Gem of a Card?

I discovered that I had a baby boy card to make, so thought it would be a good chance to try out the bow gem template on cream pearlised paper that I'd bought from Crafting Buddies at Ross Papercraft Show.

I didn't have any cards in that colour, so made a 5.5" square from lightweight cream pearlised card, backing the template onto the packaging card from my new clouds embossing folder (waste not, want not!).

Blue gingham ribbon went along the ribbon part, the bow was coloured with Copic pen all over, and the template dots still showed through.

Doing the gem filling was fun, but oh you need good light, good eyes and a lorra lorra gemstones!

Baby Boy

Now for the pink baby one...

Baby Girl

And of course, the Easter one. Using Ruth's embossing folder, ribbons, with pearls instead of gemstones -

Happy Easter

Another Year!

It's birthday time again for Evan - two on 5 April. Disney Pixar Cars is his theme of the moment, so our card to him is a large 8x8" card decoupage (Craftsuprint cup457045_416) surrounded by a border of his favourite vehicles. The decoupage (papertole) is built up with silicone on the background, then matted and layered onto holographic card with the corners punched. A banner and a 2 placed on top finishes it all off.

Happy 2nd Birthday Evan

I printed an insert with still more images, from Mater's Tall Tales: a spin-off from the movies, which Evan loves, as the stories are much shorter. Mater and Lightning McQueen with (U.F.M.) Unidentified Flying Mater is so cute!

Card seen from above

Cars even made it onto the cake

Other themes running through the birthday are Fireman Sam, Lego Duplo, Brio and diggers. You can see the evidence around the room.

Studying the card intently

Now We Too are One

Hi Everyone,

I can hardly believe that my little grandson is now one year old. Where did the time go?

As expected Leo liked the tissue paper despite the fact it had no taste or nutritional value and stuck to his mouth. His attention was upwards to the balloons that were being bounced about by the adults. Well, who says balloons are for children only. It was a very humid day so we all melted into the settee while Leo sat happily biting into his favourite toy ...an empty cola bottle... calmly watching the world go by.

Leo's card was thought of about six months ago.  I suggested to Alice that she could make it for Evan's first birthday then any mistakes would be amended when I did mine. I am not called crafty for nothing!!

Like many of you crafters I hit a "block" and kept thinking, "I will look at it tomorrow", but all the tomorrows crept up and one day I knew that it HAD to be sorted.  With Alice's careful measuring and my eyeballing measuring I finally got past the block and into what I wanted to do. It was not however without its problems. As I said earlier we are in a heat wave, so working with glue and double sided tape is not easy when the glue is melting and tape has stuck to your fingers. I laid my almost finished card down and when I lifted it two "tiny" (even "smidgens") of tape had stuck to the two back photos. They had to be removed, as my subtle attempts at fixing were a total waste of time. Photos were removed, reprinted, insert added and card finished.

The card is pride of place on the birthday boy's mantelpiece.  My daughter very discreetly pointed out a little letter is missing on the inside verse. Ah well it happens to us all. It will be easily fixed and anyway Leo can't read yet. I still have a couple of nice photos to add but as yet they have not reached my laptop.

Leo 1

Birthday is over now so time to concentrate on other cards!!

Love

Adventures with Evan

Unsurprisingly, I'm a typically besotted Granny. Evan's fascinated by the washing machine and tries to fill or empty it whenever he gets the chance. (Oh that he will still be like that when he's a teenager!)

My finger might get jammed

Another item he loves is Hudson's water bowl. Looks like Evan is with his Granny in enjoying plastic ducks!

Teaching the fridge magnet quack quack to swim!

Granny at Praise Gathering Belfast Hilton

By the way, the aftermath of the cake...

and the remnant remains

1 +1 day

Birthday boy part two with Auntie Debbie's and friend Victoria's cake now complete with edible animals, plus the foam ones lazing around.

Noah's Ark on Mt Ararat

Inside is the Rainbow!

Multi-coloured sugar fest

Hudson's found a Wife

It's a Dog's Life

This one's not sugar

Evan taste-tested the animals and managed to bite off the end of the foam crocodile's tail, without swallowing it. A number of searching fingers explored, but Mummy's was the one which rescued it.

Now We are One

Evan is 1 today!

Craftywhippet and I had such fun thinking about our Grandsons' birthday cards. She came up with the idea that we could make a giant A4 stepper card (but twice the normal A5 size) and fill it with photos from the past year, with a larger photo from as near a year old as possible in the centre.

Large Stepper

I love working with photos, and resized them onto holographic card to fit the steps and rise up behind each other, managing to squeeze on 21 photos altogether. Tatty Teddy hearts paper on the A5 section, and Spellbinders Romantic Rectangles die to shape the larger photo, surrounded by name and age banners designed with MS Publisher, and finished with a glittery1and star.

To scale on trimmer

Evan's Auntie Debbie has been busy making Noah's Ark clay animals for on top of his birthday cake. Aren't they great? Her friend Victoria made the Rainbow cake.

Debbie got carried away introducing animals to their spouses

Off now to celebrate with his new Little Tikes Jubilee car... 

Nails R Ruth Repainted

Hi Everyone,

As you can see the silver nails have gone and for the next few weeks fingers and toes will be rose pink. I thought something calmer would be better this time round but changed my mind at the last minute. Sooooo unlike me. Thank you Ailsa for your patience!!

Anyway, very shortly Alice will be showing you the spectacular card she  has made for her Grandson's first birthday. We both discussed our Grandsons' First Birthday cards and what we could do that would be special. I won't give you any hints as to what the card looks like but you will enjoy seeing it. For some reason Evan has to see it first followed by his Mummy and Daddy. How strange.

I am not called CraftyWhippet for nothing as when it comes to making a card for my Grandson.......I can borrow the templates Alice used for Evan's card.

Now, that is crafty.

Ruth

Christmas Focus

Christmas suddenly takes on a new focus when you have a little one around. Evan is far too young at eight and a half months, Leo five months, to know what's going on, but Grannies and Grandpas are looking forward to it.

Baby food jars are handy when travelling so I saved one for a tealight holder for my daughter-in-law, by wrapping wire and beads around the neck, with holographic peel-off snowflakes. Using a battery-operated flickering tealight makes it safe too.

I bought some 1st Christmas ornaments and put a recent photo of the family in the teddy one.

From us both, have a great Christmas!

Ruby Baby Summertime

Well, where has the time gone since I last blogged? I can't say it's been because I've been out sunning myself, because there has been tremendous rain throughout the "summer" (and I use the word loosely!) here in the UK.

First of all on 13 July, the Great Normano and I celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary. We went out for a meal with our family, including Evan on his first big outing since his birth event!

The girls from the craft group produced lovely ruby cards for us, which were greatly appreciated.

Then we went on holiday to our old haunt of Scarborough, North Yorkshire on England's east coast. Amazingly we had a lovely sunny, dry week!

While we were away Ruth had her big event of becoming a Grandmother to baby Leo!

 I didn't do any crafting while on holiday but just look at this sculpture on Marine Drive...

I did however visit a craft shop in Scarborough: Craft Inspiration and bought some nice Marianne dies.

Home to the Olympics, which mostly took place in London, though there was some football in Scotland's National Stadium, Hampden, which is right by where Ruth lives.

Wenlock Mascot in Glasgow Central Station

Hopefully, that brings us up to date with Craft & Chat. The Craft group hasn't got going yet after the summer break, but I'll keep you posted. We finished last time by doing Inkylicious pictures.