Easter Challenge

A new challenge started at Crafty Boots Challenges on Monday, the theme for the next two weeks is 'Easter'.

This year seems to be flying by, it seems as if we have only just had Christmas and the New Year and now Easter is only a week or two away.  Not everyone sends Easter cards, although the giving of Easter Eggs is fairly widespread.  I have been doing a little reading into why we give chocolate eggs at Easter.  Apparently the church did not allow the consumption of eggs the week before Easter, so they were saved, decorated and then given to children on Easter Sunday.  The Victorians gave cardboard eggs containing Easter gifts.  With the development of chocolate, solid chocolate eggs were developed in Germany and Switzerland.

I make cards for close members of my family.  Over the years I have collected quite a few 'Easter' themed images, however, I have bought a few new ones for this year, this is my first of them:

This little sweetie is 'Murray' by Saturated Canary.  I coloured her with Promarkers and mounted the image on pewter coloured glitter card.  I covered an 8 x 8 card with blue polka dot paper.  I then got out my Big Shot and die cut some glittery eggs, butterflies, a green glitter fringe, a white picket fence and, finally, a large yellow rosette.

The Crafty Boots Design Team have been really busy, please make sure you take a look when you are there entering your Easter projects.

Good luck.


Dionne

Frozen Birthday

Today is the fifth birthday of one of my little nieces.    I have never known a child so full of life, it literally bursts out of her and infects everyone else in the room, she is such a joy.  Like so many other little girls, she is obsessed with the Disney film Frozen and I am sure she will have lots of 'Frozen' presents today - I know I have bought her quite a few.

Of course her birthday card had to be of Elsa and Anna themed and I managed to find quite a few free colouring book images on-line.

After downloading the image I coloured it with Promakers and added lots of sparkle with both Wink of Stella pens and a clear Wink of Stella brush pen.  I then mounted the image on white glimmer papers and some blue glitter card.  The finishing touches came from some blue and yellow organza ribbons and silver glittery peel off snowflakes.  I made the birthday sentiment on the computer.

Recently her mum has been wowing us all with her amazing cake decorating skills but this Frozen cake has to be her crowning glory.  It took her ten hours to decorate and she was up all night.

I shall be back tomorrow with a new Crafty Boots Challenge, see you then.

Dionne

Fairy Lanterns

It was a lovely day here yesterday, almost like spring, when I went out I did not even need a coat.  I hope it lasts for the weekend.

I am back today with day 3 of my easy gift ideas.  These lovely candle jars were inspired by Nichola Battilana.

Nicola used Kilner jars for her tutorial but, because I do a lot of pickling every autumn, I have a large box of these jars and it made sense to use these rather than buying the relatively expensive Kilner jars.  However, it looks quite nice to have a cluster of matching different sized jars.

Before starting this project I bought myself a Tonic Fairy Breena die, however the die cut was rather chunky and I did not like the way it looked in the jar, so I went on-line and ordered some Silhouettes fairies, this one was called Sitting Fairy.

I glued the Silhouette fairy to the inside of the jar and held it in place until it dried.  Next I coated the outside of the jar with Mod Podge and white tissue paper.  Once this was dry, I added glitter to the top and bottom edges of the jar, I added only a little glue to the centre of the jar, this was because I did not want to block out too much candle light.

I dropped a battery powered tea light into the jar before wrapping ribbon and white twine around the rim and putting on the lid.  I popped a little fairy charm onto the twine.

There is still time to add your projects to the current Crafty Boots Challenge.

Good luck.


Dionne

Fabric Covered Note Books

I am back today with another of my little gift ideas.  As I explained yesterday, I have been looking for little gift ideas for ladies, today I should like to share with you a notebook and 'Post It' duo.  I took my inspiration for these two projects from Jessika Taynara.

I chose two contrasting fabrics for the covers.  My starting point for the notebook was to cut the pages from copy paper.  I cut three double pages and stitched them through the centre.  You can make these any size you would like, I made mine 9.5 cm x 9.5 cm.  I made half a dozen of these little pads and held them together with a clip

I cut the card for the cover 10 cm x 10 cm and a narrow strip for the spine.  I made the outer cover in one piece.  The inner cover was made as individual panels, these were glued to the outer cover after running the ribbon in between.   However, if I should make these again, I think I would make the inner cover in one piece as well.  Finally, I glued the pages to the spine - keeping the pages clipped together until the glue had dried.

The cover for the Post It pad was made slightly different because I wanted to attached the pad by the bottom of the pad and, of course, the size was dictated by the size of the Post It pad.

I completed my notebooks by attaching some No 5 Forever Flowers to the covers.  

There is still time for you to enter your projects in the current Crafty Boots challenge.  I hope these notebooks have given you some ideas.

Dionne

Chocolate Box

The current challenge at Crafty Boots Challenge was inspired by Mothering Sunday last weekend, the theme is 'Something for the Lady'.  For weeks, I have been searching the internet looking for little gift ideas for mum.  Unfortunately, I was laid low last week with a bug and never got the opportunity to share with you some of the great ideas I found.

Today I would like to show you, what is possibly my favourite gift idea, probably because I know my mother would have loved it, she adored dark chocolate.  I got the idea for this completely edible box of chocolates from Elise Strachan.

The chocolate box shell was made from three 100g bars of dark chocolate.  I bought a forth bar just in case I had an accident.  Thank goodness I did, I completely wrecked the first bar when I tried to cut it, I guess cutting chocolate is more difficult than it looks.  It turns out the trick is to heat the blade of your knife and allow it to melt it's way through the chocolate.

All of my chocolate bars had five squares by two.  For the bottom of the box I removed two of the end squares, these would become one of the ends to the box, I did the same with the lid.  I cut the third bar in half legnth ways (as well as taking off the end squares).  I used my ruined bar of chocolate to join all the sides - melt the chocolate and pipe the warm chocolate where you want the sides to go.  I used a caramel filled chocolate for the handle and I drizzled a little of the dark chocolate over the top.

Finally, I filled the box with more of the caramel filled chocolates, strawberries and some of the ambassadors favourite chocolates.

There is still plenty of time to enter your Crafty Boots Challenge.

Dionne

Red High Heels

Today is International Woman's Day and perhaps it is not entirely a coincidence that the current Crafty Boots Challenge is 'Something for the Lady'.

A few weeks ago I made several cards using die cuts, when I was tidying my desk up afterwards I found that I had several bits and pieces left over. I put this quick birthday card together using those left overs, there is nothing here which was not in my 'Left Over' box.

I used some embossed Real Red card for the background and added two Tattered Lace High Heel Glam Stiletto Shoe dies. I then added the butterfly boarder by Joy Craft. Finally, I added several daisies made from Joy Crafts Flower Daisy die and some white brads.

Not bad for something which on another day might have been destined for the bin.

Thank you for dropping by today.


Dionne

60th Birthday Step Card

I hope you had a good weekend, it is still very cold here and we had sleet for a while yesterday.
It was Mothering Sunday yesterday and I hope you were spoilt by your family, even if you do not live in the UK, after all it does not have to be a special day to be treated by those who love us.

I still have the tail end of that cold and cough and will be so happy when it goes.  Unfortunately, I have not felt much like crafting over the last couple of weeks and I am very behind with things, I need to get busy.  A little bit of sunshine and a large portion of inspiration is what I need now.

I mentioned last week that I have a lot of 'big' birthday's coming up and I have been using the Stampin' Up Balloon Celebration bundle to make some of these cards, nothing seems to say party quite like balloons.  I made this card for one of my cousins, I have quite a large extended family, which is great when we all get together but it does mean lots of birthday and Christmas cards.

(Unfortunately, the lighting here has been so bad recently and this photo does not really do justice to the card.)

I used the balloon stamps in the bundle to make this card, all of the balloons are actually different colours but you cannot really see this from this photo - Cherry Cobbler, Raspberry Ripple, Real Red, Melon Mambo, Pool Party, Night of Navy, Midnight Muse and Perfect Plum.  There is a bow in the set but I did not like it so I glued this tiny yellow bows over the top.

I went to town with my Spellbinder dies to make the white and bronze glitter card mats and the glossy rose paper is from a Santoro paper stack.  I cheated with the '60' and used peel-offs.

It is time for our mid challenge reminder at Crafty Boots Challenges, the theme of this challenge is 'Something for the Lady'.  No male cards allowed for this challenge, we have had some gorgeous entries but there is still lots of time to add your projects.

Dionne