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!

Hi there!

Well, July has passed with a blur!! As you can see from the pics, I have been busy with other things for the last month! My friend Becky got married on Saturday, and I have been busy doing the flowers for her wedding day. Not only did I have the church flowers, but I made the bride's bouquet and six bridesmaid's too!
I am trying my best to get the design work done for the second disc, as we're off to Canada for our first family holiday abroad! I'm hoping to have the next one done for the Autumn, it's full of designs for the boys and men in our lives - something everyone seems to be wanting! I'm really pleased with the images so far and hope that it's as much of a success as the Plush Pals disc!

I have had chance to do a bit of papercrafting, though mainly card orders for people (not to mention the three I had to make for Becky's big day) I got some fantastic inspiration over at Yvonne's blogspot, she uses her nesties amazingly and I love her white on white combinations, I made this card on the same lines, though don't quite know what to put in the centre yet?!

Sorry for the lack of posts!

Hi guys! Just thought I'd better post and let you all know that I haven't left the country! Unfortunately, I have been tied to my computer chair designing for the next disc and so haven't had much chance to play around with paper...boo hoo! I'll do my best to post something in the next couple of days, until then...Happy crafting!

Birthday Boy times two!

What a week! Sorry I've not posted for a while, this week has been hectic! Sunday saw DH manage to slice his finger with an angle grinder, fitted with a sanding disc, whilst grinding the rust from the wheel arches of my Renault! A trip to A&E followed, though they only patched him up with steri-strips in the end. Monday was then spent learning how to do car bodywork! It's amazing what you can turn your hand to when needed, and I have to admit, I was quite surprised with the result!!

I've also been arranging flowers for a friend's wedding in August, another of my many hobbies! On Friday I had a lovely day out in Llandudno with Mum, we had a browse round the shops and spent a bit of cash in the craft shop (of course!). One of my purchases was a Dovecraft 6x6 Paper Pack, called Masculine, so I decided to make a couple of creations using them and one of the images I found at Arthur's Clipart which I coloured using old faithful - Photoshop! I love the way they've turned out, though once again, you'll probably have to excuse the quality of the photos, as I was taking them at 9pm when the light was starting to go...