16 September 2012

A card at last!

Having promised some photos of my recent card creations, I realised that my husband had sent most of them off for birthdays / get well soon occasions. I suppose I can't complain - I don't make the cards just to keep them here LOL.

However, there was still one in the newly-created pile, so here it is:


Not the best photo,I'm afraid, but I think you get the picture (no pun intended, groan). I used a green cardstock as my base, and then used a Spellbinders Labels One die (source - CraftsULove  to cut an aperture from this and a piece of flowery card (cut at the same time). Please note that is NOT a flying suacer reflectated in the acetate!!!!!

First, I stuck the piece of acetate onto the card base to make the see-through window. Then I stretched the ribbon (purchased from Paper Arts) across the acetate and stock down at either end.

Then I stuck the flowery card in place on top of the card base (having inked the edges first), being careful to position it in the right place over the window.

The flowers and bling came from my stash (mostly obtained from Paper Arts and charity shops!). You can't see it in the photo, but I also used a Viva Perlen Pen (about like Perfect Pearls) from The Stamp Attic to dot over the flower centres on the patterned card.

I realised that due to my wonky positioning, there was a thin, crooked line of green base cardstock showing on the spine of the card. So I added some iridescent glitter down the fold and then stuck a length of leafy ribbon (Paper Arts again) on top to disguise my cack-handedness.

The birthday wishes sentiment disc was a cover gift from one of my craft magazines.

Back when I've managed to make some more cards to show you.

And here's another photo from my new camera to finish off with .... the focus is Scampy, our old lady puss cat (c 24 years old, we think). Not edited this image yet, but she's still gorgeous!


15 September 2012

A new toy to play with

Sadly, my lovely aunt passed away earlier this year. She had suffered in her last years with dementia, and had been in a care home, something that was hard to deal with. It was almost a relief when I received the call from the home to say that she had slipped away.

I was deeply touched to learn that she had left me a small gift in her will, and wanted to buy something with it that I would make much use of and of which she would (I hope!) approve.

And so I bought myself a new camera - for those of you in the 'know', it's a Nikon D3100. The challenge now is to get to know how to use it properly - to navigate away from the safe waters of 'auto', and try the very scary manual settings!

Here's one of the very first shots I took ...



This is Tok, our Hungarian Vizsla, lying in the sun on our very weedy patio. I confess I rather liked the way the dandelion leaf was flopping over his nose!


The second shot shows the interior of the parish church in Cirencester (St Mary's, I think it is called). I've been in the church before to take part in choir 'come and sing' days, but I've never really stopped to take a proper look inside (too busy concentrating on complicated music scores!). The thing that struck m was the very spacious and open interior.


And finally, here's Tallis, enjoying one of his favourite things - a hide chew. I was rather pleased to get him 'mid gnaw' and to capture the whiteness of his fangs.

That's it for now, there a re lots more pix of course, but I will save (some) of them for another time. And when the battery has changer in my point-and-shoot camera, I'm planning on taking some photos of some of my recent card creations, with a view to uploading them here. Of course, I could use my new camera, but the downloading procedure is a lot more complicated as it involved cables and all sorts. I'm going for the easy route - plug in the memory card and away we go!

Thanks for stopping by ......