Molly Blooms Watering can

It is that time of the month again where we get out the Molly Blooms and have a go at The Paperlane Challenge. This month I wasn't at all sure whether I would enter as it really was a challenge as we have to create anything but a card and as that is the only papercraft I do I was stumped. But then I thought back to the lovely day I had in April at a local craft shop who had a demonstration by Claire taking place and because I was fascinated with her stamps I went along to have a look. At this point I wasn't particularly stamping as I had not managed to get a good result but by talking to the ladies in who run the shop and Claire I picked up loads of tips and am now enjoying stamping and have quite a few now and getting relatively good results. Anyway on that day Claire had alot of samples with her and one of these was for her model of a watering can using her stamps and I fell in love. Although it was a bit extravagant for someone who wasn't doing much stamping I bought the pack so I could perhaps one day do something similar. I tucked the template away but have used the stamps themselves many times since and realised that with this challenge now was the perfect time to have a go at making the watering can. I ackowledge it isn't perfect but I am pretty pleased at the result considering it is a first attempt and would certainly make another in the future as it was not nearly as difficult as I anticipated:





I am entering this in:

The Paperlane Challenge

Molly Blooms

I absolutely love this range of stamps and so I am pleased that The Paperlane are again asking us to use them for their challenge this month. The theme is shades of summer and I started off by choosing my backing paper and colouring the image to match. I am not sure how well it shows up in the picture but the paper has a glittered effect on some of the flowers. I matted the image with co-ordinanting card and then used a matching piece of pink lace ribbon to finish it all off. I hope this has created a simple but effective card that can be used for many occasions as I have not included a sentiment this time:




I am entering this card in:

The Paperlane Challenge

Competition win

When

Paula

announced she was doing the race for life in June I was more than happy to sponsor her as it supports the great charity Cancer Research UK. I know several people that have battled various types of cancer and sadly not all of them have won the battle, so the more research that can be done to help more people survive in the future can only be a good thing. Anyway Paula was approached by the owner of

Old Maiden Aunt yarns

to offer a couple of prizes in a raffle to those who sponsored her and I was lucky enough to win a skein of yarn. My first choice of colour had been discontinued so I picked another and went with the colourway of Jasper and the package arrived today:




The yarn is just gorgeous and so soft as well as being a really unusual colour and unlike anything I currently have in my stash. I also thought the little packet of sweets and badge were a lovely touch too especially as this was a competition prize. In fact I was very impressed from start to finish as I didn't expect to be able to choose the colour of yarn and to receive the little extras was a great bonus.

Mums birthday card

As it is her birthday today I can show you the card I made for her:



As I mentioned in my previous post it is another Josephine Wall image and I am pleased with the result this time and mum was happy with it which was the main thing.

Talking of my cards I am starting to tip my toe in the water towards trying to sell them by putting a few on ebay. I have had plenty of people looking and even one watcher but I really don't know where to start to seriously look at selling them. I have thought about an etsy or folksy shop and there was an advert in the local paper last week about a new shop selling home made goods who were happy to be approached by local crafters but I don't know what is the best way to go. I don't expect to make alot of money from it as it is primarily a hobby but a bit of pin money would be nice as well as giving me a practical way of making room for further cards I make. I think what makes me the most nervous though is that I have little confidence in my own abilities as I am highly critical of my own cards and dread selling something only for the buyer to come back and say it is rubbish and they want there money back. Family and friends always say they are nice but that isn't real feedback and some of the cards that people show online make mine pale into insignificance. I suppose it is hard to really know what will sell as people's tastes vary so much so even iflike it that won't necessarily be the case for everyone.

Josephine Wall

I love Josephine Wall's art but decided that to do another Heaven and Earth designs on top of Martyr's was too much for someone who is trying to reduce the number of projects they have on the go. But when I saw that Joanna Sheen was bringing out a set of decoupage of her art I knew it was a must have for me. This is the first card I have finished out of the set and I am quite pleased with it:



Admittedly it is not perfect as you can see where I have joined up two bits of card, although that isn't as obvious in real life it seems to stick out like a sore thumb on this picture. It is hard to show you all the detail in the artwork as it is difficult to get a really good shot of it but it is absolutely packed with detail, to the point I see new things every time I look at it. I was thinking of using this for mums birthday card but in the end went with a different image from the pack and I am currently putting it all together. The funny thing is I had a firm idea of what I was going to use but after playing with card it has totally changed as the picture just came alive on something different than what was in my mind.

Paperlane challenge

It seems quite fitting that the first papercraft challenge I am attempting is a brand new one from the paperlane. The brief is to make anything that isn't square and the main image must use Molly Bloom's stamps. I am getting quite a collection of these stamps now and I struck lucky with this design as I just happened to have some paper that looked like wood to stamp my fence and I also found the perfect background paper in a freebie pad I got with a magazine. So the outside of the card is uses a simple peel off border with adeasive gems for a bit of bling and then a Molly image and sentiment:

A close up of each of the panels:




Finally the centre picture which apart from the mentioned backing paper and a sentiment the girl is holding are all taken from Molly Bloom stamps:



I am entering this card in:

The Paperlane Challenge

Update

Well its been a very long time since I last wrote here and so much has happened that it is impossible to know how to summarise it all. What I will say is that although in reality nothing has changed everything feels very different. This is because this time last year I didn't know that I was about to be hit with one of the biggest challenges of my life when I was admitted to hospital with a serious infection. At first it seemed like a straight forward admittance in that it was obvious I had an infection so I thought I would go in and have some antibiotics and come home and carry on where I left off. As you can probably tell that was not the case and over the following weeks and months I underwent numerous scans and tests in a bid to get me well, but at one point it seemed like this was a battle I may not win. I have to say there are times I had imagined myself in such a situation but it wasn't at all like I imagined. For a start I wasn't as scared as I thought I would be, but the one emotion that suprised me was profound sadness at what I would miss, but that also somehow gave me the strength to keep fighting as I wasn't giving in that easily. The main problem I had was that I needed specialist input from a gynaecologist and it just didn't happen as the one who was treating me failed to take any action and left it to the renal team to do what they could. Out of desperation I asked for another opinion and then things really got moving as he got me in for surgery as a matter of urgency and although I had a bumpy recovery I got there in the end. However the experience left me profoundly shaken both physically and mentally as I didn't expect to become so ill and then have to fight to get the right treatment. I was in and out of hospital from July until October and spent a total of just over eight weeks as an inpatient and it is only now I am starting to feel somewhat like my old self again.

But as I said everything feels different because I have spent the year recovering so life around me has moved on but it feels like I have been left behind in some respects. Certain friendships seem to have shifted since this happened and I am not sure where I fit in now but maybe it is a natural progression rather than an effect of the illness. The other thing that is different about this year is that I haven't been studying as it was not possible to even consider it and although I have just one course to do before I get my degree I am not sure I want to do it. However I still want my degree and I think I am just out of practise so need to just grit my teeth and jump in when October comes as it will be worth it in the end. Thanks to getting a first for the big assignment for my last course it bumped me up to a 2.1 for the course as a whole so I now can't get a degree lower than a 2.2and if I do well enough I may just get a 2.1 degree which would be a dream come true so it is worth persevering. The other thing that has changed is that I am not on the transplant list at the moment as I got taken off in early August whilst in hospital and still remain suspended now. I have had scans and tests and am waiting to hear from the surgeon if it is still possible to have a transplant. The main issue is that the infection was right where they would operate to put the kidney in and there is a concern that I could be at risk they will cause another infection. If this were to happen at a time my immune system was suppressed it wouldn't be good and although they have reassured me they could deal with it I would likely lose the kidney if this happened. As I have said before I am at higher risk of it not working so how many risk factors will they accept before they say no. That I can only leave to the surgeon but it is a stressful time waiting for the outcome.

As you can imagine having a long recovery has given me plenty of time for my craft stuff and here another change has been hearalded as I have returned to card making and am loving it. In fact this is one reason why I am restarting my blog as I have discovered all the challenge sites and very soon I wll be putting up some pictures of cards I am entering into various challenges. I am still cross stitching and knitting but haven't been keeping my albums up to date as I just haven't felt like it but progress is being made.

I think thats all for the moment so I will stop there before I bore you all silly with my ramblings.