The Sound of...... Butterflies!

I was delighted when I saw they the new challenge at Butterfly Challenge is Butterflies & M is for Music notes because for a few days now I've had the germ of an idea for my next Foil Play DT card skittering around just out of reach in my head, and suddenly it all fell into place.

First I sponged the edges of the card very lightly in grey ink, then stamped assorted musical notation all around the outer area of the card, with the quotation positioned so that some of the notes partially framed it.  Then I cut a black oval and edged the edges of both that and the base card with a Tonertex pen. When it had dried, I placed a sheet of red metallic foil over the edges and rubbed gently to apply the foil to the card. (You don't need a piece of foil that covers the card, I used a tiny piece -  just move it around and reposition as needed).

I stuck the oval to the card, then added the die cuts - butterflies cut from red metallic card and the musical stave cut in white and then very lightly sponged at the ends in grey, to make the areas where it overlapped onto the white background stand out.

 

I'm sharing this card with:

Butterfly Challenge - M is for Music notes

Fan-tastic Tuesday - Use a die or a punch

Shopping our Stash - The Earth has music - and they have teamed up with

Words 2 Scrap By - The Earth has Music so I'm dropping in there for the first time too.   

 

Superhero at Cardz 4 Guyz

This week the theme at Cardz 4 Guyz is Superhero and we'd like to see cards suitable for a male using that theme.

Now I didn't have anything at all suitable in my stash, apart from one stamp that came in a goody bag of X-rated unmounted stamps from Viva Las Vegas stamps some years ago and is definitely NOT suitable to use on a blog that my grandchildren might read! So I had a search around the web and found this lovely "Spiderman Andy" image available as a digi from Pink gem designs. Rather cute, isn't he? The download comes in an outline and a pre-coloured version. I reckoned there was no way I could colour it as well as they did, and I've got a very poor selection of red and blue pens, so I chose the pre-coloured one.

I wasn't sure what kind of a sentiment to use on a Superhero card, so I used the Word Art tool in Microsoft Word to produce my own, simple and striking enough to work with the image.

 

 

 

I am sharing this with:

The Cutie Pie Challenge Blog - All about the boys 

Crafting Musketeers - It's a man's world  



Spring Blossom

The latest challenge at Make my Monday is this lovely picture inspiration



It reminded me a lot of one of the designs on Joanna Sheen's "Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady" CD  - one that I've used before and had lots of snippets left from the papers and toppers that I printed out for it. So I delved into my bits box, and indeed, there were plenty bits and pieces left to make a completely new card. And even some tiny scraps to decorate the inside with!

I'm sharing this with

Make my Monday - picture inspiration
Pixie's Snippets Playground
Clear it Out Challenge  - 2 or more things you are hoarding (the snippets, the flowers, which are the last of a pack, and the gems which were the last on a sheet)  
Ooh La La Creations - Easter/Spring
Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper Challenge - April

Snippets of Snippets

Back in May 2013 I resurrected the old Serendipity technique in order to make a card that used up lots of my scraps. What I didn't admit to then was that I'd saved all the leftover squares I cut that day, feeling sure they would "come in handy" soon. Well, soon came and went, and the cute little tin I saved them in has sat on the table ever since, occasionally having a spare die cut word or two slipped in among them. But today I decided that it was time these snippets, made themselves from snippets, ought to be put to use (well, I need the tin!).

The words I've used were among those I'd slipped into the tin, and the roses - well, I've no idea where they came from, but there were also a few embossed rose shapes in the tin!

You can see the squares are unevenly cut - I presume that's why I rejected them the first time round -  so this time I've arranged them in a way that emphasises their unevenness in an attempt to make it look deliberate.

I'm popping in to Pixie's Snippets Playground with this card.

Black and white butterfly

Happy Easter! I've had a little break from crafting and blogging, and had a lovely relaxing few days, with the family over for lunch on Easter Sunday. While we were eating lunch, the first butterfly I've seen this year fluttered past the window - spring really IS on the way! (My husband would use a very different yardstick to judge the arrival of spring by - the very first asparagus shoot is peeping through the earth.)

Anyway, I had to celebrate by using a butterfly on a card, didn't I? I've used a strip of paper printed out from Debbie Moore's "Black and white chic boutique" CD and a butterfly cut using a Spellbinders die. I'd wanted the "With Love" words (cut with a Tattered Lace die) to curve around towards the edge of the card, but unfortunately they weren't flexible enough to do that properly. Perhaps peel-offs would have worked better.

I added a few green gems to the butterfly to highlight it and also to emphasis the fact that there is no colour on the rest of the card - simply black and white.

I'm entering this card into two challenges I never thought I'd find myself combining:

CD Sundays - Clean and Simple
Less is More - Predominantly Black 

Recipe - Chicken with leeks and chestnuts

This was a bit of a fridge dice meal - there was one solitary leek lurking after its companion s were long-ago eaten, a handful of sprigs of parsley and a similar handful of thyme cluttering the place up. And I'm also trying to clear out the freezer, where the remains of the chestnuts that we gathered, blanched and peeled for Christmas were looking reproachfully at me every time I opened the door. But they all came together in a rather delicious dinner.....

Ingredients (to serve 2)

2 large part-boned chicken breasts
1 tbs sunflower oil
1 medium onion, peeled and sliced
1 medium leek, washed and chopped
70g peeled chestnuts (if you use canned or vac-pac ones, they are already fully cooked, so don't add them until 5 minutes before serving)
a small handful each of parsley and thyme, finely chopped
250ml chicken stock
1 tsp cornflour, blended with a little of the stock

Pre heat the oven to 180 C, 350F (fan 160, gas mark 4). heat the oil in a flameproof casserole dish and cook the chicken, skin side down, for about 5 minutes until well browned. Turn and cook on the other side for 2-3 minutes, then remove and set aside. Add the onion to the pan and fry for a few minutes until starting to soften, then mix in the leeks, herbs, chestnuts, stock and cornflour mixture. Bring to the boil, stirring constantly. Return the chicken to the pan, skin side up (see photo above). Cover and place in the oven for 45 minutes until the chicken is cooked through.

I served this with cabbage and a scalloped potato dish which is really an ultimate cheat but tastes delicious!

Slice 3 medium to large potatoes and arrange in a greased ovenproof dish. Whisk together a can of condensed mushroom soup and a can full of milk and pour over the potatoes.  Sprinkle over a couple of tablespoons of finely grated Parmesan cheese. Bake, uncovered, in a low oven 150 C, 300 F (130 C fan, gas mark 2)  for 2 hours, covering with foil if the top browns too much. I cooked this below the chicken, moving it down to the very lowest shelf, and it was fine.

I'm sharing this (well, the chicken, not the potato!) with Cooking With Herbs at Lavender and Lovage  - why not join in with your herby creations?

An InLinkz Link-up

Crafting Outside My Comfort Zone

I know that lots of crafters love colouring in, shading, pretty designs and cute little girls with their pets, but it's a style of crafting I'm not really comfortable with. I am really not very good at pretty! But today I won some Whoopsi Daisy images in the Clear It Out challenge and decided to have a play with one of them. I resized the image so it would look CAS on a 15cm square card, and drew some lines to act as borders (no, I'm not really good at keeping lines parallel...... I found an old ruler with a double slit along the centre and used that!) then tackled the colouring in. I think it's the first time I've attempted hair! The Happy Birthday is an old stamp - I think it may have been a magazine freebie.

I'm sharing this with

Addicted to CAS - Cute
Crafty Creations Challenges - Anything Goes
Alphabet Challenge - C is for Cute and Cuddly
Allsorts Challenge - Feature a Creature