Thankyou Cycling Card

A 'priceless' card for a priceless cycle :)

Recently we did our biggest cycle as training prior to me cycling in a charity event on the 14th June, and it was around the Isle of Wight.

My Dad and Brother got up really early to make it down to us, and we cycled from our house down to the Isle of Wight ferry (which takes about 5 minutes) where we met our friend Matt, and we then cycled around the Island and back to the ferry. 

Pre-ride on the ferry - all smiles!

A really tough hill my Brother gave me a bit of help to get up

It was 65miles (105km) and took us about 6 hours.  Everybody apart from myself and my husband are experienced cyclers and they really looked after us.  It was a really tough ride with pretty big hills - I  haven't done anything like them before.  The scenery was really beautiful which definitely helped as my average heart rate was 160 for the 6 hours and I needed a little distraction to keep going - particularly when we hit the two biggest hills, and the hail hit us simultaneously!! That was pretty special climbing a massive hill in torrential rain, particularly when the wind picked us up and moved us into the middle of the road........the rest of the day was entirely sunny. Here we are at the end of the day....

Post cycle selfie on the ferry back - beer and/or tea in hand!

I wanted to make a card to say thanks to my Dad and Bro for looking after me - it was definitely a priceless experience, and one I will never forget.  I think (hope) that when we go again, which I'm sure we will, it can't possibly be as tough second time around.......

Leigh-Anne x

New York Card

So here is the result of all those stencils......I had a lovely time with the sponges, daubers, and Crumb Cake, Soft Suede and Early Espresso Ink

Leigh-Anne x

New York Inspiration!

I promised a little card craft inspiration from New York...so here are some of the sights that inspired me to create.....

The Statue of Liberty.....

Central Park....

The Empire State Building (and the Chrysler building - not in shot!)

They all inspired me to create these stencils.....

Come back soon to see what I've made with them.....

Leigh-Anne x

Hello from New York

I can't believe this post didn't post! This is now somewhat delayed.......over a week late!!!.....

Welcome to New York!!!!! There'll be no cards this week, instead I'll be looking for inspiration as I explore NY for the first time :)

Matt's been very briefly a couple of times before and kept saying we should visit -  and we've finally got round to it.

We started with an upgrade to First Class (!) My Dad's a retired pilot and very occasionally we get an extra special seat. We sat down, had a glass of bubbly and promptly had to get off again due to a technical issue. Five hours and a number of logistical problems later we ended up back in First Class in the very front two seats after a number of people had booked onto alternative flights. I don't think we'll ever have such special treatment again - we felt truly looked after and it was a great start to our de-stress.....

Everything here is so novel when you've only seen it in the movies - We got in our first yellow cab at the airport and that was exciting enough. We're staying in a pretty grand looking black and gold building - it's a hotel called the Bryant Park - and what makes it really exciting for us is that it's right next to the public Library. The Library has featured in a number of movies, but particularly The Day After Tomorrow. Love that movie. We played the relevant scenes on the iPad and spotted our hotel and all the surrounding buildings - kept us amused for at least half an hour! Here's a pic of our view of the back of it....

I'm pleased to say my cycling training has continued....look at this! 

We managed to cycle this crazy tandem around Central Park. We even managed not to fall off or kill each other with frustration though it was not free of yelling! Not a bad test of communication and patience but we defy anybody to manage it without a little bit of kufuffle! ;)

I think that's enough for now - maybe next time I'll tell you about lunch at Tao with the big Buddha, amazing cocktails and so many varieties of tea it was like being in a sweet shop :).....or how we tried to go to Ground Zero on the day the President was going - yes, we were those tourists....oops!

Leigh-Anne x

Having a 'Wale' of a time - ha ha.

Happy Bank Holiday Monday everybody!! I have just spent a wonderful weekend with my family and some very good friends in the Brecon Beacons in Wales. We did some fantastic walking across the Brecons, we had a picnic by the Brecon Railway and we saw some AMAZING birds.  For those of you who don't know, I'm a bit of a bird spotter - I'm not necessarily good at it but I am addicted to looking out for them. We were staggering lucky on this trip - as well as spotting loads of Buzzards and Kite's, and having Swallows and House Martin's nesting the eves of the fantastic place we stay in, we saw some real gems.

We came across this ground nest with a baby which we think was a skylark or a woodlark .....It was along the path we were walking, and stayed totally still the whole time. 

Skylark or Woodlark chick

This is the nest of a bird that we saw the parent coming in and out of on a craggy outcrop above a waterfall - we identified it via the RSPB website as a Ring Ouzel, and it had three beautiful teal coloured eggs......

Excuse my blurriness - we were balancing on a rocky outcrop!!

And - the best one - we got to see a pair of Dippers, and peered into it's nest to see a very fluffy chick waiting for dinner.  I don't have a photo that does that justice but the Dipper's were stunningly amazing.

I of course took some card craft with me - I ended up taking a card class with me and the girls made gorgeous cards while the boys cooked the Barbecue - very stereotypical and totally perfect! 

So, back to the card craft I wanted to show you today - I thought it was time I tried a little brayering - what can I say - yet another lovely technique! I'm a little worried I'm going to run out of lovely techniques, but I'm really hoping the options continue to be endless.

I've brought out the 'Hello Sailor' set for this one, along with a little 'Gorgeous Grunge' which is on a base of Pool Party, and Island Indigo, with a little 'Not quite Navy' thrown in for some edging and the darker areas. It feels like a bit of a disaster when you start to Brayer it - I'd suggest looking at Liz's blog for a video tutorial - as initially it's easy to lose your nerve, but when you keep adding the layers it just starts to look much better and suddenly you have a fab background to work with.

I had a 'whale of a time' making this :) hope you have a go! (It's lucky I know I'm really not funny isn't it)

Leigh-Anne
x

And here's the silly version of the first photo....:)

Country Garden Inlaid Embossing

Wow - what a week! On Easter Friday Matt and I went for another training cycle.  It went really well, but unfortunately was swiftly followed by a lovely bout of flu-like illness and I'm only just surfacing from the haze now! It was bad enough that I haven't picked up a single stamp this week :(.  Still, I'm ready to get back to work tomorrow and thankfully I had a couple of cards already prepared to show you so, Blue Peter styley - here is one I prepared earlier :).......

This is one more go at the gorgeous Inlaid Embossing technique.....a Summer's Day feel for a beautiful day here in Southampton - the sun is shining! :)

I got out the Dress up Framelits for the first time in AGES.  I made some arms, and a hat out of crisp canteloupe, and I used Birthday Basics DSP for a couple of layers of grass. This is how it looked before I put it through the embossing folder....

Do you prefer pre or post embossing??

Here's to a healthier weekend for me :)

Leigh-Anne
x

Delicate Doilies Inlaid Embossing

Here's my second go at 'Inlaid Embossing'.  This is Birthday Basics on Very Vanilla Cardstock, using the Delicate Doilies Sizzlits.  

Totally addicted - I love it!!

Leigh-Anne x

Fun with flowers!

Today is a GLORIOUS day in Southampton.  My neighbour is growing some beautiful Tulips in his backgarden and kindly donated me a couple of them for my flower pressing experiment.  If you've followed my blog you'll know I recently made a card using some petals I had popped in a book last year and then forgot about....so this year I am experimenting with petals and I'll be back in the Winter or maybe early next Spring to let you know how the colours came out......here they are going in for pressing.....

 I wonder what colour they'll come out?! It's a bit of a waiting game this one :)

Leigh-Anne x

Upcoming Class Dates

Here are my upcoming class dates:

Message me if you'd like to join!

Thursday 24th April (Hedge End) 18:30-20:30
Sunday 11th May (Shirley) 19:30-21:30
Sunday 8th June (Shirley) 19:30-21:30
Sunday 13th July (Shirley) 19:30-21:30

We make three projects, this is an example of what we made last month.....

The cost is £10 (+glue - if you haven't been before i'll explain on the night - it doesn't apply to your first visit)

Special upcoming class!

Thursday 5th June (Shirley) Afternoon (13:30-16:30) or Evening (19:00-22:00) - this is a Special Keepsake Class where we will make the Baby's First's Scrapbook you can see pictures of here.  The cost of this class is £25 and includes everything you need to make this gorgeous and very special handmade Scrapbook. If you would like to join me then send me a message by Thursday 22nd May.  Payment by direct bank transfer by the same date, I will supply details on booking.  I hope you can join us! Leigh-Anne x

A Special Keepsake

Would you like to come and make this with me? I'm doing a one off special class on Thursday 5th June 2014. See my Upcoming Class Date page to book a place 

So - back from yet another cycle! The 'bike fit' worked - no right knee pain - yay! It made a really massive difference - much more enjoyable. We did 37 miles today, pretty slow but it's getting better.  It was the first time my Dad had taken us out and I think we were almost fast enough to make it bearable for him! He's turning 60 this year and he's way more bike fit than I am.  Here we are setting off....

I'm loving that it means I can eat loads of cake and chocolate without feeling guilty - I ate extra food last night, more for breakfast this morning, and a chocolate bar almost half way round.  We then stopped at a lovely cafe and had a large slice of Vanilla Fudge cake and a large mug of tea before heading back to a large bowl of soup and home made sour dough loaf for lunch. What can I eat now?.......

Anyway - back to the Stamping!

Last year my Stampin' Up Mummy Liz, did a special class where we made a beautiful Vintage Scrapbook.  I love all things vintage so there was no way I was missing it and I loved the result!  You can purchase the instructions from her blog for just £3.95 and the structure of the scrapbook also works for any other small scrapbooks - and I made one earlier this year for my vintage postcards - you can see it here. 

This scrapbook is a little more special.  LOADS of our friends are having babies at the moment and I wanted to make a babies 'firsts' scrapbook with the beautiful DSP Birthday Basics.  As mentioned before I'm generally a vintage girl, but occasionally a fresh bright paper comes along and really inspires me.  I've struggled to leave this paper alone!!

The book is tied with Crisp Canteloupe Ribbon, and has various size panels and patterns from the Birthday Basics DSP on the cover.  

This is the closed, and tied book.  I've left the front blank so that I can add a name and date of birth

I've tied the book with crisp canteloupe ribbon, and added Labels Collection Framelits in various sizes to the front, along with a Lion from the gorgeous Zoo Babies.

The first page

The first page has room for all the important details, including a little frame for a first pic.  I created the words for the whole album in a word document and printed them out onto Very Vanilla cardstock.

I created the little envelope using my scoring board, but the new envelope punch board would be perfect

This page took a little bit of time to create! I wasn't sure how I wanted the pseudo-family tree to work - in the end I kept it really simple.  I thought about adding siblings and then it occurred to me that these books only really get done for the first baby anyway unless Mum and/or Dad are super organised and committed. 

I handcut the wiggly bits!

This has got space for a little note from Mum and Dad, and a pocket for  a copy of their birth announcement

Zoo baby stamps - AWESOME!

The lower piece of DSP forms a pocket, to slot in photo's and a list of visitors.

I absolutely LOVE the Zoo Babies stamps, but they weren't coming to life enough when I first stamped them.  I found using a very tiny circular punch and using biro for pupils really makes the eyes pop, and i've taken to hand cutting a tiny heart to add to most of them....

Spaces for photographs, and to stick a lock of hair

you can't miss out a first handprint and footprint!

All the firsts! I've used a slightly larger punch for the eyes of the Rhino and Elephant 

So - that's it! My very special 'Firsts' Scrapbook. I hope you like.  Back to the cake for me now......:)

Leigh-Anne 

x

Would you like to come and make this with me? I'm doing a one off special class on Thursday 5th June 2014. See my Upcoming Class Date page to book a place