Winter Time Cards

Did I ever have fun making these! All the stamps I used are digitals from the Lili of the Valley Shop

For the snowman trio I used patterned papers from my stash, an assortment of dies, ribbon and stamps from various sources. I pulled out whatever would work with the images. All the colouring is done with coloured pencils.

For the next 3 cards I used the same approach, pulling out whatever I thought would work with the images. The back grounds were made using the embossing folder technique where one uses wax paper in the embossing folder and then iron card stock over the wax paper. This leaves you with a beautiful resist pattern to ink blend over. I used dye inks for blending.

I also added bits of cheesecloth on these and a few hand stitches to the one with the stocking. The colours used are right up my street and the entire process was most enjoyable. The images are so precious...

You'll find :-

The single snowman is HERE

The Rabbits in the Stocking is HERE

The Girl and Robin you can find HERE


Get them from :-  Lili of the Valley Shop

Winter Trio - Sure-lox Puzzle

I enjoy doing puzzles with snowy scenes. I think that oldie from my childhood set my love for them. You can read more about it one HERE.

Several years ago I picked up this one by Sure-Lox called Winter Trio from a local store. This was my second time doing it and I enjoyed it very much. It is not the easiest to do, especially when not pre-sorting the pieces, but one never gets the feeling of going nowhere. I like to puzzle that way : challenging, but achieving.

Lovely painting here of this magnificent buck...

The pieces fit together well, although I did find that several would fit, and many more would nearly fit, into incorrect places. I did have to double check many and found several incorrectly placed.

However, I was more alarmed by the box, which is made of very flimsy, thin card, and the tape that just peeled right off and would not stick down anymore. I did re-tape it, but it is a good thing I store my puzzles in zip locked bags as a rule.

This one is a keeper and is going straight back to join the others in the cupboard to be enjoyed again in the future.

Cuckoo And Friends

What a fun title! Made me smile, as did the puzzle. It was a quick one to do and very enjoyable.
Great job on this one Cobble Hill!

It was quite easy to sort the pieces out by individual house, as there was enough subtle variations in the colours to tell them apart.

Love the close up of the cuckoo clock! And I really like the branches on the wall in the background. I breaks the solid colour and certainly adds interest.

And just a little more information about Cobble Hill puzzles from the back of the box...

Happy puzzling!

Remember When

My favourite kind of scrapbooking is working with old photographs. Sure I do enjoy keeping those photo books up-to-date with what's been happening in our lives, but oh...those oldies...

For this wedding picture page I used a new kit by Cathy Krenek (Cathy K Designs) called Reminiscing. I mean just look at it...how gorgeous is this?!?

Oh and heads-up...there will be freebies for this one. Cathy will post them on the blog or share them through her newsletter. Find them and sign up HERE. They may not be posted when you read this, but check back later, they will be!

Colouring - Tropical World - Millie Marotta

I did this page for a colour challenge on a group on Facebook. The challenge was to use greens and a maximum of two more colours.

I'm pleased with how it turned out even if looks like nothing particularly impressive here. Being a double page spread, it makes quite the impact in real life.

It was an enjoyable colouring - the shapes being large and open and the limited palette is always fun (to me)

I enjoy colouring the art work by Millie, the lines are clean, I like all the line work inside the shapes with the option to colour each small area or simply colour over top of the lines, treating it like a large shape.

Millie Marotta - Tropical World

Puzzles - Coral Sea

Cobble Hill...you did it again! Thank you so very much for sending me this gorgeous jigsaw. I enjoyed every minute of putting Coral Sea, a 2000 piece stunner, together. I found it for me just the right balance of being challenged yet always succeeding when I sit down to puzzle. I do this only for relaxing not to be frustrated.

Making a start on my large made-by-hubby puzzle board. It was only just large enough for this 2000 piecer. I usually do 1000 piecers just because they are a more convenient size for me to work with. However, now that I know it fits the 2000 piecers...there is another Cobble Hill on my wish list. (Four Seasons)...just sayin'...

Finding the edge pieces, or at least most of them, took a while and I will probably store them separately for next time.

Making progress...and look! I found Nemo!

Looking good, even if the sunlight is making a glare on the left. Sunlight is much sought after in my neck of the woods this time of year, so no complaints from me!

All done and just look at these details!

What a joy to discover this little seahorse at the bottom of the image...put a smile on my face.

There is a seam, if you go looking for it, where the 2 sides of the puzzle join. Quoting from the Cobble Hill website : 'Please note that 2000 piece puzzles are two identical cuts of 1000 piece puzzles, but flipped in reverse. While normally, no two pieces are alike in our puzzles, the 2000 piece puzzles are an exception at this time.'

Scarcely noticeable in the final piece though.

And yes, a bit of puzzle dust. It does not bother me, but if it is something you dislike, giving the pieces a good sifting in a sieve or colander, will take care of that. I think it's a bit like builder's dust. It's brand new, so of course there will be dust!

Over all, I am a big Cobble Hill fan. I have a good collection of their puzzles, but this puzzle was not provided for review purposes, this is an honest opinion and I gladly give them an 'Excellent' rating!

I like the thickness of the pieces and how well they fit together and I like the neutral grey colour of the cardboard. The matt linen finish with a slight texture feels luxurious and the colours are vibrant. I like that there is a poster included, showing the bit of the image hidden behind the logo on the top of the nice strong, good quality box.

The partial image on the side of the box helps me find the puzzle I'm looking for easily, when these are stacked on a shelf.

A couple more Cobble Hill puzzles on this blog:

Sunflowers and Goldfinches
Mountain Cascade

Jigsaws- Oldies and Goodies!

I took a trip down memory lane when I recently dug out these old jigsaws to do them again. I'm not sure how old they are. To me they have just always been around and my older sisters could not help me with dates, but we are looking at late 50's or early 60's for sure.

They are both around 500 pieces. I had to leave the boxes behind when I brought them home as my poor suitcase just could fit one more bulky thing, but I am so glad I did bring them 'home' to be with me!

The village scene is missing 2 pieces...

Both marked which is interesting, probably my Mom did that. At least one knows not to go on looking for that piece!

Just look at all the detail in this charming scene.

This snowy image had me dreaming for weeks of snow. I was convinced there is nothing prettier in the world than snow and could not wait to experience it. Turned out it took a couple of decades before I eventually did, but to this day I love snow!

This one is only missing one piece. I still remember how impossibly difficult I used to find this puzzle!

Charming little detail...

Some pieces individually, are impossible to guess what they may be a part of!

Most enjoyable puzzling...to be repeated at least annually!