Royal Wedding Street Party Blog Hop

Street Party? For those of you not from the UK, it is a tradition of ours at times of national celebration, like today, to hold street parties. Residents apply to the local council for permission to close the road to traffic for the day, long tables are set up down the middle of the road, with party food, lots of cake and jelly for the children, and plenty of games to play

So today sees a virtual street party for you to join in, hosted by The Making Spot, a brand new website from Future Publishing. A fabulous prize is offered for one of you, with the chance to pick up lots of goodies as you hop along as well - scroll down to see my party parcel for you

I decided to make a banner. I printed some union jack flags off the internet, and used all red, white and blue (how fortunate that the USA and UK share the same flag colours, I was able to pick up the red white and blue ribbon to thread the banner)

All the banner shapes and embellishments were cut from the Birthday Bash cartridge, using my Cricut expression. The banners were cut at 8", the scallop layer in blue, and the straight edge in white. I decorated these with silver card candi from Craftwork Cards

I cut the letters at 3 1/2" in blue (shadow), then red, and stitched with white thread.....

This crown seemed very appropriate for today.....





I cut this sundae dish from one of the printed out Union Jacks........

and added some glossy accents to the cherry, and glitter to the 'cream'

I embossed the cupcake holder with the cuttlebug, then used a white pen to add detail, as for the cupcake, well, if Dunkin Donuts can make a Royal Wedding donut, I am sure that someone, somewhere in the UK has made a Union Jack cupcake!

The balloons were given a thick coat of glossy accents, they look as if they might just float away

I hope you enjoyed looking at my project. Now you need to pick up a letter from me,

C

and hop over to Kath's blog for more inspiration (there are some fantastic crafters taking part in this hop, so you are in for a treat, if you get inspired, be sure to click to follow them). You will pick up another letter there, and eventually be able to make a word which may win you the main prize

What am I offering as a prize?

A 60 sheet pack of 12 x 12 paper called Social Butterfly

A pack of pretty pastel butterfly brads

Some pink and cream chipboard butterflies

Three chalk inks, in pastel green, pink and lilac to coordinate with the rest of the prize package

All you have to do is leave a comment on this post (be sure to leave enough information for me to contact you should you win)

As usual, I will mail to anywhere in the world (thank you those who support my blog for making this possible)

I will draw a winner in one week's time, Friday 6th May, winner will be posted on Saturday 7th May

Last of all in this marathon post, it was my turn to set the challenge on the Polkadoodles blog this week. I decided on a colour challenge:

Any shade of blue, any shade of aqua, any shade of purple

The twist is that you have to use all three on your card

It is also our 'stashbox stamp' week, when the design team use stamps by other manufacturers, I used this rainy day girl by Sugar Nellie, and paper pieced her clothes, I rather like her polka dot wellies and coat. Papers were all printed from the Sundae of Seasons CD (don't forget you have until sunday to have a chance of winning the newest Polkadoodles CD, scroll down to the post to leave a comment

Definitely not a crafting day today, along with millions (billions?) of others around the world, I will be glued to the TV watching every minute of the celebrations. Finally, I wish William and Kate all the luck in the world, and hope they have a long, happy and joyous marriage. What a gorgeous young couple they seem. Enjoy the day everyone

Birthday Bash

The new Letraset website is up and running, and to celebrate they are having a draw for ten assorted ProMarker 5 sets - that's a total of 50 ProMarkers for some lucky person. Pop over HERE to see how you can be in the draw. Someone has to win - I hope it's one of you!

A couple of cards I made for Scrappy-go-Lucky today - I still have my craft stuff in that untidy pile on the sofa, waiting for a home, so no playtime for a couple of days.

The first card is one of the shaped ones - I really love this cartridge, there are lots of shaped card, useful phrases and images on there. I cut the roller skate boot at 5 1/2", and just decorated it with a punched cuff, and some ribbon. The craftwork cards sentiment button was the right shape and size for the card

For this next one I used the '3 cheers for you' phrase to make a male card. I cut the base image out in kraft cardstock, and used some houndstooth check paper for the accents

I cut the beer mug out in vellum and ran it through the cuttlebug using the bubbles folder - I put it in backwards, but by some happy accident, debossing rather than embossing gave it more of a look of a dimpled beer glass. I swiped the glass with antique paper distress ink, and added some puffy fabric paint to the top to look like froth (I used Pebeo paint, I haven't seen that on sale in the USA, but Tulip paint available from Michaels and Jo-Ann would fit the bill). The tiny birthday cheer sentiment is a clear sentiment sticker from Anita available from Docrafts

If you love using your Cricut, the Scrappy-go-Lucky blog has some great inspiration on innovative ways to use your cartridges and machine.


Things I find difficult when I get back home
Having to pay to park the car
Getting used to driving on the left again (stay off the roads in Solihull until I have acclimatized!)
Feeling cold - really, really cold, and it's getting colder


Things I love when I get back home
Going to the pub with friends for an evening of good food and chat, by a roaring log fire
Marks and Spencer
Cumberland sausage and proper bacon
Edited to say, Bethany asked 'What is proper bacon?' - well the bacon here in the UK is more like Canadian bacon, I think in the USA you would call it ham. It has a totally different flavour to the bacon in the USA, and of course when you are used to something you have grown up with, it's a treat to get to eat it again
See you tomorrow - how are your Christmas preparations going? Mine? Don't ask....

If it's Friday, it must be Polkadoodles

This week, our challenge is to make the sentiment the main focus of your card. That was an easy one, because on all the Polkadoodles CD's there are these sentiments, all ready to print out, looking gorgeously layered, and matching the papers perfectly.

I printed out a sheet of the brown gingham onto white cardstock, and cut the base card out of that, using the Birthday Bash cartridge for the Cricut that I got from Scrappy-go-Lucky. There are some really great shaped cards on there, and I liked the unusual shape of this one. I cut the green square from some plain Bazzill card, and the sentiment from the Sundae of Seasons CD by Polkadoodles.

I added a real button (threaded of course, buttons can't be naked in this cold weather), a bit of stitching, and a couple of mugs printed out from the CD (I printed them out in black and white, and just coloured the handles with my apple promarker)

If you love challenges, hop over to the blog to see what the team have done, and join us for the challenge
I was asked how I kept the threaded buttons flat. The way I do it is to tie the knot of thread on the top of the button rather than on the underside. I also use quite fine thread usually, embroidery skeins work well. I stick them on the project with a glue dot. The button in the photo above is an exception, I fastened the thread on the underside as I wanted the button to sit high above the printed green one.

I was having a conversation with my daughter who was trying to remember how old she was when she stopped believing in Santa. (It was probably quite young since she had two older brothers to torment her.)
So I said, in suitably anguished tones 'Alex, what are you trying to tell me? There is no Santa? NOOoooo, I can't bear it'
To her credit, (well, she has had me for a mum for the whole of her life, and is used to me now), she replied, without missing a beat
'I'm sorry mum, I meant to break it to you more gently'
I love my kids!

Don't forget to drop by on monday for the first of my monthly Promarker giveaways