Jack turns 8 years

Hard to believe our little man is 8 years old, time just flies by doesn't it?

I had to get creative and design him a card, nothing to babyish as he has out grown marvel characters and the likes.

So the only thing that would fit the bill was a football shirt in his favourite team colours (Sunderland)

So I set too creating a SVG cut file for my Silhouette Cameo and I have to say I was rather thrilled with the results.

I actually enjoyed the creating so much that I mad a good few in different styles for The perfect male cards.

Jack was thrilled with his card so a good result all round.

Happy Birthday Jack.

14 Days of Goodness

Time is precious isn't it?

We are always told to use our time wisely and we did exactly that.

If you have been watching the drama The Loch you would have seen where We spent our first 7 days.

Fort Augustus is bang in the middle of Loch Ness.

It has an amazing Loch system and I could watch the boats getting through each of the gates all day.

Chris was like a pig in muck watching and I had to drag him away or we would have been there for the whole of our break.

We wern't blessed with the weather but we were certainly blessed with the scenery.

We had lodgings in a very remote part so peace and quiet was ours when we needed it, we had the most gorgeous Log Cabin which took 2 years to build.

It had everything we needed and attention to detail was amazing.

This was to be a cycling holiday and we took both of our bikes but unfortunately I collapsed with my back 2 days before we went so my bike never turned a wheel, I took lots of meds with me and Chris looked after me and we managed to get out each day with lots of rest between.

We only went out for dinner 1 day as the kitchen was so well equipped that we didn't need to go out.

We started every day with a full english breakfast which set us up for the day.

Above was our meal we had out at the local Pub.

We both enjoy cooking oh! And eating haha!

You can see just how beautiful it is.

It was lovely to have each others company, doing just what we wanted, when we wanted. Bliss!

We returned home for our 2nd week and had outings.

We also managed to fit in decorating the bathroom.

Back to the grind now, chris is back to work this morning and the heavens have opened to mark the occasion.

Making a Fairy Garden

I've seen so many people making a Fairy Garden that I wanted to get in on the action.

Have you got one? 

So where to start, I know you can buy all of the accessories but i think it would be fun to make your own too.

I decided to make a little fairy house using Powertex and air dry clay. The toadstools were fun to make and the clay worked well and painted with mica powders to get the vibrant red.

This started as a mint sauce glass jar and after a couple of weeks indoors it will be able to go in the garden as it will be weatherproof, always a good thing in the UK. The lid is still removable so I would fill it with sand before placing it in the garden just to give it some weight.

I added aluminium foil under the material to give shapes of doorways and window and a little extra padding to the lid.

 

I used the ivory Powertex to dot the toadstools.

Adding the plaster door as the fairy has to have a door to get into her home.

I finished with a dusting of Mica Powder to highlight.

So now I need to figure what to make next.

Could It Be Magic

I think we all need a bit of magic in our lives at the moment don't we?

I knew what I wanted to make but was unsure how I would get there.

It started with a bit of wire to make the spectacles, i think Harry Potter would be proud of my handy work haha!

I then had to think of making a want, not something that iI had ever thought I would need to make but a piece of dowelling helped me on my way.

So then making the wizards hat using a paper cone and tin foil to create the shape before soaking the material with the black Powertex fabric hardener.

Making the face in the hat was fun.

Finishing with mica powder to show off the folds and accent the accessories.

 

Colour to Relax

I forgot, yes I forgot how relaxing it is to colour, I got some new watercolour brush pens, Kuretake Clean Colour and just had to try them out.

I can tell you these brush markers are amazing, they flow like a dream and the brush on them is so soft and tapers to the smallest of points making them perfect for detail work.

I used the Clean Color Markers neat, i added no water at all but I could have.

Of course I used Mo Mannings images from Mo's Digital Pencil as I love her work.

They haven't made it to a card yet but I'm sure they will soon.