Hello bloggers

I have one big news to share with you: I got a job. It is a full time with bit longer commuting, but hey I cannot always complain. I am happy and looking forward to buy some new stash soon. I hope I will have time to use it sometimes, hehe.

Now for all those very inspiring blogs that I follow I have to admit I was not visiting much recently, firstly I was too busy with interviews preparation then I started working with very short notice but I will get there and catch up with your blogs and get back to crafting too.

I was just going through my photos and found nice page that I never posted anywhere:


I used old Basic Grey papers, all flowers is hand made by me, butterflies are sizzix dies, the fabric flower uses same fabric used in dress, the only problem is that it looks more blue on the photo. The page is based on one Once Upon A Sketch sketch, good sketches are not only for challenges but for making pages afterwards. The photo is of my daughter on feis, and close up of my flower.


I just spotted one more page, made by same paper collection, I kind of clearing them up:


Me and OH on our honeymoon. I am not sure what I had in mind about this page, was probably considered as unfinished. I will think of that.

Have a nice day

xx

Few days ago a friend of mine Donka treated me with a blog award 'Liebster blog'.



 The idea of this one is promote small blogs, less then 200 follower and pass it to 5 other small blogs.
The rules are:

1. link the award back to person who gave it to you
2. Pass in to 5 small blogers
3. leave comments on their blogs
4. Liebster in German means dearest  

I must admit, it was not easy task for me to make this selection, many whom I would chose probably wouldn't bother, but anyway I made my list:

1. Triona 
2. Sam
3. Maria
4. Fiona
5. Suzie

This is all for now. hope I will post again soon.

Hello all my dear readers. I am sorry for being absent from my blog for so long.  No I did not hibernate, I had to activate myself in a job hunt and was preparing few job interviews. In order to do that properly I put away all my stash and kept away from crafting as much as possible. I did make few birthday cards and few tags, will share these with you in some other post. Unfortunately, I still don't have a good news to share with you in respect to my job hunt.

However I have one fantastic news to share with you, not one but two of my pages have been published in Issue 8 Crafting Ireland, see page 25. The Crafting Ireland is a free on-line paper crafting magazine packed with ideas, tips and techniques. I would recommend everybody to check it out:


Thank you Timi and Nicole for accepting my pages.

Few days ago I received a blog award from my dear friend Donka, will talk more about that in my next post. 

Have a lovely day

xx

Svjetlana   

Hello everybody

2011 is nearly over, I hope you all are getting ready to say good bye to 2011 and hello to 2012. I really hope that 2012 will bring only happiness and joy to all of you.

It was probably Halloween when I did few 12x12 layouts and since then I was busy with various things those that include crafting would be cards and mini books (read gifts) and so on.

Few days ago I wanted to do 12x12 page and I did not know were to start. Complete absence of inspiration. Then I remembered Once Upon a Sketch , I like this blog because it does not give you only fab sketch to work with but also journalling criteria gives you extra help with the inspiration.
So there is a sketch:
 
Journalling criteria was to write about Christmas day - what you do on the day. So it was just perfect for the day, and here is my page:


and a close-up of my journalling:


The light was very bad here today and I couldn't do very good photos of the LO. I will try tomorrow again before it is too late to enter this into the challenge. 

Here I used:

1. Papers: Bo Bunny
2. Dies: Spellbinders, Tim Holtz
3. Stamps: Unity, Tim Holtz
4. Inks: Ranger Distress
5. Ribbon; Prima
6. Bling: Imaginisce

And the photo of 2 little darlings from Christmas 2009.

Have a nice day

Svjetlana 

Hi all,

I hope you all had a nice Christmas and looking froward to a New Year now. I would like to share with you my last Christmas cards I did and few Christmas gifts I made:

1.  K & Co papers
2. Tim Holtz dies and distress inks
3. Martha Stuart and Fiskars Punches
4. Hero Arts Stamps
5. Spellbinders dies
6. Waltzingmouse Stams

Hello everybody

I always consider myself as a scrapbooker and not really a card maker. But I do odd cards for friends and family mainly when needed and they are always done in a last minute. Then I do Christmas cards again for family and friends. However when I do cards I approach to each card as an individual piece of art and as long as I do that way I really enjoy making them.

Then Christmas time comes, once a year; 15th December or beyond and I still have a long list of cards to do, and every year is the same. At that stage making cards should either turn into production or they won't be done and that is frustrating sometimes, at least for me. What about you?Should I skip my creativity and just produce lots of identical cards?

I found solution this time by buying few packs of charity cards and for my kids, I just showed them my stash and told them that I don't want to know anything about their cards done again in a last minute. And guess what, they did all of their cards by themselves, pity they closed them an I didn't take a single photo, not even a mobile phone snap.

I have few more cards to share with you that I made and managed to snap with my iPhone last second before closing the envelopes (under the moonlight, LOL) :


For these I used:

1. Hero Arts Stamps (musical background and Christmas bubbles)
2. Tim Holtz dies
3. my home made flower
4. Tim Holtz distress inks (new winter collection)
5. perfect pearls
6. Clear embossing powder -Ranger
7. Spellbinder die - label 
8. Waltzing Mouse Stamps (background on the label)

And this is all for today and probably last post before Christmas.

I wish all my readers very Merry Christmas and big thank you for all your support.

xx

Svjetlana

Hello everybody

No matter how hard I want to be better blogger, various things always get on my way and crafting and blogging goes into second plan.


I hope I will make it up to you buy offering one simple tutorial for all those enthusiastic crafters  who enjoy making own embellishments.

I came up with this watching several different tutorial for all sorts of flowers, so it is not exact copy of somebodies work but it is sure inspired by other peoples work. I love making these using tick handmade paper, unfortunately I cannot always find this one so there is a way to achieve the texture using cardstock.

For this project you need:

1. Solid core card (red and green) 
2. some punch with at least one pointy end, I am using very old craft tonic tear drop punch
3. some water mister
4. scissors
5. Liquid glue (look for acid free one if you are making these to use on your scrapbook pages)
6. inks - optional
7. micro-beads/beads/buttons for flower centre
8. one small circle in red, could be punched or hand cut   

• Punch out 10 petals using your chosen pointy punch. Trim off sound side of 5 of them so that are slightly shorter. Then put them all on a craft sheet or some scrap paper and slightly mist them. take care not to overdone.

• Then crunch up each of them making tiny balls, see the photo above.
• Carefully unfold each ball, and you can ink them at this stage if you wish. You might find that pigment or chalk inks are better for this then distress inks.

• In next step apply glue on your circle and start gluing larger petals as shown bellow: 

• Once first layer is done you have something like picture above. Then apply glue in a middle of your flower and glue second layer of the smaller petlas and there your flower nearly done:

• Then apply more clear glue in a middle and add your chosen flower centre. If you using micro beads it is a good idea to wait until the flower and glue is completely dry then continue with this step. This is to prevent your micro beads to be glued on places you don't want them to appear.      

• Once your flower is dry you can punch out some green cards and leafs under your flower bud.

And there are few cards I made with these:



Hope you enjoyed my tutorial. Have a lovely day.

Svjetlana x

Hello everybody,

First of all I would like to say big thank you to everybody who still reads my blog and even bigger thank you to those who leaves me comments, they are really appreciated.
I know I haven't been blogged for while and I did not craft much for quite long time. I am not looking for an excuse, but since I started my could computing and database administration course, my evenings are taken by the course. 
But what about my weekends:
Well we had a couple of these: 



so two weekends listening only load Irish music, but it was all worthwhile, you can judge yourself from the photo, (just noticed there is some littler in the photo, will have to do some editing before I print it out)
Then my DD2 got new cabin bed, one with  shelf, drawer and desk all integrated in one unit, and all came to us flat packed, nobody would think that it will take us two weekends to assemble the whole thing.  Again, a smile on the little face when all project was done confirmed that everything was worth of effort.
Now, back to my paper crafting, a friend, who also has some interest in scrapbooking had a birthday and decided to make her simple mini book that could hold in big photos as well. I decided to go for vintage shabby look, and there are some pages:







I used for the mini old but nice Papermania kit (papers and stickers) and made all flowers myself using my Sizzix big shot, dies, punches, handmade paper (pastel blue) and distress inks; aged mahogany and fired brick (for the flowers), then walnut stain, vintage photo, old paper... I cannot remember all I used. Anyway, she loved the book and the cards as well:


Lots of stamping, misting and inking went into this card. No pattern papers either, only stamps, Hero Arts for the images and the Unity stamps for the music massage. The flower was coloured by Derwent Inktense pencils, love love these. My DD1 got a pack of of them last Christmas, since then she is adding new colours to her collection every time she is in some art shop, so I decided to check out why she likes them so much, honestly, they are like a ink in a pencil, and you can guess, the pencils moved to live in mum's tote bag (LOL).

That is all for today. Have a nice day and thank you again for visiting me.

Svjetlana x

Hello Everybody

I did not make any new stuff recently but I thought it would be high time that I share mini book I did out of empty kitchen rolls for my swap partner Suzie. Suzie and myself agreed to do shabby style mini book kit, by decorating the first page (the cover) and keeping the rest of the book simple and adding few matching embellishments.

So this is my cover:

   
and few pages inside, I could not resist but put few flaps and one extra mini accordion book inside:
And finally I needed something to put a note on so did this tag:

So for the mini book I used Pink Paislee papers, Tim Holtz - Sizzix dies, Hero Arts stamps, Tim Holtz Ranger distress inks, bids and charms are by Cousin, Doilies are made by my Mum long time ago and pearls are from my stash - old stuff.
For the roses I used pink handmade mulberry paper, EK Success punches, Tim Holtz die and distress inks. If you are interested in having go with these yourself there is very good tutorial on You Tube  by Jannaviles here and finally the tag is made using Glimmer mists and distress inks, stamps and Hero Arts and Autumn Leaves and one of my roses and butterfly, again made with Tim Holtz Sizzix die.

I hope you like this, Suzie loved it anyway.

Have a nice day
Svjetlana x 

Greetings to all my readers


It is getting very cold over here and everybody is getting into Halloween spirit and there are sings of Christmas everywhere as well.
I am trying to worm up myself buy scrapping summer and even Easter photos (LOL). I have one page for you today that is based this time on the pencillines.com sketch. Pencil Lines is one more great sketch blog and I would advise everybody to visit it, they do new sketch every week and have fab designer team.
Now, this is my take:

Once again I used Fancy Pants papers, Tim Holtz dies, inks and stains. Background was a plane white paper once. I took a stamp that I had for ages, but never seen ink before, stamped and heat embossed (not seen very well on the photo) then I inked the paper, I am very pleased with the results. Funny thing about this page is that I started off to do clean and simple page, ended up with this messy background, but then what 'clean and simple' has common with farm, LOL?

And one close-up:


Oh, it seems I am not even late to enter this into RAK challenge, so I will try to do that.
That is all for today, I hope I will write something soon again. Have a nice day.

Svjetlana x

Hi Everybody

One quick post today. I managed again to make a page for Once Upon A Sketch Challenge and I thought I better post it on time and play along. Now I just realized that I did not meet the journalling criteria for the challenge, suppose to write something about 2 events from the past week and I didn't do that. Never mind I still like my page and I hope you will like it too.  Next time I will refresh my memory about the rules when doing writing.

This is the newest sketch:




And my page is: 




I used once again one old Fancy Pants kit, flowers are hand made using Sizzix and Spellbinders dies, tiny tags are by Sizzix (Tim Holtz),  buttons are Basic Grey, pearls and alphas from my stash - some old no-name stuff, border is made using MS punch, ribbon is by Pink Paislee. 

What a coincidence, just found a new challenge blog: Bird is the Word by following Helen from Scrap Addict and the word is 'Together'' for the current challenge. So I will enter my page into this challenge, it is not that I think I have a winning page, but it is fun doing those.

Hello everybody

After longer break from 12x12 I am back with freshly baked page and that is not even all, I am ready to participate in  Once Upon A Sketch Challenge  again. This time the sketch is:
 
and a journalling criteria is to write on the photo.

Now, the most important part- they changed the voting criteria and the winners will be chosen by YOU, all readers. I am not much in favour of that, but never mind I always end up with beautiful page and for that reason I can consider my self as a winner. I am not going to say go over and vote for me, but I would definitely recommend visiting the Once Upon A Sketch   for your own inspiration, it is full of amazing work. The sketches are fab and the designers are top class. If you decide to vote for me you can do it on 30th September  Once Upon A Sketch  andI will certainly appreciate that and say one big THANK YOU for everybody who did for me. Now, without further delays there is my page:

   
The photo is of my two little darlings, papers and rub-ons  are very old Fancy Pants and flowers as usual my own - have an indoor garden full of these (LOL). The rest is made using Sizzix dies and border is made using Martha Stuart punch.
And one close up:

So this will be all for today. I will have few more posts in following few days, so keep an eye on them. Thank you very much for the reading and one big thank you if you voted for me (this will be possible only on 30th September -Australian time) on Once Upon A Sketch.

Svjetlana xx

Hello everybody

I still do not have anything brand new to share with you, reason for that is;  I have been working on the toilet-roll mini book for another Do-Crafts swap, I am not going to share this one with you, at least not yet, but it inspired me to show you one of mini book covers I did this summer. I had a phase of making these and they were literally coming out of my sleeves. None of them is finished yet, but I am sure that the outside of this cover  is done:
ring biding technique is presented by Laura from the The Paper Trail , good bit of engineering is put in constriction of these which is not everybody's cup of tea, but I love it.  

Have a nice day and thanks again for visiting my blog.

Svjetlana x

Hello everybody

It seems I cannot really get back into my routine of everyday chores + scraping and blogging.
I haven't done any 12x12 page for while but have a pile of never posted pages done while ago. I would like to share 2 of them with you today. I did them just before going on the summer holiday, they are similar in design and use some of very old and some of new stash as well.
Second page, uses similar design:
 
I was trying to take a passport photos of my DD2, and it all took us 3 photo sessions and lots of photos taken untill we got something where she wouldn't be making faces or smiling or laughing.
Again I used kraft card that I just got at the time and stamped it on the left hand side with my brand new butterfly script background Hero Arts stamp and distressed it with the Ranger stain. The papers and paper flowers are from one of Papermania goody bags and fabric flower is hand made using the Webster pages netting. Title is stamped using Autumn Leaves and Hero Arts stamps. Borders are Martha Stuart punch and small craft tonic square punch used with border system to make a 'film'.

   
This is all for now. Thank you for reading my blog and all kind comments.
Svjetlana xx

Hello everybody

Sorry for long silence,  I just had lovely holiday  in my home country. I did not do any crafting recently, but I do have a pile of pages and few mini-books that I will be sharing with you soon.

For start, I will show you 2 pages I did long time ago both based on Pencil Lines sketches. The photos are  from our last summer holiday in Co. Wexford. I used scraps of papers, odd bids and bobs and hand made embellishments.


Title alphabets are die-cut using Sizzix Butterfly Kisses Bigz set, sooo Love those, the scallop frame, used for the journalling on the first page is also part of this set. Hero Arts stamps are used on the second page. For the second page I cut letters in grungeboard and only inked the edges slightly, I think they match colour of the stones very well.. Papers are My Minds Eye and Basic Grey.

End few close-ups:



I have to concentrate on a job-interview preparation, I hope I will be posting soon again, as I have more older stuff.

Thank you very much for reading and have a nice day.

Svjetlana xx

I had so much fun doing the Once Upon A  Sketch challenge last time. The newest sketch is as much inspiring as the previous one and I had to play again.

This is the sketch:
 
and the journalling criteria for this challenge was to use a quote with additional  journalling as optional. This is my take on the sketch:


A quote that perfectly described the moment was by Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky :"The soul is healed by being with children" from The Idiot.

The photos were taken one Septembers evening when we were going home after stressful working day and I decided to break the rules and stop in the park for only 15 minutes. We enjoyed that amazing autumn's sunshine and wonderful colours and all that their happiness made my day.

Used Basic Grey papers and stickers, some Prima flowers, Glimmer mist, Hero Arts stamps, Ranger inks and text is printed from the computer.


Thank you very much for reading my blog and all kind comments.

Svjetlana x






 

Hello everybody,

We have been enjoying real summer here these days, for those readers who are not familiar with Irish weather, temperature over 20 C degrees and whole day sunny day is not something we can see very often.

One my last post Triona asked me if I hand stitched that big flower behind the photo: Yes I did. I know it sounds crazy but I always start that and regret when I am about third way through (LOL), but once I finish the project I forgot all 'pain' (LOL) and do it again.
   
 I would like to show you a couple of projects made out of scraps of papers. When I like some paper pack, first it takes me ages to start cutting them, they kind of have to 'mature' with me (LOL) then once I start using them I don't like to waste a bit of them.

   
This one is inspired by LO published in Scrapbooking Trends , not sure which issue was it. I used Basic Grey papers, one very old collection, my home made flowers and Sizzix dies and grunge board (to cut big letter) and Smooch mist. Stamps are Autum Leaves and Making Memories, I think.
The photos of my 2 daughters from last summer holiday. The circle is hand stitched, I again.

The second LO is using leftovers Pink Paslee papers, chipboard sticker and foam letters from last crop I went to. I added the Webster Pages trim and my own flower. This time I used my toy sewing machine for the stitching.

And few close ups:

 
Thanks again for reading my blog, I will be back soon.

Svjetlana x









 

Hello my dear readers

I managed to finish challenge page on time! Hooray! The challenge is from Once Upon A Sketch and this was the sketch:
   

I used K&Co papers for this + kraft card, lots of inking and  distressing. The flower is my own, made from same fabric as the dress, just used reverse side. The journalling criteria for the challenge is to name the person on the photo and put at least one fact about the person in two 2 sentences long, which I did. My daughter Barbara is on the photo and I wrote about her winning a trophy on her class feis.  
And a close up:




This is all for now. Have a pile of pages that are waiting for my camera, hopefully I will write something soon again.

Svjetlana x

It is now second week into summer school holiday, and for the first time after long time, my children can actually enjoy their holiday without going to daycare, I don't have to say how happy they are about that.

I made few cards for their teachers and I want to share them with you. This time I want completely shabby with my cards, very little pattern paper, lots of inks, stamps, distressing, my brand new Hero Arts script butterfly stamp, which I sooooo love and of course my home grown flowers:






 

Hello everybody,

I hope somebody is still reading my blog. When I started it I thought I would be posting far more often then I do, but at this stage I can promise at least 2 posts per months. I hope quality is what counts not quantity.

I was too busy with many different things, but craft-wise I had few 'Thank You' cards for teacher and her assistant to make, I did couple of LO's (they still waiting to be photographed) and I managed to make few more yo-yo flowers and take few snaps (forgive me a bad photo quality as I did it with my mobile phone) for the tutorial.

I saw the instructions for this flower for the first time about year ago in Simply Handmade by Northridge Media, they used it to decorate hair clips and hairband, the flower is very versatile, could be used on garments, handbags and of course papercraft.

Now, for the flowers you will need some fabric (non-stripy), scissors, needle, some thread and something for flower centre, I like using beads or button. If you not good in sewing don't be put off, it is really simple.

Cut the circle out of fabric about twice a size of your desired flower, small imperfections will not affect the flower, so you do not need die cut machine for this, hand cut circle will be just fine.

Sew long stitch along edge of the circle all way around, you do not have to tie knot at this stage, just leave enough length of the thread loose

When two ends of the thread meet together, finish on the same side of fabric where you started and tie both ends together, you have to have a little sack.

Put your 'sack' flat on the surface centring the gathered bit as flower centre. To make your flower looking nicer sew both ends of the thread to the back side and tie them into a knot on the back, then you can sew back one end and use it for sewing your chosen flower centre.

Hello everybody

I know I haven't been around for while again, and that is due to things; one I am working hard on looking for new job and second I am taking part in do-crafts swap and most of my crafting time (and that was not much)  I spent making items for the swap, which I cannot share right now.

But I can share one old page (from February) that was poorly forgotten and I like it. I hope you will like it too:
 
I still have to add journalling.  Used Basic Grey papers, various dies ( spellbinders, sizzix) punches: MS and EK success, MS micro beads  and my so much loving Technique Tuesday stamps, small letters are Forever Friends stamps.

That would be all for now. Hope to come back soon with some new tutorial.

Svjetlana x

Hi everybody, I hope you all are having nice day and lots of fun.

As I said in my last post I will be going to my second crop, again designed by Annamarie. This time we worked with lovely summery papers by Pink Paislee, Hometown collection. The collection was just perfect for photos from our summer holidays in my parents house.


It was so hot, hot, hot that the children were cooling down under a sprinkler. These are very old photos, my DD1 and my nephew on the second LO when they were little. Papers, letters and stickers are all from the Pink Paislee hometown summer collection.

Again I decided  the papers are too nice to be waisted and made one more page out of the leftovers and the second page is on the way too.:

This time I kind of took leftovers and photos and 'let them fell on the card' no sketch or anything planed in  advance. I am very please with the result. Two felt flowers are made by me as extra touches. Photos are of my DD2 from our last visit.

Some close-ups:



Thank you very much and have a nice day.

Svjetlana x

Hello my dear readers.

I have been scrapbooking for now nearly 4 years but only two months ago I managed to attend to a crop for the first time ever. The class was designed by Annamarie from TheScrapbookstore.ie and the details are here. I must admit I really enjoyed a social aspect of the crop. We used Salt Air collection, papers buttons and chip stickers by Cosmo Cricket, lovely papers and other items.

Then, despite all enjoyment and excitement it took me nearly 2 months to complete those two simple pages, had to make some adjustments to the original design so that fits with my photos. These are the pages that I end up with:


Then I've got inspired and made two more pages from the leftovers:


Both of these pages are based on sketches, first one is from the Page Maps (I think)   and the second one is based on the scrap-a-little sketch, it seems I cannot make an original page anymore (LOL), but there is something in those two pages that is not usual me: I've got loose with mists and stamps and I must admit I am happy with the results.

I am going tomorrow night again on the same crop, I am looking forward to it and hope this time I will be quicker with finishing pages.

All have a nice time till next post and thank you for reading my blog and any comments.

Svjetlana xx

Hi everybody,
I cannot believe I am posting today again, but there is a reason; I was just trilled to see that Helen from the Scrap-A-Little become my follower. Thank you so much Helen, I adore your sketches, flowers and your pages of course and would recommend everybody to visit your blog.

And now I would like to share two pages I made using Helen's  sketches:



It looks like the white balance on the page two is not right, the background should be snow white. Anyway all flowers on these pages are hand made by me, again something I learnt on Helen's blog that a page can look stunning without spending a fortune on embellishments.

I used satin ribbon to make roses, there are lots of tutorials about these on YouTube, and white embroidery fabric and inks to do Yo-yo flower on the page 2.  The yo-yo flowers were inspired by two my daughter has on her dress, not very visible on the photo.

The butterflies on the page one are QuitzKutz die and Marta Stuart punch and bling swirl is again 'home' made using hot fix gems by Imaginesca. And there are few close-ups:



  
These yo-yo flowers are very simple to make and any fabric could be used, if anybody is interested in tutorial, let me know and I will post one here.

Thanks again, see you soon,

Svjetlana x

Hello everybody

First of all I would like to say 'Big Thank You' to everybody who commented my last post or emailed me regarding my job problems. Your moral support really means me a lot, and my story is turning from bad into worse at the moment, but at least I am meeting a solicitor this week, so will get a proper advice.

I would also like to say 'Thank You' to everybody who visits my blog and what is better way to say thank you but 'Thank You' cards.
This is all for tonight, I hope you like them.

Hope to write soon again

Svjetlana xx