JANUARY PARCEL FROM LIZ

When I opened my parcel from Liz and saw what she had put in her "love" part I smiled ............ I wanted to keep most of it for myself as I loved it too!! Then I looked at her "hates" and my heart sank, all the way to the floor!! What on earth was I meant to do with Chinese style dress toppers, a picture of a vase of roses and a couple of bits of blue/green paper? Never one to shirk a challenge I studied it all ............. then put it away! I pulled it out a few more times and took another look but that "hate" part never got any better.
Eventually a few things started to come together but only from the "love" part, still that was a start ......... as usual once I started putting stuff together a few more ideas came and in the end I surprised myself and made 6 cards from the parcel ........... and here they are ............


I don't much like green but I love the way this card turned out. The background, written paper & ribbon came from Liz's parcel, I added the heart doily & little topper. I haven't put a greeting on as I don't yet know what I will do with it ................ it may even find it's way into my art journal I like it so much!!!

Like the one above I love the way this turned out. It nearly all came from my parcel, I just put the butterfly onto a background piece of card to make it a little stronger and also so it showed up better. Again no greeting on here yet ............. to keep or to send? That is the question!

Another butterfly! Not that I'm complaining, I love them. Once again I backed the butterfly with card to strengthen it a bit. Liz had also included the negative part when she cut the butterfly out so I also backed that with card. Then I found a piece of card in my stash that I thought went nicely and a piece of ribbon for down the side.

Liz had out this paper in and at first I had no idea what to do with it at all. I tried several things but apart from wanting to use the ribbon (which is 2 pieces of green although the colour doesn't show too well) I had no ideas. Then I looked through some of my bits and found the little round topper which I layered onto a cream & then a white scalloped circle. Later I found the 3 little butterfly stickers and added them and the greeting in the circle.

Aaaah, that vase (or rather basket) of roses ............ what to do with it? I wanted to use something from Liz's hates and this looked the easiest! In the end it was a case of matting and layering, a little bit of glitter strip to liven it up and a greeting.

I kept looking at the sheet of Chinese style dress toppers Liz put into her "hates" ................ and thinking I hate them too!!! They just are not the sort of thing I would ever use on my cards, and yet a little part of me was saying "go on, prove they can be used" ............... so this morning I dragged out all sorts of bits of card, lace, ribbon, & anything else I thought might work. After a lot of playing around I came up with this card, only the dress comes from Liz's parcel, the rest is from my stash ................. not one of my favourites but I think it works ............. doesn't it?

Now a little rest before I have to rack my brains again over the February parcels ........... I really do enjoy doing this.

JANUARY PARCEL FROM PAT

A New Year and new parcels to play with. Opening the advent parcels leading up to Christmas was such fun and I have some lovely new bits to work with, but now the time came to start on our monthly parcels again.

January was my choice and I asked Liz and Pat to give me a selection of all those bits they love, you know the ones, we all have them, .......... they're the bits that somehow we never get round to using because we love them so much we want to keep them for ourselves. Well the screams probably reverberated all around the world at such a suggestion, ........ so I relented a bit and said I still wanted their favourite bits but I would also take some of those bits they "hated" too, ......... I also explained I did have to give some of my loved bits to them too (ooooooooh the pain!!!).

I heard more screams when they saw what I had given them but I ignored them ........... I was to busy panicking about what I was going to do with what I'd received!!!!!

As always though, once I got over my panic and set to work things came together. I made 4 cards from Pat's parcel (and I'm still playing with another one), so here they are .......................

This one came from Pat's "loves" .......... and I loved the paper too. I do like the little knitting needles and wool but I'm not into knitting, so although they are really cute I'd happily give them away. The silver edged piece of card came from my stash.

Another from the "loves", the stamped image is one of Pat's real loves, and the paper is gorgeous. I added the red card backing from my stash and also the greeting & red dots.

This was a mixture, the paper was from the "loves" part of the parcel and the topper from the "hates". I like the paper myself, and although the image isn't something I would normally choose I don't hate it myself. I did add the black behind it from my stash.

This was from the "hates" part of Pat's parcel .............. the flowers that is. The beads (which didn't come out well in scanning) and the dark blue background card are from my stash. The flowers came from a sheet of paper Pat put in, yes it was covered in those flowers ......... not a favourite of mine by any means!!! I had no idea what to do with it so I just started playing around .......... first I cut some of the corner flowers out thinking I could use them, that didn't work and I'm still playing around with those bits!! Then I realised if I cut the centre strip out that may work .......... well it's far from the best card I've ever made but I don't think it turned out to bad in the end ......... did it?

So it's onto my parcel from Liz now ................ I wonder what I'll come up with from her assortment of bits? You'll have to be patient until I'm ready to show!!!!!!!!!!

"WORD ART" CARDS

It's been a while since I posted ............ we're in to a new year now so it's time I added something here!
Firstly here are 2 cards I made for a challenge on a group I belong to, the theme was "Word Art" and these are what I did ............