just playing

 At an inter-federation WI meeting this week we were talking crafts, and inspecting everyone's samples, and having a lovely lunch (provided by the ladies of Suffolk West Federation) into the bargain.
Margaret from the host Federation showed us this little box, demonstrated how she made it, and kindly provided us with the template too - originally from a Craft Stamper article. I have checked the downloads on the mag website but couldn't find it, so can't give the designer the acknowledgement. I had to have a go that same evening, when I didn't really have the time to do a decent job, but this is how it turned out.
 Margaret recommended using double -sided scrapbook paper as the base, and it really worked well - originally it felt very flimsy, but becomes very sturdy once the card top, bottom and sides are added. I didn't have any mountboard, but found that a heavy sheet of card backing from a pad worked fine. I only had a gold Adirondack paint dabber, so used that to coat the card pieces instead of ordinary acrylic paint. For the top panels I randomly stamped a sheet of white card with 2 of the flower stamps from the SU Everything Eleanor stamp set in black, with second and third stampings without reinking to give depth, and then cut this up.I used more of this to cut the flowers out (from the blossom party die) and also a couple of layers in black to layer up for the lid. The seed beads I coated the central mini circle with did have some blue in the mix, but no way was I going to pick them out!    I shall be a lot more careful about cutting out next time   ......                                                                                                                        
The owl keyrings I saw on Jo's blog ages ago, got the instructions, and finally got around to trying to do them. I borrowed the nesties to cut out the backing as I didn't have a suitable punch, but had a great time playing with these - I used Anita's clear glaze to coat them with, and this dries in about 4 hours, which suits an impatient creature like me just fine.

catching up

Am trying to catch up on craft time, without a great deal of success! June has been a very busy time with markets and WI and I have not even been able to keep up with my favourite challenges - hopefully after next week things will be back to normal! Just to prove I am still here, these are some cards I made while back using the flowers I am currently addicted to making - I even made a pile during  quiet times when at the Easton College open day with Country Markets.

The cards all use sentiments from the loving sentiments plate from Chocolate Baroque, and a cuttlebug folder as background. As I am too heavy-handed with an ink pad to get a good finish if I ink an embossed card afterwards, I used the cheat way of inking the embossing folder using a brayer and a big'n'juicy pad before embossing the card. I inked the background, but you can also ink so that the embossing bit is coloured, depending on the effect you want - I found that you can get 2 images from one inking, the second will be pale and delicate.

At the WI meeting this month, we had a fascinating speaker on straw craft, with some beautiful creations to show us. We all had to make a countryman's favour - sounded simple, kept us all very quiet for a surprisingly long time, and we did all manage to produce something resembling the original! Considering that these little favours only used 4 straws, they felt surprisingly heavy after a few minutes working at arms length, and no way would I ever consider trying something as complicated as a bell!

If you are coming to the Norfolk Show next week, please visit the WI marquee and have a look at the cushions - there are some fantastic cushions (around 100!) going to be on display there. We sorted through bags of them on Monday - ranging from knitted, embroidered, ragged to patchwork, and probably some others I didn't see while I was fixing the lunch for the rest of the Home Economics committee - after lunch it still took almost 2 hours to sort out the winners from the shortlisted ones!