Wednesday 30 June 2010

A grand day out

It has been a bit of a whizz of a week.. and it all started off when I saw this lonely little person...

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Yep.. it's my friend, Nikki! (and the left luggage sign? well, it had a bit of a play with photoshop.. it wasn't really like that!)

We had arranged a few weeks ago to have a day out in York. Nikki was travelling down from Scotland, and we had planned a day craft shopping and exploring.... and that's exactly what we did!
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The first thing we did was get on a bus to take a tour around the City. It was sooo much fun - but when did the Scottish accent sound like German? The bus driver was offering headphones to Nikki for the German translation. So funny.

The great thing about the bus tour was that you could get on and off as you wished. It was soooo worth the money!

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This was one of the University's. Very pretty indeed.

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Next, we got off the bus to go up to the Shambles. We had our lunch and took a venture up there. So quaint - and of course there were some craft shops up there too! Nikki was very naughty and found lots of lovely beads to buy. Me? Well, I bought a couple of things - googly eyes for a stamp I have, a couple of findings for a project.. simple bits.

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This is my favourite view of York. The Minster. It is such a beautiful building.

And another taken from a different angle.

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Just before we came home, we decided to take a trip up the River on a River Cruise.

The day was fantastic weatherwise, sunny all day, but not too hot, but the breeze off the river was lovely. It was a very relaxing way to spend an hour.

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But of course we had to have refreshments too while we waited for our Cruise ship lol....

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And here it is -the River Prince!

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We both had a really nice relaxing day, and time to go home came around far too early. But we WILL be doing it again sometime soon.. Venue is being decided on as we speak!

So, that was Friday. My sides still hurt from all the laughing we did. It was such fun.

Thanks Nikki!

Thursday 24 June 2010

Christmas card 2

I thought for this card I made for Kay, I'd make a little 'Christmassy' card. The stamped image just sort of called for it really. The colours are quite contemporary so gives the card a fresher look.

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Not much to say really today - I've been quite busy this week with one thing or another, so haven't had much time for crafting for me.. That will change tomorrow that's for sure. lol. Tonight however, we have our Stampin' Up Workshop up in Carcroft, so I'm chopping, packing and sorting stuff out for that.

I've also spent a bit of time this week sorting out my craft studio. It was looking like a hurricane had hit it, and everything needed sorting out and putting back where it should be.. so now everything has a home and everything is in place. Tidy. Neat. Lovely!

Happy crafting everyone.. I'll be back soon!

Wednesday 23 June 2010

Happiness Always .....

These little stamps from Stampin' Up are wonderful.

They were part of the Sale-A-Bration sets that were out a few months ago. Did you get yours? I was fortunate enough to get one of each set, and they are just perfect for little greetings, note cards and gift tags.

This is what the greetings look like on the cards.. isn't the font lovely?

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This was another card that I made for Kay, so is no longer with me, but I took a few photos to remember what it was like, so thought I'd share.

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This board (and in fact Phyll's board) are great for creating gridwork, so I took advantage of it and created a background! Simples.

Tuesday 22 June 2010


So sweet

I love giraffes. And this little cuteypie is no exception.

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I have been making a few samples for a lovely lady who has bought out a new scoreboard. It is so different to other boards that I've used, so now I have two favourites.. my Eazi and my Hougie!! Life can't get any better can it?? Oh me of simple pleasures!

Here's the side view of the box.
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I made the box around an inch deep so that you could put in some little notelets.

Must fly.. lots of work to catch up on and some cutting out for Thursday night. It's our Workshop evening over in Carcroft if you'd like to join us. We have lots of laugh and chatter, and lots of crafting thrown in too.. Just let me know if you want to join us so we can prepare your kits.

Happy Crafting everyone!

Monday 21 June 2010

Bunnies and sunnies

What a beautiful day it is today! I think I'll need the sunglasses when I take the dogs later on. Lovely sunshine and warmth out in the garden to mark the longest day of the year and it's great.

Today I thought I'd share the finished card from the other day. How did you like the slideshow wassamajig.. clever isn't it? I might do a few more of these for you when I get chance. At least that way, you can see how some of my cards come together.

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Here's little Bunny all finished and layered up onto the card.

And here's the card in full.

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It was nice to do a card for a fella for a change. I went for the clean and simple type of card, no flowers (!) or other decorations. And as the man it was for likes rabbits and gardening, then it was just the perfect image.

I am off to schedule some more posts for you for the next couple of days as I am busy making wedding stationery.. Oh how I love my job!

Friday 18 June 2010

Does this work?

I've been sat since around half past five this morning making bits and pieces on Photoshop for my very good friend, Lynne. I've made headers, blinkies - you name it, I've done it.

It's been really good to sit and have a faff on Photoshop and I must say, I do get a bit addicted to what it can do.

So - today, I finished colouring in a little Bunny for a card I'm making for Carley's father-in-law, so thought I'd continue playing with photoshop whilst I was at it.

Look what I made!

colouring my rabbit



I took photos on each step that I did, and merged them to create this little film. I still need to faff with the quality, but it's getting there!

FYI, I used prisma's for the colouring and sansador to blend it.

Hope you likey..

Classic colours

I am loving these little noteboxes!

I deciced to make a plainer one just using  black and white, and this is what it turned out like -

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nice? I think so. I reckon it looks simple but elegant.

The stamp is my favourite Stampin' Up background, Bella Toile, and also the Oval All stamps and punches for the greetings.

And the best thing about this box is that it only takes a couple of minutes to make!

I hope you like it.

Thursday 17 June 2010

Thursday already?

Blimey - this week has gone really quickly! Worrying about Holly is obviously not a good thing. .lol.

She went into the vets on Tuesday morning and is still very tired today. She's more or less back to her usual self though, so that's good. Because of looking after her, I haven't had chance to do alot of crafting this week really, but last Friday I did make these...

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Two stationery boxes. The first one was made using the lovely Cottage Wall papers from Stampin' Up, and the second one was using cardstock and decorated with the papers. I also used the Greenhouse Garden stamp set.

Here's what's inside -

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I made a small collection of cards and tags to fit in, using the same stamps.

Happy Crafting!

Monday 14 June 2010

A new week ....

How was your weekend?

Mine was a good one - well, apart from the pouring rain yesterday, which left alot to be desired! Saturday was lots of fun. Sheila and I had a Stampin' Up workshop to do for a group of ladies, and what fun it was too! It was absolutely boiling in the morning, and I was completely frazzled in the conservatory. We worked in two rooms, each doing a seperate couple of projects.

On Friday, I'd made this little cardholder below to take with me. Details of how to make it can be found on the Score Pal web site.

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It's a little note box that I made with the stunning new colours from Stampin' Up.. Rich Razzleberry and Melon Mambo. I am LOVING this new colour combination - they work so well together! I also used my favourite set from the Mini catalogue, Vintage Vogue. The 3D flowers were made from the set too - it makes a change from the flat flowers.

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For each flower you need to stamp three or four layers, so I just used offcuts and bits from my Whisper White and did a bit of smooching on the stamps with two colour inks.

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I made three cards to fit inside the box, and here they are.. The one above shows the smooching on the stamps.
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Here's the smooching in more detail. Sorry about the fuzziness of the picture. Grey clouds and not a lot of light does this!

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so there we are.. my project for today. If you'd like to order the kit to make this box and cards, then get in touch - joaustin22@aol.com and I'll give you the complete price. (only because I haven't worked it out yet!! lol)

Today, I'm having a business meeting down in Mansfield, so I'll be back tomorrow with another card for you all.

Until then.. happy crafting!

Sunday 13 June 2010

Christmas!

Yep. It's that time nearly upon us.

Christmas card making time.

I've just bought myself a stunning stamp from Stampin' Up that I am going to use for my Christmas cards this year, so will make some cards and share them soon.

However, today, I'm kicking off the Silly Season with an old card I found on my older sites I was saying about the other day.

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The pattern was a Christine Coleman one I had a while ago, but I can't find it now. However, it must be one of the nicest ones I had and I'm glad I've got this card to remember what it looked like.

I hope you like it too.

I will be doing some more parchment craft at Lynne's shop at some point. We just need to sort out a date.

Right.. have a fantastic day whatever you're upto.. I'm making Christmas cards.. what about you?

Saturday 12 June 2010

A few magasine bits

This week is going soooo quickly, and today I'm out and about with the ever-lovely Sheila doing a Stampin' Up party. I've been busy prepping for it for the last couple of days, so today, I'm just showing a few photos from a project or two I did for a magasine.

Here are the set of cards I made.

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I was sent some papers to use, and they were stunning! I added some of my own stamping techniques to them, and this one below is my favourite (sorry about the fuzziness)

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I used the papers with the Stampin' Up stamps Le Francais, which is a background stamp, and the wonderful Medallion stamp. I love both of these stamps.

I will redo this technique on another card and do you a step by step.. it's very easy, but so lovely!

Right.. must fly .. I've lots to get on with today.

Happy crafting everyone!

Friday 11 June 2010

A rose is a rose ...

Over the years, I'm managed to accumulate quite a few different photo albums and online web sites, zoomshare and webshots to name but two!

I've decided to look through these sites and save some of the images onto my discs, so I thought I'd share a few with you over the next couple of days.

Here's a little bit of parchment craft I did a while ago, so this is my card for today.

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I learnt parchment craft a long time ago now, and this was one of my earliest cards that I had done. It was only a few months after I'd got the hang of it. Still, I think it's quite pretty.

I hope you like it!

Thursday 10 June 2010

A little bit of bling

On Tuesday evening, I shared a couple of hours with a lovely bunch of ladies and we had a great time making these -

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The necklace was made using a plastic domino and some clever inspiration from Monica. Each of us made one of these and I think they look stunning! I can definately see me making more of these. Thanks Moni, they're ace!

I was nice to get a couple of hours away from home after the hassle of this last week, and spend some time with like minded folks. Today, it was back to the grindstone and working again. I finished of a few things that have been needing doing for a while and they're all done, dusted and ready to be posted off.

I also had little Holly to the vets yesterday evening, but we won't know what's what until at least Tuesday. She's in for a biopsy on Tuesday and I'm sure I'm going to miss her all day (and so will Scoobs and Truly too!)

Talk about stressful ! Right.. must fly, lots of things to be getting on with.

Toodles!

Wednesday 9 June 2010

Roses are...

Yellow? Tangerine? Cerise?? Well, actually, all of them!

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Aren't they pretty?

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The tangerine colour is my favourite. It was my birthday last week, and my lovely hubby bought these home with him. A whole big bunch of them.Just thought I'd share as they are looking so lovely.

I do also have a card to show you today too - how good am I?

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The card above uses the new butterfly stamp, the new Rich Razzleberry cardstock and Melon Mambo ribbon. I've also used a combination of the new ink colours to do a colour dusting on the butterfly below..

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The detail on the butterfly stamp is fantastic - and as you can see, I've stamped it four times and layered two on top of each other. I've added a little dazzling diamonds onto the edges of the wings.

I've got a special project to show you tomorrow, so do check back!

Until then, happy crafting!

Sunday 6 June 2010

Blog hop..

Hi everyone..

Did you visit Jamie Dodger's blog?If so, you've probably come here for the blog hop, so here are a couple of projects I've made ready for you.

The first thing I want to show you is a little bag I've made. I've combined the new absolutely wonderful Cottage Wall papers with the newish birdy punch to create some little tulips. The bag holds a few little note cards, but I'll show you those another day.

My second project is this card.

I did a bit of quilling a few weeks ago, and actually got quite hooked. So all I've done on this card is make some little teardrops from cottage wall papers and certainly celery card, which I cut into 5mm strips, and quilled them to create little butterflies. I used other colour card for the flowers.

As you can see, this photo didn't come out too well, but at least you can see the details a little bit better. I am loving creating ruffles with my eyelet border. I hope you like it to.

So, where do you need to go next? Well, you are heading over to Carol's blog.. so just click here to get there.

There are three loops to the blog hop.. so when you've left mine and returned to mine, then you're at the end.. so nip back over to these links too to take a look around theirs.

Loop One - start at Debbi's blog
Loop Two - start at Clare's blog
Loop Three - start at Caz's blog

Altogether there should be 46 blogs for you to look through, so if you have time, nip and leave a comment and I'm sure they'll come to say Hi..

Enjoy the rest of your blog hop, but call back soon, leave me a comment and I'll call over to see you!

Saturday 5 June 2010

Blog hop...

Check back tomorrow!

Friday 4 June 2010

How to make a shutter card

The Eazi way!!

Here's another little video tutorial for you, this time for the Shutter card. A very very simple card to make with the Eazi score.

To see how to make it, watch below or click here.

Thursday 3 June 2010

video for Side Step card

here's a little video for you. If it's not working you can click here. 

On Sunday I was working down in Lincoln for Phyll, so on behalf of all those who asked, here's the video clip for the Side step card. Enjoy... (sorry it's upside down. lol)

Time for a challenge..

Oh gosh  - where does the time go?? It's my birthday today.. another year older - and it doesn't seem two minutes since I was as young as my son! Anyway, thank you to everyone who has sent me cards and emails - it means alot. Thank you.

Now onto my card for today.

It's not very often that I do any card challenges, but I wanted to make a couple of cards for a demo next weekend where I'm helping my lovely Sheila do a SU party, and I didn't really know where to start. So after much perusing, I came across Monica's blog, and of course the link to the Stamp with Us challenge blog.

Here was the challenge template -


Now, all I had to do was turn it into a card. And here's the one I made.

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This is the close up of the finished card, and as you can see I've gone for yellow and brown colour combo. I am loving this new colour that's just been released by Stampin' Up -  Soft Suede. It's just so lovely. The stamps are Vintage Vogue  - or Effin' Friends as Sheila likes to call it. lol.

Here's the finished card -
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The background is Stampin Up (I'll check which pack for you when I get chance later, but I think it's Tea Party) I've also added a couple of filigree brads to the centre of the flowers, but coloured them with a permanent marker so that they blended in a little better.

Now onto card number two - and my favourite colours.

As you probably know, I'm not a big fan of green, but Old Olive and Certainly Celery definately are worth liking!

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The papers are a new pack (and don't freshly opened papers smell lovely??) and they are the lovely Cottage Wall papers. They only arrived this last week, after being on backorder. They must be sooooo popular they are flying out!

I used Rich Razzleberry and Certainly Celery on my Vintage Vogue stamps (from the mini), and used a 'rock and roll' technique. I've tried this before but never really liked the effect. However, using this colour combo, I think it looks quite nice!

I've finished the card off with a bit of white SU ribbon and the eyelet border punch.

Right.. that's me done and dusted for today. I've got lots of prep to do for a demo on Saturday this week - we're doing Parchment craft.. This is the card we're making...


I'm tittivating it (now, isn't that a nice word? Tittivating??) and just updating the pattern a little bit for Saturday. If you'd like to join us for a bit of crafting and lots of chatter, then email me and I'll put you in touch with Lynne at the Craft Den.

Whatever you're doing today, have fun.. and happy crafting!

Tuesday 1 June 2010

Didn't we have a luvverly time...

... the day we went to Bangor....

Well, not exactly Bangor, although I do like that place.. but I really mean Southport and Lincoln.

Southport first on Saturday, for my Docrafts demo, and what a lovely day we had too. The weather put a few of the regulars off coming along. It rained most of the day and when it wasn't raining, it was just fairly miserable. But thank you to my lovely ladies that came and sat with me, or just stood when we ran out of chairs.. lol. It was lovely to see you all.

Lincoln on Sunday for the Sincerely Yours show, and another lovely day. What was really nice is that I got to have a hug with the lovely George and Phyllis from Diamond Card Craft who I was working for on the day, and our stall was next to a Stampin' Up stand.. and on it was the ever-so-lovely Emma Daye and her friends. Emma is one of the nicest people I know, who always has a smile on her face. Such a lovely lady. It was great to meet up with some of you and make some new SU buddies.

The show was busy for most of the day, and I think most people were feeling the pinch a little with their pennies, but we met some new and some older crafters who just wanted ideas. One lady in particular came along who was really new.. her cards were lovely, but just needed that finishing 'something'. It was nice to spend time with her explaining how to work the embossing boards. They really are magic when you can get to grips with them. I'll do you all a couple of video's shortly to show you how to score a few of the cards we did on the day.

I also just wanted to finish uploading the cards I'd made for the show, as I never got around to it the other day. All the cards on the stand were popular on the day, everyone loved them and Phyllis had done a smashing job on hers. (And yes Phyll, your colouring is coming on a treat!)

Anyway. here are the cards, and I hope you all have a fantastic day.(sorry about the colour cast on the piccies)

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For this card I have used a stamp I've had for a long time but never inked. Isn't she lovely? I matched the colours with the papers from DCWV. Glittered too! Aren't they lovely?

I coloured her in promarkers, and added some airbrushed background. A little blob of glitter glue here and there and she was done. The topper and borders were made with the Mandala board.

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Another little easel card here. How simple are these to make! I've used one of my favourite stamps on this card and coloured her in a mixture of watercolour and promarker.

here she is in more detail.

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This one below now has some Bazzill Bling on her (thanks to Phyll for that) and looks a lot less empty. I knew I was going to totty up my cards a little on Sunday, so left some room to do it! Again, the stamped image was coloured with promarkers and airbrushed.

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Would you like a freebie?

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We all love freebies don't we? Well, I know I do. And what better way than to get together with your friends and host a Stampin' Up party. 

If you host a qualifying party during 1st June and 31st July, you will recieve an extra £20 to spend in the catalogue on items of your own choice. 
How fantastic is that?

Just contact me at joaustin22@aol.com if you'd like a party.





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