The Frog Paperweight that lead to cards

Meet my cheeky frog.  Hand painted pebble with oil paints, varnished, then some googly eyes added, along with a foam base to prevent scratches.

Doesn't it look cute in it's wild habitat! LOL!  I gave it to my other half to brighten up his desk.

When I cut out the foam feet base, this gave me another idea for card toppers.  A silly but fun one, that I think are great for kids.  I enjoyed making them too.  I need to make a few more and sell as a pack of four or so.  I'm not convinced that single cards are always the bet option with Etsy because of the lack of postage options.  Which I'm certain is puts most buyers off if they want more than  one item of you.

As you can see the punch confetti came in handy once again in these cards.

Mums Birthday Card

So today is my mothers birthday and this is the card she got from me.  A nice little embossed card topped with a dog violet flower.  Added a couple of acrylic gems and 2 shades of butterflies punched out of a paint colour booklet.

Since we live in different countries I ordered flowers to be delivered by Bunches.co.uk, who I find are good value and actually deliver on time.  This is a biggie when you live on an island.  After all you don't want the people you care about to think you forgot them.

I used another company once and they not only failed to deliver on the day, but any of the following 3 days, the first bouquet sat in a courier depot for 4 days.  They sent out a second one, but it was a week after my friends birthday so wasn't happy with their service at all and the discount they offered on my next order was no consolation either.

Petalfly

When I started this card, this is not at all how I had envisaged it.  Originally I had the peony leaves as trouser legs, the cornflower petal as the hat and feathers for wings of this majestic fairy.  As you can see it turned out rather different indeed..... such is my cluttered brain.

 

Still it makes a rather interesting butterfly from flower petals.  I added a touch of glitter and sealed it all under plastic.  I'm wondering if a fixing spray would have been better.  I wanted to preserved it for longer, but it looked better before the plastic topping.

King Cole Country Tweed

Like I said I couldn't wait to get into that new multi coloured yarn.  I've made myself a pair of socks for the winter since I've always got cold feet.  I love the autumnal shades of the yarn.

When the socks were done I decided on a slouchy hat.  Of course when you make one that's sorta pointy you need to put something on the end.  A couple of dangly tassels might have been better, but I settled for a braid instead to keep things simple.  I added a round of single crochet to the brim, to stop it from stretching too much.  I'd say I like the effect the yarn has in the hat better.

I will be going up on etsy later, at some point.

Magic Seaweed

This is a new thing I'm trying out. Using seaweed as card toppers. I let it dry out, then press it for a few days.  I've found that dipping the ends in glue then glitter, causes it to curl up again.  Not something I want.

So I've opted for fixing it to the card first, dotting some glue about and sprinkling the glitter.  Works better but sometimes you have to do it a few times to get the right effect.  Still it's fun to play around with.  Looks like trees, some shaped by the wind.  Or perhaps seaweed with the mermaids magic touch ;) 

These aren't finish yet and still a work in progress, but like how they are turning out so far.

Recycling card bits

I've got a lot of bits floating around in my stash box, so much I don't know half of what is in there.  With all the new papers and bits I've bought recently I thought it was time to try and get some use out of them.

The one on the left is a garment tag which has made a nice romantic boho card.  The Daughter card is bits from an old birthday card.

This has also led to the beginnings of Christmas...... not like that word hasn't been mention often already!  But why are people talking about it in June and July?!

I'm just going to say here's a nice winter scene and some glittery seaweed!  The Seasons Greetings went onto the seaweed card.

Smoothie ice lollies

I've been hunting for lolly moulds for a while and even though I got a great set in TK Maxx, they wouldn't fit in my drawer freezer!

Eventually Lidl got little mould packs in, so I picked up 3 packs.  Basic and do the job, so log as you don't drop them, like I've done and cracked them.   I like to have fruit smoothies because you can bash anything into them and blitz.  Especially good if you want to use up the fruit before having to chuck it out!  I hate waste.

So I've been mixing and matching our fruit in the blender to make refreshing ice pops, I also added some of my elderflower champagne (although it went to one end of the lolly).  As you can see they slot into each other, perfect for lining up in the freezer drawer.

I also played around with vodka pops, but you can only have 20% vodka in there so really not worth it in my opinion.  I haven't tried the straight elderflower yet, but think that they will be fine, being low alcohol.