Newsflash!

This post will stay at the top for a fortnight, please scroll down for newer posts.

Well guys, how about this?!  I have discovered that the text insertion on all of my discs - Plush Pals, Boys2Men and 12 Cards of Christmas is editable!  By this, I mean that you can change the font, style, size and colour of the text - how great is that?!!!  When I created the discs, I created the text boxes with Rich text formatting options, but never could work out how to enable it in Adobe Reader and now I have...so you see, it seems like we're all still learning after all!!

So, if you have any of my discs, the newsflah is that you can edit the text properties on any of the inserts and envelope toppers simply by typing your chosen text into the text field, click and drag to highlight it, then, the easiest way is to press CTRL and E and this will open the Text Properties Bar (you can open the text properties bar by going to View>Toolbars and clicking to put a tick next to Properties Bar).  Once you have opened the Properties Bar, it should remain activated whenever you go into Adobe Reader and will open when you type in text, if not, just click CTRL + E!

Hope you find this useful and that it adds another element to your creations, plus watch this space for future discs!!  Happy text editable crafting!!!!  Lisa

5 minutes of fame!...

Hi everyone!  Tonight I have something a little bit different to share with you all...this afternoon, I went down to our local village school and helped the children make some papercraft advent calendars for their after school club.  They all behaved wonderfully and made a fabulous job of their calendars, as you can see from the pictures below...

...for doing such a good job, I promised to show their work on my blog for everyone to see their brilliant creations!  (Who knows, maybe, future crafters in the making?!)

At the last club, we made origami twisted paper tree decorations and beaded wreath ornaments, to help dress their trees for Christmas.  So, here's a big hello to Freddy, Alfie, Joseph, Wil, Jack, John, Joshua, Ceara, Lilly, Beca, Morgan, Amy, Emma, Robb and Alice!!  Well done guys for all your hard work - hope your Mums and Dads like them!
Thanks for popping over and viewing their work, I am sure it'll make their day!  Lisa
P.S. A huge hello to my newest follower, Sarah - thanks so much for joining my little blog and I hope you take inspiration from my work!

Housemouse Christmas...

...I made some time to play again today - the housework is piling up, but you have to have priorities!!  Decided to ink up a stamp that I 'borrowed' from Mam ages ago (she will get it back one day!). I do love Housemouse stamps and this image is just sooo cute that i had to make a special Christmas card, a bit more than your bog standard square, so here goes...

...I decided to make an easel card, but kept it the right way up this time!  The card base is one of Craft UK's scalloped 7"x5" cards and I folded the front, but not at half way, so the front part of the easel is shorter than the back - this just changes where the top of the easel sits when open and I wanted room to add a sentiment panel inside.  The layers were cut using the Go Kreate large frames, Frilly #2 and my nestie labels - I embossed the cream layer with the card still in the die, using my Texturez Plate, so I retained the lovely embossed border and got the embossed pattern inside the frame...

...my little mice were coloured using Promarkers and I kept the colour combination monochromatic, but browns and creams instead of black and white...I am rather pleased with the way the candlestick turned out, I managed to get a nice bit of light on it which makes all the difference!

Once again, I added some WOC roses and chrysanths and punched some Martha Stewart Fir branches from some antique gold cardstock.  I used some of the lovely wide, wired organza ribbon and tied a large bow with a pearl accent in the centre and added pearls to the sentiment bar and corners, which were embellished with a nestie accent, think it's tulip something!?!

I inked up part of the stamp to decorate a sentiment panel on the inside...it took me about 7 attempts, but I managed it in the end!  The sentiment stamp was actually 2 See D's stamps that I got in a set years ago and chopped up to fit them in the space I had!  Another card to add to my collection for the school fair...fingers crossed I sell some!  Thanks for dropping by and viewing my work, and please leave me a comment if you like it - it's always so uplifting when you get a bit of feedback on your work!  Thanks, Lisa x

I'm entering this card into the following challenges :

Stamp, Scrap & Doodle

Embossing

Stampavie & more

#156 Anything but Square

Divas by Design

Monochromatic

Bunny Zoe's Crafts

Anything Christmas with Pearls

Truly Scrumptious

Christmas with Pearls or Vintage

I'm back again!

Well, what can I say?  Blink and a fortnight disappears!!!  I really don't know where this last 2 weeks have gone and we are scarily hurtling towards Christmas at an alarming rate - and I haven't even started my shopping yet!?!  I have been busy doing other crafty things for our village school - I did two after school clubs making paper and bead Xmas tree decorations (you wouldn't believe how much prep work there is to keep 15 kids occupied for an hour!) and have been making boxes and adding inserts to all my challenge cards to sell at our school Xmas Fair.  Plus, helping find costumes for both the school play and church nativity and making gifts to sell at the church fair at the beginning of December...so I haven't been idle!

So, at last, I have a card to share with you all - I thoroughly enjoyed making it and am rather pleased with the end result too, so that's a bonus!  It's another card made with Christmas Party Tilda, although I have done her as a Birthday Tilda....

...I tried to challenge myself with the colour combo and pick out papers that I wouldn't particularly use together and was quite surprised at the result - I used First Edition Desert Blooms as the main paper, the dotty from Summer Breeze and the blue tile effect paper was one that I picked up in Llandudno and has no name!  I coloured Tilda with my Promarkers and tried to get a bit of depth to her dress...not bad, but I think I need a bit more practice...

...I added some WOC roses, just because they are fabulous and filled in with a couple of silk flowers from Hobbycraft (need more of these) and 2 stunning hat pins from an outing with my wonderful Auntie Di...

...the butterflies are a Martha Stewart punch - I punched them from the blue tile paper, then caught the edges with Victorian Velvet Distress Ink and glittered with Glamourdust!

...I decorated the inside of the card with the same papers and an outline image of Tilda with a couple of tiny butterflies cut with an XCut punch and the Nellie Snellen rose corner in gold...

...the card is another easel card on it's side...seems to be a favourite at the moment!  Hope you like my creation and thanks for popping by despite my absence!  Many thanks, Lisa X

I'm entering this card into the following challenges :

The ABC Challenge

D is for...Dazzle

(I have glitter paper, glittered buterflies, glitter on Tilda's dress, shiny pearls and pins)

Crafting When We Can

Female Birthday

My Mum's Craft Shop

Mix and match it...

Hanging around...

Okay, it doesn't happen very often, but today is one of those times when I just love the way my card has turned out!  I decided to colour up this cute little tortoise/turtle picture, called Hang in There, that was another of my chosen digis from my Whimsy Stamps Challenge win...

...isn't he just adorable?!  I am really into my Promarkers and paper piece decoupage, after getting inspiration from the lovely Mariska's work - this one took a little less time to figure out all the pieces...

...though I still needed 5 copies of the image to decoupage!

 ...I used the out of frame technique to cut the base layer by cutting around the leaves on the left hand side of the image, so that they laid over the nestie labels die and weren't cut off!  The papers are First Edition's Summer Breeze paper pad - really pretty!  I used a coordinating paper to decorate the inside of the card...

The card shape is an easel card turned on it's side...

...I just like the way it stands open with the front and back sitting parallel - it's just a bit different from the usual side fold square card...

...The flowers were coloured with Promarkers to match and were punched using an XCut flower punch, the leaf sprig is a MS punch, as is the butterfly punch.  The setniment reads 'Just hanging around to say...Happy Birthday'.

 ...The paper piecing gives the image so much dimension and as I said, I just love the way this one has turned out, my colours and everything!  Can I send it to myself?!

I'm entering this lovely creation (if I say so myself!) into the following challenges :

Crafty Catz

Anything Goes

Stampavie and more

Anything Goes

Creative Inspirations

Lashings of sparkle!

(Glitter paper, glitter on my image and crystal flower gems)

Crafty Purple Frog

Sparkle Challenge

Papertake Weekly

Anything Goes (plus a bit of bling)

Something different to share...

Hi guys!  No card tonight, but I thought I'd share with you a little project that I did yesterday...

...sewing is not really my forte, but I like to have a go, when I have the time!  This is for our school Christmas fair at the end of month - not sure whether I'm going to sell it, or fill it with goodies as a raffle prize...The stocking is quilted on the front and all the seams are magically hidden as I've lined it too!  I love the fabric that this is made from, although I had to be clever with it as I only had a small piece and so pieced the panels together to make it the right shape for my template...

...I added some lace and ribbon along the top edge and created a hanging loop, then added some silk leaves, diamante spray and paper roses to embellish...

....I am loathed to give it away, but never get a stocking myself (the rest of the house does, but not me...sniff!!)  I might just have to make another one and keep this one for me in the hopes that Santa might fill it?! ;-)  Why not challenge yourself and have a go at something 'different'?  You never know, you might just surprise yourself...I did! (Though I'll never be a seamstress!)  Hope you liked looking and thanks for hopping by.  Lisa X

I'm entering this project into the following challenges :

Pollycraft Monday

Anything Goes

Anything Goes Challenge Blog

Stitches Real or Faux

(mine are very real!)

Not sure what the rules are to entering projects other than papercraft ones, but I'm giving it a go and if it's not eligible, don't worry.