For those who's hearts are sore.........

Broken Heart? ........

 No not broken, but hurting......please read...

I wrote this when going through emotional turmoil in my life this year, and wanted to share it, so I thought I would use my blog to do so.  Remember that whatever you are going through in your life.......you are loved and not alone.  You may feel unloved and you may feel alone........but you are not.

My situation is improved but nowhere like it used to be, because when something gets broken and mended it is never the same..........but that doesn't mean it has to be damaged goods which are not good anymore............it just means that things are now DIFFERENT.........and that can be a good thing.

Take no revenge that you have not pondered beneath a starry sky, or on a canyon overlook, or to the lapping of waves and the mewing of a distant gull.  ~Robert Brault

So anyway:  This is what I wrote....I hope you read it and that it touches your heart..............

A Softly Beating Heart..............not a poem

This heart is softly beating.....

the life blood moves to keep someone alive.

So soft and warm

so vital!

A softly beating heart

brings love to the fore.

it generates warmth 

and life to share.

When a heart grows hard and cold

it makes the person dead to life!

It makes someone cold and distant

and all they say and do

cuts others.....like a knife!

A hard heart does not love.....

it lusts! It lusts after the almost unobtainable.....

and shatters the life of those who truly love!

A soft heart sees the pain of others

a gently beating heart will warm the hurting

and remove the pain!  

Gently and softly beating on and on

ensuring life keeps going

like the beat of a song!

A softly gently beating heart cares!

A hard heart, does not beat gently

but rather thumps around and causes

things to die!  It does not care! Except for itself

the all important ME!

Someone once said that a soft gently beating heart

shows compassion, and can bring joy where there is sadness!

How can that be?   When sadness is a choice, how can it be changed

without the person, who chose it in the first place, being willing to change it?

 A soft and gentle beating heart can hide

what is happening. 

 It can be bruised, but will never be broken!

                                                                     Anne Banks 2012©

You see

Wabi-sabi is the Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection, celebrating cracks and crevices and appreciating the intrinsic integrity of natural objects and processes, asymmetry, roughness or irregularity. Characteristics of the wabi-sabi aesthetic include simplicity, economy, austerity, modesty and intimacy. Above is a picture of a Japanese pottery bowl, with a golden seam ending in a delta at the rim. The deep fissures in the bowl, which is old and valuable, had been filled with resin and gold flakes, burnished and lacquered.  The procedure is called “Kintsugi” or “Kin  Zukuroi” which means “repairing with gold.”

Perhaps God believes, too, that we "cracked pots" are more valuable after having the gold of His grace poured into our broken places and fissures? I will try to remember, when I'm having an especially "broken" day. I hope you will too? 

i am more beautiful than I was in my youth BECAUSE of all that I have come through......because I chose to fight back and not let the negative world overtake me and dictate to me who it thinks I am, or what it thinks I should be like.

Be encouraged this coming year.........you can talk to me if you want to..............but most of all stand up and don't take flight,...stop............turn around a face your enemy because you will then find that you are much taller than the enemy ...........

You are NEVER  on your own.

Many Blessings to you for 2013.  I may be back before then...........I may not........you know where to find me.

See you soon.

Love and hugs

Annie xxxx

CHRISTMAS

A CHRISTMAS GREETING

I have tried to add a link to a Christmas greeting for you all but am not sure if it will work.  So in the meantime....here are my doggies:

Here you go:

http://smilebox.com/playBlog/4d7a51324d7a6b354e54413d0d0a&blogview=true

I have really enjoyed posting in my little blog this year and I am really looking forward to what the next year will bring, crafty-wise and otherwise.  

In the meantime:  Never put yourself down ; Don't accept (constructive or otherwise) criticism: Don't live your life for anyone else or through anyone else.

All you lovely crafters out there...........THANK YOU for your inspirations, kind words....helpful hints and the masses of support you have given me throughout this sometimes very difficult year.

Be blessed, as I am, be loved as I am.

See you again another time.

Love and hugs

Annie xxx

Tutorial

I know that I have shown you some of the notelet sets I have already made from designer Carol Ann Clarke, so today I decided to do a tutorial on making a set.

First of all, I need to tell you I am not a professional photographer, so some of the pictures will be quite slap-dash, but hopefully you will look past all that and enjoy what you see and read.

Before I go on.........remember these?

Yummy biscuits..............well, today it's all about sweets, cupcakes and biscuits, and I make no apologies if you start nibbling!!

Oops! you can't leave them alone five minutes!!!!!!!

So, back to today:

The first thing I did was download the the whole set, which includes very clear instructions.  Here you are:

The drawer and sleeve, printed onto A4 card.  As you can see there are 3 images at the bottom of one of the sheets, and I will use one of these for decorating the box at the end.  If you look closely you will see how all the score places and cutting places are very well marked.

Here are the four cards and two gift cards, printed onto white card, which is a bit thinner than the card I used for the drawer....of course you can print them out as often as you want, but the purpose of today I have printed off exactly what is in the pack.

Here are the inserts for all the cards which I have printed onto lovely flimsy  white paper.

These are the extra pages, printed out, which will also go into the drawer.  I used the same paper as I did for the inserts.

These are the envelopes, which I have printed out four times.....one for each notelet.

As you can see clearly Carol has left nothing out and it really is quite easy to follow what needs to be done.

The first thing I did after printing everything out was to score along all the places that needed scoring.

So now you get the drift about scoring.  It's all preparation and makes life easy to get things done.

The next thing I did was to trim and cut the pieces out.  I found it easier to trim around everything before doing the final cutting out.

So now you can see one envelope not cut out and one that has been cut out.

And here are the cards and gift cards all cut out ready for their inserts.

Inserts ready to be used.

Insert  put into the card.

Preparing the drawer.

I folded over the sides and stuck them down.

This is the sleeve cut out.

I turned the sleeve over and put sticky tape where needed, and I have kindly written where the straight edge is and the angled edge.

Now I have stuck down the end pieces.

I folded the top part over and then stuck the sides together leaving the tabs.

The sleeve is now ready.

Here is the sleeve with the drawer inside.

Are you fed up yet?????????

And now for something completely different..............and totally unconnected....................

Right then:

This is all the bits ready to put inside the drawer, except the drawer is not yet decorated!!!

So finally, I chose one of the pictures and matted it onto some red felt and stuck it to the centre of the top of the drawer.  I then added some spotty ribbon with a flowery ribbon over the top, using a glue roller both times. I added the pale blue gemstones and a red bow, just because I could.

So. I hope you enjoyed this.  The set can be bought at http://www.craftsuprint.com

and the code number is cup373956_359

It is just so scrummy dumpsciolous!     I may pop back and tweak this tomorrow.............then again, I may not.

Enjoy:

If you'd rather be on your own:

Never let anyone tell you you are not good enough.............You are worth every breath that you take..................................................breathe easy, sleep well, and know that you are loved.

See you next time.

Love and hugs

Annie xxx

I have been very busy

Doing Crafty Stuff!!

CraftsUprint designs I have made.

Hello everyone.  This week has seen us having visitors from the tiny island of Jersey, to spending quality time with family members and doing lots and lots of crafting.  The weather has been getting colder and the fire is being lit earlier,  we have had the village fireworks evening, and the clocks went back an hour.....so winter is really heading our way.

Very soon we will all be seeing and playing with a lot of the white stuff:

However, while I am waiting for the snow to arrive, I have been keeping myself very busy.  Today I thought I would showcase CraftsUprint   http://www.craftsuprint.com  and some of the designs that I have been making.  I will give you the code numbers for the items so that if you visit the CraftsUprint website you can search for it if you want to buy it too. So let's start with this one:

A traditional Christmas card showing a girl carrying figgy pudding.  The code number for this card is cup346607_107 the designer is Heather Howes.

I printed the sheet onto ultra premium photographic paper and cut out all the pieces.  I layered the centre image and decoupaged the bow.  I think it is really sweet and very traditional.  I stuck the main image to an A5 white are using DST and layered and decoupaged using double sided sticky pads.   

What I like about CraftsUprint is that there are so many designs to choose from, and you can ask the designers to add or change something if you want it more personalised.  Once you have bought a sheet or a kit it is yours to make as often as you like.  The only thing that is stipulated is that you do not sell the sheet as a sheet, but you can sell the finished article.

Here is a lovely Sympathy card:

Again, once i had printed the sheet, this time onto card, I cut out the pieces.  The card will fit an A5 envelope. I scored the card where indicated by lines appropriately placed and folded it.  I then matched up the central image and stuck that onto the card overlapping at the top.  Then I decoupaged the rose and added the sentiment.  I think this is a very unusual design for a Sympathy card, but it is also very effective.  The code number for this card is cup296649_1050 the designer is Kylie-Jayne Blacklaws.

This next card is a mini-kit of an Edwardian Girl:

It comes as 2 sheets, one with the main images and the other one with the bits to decoupage.  The main image fits an 8x8" square card.  I decided to make the card stand with the fold along the top, like a tent!  I printed both sheets onto ultra premium photographic paper, and then cut out all the pieces.  I stuck the main image onto the base card using DST (double sided sticky tape).  I deoupaged the flowers in the girls hair, and the flowers beneath her image.  Then I had a brainwave.........and decided to use other parts of the kit to make a tag, so I die-cut a gold circle and using double sided sticky tape, I stuck the cut out blank tag (the red and gold fancy shaped bit) onto the circle with the gold ribbon in between.  At the back of the card there is another smaller blank tag under which I have stuck the other end of the ribbon.  The code number for this mini-kit is: cup371303_692, the designer is June Young.

Here are close up photo's of the tag and the decoupage:

And now, for something completely different:

Okay then, back to the cards and chat:

I decided to try something crafty but definitely nothing I have done before; so I had a look around CraftUprint and found this:

This is a stationery set.  First of all I printed out the box pieces onto card (about 300 gsm) and then the mini cards onto card about 240 gsm and then the inserts onto white paper.  Please go and have a look at how it all comes, it is so easy to follow the very clear instructions and it was a joy to make.  I printed enough to make the box, 4 notelet cards, 2 gifts tags, four envelopes and 6 extra sheets, plus of course, the inserts for the cards and the gift tags. Oh! I nearly forgot, I also printed out the image whichI used for the top of the box. So, here are some close ups of the photograph above:

The box:

The box comes on two sheets, with very clear instructions.  I printed them off and cut and scored them where indicated.   I then made the drawer and then it's cover by sticking bits together.  I decorated the box using vintage lace with pink velvet running through the centre.  Then I matted the image of the bourbons onto brown shimmer card using double sided sticky pads.  To finish off the decoration, I used 2 pearlescent flowers and stuck a pearl in the centre of each one. I stuck the image at an angle just because I could!

These are the extra sheets, which I think are lovely with their doily type corners, and one of the envelopes.  Each envelope takes one A4 sheet of paper, and again it has very clear instructions.

These are two of the notelets.......... they are the centre ones in the main image.  Each notelet has an insert that matches it, with a mini picture on the left hand side and a square bordered right hand side, leaving space to write in it.

This is a notelet and a gift tag.  You can see the difference in size, but they are so lovely and almost edible!!!!!  

And the last of the notelets  with it's gift tag is the bourbon biscuit one....yummy!   the code number for this is: cup371620_359 the designer is Carol Clarke.

So you see the detail is all there, the desire to eat many biscuits is now here.........and I just love this set...........However........

If you are not into biscuits, but prefer baking:  How about these:

I know, I couldn't resist them either....CUPCAKES.......Ooh! Yum yum yum!!!

Instead of going through everything again, I thought I would just show you the box with two gift tags.  Iused ribbons and a bow to decorate this one.........What do you think?  Code number: cup370509_359, and again the designer is Carol Clarke.

So, it's coming up to 11th November...Remembrance Day, and I decided to make something special this year.  

This card is really special.  I printed the sheet onto rough canvas and cut out the pieces.  I used a brown A5 base card to stick the main image onto using double sided sticky tape.  I then layered the pieces, edging the first layer with black and gold sticky ribbon for effect.  The sentiment says, "You gave your yesterday for our today. Always Remembered"

I don't need to add anything further about this card, except it's code number: cup369528_1443 and the designer is Gillian Hutchinson.

I hope you have enjoyed my blog today, and have been inspired to visit CraftsUprint.......it doesn't just do cards, there is something for everyone from knitting to using cutting machines and card making and scrapbooking.........go on.........I know you want to!!

So, I am hoping that those of you who visit will have enjoyed being here with me for a little while.  My thought for today is that

Don't let the world and all that's happening in it distract you from the important people in your lives.  I will NOT accept the negatives that pop up in my life and funnily enough, when I ignore them, they go away.

Love and many blessings to you all

See you next time

Annie xxxx