Another anniversary

My neighbours for the past 7 years were celebrating their golden wedding anniversary this weekend. Last weekend they went to Kent which is where they had their honeymoon back in 1960, wow!

They have always been really helpful and nice to me since I moved here and wanted to give them something nice on their special day.

When it comes to elegant cards for anniversaries I always go back to my Anna Griffin papers, they just work!

Here's their card and pressie, a bottle of bubbly!  You definitely have to have bubbles to celebrate with and I just loved the pink, gold and cream box design for the special edition one.

Sentiment as always printed using Word on my PC.

Hope you like it. x

Cream anyone?

No not the kind you eat, although now you mention it I could just do with a cream tea :o)

I'm on about the colour.  Over the past couple of weeks I've been picking up bits and pieces from my local CS and noticed they have all been of the cream variety!  Wanna see, come on then.

First up on the conveyor belt we have this lovely scalloped china bowl, perfect for your fruit or how about a big salad when you are dining al fresco, mmmmm.

Next on the belt is this very retro compost bin with lid.  Actually reminds me of a smaller version of the old nappy buckets they used to have back in the 60s.  Of course I am far too young to have been around then :o)

Trundling along behind the bucket is this lovely, retro again, set of cannisters.  The knobs are a tad wobbly and you struggle to read the faded writing but I just love them.

Shabby chic what I think is a photoframe, although has come in handy to display cards on recently.  Need to find something permanent to go in it/on it though, suggestions welcome.

Oh and how about some lighting, removed the shades, trust me they were hideous and beyond repurposing!!

Till next time :o)

Weight Loss Wednesday

Morning everyone!  It's a grey one here, again!  Oh well onwards we must :o)

I think my body must be rebelling against all these dull rainy skies and has gone into hybernation mode as it only managed to shed 0.5lbs this week.  Rather pathetic, I need to have a good old talking to it and tell it this can't last, doesn't it know spring is very close.  We don't want to be caught out when that big yellow thing appears to warm everything up!

To help my body out I've enrolled it on this rather fab, and free, weightloss website Calorie Count which fellow WLW Kristy recommended.  Doesn't take long to sign up and then you have access to your weightloss centre.  There is a great food tracker, activity tracker and weight tracker.  Was really impressed with the comprehensive list of activities, did you know that knitting/sewing burns 112 calories an hour!!  Crafters eat your heart out, on healthy stuff obviously :o)

Hope my fellow WLW members are having better luck than me this week. xx

50th Wedding Anniversary - a card

 

50 years married, something you don't hear much of these days.  I think it is quite sad that 50 or even 40 year anniversaries will be unheard of in the future.  Stability and making an effort in ones life is something I think we could all aspire to.

One of the ladies I volunteer with is celebrating such a milestone in her married life this weekend and her daughter in law commissioned me to make them a card.  I went for this lovely botantical print by, yes you've guessed, Anna Griffin!  The blues and pinks are just gorgeous don't you think.

For the golden part I used some lovely satin ribbon behind the sentiment and as a decadent bow.  Toning blue crystal for a touch of extra luxury.

For those of you who regularly pop by you will know that I recently purchase some Martha Stewart punches.  I've used one of them to create the borders on this card, it also has a co-ordinating corner punch too, they are called 'punch around the page' sets.

Glitter gold 50th stickers by KandCompany were stuck onto the sentiment which was printed out onto to photo paper.  I use photo paper as the ink never smudges and dries instantly.

I really like the this punch, it can be both modern and tradtional, think this will be popping up a lot in the future.

 

Ribbon - it's gotta be organised!

Hello this is Lolodesigns and I'm a Ribbonaholic!! LOL.  It was not good, I just had to sort the stuff out, I mean it was everywhere.  Stuffed in boxes, loose on the floor, scattered on the craft desk, randomly stuffed into nooks and crannies all over the house in fact!  So I braced myself and set about getting to grips with it all.

Here they all are, duly gathered from whence they hid and dumped unceremoniously onto my Pouffe!

 They had been stored in many guises.  There were the dolly clothes pins which I started using when I first got some ribbon as it looked pretty, however I didn't like the fact that the ribbon would be very curly when you took it off to use.  Some others were kept on their original spools, some were hung from hooks on a rail using slotted ribbon holders.

Ta da!  And this is what they look like now.  It took many an hour I can tell you but oh the satisfaction now it is all done.  The clear boxes I used are really cheap and from Ikea, they stack nicely too, come in loads of sizes all the way up to humungous!

 

They take two rows of my ribbon cards just nicely.  The card was grey board from my stationers at 75p for an A2 sheet so only cost me £3.00 to do all my ribbons, with some to spare.

My pink stash is running scarily low, oh goody I get to shop!

Whites are a bit thin on the ground too!

Naturals anyone

Some of my fave pinks, the stitched grosgrain ones are by Anna Griffin and they are really good quality.

Spotty ribbon, there's just something about it.  These all came from Hobbycraft and were great value.

Think the black/pink check one on the left is very reminisent of ooh la la underwear!.

Blimey where are my sunglasses!!

While we have our sunglasses on I'll sneak the limes in too.

Finally we have the rik rak.  The ribbon I love to use in decorative sewing projects.  There are some gorgeous velvet ones in there as well as the normal grosgrain ones.  These all came from a company called American Crafts.

So there you have it, my ribbon organisation, I highly recommend it to all RAs, it is very theraputic and being able to see what I have will stop (or maybe not) my frequent impulse buys!

PS - I now have enough dolly clothes pins to start a launderette!

Finished Party Invitations

I can finally reveal the finished invitations.  Customer has had delivery of them and was very happy indeed, phew!

 

Gather all the components

  

Bit of free marketing!

  

Trusty ATG gun to apply adhesive to back of silver card

  

Center on to the black card

  

More ATG for sentiment

  

Centre on silver card (this is a test one as noticed the text wasn't centred)

  

Add some bling and ribbon

  

Repeat process till all 30 are done!

  

Used organza and double satin ribbon for the bows

  

What each guest will receive

  

Just liked this shot!

  

All piled up ready to pack 

Diecut self adhesive envelope seals

Made up some choccie bags for their kids so they didn't feel left out

All ready to be delivered.

Had real fun making these and used the following supplies/tools:

Zutter Dreamkutz - god send when cutting loads of mats out

Purple Cows Paper Trimmer - fancy edges to card

Cardstock - local stationers

Envelopes - Anita's 120gsm white

Bling - local craftstore, self adhesive

Satin and Organza Ribbon - 12mm by Celebrate

Spellbinders Scallop circle - envelope seals

Whacky Tac Adhesive sheets - backing for envelope seals.

Hope you like them :o)