She found her equal!

 I think my daughter found her equal!

She is a very affectionate cutie. When she was a few months old, she tried to kiss one of her friends. He burst into tears. She then held hands with another boy, who was lovely but not very interested in other babies. Now she is 15 months old and has found a boy who would chase her with laughter to kiss her! That was absolutely fabulous. 

His first birthday party was a very pleasant time - with climbing, sliding, cakes and bubbles. 

 The card was a variation of my previous one for Sarah, this one being in a bit cooler tonation.

This card is my favourite one so far. And my husband's. And his best friend's. I like it so much I may make a few more just so that we have a small stock :)

Neva eva gro' up!

How hard is it to take  a good photo of a card with gold specks and rhinestones? - I think it took me about 20 minutes and I am still not a happy bunny. Speaking of bunnies though - my glamorous neighbour has one. She always looks so perfect - makes me want to be Mrs T when I grow up!

But then we all know that Ignises neva eva gro' up! So there. My journey to perfection has been nipped in the bud- oh no!

So, back to the bunny again- it's such a gorgeous little thing, so soft and pretty - reminds me of a winter hat I used to own. I loved it. It saved my life once when the bus door decided to slam out of the blue with y head in between it... The hat worked as a helmet. Digressing again... it must be late!

Maybe this time I will be able to tell you a bit about the bunny rabbit lady - she is absolutely awesome. A bit crazy, gardening and digging up her roses every few days as she doesn't like their positioning, just to change her mind the next week- week? Day! Oh and the garden always looks is perfect. So I hoped for a perfect card. This one is my favourite so far as the colours are so vibrant! And it merges the flowery ad glamorous themes. Just like my pretty neighbour :)

Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham

It was a dark and frosty evening, the sort of when your mind tries to switch off, otherwise you would be  too aware of the omnipresent cold. But my mind was working overtime, I was dancing (yes, dancing!) on the icy streets, dressed up in black long coat and 3 inch heeled boots, snow all around me. The coat was open, the scarf dangling. 

I was going to a Diwali night of light in a theatre in Krakow, my city of magic.

It was the first time I ever heard of celebration of light. My senses were full of colour, music, light and flavours I tasted for the first time. I don't remember when I got back home, but I couldn't sleep. I wanted to watch and read and learn more about this beautiful culture.

Some time later I watched my first Bollywood movie -Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham. And again I felt happy. 

The card below is my first ever Diwali card, for the family that live next door. We invade them ocassionally for a cup of tea and hope they don't mind. The girls love my daughter; she loves them back. 

I'm beginning to feel like... Christmas!

I cannot wait till November. That's one of the great things about living in the UK - once it's November. the Christmas decorations can go up. I think that we will maybe put the outside lights up first and then wait with the tree - currently the room has been taken over by countless toys.

I have also been working on a few cards. I think you may see the pattern there...

I already feel magical and want to read and watch Narnia again. So white and fluffy, and sexy Mr Tumnus the Faun... and the roar of Aslan, making everything all righ. We need some of such fuzzy warm feeling - that everything is just going to be fine...

I haven't decided who the cards are for, however, with both my and my husband's big families, we need MORE! :)

 

I tried the gelato marker thing on this one for the first time - I used it as I would use pastels.  

I enjoy making them so so much. The Christmas tree motive ones were pictured in a card making magazine and I adopted them to my liking.  

So- I know it's not yet even November, but - merry Christmas everyone!

Let us love people...

Let us love people now they leave us so fast
And the ones who don't leave won't always return
And you never know while speaking of love
If the first one is last or the last one first.

[Jan Twardowski, translation found here]

Some of my relatives have a fantastic feel for family bonds. One that doesn't care about country borders, time zones or an hour in the day. When they want to talk to you, they will always find you then and there. Some time ago I was a bit upset about it, as the phone would ring randomly at 1 or 3 am, drastically waking me up (it was a loud, noisyring tone unable to be changed and the phone was just above my bed) but now I would actually love it if someone felt that they were so close to me that they'd need to speak to me then and there. I think one starts appreciating their family more as they get older...

 

 

This post is dedicated to my cousin's son. He's just turned 5 and eventhough I made the card in time, I wasn't able to post it until just after his birthday. At the time I didn't even realise that I was using my favourite combination of colours - pink, blue and vibrant green. We have Christmas decorations in these as well, I hope the card doesn't look too christmassy though! :)

 

Darjeeling mmmm

Ahh another 'made-to-order' card, yay!

I used golden ink on the Indian style embossing. I also got some new flowers and paper which I used several times now. An I am still in love with the rhinestones that my husband got me when he learned I was going to start making cards.

The joy of making this card was equaled only by my newly arrived Darjeeling tea. I *had to* try it then and there. Mmmm tea :) and a lovely chat with my other half.

I'm still debating getting a lot of card supplies, but it will need to wait, as I have just gotten myself a shiny motorbike. Well, we bought it, not just me. So the stretched finances are now.. well.. a bit more stretched...

New Baby arrival

When you see those little tootsies, and tiny hands all you want to do is to kiss them all the time. The eyes that can only see you when you are about 30 cm away and the little heart that beats just for you. You love the little being that you created, you are the proud parents. Overwhelmed with joy and love towards the most precious little creature in the whole wide world.

Or that’s how we felt when our daughter was born. I am pretty sure that no matter who people are, they still feel the same.

My cousin has just had a baby. I had a feeling that it may happen soon as I kept thinking of her and that I still needed her address – so I emailed my aunt yesterday morning; she replied, but I couldn’t access my personal email account from work; a few hours later my dad emailed me at work with the fabulous news. I think I got maybe a tad overexcited as I shared the news with my coleagues. That’s just who I am. I like others to experience the joy I take part in. More often than not, people here are reserved and just look at me as if I came from the Moon. I think they must be English ;)

So, provided that I can find the Post Office today, this is going to be sent out to the proud parents of Baby L.

Heart beats

One night to be confused... 
One night to speed up truth...

It was our 3rd wedding anniversary a few days ago. Our heartbeats became one such a long time ago that we sometimes forget that we still are us- not one family unit, but separate entities. This was a night to recall this amazing state of being in love and being free to talk and do whatever the two of us wanted. We also had a giggle as at around 9pm we felt a big hammer of tiredness coming over us and all we could think of was to get home to our little gorgeous daughter and to our comfy soft bed. Which we did to the surprise of our amazing neighbour who had agreed to babysit and was expecting us much later... 

The  card that my husband received that day is just here on the right. I sprayed it with golden spray paint - an afterthought that worked quite nicely; I think that the next time I will only spray some elements of the card rather than the whole thing.

Tea time!

Oooh, I have just ordered a batch of Darjeeling and Oolong teas. I hope to share some of it with my parents. I am not sure if I like Oolong yet, as I only had it twice so far. I had the same feeling with Darjeeling when I first tried it. It took me several times to get used to it; that tea is so fabulously tasty, but  what I found is that the main mistake people do is to add too little into a tea strainer or a teapot and then pour it straight in before it has a chance to brew properly. It purely has no time to work its magic. The best Darjeeling I bought was from Poland, from a small tea shop in my home town that I discovered at the age of 17. It's changed (it used to be tea rooms, where you could seat and have a nice cuppa and perhaps a cake - now it's just a shop) but the lady there is lovely. One can get lost in all the varieties they sell there, I got some fantastic black tea blend called Tsarina's samovar and also the first flush Darjeeling I mentioned before. I am going there back in December so I can't wait to bring something new home.

As I finished the last of the Darjeeling from home, I ordered some online from an ethical company that uses bio dynamic farming and fair trade. I had some tea from them before so I thought I'd give it a go again. I am looking forward to sitting with a cuppa and working on my cards!

Sea of coziness

I have always felt that I've been floating in this non decision state. No commitments, no risks and no rewards. It will probably never change unless I am pushed. This is my personal llife. I feel cosy and safe here and therefore I don't need to make big decisions.

There have been ocasions of course, when such a status quo was undeniably unacceptable, so I have ventured out of my 4 walls of coziness to change things - big decisions of the sort of moving o the UK and leaving the life I knew. Or fighting for the man I loved eventhough the fight seemed to be lost before I even picked up the glove - now we are married and have a wonderful daughter...

 

This one is not as big a decision as it may seem, but for me it's a little piece of puzzle I have started to complete a few months ago when I decided to start this blog. Should I order some card/card blanks in wholesale quantity? I could try and sell some of them. At the moment I wouldn't be able to sell them as a main income, I don't think i would ever decide on such a drastic step- it takes me about an hour to make a card from scratch if I need to design it in my head first. If it's something I have done before then it's much easier and faster - Easter cards took about 20 minutes each once I knew what I wanted them to look like. Also, one of the factors that acts against me is the space - you saw the havoc I generated in my lounge in the first post - it takes time toset up the shop and then time to tidy up.

So - At the moment it would still be just a hobby. But maybe one I could slowly make some money on... I started to gather costs of card blanks. I have already spent much more on this that I would ever want to and I haven't gone bancrupt is only thanks to my lovely salary from the previous life and my husband's current salary (my current one is barely covering the nursery costs and make up removing pads;)

Then the question would be of the card costs, mediums to sell it through - I'd need to make a business plan and stick to it probably. And not splash on unnecessary stuff. Like shoes. Or new baby wraps...

Little Darlings

August saw a wave of my antenatal group's babies' birthdays. As usual, I forgot to take the pictures of most of them and asked 2 mamas to please send me the picture - quite funny.

 

I love to give people the cards that represent them. Or with colours that I associate them with - it's so much easier to work this way as there are no clashes and the creative process is happier and faster. 

Once I finished Jacob's card though, I wasn't sure if, due to the usual gender stereotypes, his parents wouldn't find it weird or out of order. Hopefully they didn't, as I absolutely loved his card!

 Léon's card was the first one I used chalk pastels to colour the embossing with. It was such a joy to create something new - especially that the little boy was so special in my daughter's life. Her first boyfriend and everything ;)

Joshua's cards were very blue - he is a boyish boy, but so cheerful, it had to be blue and yellow!

Forgotten dreams

It has been a long time, full of forgotten photos and forgotten dreams...

I made a lot of cards that nobody took any pictures of, as the whole process was very reactive rather than proactive...

My supplies of card stock, papers and general card making gadgetry have doubled if not trippled during the last few months and I am still awaiting a few things. Oh, and even more are on my Amazon wish list, should anyone want to donate something *wink wink*

What I am the most proud of though are my lovely stickers with Ignis Fatuus hand made cards on them.

4 weeks ago I went back to work full time and now am I panicking that the Christmas supply of cards will not be finished in time. It's only August! You'll exclaim, however considering my and my husband's families, 3 months to create cards for all of them is not long at all.

I will try to show you a few little bits and bobs of what I did in the past few months. I have not forgotten. I have been otherwise preoccupied with the little porcupine waking up at night every 2 hours every night, so the priority has been getting at least some sleep.  Bu hopefully I adjusted now and will be able to post more regularly.

These two don't have the most appealing pictures, as I totally forgot to take them! I nearly put the cards in the envelopes when I realised I should have taken a snapshot.

They were for 2 special people:

One very warm and cuddly friend... 

...and one Father-in-Law:

I loved the simplicity of the two cards - again, the pictures are not the greatest.

Godparents

I'm a rubbish godmother. I moved in to the UK and I am not really seeing my godson at all. I saw him once since his christening and it was a 7 year gap. I saw him a year ago when my husband and I went for holidays around Poland and visited my family that we see very rarely.

So this card was very special to me. It was  to celebrate his 8 birthday. I would love for us to stay in touch, but the problem is he doesn't know me much.

On a different note, my cousin (my godson's dad) is a fantastic godfather. He never forgets my birthdays and always calls. Being very busy himself - he's a self employed builder and apart from working on various building sites, doing OT whenever he can, he built his own massive 3 story house with amazing marble floors throughout, a fireplace that can control the whole house's heating and hot water supply- he takes the little one to his football practice and has time to use his gym at home. A true example of an awesome dad. Don't change! This is for you for your awesome 5-0.

Scent of ribbon

I love ribbons. There is something special about them. You can touch and smell them. Yes, smell, sniff, you name it. They all have a specific scent. The ones I ordered online came wrapped in tissue paper (ooooh, it's like heaven for me! I even ordered my dad once to wrap my resent first in THIS tissue paper first and then in whatever he wanted to). There was a pink lace one (in my previous post on my niece's card), a lovely bottle green and white lace ribbons. They smelled fresh. Apple fresh, a bit like new batteries. 

Then there are the ones that remind me of my old children theatre changing room in Opole MDK. A bit damp perhaps, stored for a long tie in a closed box? Makes you wonder what their story is and if they belonged to an old lady once, who died and left all her belonging to...  umm... Cardmaking. Get back on track...

So,  speaking of  ladies and ribbons - this card was for a special person. Our neighbour, who decided to come into our life with love and a big dose of Irish humour. And we love her back for it. She's my daughter's Grandma-away-from-Poland. This was for her big birthday. 

I WILL get a set of number dies at some point. I think it would look really great to have a big number stuck to the card. I am getting there, slowly.

What I did get though, was a Vistaprint order of  stickers with 'Ignis Fatuus Handmade Cards'. Tadamm :)I just keep forgetting to take a decent picture of cards BEFORE giving them to someone. I need to be less mummy and more organised. Maybe one day.

Butterflies drinking all the tea!

Long time! 

You tell me. With so much hormones buzzing left and right it's really hard to focus on just one thing. Being an agony aunt, a proper aunt, a friend, a wife and a mother is all great and I just love to be in all those places at the same time, but then sometimes I do lose a plot. Haha, if only  did it happen occasionally...

With the Valentines coming, there was a lot of hiding and trying to be inconspicuous. However, as they say, the best hiding place is in the plain sight. I mastered it to perfection one day by asking my husband innocently to help me retrieve some card stock out of a die. It was a rosette that was going onto his Valentine card but the blooming thing wouldn't get out of the metal die. Neither could I or my friend get it out (umm...). My husband, priding himself on being engineer, worked it out with a cocktail stick within seconds. He didn't ask where the rosette was going and I didn't mind keeping this information to myself. 

Did I mentioned that I got myself some embossing powders? I was very excited about using them and it was my first attempt on the left, on the card for my lovely husband. It's not perfect, but then we aren't either. It's a shame that the picture doesn't show the embossed roses on the red card...

 As it was the 14th of February, and my niece was coming to visit us, I wanted to make her feel special. Not sure if she celebrated the Valentines, I decided for a bright card with not many heart-shaped references. I got told later that I shouldn't have bothered with a Valentine card and if I wanted to I could have given her a card without any occasion. Oh well, each to their own I guess. But I'm sure she liked it anyways :P 

Even if she didn't, she definitely liked my tea. Out of 20 tea bags of lovely rose and vanilla, I have none left. Will need to buy some for when we go to visit my family during Easter. My little butterfly of a niece  will like that for sure :)

And then I was actually asked to make a card for someone else. I was over the moon and felt very special. As my friend saw the cards I made for my husband and niece, she was keen on something similar (but not the same) to what I already made. It was to be Valentines related, but masculine nevertheless. But then, we are women so we have our own way of interpreting what is and what isn't masculine. So if you ask me, masculine is what I say it is :)

Canga and Roo

I wanted another baby wearing wrap (a big scarf that you wrap a baby and you both look like Canga and Roo :) but I already spent over £150 on babywearing so if I brought a wrap home, I would probably be defenestrated. But it's addictive. It's like buying another pair of shoes. Or a car. Yes, a car. A nice, shiny, fast convertible. Well OK, you don't buy several cars at once, but you want to. Just because you can. There are wraps in various colours, fabric blends, etc... And it was all supposed to be about the card making, not babywearing!

I received quite a lot of various paper bits, feathers and stickers from one of my babywearing lovely friends and I was wondering how to use them in the best way. Then I thought of the person for whom the card  I was making and yet again the butterflies came to my mind. 

My mother in law is one of the most gentle people I've ever met. She's ethereal and lovely. I wanted to make a card for her that would say 'hey, we love you - have a fantastic day, filled with laughter and pretty things'.

And then, instead of buying another wrap, I spent some money on embossing equipment.

The card you see on the right was dry embossed with an embossing folder (it's like a patterned envelope you put a card in) that was rolled through my lovely embossing machine. That's one kind of embossing. Then there is another kind, where you stamp a pattern on the card, sprinkle lots of coloured powder on it and treat with a heat gun. The powder melts and hardens, creating a pattern from the stamp. I got some of these on ebay, but it backfired a bit as a few items did not fit their description; the case is still open at the moment...

Surprises

I've always wanted to know how it is, when you open a door and a crowd of friends shouts 'SURPRISE!' - well, maybe one day I will, but so far I've been on the side of the crowd. 

The setting was a lovely castle, apparently only 3 years old. Or was it restored from scratch 3 years ago? Anyway, the blue arch lit up the whole building and it looked like there should be Lords and Ladies coming soon. But later, there came the King and the Queen instead ;)

We hid in the orangery and waited for the surprisee (is it even a word?)

When she came in, escorted by her husband, smug as a bug, as he organised everything, we shouted and cheered- and I hope she was happy.

A little card to wish a happy 30 birthday was given.

I need to work on the way I attach ribbon to card. I used PVA glue here, but I wasn't happy with the end result. I tried to  attach it with a double sided tape but it was visible underneath. Hmm. Something to think of when I make another card with a see through materials.

There is always a beginning

'A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct'

Well. I was told that from now on, I will have to make all the cards for every occasion. Ever.

My husband and I went to the Range to buy a money box for our daughter. We saw a lovely one there a year ago and it was very girly and just what I liked, so we got one for his niece. Now we wanted a similar one for our daughter. We couldn't find any. So we *may* have bought an embossing and cutting machine instead. Not sure if it's any good but it works for us. It's an X Cut Xpress A4 one and it costed less than an A5 Cuttlebug, which, we Googled!, was advertised on QVC. 

As we are both as into QVC and crafts as our cats are into swimming, after a short deliberation (and checking all possible apps for cheaper equivalents with 5 star customer rating), we decided to buy it. Together with additional £40 of embossing folders, stamps and dies. 

The lounge after the first 'testing' looked like  a bombshell... I was surprised that my parents have never commented on how 'colorful' it was around me - apparently as a child I would  get as many sweets as I could, making my mother very worried about the state of my teeth, then scatter the wrappers around me and discard the sweets. When my parents asked me why I had done it, I apparently answered something along the lines of ' Oh but it looks so colorful now!'
 

There. So yes, with the very colorful lounge, I got very proud of myself. My first creation, of course to thank my parents for all the sweet wrappers that the life has thrown in my way, was on its way. To commemorate their 44th wedding anniversary, a card was created. I experimented with the borrowed scissors and cut+embossed the butterflies, but it wasn't enough so they got a layer of golden ink on top of them. A bit of a faery dust to sprinkle their wings :)

The Banality of getting the balance sheets even was being fought by the butterflies. I like butterflies, have I mentioned that before?

Butterflies for tea

The Banality.

There is a Role Playing Game called Changeling: The Dreaming. The first time I played it I was  guided through a house, from the cellar up, and I had to describe each of  the rooms I visited. I especially remember my nan's cellar that had this smell of wonderful dampness that no one else but me appreciated. If I could, I would stop the game then and there as I got so much into the memory of a sunny day when I had to bring some coal and wood for my nan. That smell of the underground  was the smell of my childhood. It was somehow invigorating; I felt like a kid again. And I did not want to gro' up. Neva eva!

So, what does it have to do with tea, butterflies and this blog? One main thing. Defying Banality. The main thing I've loved about that particular RPG was that whatever happened- the banks go bust, someone looses their job- there is always hope. Hope and creativity. And these help change the world into a better place. Just like tea. A good cup of tea makes you close your eyes and think of pretty things. Like -butterflies!

Well. It may be a bit convoluted way of explaining myself, but there we go. This blog is (hopefully) going to be about my little card making project. Out of all the 'creative' ideas I hope this one is not just a whim. Trust me, I am rubbish at crafts. I made a few scarfs in my life an none of them was straight. I loved them and of course they were my pride. But the card making seemed more rewarding. It relaxes me when I can sit and put the ideas from my head on a piece of paper. When I look at 'hand making cards' on Google or all those scrapbooking ideas, it's again as if I was in the world of Changeling. Remodelling the world with some magic so that it becomes a more interesting place.