Halloween invitations & favours...

#Good Morning, Good Morning :)

 

I cannot believe we are so far along in the year, where have all the months gone?  Halloween crafting already and Christmas stuff out to get ready for that next big event!!  Is it a sign of old age lol.

 

Anyway, My Brothers lovely Fiance is having a wee thing at work, kinda trying to keep a tradition going with the younger members of staff.  Each year they design and carve a pumpkin and the best are displayed in the shop windows.

 

These are a couple that my Brother & Sarah have done, 2010, 2011 & 2012, they are amazing and I look forward to seeing their creations every year....

As this is a pumpkin competition the invitations are shaped like the pumpkin.  I used one of the pumpkin embellishments from a Halloween Kit on Craft Artist Professional.  I just enlarged this and wrote the information separately in a spooky writing and added a "Happy Halloween" sentiment for the envelope.

This is a lovely embellishment.  It looks like its made from felt.

I inked around the edges using an orange ink for the pumpkin and a green bit for the stalk.  This just takes away all the white and saves on printer ink by not printing out a backing paper.

I used Kraft Paper envelopes and added the "Happy Halloween" sentiment.

Everyone that takes part in the competition will get a wee favour as a treat.  These are little bath bomb chill pills, to make these Halloweeny I wrapped in cello, used green and orange ribbons and added a wee matching pumpkin embellishment.

I will be using a big pumpkin mould to make some big bath bombs for the winner of the competition.

 

Happy Crafting.

 

Amanda x

"Take That" scrap book....

Happy Saturday

 

I think most people will still be sleeping at this time :)

 

I have been Halloween Crafting this week for my Brothers Fiance and will show you all what I have been up to tomorrow.  Today I thought I would share some Scrap pages with you for all the "Take That" fans out there.

 

Unfortunately this scrap book was put together quite late at night and I neglected to take photos of the finished pages!!  It looked really good, After printing out the photos and embellishments, I grouped them together in songs and then designed the pages around this.  I combined the pieces below with a valentines kit which included co-ordinating papers, lovely sparkles, peel-offs etc and I wrote out some of the song lyrics as well.

 

Feel free to choose some pages, print and design your own little book of memories, great for any fans who attended the Circus Tour which I describe as the best concert ever and doubt it will ever be topped no matter how many bands I go and see.

 

I used Craft Artist Professional to tweak the photos, pick embellishments and add the words.  These were printed onto Kodak Photo Paper to give a lovely shine finish, just remember to change your printer settings to accommodate.

As you can see these were all chosen to include Gary as the girl I was scrapping for is a HUGE Gary fan and totally loves him to bits.

I just used an A5 size lined notebook.  This means that there were plenty of pages for other musical groups and future concerts.  It also gives lines to help write straighter when doing things like lyrics or writing memories etc, great for younger people just getting into scrapping.

 

I would love to see any projects started using any of the pages.

 

Happy Crafting

 

Amanda xx

Beautiful Baskets and fun with a big pouch & a pup!!

Morning Peeps,

 

Another day of catch up on my blog.  Just to keep you up to date with what I have been up to whilst I was not blogging for that huge length of time......miss me??

 

Well my lovely Sister went and got herself a lil' puppy to go with her massive dog.  She is just the sweetest wee thing but such a terror!! She was introduced to the family at the end of July, just a wee thing but she is already a monster, but a sweet monster.  I am not the best dog sitter in the world though....

 

awwwww look at the wee angels......

 

Yeah I only just survived lol.........of course I am kidding!!

 

So not only does my Sister have the challenge of looking after these wee toerags and do crazy shifts at work, she decides to hold a Macmillan Coffee Morning but the week earlier than the official one due to shifts.  She is the best baker ever and I have had the pleasure of taste testing all the cakes that she was baking for the day.  Luckily, it hasn't affected my weight at all. 

 

For the day she was having a raffle and so Fresh Scents Scotland donated a couple of things for this.  It was great to actually pop a basket together as I haven't done much with the bath product side of the business in ages.

The ingredients, lots and lots to keep the recipient smelling lovely & fresh for a long time!!

 

The Basket was the main prize but I thought a couple of the Bath Powder Jars would also be a lovely addition........one Jasmine, and one Cookies & Cream

 



If you would like to make a donation to this great cause, you can find all the details here - http://www.macmillan.org.uk/Donate/

 

Have a great weekend!!

 

Amanda xx

A final journey around my fruity garden.....

Morning!!

 

So almost the weekend and this means freedom for most from the daily ritual of work allow us time to get our creative hats on.

 

With it being so cold now in the morning you can definitely feel the change of season.  I am loving it, love being all cosy in the house when things are not quite so lovely outside anymore.  

 

So to remember the hot days of summer I am going to share with you the fruity side of my garden.  I had a great year this year fruit wise, strawberries were amazing and they just did not stop coming, think even my family were sick of eating them!! blueberries were lovely and I had a huge crop of those as well which was fab.  The rhubarb started rubbish but ended up being great, I didn't get any cherries this year from the tree but I had some lovely apples and plums galore. 

 

Food made from your very own fruit just picked is just amazing and it really doesn't get any better.

The plums only really ripened within the last couple of weeks but tasted great as a crumble and on my sisters sponge cake.



This was the 4th harvest of strawberries, they were really lovely and don't need much care really at all when growing them. Really easy for people like myself who want to grow their own things but cant quite keep things alive.





Made with apples from my tree & some Rhubarb also from the garden.

Also going to be a crumble.  The fruit is mixed with some Cassis and sugar before being topped with the crumble mix and little dabs of butter.

 

As I had so much fruit this year and after dishing out to family still had loads left, I decided to freeze what I had left.  I mostly just use it for crumble anyway so all I did was wash and prepare then pop in little plastic containers.  It is going to be great to still get that garden freshness in my winter crumbles.

Finally as promised, not everything went well I also had a disaster, this was supposed to be a tomato plant.  It started really well but I either over watered it or didn't water it enough or it was too hot in the greenhouse.  The fact I am not sure what went wrong proves that I don't actually have the green fingers people think I do lol.

As you can see a couple of solitary tomato's, they didn't quite make it.

So from fresh garden trees to man-made Birthday Trees.  It was my birthday in July and my Sister bought me a lollies tree, it is awesome and the first time I had seen one.......

Isn't it just gorgeous?  I may try my hand at this for Xmas gifts instead of the usual box of roses.

 

Happy Crafty Gardening!!

 

Amanda xx

Tatty Ted 1st Birthday Card - Boy

Good Morning!!

 

I would love to say that I am up early writing this for you but its actually a scheduled post as I am doing the 2nd of two 14 and a half hour shifts at work *yawn*.  So this is going to be a quick one, an A5 Tatty Ted 1st Birthday Card.  This was made using the 1-2-3 Do Crafts Card Kit which is fab, you can make really quick cards or add lots of bits from your stash to make it that little bit more special.



The topper I have chosen had the usual Blue that's used for the Blue Nose but also had a lovely lemon colour so I have tried to incorporate this in the rest of the card as well.  I started by inking around the white card blank in the lemon colour, the backing layer was inked around using the Blue Nose colour and the silver star corner peel-offs were coloured with a Sakura Gold Glitter Gel Pen.

I added a number 1 which I cut from silver Mirri Card and the "today" was made up of large and small letter peel-offs.  A couple of other Blue Nose bits were added from the kit, stars/ sentiment.

For the insert I have used an official Blue Nosed Bear coloured paper, added a sentiment with 3D gel after inking around the edge with a matching Blue Nose Bear ink.  I also added a silver star peel-off coloured with a Sakura Gold Glitter Gel Pen to add a little sparkle.

This is just a wee photo showing that the card is not flat but actually has alot of dimension.  This was achieved using 3D glue gel.

The back of the card blank has had the logo added to show that it is an authentic Tatty Ted product so if you sell your cards then you can attach a premium for them.  I have just added my name and the company stamp like I do to all my cards.  Recognised only by my family members and friend since I haven't been doing much with the business since March.

Kits give you loads of scope to be creative adding bits cut with your dies or embossed with your folder but are also great if you want to get crafty but don't really want to take out too much stuff.

 

Give it a go.

 

Happy Crafting!

 

Amanda xx

A 2nd journey around my garden....

Hello World :)

 

Today I thought I would take you another wee trip around my garden, showing my most favourite flower.....Sunflowers.  The Sunflower is such a great size, perfect colour and follows the sun making it sunshine in the garden even when there is none, I cannot help but smile when I look at them.

 

This year was the most successful year we have had with one reaching at least 11-12 feet high!!  We grow our Sunflowers from the seeds from the heads of the plants we have grown the year before, this is how we get our Marigolds as well.  Year on year they are just getting bigger and brighter.

 

The Marigolds seemed to attract alot of butterflies this year which I was very pleased about.

Even the Marigolds were big, they were so lovely and bright.

A few of the best heads, some from the bright yellow Marigolds and some from the orange ones.  these will be stored ready for using the seeds next year.  I am not a proper gardener so I know that this is probably not the best way to do it but it has worked for us now for the last few years.......should probably get a book!!

 

Loads and Loads of little Sunshine's.

Just perfect!!

 

 

 

Are they not just gorgeous and so really big.  The one right in the centre is massive, they are up against a 6 foot fence so that gives you an idea of the actual size.  Some of these pictures were taken at the end of June and the most recent which just show the heads were taken a few days ago before we took them down and prepared for autumn getting the heads away to dry so that the seeds can be used next year.

 

It was also a great year for the cactus.  Last year I got a fantastic tip from a friend of mine, he keeps his Cactus in the greenhouse in the summer as this is always really hot.  So this year I did the same and I cannot believe just how much they have grown, it is a noticeable difference.

 

So this is them in June, they had already been in the greenhouse since mid April and I wish that I had taken a picture then as they had even grown a bit since then.

 And this is them just a few days ago.

Total Wow!! I was only slightly disappointed that they didn't flower, I may have to get a Cactus of the flowering variety for next year.

 

Happy Gardening!!

 

Amanda xx