my Crafty Corner

Cards and other handicrafts made by Jean Straw

Wednesday 24 December 2014

Christmas Greetings

Wishing Happy Christmas to all of my blog-land friends and followers. I hope you all have a blessed and peaceful day tomorrow. Thank you to all of you who regularly visit here and for your kind and encouraging comments, I really appreciate your support.
Jean

Sunday 21 December 2014

Just in Time

Hi everyone, I hope all your Christmas preparations are going well, not long now.
Some of you may remember that a few  weeks back when I showed you the little crocheted blanket I made, I said I wanted to knit a dress for my baby great granddaughter before christmas, well tah-dah!! I finished it just in time.
My daughter and SIL are off to Lanzarote on Tuesday for some winter sunshine and their daughter, my granddaughter and her partner and two littleies are going to spend christmas with her in laws, so we all met up today to exchange our gifts, so I needed the little dress to be done. I finished sewing it up yesterday morning. I'm sorry the photos are not very good, I took them in a hurry. The top one is the dress just after I had given it a light press, and in the one below I added the little pink t-shirt I bought to go with it. I had wanted to get some pink tights as
well but couldn't get any the right size, so I will have to try again when the shops restock.
Thank you for taking time to visit today and for your comments which I really appreciate.
Jean

Thursday 18 December 2014

Wisteria Glitter Card

Hi everyone, it has been a while since I posted anything here, I am afraid I have been frantically trying to catch up with Christmas preparations. At last my christmas tree is decorated and in place now, and all my cards have been posted, so I feel I can relax a bit now although I still have the food shopping to do of course.
So here is the other Sparkle Medium card I said I would show you. The Wisteria stencil is another one from Imagination Crafts, and this time I used a Sparkle Medium called Diamond Quartz, a lovely mix of silver and purple glitters. Again I used black card to work on because the glitter looks so good on it. When it was dry I trimmed it close to the image and mounted it onto a mat made from a snippet of silver flecked white card, and then onto a pale lilac pearl DL size base card. I finished it off with some organza ribbon tied with a knot.

I am entering this at,
Imagination Crafts Challenge - Always Anything Goes
Pixies snippets Playground - Use Snippets.

Thank you for visiting today, and for your comments all of which are really appreciated.
I hope to be back with a couple more posts before the big day, but in the meantime I hope you can enjoy your preparations and find time to relax a bit too. To those of you who have been a bit poorly recently I hope you make a speedy recovery so you can enjoy the celebrations next
week.
Jean

Wednesday 10 December 2014

Glitzy Birthday

Hi everyone it has been a while since I posted anything here as I have been busy making my last few christmas cards, and also I have several family birthdays at this time of year that need to have cards made for.
It was my granddaughter's birthday earlier this week and today I have got the card that I made for her to show you.
I bought some Imagination Crafts stencils while I was at the NEC last month and at the first opportunity I got out my Sparkle Medium to have a play. I used an A4 sheet of black card and tried out three of these newer DL size stencils each with a different colour sparkle. When they were dry I cut them apart and they have been hanging about in my craft space while I decided what to do with them. As I already mentioned it was my granddaughter's birthday this week and I also have a step granddaughter whose birthday is the day before, they are both the same age, in their twenties, and I thought they would appreciate a nice glitzy card. This one is my favourite of the stencils, I love the curvy elegance of this design, and also my favourite of the Sparkle Mediums, it is called Metallic Sparkle and has lovely gold and copper glitter in it. So to make the card I trimmed the black panel down quite a bit and edged it with a gold Krylon pen. I then cut a backing panel from some lovely gold coloured pearl card, which I also bought at the NEC. I cut it to fit a DL size ivory base card and trimmed the right hand edge with a Memory Box scalloped die. I tied a piece of rust coloured ribbon just behind the scallops and added tiny gold coloured gems between the scallops. I don't think these show up too well in the photo, the colours look much better together IRL as well, I am still struggling with poor daylight to take photos in at the moment. On the whole I am quite pleased with this card and Melissa loved it as I hoped she would. I may be back to show you the other card I made in a day or so.
I am going to enter this at   Imagination Crafts Challenge - Always Anything Goes
                            and at    Seize The Birthday - Anything Goes Birthday