It's a Creative World

'Blooming marvellous' simple cards

Hi folks. Its MadDi here again.

As a newbie cardmaker, someone who loves a 3D effect, loves to use LOADS of stash, and loves flowers, I could not resist sharing this idea with you today.

Example 1:

Example 2:

And finally some very simple instructions:

You will need some patterned paper, cardstock, and florist wire.

For the vase: Cut 1 piece of cardstock 4 by 5 inches and 1 piece of PP 3 1/2 by 4 1/2 inches. Attach the PP to the cardstock and score 1 cm from each side. Fold back. You will use this fold to attach the vase to the card.

Card: Cut 1 piece of cardstock 6 by 12inches  and fold in half. Attach 1 piece of PP 5 1/2 by 11 inches to the cardstock.

Flowers: I just cut circles and squiggly circles and layered them with sticky foam. I then wound some florist wire round a pencil and attached the wire to the back of the flower.

Attach the flowers to the card then attach the vase to the card.

I could not resist attaching a few tiny strips of paper that I again wound round a pencil!

LOL I made 3 of these cards but gave them away so quickly I had to make a fourth to record all the instructions!!!

Just a parting thought from me as I ask for your thoughts and support:

God

Grant me the SERENITY to accept the things I cannot change,

The COURAGE to change the things I can,

And the WISDOM to know the difference.

Stopping Smoking is the first thing I CAN change

I have stopped smoking to:

• Improve my health
• Improve my quality of life and
• Improve my finances LOL

Thanks for visiting IACW!

Love from MadDi

Garden Time - Protecting your plants

Organic or not organic? Which are you?

Me, i'm not organic. No matter how hard I try I just can't get through the season without my trusty slug bait and derris dust!

There are loads of old wives 'slug defeating' tales, and i've tried a few, but so far none have worked.

A little surf through the world wide web, has revealed a load of facts I didn't know about snails and slugs, so maybe this year i'll give organic gardening another chance :)

Go the natural way.

Organic slug killer ?!?!

Need a little helper :)

Identifying the enemy!

Great site for all pests.

I've sprinkled slug bait all around the base of the greenhouse, around some of my seedling {especially dahlias} and in my flower beds.

My pepper plants are thriving on the windowsill, which i'm really happy about, maybe this year i'll have a crop!

We'll see you in two weeks.
xx

Back on the 18th of March I posted a picture of my neighbour Rons allotment and said I would post updates through summer as the allotment came to life. Sadly, Ron died last Tuesday :( We have lost a special friend and inspiration in our lives. RIP.

Hi its Lemon here.

Slugs and snails are the enemy of every gardener. I hate them with a passion. At night you can see them travelling across from next doors garden to ours.

Usually I put down slug pellets but I don’t want to do this in the vegetable patch as the chemicals seep into the soil. I don’t have anywhere near me that sells the organic slug pellets, I have tried egg shells before with no success and I don’t have any copper tubing. 

So I am still using the ordinary slug pellets but I am putting them into small empty plastic pop bottles. I have laid them on their side and sprinkled some pellets inside.

Hopefully this way they will get to the bottles before they damage my plants and not infect the soil. I am also covering any young plants with homemade cloches - plastic bottles, to me and you, hopefully I will keep them away one way or another.

Remember my potatoes? Well they are going mad at the moment with all the rain, I have had to top them up 3 times this week.

See you next time.

Banana Loaf Cake

Now a few months ago i posted a recipe for Apple Loaf Cake which is just out of this world!

I recently found another recipe for a Banana Loaf Cake which is equally scrumptious! My son has bananas for breakfast and i usually end up having to throw a couple out because they are over ripe. This is perfect for using them up and also getting fruit into children or adults who wouldn't normally eat it :-)

85g unsalted butter, at room temperature
200g sugar
2 or 3 very ripe bananas, coarsely mashed
3 eggs, lightly beaten
230ml buttermilk(if you can't get buttermilk you can make it by adding 1tsp cream of tartar to normal milk)
400g all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 tsp. salt
300g coarsely chopped walnuts, pecans or hazelnuts

Preheat an oven to 350°F. Grease and lightly flour a 9-by-5-inch loaf tin.

Using an electric mixer beat together the butter and sugar on medium speed until creamy, about 1 minute. Add the bananas and eggs and beat until smooth. Add the buttermilk and beat just until well mixed.

In a bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, nutmeg, salt and nuts. Add the flour mixture to the banana mixture and beat just until mixed. The batter should be slightly lumpy.

Pour the mixture into the prepared tin. It should be no more than two-thirds full. Bake until the loaf is dark golden brown and dry to the touch and the edges pull away from the sides of the pan, 55 to 60 minutes. A knife inserted into the centre should come out clean. Let the bread rest in the tin for 5 minutes, then turn the loaf out onto a wire rack and let cool completely. Cut into thick slices to serve. Makes one 9-by-5-inch loaf.
Storage Tip: Wrap the bread tightly in plastic wrap and store at room temperature overnight or in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.

Seriously, this is gorgeous and keeps well in an airtight tin and keeps very moist. Also idiot proof to get wrong really!

Cath x

Junk Jewellery!

Like with most crafters, I am always hoarding various things - beads, buttons, bits of collage, scrapbooking doodads and ephemera.  Instead of throwing it away, here's a fun way to use some of it up making jewellery.  Here's a bracelet I made today:

The actual jewellery findings are very easy to come by.  There are many beading and jewellery websites, one of my favourites being www.jillybeads.co.uk and also many shops on Ebay. 

The basics you will need are some heavy link silver plated chain, a toggle clasp, a few headpins to thread beads on and jump rings to attach your bits and pieces to your bracelet. If you are a complete beginner, you don't really need any specialist tools, you could quite easily get away with using your electrical pliers to open and close jump rings and bend headpins for beads. Here's a quick demo on how to form a beaded headpin:

1.  Thread your beads on your headpin

2. Bend the wire using flat nose pliers

3. Form a loop with round nose pliers

4. Cutt of the excess wire (you can use scissors if you haven't got any wire cutters) and your beaded headpin is finished!

A quick word also about jumprings too.  Never just pull them apart at the opening. Take hold of either side of the opening and twist - that is pull one side towards you and push the other side away from you.  This way you won't weaken the metal.

Other pieces of ephemera have been made by sticking buttons to little gold frames and linking buttons straight to the bracelet with jumprings.  The bottlecap image was made by punching a hole in the edge of the bottlecap using a Cropodile (you could also use an eyelet punch and hammer), cutting out an image from a collage sheet and placing it in the bottlecap. I then covered it with UTEE and melted it with a heatgun.

You can also make jewellery with old bottlecaps using up bits of your old stash.  Make small collages inside them, cover with UTEE and melt.  Here's a couple I've done.  The first one is a large bottlecap from Maya Road using a chipboard initial, Tim Holtz doodads, button, old brad and collage images.  I made this one into a brooch.

This second image is exactly the same procedure as the brooch, only this time using to lager bottle caps to make a pair of earrings.

I hope this technique inspires you to do something creative with your old bits and bobs of stash and I'll see you again soon! TFL!

Lots of love Joanne xxx

A to Z Journal - I pages

Hi folks, its A to Z time again.

I, ME, YOU, YOURSELF, THE BLOGGER, THE BLOG READER. I is a big word, but only 1 letter. Can you fit YOU on your I page? No matter if you can't, because an added challenge over the next two weeks is to scrap I'. Yes ladies we need to see YOU on a layout, in a mini book, on an altered item, anything! creATe a record of I.

Trivia
The dot over the lowercase 'i' is sometimes called a tittle. In the Turkish alphabet, dotted and dotless I are considered separate letters and both have uppercase (I, İ) and lowercase (ı, i) forms.

Here a few ideas for the letter I:

Book of me/you: I, Inspired, Inspiration, Inebriated, Isolated, Interesting, Intelligent, Imaginative, Inventive, Impish, Irresistable, Insecure, Irrepressible, Insecure, Innocent, Immature, Immaculate, Irrestistable, Impulsive...

Book of baby: Impish, Innocent, Injections, Ill, Interested, Inquisitive...

Book of everyday:  Icy, Insecurity, Inspired, Illness, Insult...

Occasions/ Life: Innocent, Insecurity, Illness, Isolated, Impossible, Incredible...

Tools and Techniques:  Inspired, Inks, Inkpads...

Knitting: In-over-through and off, Increase, Inspired ...

Looks like "Inspired" and "Inspiration" are everywhere!

Our regular guest Willow has created this page:

"It is called, 'I' for Initiation [into the wyldwood mysteries]

For the background i used corrugated card to 'scrape' paint down the paper."

Di - Book of my life:

My life is 'Impossibly" and "Incorrigibly", "IMPULSIVE", but I prefer to think of me as spontaneous LOL. I am impulsive about everything but mostly pens, Persian carpets and books and fabric. I have a new impulse to ride (own ?) a Harley Davidson!!!!

Caz... BoM

I is for Interests. I've used Tim Holtz ranger inks, which I have newly discovered, lol. In true art journal style, I have 'accidentally' made myself orange and have made a spelling mistake, both of which will not make me redo my page!

Lemons letter I in her book of growing up

This is a page about my daughter's organised interests, or lack of them!

I printed a Prima printable onto acetate and then coloured it on the back with Tim Holz alcohol inks.

We would love to see your pages so please send them to [email protected], resized to a max width of 500. Oh and if you want to share your 'I', as in youRSelf,  layouts, please send them to us too :)

Thanks for visiting!!
IACW girls
xx

Doodled frames, borders and elements

Hi folks, Jakey here :-)

Today I thought I'd share a couple of layouts I've made recently which have simple doodled bits and bobs on. If you haven't yet made anything similar, you'll find it's a fun and inexpensive way to add something a bit different to your pages. All you need are a few markers and some white (or coloured) card.

On the 12 x 12 LO here I made some scalloped elements :

And on the 8.5 x 11:

I just just scribbled up some black and white stripey stuff, which would look good teamed with practically any colour you fancy working with.

You don't even need to use good cardstock, any old cheap white card is good enough to be jazzed up - I used the page inserts that came in an inexepensive photo album I bought from the book club at work.

Easy Peasy Guide:

To make a frame, place your photo on a piece of card and lightly mark the corners with a pencil. These will be your guide lines for cutting the centre piece out. Make sure you leave enough space so you have a little overlap if you want to put the frame  over your photo - or else you can always slot it into the open  space once you've cut the centre out.  You may want to  dab a bit of removable adhesive on the back of the picture to hold it in place while you work so it doesn't move about and create havoc!

take a fairly fine journalling pen and draw a scallopy edge round the photo. I never worry about trying to get the scallops perfect - I think  being slightly irregular adds a certain whimsy and charm. 

Cut out the frame with small pointy scissors or a sharp blade on glass.

Draw some scalloped borders, these can be as thick or thin as you like. Cut these out too. and maybe some corners or anything else you fancy. I traced my corner from a piece of scalloped bazzill. Decorate the scallops with dots or small circles to give a lacy look.

The black and white elements are made in the same way except they are simply marked into even-ish sections and then scribbled in, in an alternative black and white pattern. Rather than a frame this time, I made a journalling block. It's exactly the same, only smaller.

So there you go - fun quirky elements that cost nothing but a bit of time...  and hand cutting is very therapuetic, I find :-)

Have fun playing! And if you decide to make a layout or card, we'd love to see your work :-) Please leave a comment telling us where we can see your stuff so we can come over and admire!

happy scrappin!

jake xx

How to be a good house guest !!!

Hi again from MadDi

Do you have lots of visitors to your home? I do or at least I used to. Every year I had at least 5 sets of guests some for as long as SIX WEEKS!!!

I love to have guests and always want them to feel comfortable, relaxed and AT HOME in my home. For that reason I had a 'Visitors' guide to Di's home' .

This year I decided to make another as I have moved home.

So firstly what about the title - here are a few ideas:

• House Rules...
• How to be a good house guest...
• How to avoid not being invited back...
• Be happy in our home...
• A dummy's guide to our home...
• Welcome to our home

Then the FORMAT - here are some ideas:

• Ordinary notebook.
• Hand made mini album.
• Off the shelf mini album.
• A clipboard.

Then the CONTENTS - here are some ideas:

• Where we are situated - how to get to us.
• House rules.
• Using appliances.
• Being comfortable.
• Relaxing.
• Waking hours (LOL).
• Telephone and Internet.
• Pets.
• Getting about - Transport buses, trains etc.
• Places of interest to visit.
• Shopping (Woo Hoo).
• What to do in an emergency.
• Contact numbers and emergency numbers.

I decided to make my own little mini album and bind it with my new favourite toy the "bind it all". So I started with some heavy cardboard (recycled), PP and cardstock.

My album measurements:

• Covers 8" tall by 7" wide
• Pages 8" tall by 6" wide
• Tabs 2" by 2"

For my album, I started with my ideas on the contents and then wandered the house taking loads of photographs. This was GREAT fun!!!! I also scanned and printed maps. (I printed the photographs in different sizes) My album has became a precious treasure about how and where I live right now.

I covered the album covers with PP, inked and attached the tabs and then did the binding.

Here are some closeups of my album: On the front cover I included a few business cards of hairdresser, beauty salon etc. You could include cards of restaurants, places of interest etc.

In case you cannot read OUR house rules here they are:

We have very few rules (LOL) except:

• Ask for anything that you need!
• Entrance to George's study is by invitation only!!
• Entrance to Di's studio is by invitation only!!!
• Do NOT feed the fish!!!!

I so enjoyed making this album to help our guests feel comfortable in our home. But it is also the memories of my life right here and now!

We would love to see what you do with this theme.

Thanks for visiting IACW and love from MadDi XXX

wednesdays card is.......

made using more of my ScrapRoom kit offcuts.

I've used the stripy paper, cut just smaller than my card front, as a base, so any brads, eyelets etc that I use won't show on the inside.

and a little detail...

It's been ages since I used these MM foam stamps! I realised how much I miss stamping :)

haPPy huMp dAy!!
Caz
xx

Crochet flowers

I really have caught the crochet bug! I love to sit and make squares, but unless you're actually going to use them for something, it seems a bit pointless.

So what else can you make with a crochet hook and some odd bits of cotton??

CROCHET FLOWERS of course! These are quick to make and you can make them just about anywhere. If you're a train or bus commuter you could whip up one or two on every trip :)

The internet is full of flower patterns, you just need to sift through them to find ones that you like!

I love these by Teresa Franco :) For my flowers I used the first 4 rows of one of the square patterns in this book.

Okay so now that you're over run by crochet flowers, what are you going to do with them all?

I have used them on a layout...

To embellish a home made felted bag...

or how about wearing them...

Of course they also look pretty sitting in a jar!

Go on, give crochet flowers a try :)

haPPy dAY!!
Caz
xx

Card Caddy

My one big problem with making cards is finding a way to store them so I don't forget to give them out!!

Back on the 25th February I showed a card storing book I had made. This is working really well but it's actually not big enough to store a few months worth at a time. So I decided to use that book for my work colleague cards, and make something else for my family and friends cards.

I had to once again rifle around in my altering basket, and I found the last basic grey tin I bought in my wild 'buying up everything in site' years. I chose some papers that I had quite a bit of and set about covering, decorating and embellishing the tin.

I used chatterbox papers which are my very favourite paper manufacturers! Some ribbons, scenic route alpha letters and these cute flowers from John lewis.

For the inserts I made tabs with co-ordinating papers, inked the edges and stuck them onto the card tabs that some with the tins.

I can fit 25-30 made cards in the tin at once, so it's great for storing card blanks too :)

The whole tin is also painted with a layer of modge podge for added protection.

Thanks, as always, for visiting!!
Caz
xx