Spotlight Technique, Sheltering Tree

I've been doing a lot of crochet lately as I have been a bit low but made a card today so thinking I am nearly back on top again!

I have been looking at cards on pinterest using the spotlight technique, it is a lovely way to pick some detail out of a stamped image and mke it a focal point. There seems to be two ways of creating a spotlight card. The way I have tried first here is to make one with an aperture...the image is stamped then an aperture  is cut from the image focusing on particular point then another image is coloured in or changed somehow then lined up beneath the aperture to the first image.. I used the fabulous Stampin Up Sheltering Tree stamp set. 

I created a plain bare tree on a grey background, I wanted to emphasize the change in seasons from winter to spring.I used the leaves/blossom stamp to create a cherry blossom type tree in full bloom. 

I think this is a good card to give to encourage anyone who is going through a hard time, a bereavement or a long term struggle to rimind them that seasons change, even if it feels like winter in your life with very little hope or positivity thats not the end its just a season! and we all know that our times and seasons are in God's hands!

The sentiment is created using an Our Daily Bread Designs stamp cropped then re-stamped in full inside. the butterflies were cut using stampin up embosslits butterfly folder.

I first saw a similar card on Pinterest HERE it inspired my first spotlight card ;O)

its good to get back into challenges, here where i entered this card
AAA Cards Game... #38 "There's a hole n my card"
Crafting from the Heart... #58 "Anything goes"
Make My Monday... Trees or Leaves
Stamp and Create... May Flowers
well my card fits all four of these challenges so lets hope for a win!

As many of you know from a previous post, last year I attempted to get back into scrapbooking. Although I was really pleased with my "clever couple" layout I don't feel I achieved my goal. So, looking at my endless photos and still desiring to tell my story and to record my family events I have decided to start a Project Life album. This coincides with the start of my birthday week. I will be fifty two (how did that happen???) I thought fifty two weeks at age 52 may make a good album! so I will be working on the album on a weekly basis documenting my year 52 but also trying to add in something about me, my loves likes hates, my personality and the stuff that brings me joy. I have already looked through the Project Life merchandise and decided that I am NOT gonna be an avid collector of the cards although I will buy a few I will make my own as I don't want this to be a real expensive venture and I wanna enjoy the satisfaction of using up my stash of papers and mypapercrafting skills so watch this space as I will be blogging along to show you my progress

Decopatch Table Makeover YAY

My Kev and I went out for a while on Saturday into Blackpool town centre. We were looking in 2nd hand / charity shops for a mirror and a coffee table which I could makeover. We found this coffee table below and paid £10 for it. I had originally wanted a round table but we both liked the look of this one and its price !

I could easily have just painted this tabletop to blend in with my monochromatic colour scheme. It would have looked good but I have been craving to have a really crafty piece of furniture which is kinda unique. I had done Decopatch before at a friends house a couple of years ago on a wooden "LOVE word but never given Decopatch a go on furniture before. I had seen lots of lovely inspiration on Pinterest so just had to give it go!

I went shopping at Hobbycraft on Sunday and found these 2 Decopatch paper packs

This first grey one is described as small flowers but it looks more like leaves, it is a much paler grey than it looks in the pack

I love the lacy look and the pretty roses of this black and white paper pack but it would have been too much to have this one design all over the tabletop

I am honestly gobsmacked at the results of my first furniture Decopatch makeover, its turned out far better than I had imagined.

I haven't bought the clear varnish to finish it off yet but couldn't wait to reveal my newest masterpiece.......tadaaaaahhh....

what do you think? I love it and the good news is that Kev loves it too YAY.  The silver coloured metal frame is in perfect condition I had already bought some black metal paint for it but now I am not sure if I will use it or not! Kev likes it as it is but I wanted to match it to a black metal side table so if we do change it I will add more photos to this post.

thanks for looking, please let me know what you think ;o)

52 weeks @52 Project Life

Good Morning !,
It's 5 am on a rainy Saturday morning, yet again I cant sleep!!! so I thought I would do something constructive rather than sit here zombie style in front of my laptop looking into blank space. With all the chaos lately at home I have become somewhat stressed and feel quite ill, i am battling hard really trying to keep myself out of hospital so the best thing to do is be honest about it but try and find something to take my mind off how I feel! it's worked in the past!
In less than 2 weeks time I will turn 52  ***!GASP!*** how did that happen? Well I have been thinking a lot about scrapbooking again. The plan last year was to get back into traditional scrapbooking but after a couple of layouts that plan got lost and just didn't happen. I do feel that I really wanna do it BUT I chase photographs around my desktop, I search for the perfect layout, papers, embellishment etc etc that I become such an intense indecisive perfectionist that my pages never get past the idea stage. its frustrating I have lots of stash to use lots of photo's and a story to tell but my critical eye stops me all the time. So what's the answer?
I have heard of a system of pocket scrapbooking... "Project Life" I have looked into it on pinterest and google and it seems to be the answer to my problem. Obviously you never know if something is the answer or a good idea for you unless you try it out so that's what I am going to do.
I had one of those "OH YEAH" moments a few days ago where I realised that there are 52 weeks in the year and I will be 52!!! (not rocket science is it?) but what if I do this thing where I document my life for a year, spend 52 weeks sharing being my life @ 52 (gotta think of a better way to phrase that LOL) so I have asked Kev to buy me the album and the plastic pocket pages along with the die from Stampin' Up which cuts out the 4x6 and 3x4 cards some card in my favourite colours and just a few bits n bobs to start me off. I don't want to become a hoarder of Project Life cards so will just get a few and create the rest myself. I want to do this so that I can look back on this year too. It's the kind of thing I should have done two years ago as I turned 50 but most of you know how desperately ill I became in 2013 / 14 so that wasn't a possibility for me.
Now the one thing I had to get over was the worry that I would miss doing the traditional style of scrapbooking using my papers etc, I thought it was just a matter of putting photos into pockets and job done, but now i see  that it can be a bit more than that if i so desire (and I do), I can make the little cards myself adding ribbons embellishments my stash die cuts stamps etc etc but I can also intersperse the pocket pages with 12 x 12 layout pages if I want to. I can make up my own rules, or just decide not to have any rules at all! sounds good to me ;o) so now I am off to look at more pinterest boards and view more youtube videos  before I make a start next week I will start on Match 1st

I will let you know how I get on

Transforming our little home

hello Again
still not been crafting but been busy busy busy!
Well the spring cleaning turned into a major re-decorating of the lounge and hallway of our flat and although it is beginning to look even more awesome than I had expected, the stress levels have been through the roof!!! It's hard doing things in such a tiny space. I am sure that HM Queen never notices when one of her Buckingham palace rooms are being decorated LOL

but here in our little palace our tiny flat in St Annes it's been so hard to move and live while its all been going on. There was literally nowhere to put stuff to clear the room to work. Thankful my son Matthew came to the rescue and showed me he has taken on the family trade!!! ( when his dad was alive and well we had a decorating / cleaning business) he came and decorated the lounge with me and did a fabulous job of the wallpaper hanging I don't think a professional could have done any better! my son worked his socks off for me, I am so proud of him.

He had to promise my Grandson Ethan that he would just be working hard decorating for Nanna and would NOT go and enjoy himself at the seaside or see the Blackpool tower!!!

The wallpaper you see in the background is by Graham and Brown named HESTON, photos just don't do it justice as it has a white background with a pearly overall pattern and glitter, it looks fabulous IRL! it matches the feature wall which is named Sarra it has a while background with black leaves and lots of glitter too but its very tasteful not too girly / blingy! see behind the fire picture!

The room all of a sudden looks very modern, it had been quite traditional so we needed to change a few things to keep up with this new look...Originally the colour scheme was going to be black & white with green (the chairs were green) but we ended up using a lot of grey and silver. It was one of those unplanned surprises that has worked well and we love it. 

The fireplace which sports an electric coal effect fire was originally mahogany wood with brass fittings, it stood out like a sore thumb from another era LOL so it had to be painted. I wish I had taken the "before" pictures but didn't so here's an old view of the fire snipped from another photo yes it was very traditional!

And...here below is what we have done with it, we haven't put the coals back yet as I am toying with the idea of white stones instead. I used rustoleum silver metalic paint over the brass coal grate and surround, I am very pleased with how it turned out

I want to find a nice mantel clock for that centre spot but There's no rush, maybe when the car boot sales start up again in the spring I will find one to makeover!

Talking of car boot sales, about 6 years ago we found this picture

for just £10 at a local car booty, we both loved the actual scene for different reasons...the church in the background reminds Kev of the place he grew up and he remembers his childhood. And the child on the fence watching the shepherd round up the sheep is a lovely image for me of Jesus the good shepherd and me alongside Him, it brings such a peaceful sense of security for me. we both loved the frame in shiny gold but it no longer fitted in with our room (please excuse the masking tape as I had started to prepare it for painting)

I painted it with the grey chalk paint which I had used on the fire surround then I added black satinwood to the inner and outer edges, then I used silver rub n buff on top of the black shabby style so some of the black could still be seen and giving the moulding more depth. the actual picture looks dull on the photo but that's just the camera on a different day!

We have never had a brand new carpet fitted in any of our homes before so with intensive saving we went out to get a nice green carpet, I couldn't find anything I wanted until I sent Kev into a shop alone He found a silvery grey carpet which he liked, he did a bit of dealing with the manager and got a good discount so he talked me into it and we had it fitted, what a luxury it feels underfoot I am so glad he changed my mind from the green I had wanted. 

I have lots more to show you but I will post again soon 

I am exhausted so need to put my feet up LOL

One card base , four different cards

I was truly blessed this Christmas with prezzies I really liked, lovely jewellery, nice new outfits and fabulous crafty prezzies YAY.
I admit I sent Kev an email with links to things I like but he still got some unexpected goodies for me which was lovely. So I have been playing over the last couple of days with some new dies and stamps. I designed a card base then set myself the challenge to make for different cards from the same base, what fun ;o)

Each card started with a white 5" square base, at the bottom of each card I used my scalloped borders die set to create a pretty border I chose four colours, lilac, blue, pink, and aqua green for the die cut lacy bits and each one was embossed using embossing folders, I used my new framelits from Stamping up along with the absolutely gorgeous set of stamps called Stippled Blossoms, wow I am so pleased with this prezzie (thank you Kev xx) I also used the stampin up set Apothecary labels (which I bought 2nd hand last month) on two of the cards

This was a wonderful exercise for me, it made me think a bit more about how to use colour etc....
The first card to share is in lilac / purples I used Momento Grape Jelly ink and teamed it with lilac card and delicate pearls, the little daisy type flowers were enough on this card which is quite simple but has an elegant feel to it.

The second card is the pink one, I used the big bold rose stamps using Stampin' Up inks Blushing Bride with Melon Mambo I love the colours and the blooms but would not use the same "happy birthday" die cuts next time its just too big and silver was not the right choice.

The swirls were made using the Tattered Lace rose corner die, I used tiny pearls in the rose centres to finished them off.

The third card used the same roses in a very similar position but I wanted to use a monochromatic colour scheme with stampin up Bermuda Bay, Coastal Cabana and Soft Sky,

I love these colours with crisp white card. I used the Apothecary label stamped background on this one and a Martha Stewart branch punch too.

The fourth card in pale blue uses a scripture stamp by Our Daily Bread Designs and a praying hands die cut which was made using a sizzix sizzlet die (this was one of the first dies I bought)

I kept this one simple by just using two daisies from the stippled blossoms set but this time I used icy blue gem centres and the same gems accented the bottom of the card.

I enjoyed this session of creativity and was glad to do something unrelated to Christmas for a change
I am entering my cards  into some challenges,

 the hardest bit is deciding which one to enter! decisions decisions.....
I will enter this one o the left into the following challenges...
click on the names to go to their challenge blogs

Stamping Sensations.....Dies and Punches
Sweet Stamps.....Something New
Red Rubber Inspirationals.....New Stamps
My Time To Craft.....All Things New
Cute Card Thursday.....Anything goes

I am planning to enter a lot more challenges this year so its good to get off to a good start, I had some other dies for Christmas so I guess I better get the big shot out again!

have a great week eveyone and a fabulous 2015

God bless you
Crafteresa UK

Happy New Year to all of my followers and friends out there in blog land, I hope the Christmas and new year festivities have found you blessed in abundance and that the year 2015 is a great year for you I have many friends who have struggled with illness over the Christmas period and pray you are all seeing a massive improvement healthwise, God Bless You All, and remember to never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God

Love Crafteresa xx