Samples, samples, samples!

Well, it's almost a week since my last post and I have been a busy little bee making samples for the Papercraft @ Leigh Show this Sunday, 3rd October.  I'll be there with Crafts4U2Do, so come along and say hello and see some of the wonderful creations I've been making using the Plush Pals Disc, if you can.  There'll be lots of crafty products to buy to use in conjunction with your disc and if you haven't got one yet (why not?!), you'll be able to buy on the day!  For those of you that can't make it, here's an easel card using the bear character....

Born again papercrafter!

What a joy this week has been! With design work for the second disc completed, I have at last been able to have a few days of creating...as you can tell by the posts! Plush Pals was launched months ago and yet it's only now that I have been able to have a play, and I'm lovin' it! I don't normally 'do' Halloween, although I appreciate that it's a big holiday over in the US and it's starting to gain momentum over here, but when I found my halloween dies that I bought in the Sizzix sale a couple of years ago, I had to have a go! My lion made an appearance again - I'm starting to show favouritism (bad mother!) but I thought that he would wear the witches hat with style! The pumpkins and bats were both Sizzix dies and I'd borrowed Mam's oval nesties (I'm going to have to invest in some more, I just don't know which ones to choose!). I love the colours of Autumn and Halloween, so my orange glitter card saw the light of day for the first time and the background was the falling leaves paper from the Plush Pals disc. Some fantastic orange spotty ribbon finished it off and a card wouldn't be complete without a bit of Glamourdust! Maybe Halloween will have to feature in my card making every year, if only for the pleasure!

Boys2Men

At last, it's all completed and I can finally announce the launch of my second disc, Boys2Men! My sister, Sarah, will have a limited number of discs and will be taking pre-orders at the Athlone show over in Ireland this weekend and the UK launch will be at Crafts4U2Do, St Helens, on Saturday 23rd October.

The disc has been designed for the boys and men in our lives with a range of images to suit. There are predesigned cards, for when you need a card in a hurry, decoupage, toppers, sentiments, backing papers, inserts and digistamps for you to colour and give your own take on things. Jpeg and png files allow you to import into your graphics program and be creative, plus sample photos for a touch of inspiration.

Here's just a taster of the disc...

More Plush Pals for Christmas...

As promised, here's some more ideas for using the Plush Pals discs for Christmas. The first two are just a couple of the predesigned cards that I tweaked a little - the elephant one I copied over into Publisher and added the words 'at Christmas', then attached some snowflakes, holly, pearls and glitter. The lamb one I cut the front of the card from the predesigned sheet, cut a slit along the bottom edge and inserted a piece of card to add the Merry Christmas peel off to, then mounted onto a DL tent fold card. Snowflakes, holly and glitter were added and printed inserts put in both.


The next card I made was using the cat predesigned card -


I cut the front from the predesigned sheet, attached the purple spotted ribbon over the digital ribbon strip, mounted it onto a piece of white paper which I had punched around the page, using my Martha Stewart punches, then attached to an 8" square card, using foam tape.

I cut out the decoupage and removed the ribbon ends from the tag layer, punched a hole in the tag and added some more spotted ribbon. I printed a lilac rectangle with the wording 'Have a purr-fect Christmas' and added it over the original tag words, then finished with spotty buttons, glitter and some of the border waste (if you can call it that?!) punched snowflakes.

Next, (I know, I was on a roll!) I decided to make a card using the lion image. I printed off the lion topper sheet and made one of the lion's up, glittering his mane with Gold Glamourdust, then created a template of a Santa hat using a scrap of card. I cut the hat from red and white card and attached to the lion's head, then used Polar White flowersoft for the trim. I used my nesties to make the matts and created an easel card with the natural plaid backing paper and red spotted ribbon. Some punched holly and coloured pearls finished it off...


And yes, there's more! I then finished off with a lion door hanger, made up in Publisher. I inserted the blank green door hanger from the jpeg and png folder, then the brown cheri alphabet letters to spell the word 'Santa'. I added a text box with the words 'Please stop here' and then inserted the lion png (again from the jpeg and png folder). I found a Santa hat in Publisher's clipart and put it on the lion's head, then copied and pasted 2 copies for my decoupage layers and 2 extra 'a's. A bit of glitter, some Polar White flowersoft, a spotted bow and some punched holly and I was done! And here's the finished product....

Hope this gives you some inspiration to have a go! Happy crafting!

Plush Pals for Christmas...

Well, this week I've been busy putting the final touches to the new disc, Boys2Men and have somehow found the time between cardmaking for our workshop and making cards for orders, to have a play with the Plush Pals disc. Dianne gave me the challenge to make some Christmas cards using the disc and this is the first one. The card shape I saw whilst watching C&C (I can't take credit for it!). I used the random dots Cuttlebug folder on the background and a snowflake border embossing folder to make the strips at either side. I gave the elephant a scarf using some scraps of white card, then cut some thin strips of acetate (I used printable acetate as it's not as thick as project acetate) and attached them behind his trunk. I punched some snowflakes using my Martha Stewart punches and glued them along the strips, then added a sentiment, pearls and some Glamour dust (of course!).

I'll post some more ideas, when I come up with them!

My life has been taken over by design work!

Well, hello there!! I'm back! After 2 blissful weeks in one of the most fantastic countries in the world (Canada), it's back to earth with a crashing great 'bump'! Or should I say back to my computer chair! If things carry on the way they are going, I'm going to need to get it surgically removed!!

Being fed up of tied to my computer, I decided to get out the paper and make a mess! (You should see my craft table now!?! Or maybe not!) My ever so crafty sister, over at boxercreations has been making some wonderfully different creations using the Plush Pals disc - her July 30 post was using the flower embellishment sheet and I was inspired! A bit of printing, cutting, inking and a lot of shuffling later, and this is what I came up with...



I love the way that pinching the petals changes the shape completely and a quick tip about the backing paper:

I started by printing the brown plaid paper, then turned my paper 180 degrees (not flipping it over, but rotating it) then over printed the blue plaid - because most printers have a slightly smaller top printer margin to the bottom one, the patterns are offset and you end up with a double coloured plaid, neat! The text I used is Windsong, which I have recently discovered - it doesn't look anything in thw windows sample text box, but if you use a large font size, it's rather nice.

I hope to be making and posting a bit more from now on, as the design work for the next disc is almost completed (I'll post a sneak peek soon) until then, happy crafting!