Clean and Simple Butterfly card

After all the fuss and fibres of the Vintage Sewing room album pages (previous post) I decided to make a Clean and Simple card to get back to basics:

All it took was a little bit of stamping, a tiny bit of bling and 2 of my Vintage Butterflies, available from here.  Entering this in the following Challenges:
Flutterby Wednesday No 156
Simply Less is more "Things with Wings".
Allsorts No 105 "Things with Wings"
Relax and imagine you can flutter like a butterfly!
Geraldine x

Pages for Vintage/Retro Sewing Room Mini-Album

Warning! There are going to be a lot of photos in this post!
Recently I took part in a mini-album page swap on the Scrapbeach.
The theme was Vintage/Retro sewing room and we had to use primary colours, 2 pins and a female image on our  6" by 6" pages.  The pages didn't have to be identical.  I decided to take the theme a bit further by making the 1st side of my page represent "Getting ready to sew" and the 2nd side represents the "Final Creation". Nothing like making things complicated! Here goes..


1st page....

The tailors dummy is one of my snippets and her head is made out of small buttons sewn on to a denim circle.  I added a sewing machine charm to the zipper pull.

The zip was white but I coloured it with a Pro marker.  The thimble advert comes from a 1949 newspaper we found when renovating our house.  The embroidered flowers are sewn over thread offcuts.   I have draped some elasticated gingham ribbon around the dummy.

There is a little surprise for the recipient hidden in the fabric pocket!

Close-up of the two pins:

The 2nd page:  Another advert from the 1949 newspaper that Dad put between the floorboards and the linoleum.  I made a blue frame for a photo and hung the dress (a snippet) on a wire hanger from the frame.

More details:

A little calendar style flap with my details underneath.  The flower centres are made from snap fasteners and the blue trims on both pages are Doodlebug designs.  I put a lot of detail (probably too much!!) on to my pages trying to get across the "sewing room"  feeling.  No crochet, no pearls, no gems etc   I was trying to get away from the ruffly pretty-pretty style of mini-album.  Now I'm looking forward to seeing the pages from my fellow swappers and assembling the finished mini-album.

Geraldine x

By the Cute and Girly May challenge - REMINDER

Well, we are halfway through May so you still have 2 weeks left to enter the By the Cute and Girly Anything Goes challenge but 1 entry only per crafter this month as the challenge is so easy!  So why not pop over to the challenge blog, check out the great prizes on offer and enter your creation.
My second batch of makes for this month are some storage containers.  Storage!  Every crafters nightmare.  We are constantly looking for the perfect storage solution and sometimes you need something a bit softer and handmade looking than the shop bought storage...

I found the pattern for these storage containers HERE and made them up in Cath Kidson cotton fabric, then made and added the crochet trims but any cotton lace would work.  They are so easy to make...already I can see them made up in Christmassy fabrics.  They are completely reversible and washable.   Nothing like a bit of stitching to make you feel like a Domestic Goddess!
Happy stitching
Geraldine x

Confirmation card

Just one card today: a Confirmation card for Liam's niece who likes sewing and making clothes.  Tried not to make the card too holy!

The crochet frame and the embroidered cross are my own Snippets. 
http://www.etsy.com/listing/73467990/crochet-frames-cream-x-4-3-circular-and
http://www.etsy.com/listing/57526783/crosses-x-3
 The card is from Kanban and the trim from Doodlebug designs.
This card is suitable for the Shabby Tea Room "Ruffles" challenge
Hope everyone has recovered from the Blogger hiccups and the Eurovision!
Geraldine x

Recent cards

Another card made with the Marianne Lady die.  Ribbon from Wildorchidcrafts, charm from broken up jewellery.  Usual nesties and MS punches.   I am entering this card in the
Craftyourpassion challenge No 56 Anything Goes

Birthday card made using Websters pages Garden Gala paper, Stamp from Inkadinkadoo, Wildorchidcrafts flowers and doiley from local €2 shop.  Charms are from my stash. 
I coloured the doiley with chalk inks.  I would like to enter this card into the Make it Monday linky party No 35 and the Paperplaychallenge Show us your style
That's all for today, folks.
Geraldine x

Anything Goes at By the Cute and Girly challenge

This month on By the Cute and Girly is totally theme free so you can do/make what you like!  Anything Goes but only 1 entry per person is allowed seeing as it is open season and we are expecting lots of entries.  So get your crafting hats on folks.  As well as prizes there are 2 or 3 guest DT spots on offer...

My 1st makes are fairly normal.  I had these Marianne Lady dies for ages, hadn't done anything with them and hadn't seen many cards using them so here goes

Along with the dies both cards use Websters Pages Garden Gala paper with ribbon and flowers from my stash.  The mirror charm was part of a Penneys bag charm and the crochet frame is by myself.  Hope to have these crochet frames in my Etsy shop soon!

Ger x

2 Cards and an Easter Bunny

It seems ages since I've shown any cards I've made.  They get chucked into the post so fast and lately I've been doing more altered stuff but here are 2 recent makes.

This is a birthday card made for Lisa. "Live, laugh, love" is part of her blog header so I thought this little embroidered heart would be appropriate.  Yes, that is my MS cherry blossom punch-my latest love!

 This card looks very simple but a lot of work went into making the embellishments.  The flower is crocheted, while the butterfly is one of my Snippets.   The edging is a length of crocheted chain with a glass bead crocheted in every 3rd stitch.  Well, at least it is unique and very much my style of card-like it or leave it.

Here is my entry for Dianne's April Chocolate Challenge over on Cardznscrapz.  It had to have the 3 colours of chocolate (white/milk/dark) and/or 4 flowers or buttons, AND there had to be an Easter egg hidden somewhere on the creation!
The eggshell is an oval box base from Lidl.  It was meant as a Christmas decoration and had cherubs on it.  I covered it with chocolate coloured paper and ribbon inside and out.  The bunny is a stamp from Dimension4th.  The butterflies inside the egg are on little springs to give a 3D effect and you can just about see the gold wrapping of the actual egg under the bunny's right ear.  Went overboard on the Distress stickles! This is the first Easter decoration that I've ever made and I hope to get a few years out of it.  The egg will be released for consumption later today....
Have also entered Bunny into Crafty Sentiments Easter creations
Craft your Days Away - Easter
Happy Easter and have a great time over the long weekend!
Geraldine x