Little angels......

Lily the Christmas Angel (well, she has got a white Wild Orchid Crafts lily for a head-dress!)

Jackie and I thoroughly enjoyed making these little 'sister' angels

Using a tea plate we drew a circle on white card, cut it out, then cut it in half and formed a cone which we stapled together.  We cut a doily in half and covered the cone.  

We wondered whether to use feathers for the wings but thought they wouldn't last very long so decided to use white tulle instead

For the head we poked a WOC white lily flower through a polystyrene ball and added half of a long white pipe-cleaner for the arms.  This was then poked through the top of the cone and taped inside to prevent it moving around.

For the dress, we gathered up half a metre of 110mm 'Rosamund'  lace and stitched it to the neck of the angel.  The bodice is guipure lace stitched in place at the back of the neck as are the sleeves.  I used two layers of pale ivory rose organza at the bottom of the skirt and stuck it on with double sided tape - Jackie used a mixture of the organza rose ribbon and some more eyelash guipure lace

For the wings we made a large bow with white tulle and stitched it to the back of the bodice. We applied 5mm clear flat back crystal gems randomly to the wings and also to the lace skirt. The eyes were marked with a pen and we applied a little blusher using a cotton bud for cheeks

  

    

Sketch time at Papertake Weekly ...

There is a sketch challenge at PTW this week - you can choose sketch Number 85 or any of the Papertake Weekly sketches you particularly like.  I chose number 85, and skewed the layers.

I used a LOTV image from their Winter Wonderland No 18  art pad and applied loads of stardust stickles to make those little snowpeople sparkle!  I inked all edges of patterned paper and white card.  I used 20mm 'Charlotte' white cotton lace and 15mm scarlet berry satin ribbon.  I cut the poinsettias and that gorgeous holly branch with a die and added pearls to the centres of the flowers, the sentiment was computer generated printed onto safmat.  

I hope you will pop over to PTW to see the lovely cards made by the design team and we look forward to seeing what you create - as usual, there is a great prize to win!

Stickles, ribbon and lace are from The Ribbon Girl online store

see you soon

Mary x

Giving thanks ......

This week's challenge at Papertake Weekly is 'Giving Thanks' and I  made a thank you card and used this gorgeous image from  LOTV Artpad 'Party & Cake' .  The paper is LOTV 'Always and Forever' and added pink velvet lace, rose petal pink seam binding.

My flowers are WOC pink cherry blossomss, sweetheart blossoms, white Kort & Godt chrysanths, pink lily, pink/white 30mm wild rose andd white starburst stamens.

The butterflies are punched from a Martha Stewart punch and I inked all edges and added 5mm pink self adhesive pearls.  A touch of Stardust Stickles finished off the card.

I hope you can pop over to the PTW challenge and be inspired by all of the fabulous creations by the design team

see you soon

Mary x

Lace, ribbons, all flowers, pearls and stickles  are all from The Ribbon Girl

A Christmas wreath .....

The Ribbon Girl November Colour Challenge is 'white' and I had great fun making this Christmas wreath.  My base was a white polystyrene circle. I embossed good quality white paper with a snowflake pattern, then cut out the stars with nesties.  I scored and creased the stars.  I cut some plain stars out and stuck them around the polystyrene base then added the fancy stars - fairly tricky to get them to stick but patience is a virtue! if only I had some lol.  I embellished my wreath with white daisy flowers but I took out the yellow middles and added 14mm clear crystal flatbacks; silver star flowers; white organza flowers with diamante centres and ivory gardenias.  I die cut various types of foliage in white and stuck them here and there.  At the top of each star I added a clear diamante flatback gem.   I added silver sparkly mesh ribbon and white seam binding at the top of the wreath then used silver twine to make a hanging loop.  When everything was firmly stuck I added copious amounts of Stardust Stickles to the stars and paper foliage and I now it will look lovely when I hang it up nearer to Christmas

Daisies, silver star flowers, organza diamante flowers, all gem flatbacks, ribbon, twine and Stardust Stickles are from The Ribbon Girl

I hope you will be able to join in The Ribbon Girl challenge - there are some amazing projects by the team and our guest designers - I never thought so much white could look so beautiful!

We have two fabulous prizes for our lucky winner  a £10 voucher from our very generous friends at  Lili Of The Valley and  a £10 voucher towards a shopping spree at Ribbon Girl

see you soon, Mary x

A little cracker .... and some bird houses ...

A little Christmas cracker, first one made using the envelope score board, ok once I got the hang of it, there was an excellent demonstrator called Shari on the Crafts u Love stand at the NEC last week andd she showed us how  to make the cracker - however, a week later I had forgotten so I found a video on u-tube and watched that 

I used 12mm white polyester flat lace, 7mm red satin ribbon, green/white saddlestitch ribbon, red tiny ric rac and a star buckle slide with the centre removed - these crackers will make gorgeous gift containers and could be used at the table with a tag with the name of each guest

 and also a pic of the little houses my little sister Jackie and I made the other night, hers is the green one with the red ribbon hanging loop. Mine made with the Graphic 45 12 days of Christmas paper has got a little glass santa tree ornament in, so you can see him when you look through the hole!  I'll be making more of these to hang on our Christmas tree.  I used a Sizzix die and the extra long plates and we used a pair of thin round sticky backed magnets so the roof can be opened to reveal the gift within the house.

I hope you will all be joining in with The Ribbon Girl Colour Challenge which begins at 9am on Sunday 17th on The Ribbon Girl blog

see you then,

Mary x

Snow and Ice .......

This week's challenge at Papertake Weekly is 'Snow & Ice  - blue or 'cold' colours or include snow somewhere'

and this my DT card - I used this lovely snowman image from LOTV Artpad No 18

I'm sure you are all busy making Christmas cards for friends and family and are sure to be inspired by this week's theme!

I added some silver twine, a large snowman charm and lots of stardust stickles, all from The Ribbon Girl online store 

I hope you will find time to join in with this challenge and you can get a stack of inspiration from my teamies over at PTW

see you soon, Mary x

Make it Sparkly ....... my favourite thing!

The frost outside this morning is certainy sparkly - so thick it looks like snow!  Andrea and I had a lovely time when we visited the Hobbycraft exhibition at the NEC yesterday - we were lucky enough to meet up with Gina Knott, Kath Stewart, Dawny Phillips and Enfys Cashmore and had a jolly good laugh watching them with Barbara Gray and Joanna Sheen taking part in the 'Fiskars Fuse throwdown challenge - there will be lots of photos on Kath's blog on Monday I've no doubt

This is my project for the Ribbon Girl Lovely Lili Challenge - I do hope you can join in, what could be better than adding a bit of sparkle at this time of year and you will find loads of inspiration from my very talented teamies so please pop over and have a look and join in!

I made this Christmas easle card with a drawer below for my great niece Gemma - I used LOTV papers and that sweet image is from the 'tis the season' artpad.  I added white tiny pom pom trim, 7mm scarlet berry satin ribbon, Zva crystal lines, a 'Fleur' round vintage style sparkly brooch.  My flowers include a red cosmos, white beaded stamen, white sweetheart blossom, white Kort & Godt chrysanth and a red rose.  I finished off the top of the card with dots of White Opal liquid pearls.  The little knob handle is from Tim Holtz

Mary x

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They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old,

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

We will remember them

Feeding the birds ......

My DT card for this week's Papertake Weekly Challenge which is 'anything goes' with the optional extra to make a Christmas Card - this week's challenge is sponsored by Lili of the Valley.  The papers are LOTV and the image is from 'Tis the season' artpad.  I used silver lame ribbon, eyelash edge guipure lace, 5mm clear gems, tiny red berries, Kort & Godt Chrysanth, mocha beaded stamen and I made the poinsettia flower with a die, glittered it then added some berries from an ivory gypsophalia in the centre

The trees are shedding their leaves ready for winter - spotted this one at the weekend and just had to take a quick photo 

see you soon, Mary x

Include stripes .....

Posted by Mary

This is my DT card for The Ribbon Girl November card challenge 'include stripes'  - I used paper from 'Always and Forever' pad from Lili of the Valley.  The image is from their marvellous art pads which are so useful and match the paper pads perfectly.

My flowers are 30mm wild rose, pink cherry blosso, lily and sweetheart blossoms, ribbon is vintage pink fluted edge with silver twine and some scallop edge guipure lace, all from The Ribbon Girl

 As usual we are kindly sponsored by our lovely friends Lili Of The Valley who will give our lucky winner a stamp of their choice from the LOTV catalogue and the Ribbon Girl who will give our winner a £10 voucher towards a spending spree in their online store

 

 

I'm lookin forward to seeing your cards!

Mary x