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!

Back again!

Well, how about this?!  I did get to sit down at my craft table after putting the boys to bed and this is what I made...

...the image is Verity standing, from Sugar Nellie Stamps and she is absolutely adorable!  I coloured her using PS, though I had to find a new way to go about it because of the pencil sketch style of the image, but she worked out lovely.  I decided to just use the top half of her, to give the image more impact and just had to try out my new beaded oval nesties to frame her!  I inked the frame, whilst still in the die, with Worn Lipstick DI using the Inkylicious dusting brushes - it is something I'll have to practice with...you have to be quite patient (something I'm not very good at!) and build up the colour gradually, but it gives a very soft effect.  The blue flower is from Wild Orchid Crafts, the white ones were from a spray of silk flowers and the tiny pink roses are from Crafts4u.  I finished the posie with pearl bead string and flower stems wound around my pokey tool.  A touch of glamour dust and a few diamantes finished it off, not to mention the beautiful giuper lace from WOC, that I had to put a metre of in my basket when ordering the flowers!  Once again, it's very girly, but I think it's apt for a girly image!

I also thought I'd post you a pic of a card we made at our last workshop...

..this one used the Mo Manning image, 'Sprout'.  It's quite a contrast to the Verity card, but I love it just the same...I'm not sure which one is more 'me' - on one hand I love pink and girly, but on the other I think this combination of green and orange is really funky.  The sentiment reads 'plant a seed of friendship...' and inside the insert reads, '...and reap a bouquet of happiness'.  The papers were from My Mind's Eye Wild Asparagus paper pad and the flowers were an XCut punch I have.  Once again, I coloured the image using 'old faithful' and inked all the edges to tone down the billiard green cardstock that I used!  No glitter on this one, amazingly!

Hope you like them and take inspiration!  I'd best be off to feed the troops and get ready for a school meeting - they're (our local council) planning on closing 3 or 4 schools in the area and ours is on the chopping block, so we're trying to find ways of keeping our little village school open...

My craft room...

Hi guys,

I am uber busy at the moment doing design work for my next project and don't want to stop whilst I am on a roll and the creative juices are flowing - hence the shortage of posts yet again!  I am sorry!  Instead, I decided to update you on the progress of organising my craft area and just look at the result...

...I have to say, it's not always this tidy, but as I was hoping, in between crafting moments I can take 10 minutes and put everything away...plus, I know where everything is!!!  I know, it's not normal, and if I had spun around 360 degrees and taken a pic of the other side of the room, it would look a lot different to this! I am contemplating saving up and getting some more cabinets so that I can tidy away all DH's computer and electronic stuff (which is what I was talking about on the other side of the room!)  but until then, I have to be content with my tidy half of the craft/work/supposed to be dining room!

Well, I do have a card to share with you...

I made this little easel drawer after seeing Rachel's version that she made for her grandparents at Christmas.  I wanted to do something with Valentine's Day in mind and just loved Shy Valentine Nessa over at Mo Mannings shop and had to have her!  I coloured using PS (though I am seriously considering buying a set of Promarkers - I know, I know, where have I been?!)  The little drawer would be lovely lined and filled with expensive chocolates, or jewellry, what the heck, I'll have both!  The flowers were from in my stash, though I have invested in some paper roses from WOC, just haven't had chance to make something for fun with them yet!  Once again, designing takes over my life - when I'm not ironing that is!  I'm sure the neighbours are sneaking theirs in when I'm not looking, the pile seems to be never ending!  I am determined to sit at my now empty table and create something just for the heck of it, maybe once the kids are in bed I might get to play...until next time, Happy Crafting!