It is a record

Long term readers of my blog (are there any or have I bored you all away?) will be aware that ever since we moved to Torquay it has basically rained without stopping.
But the last 2 weeks there has been more sunshine than rain. Huzzah!
I love my drive from home to Brixham which I do at least 3 times a week (it is 6 this week!) It is 10 miles but I go all along the coast and love spotting all the different glimpses of sea on the way and on the way back. It is even nicer in the sunshine. If you have to have a 10 mile commute to part of your work then there can't be many better ones.

Crafting time has been a bit thin on the ground this week. I did take card making stuff down to the Place - Youthwork that is part run by my church. I do only take things that I am happy to be used (or think I am!) but this does get tested when almost a whole packet of stick on pearls goes on one card. I have to remind myself that
1) I do only take things that I am happy to be used
2) the packet was only £1
3) its not like I only have one packet. I'm not telling you how many
4) the card looked fabulous.
 which also tells me that sometimes we have to be generous. Both me with my pearls but in a deeper way also in using what we have. What has more value - the beautiful card that used a lot of pearls, or a drawer full of packets of stick on gems. We need to use the gifts that we have given
and of course there is the bonus that suggests I still don't really get the "enough" idea
5) I can buy more stick on pearls!

I did have time to join in with the Daring Cardmakers though. It was a fun recipe challenge - Ingredients

An Aperture of some kind

Something beginning with the letter P

A Die-cut or Punchie

The colour Blue

 

And here is my slightly contraversial entry

.

 

Do you call that colour blue? Or is it too green to be turquoise? I'm calling it blue anyway
I used the Silhouette to cut out the Lori Whitlock bicycle and road shapes. I trimmed out the centre of the white embossed card and added vellum behind as an aperture.

I die cut the paper ricrac using a PTI die. The embossing folder is by Spellbinders. I added Pearls and an Imagine That sentiment to a Spellbinders die cut pennant.
And that is almost that.
Except that the first bike I cut out had a bit of a spoke disaster. So I trimmed them all out and made this as well

 

using the same MME 6x6 pad.

Lets see if I can keep on doing more with what I have this week :)

Do you see what I see?

Life is gradually getting back to normal after Easter week hols, a week back at work and then Spring School where Ministers go away and learn and reflect and worship (and make friends and have fun) together. We went all the way to Brunel Manor. Which is basically 5 minutes drive away from our house. So whilst Ministers from further away (i.e. Swindon) had fun exploring it didn't seem quite like that for us. But Phil and I did venture down to a local cove so I could cross it off my list and in the lovely turquoise blue sea we saw this

Do you see it?
How about a close up

Its as good as it got but it was definately a seal. Oooh I was so excited. Apparently there is a seal who swims around the coves. This is two along from "ours" so maybe I will see him again!

here is my late Daring Card for this week - Sharon chose the theme of Child's Play. I had all sorts of ideas but in the end went for simples!

A mix of new and old on here. Old is the Papertrey Ink stamp set. New are the papers, the ink pad and the gunmetal sequins. I used a Clearly Besotted dotty square stamp which I stamped on grey card from my new Fancy Pants Park Bench 6x6 pad. I overstamped it with the elephant and cut it out, sticking it on a white panel where the elephant was already inked (meaning I could cut off the tricky tail!). I layerered up Nestabilities die cut boxes and strips of paper, in the style of an old CASE this Sketch pattern. The scallop at the side was done using small scallop scissors. Some black sharpie outlining, a sentiment on a fish tail banner (are all my sentiments on fishtail banners now? I hadn't noticed!) and the job is done. Finally
There is a fabulous set of cards on the blog this week so do have a look.

I'm off with Phil to pick up his new bike in a while. He is very excited. I am less so I must admit... But he promises it will be full leathers at all times and no windy side roads from now on.

Enough

Its been quite a week.
It feels like years since I came back from holiday - rather than 5 days! But that is what the job is like really. Last night I was in two minds as to whether to go out to another meeting that I didn't have to go to, but felt the Call of Duty (not the machine gunning type - the love and responsibility type. Every nw and then I wish it was the former)
And I am so glad I did. It was a meeting called by Brixham for Global Action as a Question Time based on the IF campaign 
which talks about how there is enough food for everyone

                   IF we make the right investments as we deliver AID

                   IF we stop people being forced off their LAND

                   IF we stop companies dodging TAXES

                   IF we insist on TRANSPARENCY from governments and companies alike

it was a really interesting and informative evening and I am so glad I went.

and then I came home and played with my latest piece of consumerism.

yes, I am very spoiled and now have a Silhouette Cameo. Oh my word it is fabby. I still have a long way to go getting to grips with it but I can download files and I can cut them out and that makes me happy. The background of this card was cut using a free file from Birds Cards, which is an awesome site that has free cutting files and digital stamps as well.

I made the card for the latest Daring Cardmaker challenge which was set by the marvellous Miri - April Showers. I used a Basic Grey Paper Cottage 6x6 pad as the backing for the card and to make the umbrella which is a MFT die, as are the clouds. The clouds were dry embossed and covered with Hard Candy Distress Stickles and the umbrella with Glossy Accents. Buttercup Liquid pearls were added around a Waltzing Mouse sentiment

I've not had the time that the new Quirky Kits deserve at the moment (sob) but have put one layout on the blog and have another two primed and ready

Don't be suprised to see the Silhouette feature in the future.

But t Ihave been really challenged by the idea of enough.
I have enough. I have more than enough. Can I stop my conspicuous consumerism, especially on craft goods and learn to be satisfied with all that I have?
Lets see if I can (says the person with a few parcels on their way). Lets just see

Blow me down

The Good News: No rain in Torquay for DAYS now
The Bad News: It is so, so, so windy and cold (albeit bright and sunny) that I still don't want to go out. But go out I must as I stayed in yesterday and too much indoors is bad for you apparently.
(I don't believe in horoscopes. It is useful sharing a birthday with Carys as our horoscopes are always the same and never right for either of us. I don't beleive in horoscopes as I said. However my star sign is Cancer the crab and I am a bit crabby and I do like staying in my shell and not going out)

Wednesday we went to see the Host at the local cinema which has just become a Vue one. hurrah! First time we went, before it Vue'd I rattled off the ages of those assembled and the girls just looked me up and down and went "that'll be 5 adults then". Vue have variable prices for teens and we managed to find one Orange phone so got one two for one deal (apparently there is another Orange phone on my Workdesk. There could be an elephant on my workdesk right now and you wouldn't find that either). My elation at the fab deal was deflated when I realised I was a bit thirsty and so decided to buy one of those sherbet frozen drinks (they last longer and I make the whole family share one) The chappie brought it back and said (triumphantly) (at least in my imagination) "that will be £4.60 please" It tasted good, but not that good. And I got brain freeze.

Although that might have been the film. I enjoyed the Stephenie Meyer book and the film brought it to life pretty well. But the dialogue and the acting. Oh my word. It felt like they were putting on a school play. Still the sarcastic replay from number 2 son on the way home made it all a 5 star event. Last night was home movie night and we watched War Horse. We were all a bit underwhelmed by that as well - but did enjoy spotting all the British actors. And guessing who would die next...

In a few mins we are going on todays outing to a local country park and craft village called Cockington. Which number 2 son finds amusing and slightly unbelievable. Everyone is not looking forward to a brisk walk around the park and craft village. I have to keep quiet about craft villages otherwise I don't get to look round them. its a hard life.

In amongst all of this jolly family stuff I have had quite a bit of craft time this week which is a thing of great joy to me. As I said in my last post there is much I can't share yet but here are a few items I can.
First, the Daring Card for this week. And it is the wonderful Gez who has chosen the colour challenge for this month

I knew I had the right colours for this. Or thought I did until I came to make the card

Actually looking at it now that chevron print is pretty spot on! Everything on the card is from the new Fancy Pants Tredsetter collection - apart from the resin rose which is Prima. The flower may be coming off prior to posting as it stops the card being an ordinary stamps worth. But I will replace it with some stickles I think.

On Wednesday Clearly Besotted launched some new stamps. Thanks to some excellent customer service I was actually stamping with them yesterday. When I saw the new feathers I thought "ooooh they would be great for Sympathy cards. Must buy." so I did and they are

That is only the second time I have stamped that image (first was a go on some scrap) and its just perfect. My stamping isn't always great so it is fab to have such reliable stamps to use. The sentiment is from another CB set and I am very pleased that I managed to stamp each word seperately as they are joined as one strip. A swoosh round the outside of the card with the Hero Arts blue ink I stamped with, plus three navy liquid pearl dots and it was done.

And finally a super quick layout

This one was just for me (ie not from a kit) which I needed to do as I have bought rather a lot of papers just for me as well recently. The papers and most of the die cuts here are from Dear Lizzie Lucky Charm. I also added some October Afternoon letters and Prima glittery stickers. I wanted to use the die cut panel but felt it got lost on the dark background so added vellum behind it. I also decided to experiment with a bit of handmade paper which I embossed and then sprayed with pink glimmer mist to match the pink cast on the fur throws (which were cream in real life but as the photo is a scan of an old slide the colours were not great). I think the photo is from 1968 (must check with my dad and write the date on somewhere)

I enjoyed layering up all the pieces - and adding some MME enamel dots around the place

My

Here is the journalling - still not that easy to read thanks to a white pen that wouldn't flow smoothly

The latest Quirky Kit arrived today for me to play with - mmmmmm - I'm going to have fun on my last few days of holiday I reckon!

Going for Gold

I do apologise if you now have a cheesy 80's theme tune stuck in your head. If not, click on this if you dare. And how was it fair to have a European quiz - only in English. It wasn't that we wanted to be superior now was it?

I'm quite excited because I am on holiday and I can see a hint of gold in the sky. Yes for two days in a row there has been sunshine in Torquay. I understand that it does happen here on a regular basis, just not since we moved down last July. We are holidaying at home with a little something on every day and a lot of snoozing/reading even some housework on occasion. Good times. Monday Phil and I went to Coleton Fishacre, a local National Trust property. There are LOADS round here so we had membership as a Christmas present. It is an Arts and Crafts house styled in the 1930's which meant I was in heaven. We will go again. Yesterday as it was sunny we went underground to Kents Cavern. That is in walking distance of the house. We were going to go by car until I spotted you have to pay £2 to park. So we walked the 15 minutes or so in the sunshine. I had already saved about £6 by booking online first so was bound to enjoy it. Parents loved it, teenagers less so. There is something amazing about being in a place that was there thousands of years ago. And that was excavated by one keen man with a spade and a candle.

The real reason for the title of the post is that gold has become a big feature of the crafting world at the moment. And do I slavishly follow trends? Why of course I do. So here is the goldiest card you have ever seen...

Maybe a slight exaggeration you say? well, the background is a duck egg blue MME paper with gold embossing paste over the top. The photo doesn't do it justice as it is so shimmery and gorgeous. I will be doing this again a LOT. The papers were all outlined with a gold leaf pen. I added some American Crafts gold glitter ribbon, I added gold glamour dust to the dry embossed circle, I outlined the numbers with a different gold pen; combined two inks for a gold feel sentiment and then added some golden dots with Stickles. Then smudged them (fortunately without smearing them) and redid them again. I can't believe the person this card is headed for is 80 so thought she might as well flaunt it with this card.

I also made this card just for fun. I had coloured the stamped image in before Christmas and stuck it into the PBandJ 6x6 paper pad by Basic Grey for whenever I felt like turning it into a card. Which was Monday as it turned out

I am loving hand cut random strips of paper at the moment. It is so freeing not even trying to be straight.

And finally for now a card for a friend who is... well you work it out

 It is one of those cards that looks simple but took age and I am still not totally happy with it. Oh well. The papers are Lucky Charm and the dies are MFT; Quickutz and Spellbinders

I have been scrapping as well but can't show those layouts just yet as they will be revealed first, at some point on the Imagine That blog. I "imagine" I will tell you when that is...