It's A Quirky Red Hat

It's time for another quirky challenge over on the Quirky Crafts Challenge Blog. It's Cazzy's turn to chose the Challenge, and seeing our Sponsors Robin's Fetish have some lovely sets of digi's called The Red Hat Society, she thought it would be a great idea to have...

A Red Hat Challenge!

The only thing your projects must feature, is a red hat or a hat with a lot of red on it, such as a wide red hat band, or red flowers, or a red feather...glitter etc... O...K, sez me slowly, someone, very close to me, who I shan't name, has just mentioned... Father Christmas and a ...gnome....right...onwards and up! The first thing I thought of was my sister-in-law's red hat at my daughter's Wedding. It was gorgeous!! So of course I just had to choose Jeanette Red Hat Gal from our sponsor. (Not that Debbie looks anything like Jeanette Red Hat Gal!) I sliced a little off the front of the card, to change the shape a bit and so you can see the yellow and orange dotty paper inside. I've 3D-ed and layered Jeanette Red Hat Gal, coloured her with red, gold, yellow and green ProMarkers, added loads of Stickles glitter, a red metal heart shaped brad, paper and felt flowers, red gems and a 'hat pin' to the bow. The bow/ribbon did look a lot redder in the dark hours of this morning, but once out in the sunlight to take the pictures, I could see it was a little closer to cerise pink than cerise red, but I don't think anyone will notice! The leaves were cut with a Woodware punch from a scrap of paper coloured with the same green ProMarker. The corner details were cut from a Provo craft diecut, using my trusty old BigShot. The papers I used were a free set exclusively from Simply Cards & Paper Craft ages ago, Nitwits The Never Not collection. (You can still buy them!) Think this is my first card using yellow, red and orange! (For my Tuesday tip you can see the white blu tac in this pic)

I've layered lots of different shapes up with red Bazzil paper. The sentiment, 'Have A Very Happy Hat Day!' I did on the computer. Nothing inside at the moment, until I decide where it's going, but it will be a Happy Birthday card...for someone who likes hats...(Debbie's birthday's in November) .

The Font I've used is a freebie, (some sites charge) it's called Troutkings BTN: or just Google the name. There's a background digi freebie at the moment from Robyn's Fetish, you'll find it here why not add it to your challenge make! A Tilda wearing a red hat, a Dustin Pike dragon would look spiffing in a red hat and not to forget...Robin's Fetish, The Red Hat Society digi's! I've found a few Challenges I hope this will fit into. One of my next cards coming up also has a red hat.. thank you for stopping by!

Challenges Robynsfetishchallengeblog- a different shaped card (I've cut the card shorter in front & used lots of layered shapes, hope that counts!) Makeallwithlove-Flowers Ellephantasticchallenges-add some layers (On the card and the image is 3D) Aspoonfullofsugar-happy birthday craftyourdaysaway-birthday celebrations**TOP SIX Tuesdaythrowdown-Birthday Cardmakinmamas-birthdays Anythingchallenge-birthday celebration Birthdaysundaes-its all about brads (I've used 5) Stampinfortheweekend-spots and dots Toptiptuesday-Straight Edges My Tip, if you've run out of silicone glue or 3d foam pads and just have to get your DT card finished, use Blu Tac instead! (shh! yep! She's suck on with blu tac...)

A Quirky peek and some distorted modern art?

I've been designing a logo for my 'new venture'...this is it, but distorted...any idea what's in this picture?? I love pressing the buttons and seeing what happens...hope I can untangle it!!
I do have a question...
I've saved the image as PNG with a 'clear' background, (Not blue as you see here) thinking that when I add this to my Web page, it will show the sites back ground, as it does if I place it over a printed background on my computer, but so far, it just turns black when I add it to the site. So any idea's on how to over come that, would be great!
Here's a Quirky sneak peek of my DT card, ready for the new challenge over on Quirky Craft's Challenge Blog, which starts on Sunday evening. Not clues, just another blurry picture and like the one above, it could be anything! Have a great weekend!

Latest Pictures of Mason Rain

As I've been a bit busy with my new 'venture', I've no cards to show you, so I thought I'd add a few pictures of Mason Rain... My little grandson is growing sooo fast! He'll be two next month.I want that one!

Watering the garden...


Where's the river?

It's Raining!

Riding the wagon


Could do with that boat now!

Sorry You Missed this one

Here's this weeks digi. I'm calling her Missy. She was going to be a gnome on a swing but his legs looked a bit odd, so I scrapped that and drew this cat instead! Can't go too wrong with a cat! Please don't share my digi's, send people here to download them, I'd love to see anything you make. Clicking the picture should take you to 4share, any trouble, I'll email it to you! Please leave a comment if you can! Thank you for stopping by! Sorry You Missed this one!
Pic of the 'real' Missy' taken as a kitten.

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It's That WOYWW Time Again.

I've pushed all my 'stuff' out of the shot of the camera (I mean, I've carefully tidied all my crafty goodies away) The floor is spotless (fibber, I can't see the carpet!) and I can now get to my computer easily! (after climbing over the boxes heaped up) This is what's on my bench this morning...not a lot!! (It's the bits that fell off the pile you can't see!) So if you have a crafty space you'd love to share, you know where to come...shoot over to the Stamping Ground and join it!
This has got to be my SHORTEST What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday post ever!!! (Where's Lyn, and what have you done with her?)

This Weeks Freebie here...
or scroll up!

Blackberry Way

In the words of the 'Move'..."Blackberry Way, absolutely pouring down with rain, it's a terrible day..." No, actually is wasn't raining, is was quite sunny! But now I've got that song in my head, so I thought you might like it too! We (me and him indoors) went blackberry picking...thinking it was a bit early for blackberries, we only took a little sandwich bag each but ended up picking three and a half pounds in about forty minutes. The bags were bursting, blackberry juice was running everywhere! So now I'm hunting for a Blackberry Jam or Jelly recipe. Does any body out there have a tried and tested one?? Picking more later so should have loads! Happy Weekend!!

Happy Anniversary Mum and Dad

It's my mum and dad's anniversary today, so of course I made them a card. I think I've gone through all the suitable Forever Friends decoupage sets and then remembered I had a Fizzy Moon stamp (TrimCraft) I'd never used. There he was, sitting at the bottom of my Clear stamps box and never been out of his bag! Poor Fizzy!

So, using some Kate Knight backing paper, free with Cardmaking and PaperCraft mag the other month, some purple card, some gold card and paper, a white pearl blank card, loads of Stickles glitter, some angel hair I think it's called, some ribbon, a few gems, a Tim Holtz swirl in a beaten metal gold, and some paper flowers, (with velum) oh I nearly forgot, one of the corners has been heat embossed with a corner stamp I forgot I had, with clear ink and clear embossing powder... and this is what I've made...
I must treat myself to some decent flowers, I'm really not very happy with these at all.
The font is of course a freebie, it's called Abbeyline and you can download it HERE
All the punches I used are by Woodware, except that little double heart, which is made by Crafts-Too. I love those birds on the backing paper and the Stickles Glitter does make them sparkle! I've found a few Challenges, which I hope Fizzy fits into! Thank you for stopping by

Challenges

C.R.A.F.T. challenge-anniversary
aifactorychallenges-anything goes
Craftuscrazy-anything goes in August
Craftsandmechallenges-anything goes
Amberscraftsandstuff-sparkle & shine
(Lots of Stickles and gold card/paper)

There's Something in the Green House...and a Herbie tip

...and it's not tomatoes!!....Actually like my craft room, my tiny little green house is a bit of a mess. Bindweed has taken over...which is one reason why, for the first time in years "we have no tomatoes!"

Things have been dumped in there, and they too, have been covered with the dreaded bindweed! The more you pull it up, the more bits break off and grow! So I decided to have a really good clear out today.

Suddenly half way through my tidying up, 'something' started moving under the black plastic, which I had put down to stop (unsuccessfully) the bindweed from growing. It was very quick and made a funny noise! Then I noticed a little path had been dug under an old plant propagator. What had been hiding under there!?! And what creature was now hiding under the plastic?
I was sooo hoping it wasn't a rat!! Luckily it wasn't! It turned out to be a little hedgehog. Too shy to show his face, he stayed curled up, pumping out the Zzzz's. So I carefully placed him back under the propagator, where he'd made a little dug out 'room' for himself, while I finished off the rest of the clearing out. And as far as I know he's still there now. What a shock he'll have when he wakes up to a tidy green house!! (don't worry I've left him a few snails for his breakfast)
This year my runner beans are rubbish!! Don't get me wrong! They've grown like mad, loads of leaves, but not one bean! (well, maybe two titchy ones) This time last year we had so many John was putting them in the freezer! (We were still eating them waaay past Christmas!)
I'm also growing little French beans this year too, and they are just the same, all leaves and no beans!! Pity they can't have a word with the bindweed! That's doing sooo well!
I only have a little garden so all my beans are growing in large pots. Something else that's fighting hard against the bindweed is this clematis, it's called 'Purple'.
Right, a gardening tip for you now, it might save a few pennies (or cents!)
If you buy your fresh herbs from the supermarket, you might usually get them in pots, like the one in the picture below. Look closely and you will see there's about thirty plants in one pot. All growing long and lanky. Seedlings really, never allowed to grow to their full size.
You pick off what you want, and after a bit, because you've forgotten to water the pot, it curls up and dies, so you buy a new pot. But when you think about it, 30 plants for one pound isn't too bad. You'd pay at least twice as much as that for one plant if you bought it from a nursery to put in your garden. .
This is Basil in the picture (Hello Basil!) and what I do is, break all those little seedlings up, leave as much soil as you can around their roots and replant them into larger pots.
Pinch off all the tops, to encourage growth. Put all those leaves. you've just picked off, into a bag and place it into the freezer. Once frozen just crush them up and use them as you want.
Meanwhile your little seedlings will grow into lots of full sized plants and last all summer or longer. You won't have to buy any more.
The best herb to try this with first is mint. Mainly because with mint, instead of pinching off the tops, you can bend or lay the long stems down into the soil and they will root again, and in about a week, three skinny seedlings will easy fill a medium sized pot and you'll have a whole load of fresh mint that will last forever! (It's best to keep the mint in a pot because it might go wild and give the bindweed a run for it's money!!)
**Up Date** Here's the picture of my Mint. After re-potting and layering them. In just over a week this is how three scrawny seedling have grown! (The Basil I've just re-potted is hiding in the back ground)

While I've been clearing out the greenhouse, Hubby John was in the kitchen cooking paella... here he is showing off his new large paella pan I bought him today! You can see he's pleased with it, can't you!
The paella was lovely!! (only I'm not too sure about the mussels! Might save those for the hedgehog!)
Coming up later an anniversary card.