Encaustic Art ATC's

I hadn't had a play with my encaustic stuff for a while so decided to do some ATC's, there is one individual and two sets of two. Though the sets are seperate ATC's, when put together they become one bigger picture. I really enjoyed having a play, inbetween doing a birthday card for my brother's birthday but you'll have to wait for the pic of the card as I know my brother visits my blog every few days, so I'll post it on here on or just after the 3rd Sept, sorry Daniel you'll have to wait till you recieve it...lol
Again if anyone is interested in doing a swap please visit my ATC Swap Site

PURPLE BLOOM


RED SKY 1


RED SKY 2


STORM 1


STORM 2

Hope everyone has a great weekend whatever your plans xx

ATC's & August Card Competition Entry

I take part in a card competition every month, where I am sent an item and a card has to made from it. This month I was sent a clown peel-off. Now, I have a fear of clowns, have done since I was young, silly I know. Anyway, after 2 weeks of pondering whether to do the competition this month I finally plucked up the courage to get on with it. All the card entries are donated to a chosen charity or fund raising event, and this month it was for a friend's fundraising for Jerry Green Dog Rescue in Thirsk, I'm also donating some extra cards as shown yesterday. So here it is.........

As you can see I shaped the card into a big top, for the clown collar, big top rim and flag I've used felt and funky blue wool for the hair. I've left the clown face blank so that the purchaser can place a face of their choice before giving to the recipient.

After the trauma of the clown...lol, I got stuck into some ATC's, as my ATC Swap site had been a little neglected recently. They have been added to my swap site if anyone want's to do a swap please visit http://www.freewebs.com/craftyjoanne/

Well here they are, some have already been swapped I'm afraid... Now can you spot the mistakes in two of the atc's????

Did you spot the mistakes? Well in two of the encaustic atc's the birds are flying upside down...lol, it's a mistake I often make when I add birds, and I often don't realise it. Oh well they are fantasy scenes and in this fantasy land the birds fly upside down...lol

Cards for Jerry Green's Dog Rescue

I've made a selection of cards for a friend to help raise money for the Jerry Green Rescue Centre in Thirsk. There are a number of JG Centres throughout the UK, their aim is to provide care to stray and unwanted dogs, by looking after them for the rest of their lives or by rehoming. No animal is put to sleep unless certified to be incurably ill or are unmanageably aggressive. My friend has three dogs herself from her local centre and she is constantly fundraising for them. I hope these cards will help in the fundraising.

http://www.jerrygreendogs.org.uk/

Just the one - High School Musical

Well we had a busy, but lovely bank holiday weekend. There was 25 of us on Sunday, the raft race was fun but a little disappointing that there were only three entries compared to last years eight, and we had 88 flour bombs to get rid of, so many of us got covered instead of the rafter's...lol. Had a massive BBQ back at ours afterwards which went down well and thankfully there was enough food and the weather stayed dry for the afternoon and evening which was a big bonus.

Only had chance to make the one card over past few days, this is for one of my niece's who loves HSM, I'm not sure I like it too much myself, but I'm sure she'll love it, just cos it has HSM on it. I pyramaged an HSM image and the lettering of her name was cut using my cuttlebug and placed slightly raised, using silicone, on to gold mirror card. The little stars are peel-offs as the bottom looked a bit bare. As I say, not my best card but I'm sure an 8 year old will love it.

Male Mix

I generally dread doing cards for male's, always seem to get stuck for ideas. When I ask what sort of things they like I often draw a blank or the most common likes are beer and football. But with this order I think they have been some of the easiest I've done. Two like horse racing, one likes golf and the other likes fast cars and women. So I stuck to their likes except for the last one he only got the car, I left out the women as the card is from his 81 year old mum...lol



Got a busy weekend this week it's our village's annual Fun Day and Raft Race, we have about 20 family and friends descending on us and we'll be having a big BBQ after all the fun. So lots of BBQ food shopping today and I need a big sack of flour to fill little paper bags with, it's a tradition to throw flour bombs at the competitors of the raft race as they pass and attempt the near impossible obstacles in their way. It should be a fun day, just hoping the weather stays dry.
Have a lovely bank holiday weekend everyone xxx

First One's for Christmas

Well here is the first of many in the run up to Christmas, a cardmaker's busiest time of year. I'm hoping I've timed the start of making xmas card's right this year and that I'll not have a mad rush right on top of Christmas, then again I seem to be making more and more every year. I've been making up some xmas decoupage images over the past month or so, enough to keep me going for a little while. I've already got three christmas orders in, so time to get started. All three of these cards were made from some of the christmas goodies I bought a few weeks ago when I went to Kanban with some crafting buddies. I do love the traditional colours of christmas but I've decided to start with using more modern colourings.

Mollie's 1st Birthday

Well I'm back from my few days away visiting my family. I had a lovely time seeing my brother's, nan, niece and nephews. Was lovely to meet my new nephew Liam who's just over 3 months old.
Well today is our Mollie's 1st Birthday and she's been thoroughly spoilt with treats and presents, it was fun watching her unwrap a new toy and a doggie birthday card which is actually a chew. I thought about making her a card, but she'd of only ripped it to pieces, though I'm sure she'd of enjoyed doing that. She also got a new food bowl, special spanial one which apparently stops them getting their ears in the food and a new pink and black collar. Well here are a few pictures of Mollie opening her toy and birthday card. Catch up with you all soon.

Back to making cards

Now I feel more comfortable, back to making cards again, well a card. This is an envelope card I've made for my step-dad's birthday this week. The beer and playing cards are decoupaged.


I'm going to be away for a few days, so I'll probably not be around on my blog, but I have plenty of cards to do when I get back and plenty of christmas cards to get started on, so it shouldn't be long before I'm updating the blog again :-)

Scrapbooks are finished

Here are the last few pages of the scrapbooks I've been doing for the past week.
Though I'm happy with the finished books, I don't really think scrapbooking is for me, maybe it was just because these books were hard as they were dedicated to my dad or even the fact that I was duplicating four times. I may have a go at another sometime in the future and see if I can get more into it.

Second Batch of Scrapbook Pages

Still been keeping busy with the scrapbooks over the past few days, but I'm nearly done now, only a couple of pages to go.












A big thank you to Louise Emma from the Iamg-e-nation Forum for helping me make these holiday pages complete with the Bognor Regis Postcard, which I believe is a photo she took her self then added the text and border using PSP, Thanks Louise xx

The following page is Henry Scott Holland's - Death is nothing at all, it was chosen by my mum to be read at my dad's funeral. The flower's are from the funeral, with my mum's love heart wreath being at the bottom of the verse.

Now on a lighter note I have a peacock (pea hen) update.......
She is still roaming between our garden and the neighbour's, more so in the neighbour's as Mollie keeps chasing her off. From what I have been told 4 peacocks were dumped in the village just over a week ago. The RSPCA are aware but have had problems catching them, so it is looking like the village may have gained four peacocks...lol, luckily for us the female makes little noise (unless Mollie is chasing her off the garden of course) but apparently the males further up the road have been very noisy especially at 5 o'clock in the morning, so there are a few residents who are not too impressed with the village's newest residents.

Unusual Sight In Our Garden

We had a unusual visitor to our garden this morning, I believe it's a female peacock, correct me if I'm wrong. Goodness knows where she has come from but she was happy to eat all the bread I'd put out for the birds. A lovely sight but not sure what to do as I can't let Mollie out whilst it's in the garden. Anyway here are the pictures I took of her.

Scrapbooking

I've been busy the past few days trying to complete my dad's scrapbooks so I can give my brothers theirs when I go to see them next week. We sadly lost our dad suddenly in October 2006. I've been trying to do these scrapbooks for the past year but it has been hard and quite emotional to do, hence why it it's been taking me so long. I'm doing four, one each for myself, our mum and my brothers. Here are the completed pages so far, these are the first scrapbooks I've ever done, other than a little memory book for my mum a few years ago for mother's day. I'll post further pages as they are done.