March Mystery Crime Reading Challenge.

Month 3 of the Crime reading challenge. Details can be found here.
I have another two books to review this month. Both books I picked up for a snip from my local charity shop and now that I have read them will be returned for resale.

Thr first one By Ruth Rendle is a Chief Inspector Wexford novel. I have never been able to get on with watching the television series so I was very pleasently suprised to find that I could not put this book down!  The crime has been long committed at the start of the book over ten years previously so all the police have is the remains  to try and not only identify the corpse and how they died but who did the deed.  The pace is fast and you soon have a mismash of likely suspects some of whom are not slow to try pulling the wool over the Inspectors eyes. A second corpse is found  within a short distance  of the first one but this one has not been  dead for quite as loig so are the two deaths related or just a coincidence?
I got to almost the end of the book before I realised whodunnit. A throughily good read and i will certainly be looking for some more Wexford Crimes to solve.
My rating 9/10 (only because I sussed it!)

The second book is another Georgette Heyer novel written and set in  the 1930'3.  I couldn't help thinking as I was reading the book how it would have made an excellent Brian Rix 'Whitehall Farce'.
You are presented with a dead body right at the start and within a very short time a group of very likely suspects all who had good reason to kill and no alibi for the night in question.
You are fast drawn into the life of the upper classes of that era and I found the book a very good insight into the life of those times. You are kept in suspense almost right to the last page. I enjoyed this one better than the Georgette Heyer I read last month so my rating is
9/10.

I did read a load more books during the month  on my Ipad but as they were not crime related they did not count.
You can join in this challenge at any time during the course of the year.

Carrot Wishes to You.

Not your traditional  Easter Egg or Chicken themed card. I have had these NitWit  Collections papers (Thimbles 'n Threads  & Spring Whimsy) in my stash for simply ages along with the topper sheet of images. They came free with two different craft magazines and I thought it high time I made something with them.

A slightly larger center step card so that I could fit all the embellishments on.

Sentiment came from an old Easter card. It does  show up on the card  though  it is in yellow  but couldn't get a good photo even by waiting till this morning to take it.

 

Entering into the following challenges:

4 Crafty  Chicks: Easter.

Use It Tuesday: All about Spring.

Shopping Our Stash: Very vegetable fruity fun.

Creative Inspirations: Easter Wishes.

Fussy & Fancy: Spring Days.

A Gem of a Challenge: Make it cute.

Frosted Designs: Scallops.

 



P is for Patchwork.

The current letter over at the The Craft Barn is P. I was originally going to go with Poppies but at the eleventh hour changed my mind to Patchwork!

I have used a wash of pale  pink and green water colour paints on the dictionary page leaving the definition of the word clear. The patchwork is made up from NitWit papers which  were a freebie in a magazine. The lace, trimming, buttons, ribbon  and flower backings are all from my stash to pick up the colours in the papers. The letter P is a free download and can be found here.

 





 

Entering into the following challenge:

The Craft Barn: Alpha challenge letter P.

 





Vintage Birthday.

When I was making the TAP transfer tags here I found that two of the images had left a residue of the picture still on the contact paper. (The instructiuons do say you cannot over iron and you really do need to iron the transfers to within an inch of their life!!)
Now not one to waste anything I thought that these could probably still be put to use.
By laying a piece of sparkly organza over the image I found it not only darkened it down but gave a lovely mellow look to it.

 

I used a cream sheet called Cream Sparkour available from here and this is the resulting card that I made. 

  



Flowered backing paper is by Nitwit Collections 'Thimbles & Threads' and was a freebie in a magazine. Seasoned followers of my blog will know where the lace trim came from! Butterflies are a Tonic punch and sentiment is a clear stamp by Wow. I die cut a nestie to cover the image and trap the organza in between.

 

Entering into the following challenges:

Emmas Cards Uk: Vintage.

Hiding in My Craft Room: Free style anything goes.

Charisma Cardz: Happy Birthday

All Sorts: Vintage.
LEJ Designs: Vintage or Retro.

Posting Letters.

Another card to add to my ever increasing pile of Crimbo cards. Thought I would try a bit of
Decoupage so bought a sheet for 99p with 3 images on and this is the first one. Crimbo Crackers are asking for a card this week using no papers so racked my brain to come up with a suitable design to fit the bill.

I already had this card base sat in my stash from where I had die cut a shape to use on a previously made card. It just seemed to lend itself  for the decoupage postbox . The  thick card adhered to the back  is the left over piece from the photo folders that I had cut up to make the tags on the previous post.  The folder had a rather nice texture to it and because of it's age (date on back said 14th May 1974!) had gone a creamy colour.  Sentiment was cut from an old used card , 3D foam adhesives (for decoupage) and pearls from my stash. You can see the open card below.



 



 Entering into the following challenges:

Crimbo Crackers: No papers used.

Christmas Card Challenges: Clean  & Simple.

Rudolph Day: Festive entry.

Crafty Hazelnuts Extra: Anything goes.

 

 

 

 

 

Whose Chookin at You!

Just realised Easter is nearly upon us and the egg waiting to be decoupage is er still waiting. Then I had a sudden thought that a gift I sent out last week ( which has now been received) sort of fits the bill ,so I think I may have cracked it!! ( I know. Don't give up the day job!)
It's another bit of recycling. I do love to reuse the boxes that  8 out of 10 cats prefer.

 

Again no pattern used . I knew what gift was going inside so just 'Cut my Cloth' accordingly! (Groan).

Getting there. All the pieces are covered.  It's beginning to look like um a box.





Ok. so it's not an egg but hey which came first the chicken or the egg?

 

The top.



 

The inside.

 

And lastly the bottom. Oh look theres the eggs too!. Can't show you what went inside cos I forgot to take photos so must wait for some to be taken for me.

Hot footing it into the playground as everything was snippets of this and that. Have any of the playmates guessed who it was for?

 

Entering into the following challenges:

Pixies Crafty Workshop: Use up your snippets.

Frilly and Funkie: Easter spring gifts but not in a basket.

Fab 'n' Funky:  Boxed In.

Tuesday Taggers: Recycle it.

Tammy's Scrappin Corner:  Anything goes but a card.

 



 

 

 



Transfer Tags

I have just completed some tags for a swap using Transfer Artist Paper (TAP) which  you can purchase from here.  The swap was for 3 tags using this technique. Your backing paper needs to be fairly plain in colour  (dictionary, music sheets old letters, pages from an old book) in order for the transfered image to show up. I have a large number of coloured  images on my computer that I had saved from various free blog  downloads and quite a number of suitable backing papers from freebie sites.
These are the 3 tags that I made.

Once I had mastered the technique (full instructions included with the TAP ) I really wanted to go to town with adding lots of paper made flowery embellishments but as the tags were going first to USA and then onward to their new homes I had to keep the tags lightweight and flatish. Showing each tag seperately below.

 

Backing papers both the patterned and the writing sheet were freebies in magazines. The image is from  Home & Heart.

Buttons, pearl, fabric flower and trimming from my stash. Lesley, you may just recognise the strip of ribbon at the bottom as being used at the recent SU party and this was a  left over 3" piece sitting on the table which just happend to fall into my bag along with a few other tiny bits and bobs dicarded by the other Ladies!!! (what can I say, waste not want not.)

 

Gardening background text was a free digi download from Beyond the Fringe. The text comes with the swirly corner so I trimmed the paper to fit my Tag and then did the picture transfer over the top. I thought the image with the lady reading a letter was quite appropriate and again came from the same site above. The image background had a very slight green tinge so I picked  ribbons, lace trim and sticking pearls  (in the corners of the transfer)from my stash to compliment.

 

The sheet music is a download from Free Vintage Digital Stamps. The picture the same site as above.

I picked the pink roses out for the ribbon, pearls, trim and lace ( from MIL's unmentionables) in my stash. The tags were also made from cream card in my stash  as they were not a standard size that we had to use.  The card was  originally the folders that individual wedding photos come in. When we cleared FIL's and my parents houses we ended up with a lot of duplicates of ones we already had, so again waste not want not the empty folders went into my stash.

As I have used mostly everything from bits and peices am popping over to Pixies Playground for a go on the swings.

 

Entering into the following:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop: Use up your snippets.

Dream Valley: Pearls and  Lace.

613 Avenue Create: Anything goes.

Ladybug Crafts Ink: Anything goes.

Penny's Paper-Crafty: Anything  but Square.

Simon Says Stamps: Anything goes.

Make It Monday: Link up Monday.

Crafting for all Seasons.  Anything but a card.