It's a Creative World

Flower Card

Hi Everyone and a Happy Wednesday to you!

Today i am showing you this very simple little card to make for any occasion really although i have stamped Happy Birthday on it.

I covered a card blank in some peach cardstock.

Then i attached 3 different lengths of ribbon to the car with strong double sided tape. I used all the same colour but you could easily use different ones. Then i attached the green and orange buttons around the bottom using glossy accents. I used that because i wanted something strong.

I then attached 3 large Prima flowers with 3 large co-ordinating Basic Grey brads.

The title is from the Stampin Up! set Birthday Best. I stamped it onto light green card and then mounted on a darker green card stock. Then i attached with foam stamps to make it stand out.

It's an ideal card to make with bits and pieces you have lying around.

Have fun

Cath x

Garden Time

Hi all from the creative girls. And it's garden time again. For those of you in the northern hemisphere it's that time of year that you should be planning and getting ready for another season of growth.

And Hi from Di in Johannesburg where we are still in mid summer!

I thought I'd share with you today the results of our seed planting. You may remember that we just scattered seeds in pots and in the garden.

Well, the tomatos are growing well and we have quite a nice crop.

 

 

The Zinnias from seed are all over the garden and have been an absolute joy. The hibiscus which we pruned quite hard, has blossomed for months.

BUT, the gem squash have ben a BIG DISAPPOINTMENT. Anyone have any ideas what I did wrong??? There is loads of growth AND flowers but NOT A SINGLE gem squash LOL.

Hi from Lemon

I have been planning this years vegetable plot all week. WHICH do a vegetable planner which is good guide to crop rotation and sowing times.

I have the Organic Vegetable Planner from Amazon which is very good as it gives you crop rotation, when to sow advice and also which plants are good to grow together. 

Look out for bargains at places like Wilkinsons who are selling off last years seeds and do seed potatoes at a good price. Local supermarkets also reasonably priced seeds. If you are using last years seeds and your not sure if they are still viable you can place them on wet kitchen roll in a plastic bag in a light place and see if they germinate.

As soon as the weather has picked up I will be out clearing any debris and getting my new greenhouse ready.

Hi from Caz

Well January is the month that I start to think about my garden again. And it's also normally around this time that I make my garden journal.

I've decided to use the same idea as my AMIML journals, and prepare a load of 'pages' in advance. I can swap and change the order and also include photos as the year goes on. It will be more real time rather than divided into sections.

I need to make the covers and also start writing a list of what I want to grow in the veg patch and any flower seeds I may need.

Our plan this year is to extend the patch. For me it's very much been about the process of growing, but this year I need to make a bigger effort to enjoy the 'fruits of my labour'!!

Thanks for visiting IACW!
xx

A Fairytale Diet??

Thats what i have reaslised this past couple of weeks.  Diets arent meant to be fun! Its hard work but does get easier as the days go by.  I have now managed 18 days without caffine and alcohol and feel so much better already.  How is everyone else doing??

I designed this layout for my Project 2009 album about having a laugh in this situation.  Its entitled Fairytale? and the journalling reads
''Im sure snow white didnt eat the apple because of a diet! This slimming is hard going, all those lovely things i cant eat.  If i am wanting the happy ever after though i will persevere.''

Why dont you do a funny layout to look back on.

Hope your diets and new years resolutions are going well!
Take care
Debbie
x

Multi photo layout

Hi everyone, hope you are having a fabulous weekend.

It's not very often i do a layout with more than a couple of photos on it but sometimes it's necessary, like in this layout of mine where i wanted to show all the different pictures of the little cottage we stayed in over Christmas.

If i do do a multi photo layout i tend to use the same size photographs but it does work really well if you make them different sizes.

In this layout i used the Basic Grey Archaic range as i thought it brought out the grey/blue colour of the cottage and also the browns worked with the interior pictures. I used a 12x12 piece of cardstock and then used a co-ordinating spotted card and made it 10x12. I used one 6x4 photograph in the middle as the centre of the layout and then positioned 4 smaller ones around it and the other 3 smaller ones at the bottom. I felt if i had put these directly underneath the photos would have been to close together so i broke them up by putting the title about two thirds of the way down. I used Basic Grey chipboard alphas for that.

Then i simply added the computer journalling and a little button threaded with ribbon to make a bow.

A very simple but effective layout.

Please excuse the photography, the pictures were taken with artificial light.

Thanks for stopping by!

Cath xx

Memories of times long gone...

Hi all from MadDi in *s*u*n*n*y* Johannesburg.

I have been quite busy these past few weeks spring cleaning my studio and my mind. One of the things I did was go through all of my completed, UNcompleted and UNstarted  projects. Now normally my UNcompleted projects are just prototypes that I did to test an idea. The UNstarted projects are numerous. LOL bet lots of you are like me - buying things that I just might tackle one day.

The COMPLETED projects (specifically layouts) were interesting cos they reminded me that simple is sometimes best. Today I want to share with you some of these simple layouts from times long gone. They have reminded me of why I scrap - to retain and visualise the memories. They are all simple layouts and reflect the stye I prefer.

My Uncle and Aunt (Andy and Anne) on their wedding day 1946.

 

My mum and dad 1947!!!

 

LOL Di as a a baby 1948.

 

This photograph was intruiging "the girl from Glasgow, Norman and I taken on board the ship" 1948.

Two different takes on the same photograph of my DD Caroline. I prefer the first!

 

 

And me again on my wedding day (the second one). My dress was very much like the patterned pper but it was a very poor photograph!

 

Lets see some of your old cherished layouts!

Thanks for visiting us and love from Di XXX

Simple Clay Embellishments

I don't know about you but I personally don't like to spend a lot of money on embellishments but prefer to buy them cheaply or make my own.

I had bought some Fimo to try but we didn't get along very well so I decided to try an air-drying clay and also some mini cutting shapes and paperclips:

 

I started by rolling some of the clay until it was approximately 3mm thick and then cut out various shapes.

While the clay was still malleable I embedded some paperclips in a few shapes and used a spare piece of clay to keep it stuck together. For the other shapes I used various rubber stamps to deboss the design in the clay and also experimented by pressing an embossing plate into another piece:

 

Once the clay had dried (I left it 24 hours) I decorated the shapes. The paperclip embellishments were coloured with chalk inks and then a letter sticker added before covering with Diamond Glaze. The other shapes were just inked. Of course paint and other mediums could be used instead of ink:

 

These can be used for scrapbooking, cardmaking or perhaps you could just have personalised paperclips?!

I hope I've inspired you to try making your own embellishments. If you do make any don't forget to leave a link - we love to see your work!

Jo xx

Be inspired....

by others. I love to look through online galleries and blogs. And often see layouts that inspire me to stop everything else and scrap. But of course there are many layouts like this and i just don't have time to scrap them all. Not just yet anyway :) So I keep a note pad on my desk to sketch these wonderful pages of inspiration to scrap later.

One such layout is called BIG HAT and has been created by Wombat aka Pam.

 

I did a quick sketch of the layout. And then used it for 3 layouts in one day!

This first layout is for my family album. I adapted the sketch to a 8.5x11 format and turned it 90 degrees.

 

I love the way Pam had placed and attached the ribbon!

The next layout is 6x12. And again it was very easy to adapt the sketch to this size.

 

lol, this next layout is one for my Christmas album, we had so much fun doing this family photo shoot!

 

Thanks to Pam for allowing us to share her work on IACW! Please don't forget to give credit to Pam if you use the sketch. And of course if you do use the sketch and upload your work, don't forget to leave us a link so we can pop over and look!

Thanks for visiting!!
Caz
xx

Shaker Boxes

I love making shaker boxes.  They can be filled with all sorts and look great on cards or scrapbook pages.  Here's a quick tutorial on how to make a quick shaker box for a clean, contemporary looking card.

 

First of all make your frame for the shaker box by punching a circle out of cardstock and fitting your scallop circle over the top like so.

Next attach a piece of acetate to the back of the frame using glue (I used glossy accents).

 

Attach dimensional foam pads around your frame.  As I am using quite chunky heart confetti, I don't need to have the pads butting up together.  If you were using something finer, such as sand or glitter, you would probably be better using foam tape which can be attached all the way around without leaving gaps.

 

Remove the backing from the foam pads and attach another scallop circle to the back to seal the shaker box.

 

Attach it to your card and you're done! 

Shaker boxes can be all shapes and sizes and can contain all sorts.  Glitter, sand, shells, small toys, bits of ephemera - the only limit is your imagination!

Hope you like this idea and I'll see you again soon!

TFL! Joanne x

Be our guest ...... Eleanor

We love having people come to play over at It's a creative world and today we have great pleasure in having the lovely Eleanor onboard.

Without further ado I shall hand you over to the lady herself .....

Hello, I'm Eleanor, and I live at the seaside with four cats, three children and an old goat, up in the north west of England.

I can't imagine not having at least ten different creative projects on the go, ranging from papercraft to drawing to knitting to beadwork to gardening to embroidery to writing to dressmaking, and it's sewing that I've been invited here, much to my delight, to show you today.

My youngest son aged 12 wanted bright cheerful tops, but all we could find in his size were the grungy dirt colours popular with his age group. Browsing in Home Bargains one day, he picked up a beautiful, light, soft fleece blanket and said "I wish I had a hoodie like this", and so the idea was born.

I think the slide show shows enough detail of how it's done, but I welcome any questions (I've never done a tutorial before).

Thank you so much for coming to play Eleanor I'm sure that many of us will be on the lookout for fleece blankets now.

If you'd like to find out more about Eleanor and her creative endeavours check out her blog Still cutting off tabs

If you have been inspired by Eleanor's hoodie please let us know and leave us a linkie dink if you make one.

Quick and Easy Embroidered Felt Bags

I love using felt!  It's such a versatile material and these bags are so easy to put together.

• Simply take two sheets of non-patterned A4 felt.
• Cut one of the sheets in half vertically, then, take one of the halves and fold it over so the edges meet. 
• Stitch two of the opening edges together, a little way in from the edge, and turn the felt inside out, so the seams are now neatly on the inside.
• Repeat this with the remaining half of the material.
• Using the second sheet of A4 felt, cut two thick strips to serve as handles, and some flower shapes (I used a Sizzix die to do this). 
• Stitch each end of the handle strip to the open ends of the bags, and use the flower die cuts to cover up the stitching.

 

Your bags would look lovely just like this, but why not take them to the next level and add some embroidery.  Now, I'd love to say I'm good at stitching, but I'm really not, and this is where I find the many stitching templates available now so invaluable.

 

Illustrated above are the Bazzill Basics templates.  Simply place your chosen template design over your bag and mark out each hole with a felt tip pen.  Choose a coordinating coloured thread, and stitch where you have placed a mark.  I keep the original template in front of me as a guide.  When you've finished stitching, you can add blooms, buttons, beads etc to the design for some extra pizzaz.

I recently made a batch to give away as party bags at my daughter's birthday sleepover, and they went down a storm!  They're the perfect size for adding small items like tubs of bubbles and sweets.

I hope I have inspired you to try making these.  If you do, don't forget we'd love to see photos:)

Happy Creating!

Paulaxx