Chloe Stem #2

While I had the Memory Box Chloe Stem die out, and was still feeling inspired by the magazine article I mentioned in my post yesterday,  I decided to make a second card. This time I had a rummage through my box of 6 x 6 papers - I've collected ever such a lot of 6 x 6 stacks over the years and tend to forget to use them. I found a pretty part-used stack  from Simply Create  which I used for this card, adding toning blue Core-dinations for the mat and a snippet of dark blue for the die cuts. .

Once again I've used the die cuts, ribbon and  a pre-printed sentiment, along with some circles cut with my good old Spellbinders dies. I inked all the papers including the circles with toning shades.

I am sharing this with

Fab n Funky - Birthday 

Watercooler Wednesday - all about occasions


Little Red Wagon - Mix 'Em Up 

Chloe stem #1

How's lockdown affecting your crafting? I found my mojo completely vanished at first, so I dug out  some old crafting magazines and am working through them taking inspiration from themes, sketches, techniques and colour schemes and combining them with my own stash and ideas to see what develops. I've found it really motivating - plus it's making a huge dent in the snippets box!

This was inspired by an article in an old issue of Making Cards magazine that made use of the Chloe Stem die (I think it was made by Memory Box)  that was a crafters' favourite a few years ago. I've made two cards inspired by it - this is the first.

The spotty panel is a snippet of black card, with embossing ink pressed onto it through a spotty stencil from Uniko  then embossed with white embossing powder. The background is the very last piece from a very useful piece of stripey green 12 x 12 (does anyone else feel sad when they use up the very last scrap of something they've loved, so they don't have it any more, or is that just me?) and the chloe stems are, of course,  all cut from snippets. The sentiment is from an old pre-printed sheet that's been lurking in my Box of Bits for years.

Stay safe everyone - staying indoors and crafting is a good thing to do right now!

I am sharing this with

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge 375 

A place to start - use ribbons and/or bows 

Uniko Challenge - Spots and stripes + optional use a stencil 


AAA Birthday - dots and/or stripes

A new way to buy and sell craft makes and supplies online #AD

I have been contacted by Simple Shop  about a new service they are offering that may be of interest to crafters who want to sell their finished work or those who want to sell (or in my case, buy!) digital images, knitting and crochet patterns  and other downloadable supplies.

The idea is that you use their tools to set up your very own free online shop using templates  they provide, giving you control over the way your shop looks, feels and takes payments.

As I don't sell my own makes (they all go to charities to sell) I haven't tried setting up a shop but the site is very clearly laid out and it looks as if you are guided through the steps so that your shop can be set up in 15 minutes.



Here's what  the site owners have told me about it: We are seeing a lot of crafters starting to sell their creations online, and frustrations with Etsy and Ebay are abundant it seems, mainly regarding the hefty commission Etsy charges.  Our sellers like having their own site, and their own virtual shop window, with a bit more control over look and feel (as well as how they take payment!).  We don't charge any commission, allow sellers to easily take credit card or paypal payments, we're easier to use than any other platform, plus it's totally free to try (no credit card required), and then £9 a month if people do want to keep us.

The "no commission" feature sounds very attractive, I know from occasional stash clearouts on eBay  myself that  unless you time your listings carefully you can soon run up a hefty sellers fee bill.

I'd love to hear how you get on if you decide to try the site!

Getting hold of food during lockdown

At the start of the lockdown, I promised myself I would get back into the habit of posting more recipes again to help those of us who are trying to use up odds and ends from the fridge, freezer and store cupboard. Then I ran into a problem - getting hold of fresh food has become practically impossible for us! Although we are not in the shielding group, Mark and I both have health conditions that mean if we caught coronavirus it could lead to complications, so we are trying to avoid the shops. The trouble with that is the alternative is shopping online. Or attempting to!

First I tried Ocado, where we are  fairly regular customers, but not regular enough, apparently, to even get access to the site! Next, Morrisons, which is our nearest supermarket and a pick-and-pack store for their delivery service. But our postcode means we are not in the delivery area, and they don't do click and collect. Waitrose and Sainsburys aren't accepting new customers right now and neither Asda nor Tesco have any delivery or click and collect slots available in our area for as long ahead as they can be booked.

Then somebody told us about the Morrisons basic food box scheme. I went to the special website https://www.morrisons.com/food-boxes/  where I could order a box for two people for £30 plus £5 delivery charge. It comes by carrier, so you don't have to be in a Morrisons delivery area, and in a meat eaters or vegetarian version. Our first box was delivered yesterday and here is what it contained:

Toilet roll (!)
Kitchen roll
sliced white bread
1 litre semi skimmed milk
bag of pasta
bag of microwave rice
tins: baked beans, tomato soup, vegetable soup
Potatoes
onions
carrots
small white cabbage
a cucumber
pasta sauce
cheddar cheese
butter
bacon
sausages
minced beef
chicken breasts
cooked ham

I was sad to find that there was no fruit in the box at all,  and I would have liked more veg, some salad and a small bottle of sunflower oil,  but since the box was only £30 I can't really complain. I'd have loved some eggs too but I suppose the fragility makes them impossible to send by carrier.

Today we are going to have bacon butties for lunch and chilli con carne (I have plenty tins of tomatoes and kidney beans at the moment) with rice plus salad from the garden for dinner. Tomorrow we will probably mix together the two tins of soup for lunch and have chicken satay using some of the chicken, with gado-gado using the cabbage, carrots and cucumber plus a handful of green beans that were left in the fridge. I've not planned the rest of the week yet but there will be a sausage casserole and a pasta bake in there somewhere!

Although the boxes are supposed to be random, I'm sure the  weekly contents will be very similar so next week I'm planning to get a box from elsewhere - it's twice the price but promises to contain lots of fruit, veg and salad as well as some higher-welfare meat. I'll report back on the contents of that too.

I hope this, and the progress reports I plan to post over the coming days and weeks are helpful to others who are struggling to get hold of food.

Now I'm off to see if wine delivery companies are still operating!

Stay safe, friends.

Stay Home - Stay Safe

This card is dedicated to all those who are keeping safe at home yet still keeping fit by indoor cycling. I'm not one of them, I hasten to add, but I've seen several people saying they have dusted off their exercise bikes.

The decoupaged image with matching sentiment was printed out from the CD "The best of La Pashe 2012"  and the papers from Polyanna Pickering's "A Walk in the Wild" - actually all of them being left over pieces from papers I'd printed out for previous makes. 

I am sharing this with The Male Room - Make me laugh 

Oriental harbour

I love this tranquil harbour scene, printed out from Joanna Sheen's "Oriental Dreams" CD along with two of the matching background papers. I've teamed it with a willow pattern paper cut from a book of Oriental backing papers that I've had for many years.

I am sharing this at Little Red Wagon where the theme is Blue.

Bleached daisy #2

While making the daisy for my previous post, I decided to make a second stamped image and try using my bleach-filled water brush slightly differently.

This time I used very light strokes to feather the bleach out from the daisy centre to leave  pink tips to the petals. I actually prefer this daisy but it didn't show up so well against the spattered background  so i decided to use it on a second card. I stencilled a panel onto the card in a fresh springlike green and added a stamped sentiment and some candi.

Techniques I used were stamping, heat embossing, painted bleach,  fussy cutting and stencilling. 

I am sharing this with

CAS Mix Up - Bleaching (second entry)


The Flower Challenge - Spring/Autumn