Glencoe

We drove up to Glencoe today and back again... all for a scone! Well, for a scone and a few photos.

There's a small coffee shop/cafe on the road into Glencoe called "Crafts & Things" which has excellent home-made scones and cakes. Its toasted ciabatta sandwiches aren't half bad either - and likewise the hot chocolate (albeit it has an obscene amount of cream on top, which looks almost like whipped ice cream! Have a look at the photo if you don't believe me). We've been to this place loads of times and we think it's excellent. It's about a 2.5 hour drive each way from where we live on the west coast of Scotland, but that's not too bad, really and it was a nice, sunny day. I didn't drive, mind you - my input involved sitting in the passenger seat of the car and taking the odd photo or ten.

We really like the Glencoe and Ballachulish area and we've visited lots of times over the last six years or so.

Roses

My secretary left the firm yesterday (to join another firm - for an increased salary). She bought me these very pink roses, which was really kind of her. She gave me a lovely card too. I'll miss her, more as a friend than as a secretary (although I'll miss her as the latter too). She's a great person and has been very supportive over the last six years, particularly when I injured my back five years ago and then when my Dad died earlier this year. She has a great sense of humour, too. I wish her good luck in her new role, though - and I'll still see her as we'll be meeting up for lunch at least once a month. Her new place is "just up the road".

Not much to report this week - except work. Same old.

Another Birthday

Yet another last minute birthday card... this time for my husband's friend's one year old son. As it was so "last minute", I didn't have time to make the type of card I really wanted to make i.e. one with the number "1" mentioned on it somewhere and one which probably involved a bit more thought and seemed more child-friendly! I didn't know it was required for tomorrow, but my husband decided to spring this upon me about half an hour ago (and it's now almost midnight - same old, same old). He said he'd buy one instead, but I thought that would be a shame. The card was all a bit random and hurried, but I quite like the way it turned out in the end (odd though that may seem; I still don't think it's the best card for a one year old child, though). The two tag die cuts and the circle die cut in the background were made with Quickutz Revolution cookie cutter dies (pre-made, I hasten to add; I basically had sufficient time to cobble together anything I could with existing bits and pieces and nothing more elaborate than that!).

I've been working on a paper I've been preparing for a Masters Degree I'm doing in my spare time (what spare time? that'll be why I'm so far behind with it, then) for most of today and it was starting to do my head in by the time I (finally) finished it tonight. I'm glad it's out of the way, but I have a further paper to complete by 10th August - no danger, as they say. The perils of trying to work full time, clean the toilet, tidy the house and do anything else at the same time... Just like the rest of the population, really!

And finally...

... The fourth card! Again, rather boring. It is nice and colourful, though - I guess that's something. It does the job and fills the void - and it looks fairly nice and cheery at the same time. The die-cuts are layered scallop cookie cutters. There's lots of glitter around the central stamped image, but it is not visible in the photo.

I'm off to bed now (albeit with indigestion!).

Quote of the day: "If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room". (Reverend and the Makers: Heavyweight Champion of the World).

Card Number 3

Here's the third card. This one is fairly boring. A Quickutz Revolution three part floral die-cut (released within the last few months) and Junkitz paper etc. The central image is stamped once again and raised on a foam pad and there's Stardust Stickles around the large flower's petals. Nothing earth shattering, but I needed a batch of quick cards and I didn't have much time to spare - it's as simple as that! Needs must.

Card Number 2

Here's the second card of the four. I think this is probably my favourite one. It's a plain white square base card. The base card has been stamped in a yellow-ish shade (Stampin' Up Marigold Morning) with a (small hearts/swirls) background stamp. Some Junkitz paper has been adhered on top and a scallop shape (a cookie cutter die, as before) adhered to the right hand side with a circular stamped image on top. Although not terribly visible in the photo, it has some nice "glitz" as there's lots of Stardust Stickles glitter glue down the right hand side. I like the whole feel of this card. It looks much better "in the flesh".

Card-fest?

By some unique miracle - never to occur again any time soon - I've thrown together four cards this evening. To be fair, they're of the "diddy" variety i.e. they were very easy to make. Here's the first one. It's a vertical card. The base card is a pale lime green pearl (from Craftwork Cards, I think - their cards are great quality), although it is difficult to see in the photo. The patterned paper is from the new Junkitz Salsa "Junk Padz" range and the central element was cut using the scallop Quickutz cookie cutter dies. A Sakura shimmer pen (silver glitter) was used around the central stamped image. This one is probably my least favourite of the four, because it is so basic.

Whilst I was making the cards, my husband gave me a bowl of strawberries followed by a bowl of raspberries (an attempted health kick - which we badly need). Result: serious indigestion! Not good (and it doesn't feel very healthy to me). No doubt I'll be away until 3am now - result?!

Primary Colours

I've gone for a red, blue and yellow card for a change... Nice and bright. The flower and circle shapes were created using the new floral and circle Quickutz cookie cutter dies. The "Thanks so Much" stamp in the centre of the card and the flourish stamp on the envelope were created using stamps which formed part of the Hot Off The Press clear acrylic stamp sets which were sold with the QVC Craft Day TSV a few weeks ago. They were stamped with Lipstick Red Colorbox chalk ink. The red/white dot ribbon is from May Arts. I'm not sure who I'll give this card to... I need to make several thank you cards, so I'll decide which one is for which recipient once I've made a few more.

40th Birthday

A friend of mine has her 40th birthday next week, so I've made her a card. The die cut flower shape is one of the new Quickutz cookie cutter dies. The die cut numbers were made using the Quickutz Sophisticate dies. The card has lots of Stardust Stickles glitterglue on the flowers etc, although it isn't terribly visible in the photo. I've stamped the envelope with a pink flourish stamp to match the pink on the card.

Cookie Cutters - Spotlight on K

I've made a card for my mum - whose initial is "K". I used the Quickutz Spotlight alpha and filled the "holes" with a Sakura glitter gel pen (which you can see more easily if you click on the photo to see the larger image).

I've applied foam to merely eight of the Spotlight alpha dies. Although they're much bigger than the Lemonade alpha dies, they're still giving me the pip when trying to apply the foam. I can't get the foam to cut properly at all and I'm out of patience! Another day.

The stamp on the right hand side of the card (and on the envelope) is one of the new Sassafras Lass border stamps (acrylics).

Foam

I spent ages yesterday applying foam to some of the new Cookie Cutter dies. I've managed to apply foam to the whole of the Lemonade alpha but, I have to be honest, it gave me the pip! A complete pain. The letters are so small and you have to squash so many on one sheet of 4x4 Revolution foam. Not the most enjoyable way to spend an afternoon! I guess when it's done, that's that... but it's still a nuisance. Magnolia is a bit of a nuisance too, although Spotlight isn't as bad to foam as it's bigger and chunkier. In addition, the foam didn't cut properly on all of the letters first time round (it left something akin to cling film which had to be cut manually).

The "sticky mat" proved to be a bit of a pain too - I had forgotten that I don't have the patience for anything sticky, hence I don't use my Cricut machine as often as I could. At least we're talking about sticking metal items to the "sticky mat" with the Cookie Cutter dies, though, as opposed to adhering paper to a sticky mat to enable use of the Cricut machine. Metal has to be easier to remove than paper!! Not surprisingly, the first use of the mat seemed to indicate adhesion akin to superglue, but the glue is much more manageable after the first use. Note to self: patience required!

Cookie Cutters

Well... the new Quickutz Revolution cookie cutter dies which I ordered on Wednesday evening have arrived! That was quick. The Crafts U Love shop has really good customer service and mail order. A few of the dies are not yet in stock, but will follow.

I've got all three of the new alphabets (Lemonade, Magnolia and Spotlight) and I'm off to try them out. I think they'll be really useful.

I can't get the "Rewind" song out of my head. Paolo Nutini is a local chap and I love his album, "These Streets". I've had the album for ages, but I've been playing it on a loop for much of today. Bizarrely, the guinea pigs like it too... they've been having a serious purr-fest in time to most of the songs.

"Why can't we just rewind, why can't we just rewind?" - Paolo Nutini.

Birds & Swirls

A card I made this evening for a friend I am meeting tomorrow. She has bought a new home (I know, I know - no mention of "new home" on the card and not terribly conventional in any respect... but there we go). I seem to have depleted 99.9% of my day's creative mojo creating my blog banner/header earlier, as I couldn't seem to get "in" to the swing of creating anything else this evening. I think I'm just tired... it feels as though it should be Friday already!

New Header!

At last I've had time to create a new header for my blog... nothing earth-shattering, but better than the standard offering thrust upon me previously! It was created from a photo of part of my desk (note: many cows... there are many more which are not in the photo!) with a bit of editing in Paintshop Pro. As I said, nothing earth-shattering. Nevertheless, I am quite pleased with the improvement!

The weather is still rancid in the west coast of Scotland. Not much rain, but not much of anything. We've had no flooding problems like many parts of England, but it's hardly feeling like summer - and we're past the longest day, of course, and on our way downhill towards autumn now! We've barely had any summer thus far. Let's hope there's still time!

I've spotted the new Quickutz "cookie cutter" Revolution dies already... and I've ordered some by mail order. I think they were released for sale today. I've read quite a bit about them on-line and also on the Quickutz site today. I hope the delivery is quick, but we'll see.

Capri

I had a bit of a blogging "lull" in June... partly because I was on holiday for a good part of the month and didn't have access to the internet. We went to Sorrento in Italy. We hadn't been since 2002, as we visit the north of Italy considerably more than the south. The weather was a bit variable, with really heavy rain for a couple of days. Other days were fine, though. We visited Pompeii one day and we did an "Amalfi drive" another day. We visited the island of Capri (photo attached) and it was lovely and warm. Capri was as busy and full to bursting with tourists as it usually is - nothing changes!

Ruby

At last I've managed to find time to make a card! Of necessity... for my husband's parents' 40th/ruby wedding anniversary later this week. It's 1am and I've just finished - that's what I call "finding time"! The Other Half is snoring, of course - what else?

The backing paper (red with cream dots) is by Daisy D's. The pale pink dot/small heart paper is Basic Grey (Blush, I think) and the striped paper is by K & Co. The die cuts are Quickutz Revolution dies (the numbers are from the Blossom Grand alphabet) and the ribbon is by May Arts. There's holographic stickles glitter glue on the numbers and around the central square, although you can't see it terribly well in the photo. I've stamped the envelope with dark red chalk ink and a scroll stamp to match the "ruby" theme. I think it does the job.