Heavenly Crafts

Welcome to the Creations by AR customer blog hop!  I hope you are enjoying the beautiful creations by the other participants, and that you find mine of interest.  This is the last blog in the hop, and you should have come here from Raissa's blog.  The other blogs are (just in case you missed any!):

Lisa Eisner 
Jennyfer Leung
Diana Auberle
Mary Roberson
Gigi Lorenc
Deb Speijers
Lenoria Kelly
Rhonda Miller
Carmen Mitchell
Raissa Spatola
Lynn Clifford (I'm the last stop!)

There are 11 stops on the blog hop and if you want to win a template of your choice from the store, just leave a comment on each blog to be in with a chance of winning.  One comment will be chosen from all the blog comments as one of us is the mystery blogger!

Comments for the blog hop prize will close at midnight (EDT) on Saturday 11 May. The winner will be announced on Sunday 12 May on Lisa's blog and on the Creations by AR Facebook Page. Speaking of the CbyAR FB Page, if you haven't already done so, you may want to 'Like' the page so you can be kept up-to-date on all the latest happenings.

Well, I know Mother's Day in the USA is coming up soon, but we had ours way back in March here in the UK!  So I decided to use one of Adela's templates to make a tag holder.  Also, I know the theme is Mom's favourite colour", but being a mum myself, I cheated and used papers that I really like rather than pinks and girly colours!  I'm afraid I do love grunge and Tim Holtz papers!

This is the template I used:

Nice, eh?  It is actually a really easy template to use too and so simple to print it out on a sheet of A4 plain white card stock to make a template.  Of course, you can just print it out with digital papers and make the carry all in one easy step, but I wanted to use papers from my stash, hence the need for an actual template.

Also, in order to create the tag holder, I needed tags, so I made another card stock template from one of the tag templates from the Library Pocket set:




I then broke into my Tim Holtz card stock stash, using a sheet of Kraft Resist for the carry all, and a sheet of Lost and Found card stock for the tags.  Once I had cut everything out, this is what I ended up with:


Here is the carry all:



And here are the tags (I also punched four tabs for the top of each tag using my Stampin' Up! tag punch):



In order to make the base for the holder/album, I cut some card stock 4" by 6" from the leftover sheet of Kraft Resist, scoring it at every 1/2".  I then concertina folded it and added the strong red sticky tape to each end on the reverse side:



The edges were then adhered to the bottom of each side of the Carry-All:



This photo is maybe a bit clearer:




 I used PVA glue on the inside of the base of the Carry All (just under the concertina folded card stock) to get the folded edges to stick down). The tags were then just slotted into the valley folded parts of the base card stock and this is how it it looked when finished:



Of course, you include more tags in this by increasing the size of the concertina folded card by 1" for every additional tag.  I just went with four tags for this one.





Sorry for the poor quality of the photos - I just could not get my camera to focus on the bottom where the tags were inserted, and being shortsighted, couldn't see properly even with my glasses to sort it out ;). Hopefully you can tell what it looks like nonetheless.

I decorated the outside of the carry all with butterflies cut from another sheet of the Kraft Resist paper and here is the finished article:













As you can see, I also added antennae to some of the butterflies/moths using thin wire and used distress ink on the edges of everything for more definition.  

This only took about an hour or so to make, as they are both such easy templates to use (and I am all for an easy life ;)).  It would make a lovely mother's day gift holder, especially decorated with flowers which is what I intend to do next, once I have got this set of accounts and query letter out to my client later today!

Don't forget to go visit everyone else on the blog hop to see what they have made and to leave a comment so be in with a chance of winning a template from the store!

Lisa Eisner 
Jennyfer Leung
Diana Auberle
Mary Roberson
Gigi Lorenc
Deb Speijers
Lenoria Kelly
Rhonda Miller
Carmen Mitchell
Raissa Spatola

Happy Scrapping!

Life seems to have been really hectic around here recently with one thing and another.  I'm now taking my Dad to hospital once a fortnight for chemotherapy as he has cancer - he found out just before Christmas so that was a present he didn't want to receive :(! He now has a PICC line in his arm and has the drugs intravenously at the hospital and is then sent home with  a pump attached containing more drugs which take 48 hours to get through the PICC line.  There is then another trip to the hospital to get the pump removed, which I do if it is a weekday (my brother is doing the weekend trips).

He seems to be doing really well though, and apart from being very tired, has had no side effects to mention, which is a real blessing.  Mind you, there are people praying for him in my church and I have a friend in the USA who has her church praying for him too so you can take your pick as to which you think it is - the power of prayer, the right dosage of chemo, his age and fitness, or whatever.  I know what I think and I thank God he is doing ok.

Apart from that, life goes on here pretty much as usual - I'm overworked, underpaid, totally unappreciated, lol!! I really don't know where the time goes and 24 hours in each day is nowhere near long enough to get everything done ;).  I am having great difficulty getting any decent crafting time in...sigh!!!

Still, look see what I found the other day:

Collage Craft by Polka Dot Pixels - isn't it just scrumptious?  Now this is a kit that definitely calls for being turned into an album and it just so happens I was able to sneak a little bit of time here and there to make this:




This is a quick look at the inside pages:

I am really pleased with how it turned out and cannot believe how easy it was to make.  It took me at least twice as long to write it all up as it did to actually make it!  Further details on how to make this cab be found at  The Hybrid Chick.  Please do  take a look and let me know what you think.

Well, it is the May Day bank holiday here this weekend and I have a craft fair to make samples for, a walk planned with my son (unless he can wriggle out of it somehow ;)!), our eldest son is coming home for a day and I am taking part in a line dance demonstration, so with bookkeeping at a client's all day tomorrow and a very exciting trip to the cancer centre at the hospital on Friday, I reckon I am pushed for time yet again!

Well, whatever you are doing this weekend, I hope you have fun and enjoy the bank holiday - apparently, the weather forecast is for good weather (unbelievable I know - sunshine in the UK on a bank holiday is practically unheard of.  We usually get rain, buckets of it!).

Hope you can find time for scrapping, whatever else you are doing!