Spring has sprung!

Hi there everyone!  Isn't it wonderful?!  The days are getting longer and warmer, and there's colour in the garden at last!  It may only be in the form of daffodils and primroses, but it's a welcome sign that summer's on it's way!
 My days, when not being filled with design work for the next disc, are busy making card orders for local people - it seems everyone is having a birthday or something at the moment!  So, as I haven't had any chance to 'play', I thought I'd let you see what I've been making...


The first three cards follow the same sketch - I find it much easier if I can design a card and then use the same sketch for others I have to make...

 

...I love using the Nellie Snellen fancy corners die, especially as corners are 'in' at the moment, plus my nesties, Distress Inks and Budding vine embossing folder have made appearances again...you do get favourites!  I then made a vintage car card for a male birthday...

...the images were a free vector I found ages ago and coloured with chalks to give a vintage feel.  The papers are all just scrap bits from my many scrap drawers.  And finally, a house mouse card for someone who's into photography...

...the sentiment reads 'Say cheese...' then inside, '...it's your birthday!'.  So, altogether, today was quite productive - if only every day could be like it!  My craft room now looks like a very large bomb has gone off and exploded everything across the room, so I know what I'll be doing for the next hour or so!  Happy crafting!

Templates and tutorials

I know it's taken a week, but Val and Laura, you'll be glad to hear that I've managed to sort out the tutorials for the front step card and calendar cube card that you wanted!  I hope that they are easy enough to understand!

So, Val (and anyone else of course!), you can download the .pdf tutorial for the front step card from 4shared here - I've done it in photographic step by step instructions (though the light wasn't great), so I'm hoping it will be easy enough to follow...

This is one of the calendar cube cards made for a workshop last year

...and Laura (and anyone else again!), you can download the template for the calendar cubes here and there's also the card template here which you can print onto A4 card, cut off to 21cm and score and fold in half (A5 half fold) to make a tent fold card.  Score between the grey lines along A5 Gate, then cut along the grey lines up to the score line.  Pop this section down to create the 'shelf' for the cubes to sit on. Hope you understand this once you've printed the sheet out!  If you have any problems, let me know and I'll write some instructions, though it's quite simple...famous last words!

Enjoy!

Decided to make instructions for the cube card anyway, so you can download them in .pdf here.

Boys2Men samples

As promised, here is a slideshow of some of the Boys2Men samples that I took along to Leigh show - hope they give you some inspiration!

Happy crafting!

Leigh show

A big Hi!!! to all of you who managed to come along to Leigh yesterday for the Sincerely Yours Papercraft@Leigh Fair - once again, we had a wonderful day, though it passed in a blur!  It was great to meet everyone and I got some lovely feedback for the discs and samples - which is what makes my job so much nicer!  I hope you all didn't spend too much money - I never even got time to look around the other stalls, so just had to trust Mam's judgment with her 'one for me, one for you' policy!  I did end up with a lovely bag of goodies, so she did a good job!  I'll be posting some pictures of the sample cards later this week and try and post the templates that I promised Val and Laura - I haven't forgotten girls!

It's back to designing again after today, which was spent cleaning my house, washing and ironing...you have to do it sometimes!  So until next time, happy crafting with your new goodies!

Workshop cards

Hi guys!  I'm not really finding time to do much posting at the minute...heck, I'm not finding much time to do anything!  I can't believe it's Leigh show on Sunday -  I'm busy trying to fit everything into a giant bag to take with me, as we're travelling up tomorrow and staying in a hotel !  Would be fine, only I managed to pull a muscle in my neck whilst on the trampoline with DH and youngest son, last weekend !  I wouldn't have minded if I'd been acting like an acrobat, but all I was doing was sitting on the damn thing when it happened!  Seems I have a whiplash type injury and could be stiff for up to a couple of weeks...oh joy!


I thought I'd post the cards that we made at the last workshop - we got the girls stamping and colouring, something we've not done for a while.  The first card was made using a little hedgehog stamp (not sure who by?!)....

..the front of the card was made from acetate and the leaves were cut from a wide ribbon that we've had in the box for ages - we stuck them to double sided adhesive sheets, then cut around before sticking onto the acetate.  We decorated the back of the card with a panel to write on, with the hedgehog image and some light brown grosgrain ribbon...

...Next, we used the Happy Hoppers 'Hoppy Birthday' stamp, coloured with watercolour pencils and simply matt and layered onto different card stocks, and embellished with dotty ribbon and diamantes...

...we left the card open, so it could be used for either a Birthday or as an Easter card.  I love the blue and yellow combination, lovely Springtime colours.

I have joined the 21st century at last - my Promarker pens arrived last week and I've been having a play to make up some samples for Sunday...I need to get the hang of them yet and am not quite sure how to use the Blender pen to good effect yet, looks like I need a youTube video tutorial!  I'll post some pics of the samples I've made after Sunday - they're all packed away in my bag ready to go and I daren't get them out, as I'll never get them back in!

Hope to see some of you at the Papercraft@Leigh show on Sunday, why not come over and say hello?!  See you soon...

Wow! Second post of the day!

 I was playing around in Photshop and came up with some pretty brush stroke florals which I used to make a little envelope style topper with decoupage bits - and here's a simple card that I made using it...

...it's available to download  as a freebie, either with the "Birthday wishes especially for you" text, or just with the "especially for you" on - just click the coloured text links to direct you to 4shared.com (I tried uploading as a .png file, but it was having none of it, so it's in jpeg format, I will keep trying)

It's available for anyone to download, I'd just be grateful if you could direct people to my blog to grab it from here...thanks!

Where do the days go to?

My, how time flies!!  The weekends just keep whizzing by and I wonder what I've done with my week!  I am busy at the moment making samples for the Papercraft @Leigh show on Sunday 13th March - hope to see some of you there... it was a fantastic experience to do the October fair, we never stopped all day and I'm hoping this one wil be the same!  Plus, I've had 70 invitations to make and am trying to get some more design work done, or the next disc will never be done! 

I'll post some of the Boys2Men samples I've been making, but in the mean time, thought I would make the most of the beautiful sunshine and take a couple of pics of the 2 cards that we made at our workshop on 19th Feb...

...this first card was a pocket easel card made with various scrapbook papers that Mam had in her stash - we wanted it to be quite generic and not too feminine, so that it could be sent to a man aswell.  The pocket at the top could hold a gift voucher, cash or just a little sentiment card.  The flowers are from WOC and the daisy punch is an XCut one, that I borrowed from Mam...it's great having crafty relatives!  The second card was made using the lovely Verity image and papers that I brought back from our family holiday in Canada - they were in packs of 10 for a dollar (that's about 65p!), oh the joy of Dollarama!

The roses were from WOC, the small white flowers are from a stem of silk flowers that we acquired somewhere on our travels and the lilac rosebuds have been knocking about in Mam's stash for years! I added pearl string 'bits' instead of wire tendrils, to match with the pearls on the nestie corners and the lace was threaded with fine lilac ribbon to tie in the colours.  I love the beaded oval nesties that I used to cut out the Verity image, I had to ink the edges with Antique Linen DI to tone down the starkness of the white.  Everyone was pleased with their creations going home and you could hardly tell them from the original, so well done girls!