Back again

Well, it's been a while since I was last on here.

I have had quite a nasty cold which gave me a tickly cough and I was virtually unable to talk for a couple of days. Now, I have congestion around my nose and eyes and have no energy. All I want to do is read.

I have just started to read the Psy Changeling series by Nalini Singh. These books have been on my Kindle for nearly 2 years and I have resisted reading them while I worked through her Guild Hunters series which is amazing. Anyway, the first book is amazing and I am hooked!

I have also caught up with Gena Showalter and have reread  Larissa Ione's Reaver in anticipation of Revenant which is released in December.

I have managed to do a bit more parchment craft, although I am aware that I don't work traditionally! What I tend to do is the embossing downstairs and then make the cards upstairs! I completed 3 yesterday.

The heart and butterflies came from a parchment kit pattern book. I mapped the patterns in white ink and then embossed from the back. The heart also has a pattern pricked from the top. Because I spilt some white ink on the parchment paper, I decided to cut the heart out. The card is one that I bought from Craft Creations bargain basement and I placed acetate behind the aperture. The heart and butterflies were then stuck to this or the card with Pinflair glue. I am still a bit heavy handed with the embossing and tore the parchment paper in one place, but it doesn't show.

I tried something completely different for this card. When Rod started to clean up the attic the other day, he found a box with some pearlescent paper in it. I tried embossing it and it does give a similar effect to parchment paper, albeit more muted. Anyway, I wanted to try printing a pattern out on parchment paper and embossing this, but the paper was not accepted by the printer. The pearlescent paper was.

I printed out a pattern from a My Craft Studio Parchment CD and chose a couple of suitable backing papers; one plain and one patterned. I could just about make out the pattern from the reverse side if I had a light above where I was working so embossed the pattern. Again it has perforations too. I cut out the pattern and mounted it onto the plain backing paper then mounted that again onto blue mirri card. The corners were rounded with a punch each time. A further piece of blue mirri was cut to fit and C5 card and the patterned paper stuck to this. I also made a butterfly from the same pearlescent paper to complete the look.

I used the printed pattern to complete another flower, this time on parchment paper. I placed some of the plain backing paper inside the aperture and stuck the parched flower onto this. I finished off with some butterfly stickers with raised wings.

I have to admit that this is my favourite card!