And then I craft

Hero Arts

2012-01-21T15:07:00.002Z

Hero Arts - definitely one of my fave stamp companies. I am sharing a card today that I made a while ago with their Silly Scape background

The way I coloured the buildings was very much influenced by the way Jennifer McGuire coloured these buildings on a card she made for PaperCrafts magazine (some time last year maybe .... I can't remember when, but it was quite a while ago). I loved her bright bold colours, perfect for copics.

The message is compter generated and printed straight onto the card - the embossed background is made with a Stampin' Up! embossing folder - Square Lattice.

Been so long

2012-01-04T12:35:00.001Z

Let me start by wishing you all a very happy New Year. May 2012 be propsperous and filled with lots of stash and cool crafting.

I seem to hardly get time to come on here these days, and Christmas time is always particularly hectic. Apart from all the normal festive running around, Matthew and I decided to host a Christmas Eve party at our home. The first time we had so many people around at once, but turned out to be great fun (especially when taking the punch and it's effects into consideration).

I wanted to make this party a little special, so instead of simply e-mailing or calling people to invite them, I thought I would make some proper invitations. Time being of the essence, crafting them was not an option, so I reached for my most trusty software - CorelDraw (Oh how do I love thee). It took me about a half an hour to put these together using some dingbats and cool fonts, 5 minutes to print them off on nice textured cardstock and voila ... quick and easy invites that look good as well.

Getting there

2011-10-04T09:52:00.002+01:00

You know I have told you that we are re-decorating the dining room, well it is nearly done. Can you hear that audible sigh of relief. By comparison everything else now looks seriously dated and I don't have to be a fortune teller to see that there is a lot of painting, stripping and above all hard work required in the future.

I have tried very hard to find a picture of the dining room before we started the painting etc. As a scrapbooker you would think I would have at least one, but then you would be wrong. What the ... ? I mean really. So I dug out this rather old picture of Hailey (dressed up in some sort of outfit of course) where you can see the wallpaper and blue carpet in the background.

... and this is where we are today. What a difference hey. I am so loving that new floor! No more patterned wallpaper either - woohoo! Floor should be finished by this afternoon and then I can move furniture back and resume some semblance of a normal life.

To celebrate I shall bake some cheesecake.

Next week my Aunty Olive is turning 100. I mean who gets that old! She is sharp as a tack and apart from some aching bones, fit as a fiddle. Check out this old duck, here she was 98, doesn't she look amazing! The other old duck is my mum, and of course Simone. These women are a true inspiration to me. I have never ever in my whole life heard my Aunty Olive complain about anything. She just doesn't pollute herself with negative thoughts, and it shows! An inspiration.

I can't be in South Africa to celebrate with them, but I did make a card to send off. It is not earth shatteringly amazing, just nice and plain like I know my aunty Ollie would like. She has a thing for sweet peas, so I finally got to use my PTI sweet pea stamp.

... and the winner is

2011-09-28T10:01:00.003+01:00

Thank you all for you great comments! The winner of the blog hop was announced yesterday and details can be found on the Scrap365 blog. Karen - CONGRATULATIONS!

Head on over there too for details on the great subscription deal Traplet are currently offering - you don't want to miss this. Only £3 for the first 3 issues for all UK subscribers.

I am afraid though I have to post and dash as I am knee deep in paint at the moment. Oh how I wish I could say it is artist paint and that I am working on a canvas, but alas I am still painting walls, ceilings, skirtings and doorframes. It is like my worst nightmare come true. I am on my last 3 walls, thank goodness.

Once done I will share. Get this, the colour of my walls was inspired by scrapbook paper (the lovely Bliss collection by Crate). I wanted the exact taupe colour of one of the papers, so matched my swatches to it. I think I might frame some of the other papers in the collection too. I am not sure exactly how yet, maybe some sort of collage, but I love the colours of that collection and seeing as whatever I frame will now be a perfect match to my wall ... well why not. Instant art.

That reminds me .... long ago I made a huge scrapbook page for my wall. I am talking probably about 4 or so years ago. Here is a photo - it is old now, but you can get the jist.

With little Hailey, to give you an idea of size.

It is framed and hanging in my lounge. Now to make something new for my new dining room.

Scrap 365 - It's official

2011-09-22T17:58:00.177+01:00

Hello ladies (and gents)

If you have joined me from Sian's blog for the Scrap365 blog hop, I bid you a very warm welcome. You will no doubt know all about the new and exciting news. If you are a regular reader of my blog (and I use the term rather loosely as my posts are all but regular, but you know what I mean) ... or just stumbled on here by chance, then let me tell you what is up!

Some very super exciting news! Traplet, the UK publishers and team behind the ever popular Craft Stamper magazine has been working very hard for the last few months to launch a brand new fantastic scrapbooking magazine. The magazine will be called Scrap365, and choc full of inspiring projects from a very diverse and talented bunch of designers (as you will no doubt have seen from the hop already). The first issue will be available on the 18th of November (so mark your calendars) and after that scheduled for every third Friday of the month.

Are you as excited as I am?

This is of course great news for us UK peeps, but if you live abroad you will be happy to know that you will also be able to get this magazine in digital format (and of course on subscription in many countries), so you do not have to live on our little island to share in the fun.

For those of you who are interested in who I am, I will share a little more detail about myself.

Some of you will know me from Craft Stamper magazine, I have been a regular contributor for three years now. I have in the past also contributed to several other UK cardmaking, scrapbooking and craft magazines and have also taught a few scrapping and cardmaking classes. I have to admit to not having scrapped as much as I would have liked to in the last few years, and I am very excited to be part of this team and to really get scrapping much more again.

My style is generally quite graphic, and I like a more ordered approach. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE the arty, painty, ink splodgy layouts and art journals I see on blogs and in magazines, but when I try that it just ends up as a mess, so I tend to stick with the graphic. Actually, I wanted to be a graphic designer, but in the end I studied Interior Design and then worked as an office designer for many years. Now I stay at home with my two daughters (who you will no doubt see a lot of) and I pretend to my husband that I am very busy all day long as I much prefer playing with my crafty things and being here for my girls to real 9-5 office work.

Here is a recent layout of my oldest daughter Simone, totally enthralled by the tubs of blocks in the Lego shop.

I will also share a few older layouts with you that have not been on my blog (apologies to those who may have seen them before) as I unfortunately cannot share layouts published in Craft Stamper magazine. Hopefully this will give you an indication of my style.

*************************************************************
And now, without further ado, on to the next fabulous designer in the hop. The very talented and all round great crafter Emy Buxton

*************************************************************

If you missed the start of the hop and would like to go back, click here to go back to the Scrap 365 blog.

And last but not least, if you leave a comment here AND on every other blog in the hop as well as on the Scrap365 blog, you can win a year's subscription to Craft Stamper magaine and more than £20 worth of rubber stamps.

Happy hopping!

I have some exciting news

2011-09-22T08:34:00.000+01:00

... but I cannot share it just yet.

Swing back here tonight at 6 o'Clock, British Summer time to see what it is. ;)

Not much crafting going on around here

2011-09-19T12:37:00.000+01:00

We are still decorating. This is a long story and I shall not bore you with details. In a nutshell: We started pulling off the wallpaper in our dining room in March. Then my husband broke his foot really badly, was home in a cast for 6 weeks and all work stopped. When we did finally resume we decided to have the wall plastered, so we had to wait for that to cure, then we went on holiday .... blah blah blah.

We are now finally in the full swing of decorating, but the house is a tip ... really, it's a tip. According to my husband any decorating also requires the heating system to be upgraded, floorboards to be fixed, pipes to solder, all light fittings and switches to be changed, new door handles ... you name it. (He even bought special plastic paint so that we could spray the alarm box white again as it wasn't looking fresh enough for him). I have spoken about decorating before when we were doing my craft room and if you remember I mentioned how my hubby also does everything by the book, thus involving lots of prep work, primers, sanding etc. A very lengthy and time consuming business. In short, this is why my already lack of crafting time has been turned into almost non existant crafting time.

This is what I am doing.

My dining room and entrance has been stripped bare and painted (I am still painting the entrance, dining is now done - thank goodness). We are getting a new wooden floor (woohoo - I have nagged for that for years), new door handles, new lights, freshly plastered and painted walls ... just all nice and new. I would be more excited if it wasn't for all of the hard work.

Then I was asked by a friend if I would make her some cards for a few special birthdays. I need to watch more Oprah and work on my boundaries as I just cannot say no, and my response was "of course I can" even though I knew it would be push to fit in with my schedule at the moment.

To be honest I don't like making commissioned cards as I don't always think that what I like is what other people like and I don't want to disappoint them (the old people pleaser in me coming out). She looked through some of my previous cards and chose two designs that she liked, so these cards are very similar to ones I have done before, but I will still share them with you.

I love this design, it is the same as a card I made for my friend Kelly for her 40th, but this time I used the dress instead of a cake. Love how this turned out.

I coloured the dress (a Hero Arts stamp) with my markers and made the little wire hanger.

Then there was this one, I had a pretty specific brief with this regarding colours, text etc., so did what I thought my friend would like.

And lastly one for her mum. This is not my style at all, but as I was making it for an elderly lady I kept it a bit more traditional. Hopefully she liked it.

Frame it

2011-09-15T11:41:00.001+01:00

I love picture frames - you can stick anything in a frame and it looks good, right. So I was in Tesco the other day and saw these little 3D frames. You know the ones, where the glass is set forward a little to accommodate dimensional objects. I ended up buying one, I was going to use it for a project and didn't in the end, so I went about scouting to find something to put in it. Found this old card I had made and put it in the frame for Simone (oldest daughter's) bedroom.

I love how a simple frame can just make anything look good - she loves it.

Hailey was very upset that she didn't get anything, so we went and bought a frame for her too and I told her she could make something for her bedroom too. She rummaged through my papers and chipboard collection and made a cute simple little picture.

Literally a piece of patterned paper with chipboard letters and that is it. So easy, but it looks pretty cute for a 9 year old's craftwork don't you think. Patterned paper is so cool.

Holidays are now all but forgotten

2011-09-14T11:34:00.003+01:00

Hey ... hello!

I hope you are all well and have had a good summer holiday. It does seem like a distant memory now doesn't it. We went away to France again and did a lot of this ...

WEll, when in France you need to indulge in the local cuisine now don't you, and OMG is that Cote d'Or Almond chocolate delicious!

Then of course we had to do a bit of this

... to work off all those chocolate calories of course.

When that was done we could again just do some of this ...

... sitting on a bench in Evian overlooking Lake Geneva and knowing that we don't have to do anything at all but chill. Gosh how I love holiday!

We did get up close and personal with the animals in the Alps ...

These horses simply raoming free on the plateau half way up the mountain alongside cows, cows and more cows. Stunning, as long as you looked where you were stepping. What goes in the mouth has to come out the other end and all that!

And then, before we know it, the kids are back at school, the leaves are falling off the trees and I am sitting here boring you all with holiday photos.

Back to normal everyday life before you can say cow pat.

Okay, so the new Craft Stamper is out with a fabric special this month. I have yet to get my copy, but have seen that my denim stamped project is on the front.

I loved making that card, especially the little label. That 7 gypsies Numero stamp set is so cool don't you think. I love the "expensive" barcode stamp.

The actual jean fabric is stamped too, using a home made stamp none the less. Grab the mag to see how.

Keep well and speak soon. :)

Been a while

2011-06-17T11:01:00.001+01:00

So it's been quite a while. My time has been taken up with things far too mundane to even mention, but I will share with you a card I made for this months Craft Stamper designer palette article. I used cool greys and ochre, a combination that is sophisticated and elegant. This card didn't make it into print so I can share it with you.

That lovely dotted flower stamp is from HeroArts and it is gorgeous. The script is Tim Holtz and the text from Stampin' Up!.

Have a good weekend.

Take a seat

2011-05-01T16:13:00.000+01:00

Got myself this chair set from Hero Arts a little while ago

I like the big old comfy chair, and that chandelier kind of spoke to me as well. I was playing with my markers, coloured the chair and then ended up with this card. A bit more of a manly colour scheme, but boys need cards too don't they.

Ideas everywhere

2011-04-27T23:35:00.002+01:00

On Monday I had to take my daughter to buy school shoes (at the last minute of course, as you do). My husband broke his foot a few weeks ago so walking around the shops is not really his thing at the moment. This meant of course that the girls and I could linger and browse to our hearts content on the way to Clarks.

As requested by Hailey we spent a fair amount of time in Next. I so love the little people clothes at Next. So many cute ideas, colours and inspiration for cards and layouts.

Wouldn't these flip flops make a really fab card - imagine little paper pieced shoes.

... or these. That vibrant green with the pink stripey shoe.

... and these cute little girls - they are adorable. Love those colours - little white faces girls on a Kraft coloured card blank, the pink cat, pink hair and the grey spotted bandana in the hair. I need a stamp set like this.

Spiffy Scooters

2011-04-14T14:20:00.001+01:00

.... and my mission is nearly complete. I have bought four of Kim's stamp sets and last night I finally cracked open Spiffy Scooters. Three sets down and one to go.

I have to admit, I went through my stash the other day and wondered why I keep on buying more stamps. There is enough there to last me forever and it is impossible to use up all the cards I make. So what do I do with them?

Doing mag work is also a dilemma as I often buy sets for a specific project, only to use them once and then never again. So, I have decided there will be no more buying and putting in the drawer for later use, if I buy something it has to get used or I am not allowed to get any more. It is sad when you have to treat yourself like a child isn't it.

I am also LOVING this months PTI release, and my hubby is off to the States again in May, so if I want any of those I am going to have to get stamping!

That is why I was up at 1 o'clock yesterday morning wrestling with this card.

I really wanted a crisp white background, but once I had put the scooter on it there was just too much white. By then I had already stamped the sentiment and drawn the frame so I was going to have to commit. I had to sort out that chunk of white space in the left top corner and also balance out the red from the flames. Using the clouds in the stamp set was not going to work, too much white, so I drew a sun and coloured it in.

Then the sun looked TOO red to me, so I stamped it with the SU fine flourish background in white, just to tone it down a bit. I added a red seat and a red flag (originally brown seat and green flag) to offset all the red from the sun. I changed my mind a lot with this card, getting the balance right was tricky, but in the end I kinda like it.

Boob tubes

2011-04-12T17:46:00.000+01:00

No bats today ... I think we will give the bats a rest and move onto boob tubes. This set is ... forgive the retro lingo .... groovy!

A perfect birthday card for dad using the old 70's television complete with a set of wire bunny ears. I also used the PTI newsprint background - such a fabulous and versatile background, one of my new favourites I think.

Still not bored with the twine either, I am just wrapping everything in the stuff - just as well too as I bought so much I can wrap forever and still not run out.

The punched heart is Stampin' Up! and the sentiment is computer generated, plain old Arial, with the "dad" stamped from the boob tubes set using SU Cherry Cobbler.

More bats

2011-04-06T17:44:00.001+01:00

Having a bat stamp means that at some point I am going to have to go with the daft old bat sentiment. My mum teaches fitness classes for senior citizens (and I guess she is not a spring chicken herself either ... even though she acts like a teenager most of the time) and they are all a bunch of nutters.

She has the greatest sense of humour and I just know she will love a card like this to give to her friends.

I computer generated the title and printed it straight onto the card blank. The border is a Kelly Panacci border stamped with VersaMark and of course more of that luscious twine. I also decided to give one bat a little text background so masked off the eyes and then stamped it with a PTI text stamp.

That is all then from this daft old bat!

Batty ...

2011-04-02T00:30:00.000+01:00

I got my twine, I got my Paper Smooches Stamps and I made this:

One stamp in the set used, several more to go ... but the night is young :)

FREE Craft Stamper e-zine

2011-04-01T11:35:00.000+01:00

Craft Stamper magazine is giving away a FREE e-zine of all the best projects of 2010, as voted for by the readers of the mag. It has 12 full step by step projectrs and will be available for download for 6 months. Free is always good isn't it, and there are some really great projects in there!
Go grab your copy now - click here.

Waltzing mouse and Craft Stamper magazine

2011-03-30T08:20:00.001+01:00

Craft Stamper mag out on Friday again. I've received my issue already and it is a lovely one this month. Fab layout by Morag Cutts (I love her scrapbook pages), some great copic colouring tehniques for faces by Judy Laing, a cool new series on one layer cards by Joanne Wardle (I am watching this with anticipation ... love the simplicity of one layer cards) and lots of of other cool projects too.

For this issue I have done a project using Waltzing Mouse Tag and label stamps. Claire's stamps combine with nestabilities dies so that you can create your own labels ... now is that cool or what!

I kid you not when I say that I had been looking for stamps to go with my label dies for many years. Before nestabilities came out I tried to make my own label designs on the computer (inspired by the good old Making Memories labels) to go with my Sizzix dies. Lining them up properly to cut was near impossible and in the end I gave up. Then came cookie cutter dies and wham, lining up problem solved. Don't you just love all the gadgets the craft industry throws at us.

This label stamp is from the very vintage labels #2 and one of my favourites.

Here is also a tag that didn't make it into print. The scroll down the side is from Very Vintage #5 and the tag is from very vintage #1. The butterfly is a Martha Stewart punch (I have used that a lot before too, but still love it).

Then, if you are not a subscriber to Craft Stamper magazine but would like to take a peek at some of the favourite projects of 2010 (as voted for by the readers), they are launching a new FREE to download e-zine on the 1st of April. Drop back here on Friday for a link and some more details.

Dingbats

2011-03-15T15:55:00.000Z

I was looking at the new critter stamps from Lawn Fawn today and that reminded me that I have loads and loads of dingbats that I bought ages ago and still really haven't played with properly. Love dingbats, and really don't use them often enough. Much cheaper than stamps too (not that I am dissing stamps ... just saying) and you can print them any size you want.

This cat is from the DB critter doodles set - cool isn't he. He was printed onto orange paper and then pieced, but next I want to try and print my dingbats onto smooth cardstock and then colour them with copics. Yeah!

A weird sentiment I'll give you that - but you never know when someone will look after your cat and then needs to be thanked with a handmade card. You just never know! Best to be prepared and all :)

Class

2011-03-14T14:37:00.000Z

Today and Friday I taught a class for some of the ladies who were at my Stampin' Up! party - most of them quite new to the world of stamping.

I think their heads were properly spinning by the time they left (sorry ladies - my enthusiasm knows no bounds) :).

I simply wanted to touch on most of the basics ... you know card blanks, different inks for different purposes, some basic techniques .... but really, it is impossible to take it all in, so all I did was bamboozle them with info, techniques etc. I do hope they recover from the ordeal.

In the end we made this card, using the SU sale-a-bration greeting and of course my much loved medallion background. I haven't used my medallion for at least 3 weeks and it was time. I will never tire of that stamp, never I tell you!

Way too easily tempted

2011-03-07T11:24:00.001Z

There is something very wrong with me at the moment. I am by nature rather thrifty and although I do indulge in crafty purchases, I usually don't impulse buy.

But OMG - that premise has been thrown out the window the last week or so.

First off, hubby has gone to the States for business and that can only mean one thing - buying Papertrey Ink stamps, dies .... and the sorts.

Normally that would be enough to last me for a while - having had a shopping fix and all ... you would think wouldn't you.

But then I went and bought those Paper Smooches stamps I spoke about last week ... ka-ching

Not to mention the Stanpin' Up! stamps from my party the other week ... ka-ching

Then I saw a post on facebook by Annette about dies from dies to die for and bought a few of those .... ka-ching

And then this morning I decided to take a break from tidying and surf the web for a little, saw this card by Mary and suddenly I just HAD TO HAVE some Bakers twine, I mean had to have, like someone that has to have cocaine, that kind of had to have. Not just a little bit of twine either, I bought two full spools of 220 metres each from a great shop I found in the States with reasonable postage ..... and breathe.

I KNOW!

What is wrong with me.

Shall I just erase my paypal account right now or what.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Then, as I am very much resisting getting off this chair and resuming my tidying, I started going through my computer folders and tidying up my images. I stumbled across these old cards I made way back for Simply Cards and papercraft magazine.

I have been so caught up with stamping recently I have completely forgotten how much I love dies and die cutting. I am SO going to make some cards with dies this week ... I am!

Do you like cute and quirky

2011-03-01T09:21:00.001Z

I do....

...and I just found some really cute stamps designed by Kim Hughes for her new company called Paper Smooches. http://papersmooches.blogspot.com/ Check out those scooters ... so flipping cool.

Just bought myself these two sets.

And the best thing of all, the postage to the UK is only $3 for two stamp sets, and (as far as I know) below customs duty.

Nothing like a little stamp fix to start the morning hey.

As soon as I get my hands on these I shall make some cards.

Whoosh ....

2011-02-25T10:47:00.003Z

I am just whoosing by very quickly to say hi. We have had our windows replaced and now we have to tackle the decorating ... a mammoth task leaving little time for crafting. There is always something eating into play time isn't there .... sigh.

Anyway, I hosted my first Stampin' Up! party during the week and it was a great success. Go figure. My local friends aren't crafters, but the lure of rubber and ink soon worked their magic and everyone bought at least a little something, leaving me with a lovely hostess gift, some free product and also some sale-a-bration stamps. Woo Hoo.
I am making it my mission to use these stamps as ... I feel very guilty saying this .... last years sale-a-bration set has only been used once in the entire year. I shall do better.

I will be doing some classes with them too and if that goes well I might start running classes again.

On to another manufacturer though, Waltzing Mouse Stamps. I have gushed about Waltzing Mouse before - LOVE their stamps! I used one of Claire's beautiful bloom designs to make some Mother's day cards for Craft Stamper this month. Love this set, which is strange as I am not usually drawn to realistic floral images, but this one grabbed me and is perfect for Mother's day and Mums in general. Not to mention fabulous for Copics, I am so getting into my copics.

I made three cards for the magazine using acetate and this one is extra. You can see a much better and more professional photo on the Craft Stamper website. I am not the best photographer, especially when acetate is involved.

Oh, by the way, I was just on the Waltzing Mouse blog and see that Claire is releasing a bunch of new stamp sets at the beginning of March and from the sneek peaks it looks like we might be visiting the wild west. Yee ha. Sounds cool.

Birthday card

2011-01-05T14:55:00.002Z

Popping in to share a birthday card I made for my friend Kelly who turned 40 a few days ago. I have been itching to use this cake stamp from Lawn Fawn since I bought it about 6 months ago. Coloured with Copics, added stickles and some paper from Crate - the Bliss collection - drool. I love that Bliss collection, it is one of the few collections that I have bought the entire pack with all the papers, stickers etc.

Well hello there

2011-01-03T11:41:00.004Z

December has come and gone, copious amounts of food and alcohol have been ingested, new years resolutions have been made (mainly involving losing weight ... refer to copious amounts of food ingested), family have all been ill with the flu and now we embark upon 2011. Already!

One year to go peeps.

About fifteen years ago I read Graham Hancocks Fingerprints of the Gods and was utterly convinced that the world will end in 2012 as per the Mayan calendar. Well, not utterly, but I did like the drama of it all. Now that 2012 is just around the corner it can of course go either way, an absolute anti-climax with nothing at all happening ... a bit like the Y2K hype, or (cue x-files music) we might just be sucked into the vortex of space time and life as we know it will change forever. Just for in case I think we will really have to live it up in 2011, I mean why take the chance. Make hay while the sun shines and all that.

On that note, I wish you all a very prosperous and festive 2011 - may you attend many parties, buy many wonderful things, meditate every day to find spiritual peace, eat chocolate without putting on weight and all those other fabulous pleasures in life that make you happy.

I am going to try and craft more, definitely try to use up my stash before the world comes to an end. Make more for myself and not just for deadlines because I have to.

Talking about deadlines, the Feb issue of Craft Stamper is out on Friday and I want to share with you an aperture card that I made for this issue. You can see instructions and a proper photo here on the craft stamper blog.

LOVE these stamps from Cat's pyjamas - available at Make the day special I used images from both of the sets below to make 3 additional cards for this issue, all using apertures of course. My favourite one by far is with the little fire breathing dragon, perfect for the hot man in your life. Of course if you don't have a hot man in your life, well this is the start of a new year, what are you waiting for!

So don't forget to grab the magazine on Friday, looks like lots of cool projects again by the Craft Stamper team.

Christmas is coming

2010-12-03T00:41:00.002Z

I have been so totally pre-occupied with the snow that I have completely forgotten to post about the chicken soup 12 days of Christmas challenge. Every day, for 12 days, starting from the 1st, the chicken soup blog will post some cool Christmas inspiration.

Sounds good? I thought so.

Day 2 was Christmas cards, and for me of course it had to be snowmen ... I mean really!

Then tomorrow (or today rather, it seems pumpkin time has come and gone and I am up late again .... yawn), the new Craft Stamper magazine is on the shelves. The January issue

We are totally snowed under and there is no way I can even get my car out of the garage, so I shall walk to the High Street and get my copy in the morning. Then I shall also buy myself a big slab of chocolate, come home and read my magazine while I drink the compulsory cup of tea and of course scoff the chocolate. I can do that now because it is snowing, and if it is snowing we are allowed to indulge in comfort food.

For this issue I have made a card for the designer palette feature using the really cute little dude stamps from Waltzing Mouse. They aren't really called little dudes (it is just always the first words that spring to mind when I look at them), but Half Pint Heroes and are adorable. I won these stamps in a blog challenge and couldn't wait to use them.

This is my new favourite stamp company. I LOVE Waltzing Mouse stamps and Claire, the owner, is not only super kind but ever so talented. I bet I am preaching to the converted, but if by chance you don't know of WMS, have a look at Claire's blog here.

Of course I am not allowed to show you the card I made, but I guess it is okay if I just put up a little sneak peek.

I have also done some cards with polka dots, and of course there is all of the regular goodness associated with Craft Stamper magazine.

Gosh, how time flies

2010-11-26T09:24:00.000Z

You know what it is like, before you know it and wham ... like three weeks gone.

I haven't been on the computer very much lately, which is quite a good thing I suppose as my house has been semi tidy and the ironing is all up to date - I know!

I have to dash off today too to sort out the last things for my daughters 13th birthday party on Saturday. Again with the time thing .... how does 13 years just fly by like that. So I am quickly going to post my card for last weeks chicken soup recipe, only a week after the fact I might add ... hey ho.

A bit of a tree thing going on here. I was going for the seasonal effect, someone being there for you throughout the year ... yes? I am not sure how well it reads, but I kinda like it. Also quick and simple to make. The tree is a sizzlets branch die which I cut down and of course a circle die. Tiny punched flowers and a punched heart. I had to dust those little punches off, haven't used thos for a LONG time.

Lifting ideas

2010-11-04T17:50:00.001Z

As we are on the topic of copying, lifting or case'ing ...,. whatever you would like to call it, I thought I would share some cards inspired by an article Jo Kill had in Papercraft Inspirations quite a while back. I love her work, and these japanese dolls really spoke to me so I just had to have a go.

Jo does some amazing things with punches and her articles were one of the main reasons why I subscribed to this magazine in the first place.

I almost never copy other people's work, but it was rather nice to leave the conceptual work to someone else for a change and simply adapt these ideas for myself.

Here is my take on Jo's Japanese dolls.

Copy cat

2010-10-20T22:11:00.001+01:00

Sometimes that mojo is there, sometimes it is not. My solution ... copy. That is exactly what I did with this anniversary card for a friend. I copied the idea almost exactly from my previous version, but added in a chandelier. This one is digital and from Pink Petticoat. I simply printed it straight onto the cardstock.

The photo is not great - I finished this card rather late one night and quickly took a photo on my mobile as I had to send it off early the next morning. The scalloped edge is more of an old gold even though it reads as green in the photo.

Untitled

2010-10-18T09:26:00.001+01:00

I am rushing off to London today to have lunch with a friend but just quickly putting this card up before I go. Have to leave early as I am walking a bit slowly today. I had a fall on my skates yesterday and hurt my back. I am trying to master backwards skating, went a bit too fast and couldn't stop in time, bumped into the wall with my bottom and the momentum whooshed my skates out from under my feet and had me land smack bang on my back. Ouch ....

I am not giving up, another lesson tonight and I will be there, even if I have to take it very slowly or even just watch. Hubby took this photo on his iPhone the other day at the coast.

Anyway, back to crafting. I made this card for Mojo Challenge #16

My family all think it should be a Christmas card and didn't get why I put congratulations on as the message. They are so right and I will change that in time. I was thinking gold star ... congratulations ... get it? It does look far more Christmassy though.

Wish I can take the credit for that fabulous background, it is simply a piece of patterned paper, and I am not sure who by (maybe DCWV, one of their special fantasy packs - there was a dragon on the rest of the paper).

Have a good day, I am off.

Copic blog candy

2010-10-13T10:22:00.000+01:00

Love those little marker pens! For some very cool indeed blog candy follow the link in my sidebar, or click here

Angels angels all around ...

2010-10-13T09:25:00.001+01:00

For last weeks chickensoup challenge I made this little angel.

Isn't she just perfect for Christmas. A bit of a fiddle to make, but totally worth it. Her body is simply two pieces of triangular material sewn together and filled with rice. While sewing the body together also sew in the arms and legs which are made from plaited silver cord.

Wooden ball feet painted with silver acrylic paint and her head is a ping pong ball, also with a few layers of acrylic paint. Fuzzy wool hair and a little halo made from craft wire. I drew her face on with marker. The heart on her chest is drawn with Tulip fabric paint.

For her wings I made a wire frame and sandwiched that between two layers of angel hair - I don't even know if you can get this stuff anymore. It was bang on trend a good few years back and right up there with the torn mulberry paper craze. I then painted (with my finger) a liberal coating of PVA glue all over the wings on both sides, propped them up and left them to dry. Once dry I cut off any excess angel hair and voila, semi opaque wings. They are stuck onto her back with a liberal amount of PVA glue.

Oh, and she also has a less glamourous country cousin. They sit together on my chest of drawers and talk all day long.

May the angels be with you!

Chickensoup Recipe 12

2010-09-18T12:39:00.003+01:00

Gosh, Friday has come and gone and with it another chickensoup inspiration. This time a poster inspiration by Clare

The picture of Audrey Hepburn made me think of some very cute clipart images I have from Lettering Delights and this is what I made. So quick and simple it is almost wrong to call it crafting.

The graphic and sentiment is simply printed out, the only little bit of actual crafting I did was to ink the floor and stamp it with my PTI damask stamp (another one of my faves!)

Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy. A great card to make when time is tight, not to mention you can customise the message to suit just about anyone.

Come play along with your take on this recipe and to be in for a chance to win a prize.

A bit quiet

2010-09-08T23:25:00.001+01:00

Yes, it's been a bit quiet here on the craft front, quiet even after I received some dies recently purchased from the States. They are still in their packaging lying on my craft table which is looking sad and forlorn.

The reason is this:

I have just bought myself a pair of these - seriously. At 41 I am taking up inline skating. Talk about your midlife crisis.

I have now spent two weeks investigating skates, investigating lessons, booking lessons, getting deliriously happy at the prospect of skating, getting seriously worried at the prospect of skating (and falling), scouting out where to skate, trying on rollerblades, buying rollerblades, taking rollerblades back because one foot felt "weird", getting replacement skate for weird foot ....

It is hard, time consuming work having a midlife crisis, really it is.

Who knows if I will ever craft again?

Your couch or mine

2010-08-28T17:20:00.000+01:00

There are some stamp sets that make me pull out my credit card without thinking, and this On my couch set from PTI is one of those. Yum - I love the images, love the sentiments, love the possibilities.

Over at the chickensoup blog Clare chose this cool photo as inspiration. Have a look here.

Colours to die for, no doubt about that ... and also sporting that very cool ochre yellow I love so much ... however, I didn't take inspiration from the colours but rather from the sofa's themselves and I thus present to you ... this card.

I had a lot of fun making this card, especially creating the wooden strip floor. Believe it or not, that is simply inked sections created with post-it notes as a mask. To make it a bit more realistic I created a one-point perspective using a vanishing point and then drew my lines down from that point.

Polka dots

2010-08-25T13:11:00.000+01:00

I love all things dotty, and the new challenge on the Passion for Papertrey blog is ... of course, polka dots.

This card uses the PTI polka dot background stamp and vintage cream ink, but the little owls are from Hero Arts. I bought these owls so long ago and hardly used them. Seeing as I had both a large and small stamp I reckon they are just perfect for a mama owl and little bably owlet. New Baby sentiment is Stampin' Up!

How-to

2010-08-22T18:31:00.001+01:00

Following on from Fridays post I thought I would add a little how-to, one of the tricks I use often to create overlapping elements

See on this layout how the text overlaps the photo ... yes? Well of course that is easy to do on a digital layout, but a bit more tricky on paper unless you add the text as stickers or die cuts. Because I printed the text on my layout first and then added the photo afterwards, there is no way to overlap the letters ... so this is what I do

I lay my photo in the right place onto the layout and lightly mark in pencil where the photo overlaps the lettering. I then carefully cut around the ovelapping part of the letters and then slip the photo underneath them.

This way I still get that poster graphic look with minimal effort on my part.

I do this with patterned paper too sometimes, like on the leaves on the left side of this layout below.

Chickensoup challenge #8

2010-08-20T19:28:00.002+01:00

It's Friday night and another Chicken soup recipe night. This week we have used an album cover that I chose as inspiration. I have a bit of a thing for text and fonts and loved this funky higgledy piggledy font and the bold colours used.

Sometimes I like to focus on something other than the photo on a scrapbook layout, and for this layout I definitely wanted the words to stand out. My eldest daughter, who is on the Autistic Spectrum, was not always very verbally demonstrative as a little girl, so when she came out with this saying one night it was absolutely adorable.

Obviously inspired by the Guess how much I love you book, I love that she put her own spin on the famous quote from the book. Heaven is much cooler than the moon after all.

See what the other cooks have done and come play along :)

Another boy card

2010-08-17T13:47:00.002+01:00

My friend asked me yesterday if I could do her a quick card for one of the aquafit instructors she works with who is leaving. She said he is hanging up his "mankini" and moving on to another job and that is what she would like the card to say.

Love that word ... mankini. I guess when you work with a bunch of woman all the time you sort of become one of the gang. Swimming shorts just doesn't have the same ring to it.

I had to make this quickly, didn't have any suitable stamps or clipart so just drew a pair of swimming trunks, grunged the edges up a little with distress inks and added some computer generated wording and a few stamped flourishes.

Very simple, but I like simple for man cards.

Edited to add: I was just browsing some of my fave blogs ... mainly because I have to go ironing now and that is not really getting me fired up in the motivation department. Went onto the passion for Papertrey blog and saw this great man card by Aimes. LOVE it and just had to share.

Back home from hols

2010-08-16T00:31:00.002+01:00

We have just returned home from two fabulous weeks in France, staying near Evian and overlooking Lake Geneva (or more precisely Lac Leman) from a cottage in the mountains.

As good as it sounds. Honestly, I would move here tomorrow if I could.

So sad to be back in the real world, but life alas has to go back to washing, ironing and entertaining the kids for the remainder of the summer.

On a crafty note, I missed two weeks of chicken soup and thought I would share my layout for recipe #5

Like everyone who lives within an acceptable travel radius of London, we too went on the hunt for the elephants scattered around the city. This recipe was the perfect fit for those elephant photos. I do love multi photo layouts, and I like to keep them pretty simple. Just lots of photos.

I made this into a two pager so that I could cram in even more photos. This is what is looks like with both pages together.

Lawn Fawn

2010-07-22T10:23:00.002+01:00

Yes, as if it is not enough that there are already several companies whose stamps I really like and spend way too much money on, I would have to go and find another. Lucky though that they don't sell in the UK ...

Uhhhh, until now that is. Emily from Make the day Special ... remember I mentioned them before ... well, she informed me that they will now be stocking Lawn Fawn stamps as well.

It is a weakness, I know, but I do love cute ... sorry inky people.

I had to get this set ...

See a cool example here and Jennifer McGuire has also made some fab cards with this set. ... and here

I also love this sewing set ... adorable!

Feautured in the Paper Crafts special issue Card Creations 8 - see the lawn fawn blog here

I may have also got the birthday cake set ... but that is all I promise.

Papertrey

2010-07-21T08:16:00.001+01:00

My eldest daughter goes to a special school and gets collected from home by a taxi. Her escort is just the loveliest woman ever and I wanted to make her a card to say thank you for everything during the year.

I only have one car image, my new Papertrey stamp and die set. Woohoo - I love when I get to use something for a legitimate cause. Most of the time I simply buy stamps and embellishments because I like them, when they turn out to be perfect for a particular project too, well that is just a bonus.

LOVE the new Papertrey dies - they cut like butter. I have used the car and clouds dies ... and am also using this card for the Passion for Papertrey challange. It's all good.

To give the clouds some detail I used the lightest cool grey Copic marker on the bottom for a little shading. Coloured the car with copics too.

Love that lace - I bought this from John Lewis the other day and just want to put it on everything.

Mojo challenge

2010-07-16T20:36:00.002+01:00

It's Friday night and that means Mojo soup challenge night. This week we got to use David Bowie's album as inspiration. Loved this challenge, it is nice and simple with lots of white space ... right up my street.

And this was my take on the challenge. Of course I had to also throw the Stampin' Up! medallion stamp into the mix. Love that stamp more than life itself. Well ... nearly as much. As stamps go I love it a lot.

Also used some SU ribbon, which I cut down and frayed, and some computer generated text.

Head on over to the Mojo Chickensoup blog to see what the other girls have cooked up :)

School's out ... nearly

2010-07-15T10:02:00.000+01:00

... and that means teachers gifts and cards. I am not that much of a crafting goddess that I make the gifts too, some chocolates will suffice, but this year I did get myself into gear and make some thank you cards.

We had an interesting debate on the Craft Stamper blog the other day about digital stamps and whether readers want to see them in the magazine or not. It got me thinking about digital images and their use in crafting. Personally I have always loved my computer and have used clipart and dingbats since I started crafting, long before I used stamps actually, so for me the computer is an invaluable tool.

Stamping manufacturers have come to the table as well and are now producing "digital stamps". Really clipart by another name, but whatever you call computer generated images, all I know is that I love them as much as I love any other medium in my crafting world.

I also just recently upgraded to the newest vesion of CorelDraw ... love this package (I have owned and used it for 15 years now and it is still my favourite). So, for the teacher cards I used one of CorelDraw's clipart images. The apple.

Sized and then printed several of those on smooth white card. I then grabbed whichever copics I though looked apple coloured - no math here, I simply go by my gut and then do the trial and error thing. After a few tries I sort of got apples that didn't look too bad.

For the backgrounds I wanted some text, so typed the alphabet several times in a block. I could have used the A-Z stamp from Stampin' Up!, but I wanted the letters a little larger, so just made my own. Printed several onto brown card, cut out and distressed the edges with Vintage Photo distress ink.

I then added a little decorative strip onto the left side of the panel. This was as much decoration as they were going to get. I am aiming for quick and easy here.

Then on to the actual blanks themselves. I do a sort of digital sketch on my computer first so that I can judge placement and size of the elements. This also allows me to know where to print the wording onto the card blank. CorelDraw is ace for this sort of thing, so easy to move and size elements onto a specific sized background. Because I am using computer generated text I can personalise the cards too - always a nice touch I think. Once I have done this it is easy to make several cards really quickly. I also save my templates and use them again and again.

Voila - personalised teacher cards. Now I know these don't stand out as the most innovative designs or anything, but I am really drawn to the very simple picture at the top of the card and writing underneath scenario. This design is a classic, probably totally overused, but i love it.

Just a note here. CorelDraw is aimed at the professional graphics market and therefor pretty costly. Worth every penny if you are going to make full use of it, but if you are only using it for crafting then it may be a little over the top. I invested in this package many years ago when I was using it for work as well as pleasure, so I could justify the cost. If it is within your price range then great, it is a truly amazing package, but if not, and you are looking for an alternate vector based drawing program, then DrawPlus is just fab and is free to download from the web. They also have an enhanced version available, DrawPlus 8, which is really cheap but has some added features. In my opinion a good workable alternative to CorelDraw.

Cool stamps

2010-07-08T09:20:00.003+01:00

Have you seen the super cute stamps at Make the day special? I stumbled across this company when I was looking for these adorable bird cages from My cute stamps a few months ago.

They are so popular and sell out quick, but I was lucky to get my grubby hands on a set. I first saw them on Debbie's blog and knew I just had to have a set. Actually I try not to go over to Debbie's blog too often because I either end up spending money or wanting to bake some cake. Everything she makes is so gorgeous - not good for my wallet or waistline.

Emily, who owns Make the day Special, has made it her mission to stock and sell those hard to find USA stamps that we cannot get over here. She has some fabulous stamps including some of the Unity sets from Donna Downey.

Aren't these just gorgeous. I used to regularly follow Donna Downey in Creating Keepsakes magazines, love her style, and then got to do a class with her a few years back. Go and check out her blog here.

Then there is the newest addition of stamps - the cat's pyjamas stamps. I love the retro feel of these ... so cool dude. Like groovy!

I can just see these on a layout with all those old 70's photos of mum and dad and us as kids. Also go and check out the make the day special blog to see what the talented design team do with their stamps, news on special offers, blog hops etc.

Happy stamping :)

More recycling

2010-07-06T16:42:00.002+01:00

Following on from yesterdays post I thought I would post another example of how to incorporate a card onto a layout. I did this ages ago, so don't think I have been a busy crafting bee ... I have not ... but thought it might be cool to share.

This is the original card I had done. It is hand lettered - I am no Heidi Swapp, but I still liked how it turned out so decided to re-use it on a layout. This time I didn't cut it up but simply used it as is, only trimming the back off.

So it turned into this ...

Reduce, re-use, recycle

2010-07-05T11:24:00.004+01:00

I have been doing magazine work for more than 6 years now and over time that totals a lot of projects. When my work is returned to me I sort it into one of three possible piles ... to give away, to keep or simply to throw away. The throw away pile is for projects that have gotten damaged in the post, or might be something that I just will never use again. That pile is usually quite small because as you know we can always use things again ... right! That is the motto of any good ~~hoarder~~ crafter.

The give away pile is also relatively small ... I mean come on!

Then there is the to keep pile which takes over many a box, drawer etc. Yesterday I was rummaging in one of my to keep piles and came across a decoupage card I did for Creative Cardmaking a few years ago.

And then it happened - suddenly the urge to make something struck me. It is a rare occasion here lately, normally I craft because I have deadlines or commitments, but this was just for fun.

Here is the original card.

A decoupage card none the less. Decoupage is not something I normally do, I really cannot be bothered with cutting out fiddly little details, and this card had taken me way too long. It has been sitting in my box for years because I couldn't bear to throw all of that hard work away.

I cut it up, scoring some recycling brownie points in the process, and made this layout. I even used my used my new favourite colour ... yellow. (I know ... yellow, how weird is that. I wouldn't go near it just a few months ago, but now I am rather digging all things yellow).

This is little me gardening with my dad and wearing a rather funky hat with yellow trim. That is the good old summer in South Africa that I remember, very hot dry days and parched grass.

Chicken soup

2010-07-02T19:05:00.001+01:00

... is what you have when you are not feeling well, right. Well now we have chicken soup for poorly mojos.

A brand new, fabulous inspiration blog with some lovely ladies to help that poorly mojo get back to optimum creativity.

We will be taking inspiration from things all around us, adverts, t-shirt, cd covers ... you name it, and translating that into layouts, cards and other design goodness. You get to play along and there will even be prizes ... sounds good doesn't it!

But why not go and look for yourself ... drum roll please

Introducing ... Chicken soup for poorly mojo's.

Craft Stamper - August issue

2010-07-02T12:24:00.000+01:00

... is out today. I haven't received my copy yet but just had a quick peek at WHSmith and it is fab as always. This month sees the start of a new three part series I am doing on Design Principles.

Over the next three issues I will be discussing Contrast, Unity, Balance, Rule of Thirds, White Space and Repetition. Now I know what you are thinking, this sounds way too much like school, but I promise you it is not.

Here is a sneek peak.

And then I also did stamping contrasts this month - we got some pretty flower stamps to play with. A girl can never have too many flowers.

... and a card

2010-07-02T00:03:00.000+01:00

Birthday invitations also mean birthday cards.

This is a direct lift from this card (second one down), but hey .. why tamper with something when it works.

I must admit that I really feel it needs some more white in the bottom right corner to balance it out. I had to give it away quickly as it would have driven me to distraction to find that something.

I am only somewhat happy with this card, but I cannot redo everything I do, so I just let it go.

Do love that shoe stamp from HeroArts though.

And I also used my old (and I am talking very old, especially in the world of crafting) sizzix alphabet dies. Who would have thought I would dig those golden oldies out again.

Oh, and of course the ek success border punch with the tiny little scallops - isn't that just the cutest punch.

...and last but not least

Check back later for more details of a brand spanking new mojo generating inspiration blog. Can't say much except for ... Chicken soup anyone?

Pink, pink and more pink

2010-06-28T10:49:00.001+01:00

It always seems like a good idea to buy things at the time doesn't it. I bought a Bigz XL invitation die a long time ago, not to make invitations mind, simply because I liked the shape ... and well, you never know when it might come in handy.

It is absolutely the worst kind of impulse buy, the think it might come in handy some day impulse buy. I hang my head in shame and admit to having more than one such item sitting forlornly somewhere on a shelf.

But then, that fateful day came, I was asked to do some invites and I had JUST THE RIGHT die. Ahh, vindication at last.

The brief: Pink ... lots of it, butterflies, glitter, girly.

Yup, I can do that.

Love that butterfly punch too - it is the Large double butterfly by Martha Stewart and makes me want to put butterflies on everything.

Christmas comes early

2010-06-26T13:41:00.001+01:00

Hubby just flew in from the States this morning and that can only mean one thing. U-huh ... goodies.

Papertrey goodies to be more precise.

Funny, but two years ago I didn't really care all that much for stamps, but today I was quite giddy at the prospect of getting my hands on some pliable acrylic.

Today I give thanks for business trips! I saved a small fortune on customs and postage and that makes me very happy. Almost as happy as new stamps.

No doubt you are familiar with Papertrey Ink and their luscious range of stamps, but if not, check out Nichole Heady's blog here.

Happy Birthday Craft Stamper

2010-05-01T17:56:00.002+01:00

10 Years old this month, with a bumper June issue coming out on Friday the 7th of May. Bring on the bubble bath and tequila ... did I say tequila, I mean tea. Pah ... I don't REALLY drink tequila in the bath, but maybe as this is a birthday issue I could make an exception of course

So, this is what you get,
- 8 extra pages of projects to enjoy in this months magazine
- a retrospective feature looking back at the last 10 years of the mag
- a fabulous new Craft Stamper website

... and of course a birthday competition with PRIZES. £1200 worth of prizes - sounds good ... yes?

More details here

And here is my Happy Birthday card for Craft Stamper.

See more from the other team members here

And now I will go and eat some cake, a birthday is a birthday after all.

Craft room photos

2010-04-06T00:23:00.001+01:00

I have been reading a lot of posts on forums recently about crafting spaces, craft rooms and storage. Yup, always a problem for us hoarder types - where oh where to put all that stuff.

Like most people I started off with the dining room table, moved on to taking up some extra space in a cupboard or two and then finally, out of desperation, took over the box room.

I have been crafting out of there for about 5 years, ever so thankful to have my own space of course, but up till now it has just been a mish mash of old furniture and bits and bobs that I threw together.

Then came the re-vamp. We needed to accommodate an extra single bed and I took the opportunity to lean on hubby who graciously made me a table/worktop unit thingy to my very own specifications. Can a girl ask for more than this ... I think not.

I did loose some space, but what I have now is so much more user friendly, and as a bonus, if I do end up crafting until the wee hours of the morning, I can literally just crash in the bed without waking everyone up ... works for me!

There are still some pictures that need to be hung on the walls above the bed ... but like with any good DIY job, some finishing bits have to get left for at least 6 months ... I have yet to figure out why it is always like that.

So, bed is along the shortest wall, worktop on the one side and bookcase and shelves on the other. You might notice the green drawers everywhere, well that used to be my main way of storing everything. Lovely (and above all CHEAP) cardboard drawers from IKEA. Of course they couldn't go into the bin, so I painted them with the same PVA I used for the green wall and they still house all sorts of things. At the moment I have to open at least 3 drawers before I find what I am looking for, they are meant to be labelled ... yet another thing that is not quite complete.

I will either get to know exactly where everything is quite quickly, or I will get so fed up that I eventually make the darn labels ... we will just have to see which comes first.

LOVE the worktop! It is standing height, so no more chair to clutter the room with. I have one of those teflon oven sheets covering the top. Yes, Tim Holtz calls it a craft sheet, but mine is just from Lakeland. Also an A3 cutting mat on the one side next to my trimmer and on the other side is my cardstock in 12x12 plastic trays, sorted by colour.

Under the worktop is my other set of 12x12 trays with patterned papers, more drawers (I think I have a thing for drawers) and some extra space behind the drawers for keeping those things I don't need on a daily basis ... like all the envelopes I bought when I thought buying them in bulk was a good idea.

Opposite the worktop is my Billy bookcase, with my pink fastenator that I have used all of two times, more drawers (see I told you) and a whole bunch of thin plastic storage trays (also from Lakeland) that I keep flat things in ... like uhm, stickers, my sheets of flat backed jewels and ... well .... other flat things I can't think of now.

At least some of the drawers in the bookcase have been labelled, I am not totally useless.

Oh yes, then of course there is also the clip-it-up with all the embellishments I never use ... intend to use when I buy them ... but somehow never use. What you see above is the cleared out version of my clip-it-up ... there was more, but when it won't spin any more you know it is time for some drastic measures.

Inkpads ... yes, that is pretty self explanatory. Bought a nice inkpad unit, although I had to do some modifying so that it could house my SU pads, but it works well enough.

Ribbons all hang on this trouser hanger from ... you guessed it ... Lakeland. Works really well actually. Little bits of ribbon and spool are in two drawers, but the long bits hang here and look pretty.

Punches in an over the door shoe hanger ... NOT from Lakeland, although my bet is they probably do these as well. Other SU punches are on an IKEA rail under my desk. I first saw this idea in CK magazine and have subsequently seen many people store their punches like this. It works so well.

Oh yes, under the rail is two builders boxes for itty bitty things. I have a lot of itty bitty things.

Next, the very ingenious way I store my ink refil bottles and paint dabbers ... in a box.

New Copics on the shelf below. Because I bought the full sets they came in two plasic boxes which fit perfectly on my shelf, so that is my ... again very ingenious ... way of storing my copics. Then of course the IKEA rail and tin buckets ... who doesn't have those. Also a daylight neon tube under the shelf. Now that is some serious must have stuff - love that daylight tube.

Pretty black Damask desig box for keeping all of my already done cards that I hope to sell again some day. This is from Argos and thankfully not green. Love green, but enough already with all the green drawers.

Magazines on the floor in magazine boxes and these green drawers hold all of my scraps by colour ... again they need labels ... I really need to do those labels.

And that is that. Nothing here that is new or ingenious, but it works.

Cards for men

2010-04-01T10:49:00.002+01:00

They are just the hardest aren't they! We have a 40th birthday party coming up, my friends know I make cards - absolutely no way I could get away with a shop bought one - so what to do.

Last night I was sitting in the car waiting for hubby, saw a guy handing out leaflets and he had a trendy sweatshirt on with scruffy writing at an angle going off one shoulder on his back.

AHA ... design idea.

Scruffy writing it shall be, and let's say ... uhm, a beer mug (my friend loves beer, but what man doesn't). I don't have any beermug stamps, couldn't find a digital image either, so back to the drawing board ... literally. As a last resort decided to turn to my own very limited drawing skills and drew a beermug which I coloured with my copics...

okay, before I go on, I totally get what all the fuss is about wih these markers. Got a full set of ciao's for my birthday in Feb and whoa, they are exceedingly cool.

... coloured the beer mug with copics, scoured my patterned paper for a "manly" design, got onto my trusty CorelDraw (I have yet to master Photoshop, so CorelDraw is my go to graphics package) and found a grungy font.

Nearly there.

I wanted to have the card look a little dirty, so distressed the edges with ... distress inks of course. It still needed some more dirtying up, so I added a few circle stamps. What I really needed was this stamp from Tim Holtz to make some beermug rings, but what can a girl do. A few circles and dots had to suffice.

Voila - man card done, panic over and social protocol adhered to.

Even for a “grungy” card it is still pretty clean and simple, but this is about as much grunge as I can muster - it will have to do.

Tomorrow the new Craft Stamper is out, so something to read in the bath again. For you SU fans, I have done a project with the butterfly punch and stamps – they are so adorable. Very pink, very glittery and very girly. Sneaky peek.

Alphabet Stamps

2010-02-05T13:17:00.004Z

LOVE them. Actually, I love all things alpha and have an unhealthy fascination with type. Sad but true. I wanted to study Graphic design after school, a bit of a change for me as my main subjects in school were Biology, Science, Maths and Accountancy .... really!

I was dithering between studying pathology (wanted to be a forensic pathologist .... again ... really!) and Design. Yes, you can see how logical those two choices are together. The mind boggles.

However, because art was lacking in my subjects from school I didn't make the entry requirements for graphic design - weird thing is, I did well enough to apply for a BSc degree - but some rebel inside of me wanted to join the art school, so I settled for Interior Design instead.

We had typography as a subject throughout all 3 years, and I absolutely LOVED it, my favourite subject of all.

In this months Craft Stamper magazine I have done a project using Alphabet stamps.

The main project is a scrapbook page, with a step by step on how to make this flower from scratch, here is sneaky peek or two

There are also a few cards ...

...and a journaling spot below (more for us scrapbookers)

This all in the March issue, out in shops today.

Not a blogger

2010-02-04T11:36:00.005Z

It has come to my attention that in fact I am not a craft blogger. Not a very good one at least. I love reading other people's blogs, drooling over their creations and getting inspired by all the loveliness of what they create ... but me ... alas, I don't do nearly enough crafting to have an inspiring blog. A lot of what I do is either for selling, so lots of repetition (read boring), or for magazine work which I cannot share anyway. We are also redecorating our house, which takes up way too much valuable crafting time.

Wish I wasn't so lazy and had heaps of time and energy to do it all, the house, the crafting, the family, the domestic goddess thing ...

I am not throwing the towel in just yet ... but I am not sure this is really my thing. I have another blog for family and friends, and that is about as much as I can keep up with.

We'll see....

... but for now, I am going to share some more South Africa photos. If you don't do holiday photos, shut down ... quick.

So this holiday we went to Graaff Reinet for a week to visit my brother-in-law and his family who live there. Graaff Reinet is one of those quaint little towns in the middle of nowhere, in the heart of the Karoo, a semi desert that goes on forever, or so it feels when you are driving through, trust me. It rminds me of those western movies with the tumbleweeds, dust blowing all over the place and cactus plants looming large over the landscape.

Just gorgeous.

My brother-in-law also owns a little farm just outside of the town.

This is what it doesn't have:
- Electricity,
- Running water on tap (there is plumbing, but water has to come from the borehole and water tank and is not drinkable)
-TV ... as a result of the no electricity thing of course
- Any mod cons (you take your pick, there are none of those)

BUT, this is what it does have:
- Loads of charm, with the most rustic little house you could ever wish for

-A house with a stoep (an afrikaans word meaning veranda). And not just any old stoep, but a pure lazy, you can sit here all day and do nothing kind of stoep.

- And then there is the view from the stoep ... sheer nothingness for as far as the eye can see. If you want to get away from civilization, well then this is your place. Just blissfull.

- And if that is not enough, we also have worms, lovingly known as shongololo's, every kids dream and a throw back to my youth, we used to love playing with these little mini beast.

- And if you are still not in the country mood, how about a quad bike ride with your daddy ....

Oh, and I nearly forgot, if quad bikes aren't your thing we also have puppies that fall asleep on your lap.

Stress .... nah ah ... no stress here. I could have stayed a week, but we only went for the afternoon. An afternoon of getting dirty and dusty, doing nothing, and being in nature with no distractions, no shopping malls, no post delivered to your door, no computers .... holiday bliss.

I say that though, but living out here can have its down side too, there is not a lot to do, and not a lot to do it with. If you are the kind of person that needs more, well then this place will drive you stark raving mad, as it did Helen Martins

Just a stone throw away from our rustic little farm is a place called Nieu Bethesda, and that is where you will find the home of Helen Martins. A woman who could no longer stand her drab surroundings and her life and started sculpting with whatever materials she could lay her hands on, mostly concrete and glass. When that creative urge strikes, well, what's a girl gonna do. Crush glass and cover you walls with it of course. She died in 1941 but her weird little house is still a big tourist attraction.

It is impossible to capture on film just how surreal this place is. The walls and ceilings (the sun above) are covered in crushed coloured glass, there is no nook or cranny that is not decorated or adorned with some sort of weird ornament or large eyed owl sculpture. The garden is filled with camels and ladies and a strange nativity scene ... it is just bizarre, creative, but bizarre.

And we're back

2010-01-20T17:50:00.005Z

Back to the snow and gloomy days that is, but it doesn't matter, 4 weeks in the South Africa sun was bliss.

Christmas with the family, sunshine galore, food, food and more food - all the ingredients for a great holiday.

This being but a small sampling of the vast amount of calories we consumed. Hmmm, I love holidays!

Actually we have been back for nearly 3 weeks, but it sort of takes me that long just to get back into the swing of things. Call me lazy, but I am always very reluctant to let go of holiday mode.

But ... the real world beckons once again.

My craft room is great, although there are still a few little things to get sorted out, it is pretty much up and running. Having reduced the space I have with adding a bed, everything is now functioning on a reach and grab basis. Standing in the middle of the floor I can almost reach everyhing, yeah, that works for me. I will share some pictures soon.

At the moment I am working on a project using the SU butterfly punch and stamp set for Craft Stamper, am loving that set, but no pictures to share .... however

I am big on finding inspiration all around. Magazines, shop fronts, clothes etc., all potential inspiration of course. South Africa is also so different from the UK, so whenever I go I snap loads of pictures of anything I find vaguely interesting ... you never know when a colour combo will come in handy or when african masks might become trendy ... so into the void of my computer photo album they all go.

Here are some shots from Johannesburg airport - they have such cool little ethnic shops there, check these out.

A bit disturbing, I'll give you that. But his entire face is made of beads - loving those faint red stripes with the yellow and blues.

Some very colourful crockery, and a few cool handbags below.

Love the black and white detail with the ochre on this table runner.

Ahh, always my favourite, beaded creatures. I am not sur what these are, trendy llamas or something, but they were just great.

And lastly these placemats - they have little beaded details sewn into them. Those squares and circles are made of seed beads - so easy to do but so striking and different. I think my IKEA placemats need a make-over.

Do you scrapbook?

2009-12-04T11:48:00.003Z

Originally I didn't. I started off making cards, not the most brilliant creations, but cards never the less. You know the ones ... flowers, computer generated text, and of course torn handmade or mulberry paper .... giggle, they all HAD TO HAVE that torn paper ... let me see if I can find an example.

Oh yes ... here are some early creations

Eventually I was roped into the world of scrapbooking and that quickly became my number one passion. Scrap scrap scrap! Loved that!

If you cannot read the journaling, fret not, you have not lost your mind, I have altered the text as it is a bit personal.

But those cards ... I did so love making them.

...and then came stamping, yet another thing to get hooked on. Yup, there goes the old budget again.

But see, stamping on cards, well that one is easy, stamps are made for cards, right ... but stamping on scrapbook pages, I found that much harder to get my head around.

But it did seem a waste not to use all those lovely stamps on scrapbooking too, so came hell or high water, I WAS going to use my stamps, and slowly I started to incorporate them more into scrapbooking.

Just recently though, Katy from Craft Stamper asked if I would like to do a masterclass on creating patterned papers using stamps. Uh huh, oh yeah, I surely would.

So, in the latest Craft Stamper magazine (January issue), I have made four different patterned papers using inks and stamps. Resist, masking, kiss stamping and so on. If you are a stamping scrapbooker, go and check it out. Making your own patterned papers for scrapbooking is just the coolest way to get great mileage out of your stamps.

I can show you this sneak peek.

Happy scrapping and stamping!

Ooooh, and I forgot to mention, the cover mount stamp this month is just gorgeous!

Birthdays, cake and still no crafting

2009-12-03T09:35:00.003Z

We celebrated my daughters 12th birthday on the weekend. Of course that meant cake, and the best kind too, guilt free cake .. because when it is someones birthday you HAVE to eat cake, right? It would be rude not to, obviously.

For those of you who don't know me, I have two daughters. They are great .. for the most part at least. There are of course times when I would happily give them away to charity, and I challenge any parent who does not occasionaly get the same urge.

Thinking back I am quite shocked that my mother still speaks to me - I was a ... shall we say ... headstrong little girl. I remember for at least 5 years when I was about 8 to13, I refused to kiss anyone. NEVER EVER, nope, not on your life. Not hello, not good night, not ever. Even before that at 2 I refused to get out of the car when we went to see anyone for about a year. My mother used to put a little camping seat and some toys in the back of the car (we had a kind of pick up truck with a canopy on, so I could sit there in the back and play) and just leave me. She would always come and check on me and keep me within her sight somehow, but it was easier than trying to deal with the backlash of forcing me out of the car. There was mention of a child psychologist, but before they could get that far I outgrew that little phase. There was nothing wrong with me, apart from the fact that I was a little control freak.

I guess what I am saying is that in comparison my children are a walk in the park, and my mother is a saint.

So, in a nutshell, we have been celebrating, we have been finishing off my craft room, we have been shopping, we have been doing everthing but crafting. I am really stretching myself to think what to put up on here, as essentially this is a crafting blog, but if I am not crafting ... well, that is a bit of a dilemma then.

Here are the rest of the 9 for 5 cards I mentioned in the previous post - old photos are better than no photos I guess.

So there you have have it - see what you can do with simple string, patterned paper and bottletops. Crafting does not have to break the bank.

Something old

2009-11-24T10:37:00.004Z

Is the craft room done yet?

No, not, nada, not at all. Un-blinking-believable.

I know, it is hard to fathom how it could possibly take so long, but there have been so many glitches along the way I have stopped counting. The last being the floor, my beautiful wooden floor which now has to be my old carpet put back and simply cleaned floor. The guy who built our house did not posess a spirit level, the floor dipped by more than 8mm on the one side and after much deliberation and many a tear shed we decided it would just not work. The floor has to be level or the wood might crack and there was no way we could prop it up properly, believe me we thought of many ways. Of course we found this out AFTER we had completely prepped the floor, scraped off the yukky carpet tape, bought the wooden flooring strips and underlay, opened the pack ... you know, spent a whole day getting it all ready, just to pack it all back in the car and pray that B&Q would give us a refund.

I did get a brand new VAX carpet cleaner out of the deal as a consolation prize, so it is not all bad. We cleaned that old carpet to within an inch of it's life last night. It is sparkling and fresh all ready for me to drop paint and ink on it. Of course the inevitable fate of a clean carpet.

By now I am suffering from a bit of crafting withdrawal. Every now and then I just open up an inkpad or a box of stamps and give it a good whiff. I gently run my fingers through the packs of papers stacked on my lounge floor and if I am feeling particularly in need of a fix I grab punch or two and attack my paper bin.

Thing is, once I am moved in and ready to craft again, I am off to South Africa for a month, so there is going to be no crafting in this neck of the woods until January.

I will just have to go with the inkpad sniffing for now.

And then we get to the something old - some old projects, which I am sure you probably don't want to see, but I am afraid it is all I got, unless you want to join me in some ink sniffing :)

One of my favourite projects for Practical Crafts magazine used to be the 9 for 5 feature. I loved that. Make 9 cards with just £5.

My materials for these were a sheet of pattern paper, some sheets of coloured cardstock, bottle tops and string. I used my pc to print the greetings and a paper piercer to add detail.

Here are three of the nine cards, I will post the others in the next few days.

Bottletops are so inexpensive, I love to use them for cheap decoration. These were bought from Wilkinsons for something like 79p for a whole bag full. Flatten them with a rubber mallet and voila. The little flowers are cut from the patterned paper and the row of holes was made with my dress makers tracing wheel and every second hole enlarged with a paper piercer. Cheap and cheerful!

For this card I printed the letters onto the back of patterned paper (mirroring them first) and then cut out. The rest of the message is printed. Simple simple simple – just the way I like it, again adding some detail with the little holes.

And lastly, the little flower stem is normal stock standard cheap string that you can buy anywhere. I pricked holes and used a large embroidery needle to sew the stem. It is a bit bulky on the back, so the panel with the flower is attached to the tag with 3D pads.

You would think ...

2009-11-17T19:17:00.002Z

You would think that by now I would be done painting and moving.

You would think that our house would be waterproof.

You would think I would be grateful that I have a whole room, albeit the box room, all to myself to use as a craft space and not be envious of other people's crafting do-overs ... but look at all that fabulous space. I want to be Donna Downey.

Talking about Donna Downey, I LOVE these new stamps she has designed.

But, back to business.

The reason it has taken me so very long to get to the painting bit is all down to a recent strange developement in our household. It seems we are very successfully attracting water. Good if you are thirsty, not so good when it is invading your house.

First, when we uncovered the one corner of wallpaper we also uncovered a large black patch of, what I assume has been years of water damage. GREAT!

For some inexplicable reason the water was running down the interior beam on the gable end of the house and trickling straight down the wall. We had just recently had the fascias and gutters replaced too ... so it is a bit of a mystery. No amount of detective work could solve the puzzle of where exactly the water was getting in, so we went for the next best thing ... silicone everything.

On Sunday, Matthew and I got up onto the flat roof of the garage, very long ladder in hand, and siliconed every possible crack and crevice that could be letting in water. There is no tile damage either ... we are truly stumped.

So now the drywall had to be fixed, plastered, sanded ... see that unpainted patch of plaster still drying out. I have one very proud of himself husband as he has never done any plastering before. I know it is only a little spot, but heck, I wouldn’t be able to do it.

We got up on Monday morning, very happy indeed that our plaster seems to be staying dry and that I could finally paint. BUT THEN, just like a really bad B-grade movie, we had scene 2 of the water saga.

This time downstairs, around the kitchen counter.

As Matthew was about to leave for work, he reached to pick up his iPod in it's lovely little iPod sock, only to find a soggy watery mess and a lovely damp patch of ceiling dripping merrily and steadily. NOW WHAT!

First thought of course was the radiator pipes, but after ripping up the floor ... yet again ... they seemed perfectly intact.

Someone was having a laugh.

We could see the water pooled under the floor on the downstairs ceiling, but had no clue where it was coming from. There is only a small portion of the passage way floor that can be lifted for inspection, and that was just not enough, so out comes the circular saw. Now we have a substantially larger portion of the floor that can be lifted.

Nothing a good old circular saw cannot solve hey!

Eventually Matthew figured out that the water was dripping down the wall from above. Upon closer inspection he noticed that the pipe to the water tank in the attic had worked it's way loose and was steadily emptying itself onto the ceiling, down the wall, onto the downstairs ceiling, and onto his iPod which was lying on the kitchen counter.

So we fixed all of that, correction, Matthew fixed all of that while I made encouraging noises. We have had the upstairs floor open for two days to try and dry out the downstairs ceiling and now we are wondering why we seem to be a conduit in the universe for spontaneous water leakage.

Talk about having a Monday morning. Garfield eat your heart out.

Having now dealt with our collective bad water karma, I could finally get down to actually painting.

One wall.

One is a start. Tomorrow I shall do one more, I don't want to exert myself now do I?

(Oh, the blue tape will be removed ... it is not part of the plan, only there to keep me painting inside the lines)

It is a green wall, and oh my, green it is. Amazing how it looks so much more green when it covers the entire wall as opposed to only a swatch.

I like it though, and it will be mostly obscured my my new NEXT curtain ... woohoo, I am getting new curtains. I am only painting one wall green, the others will be natural calico (technically just off-white, but natural calico sounds so much more posh).

The spare bed will also go here, with a matching duvet cover ... woohoo, I am getting a new duvet cover.

Then I will squash and squeeze all the rest of the bits into the remaining itsy bitsy space that is left over.

Oh how I hate DIY

2009-11-09T17:04:00.002Z

So I spent the entire last week stripping wallpaper, and yes it was as fun as it sounds. Then there is my darling husband ...

You see, when he was twelve years old the owners of his local hardware shop asked him if he wanted to work for them because he spent so much time in there, looking and drooling over all of the tools and equipment. At twelve!

In those days in South Africa you could go to work part time even at that age, so he jumped at the opportunity. When I met him he was 28, and still working at the hardware shop on weekends, even though he was then holding down a 9-5 office job during the week. I think you get the point here - he loves all things harware, and probably the reason he gets my obsession with crafty tools, gadgets and stash.

There is a down side to this though, whenever there is any DIY work to be done, it gets done by the book. There is no painting over anything, everything has to get stripped down to bare metal, wood, board ... you take your pick, then primer, then sanding, then undercoat, then sanding, then top coat. Jeesh!

It always looks really good in the end, but working with a perfectionist is ... well ... hard work.

I have left a whole month for us to do my craft room, because I just know that it will stretch on with all the little extras we will have to do - not to mention all the new tools we will have to acquire.

First though, I had to get all the stuff out - and that took nearly a week. Sorting, organising, trying to find a temporary home for everything ... ugh!

This is my room starting out. You know how you have to get everything out and on the floor first before it can get properly sorted. Stuff everywhere - who knows where it all came from.

I am aiming for it all to be organised and neat when I am done, at the moment I only have one bookshelf that is organised the way I like it. The rest is in a state of, shall we say, semi organisation. You know where only I know where anything is.

Oh yes, and my ribbons – that has just been organised too, thanks to this cool hanger from Lakeland. I will just need to find a good place to hang it -maybe behind the door.

Once all the stuff was out there the fun and games started. Stripping the walls. That was fun ... NOT, and took me an entire week because I had to be super careful not to damage the plasterboard underneath.

I stripped all of the walls, using water, sponge, ladder and a scraper, but see all of the tools that suddenly arrive when Matthew starts doing all the things he needs to do. Like putting in new drywall screws, filling holes, levelling stuff, sanding stuff, sawing through the floor, putting in a new radiator ... the list is endless.

I am grateful, honestly I am. Matthew is great to have around, and he does a sterling job. It does mean however that this week I need to sand the skirtings, paint the skirtings, sand the door frame, paint the door frame, sand the door, paint the door ... do you feel my pain!

Christmas cards ...

2009-11-04T10:24:00.002Z

Have you started yet?

Nope ... me either. Truth be told, I seldom make batches of cards for Christmas. I know I should, I know it would definitely go a long way to reducing my pile of stash that, at this rate of acquisition, will serve me way into the 22nd century ... but you know, I just don't.

A few years back I was doing quite a bit of magazine work, which conveniently left me with a nice steady pile of handmade cards to give to relatives come Christmas time. I am very deadline driven, and having to make them for a project always does nicely to light a fire under my "would rather sit at the computer and surf or watch tv if I could" bottom ... can I say bottom? It is not a bad word where I come from, but my daughter told me off the other day for saying it, so now I err on the side of caution.

Anyway, where was I?

Oh yes, deadlines, the great motivator.

Having cut down on my magazine work dramatically in the last two years, I don't make nearly as many cards, and as a result I actually have to make a conscious effort to get off this here chair and go and craft for myself. I did however make some Christmas cards for Craft Stamper this year. (So at least my mum will have a handmade card ... phew!)

They will be in the December issue, out on Friday. Think brown, think pink, think Season of Joy .... think Stampin' Up!

Love that Season of Joy set - especially the lovely flourished tree and cool swirl. I do have a thing for swirls.

Of course I am not allowed to post any of the images on here, but I made two extra cards for the Craft Stamper website and you can see them here

I can however share a card that made a while back, uhm, like two years back I think, but I do love these Bella's so much. This is WinoBella. Add a small Santa hat, and she transforms into a Christmas hostess ... voila. The hat is a small punch, but I really cannot remember who it was made by.

I cut an aperture around Bella and glued some patterned paper onto the inside of the card so that it shows through the aperture when the card is closed. Her dress was stamped seperately onto red cardstock and then pieced on with foam dots. Patterned paper is BasicGey.

On that festive note, I shall leave you as I have an appointment with a scraper and some wallpaper that needs stripping.

Scrapbook Inspirations

2009-10-27T11:30:00.005Z

Yes, I know I am a bit behind the times, but I have just heard that Scrapbook Inspirations will be closing down. I am always sad to hear news like this. I have been a contributor to various magazines for a long time and have had my fair share of publications that I contributed to close down. It is so horrible to be on the receiving end, and I am truly sorry for all those who were involved with this magazine.

I did a few articles for Scrapbook Inspirations a long time ago and the editorial team were just lovely. I wish them all the best of luck for the future.

Here are some old layouts I did for SI magazine. They are all a few years old, so maybe a bit out of date as style goes.

No stamping on any of these I am afraid - for those of you who are stampers. These layouts were all done in my pre stamping days.

My craft room is having a major overhaul (edited to add: as I mentioned in an earlier post ... seems I am now repeating myself .. old age and all), so I will not be able to make anything new for a few weeks at least. While all of you are happily crafting, I will be covered in paint and sandpaper ... oh the joy. I hate DIY.

So any pictures I post on here for the next few weeks will have to be resurrected from the ghosts of projects past. Cue scary halloween music :)

Cards for men

2009-10-21T16:47:00.004+01:00

They are just the hardest to make aren't they. No pretty ribbons, or fancy flourishes, and eek ... boy colours. My friends father in law is turning 70 and I offered to make him a card as she couldn't find anything suitable in the shop. He likes boats, so she sent me over a picture of his boat which I put on the card. I kept it conservative and simple, but still managed to sneak in a flourish stamp and a scalloped edge - hopefully that is not too girly.

This is my favourite flourish stamp from Papertrey. I have also used the SU scallop punch (love that too), quickutz oval tag dies, some BasicGrey paper and my best alphabet from Sizzix, Fruit Smoothie, which I think is now discontinued. Lastly I used some tiny little brads that look like screws, for that manly touch you know ... to counteract the flourish.

I used to make lots of personalised cards, but haven't done any for ages so this was really nice. Here are two more cards that I made for friends before.

The brief for this last one was very specific, I had to use purple, her favourite colour, and Tara (the recipient of the card) had broken both her legs after a nasty fall so I had to work that in as well somehow. I wrapped some bandage that I had cut up around the letters L to look like two legs in plaster.

The flourish is Fancy Pants and the dotted cardstock is Bazzill, man I love that dotted bazzill.

Backup NOW

2009-10-19T17:15:00.003+01:00

This morning I was trying to organise my cluttered, extremely disorganised and bursting at the seams font file when ...

I had spent more than an hour unzipping, moving, deleting and generally organising my fonts. I was actually in a good place and things were starting to look somewhat managable. I have a very nasty habit of doing a shift delete instead of a normal delete. Usually this is not a problem, until of course it is - the law of unfortunate events will catch you out when you are least expecting it, never mind how good you think your Karma is.

Seems I had somehow highligted my font directory instead of just a file, pressed shift delete enter, all in short succession ... of course ... as I do, without double checking what I was deleting ... and then had a heart attack. Not only had I lost more than an hours work, but in one little keystroke I had permanently deleted every single one of my fonts that I have been painstakingly collecting and buying over the last ten years. Granted, I had not burnt the house down or crashed my car, but if you are an adrenaline junkie, doing this will prove to be just as good a fix as the other two.

YIKES !

What is a girl to do. So I phoned my husband who is in charge of the backups, praying feverishly that he had actually done one recently.The universe must have heard my plight and as it turns out I had a very recent backup that I could restore ... but that was way too close.

I mean way too close.

Matthew, my computer saviour. Had we lived in Camelot this would have been the equivalent, in brownie points, of slaying the dragon.

Getting back to crafting, my craft room is having an overhaul so that we can fit an extra bed in there. At the moment the bed needs to be suspended from the ceiling because my stash is already crawling up the walls, but it has to be done.

I have enlisted Matthew to build me some shelves which will hold up a large desktop

... and while he was doing that this weekend I was making the most of my craft room while I can still find my supplies.

I was working on a project for Craft Stamper which I cannot share, but managed to squeeze in one card for me too, seeing as my supplies were out of course.

Love the swirl from this stamp set (Stampin'Up! - Baroque Motifs).

Just not enough time

2009-10-14T14:54:00.000+01:00

Honestly, there is just never enough time to do everything. Why do so many people have so many great blogs that I have to visit.

This also being my favourite time of the month, the run up to the Papertrey Ink stamp launch on the 15th of every month. So many great ideas and beautiful cards. If you don't already follow the design team for PTI go and look at Nichole Heady's blog and then follow all the links. Some fabulously talented girls.

Now, I want to share with you my new favourite material - acetate or computer printable transparency sheets.

Because it is transparent, it makes for a perfect mask if you want to see what is going on underneath your masked area.

I used it to make this tree card for the Moxiefab Green challenge a while ago.

I cut a circle from a sheet of transparency using my compass cutter, stuck it down with herma repositionable, and then stamped the background damask design over the entire card using versamark. I removed the circle and stuck transparency sheet with the cut out circle aperture onto the card (again with herma repositionable) this time to cover the stamped area, leaving the circle exposed.

I Inked the circle area with green ink using cut'n dry foam ... and then .... because you can see the damask design through the mask, I was able to stamp the tree with the same background damask pattern lining it up perfectly with the original.

Wipe the transparency clean and store for future use.

I think I need

2009-10-12T10:14:00.004+01:00

One of these

image from letterpress website

So that I can make some of these

image from letterpress website

This is a new letterpress tool from the Quickutz family and I love it. I have no idea if it will be available over here, I simpy stumbled upon the website by accident this morning, but I love the clean simplicity and ability to make several cards or invitations or ... anything really for that matter, think gift tags, stationery etc. ... quickly and easily. It looks like a simple stamped image, but it is more than that, the image also gets debossed when you run it through the machine ..... hmmm, lovely.

Find more details here on the website or to see how it works here on the blog.

I wonder if Santa reads my blog ... and whether he might swing by the States on the way over here ... and if he wouldn't mind popping one of these in his bag for me while he is there.

It's finally fixed

2009-10-11T12:59:00.008+01:00

My computer that is.

Am I grateful or what! Grateful that I have a husband who knows what to do with this...

This has been the state of my poor pc for the last week and working on the spare is .... well, just not the same. No photos, no access to my software, no favourites, no cookies (how am I supposed to remember all of my passwords and stuff) ... need I say more. Seems the problem was a failed hard drive, the one with all of our videos on. Matthew, my if-it-is-broken-I-will-fix-it-even-if-it-kills-me husband, has been browsing all of the techie websites and forums, and I'm sure in a few days he will be surrounded by little hard drive parts, several tiny screwdrivers, lots of cords, plugs and cables ... so there is hope yet.

But, pc problems aside, remember last weekend we went to Warwickshire. Gosh, it is beautiful there. We stayed on a fabulous farm, you know one of those farm B&B's where you get woken by the smell of bacon and freshly collected eggs cooking in the kitchen and all you want to do is rush downstairs and grab your share before the other guests get there first ... and that is coming from me, who is a vegetarian. Say no more.

We also had to do all of the obligutory museums and stuff, because that is what you do when you go away ... right. Then of course you have to take photos like these of your children posing with a terribly bad rendition of a soldier

And if you have too much time on your hands on a Sunday morning you have to play around with some cool actions from Ree, better known as the Pioner woman and do this ...

But what I really came on here today to show you is the super cool bird bead that I bought at the Artisan show. I really really do not want to start a new hobby, but when I watched Sue Webb working her magic with glass I have to admit I was seriously tempted. Not only does she make great beads, but she had an array of the cutest, quirkiest birds to buy. How cute is this little fellow.

I have a little thing for quirky bead creations, but up to now I have only ever bought seed bead creatures. These are in abundance in South Africa, and every time we visit I have to bring something back. Last time I really wanted a lifesize sheep for the garden, but Matthew refused to bring that along on the plane - so I settled for a parrot. She hangs outside on my patio and is gorgeous. You can only just spot her there next to the drainpipe.

I also have a collection of other tiny creatures, key chain flowers etc., but none of them are as cute as my lampwork bead ... I need more of those!

And then I stumbled upon this

2009-10-05T12:47:00.001+01:00

I have been finishing my write ups for an article, but as my brain can strictly only function effectively for a half hour at a time max, I take frequent breaks to surf .... of course ;) and I just stumbled across this

The most incredible BLOG CANDY

Take a look here for all the details on Jak Heath's blog, isn't this just fabulously generous, and I don't have a silhouette. ... do you?

Cheating

2009-10-05T10:28:00.001+01:00

Of course not so good when you are, for instance, writing an exam, but very good indeed when you are crafting. I guess it is not really cheating, the more political correct phrase would be capitalising on what you have to make the most of limited supplies.

Yes, that is a mouthful, I think we shall stick to cheating ...

... or rather: Tips and Tricks

Let me quickly go through a few of the things I did the other night to maximise the supplies I had on hand. None of this is new, or particularly innovative, but sometimes even an old idea can trigger a creative thought in someone else, and maybe something I think of as old hat is new for you or vica versa.

MASKING
Okay, a little confession here, I have not always been into rubber stamping. Yes, it is true, I mentioned it briefly the other day, and I apologise to all the die hard stampers out there. In my before-I-got-into-stamping world, if I wanted to have a border around something I would simply stick a piece of card onto another piece of card ... right? But I have found with stamping that I often want to stamp something that overlaps both colours and that never makes for a good clean impresssion if I have layered cardstock on two different levels to deal with, so now I usually mask and ink instead.

I used this technique to create the darker border around card 1 for the challenge. Simply cut a piece of scrap paper to size, round the corners, adhere with removable adhesive and then colour the exposed area with ink and a dabber or piece of cut n dry foam. A make up sponge works well too.

I do this often and mask all sorts of things. Herma is very happy with me, as I am spending a fortune on removable adhesive, but I love the flat surface I get to stamp on as a result.

Of course Stampin' Up! have now also added temporary adhesive to their new catalogue. I used that the other night and it was great. Put a few spots of the liquid adhesive onto the mask (not onto the main card), wait for the liquid to dry and turn from blue to clear, and then voila ... repositionable adhesive. The waiting bit is important - do not be tempted to stick the paper down before the glue has dried or you will be sorry .... take it from someone who knows!

AND THEN ... NOT MASKING, BUT JUST INKING
For the scallop circle in the Joy card I really could have done with having cardstock in a shade that was just darker then the old olive to offset the circle, so I just inked the old olive scalloped circle with old olive ink creating a darker shade. Easy Peasy, and without the need to use two seperate pieces of coloured cardstock.

WHITE GEL PEN
Up there with my Green & Black chocolate ... okay maybe not quite up there, but I do love my white gel pen.

Because I stamped this star with red ink onto red cardstock, the dots were almost invisible. Gel pen to the rescue.

SCALLOP EDGE
Many people create scallop edges from circles or by using corner rounder punches, and it is relatively simple to snip a circle in half. When dealing with an oval it is a little more tricky to get the scallop edges the same size, so this was what I did.

I drew a line onto the underside of my punch with a sharpie pen. I could then easily line the cardstock up with the line creating scallops that were exactly the same size every time.

and lastly, the low down on the two little scallop edges on this card.

I don't really need to explain this, the picture says it all. Use the SU square scallop punch and then cut the shape in half. Trim the top and bottom scallops to create two perfect small edges for the patterned paper embellishment.

And so ... life get's back to normal

2009-10-02T13:56:00.002+01:00

I want to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who left comments and visited during the last few days. It has been great to see so many visitors and I have read every single comment.

It is the Artisan show this weekend, and soon we will be off on our merry way up to Warwick. I am ironing, packing and finishing off all the food in the fridge so that it does not spoil - it is a dirty job, but some one has to do it. Lunch for me therefore was one of those everything left in the fridge stir fry's, salmon fillets and all. A bit questionable, but I ate it never the less.

No photos today - I am still working on the spare pc, so do not have access to anything except what was on my flash card the other night. It is a bother, but aproblem I will worry about on Monday. Right now I have an appointment with a cow... on a farm ... at a B&B .....

Have a nice weekend!

And the winners are ...

2009-10-01T17:57:00.001+01:00

Okay ladies and gentlemen, I have counted all the comments, numbered each one and then went to random.org to generate two random numbers.

I can now announce that the winner for the early bird prize is

Steph ....

and the next winner is Yizz

WOO HOO - Congratulation ladies. Send me your details and I will pass them on to Stampin' Up! immediately.

It's time!

2009-09-30T23:57:00.005+01:00

Phew, you won't believe me, but my computer completely packed up at 9 o'clock and my husband has spent the last 2 and a half hour's trying to get me a make shift pc to work on. Of course I have been fretting like mad. Anyway, seems we are up and running. Fingers crossed.

So without further ado, here goes.

The contents of the box looked like this ... yum!

And then I set about crafting like there was no tomorrow. I added some Chocolate Chip and Close to Cocoa cardstock to the mix, as well as a few extra punches. I don't have time now, but after the prize draw tomorrow I will go into more detail of what I used, techniques etc.,

This then is what I came up with. I managed to make 5 cards and one small layout, an all time record for me as I am usually painfully slow.

The white scallops above are not a border punch, I simply used the edges of the punched ovals, but I will share more about that later.

Just look at those brads, aren't they to die for! The white paper is not a patterned paper, but the swirl stamped several times. Iwas amazed at how well that worked.

Another little scallop cheat here with the small brown borders above. They are actually the SU square scallop punch with the edges cut off and used as a border trim.

And finally, a small 8x8 layout - the perfect size to use with these gorgeous stamps!

Hope you enjoyed what I have made, and that this has inspired you for your own crafting. Thank you for joining me - I shall now go and have a long bubble bath.

EDITED TO ADD: I never did say where to comment for the blog candy, and a few people are not sure. Leave your comment here on this post, but don't worry if you have commented on the candy post. Any comments made during the right time will be put in the draw, whether it is in this post or the previous two announcement posts.

Ready ... steady ... GO!

2009-09-30T18:04:00.000+01:00

The box is here, are beautifully wrapped with some ribbon. I have just opened it to find some fabulous 12x12 papers, two lovely punches, more beautiful ribbon, some cardstock, a pack of gorgeous brads and a fabulous stamp set.

Let the crafting begin ....

...and now for the details

2009-09-30T13:48:00.000+01:00

There will be two prizes, each one consisting of a punch, a stamp set and an ink pad ... does that sound good or what!

The first prize will be an early bird prize. To qualify you need to visit this blog between midnight tonight and 1am - only one hour ladies, so this one has good odds indeed. Leave a comment, and if you are also a blogger we ask that you mention the challenge on your own blog, link through to here and then paste your blog link in your comment.

Don't worry if you are not a blogger, simply leaving a comment will still put you in the running for winning the prize.

Second prize will run from 1am until 12 midday on Thursday, so if you missed the early bird or shall I say night owl draw, you still have a chance of winning a prize.

Same rules apply, leave a comment, bloggers leave a link ... and then I wil choose the winners later tomorrow evening using a random number generator.

This is just getting better isn't it.

Remember, both Suzanne and Jenny will also be giving away two prizes each, that is six in total, so be sure to come along and play.

Good luck everyone, I will talk to you later.

Oooh, only one more day to go

2009-09-29T14:04:00.000+01:00

The Stampin' Up! blog hop challenge is getting closer and closer by the second, and I am getting more and more excited (translate nervous). I am a notoriously slow crafter, so to try and ease my nerves while I await the arrival of my box tomorrow, I have been sketching. As I have no idea what stamp set I will be getting I am covering all bases. Sketches for big stamps, small stamps and in between stamps ... and then just some nervous sketches to fill in the blanks.

That is the only way I work - I sketch. The plonk pfaff and stick method is not good for my compartmetalised brain, and I simply need to get a pencil in my hand before I can think. I usually start off with the stamps, mull them over in my head for a bit and then get down with my bits of scrap paper.

I guess sketching to pass the time beats eating slabs of Green & Black chocolate ... almond ... drool. I would not be the same if Green & Black ever decided to stop making chocolate. Thankfully, so far today I have shown considerable restraint. But the day is still young and a trip to the shops way to easy!

Okay, yes ... I am just toying with you, talking about random stuff. I know why you are here.

Could this be it?

YES, I thought so. I can now reveal that Stampin' Up! have been so kind as to offer blog candy for some very lucky blog reader. I cannot divulge exact details just yet, but I am going to burst if I don't let this out. Suffice it to say that it will be worth your while to drop by for the big reveal tomorrow night. YOU could be the one walking away with a lovely prize.

More details to follow some time before tomorrow night.

Woo Hoo!

And on other fronts... guess where I will be going this weekend. The Artisan show in Leamington Spa. Craft Stamper magazine and their sister title Beads and Beyond are sponsors at this event. As a contributor to Craft Stamper I have been invited to go... very nice indeed. I so love the opportunity to part with my husband's money and aquire new stash. It is only a two and a half hour drive, but I have managed to convince my family to come along for the ride and stay for the whole weekend. The lure of staying at a B&B on a working farm was just too much temptation for my girls, and my husband loves driving ... anywhere, it doesn't matter. He is such a boy. Put him behind the steering wheel of a car and he is blissfully happy (men are so nice and uncomplicated).

Where am I going with this you wonder. Well, I am working my way up to a picture. I shall be taking an ATC or two or three with me to trade with readers of the magazine. Slight problem though, I have never made an ATC before. I know, don't judge me, I just have not.

I thus set to work on the smallest canvas I have ever worked on. I am not sure it is particularly good, but I made this.

And a few more too. So if you are going to be at the artisan show on Sunday, stop by the Craft Stamper stall and if you see a woman with grey hair that would be me.

I have also gone digging through some older cards to see what else I could put up on here and came across this.

It is a card I made, quite a while back I might add, for a class I taught at the now closed Creative Pastimes shop. It seemed fitting as Christmas is coming closer and many of us are starting on those Christmas cards. This is a Bella stamp - those Bella's are adorable aren't they.

I have two words for you

2009-09-28T17:16:00.001+01:00

BLOG and CANDY

Hmmmmm ... sounds good hey. Check back soon to find out more.

More bloggers for the SU blog hop

2009-09-28T16:20:00.000+01:00

Another update on the SU Blog hop. There will be 3 of us joining in, so I will not be alone in going through the emotions on Wednesday which I think will go something like this. Anticipation waiting for the box, excitiment opening the box and then more than likely sheer panic to come up with something great to inspire and tempt everyone. I will need a lot of chocolate ... this is SO not going to be good for my diet!

But I digress, the other two super talented ladies, both of who have been in the scrapping, cardmaking and crafting industry for many years are

ta da .... Jenny Cocks. You can find her blog here

and Suzanne Torr, or Fruitysuet as she is known to many of us. Her blog can be found here

A bit more about Stampin' Up!

2009-09-27T13:19:00.000+01:00

Okay, so I mentioned Stampin' Up in my first post, just assuming everyone knew who I was talking about. If you are into stamping, I would venture that you probably do.

But yesterday as I was sitting at my daughters school fund raising bike ride ... for 3 hours ... watching kids go round and round and round .... and round again on their bicycles, I came to realise two things. One, being a parent involves sacrificing a LOT of your time and Two, maybe not everybody knows who Stampin' Up! is.

I was first introduced to this company by my good friend Paula several years ago, a good few years before they had a presence in the UK. Truth be told I was never all that much into rubber stamping. For me rubber stamping automatically meant collage, lots of ink, and very arty or altered type of creations. Don't get me wrong, I worship the ground that Tim Holtz walks on, but when I try to go down that route it just looks like an abominable mess. Paula, with her clean and simple stamping style, completely changed that perception for me and I was introduced to a style of stamping that was more in line with what I do. Good for me, not so good for my husband, who at the time was funding my crafty spending.

At that time Stampin' Up was only available in America, so we merely had to look on from afar. That all changed in 2007 though, and now we can buy their stamps right here in the good old UK! They sell trough a network of demonstrators and you can find all the info right here on their website.

Again ... a lot of talking and not enough pictures.

I can show you this.

During the summer SU ran a competition where you had to create something summery using only their products. I love competitions, so I created this with the few stamps and other SU bits and bobs that I had.

A summery invitation for a garden party.

I didn't have any summery picture stamps, so text stamps it had to be.

I printed the inside details on Safmat - boy I love that stuff - and that was that. My entry done and dusted.

Something exciting to announce

2009-09-26T00:54:00.000+01:00

Hello, and welcome to my brand spanking new crafty blog.

I have been blogging for the last two years, but so far it has been mostly about me, my husband, my kids and all the stuff we do - really boring, and mainly for the benefit of my family who stay far, far away.

... because, you know, family like all that boring stuff.

I have on many ocasions considered starting a crafting blog, but to date nothing has really given me the oomph I needed. That was until now of course.

I am very excited to share with you that I will be joining in with the launch of the much anticipated, also brand new,
Stampin' Up! catalogue.

On the day before the launch, Wednesday the 30th of September, I shall be sitting at home biting my nails and eagerly awaiting the arrival of a box. Not just any old box, but a box containing a few of the brand new stamps from the "very much shrouded in secrecy" SU catalogue.

I will then have a mere few hours to stroke, drool over and ultimately use the products to craft my heart out. Then, at the strike of midnight, and not a minute before (I'll sit on my hands if I have to), I shall post my creations, right here, sharing with you an exciting first glimpse of what you can expect to find in the catalogue for the year to come. Cool hey!

Phew, now that I have got that off my chest, let me introduce myself. Some of you might know me from crafting forums, but for those of you who simply followed a link from another blog, and are by this time thinking "Just who the heck is this person?" ... well this is for you.

My name is Lousette and I have been crafting for ... gosh, I am not sure now, probably about 10 years or so. Before that I used to design offices and office interiors, but that wasn't nearly as much fun as making stuff with paper - honestly. I know you understand.

I started off making cards, got converted to srapbooking and now I do a bit of both. I have been contributing freelance to various magazines over the last 5 or 6 years, and at the moment I contribute to Craft Stamper magazine. I have also taught classes, demonstrated products and spent more than my fair share of time on crafting and scrapping forums.

I am mostly a clean and simple crafter, meaning that even if I try I cannot do collage or get my work particularly inky. I sit and marvel at the creations of those who can, but somehow I always go back to a more graphic style.

Okay, I think that is just about enough about me.

I do however realise that it is very boring to read a blog post with no pictures, us crafty people are visual creatures after all, so I will add a few pictures to give you an idea of what I do. Everything has been shared on the web somewhere before, but hopefully there is something you have not seen.

A card I did for the HeroArts blog challenge. The stamps used here are all HeroArts, look out for more projects using these stamps and others from this set in the next issue of Craft Stamper (out next Friday).

Don't you just love this flourish. It has to be one of my favourites and is from Fancy Pants. With Christmas coming up (I am reminded of that every time I walk past the reindeer chocolates in Sainsbury's) I have started slowly but surely to make the odd Christmas card. This is a variation of a card I made 2 years ago for the Simply Cards and papercraft magazine Christmas edition. When I am lazy I come back to old designs, and this is one of my favourites.

Lastly, because somehow it is already 1:30 in the morning and I really need to get to bed now, a simple card I made for a friend a while back.