Cards for my stash

I've been catching up on some card making recently. Whenever I add cards to my stash, it seems they're not the cards that I then need to send - if I make some birthday cards, suddenly I need thank you cards, and if I make thank you cards, I don't seem to use them for ages.

So I've decided that unless I'm making a card for a particular upcoming occasion, it's better to stick to plain card fronts. I can then add a sentiment later, when I'm ready to send it.

Go - Madrid

I'm making good progress with my 90's layouts. I've got such a lot of use from Studio Calico's world stamps - here's the Europe stamp in action, paired with a card from Ali Edwards' Go Story kit. The alpha stamp is SC's Wes stamp, which I'm using for most of my titles.

Cardstock challenge

I use a lot of white cardstock for my scrapbook layouts. Patterned paper also gets a look-in, but I rarely use coloured cardstock these days. So I thought I'd challenge myself to use something other than white for a background for these pics from Toledo, Spain. I quite like the effect, but don't think grey will be displacing white just yet!

Make it Monday #246 - faux brush lettering

I'm trying to take part in more of the Papertrey Ink Make it Monday challenges. This week's challenge from Amy is to use faux brush lettering in a project - and I found it to definitely be a challenge! Great idea though, as I don't really like my handwriting ;)

I used PTI's Graceful greetings sentiment stamps with inks on watercolour paper - and here's what I came up with:

And a close-up of the lettering:

Way back when - 90s album

One of my big projects for this year is going through several photo albums of the time I spent in the UK and Europe in the early 90s and scrapping the best photos and scanning remainder so I have a digital record of everything.

it's fun to relive a lot of experiences from those times - I'm so grateful for all the opportunities I had to travel and meet new people, see all sorts of amazing places. Here's one of my recent layouts - a spread from a holiday in Portugal.

Story Kit layouts

Loving my sub to Ali Edwards' Story Kit. Lots of interesting themes and the educational content and inspiration is great.

Here's a recent layout using the 'Heart' kit - recalling some special times in Austria:

Happy birthday

Had so much fun with the latest Make it Monday challenge from Papertry Ink that I decided to make a couple more cards using the 'colour isolation' technique - using a neutral background and just using colour for a focal point.

Needed some more birthday cards for my stash, so this is what I came up with:

Green eggs and ham

This is one of those occasions where the camera (well, phone) just had to come out. And no, it wasn't St Patrick's Day - just a new take on Eggs Benedict with a herb-based sauce.  I'm sure it's healthy, but I think I prefer the taste of the original!

Make it Monday #245 Colour Isolation

Just squeaking in with an entry for this week's MIM. Great technique from Ashley, and I managed to make a couple of extra cards as well.

Here's what I came up with:

90s travel album

One of my projects this year is to go back and sort out 5 years of photos sitting in regular photo albums, scan them so I have digital copies of everything and then scrapbook the best photos.

It's been very interesting re-reading my travel journal from that time as well as many of the letters I sent home to my parents, which my mother saved for me. I'm not much of a journal-keeper, but I can certainly see the value of my diary all these years later in terms of all the details that I'd completely forgotten!

Hope to share some of my layouts during the month.

Homemade- from tree to table

If you've come to visit me you know I have a large garden and a lot of fruit trees. There's nothing I like better than using my homegrown produce for preserving and baking. It's Autumn here in New Zealand and that means a crop of crabapples. 

My task last weekend was to turn these into jelly.

Crabapple jelly is actually pretty simple to make - all you needs is crabapples plus any flavouring, some water and sugar. Since I love ginger, well no contest really.

Cook the fruit/ginger for about an hour until soft, strain through a jelly bag to extract the juice

Then put the juice back in the pan, bring to the boil and add the sugar (1 lb sugar for each pint of juice). 

Boil until setting point is reached (220F/105C), pour into warm jars and seal. And here's the result:

Yum!

April blogging challenge

I've been neglecting my poor blog recently. It's just seemed very time consuming compared to Instagram where I can do it all from my phone, edit and upload a photo, use a few hashtags and done!

But I would like to get back into doing a few posts, and so was keen to play along with a blogging challenge that's running this month on 2 Peas Refugees Forum. Check it out here and visit some of the other bloggers who are taking part:

Mom

ojyma

Flibbertigibbet

impearia

ellewood

serenek

Journeyfan

lisadv

irisheyes

Dreamsofnyssa

awesomegabi

mjmone

darkchami

Eddie-n-Harley

lowdertiff

thracian

justjac

daynaholm