I'M LATE! I'M LATE!

Yes I'm late doing this again, so much to do, not enough time! Here we are though with the cards from my parcel from Liz for March, the theme was chosen by Pat and was "The Four Seasons". I wasn't happy with my Spring choice and ended up making a second one so I did 5 cards from this parcel ................. and here they are ...........

This is (obviously!) my Winter card, couldn't resist using those cute little robins

This is my Spring card ......... the second one I made. Those little birds nesting are definitely saying Spring is here

This is my Summer card, beautiful lilac

This was the first card I made for Spring then I decided it seemed more Autumn to me for some reason ....... still not sure really which it suits best!

This is my Autumn card, the skeleton leaves and the touches of red/pink/brown do it for me

We also decided this year that we would make one Christmas card each month, I have finally caught up with them and here are my first 3 -- Jan/Feb/March -- cards ready for Christmas!

So I am all up to date for the moment and time to move onto the April parcels.

MARCH PARCEL FROM PAT

Time to open the March parcels, the theme chosen by Pat was "The Four Seasons" .......... lot's of lovely bits and pieces to work with in Pat's parcel. My only problem was I don't do Easter or Halloween cards and nothing was really shouting Spring or Autumn to me, so I did my Summer & winter cards then had a think about the bits I had left. To actually make Easter or Halloween cards seemed a waste of time as I wouldn't use them and yet there were some really cute bits Pat had included that I wanted to use ........ eventually I decided to make 2 "tags" that could be used on a card if I wanted or, who knows, may find their way into my Art Journal for my future pleasure!!!
So here they are, hope you like them ....................

My Winter card, I was actually quite happy with my colouring of the picture, i used my water colour pencils as I wanted to keep it quite light.

My Summer card ...... I just had to use this lovely flowery picture Pat included and the roses and butterfly immediately said summer to me.

A Halloween tag ................ I was quite happy with this and liked my decision to have some bits going over the edge of the tag.

My Easter tag ............... I had to use this lovely dragonfly vellum paper & the cute little tag, a little bit of ribbon & a couple of flowers finished the tag.

So there we are, I know I can get more from Pat's parcel at a later date but for now it is time to turn my attention to the goodies in the parcel from Liz!

I'M LATE, I'M LATE .......

I know it's March and here I am posting the last of my February cards!!!!! Blame my daughter for being so generous as to share her delightful cold with me ............. blame Liz for choosing the 1-2-3 challenge (Oh am I glad to see the back of that one!!) ........ alright, if you must, blame me for being lazy!!
So I finally got this challenge finished and I'm sure Pat heard my huge sigh of relief all the way over in Kent, LOL. I managed 4 cards from Liz's parcel eventually and here they are .........

For the first one I used the pinky yellow patterned paper & the Happy Birthday piece, with the plain red behind the greeting bit, then the pretty little butterflies as my 3 embellishments. Think this one is what I'd call "the best of a bad bunch"!!!!!

This one is ok, I used 2 bits of the brown/white patterned paper and a plain piece in between, with 3 bits of card candy.

This one is very plain & simple and I'm not keen on it at all !!!

I don't really like this one, ....... I used the patterned square of paper with the brown (yes it is brown although it looks black here), then used another patterned bit to edge the yellow piece .......... however just after scanning it that thin edging piece fell off (it never did want to stick!!) and I have to admit I like the card better without it so this one doesn't really qualify now as it only has one patterned piece!!!!

So there we are, Februarys' 1-2-3 challenge is all done and dusted .................. and it really was a challenge and a half for me!!! I've had a quick look at my March parcels and I'm a happy bunny again, I can work with them and with Pat's "4 seasons" theme.

WEEKLY JOURNAL PAGE CHALLENGE!!

I have joined a Facebook group where every week you get a prompt for a Journal page ........... I thought it might be fun and teach me more about Art Journalling. It is ..... and it has!!! I've found I enjoy having a prompt as a starting point much more than just a blank page, especially when it is up to me how I interpret that prompt, it just gives me that place to begin.
I was a little slow to get going with things but have now caught up, and I've decided to let you see my pages too (if you want to look at them that is!).
So here are weeks 1-6 .................. minus week 4, I'm not happy with that one yet!!!

Week 1 -- Up, up and away!

Week 2 ........... Somewhere, a simple place

Week 3 .......... You make me smile

Week 5 ........... Abstract art

Week 6 ............... The art of love letters.

Because I am enjoying this so much I also decided yesterday that each month I would attempt a Journal page using the "theme" from our parcel swaps ............ I have to catch up there as I have January to do as well as this month!!
Sooooooooo it looks like you might be seeing a lot of journal pages this year .................. well, you can ignore them if you really want to, I'll never know, LOL

February parcel from Pat

So February arrived with the theme chosen by Liz .......... she chose "1,2,3" meaning we had to use 1 piece of plain paper, 2 pieces of patterned paper & 3 embellishments on each card (she did try to help by saying we could also add anything else we wanted as long as we still used the stipulated pieces!).
Now I hardly ever use more than 1 pattern on a card and I found this very difficult but again Liz & Pat came to my aid with some suggestions. Eventually I surprised myself by making 4 cards from Pats parcel ........... even more surprising I like them, LOL.

Sorry the shiny topper doesn't show up too well here. I struggled a bit with this one as I had the pink flowered paper & the pink plain but, oh what to put with it. Finally I decided that as the yellow had pink stripes on it it would go!!

Not so sure about this one as the others, I sort of cheated as a few of the patterned papers Pat added were double sided, so on this one I simply turned the corner down!!

This was probably the easiest one I made as the paper was double sided and I was able to find a piece on one side that had a little of the pink/yellow check on it and matched with the other side, then I just used a lemon for the background and coloured the little girl using mainly yellow/pink/green to link them together

I struggled again with this one until Liz said about using a narrow strip of 1 pattern similar to a ribbon strip, then it worked for me as I could do 1 pattern top & bottom, with the 2nd as a centre strip.

It was a difficult challenge (and I'm only half way, still got to do my parcel from Liz!!!) but it was fun and it did show me I could use more than one pattern and like it.

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!!!!!!!!!!