Sympathy card

 A couple of weeks ago I found out that a lady (G) I had worked with for 6 years had passed away. She was one of the best, an absolutely wonderful, kindhearted and caring woman, and she had been fighting cancer for over a year. It was devastating to hear that she was ill, and even more heartbreaking to find out that it was incurable. Due to the pandemic I didn't go to her funeral. I wanted to but when you are only allowed 30 people inside the Church and knowing there would be so many people outside I felt it unwise to attend. That didn't mean I wasn't thinking about her or the family she left behind.

My work colleague was going - she had known this lady longer than me and had been told she could go in for the service. I made a card which she took with her.

Now, we found out that G had requested people to wear yellow, so that was where I started with the card. I cut a rectangle of yellow paper slightly smaller than the size of the card to act as a backing. I then cut a smaller piece of white card and blended green ink across the bottom to resemble grass. I didn't want this to be an overtly sad card as G was such a bright spark in my office, I didn't use any dark colours except for the words.

While I was waiting for the green to dry, I took out two butterfly cut-outs and stuck them together down the centre to give it a 3D effect. I used Dovecrafts 3D Pearl Effects pastel colours (blue, cream, green and pink) to give the top layer butterfly some colour and pattern. Unfortunately the two that I attempted did not come out very well, luckily I had one I made several weeks ago that did not look like I had just attacked it with massive blobs of colour thinking it was pretty... I grabbed a small square of orange paper and stamped the traditional "With Sympathy" message on and used black glittery embossing powder to melp it stand out. I also grabbed my small butterfly craft punch and cut a butterfly out from beneath the words.

When the ink had dried on the card, I glued it down and began to arrange my big butterfly, message, and I pulled out some small butterflies I had cut out one day to save paper waste in pink, purple and cream. Once in position I stuck them all down and left the card blank for me to write in when I was at work and had a bit of inspiration of what to write.

I didn't take any photos during the make of this card, I did a time-lapse video which I posted on my Instagram stories. I couldn't help a little laugh when the 40 minutes it took me to make this card was shrunk down into 26 seconds! I did however take a photo of the finished product.

Break

 Went a bit MIA again... work got busy and so did my weekends!

I've just had a week off work (back tomorrow - booo!), spent a few days away with the fam, came home and did something I haven't done since I moved in to my house - tidied and organised (sort of) the craft room!! 

I have been doing a couple of little things -

• more face masks for me, my mam and one for a work colleague. I haven't finished them yet so no photos at this moment in time
• sorted out some of my pinterest boards and looked for a few more things to try (https://www.pinterest.co.uk/skittleshideaway/)
  
• made two rough designs for new Christmas cards
• started an Instagram to post photos of my craft works, with hashtags and everything 😲 (https://www.instagram.com/skittleshideaway/)

Normally I'm pretty private about what I do but then I started this blog during lockdown and after my work colleague told my she made an Instagram for her house it occurred to me that posting photos of what I've made on Instagram is not a bad thing to do - it will literally help me to remember designs I've created previously in case I want to do them again if I thought they were great. It also gives me a little bit of feedback when people hit the 'like' button. So I started that on Friday, and aside from myself, I have 6 followers. I was surprised to have any! So if you are reading this and wonder what I have made that isn't already on this blog, then please do take a look at my Instagram. It actually surprised me how much I had made (and still had record of or still have to be able to photograph) before this blog.

So as my week off has now drawn to a close, I just have to wait five more days before I get another break. I'm looking forward to that one as I don't think I really made the most of this week off...

Ta-ta for now!

Butterflies card

I picked up my craft magazines again this afternoon and i decided to check my box of dies to see if I could try it. It's fair to say my collection of dies is quite small but I did find a couple of stencils which game me an idea - no Pinterest required this week!

I started off with a card, scrap paper, an ink blending tool and two different shades of green ink. First I put the card landscape over the scrap paper (to avoid any ink on the table!) and began by putting a layer of light green ink along the bottom, partially going off the edge of the card - I dabbed it on first to get as much ink off the sponge before rubbing along so all white space was covered. Next I took a darker green and repeated the process to layer the two shades together. This gave me a nice edge which had a grassy look to it.

Now for the stencil. I have one with multiple butterfly shapes and sizes on it so I decided to use two of these along with two more colours of ink - pink and purple. I placed the stencil in position and used the blending tool (with a fresh sponge for each colour) to apply first the purple butterflies and then the pink. I added 3 of each colour, spaced all over the card. I even have one flying off the top edge of the card, to do this I put the scrap paper along the fold so that the ink didn't spread and the edge stayed neat. Now as this is the first time I've used a proper stencil and needed to stay within the single space I didn't necessarily do a good job of that.

I was planning to put a sentiment of some kind on the card so I took one of my banner style stamps and on a thicker piece of white card, stamped the banner in black. I had planned to use another stamp for the sentiment but have found again I'm lacking in resources! Thank goodness for scrap paper and fairly neat writing. I added this to the card covering those main blotches of ink using double sided sticky dots to add a different layer to the card. I felt this didn't complete the card so I added a black die cut butterfly, also stick with the stick dots.

I will admit if I had planned this properly rather than taking my usual 'what does that look like' attitiude I would be even happier with the result - like the spacing of the butterflies, my ability to be tidy when using a stencil. As it is, I would still give it to a family member but I know for next time what I should or shouldn't do. Definitely a one I'll make again! 

Sunburst Style

I said I would post today and here I am! Little update on the family - rooms were rearranged again at my grandparents as we found out my grandma doesn't need a hospital bed or hoist and she is coming home tonight 😊

The card idea I saw and wanted to try out is a sunburst. I used scrap paper as I was just testing the design - I plan to make more of these for birthday cards and also in Christmas papers when I start making the Christmas cards!

First I picked a card, measured the outside so I could make a rough estimate for the size needed for the mounting card, the instructions I followed did give me sizes but as I was using a different size card I decided to go with my own measurements. Once trimmed to fit, this was set aside so I could focus on getting my sunburst pieces ready.

This time I followed the instructions and the pictures (the sizes on the instructions and the numbers according to the pictures! Cut out rectangles to the following sizes:

1 - 4 1/2" x 1 1/2"

1 - 4" x 1 1/2"

2 - 3" x 1 1/2"

2 - 2" x 1 1/2"

Take each rectangle and carefully cut across the diagonal so you end up with two triangles.

Get the mounting card/paper and decide where abouts you want the sunburst centre to be and begin to place the triangles around the outside covering all corners of the card. I found this part to be the most difficult part as my triangles kept moving around so I used a piece of white tack to both mark my centre and to loosely hold the points in place.

Once in position I decided to put a splodge of glue in the centre mark (replacing the white tack) so that I could have an anchor point for all of my triangles. I carefully raised each triangle, applied glue and stuck them down.You should have parts of the triangles hanging over the edge of the mount card. Simply flip this over and trim down to give straight sides.

Time to attach to the card! Cover the reverse of the mounting card in glue then gently position before applying pressure to stick the cards together. When this was stuck down, I needed to find something that would act as my centre spot. I have lots of little adhesive gemstones but these were too small, I had to dig out the bigger ones which usually require the glue gun. As this is a test card for me I used a glue stick which so far is holding pretty well!

Overall I'm please with the outcome, it's given me plenty of ideas for how I can adapt it with different colours, patterns and for different occasions. This is one idea which I will certainly be making more of in the future!

Link to the original instructions: https://www.papermilldirect.co.uk/inspire/how-to-make-a-contrast-starburst-card

Update

It's been a while since I posted. Almost 2 months 😓😶 This was something that I didn't want to happen! So whats been going on... Well for one thing, I went back to work on the 3rd June. Its been fairly non-stop - I was back in the store for the best part of 2 weeks before we opened to customers and we've introduced some new processes that I had to wrap my head around, and once the store opened some of the activities I/my team used to do have started to come back. I got back into the work routine no problem but trying to adjust/form a new weekend routine has been more of a problem than I anticipated. 

My plan was to make time to craft on a weekend, probably a Sunday afternoon but so far that hasn't happened. I got the card magazines out, searched through Pinterest to get some inspiration but was always dragged away either for something to do with the family, I didn't find anything I felt I could create, or I i distracted myself so much I lost track of time.

This weekend has been the family. Last Monday my grandma had a fall, she was determined that she was fine. (Just a little bit of background - my grandma has alzheimers and motor neurons disease so her memory is very spotty, she has no speech now (mainly noises), and her mobility has decreased over the past few months - she's had a few falls including one only a week or so before this one where she had to go to A&E as the cut on her head was pretty deep luckily it didn't need stitches but a plaster was put on so she knew that something had happened.) Long store short she wasn't fine and has been in hospital since Tuesday. My parents, my auntie and myself have spent pretty much the whole weekend with my grandad preparing his house so that we can get my grandma home. The dining room was turned into living room #2, the living room was rearranged to become a half living room, half bedroom - my grandma is going to be getting a hospital bed and a hoist for support getting in and out, and my grandad now has a single bed which we brought downstairs so he can sleep in the same room with her. Its been a hard weekend, my grandad has been so strong about the whole situation and it's been hard to hear him on the phone to my grandma/the nurses looking after her trying not to show how upset he is but we can tell how much its breaking his heart being away from her.

With any luck the hospital bed will arrive tomorrow and my grandma can go home.

On the flip side, I finally found a card design I wanted to test out, I did that just before writing this post so I will upload the photos and write about it tomorrow!

Badge Clauses (2) - 7 day tasks

Back with the badge clauses in this post! Over the past week I have attempted to complete 3 clauses which needed to be kept over the space of 7 days. As a challenge I know for a fact that I was not successful in keeping on track. The clauses were:

• Plan a menu for 7 days including 5 portions of fruit/veg each day.
• Create a schedule to follow for 7 days
• Do a task around the home each day for 7 days.

*this is not the exact wording of clauses but my interpretation of them*

The first wasn't too bad. I created my meal plan, even wrote down the different components of my meals. Unfortunately I was not as proactive in having what I planned. Meals which required me to just pull the box out of the freezer were fine, but anything else was 'open to interpretation'... The less said about this the better although I will be planning my meals in general each week to try and stop my craving for biscuits and sweet treats. This is one thing that I need to get down properly as what you eat is more effective for losing weight than exercise (I have found), and I need to start losing weight again if I don't want to buy a whole new set of clothes!

For the second, here is my schedule:

6:30am - wake up

7:00am - breakfast

8am - walk

10am - daily task

1pm - lunch

2pm - active dvd

4pm - fun time (games, books etc)

6pm - dinner

7pm - washing up

8pm - relax until sleepy

I decided these sort of times were sensible for me. The early wake up call is to get me ready for whenever I go back to work - when that happens my alarm will probably be back at its old 5:45am wake up call. The early morning walk, again is to set me back up for work. I used to walk to work every day leaving the house at 7am, it's approximately 2 miles from my home to the centre of the city and for almost 6 months it's something I let slide so making sure I go for a walk for a minimum 2 miles. I decided to incorporate the daily task into the schedule to make sure that I did it. If I didn't you can bet that I would just sit on the sofa and say 'meh I'll do it tomorrow'. I need to up my fitness and work on toning up which is why I added the dvd in the afternoon, and giving myself a designated time to do a different activity like reading or playing on my PS2 helps to bring a change of scenery to my usual sofa/TV mix. Well it worked to a certain degree. I should have waited until the Monday before starting as on Friday mornings (currently) I go food shopping and then have to distribute items to my parents and my auntie, Saturday mornings I have a Zoom session for Slimming World, and Sunday mornings my alarm is permanently switched off as it is the only day I ever have a lie in (unless I go to Church, then I have to have the alarm on obvs!). So for 3 days out of 7 I did not follow the routine at all, I did as stated above and then spent the rest of the Saturday and Sunday creating face masks as written in my previous post. Most days I did not do the exercise dvd, sometimes I had an extra walk or I had some other activity to do. To be honest I'm ready to go back to work so I can get into a proper routine that I know I will stick to fully and it will get me back on the right track both mentally and physically.

The third clause of a daily household task was probably the most successful of the three 7 day challenges.

1 - clean the kitchen ☑️

2 - put all clean washing away ☑️

3 - batch cook ☑️

4 - clean the bathroom 〰️

5 - hoover whole house ☑️

6 - wash bedding and towels ☑️

7 - empty all bins ☑️

I didn't do a full clean of the bathroom which is the only reason this part was not a complete success. It did feel good to write down jobs for the house I k ow I need to do but just put off and put off, for example until I put the washing away as per my list I had a pile of clean clothing that had been waiting to be put away for a good 2 weeks. That's me just being lazy, and I really shouldn't be especially as right now I have no excuses for it.

I actually completed another two of the main clauses - do a good turn for someone, and learn how to wash your hands properly and thoroughly (I can't share with my family as we are in different households and they would tell me that they already know how to do it). The good turn was in fact the face masks I created for my family, I had already decided that the food shopping bits I was doing for them wouldn't count as I had started doing that pre-challenge however the face masks were something out of the blue at first and it was a challenge for me to create one for me let alone as many as I did make in the end. As for the washing hands, I already knew how due to posters at work and the videos which were showing everywhere at the beginning of lockdown however I took a moment to go back and re-watch all the information to refresh it in my brain - as more shops open up and you are allowed to visit family members (albeit in the garden) you will need to use the restroom at some point so remembering the right way to wash your hands helps you and everyone around you. The last of the main clauses is to say thank you to a key worker. This is probably the easiest, most awkward, unconscious, polite thing to do. Every time I go to a shop I always say thank you to any member of staff who assisted me or in the case of the supermarket as a way of saying bye. I don't get deliveries of groceries however the couple of parcels I have received, the delivery person has been fantastic so saying thank you to them was no problem. So from that, I have completed this clause of the badge. However if you take it to literally walk up to a key worker and just come out with 'thank you for everything you do', I'm not socially built to do that, I struggled to go outside and join in the clap for key workers - I did it a few times but it didn't feel natural to me. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate everything that has and is being done across all sectors and communities, I just struggle to convey that appreciation to people I don't know without it being an unconscious act that has happened naturally.

Yesterday while sat in the garden I started looking at my list of clauses I can do and decided to make a start on another 4. All of these involve making lists - things that I can/enjoy doing at home, things I would like to do with my unit when we meet again, things that I am grateful for, and 'silver linings'. I am still working on these lists as the instructions ask for a certain number on each and I have not quite reached the targets on a couple of them. These will all be in a post when I have finished writing them!

Masks Galore

Due to the virus and uncertainty of what going back to work is going to look like, I decided a while ago to jump on the mask-making bandwagon. This means that if we get told that we need to wear face masks when in shops etc, not just in ones where social distancing isn't possible, then I have a supply of fun and funky masks for me to choose from. Last weekend I spent the whole of Saturday and most of Sunday constructing 12 masks - 11 for women and 1 for a man, and of those 9 women's for me to go with one I had made as a tester several weeks ago. 10 masks seems quite high but working 5 days a week and wearing 1 a day, it's better to have spares right? The remaining masks are for my parents and my auntie.

Over the weekend I got a video call from my mam asking if I could make a mask for my grandad too. He and my grandma have not left the house since lockdown began and although my grandma has a letter saying she is not to go out, my grandad doesn't. So if there comes a time when he is able to leave the house in the company of my parents while my auntie stays with my grandma then he will have a covering to wear. Well, I started it and a couple of spare masks for my parents on Sunday night - cutting out the templates. 

All the sewing was completed on Monday, and I managed to remember to do the sewing in the correct order this time! I put them in a hot wash this morning so that they are somewhat sterilised and it looks like I have a lot of half bras on the washing line. I hadn't thought about that until I was talking to my mam at lunch time today.

This afternoon I'm going for a walk down to my mams house to hand over some of the masks. After her experience in the supermarket this morning it sounds like she needs them! 

The template that I used was one I found through Pinterest: https://www.craftpassion.com/face-mask-sewing-pattern/
I found this to be quite easy to do and has a number of variations from the same pattern, also I liked how there are separate templates for male and female masks - after all there are differences in facial bone structures! The main thing I needed to remember was if in doubt, re-read the instructions and look at the pictures.

I had been planing to write a post with a few more pretty cards that I've made but the mask request took priority and jumped the queue for appearing on here.