In homage of sisters....

My darling mum has been in Iran since september and I am missing her more than anything, she is there looking after my sweet grandma with all her sisters now since Khaleh Manizheh arrived yesterday! It is not so nice having such an international family (especially if you can't stomach flying like me) I have 2 Aunts and they both hale from over the pond, one Canada one the US. I love them dearly so am gutted that I am not with them all! I don't see my Aunties and their families enough!

God willing my mum is back for a month soon...and she will be off again! So in honour of family and sisters I have posted these pics of my mum and her sisters and me and my sisters. I love you women so much. Each one of you is amazing....

Mum you are my rock, my guiding star, my friend my confidant...I know you read this (after I give you the link for the umpteenth time!) I want you to know how much I love you and how blessed I am to have you as my mother! Khoda Hefset koneh!

Maamy Soroor I wish we were all with you to give you kisses and hugs and tease you keep well and listen to your daughters they love you! You have made them what they are and therefore us what we are. I love you and am sending you many many many kisses!

Khaleh Soury, you always give me such a feeling of peace, you are at peace with yourself and you Lord and this spreads to those around you. You are so easy to talk to and so understanding and I can't wait to see you soon!

Khaleh Manizheh..JOOOOOOOOOOOON MY goodness I miss you sooo much I want to cry! Your fun spirit, your advice and listening ear..and you are a great shopping companion! Its been way to long since you were last here!!!

May Allah bless and protect you all! Khoda hefsetoon koneh! Mashallah!

My sisters!!!

Peggah, my elder sis! Love you honey, Im so proud of you and your achievements you are a fab mum and a great listener. You have a cool sense of humour and we can always have a good laugh!! Oh and you give the meanest massages...although as I recall I have not had one in ages..hmmmm. May God grant you every happiness and success that can be had!!

Tas, you are well and truly off your rocker...and a typical younger sibling, but you are the one who will take the pee when I'm feeling sorry for myself and make me laugh! I pray that God fills your life with Love, health, Iman and lots of laughter..

You women inspire me, listen to me, inspire me and console me!!
May Allah bless you all and protect you and bring us altogether in one country SOOOOOOONNNNN

Kises from me xxxxx

Dare 6..

Well this week the daring cardmakers culprit was Jo!! Thanks Jo!! Actually when I first saw that the dare was doodling I thought YAY!! Well I found it much harder than I thought and I'm not all too pleased with the out come. But hey ho! Thus is crafting sometimes you have it and sometimes you just don't! And this week was a don't week!


The process of this card was actually really fun just didnt come together as planned. I got the inspiration from some free christmassy doddle bug papers that came free wit he Scrapbook Inspirations mag. I doodled the background paper using three different colour pens. I then cheated..I scanned the image which was originally purple, green and blue. I tiled it on an A4 sheet and then messed about with the colour cast and it came out pink, green and red.

The font is Rebekahs Birthday which you can find free on the net..thanks Jo for the link! I matted the greeting on some card I printed on so I could match the exact colours of he back ground (smart huh!) Bit of ribbon some bling a few paper parcels and hey presto!

This card looked soooooo good in my head....why does that happen. I have seen lots of scrapbook pages with this wavy free hand writing thing going on! Even saw some paper like it so that was my inspiration The papers are from a DCWV paper stack! I jut ripped a whole lot stuck them down and then machine sewed the edges. I ripped some red cardstock and hand drew the greeting as well as the heart and stuck it down using foam pads for dimension added a junkitz flower and the heart and hey presto!

So that was it..I MUST MUST MUST try and practice the whole doodling thing much much more..

Now if you haven't already you simply have to go check out the blog the girls have excelled themselves this week and I am slightly green at the moment of the doodling talent out there!!

Pencil Lines Sketch #7!!

OOh this is a fab fab fab blog and if you have not paid them a visit you should! This is the first time I am joining in and it has already really got me 'out of the box'!

So here is my layout and my version on the sketch..not strictly the same but hey! This is my cheeky Ibrahim in the summer trying on a suit at John Lewis dept. store-we didn't buy the suit but he looked sooo cute I took a few snaps. A bit of playing in photoshop by the way.

So what did I use...well some KI papers and a few KI letter stickers I got in a Self Addressed kit a while ago now and never knew what to do with..lol The pics are mated on to some Bazzil card and the little plastic tags are also from SA. Ribbon I was given. The rubbons are Royal and Langnickel. I stamped the title with MM foam stamps then cut them out and used my pentel pen to outline them. This is quite experimental for me but I am quite pleased with how it turned out!

School Piccy!

Just got Ibrahims school photo today! Its not the best but kind of feel I have to get it if you know what I mean! This time round I bought the CD and the copyright so I could do what I pleased with it! So here it is. Ibrahim in year 2! I dont know where the last six years have gone they have flown past like a day dream!

If Only.....

I have pilfered a whole load of piccies from my mum and have scanned them so I can scrap them. I finished this today, I started it a bout a month ago and it is nothing like that which was in my head but I am quite pleased with it. It was quite emotional to do though! This is my Uncle, my mums brother. He tragically dies 5 days after I was born. I never new him. He is my only uncle from my mums side. Is strange because if it is possible I really miss him! Or miss knowing him.

Journalling reads " I never got a chance to know my Uncle Massoud. Tragically he died 5 days after I was born-the day before Peggahs birthday! As an only son in a family of girls he had a special place I think. His death broke my grandparents Mammy Sorour and Baba Omid. Just 5 days...just 5 days after I was born, for 5 days I had a real Diey. A maternal Unlce! I never really thought about him as a child growing up, but now as a mum myself I have started thinking about him. Peggah was lucky enough to have known him and I know he loved her. They spent time together smiling, laughing, hugs and kisses. There are photos to show. I dont have that, what I shared with Diey Massoud is sharing FIVE days on the same planet. I wonder what it would have been like had he lived. He would have doted on us neices and nephews I'm sure!! Perhaps he would have had kids two-other cousins. He would have had fun with us, and now if he had lived he would see my son Ibrahim! I know his life was not alwys happy as it should have been, it pains me that you suffered so much in your short life now especially since I can glimpse in to some of that pain. I wish I had memories of you like Peggah. I wish I had keepsakes and photos of us laughing and smiling together. I wish you had lived to see me and us cousins growing in to men and women. I wish you had met my husband and son. I wish you had not felt so desperate and pained. I wish you had lived and I really really wish I'd had the chance to know you!! "

I miss you Diey Massoud, may you rest in eternal peace and blessing!(Ok I am going to stop with this now as I'm welling up again!)

Even though it looks yellow this is actually a kind of green paper from the fatastic Basic grey Urban Couture papers. I cut the bird out of another BG UC paper, MM velvet letters, papermania metal letters, MM alpha stamps. And lots and lots of journalling with my zig pen!

xxSaffa

Dare Number...5


Wow! I can't believe we are on dare number 5 already! Thats right the Daring Cardmakers has been up and running for 5 weeks. The blog is doing so well its fantastic with contributors from around the globe! Well this week was Debbie's turn to set a dare.....hmmm...nothing hard..ONLY A MENS CARD WITH RIBBON!!!!!

Now I know we ALL find men's cards so hard so this is a great challenge! It was really very good as my nephews birthday is coming up so this was a perfect way to get that done. Make sure you check out the blog to see everyones gorgeous creations!!

This is the card I made for my nephew who will be 13 in a week or two! He plays bass guitar and is a complete guitar nut..lol!! I started with a yellow piece of A4 cardstock! Added a strip of red and blue down the centre. I cut out three tags from corrugated green card. Using an ellison die I cut out the bass guitars. I made the greeting with dymo label maker. I mounted the greetings on yellow corrugated card. I assembled the lot as in the picture. I stapled the ribbon on each tag. and then stuck the tags down with foam pads!

I started with a beige card blank and stamped some circles using a hero arts stamp and versemark ink pad on to it. I cut out three strips of patterned papers (Chatterbox I think!) and inked them too. I inked the edges of the paper and card. I stuck the papers down and then stitched round using the sewing machine. I then used a sizzix die to cut out the slide mount and again used the dymo to make a greeting which I assembled and then decorated with ribbon. I used a junkitz flower and bazzil button. Two pieces of ribbon were stapled to the card and the flower was stuck down using good old glue dots. I stuck down the slide mount with foam pads.
Et voila!!

Well thats that for now! I can't wait to see what everyone else comes up with!
xxSaffa

Julia Boutros-Lebenese Christian singer...

Beautiful song..mashallah alayk ya Julia!

Dare 4..

Fantastic dare...again! It was set this week by T (AKA Bondgirl!) . Use a foreign language. This was such a great dare! The good old internet came up trumps and I was able to find 'hello' in any number of languages from cherokee to chinese hehehe.

On this card I was able use the sizzix telephone die that I have had for ages but never actually used on anything! I used ribbon for the wire. The papers are a bit of gren bazzil and the rest are from a MM small pad. I hand wrote the speech bubble..that was fun ...in english, french, russian, english again, spainsh, arabic and japanese:)

I cut out five squares using a punch everything was inked with distress ink by Ranger. Then I just played aroung with everything and stuck it down when I was pleased!

I really enjoyed making this card. I ripped the two opposing sides of some crate paper that I got free with a scrapbooking mag! Stuck it down on to an A5 card. I scanned the love translation from an english-arabic dictionary and printed it on to some beige card with I then ripped round and inked. I die cut some flowers using a sizzix dies and inked the lot-the papers are the gorgeous BG lillykate set. Finally I printed out the saying-inked it and stuck the lot down, I used foam pads for the greeting to give it a bit of extra dimension!
Don't forget to check out the

blog to see everyones amazing cards they are truly stunning!

Bits and Bobs...

So I thought I would show you what I have been up to of late! I made this for my Gran who is having chemo at the moment. I am not able to see her as much as I should so made her these flowers to say hi!! It was so much fun!!

The little watering cans were probably about £1 from good old Ikea, then I used loads of ribbons and chatterbox papers and mod podged the lot!! The flowers are attatched to dowel from Homebase which I covered in ribbons. I stuck the stems in the pot using ALOT of hot melt glue!

It was a really fun project to do and so different from cards and scrapbook LOs.

Dare 3.....

Yup..yesterday saw the release of Kathy's dare.. on the Daring Cardmakers blog! It was a pretty fantastic dare too I may add... (so why did I leave it till the last minute..hmm). 'A stitch in time', it had to feature real sewing not the old use a pen jobby and anything sewing related. Once again the girls have produced some cracking cards! So many different interpretations of the theme! Don't forget to check out the contributions of the dare taker-uppers (is that a word?).

Well here is my effort, and I just want to say one thing first..INTERFACING, INTERFACING, INTERFACING!! (Ok thats three things). That stuff rocks! Well I left my card a bit late in the day (11.30pm to be precise) so the sewing machine would have to stay covered in dust!

I was wandering what to do when I remembered I have a box full off curtain samples I got for 50p a piece when Allders dept. store was clossing down and selling all their fittings etc!

So I cut out some bits of different colours and ironed on some of that interfacing stuff to stiffen it up...stay with me...and then I had my eureka moment as I still had no idea what I was goig to do! I was able to run the material through the Big Shot and it cut out the flowers like a dream...believe me you WILL be seeing more fabric flowers on my cards from now on!!

WARNING: Dont try using the xyron machines to stick your flowers down...it is nigh on impossible to get them off the backing sheet without totally distroying them!!

So I stuck the flowers with a bit of glossy accents although I am sure PVA would be great too! I then used a needle to make holes for my stitching (which took ages I must add) and did the stitching with some old embroidery thread I had lying about and made a few french knots with green thread and even stitched the buttons and greeting on..no glue dots for me either!!

About time...

I was tagged a little while ago byKathy!! These are quetions..very good ones too..set by Paula.

1) What technique would you consider to be your "trade mark" (what do you do most)?

I don't know if I have a trademark..nope I don't I enjoy trying all kinds of things. Sorry not a great answer..

2) Which technique(s) do you wish you could do/do better?
Erm...is Patience a technique as I could really improve on that..otherwise I would have to say stamping. I tend to do the same old same old and nothing very creative..

3) What are your 4 favourite embellishments?
Ribbbons, blossoms, eyelets, brads! You will no doubt find at least one on everything I make and often at least three!!

4) What are your 3 favourite gadgets?
Eyelet setter, scissors, printer! Now if I had a Robo thats what I would say but I dont have one!!

5a) What do you like to do but haven't done in a while?
Shrink Plastic! Whe I first discovered it alot of stuff feaured shrink plasic, but I havent used it in ages!!..hmmm must dig it out..

5b) And what have you done recently & forgot how much you enjoyed?
OOh toughey!! ..Just making random cards I guess, I have not just sat and made for no reason in ages and ages..so thats it!

Well if anyone reads this then you are tagged, post a link to my blog so I can read your answers

xxSaffa