Ear candy

I have a penchant for eccentric earrings.  Things that look like they should be something else.  Or something different or quirky.  My Scrabble tile earrings, Pride and Prejudice and Lego ones take pride of place in my collection.

At the Big Church Day Out back at Bank Holiday weekend, I came across a stall from a company called DIY beads who were selling beads and you could make them into necklaces and bracelets at the time.

There were all sorts of cool and fancy ones. But the ones that attracted me the most were the sweetie ones.

Pink Shrimps are one of my favourite sweets so it was inevitable I would squeak and reach for these ones instantly.   The bananas, eggs and love hearts followed in that order.  It was a simple matter to bend a jump ring and add them to it plus earring backs.  Really not really craft in my case or making but simply the opening and shutting of rings of metal! 

Thus, because I feel a bit of a cheater, here's something else I made- a card for a fellow blogger's birthday.

My sister has a really cool dress-shaped punch.  As a birthday present- she cut me a box of dress shapes in different patterned papers. What a cool idea- it cost her very little but was a huge help to me!
I layered the dresses upon 3d pads to accentuate the bottom half and then added paper-shredded strips and some punched butterflies.



Linking up to Ta Dah Tuesday
Creative Mondays


Super Handmade Sundays with Sarah:

In and out linking party with Cynthia

Note it down

That Mahler 6 score has got a lot of use in my craft-escapades over the past couple of months- I think you're going to get bored of seeing it appearing on a ever-expanding collection of missives!
Nonetheless, it's fun trying to see how many ways I can use it!

The above card is for a family member who loves birds and enjoys listening to some classical music. I find it really hard a) buying presents for him and b) making cards for him. He's one of those typical men who it's really hard to purchase things for!  I am very pleased that CBC is not a typical man in that respect!

Anyway, I decided to combine the bird and music idea.  I wanted to try and ensure that it didn't look too girly with birds on but not sure if I succeeded or not. I used a free bird stencil from a magazine ages ago and cut two layers of birds and layered them up with 3d pads to add a little depth, rounded the corners of the card using a corner punch.  It looked a little bare so I added some quilling strips (recycled) to frame it a bit.



This one made use of the origami heart technique I picked up when I made CBC's Valentines card this year but in miniature form.  I used some William Morris sample print outs that someone had printed a couple of years ago to show examples to children at school. It was a bit dog-eared and out of use so I squirreled it away for future usage. I gave it to a girl in my orchestra who plays bassoon on Saturday as she is getting married in Wales next week.  She was surprisingly touched by it and didn't realise I had made it. I'm really glad I gave it to her!  Three of us are getting married from orchestra this year, so it's nice we've been able to discuss and compare notes!


Linking to:


Sarah's Super Handmade Sunday


Claire Justine's Creative Mondays


Cynthia's in and out linking party

One set of alphabet stamps

The birthday card season for me really begins from April when I have a whole plethora of birthdays (and thankyous!) to address up until August, where it calms down a bit. Oh except that I will have wedding craft mania then!  

I have been a bit smitten with my alphabet stamps (and that manuscript paper) so all three attempts today make use of them. 

This is for a close family member's E's 60th birthday which is today!  Happy birthday E!


He's a bit of a fan of many types of music- jazz, rock and all that and so I thought I'd celebrate that in this card! I watched an origami tutorial on Youtube to make the shirt.  Thank goodness for Youtube- there's NO way I could have followed a book instruction on this! I used peeloffs for the instruments and backed onto a variety of metallic cards.  Not so much a fan of this ink pad- it smudged a dozen times and didn't like most of the papers I tried it on!


Next up was a belated birthday card for one of my favourite bloggers, Katie at www.hooklineandsinkher2.blogspot.com Katie makes no bones about her love of cake (er- every blog post is it?) and so a TOWIC (much nicer version of TOWIE) was definitely the way forward!



Finally, it was CBC's birthday so I made use of his love of maps and bicycles in this card- using a bike stamp I bought to make the first card I ever made for CBC, combined with reused road atlas and old Royal Academy of Music concert programme.

I must find the pictures of that first ever card at some point- it's one of the cards I have been most proud of (and the most time-consuming- it must have been 10 hours in the make!)


Link-parties galore!!
Linking to:

Sarah's Super handmade Sunday


Linking to Creative Mondays with Claire Justine xoxo
and Cynthia at Feeding Big's In and out link party

Lakota, Lakota, wherefore art thou Lakota?  I come proferring Tahdahs!!!