Hi everyone, it’s time for another MAN-day Monday, and today it’s a home decor item for all those little princes out there.

I made this little canvas hanging for little Alfie. He is at Piper’s nursery and is usually there in the same room when I collect P in the evenings. He is always hanging around P, playing with her or watching her from a distance. He even comes up to me with toys so I play with him or read him a book for a few minutes whilst the team get Piper’s day sheet organised. He is a sweetheart, and because of that I always say that he is Piper’s boyfriend.

You can pick up these mini canvases at some art shops- these ones I got in France yeaaars ago.

To decorate the canvas, first I cut a heart out of red scrapbook paper. Next I stamped the Friend Definition stamp from Hero Arts onto white card stock using the grey Pumice Stone distress ink. I stuck the heart to the stamped card and cut around it, leaving a border. I used wet glue to stick the paper together- Anita’s tacky glue, as I wanted to ensure that it had a firm hold and that it would withstand time. Next I popped a brad through the two layers, and stuck the whole thing onto the canvas.

The next bit was the tough bit- choosing which letter stickers to use. I decided to go with these doodlebug ones as they had a childlike, whimsical feel.

I thought about adding twine, but ribbon would secure better- i lay the canvas face down and placed the ribbon on top, securing to the back of the canvas with staples. I had to hammer the staples in a little bit (I didn’t have a staple gun, just an office stapler) but they were 100% secure.

Why not make a cute little wall hanging for your little princes and princesses!!?

I wanted to do something special for the guys at Piper’s nursery who work so hard to make each day different, exciting, educational and FUN!
I always love reading the little section on her day sheet that tells us what she has been up to that day.

I got some jellybelly jelly beans {everyone loves those right?} and got crafty, here’s what I came up with…

First i took some copy paper and cut out a heart template, then i traced around the template, onto the back of some scrapbook paper. Next i cut out the hearts with my scissors {note to self: BUY some heart shaped dies!!!}.

I dug through my stash and found some mulberry paper – geez that was a blast from the past! I’m sure i bought it in Glasgow when I worked at Millers Art Shop. It’s also called Silk Straw paper in case you try to find it.

I chopped up pieces of silk straw paper that were bigger than the hearts and then took to the sewing machine. I wasn’t caring about being exact, so i stitched 3/4 of the way around the heart, pausing for a few moments to push in 3 little jelly beans in between the scrapbook paper and the mulberry paper, then i carried on sewing the rest of the way around the heart.

Next step – fraying! With a paint brush dipped in water i drew a line along the mulberry paper, just where the edge of the paper heart was. The water seeps into the mulberry paper and softens the fibres so you can gently pull away the excess paper, leaving a beautiful frayed edge around the heart.

A quick hole punched with my crop-o-dile and of course some bakers twine.

Next step…embellishing! I cut strips of cream coloured paper from the Slice Ledger paper stack (love that stack!). Using a square punch, I cut notches into the ends to make a flag type banner. I managed to find a stamp in my stash that said ‘Happy Valentines Day’ which was perfect for the occasion.

A couple of circles cut with my circle dies and my cuttlebug, and then it was all about the layering!

To finish I made little name tags for each of the girls – which was the worst bit because i was so paranoid that i would forget someone. Luckily i didnt…or maybe they were just too nice to tell me! LOL

I hope you had a lovely week, full of lovely LOVE!

Love and hugs,
x

(Better late than never…..still having laptop issues but thankfully have been able to publish this post today.)

Its that time of year again- shops are full of pink, red, hearts, frills and pretty, pretty romantic things.

Err, what about the dudes?

It may be a bit of a sweeping statement, but I feel that valentines day is primarily for the ladies, or at least the decorations seem to be. I’m not saying that the boys don’t enjoy the holiday, on the contrary I know lots of guys who spend ages making plans for Feb 14, but I’m sure very few buy into pink and red frilly hearts!?

This led me to a challenge. What kind of cards would a man like to receive for Valentines day?

This was my project, and this is what the result was…

Happy Valentines day.

Did you see that certain letters had a grey outline – lets just say that those letters made up a special three little words!

This is for the guy who is the wind beneath your wings! {chortle}

It kinda reminds me of making paper planes at school. heehee.

and this last one, i think i like the best….

Thanks for stopping by, i hope you had a day full of love. <3

Well.
It happened last night when I was sorting out the photos for today’s MAN-day Monday card.
Rest in peace little lappytops.

I may be absent for a little while whilst I try to figure out a way round this…

Typical. Especially after I’ve been really crafty recently. Well I guess you’ll just have to wait.

Take care. <3

Whoops, I wasn’t feeling great last night so I didn’t get this posted as early as normal, but at least its still Monday!

Today is a special MAN-day Monday card, made especially for our good friend Mark who reached the big 3-0! eeep! I’ll reach it within a few short months as well!

As a keen diver, i wanted to make sure i had a special card to grant Mark his birthday fishes, err, wishes! I recorded a video to do a tutorial, but when we started editing, we realised that i hadn’t turned the lights on, so there were big nasty shadows ruining the shots. never mind.

To make the card I took two pieces of blue paper, both similar in tone but a different shade. I cut them with scallop scissors and then inked the edge with a little distress ink to create a defined edge. I overlapped them and stuck to the card.

For my diver, I used a circle punch on textured cardstock to make a face, lightly inked the edges with antique linen distress ink and a blending tool, and then i dabbed my pinky finger into the spun sugar ink pad and tapped gently onto Mister Diver’s face to create rosy cheeks. After all, he is holding his breath under water!

The mask was a stoke of genius. Hold the card on its side and you might figure it out?
It was a Quickutz die from a school set – it actually a glue bottle. My original plan was to cut off the ‘lid’ of the glue bottle but when i seen it sitting on the circle i realised the nozzle of the glue looked like a strap. Also from the school set was a pencil, which made the perfect snorkel for Mister Diver. Some googly eyes finished him off and gave Mister Diver his quirky look!

For the water, i added some stickers from my stash. These aquatic friends were always one of my favourite sticker sets. I only have a few left now.

It was an after thought, but it made a HUGE difference! Those little bubbles are actually little drops of glossy accents glue, left to dry over night. They add a wonderful dimension but they look like little droplets of glass. The blue paper actually has a fine print of mini dots and it is magnified through the drops – it looks really funky!

I’m pretty sure Mark loved his card. Happy Birthday Mister Diver!

Morning all,

I hope you had a wonderful weekend full of sunshine and happiness. I wanted to make a card which was a little bit different so today’s MAN-day Monday card is a flippy, flappy surprise.

I used some papers from the Cosmo Cricket ‘Lil Man’ collection. These papers will always be useful for mens cards. I don’t think i’ll ever tire of them.

I couldn’t resist using some bakers twine on this card. heehee. AND, The Ribbon Reel is having a birthday celebration with 10% off so you should probably head over there and check out the twine they have in stock. :0) I just made another order of stuff from their site. {Naughty naughty!}

Here’s the piccys of the card. ….enjoy!

In case you weren’t aware, theres a masculine card posted here every (well, most..) Monday. Come and see us again for some more manly cards next week.

oh gee. 10 months.

- You celebrated your first Christmas, and Santa didn’t just leave presents he also gave you some more skills! You started crawling on Christmas day! You had been sliding backwards for a while but Dec 25th was definitely the day that you discovered the forward motion. By Boxing day you were an absolute pro!

- You are constantly trying to repeat what we do and what we say. In the car today daddy sneezed and then you made a noise which sounded exactly the same. You were so pleased that you made us laugh so hard.

- You can say cat, da, ma, ba, moo, dog, ball, duck and ta (thank you). And every day you are trying to create new syllables. You make me so proud

- You have discovered that when we are holding you, if you point in one direction we will move that way. It is one of the greatest games now. You love being in control {ahem, not at all like your daddy, eh?!}

- Poor Miya. She loves being near you and keeping a protective, watchful eye over you, but now that you can crawl you like chasing her around. I sometimes think Miya is a bit of a gluton for punishment because there are plenty of places up high that she could sit safely out of your reach, but no, she chooses to be right down beside you. i LOVE that!

- In nursery you are moving up to the next age group. Now that you are very mobile you are no longer a Koala, but are progressing on to the Grizzlies. Poor Rachel is going to miss spending her days with you.

- Finally I am putting away your first Maxi-Cosi car seat. Daddy has been using the bigger car seat in his car, but we needed to buy another one for my car. It was getting so difficult to carry both you and the car seat in and out of the car. Another item that you have outgrown that needs to be placed up into the attic.

- You are doing really well at eating your finger food. I think i underestimated you for a while. I picked you up early form nursery one day and you were happily munching on a toasted teacake, a spinach & feta goujon and chunks of apple. Since then you have been trying everything. You even tried some of the famous Kenny’s chicken fillet special! It made daddy so very jealous!

- You are such a little flirt. On the aeroplane over to Northern Ireland you were looking around the plane, waving, clapping hands and blowing kisses. Loads of people were sneaking peeks over at you beaming with smiles. I guess you have that effect on loads of people.

- Still creaming you up everyday. You must have the most extensive beauty regime of anyone i know. I think we have now reached 7 different products. You want to help now, but sometimes that means we get a teeny bit messy!

- Last week in Tesco when i was doing the grocery shop, two different people stopped me on different occasions to tell me that you are beautiful. No wonder daddy says you’re not allowed to start dating until your 25!

Its been ages since I have been scrappy so I decided to just get busy. To inspire myself I grabbed this book, page maps 2.

I got it for Christmas last year and I decided to actually pull out the removable cards and give it a whirl. I opened the book at random and picked out a card.

Turns out I am not so good at following sketches, LOL. You see, as soon I got going, my own brain started making design decisions so I kinda forgot about the little card sitting in front of me. It wasn’t until Craig came knocking on the craft room door that i finally broke out of autopilot and i realised (1) it was late and i really needed to go to bed and (2) this layout really couldn’t be farther from the sketch i was supposedly following.

No worries though. I don’t really get hung up on things like that to be honest. The main thing is that i have a scrapbook page completed. Another page, another memory for my album.

This page is modestly titled ‘ni’ and is about my first trip back to Northern Ireland with Piper. I always abbreviate my homeland to those two little letters so it seemed fitting to use them as the title.

I didn’t have our laptop so i just pulled some iPhone photos from the bundle that i had printed during the summer. I am so glad i just decided to print a bunch that day. I really should print some more. Even if they are just lying around, maybe one day they will end up on a layout just like these little photos.

Here’s the layout..

and some more close ups

There’s a list of products at the bottom but in case you are wondering the title is made using Heidi Swapp sheer letters. They are really old so i don’t think they make them any more but thought i would mention it. <3

Thanks for popping by.
x

I forgot to share one of my Christmas gifties. Hiding in my stocking was a fistful of gorgeous twine. And I gotta say, looooooove twine!

Pick up some twine for yourself over at the ribbon reel.

Happy Manday Monday everyone.

Today’s masculine card is a Granda birthday card because it was my daddy’s birthday last week. It was so good to be home to give him lots of birthday hugs. Even Piper delighted in giving lots of snuggles to Granda.

This was a card made of mostly scraps, but i love the finished card. The spotty paper co-ordinated well with kraft so i made this the main basis of the card and went from there.

I pulled out my star cookie cutter dies from Quickutz and ran some brown card through my cuttlebug to create a frame then popped a felt alpha in the middle : g for Granda of course! I also used a Quickutz die to cut out a little panel and then used my white gel pen to write text in the middle.

Well i couldn’t go too long without a button, but the tone of the red matched the spotty cardstock and worked well with the design, and instead of using twine i used some linen thread which is a bit coarser and hence, more masculine i think.

Happy Birthday Dad.

There a layout coming this week, so come back soon….