is not a “crafty” man.  Creativity is not his thing but something he admires in others (which is nice).  However, on Saturday he came to my rescue. 

I needed to make 3 large florist bows to hang on our bookcases.  I had bought some ribbon and 3 hearts and I sat down to make said bows and the nightmare began.

Carefully following the instructions I began to wrap the ribbon – I was soon to realise that my ribbon wrap didn’t look like the one in the picture.  I undid my ribbon wrap and had another go – once again it was wrong.  Now, I am not one to give up easily but after several more attempts I was getting to the point where it would be going in the bin!

DH having watched the “performance” took over (absolutely unheard of).  He laid all the components out, found a video on YouTube and set to work.  I was blown away with the result and not only did he make one – he made all three!!

Judge the results for yourselves – I think he’s quite clever but I will master making these bows (I will not let it beat me!!)

Something a little different

This year’s Christmas decorations have had to different due to our two fur covered hooligans (our beloved cats – see Moggie Mayhem for their antics!).  So instead of our usual big Christmas tree we have a little one, out of the cats way.  With a little imagination and some help from DH (see tomorrow’s post) the house looks and feels quite Christmassy.

Even my table decoration has had to be put on hold or so DH told me  - “we can’t have the cats playing with that, they might get hurt”, sort of thing.  But I had a different plan.  At the weekend I bought a small table decoration, quite a plain one really -  a built in candle holder, a bit of green and a few sparkly bits.  I had some spare decorations which I cut up and added to the table decoration, placed the whole thing on a matching candle plate – now I have something that is right for the table but more to the point the cats can’t ruin it (especially as I cover it with a food net overnight!!).

The start of the Christmas cards

We exchange our family Christmas cards on the 5th December, the Dutch Christmas day.
I always make our family Christmas cards.  Here are this year’s efforts.
For DS from me:

As you know from previous blog posts, DS is a bit of a logo lover – can you spot the logo in this card?
For DS from his Dad:

For DH from me:

and last, but not least,
for DH from DS

paul said...

 

nothing more I can say other than BRILLIANT we love em ... don't think we anywhere near you standard yet

9 December 2010 20:00

Thank you for your kind comments Paul

Crackers

As usual, I have made my own Christmas crackers.  It took me an afternoon to make 12 crackers.