Shuffle, Shuffle: Finding Room for More Cards..

So every month when my box from Gossamer Blue arrives and I open it and begin to think about what I might make for my contribution to the blog, I tell myself  to come up with a plan which doesn't involve cards. Something new would be nice, Sian! But this time round I couldn't help myself. I looked at all the pretty new die cuts, all exclusive, all waiting to be gathered up and clustered and I made this:

I turned a blank journaling spot sideways to make a resting place for a butterfly and some flowers. Then I used a picture frame to give a home to a little pink bird:

and then I found his friend and another frame but also a stamp, which I used to mark out a stitching line.

Gossamer Blue found room for my cards and now I must find a space in my card drawer too. Or maybe I would be better finding a couple of stamps and a pillar box?

See you Monday!

Greetings This Easter

This afternoon we are off to the sea, to see Little E. But before I pack his Easter eggs into the car I wanted to wish you a

Happy Weekend. Let's hope for some sun and some good company

and maybe a chance to make something. This year, for the first time ever, we have our own homemade simnel cake cake to try. When our girl is home she bakes and the rest of us enjoy the results.

Cards made with supplies from Felicity Jane

Have a good break, won't you? I'll be back on Monday.

Not a Get Well Card Anywhere

Careful! Don't come too close! Unless you have already had Chicken Pox, in which case it's lovely to see you. I got an emergency call on Monday, from Studentland, from a girl who was covered in spots..

...there has been calamine lotion and bicarbonate of soda and many, many baths since then. So today I'm just jumping in quickly to post the cards I made for the Gossamer Blue blog this month. And not a Get Well card among them.

Lucky she's on the mend, then.

More soon!

To Post This Spring..

It was my turn over on the Gossamer Blue blog yesterday. I made cards again. Again! Something about working on that small canvas is really appealing right now. And, of course, the more cards I make, the more post I can conjure up. So..

...this is the first one I did. I started with a white background, but eventually decided that the textured kraft looked nicer with the cork shapes. Ah, but then I had to think of a way of making the cork stand out. So I drew round the shapes and stitched before I stuck down the butterflies.

Next I went back to those little birds (from Simple Stories The Reset Girl) again ... 

...and added a little touch of gold to accent the kraft this time.

And finally I tried one on a white canvas...

...and as I stacked up my layers and stuck them down I started to wonder: do you think much about the thickness of your cards, the bulk, when you are making them? Or do you pile it on and then wonder how it will fit in the envelope?

More mail on Monday...

With Respect: a Few Cards

Today I have for you a selection of Thank You cards I made for the Gossamer Blue blog. It's a good month for making Thank You cards, is January..

.... and a stack made now won't only serve for any Christmas thanks I still need to offer...

 ...they'll also be to hand for the rest of the year. It feels especially important, right now, to make an extra effort to extend courtesy...

.... and respect and kindness. What else is there?

With thanks to you, for reading and being out there. Back soon.

Happy New Year!

Wishing each and every one of you all the very best 

that a new year has to offer. Here's to hope and renewed determination, to new things and fresh plans, to making things and enjoying places, to friends, to family....let's do this!

We still have a houseful here at High In The Sky - and I'm trying my best to enjoy time with them all before the hard work starts again. But I have been thinking and I may have a new twist to add to Mondays, if you'd like. This card is a clue. Have a good week!

Quick! Cards!

Because they're the best kind, right?

Mmm..maybe not. I like them all: the ones I make in a production line because then I know I'll have enough; the ones I make one at a time, just to see how they are going to turn out, if that scrap of paper really does sit well with that little sticker

The ones arriving through our letterbox every afternoon now; the ones from far away; the ones from friends I don't see very often; the ones from schoolfriends I haven't met up with in years (their news is always very welcome).

The ones from close family (and the ones I send in return. Little E: I have actually found you a card with a pug on it); the ones from blog friends; the ones which come tucked inside catalogues; even the unexpected ones whose arrival sends me scurrying to my stockpile. Maybe those last are the best?

My cards today are taken from my blog post over at Gossamer Blue and are made with their festive Add On kit. Must dash. The post box is waiting..

Fast

Thursday already? We are, as my friend and fellow blogger Julie (she's publishing a book! Check it out!) pointed out at the beginning of the week, continuing to make the most of a slower pace here at High In The Sky. My patient and I have been spending more time together than we have managed, I'm sure, since the summer we got married; and that? that's decades ago. But as I enjoy his company, and I think it's mutual, it's all good.

But I am, it has to be said, finding it difficult to squeeze in time for making things. Knitting, I can manage. I knit downstairs as I keep him company - we've been watching "Turn: Washington's Spies" om Amazon Prime - and I'm seeing the results: very nearly another sweater finished, some Christmas socks cast on, but heading upstairs for some peaceful scrapbooking? That's a little more tricky. Yesterday I managed a couple of quick cards

Today I'm aiming for half an hour's tidying up; because I do have projects ready to go and pages I'll be able to share soon. And any day now, my Gossamer Blue December Memories kit should arrive and I'll be making a start on my Travellers Notebook. Maybe on a tray downstairs? That might work. More soon!

Close Your Eyes and Think of Christmas

Yesterday afternoon I  decided I needed to make Christmas cards. Everything else could wait: doing something nice suddenly seemed important. So I hopped upstairs, because I knew I had a couple of sheets of lovely red patterned paper and a little house stamp set aside from my November Gossamer Blue kits, for this very activity.

I like to do something  with a house motif every year, so as soon as I spotted this little stamp I knew where it was headed. Next, I found I had some tiny leaves already stamped and cut out on my desk, so I started playing about and this is what I came up with.

I went into production:

All year I save up my scraps of white cardstock in case I need them for Christmas cards (and after Christmas I force myself to get rid of the little pieces I haven't used, so I can start collecting all over again). As I have absolutely no talent for stamping, and admire very much those who do, I often stamp and then trim so I can safely bin the rejects without also having to bin the project.

A big background stamp I can just about manage: here it is. It's been in my collection for years now, so I've lost track of where it comes from; but I thought it would work as a base for my cluster. Then, a bit of stitching for a border: you can see that I placed my beginning and ending place  where I knew it would be covered by a leaf; and that, after making a first card, I decided to add two rows of stitching to the next batch.

Looking again at my first card, I thought it needed a little sparkle, so I went back to it and added some tiny, sparkly stars from Felicity Jane. Is it finished now? I'm not completely sure. But it's a start. And I still have that red patterned paper to play with..

Taking It From the Top..A Few Cards

It's my turn on the Gossamer Blue blog today. I have a new

set of cards to share. These were a lot of fun to make!

And you can read more about them right here at Let's Take It From the Top

Just one thing, though: after I had finished up making and writing we heard that the Amy Tangerine tiny puffy stickers I had used (in the Project Life kit)  had been substituted with an equally cute set by Dear Lizzy. 

Keep an eye out, though. I think they'll be back.

Extra, Extra...

...Extra, extra...I'd love you to be able to read all about it. But it turns out that I have really quite a sick husband to care for. We are waiting for more test results. So I don't have a lot of words today, just a few quick pictures of a couple of extra projects I made with the October Gossamer Blue kits. I hope you like them.

I have a card:

The background is done with a Maggie Holmes rub on pen. Honestly? It started out as an experiment and then when that went slightly awry, I kept going to see what would happen next.

And a layout:

about a visit to Anthropologie. The paper cutting came first

before I'd even decided on my subject, because I wanted to take this sheet of Amy Tangerine paper and trim round lots of the leaves. Once I'd made a jungle, I realised that it reminded me of the kind of thing you might see as a display in Anthropologie.

The gold letters I pieced together from a whole selection of phrase stickers I knew I wouldn't use separately. And the tassel? Well, it wouldn't be Anthro without a tassel.

See you soon!

October Projects at Gossamer Blue

October has always been a favourite month for me. The crisp air! The colours! That hint of new beginnings wrapped up in tradition. It's everything at once. And a good time to be a scrapbooker. 

And, maybe, a cardmaker? As it's World Cardmaking Day today, I'd better start my Gossamer Blue October projects with

 ...a card. I made a set for my GB blog post later in the month, but this one has a slightly different look so I pulled it and here it is. It's mostly Crate Paper Gather collection and the sentiment is from a rub on pen , in the Life Pages Main Add on. I used some chipboard pieces on this one and I do have a tip: if you want to reduce the dimension a little bit for a card going in the post, take the chipboard piece, adhere it to some waxed paper (or a glassine kit packaging bag) and then try to peel if off again. You should find a couple of layers of chipboard want to stay behind on the paper, and that's great because you can leave them there and stick a reduced height embellishment onto your card.

Next I made this page:

about our summer trip to Berlin. We had a great time, as long as we kept our blood sugar levels topped up. For this one I took my cue from the peeling posters in the photo (you can't really see it here, but that photo is popped off the page, slightly higher than the other) and I ripped and wrinkled a selection of paper from the Main and Add On kits

to combine with embellishments from the Amy Tangerine diecut ephemera pack in the Main Add On.

And finally, I went back to my new favourite size, 8.5x11, for this page:

This one uses a couple of cards from the Life Pages kit, and the big wood veneer numbers - for the year - from Dear Lizzy in the Main Kit. For my journaling, I marked on my card where I wanted my words to sit, put it through the typewriter and then stuck the black frame (from Amy Tangerine) down afterwards. I added a doily from my stash. Those little birds! They're by Maggie Holmes and I think I used every last one. You can find it all at Gossamer Blue.

Cardmaking on the Unicorn Diet

I have no idea whether unicorns like to eat hay - maybe you have some more magical suggestion? - but I was happy to work with what I had when I decided to make some cards

with pieces from the September Gossamer Blue kits. The unicorn went on first ( because I had just spotted that card which is circling Pinterest at the moment, maybe you've seen it, "When my mom said I lived in a dream world, I nearly fell off my unicorn") and then I trimmed a banner from a diecut in the W R Memory Keepers ephemera pack. I don't often add sparkle, but you can't have a unicorn without a gold star. 

Then I made this one:

with a cat sticker from Crate Paper Cute Girl put together with a Chipboard bow from Paige Evans Take Me Away collection. 

And then I changed direction entirely and started cutting out flowers from a sheet of Take Me Away (No 5) because I can't stop myself trimming round a pretty shape and I made this one

with the addition of a chipboard frame from the Cute Girl chipboard sheet and a little hipboard heart from the Take Me Away pack. I have the rest of the flowers still sitting out on my desk. I'm not sure I'm finished with them yet.

But for now, I have to put down my scissors and do some uber-landlording. We might be heading towards Ikea...

Not Tryng For Gnomic

...because although I'm most definitely short, showing you this deeply unflattering photo probably isn't too clever..

...but it is the best illustration I have of our trip. I got so excited my hair blew up. 

Berlin is fantastic! We feel like we only scratched the surface of everything there is to see. And the shops? I'm already trying to work out if there is any way I can go back to do my Christmas shopping. I have lots more pictures, many, many stories and some new things to add to my wardrobe; but for now, here, it's exam results day and we are celebrating. Our girl is off to university next month: School of Psychology, here she comes! 

So I'll share some projects which appeared on the Gossamer Blue blog wile I was away; and then I'll dash. It's good to be back, but I have a cake to organise...

I was inspired by some little Simple Stories journaling cards to square everything up this month

More details on the Gossamer Blue blog

See you Monday, if not before.

What I'm Sending..

These are what I'm sending right right: a clutch of cards I made last week with scraps from the May Gossamer Blue kits

I've discovered that if I want to have fun making cards, I need to have the sewing machine out. Without a quick line of stitching

here or there, or a swirl of thread or even a freehand twirl

I don't know where to start and I definitely don't know where to finish. For some reason, starting with the stitching makes it a whole lot easier. I like it to look casual and relaxed and I'll use one colour until I run out of bobbin.

Anyone else have a "hook"? A special sentiment stamp you use every time? or a shape of card you find works best for your ideas?


Paper pad "Fancy Free" by Pink Paislee. Feathers and camera from Simple Stories. Wood Veneer from Simple Stories. Enamel Shapes from My Minds Eye