Busy, Busy

Its been a busy week since I last updated mainly interviews and form filling but happy to have some creative time today. I have pottered about and made a 6x6 little journal album for a new project as well as another one for Kate. Here are some piccies of mine.

Last minute cards

So there I am pottering on a gloomy grey saturday, playing about with the Inspirational Card Sketch for the week when my other half comes along and tells me that she needs a card for later today for a guy leaving her work. Smiling I say no problem and start using the exact same sketch for the second card. Result, two cards using old junkitz paper and using the same sketch.

Its funny, I look at all the papers I have collected in my years of crafting and think...I really need to use these up. It matters not that they may not be the latest most fashionable papers, what matters is that I like them and I wish to create with them.


I created these little flowers out of some lace with little buttons on the top, the chipboard piece just covered in some ink to take away the white.

Inky fingers

Had a good few days with inky fingers creating some stuff. Using the Monday Muse I made this birthday card for my friends 18 year old son. some lovely large chipboard numbers that i inked and stamped and of course decided to go for a rolled edge to the papers.



Striking whilst the creative bug and inky fingers were still hot I set about making a couple of star books, something I hadn't done in a while. It was great fun and they are always such a pleasant change from a regular card to give.


After drybrushing the card with some paint i could not wait to use up some of my new (got in the sale) Paper Artsy stamps.


Of course you can never have enough girlie sets too!

Document 2010

A new year, a new home and a new project from UKS & Shimelle called "Document 2010" I decided to use up an old bazzil basics gate album and some of my old crate papers to create an album for the project. Each month will then have a double layout of around 10 x 7.5 inches, leaving me lots of room for journalling. The basic blank album was black so I drybrushed for a messy, grungy look around the edges to start with and using some folded ribbon and bronze ribbon slides created a closer for the album. I had a wonderfully inky time making up the album and look forward to filling it over the course of the year.

Of course the first month of January will most likely be all about job hunting! hopefully February will be about starting a new job which I will definately need to keep me supplied in Herma. I have decided to go on a very strict stash diet. I have so much stuff that I have obviously just kept to admire rather than use. treating myself to 20 quids worth of stuff from ATDML for Christmas then subscribing to a small kit from Scrapagogo once a month is all that I am doing for now until I start earning some pennies.







I do believe that I am becoming addicted to creating little paper flowers with button centres, I loved the way they turned out on this album with the double sided papers.

Using up old papers

I'm still on a mission to use up as many old stash and/or kits or just papers in general that I perhaps won't use in scrapbooking but will use for cardmaking. This was a birthday set of papers given to years ago by who knows who, made three cards so far and counting! Should keep the girly cardstock well topped up for this year.

Grey grey grey

With so much grey sky I turned to the Basic Grey Challenge for my card today. Their colour challenge was fresh blues, greys and white. I needed to do a retirement card for an ex colleague so used this as an opportunity. Creating a card for a male is always hard so was happy to have a little inspiration.

Patterned Paper Hussy

I must confess I adore patterned paper and the more I can put together the better! This gorgeous set of papers is 7 gypsies zanzibar collection and the colours just remind me of sunnier climates and living in Andalucia. Using the Mojo Monday sketch I created this little any occasion card. A little bit of sunshine on a grey day in Edinburgh.

Surprising Finds

I love going into the little pound stores and discovering useful things. I was looking for additional storage for some of the odds and ends that are not my standard ribbons/buttons/brads/eyelets. So was delighted to come across a sewing kit caddy from Poundstretchers. It cost 3 pound something, and comes with 210 pieces of sewing kit that were taken straight out and put in my sewing box. Each compartment is removable from the outer casing just snapping on and off, there is an additional storage tray at the top beneath the lid and below that a bucket just begging for some goodies to go in it. I am a happy bunny another storage problem solved!

Inspirational Card Sketch

So following on from getting unpacked and organised, well almost there I took a creative break to make a card for my brother in law's birthday. I was inspired by using the Sketch from the Inspirational Card Sketch blog

Using old stash, ie some of my fave yummy crate papers and lots of walnut ink I created the card. ah well back to unpacking!

Dark mornings

I forgot how grey the sky can be here, just a uniform greyness. Its strange almost mystical in some ways, its now almost midday and you definitely need lights on in the house. Apart from jobseeking and unpacking I have been organising my creative supplies from the packed boxes into as many organisational boxes I can. Reducing a craft studio into boxes is not easy and I still want to get my inky paws on as much as possible.

Winter challenge

Thanks to a challenge on UKS using a Shimelle Sketch I created this digital layout for some of the photos I took along my canal walk of the other day.

My puddy cats

I would have been lost living alone in a foreign country for over 8 months if it had not been for my darling two fur babies, who snuggled up against me whenever I needed cuddles. This is a digital layout of Sappho getting used to the UK weather after 3.5 years of spanish sunshine.