Thursday 22 May 2014

Just a note...

Oh what a morning it is.... after nearly a week of lovely, sunny and hot weather, it has decided to rain... and rain is a slight understatement!! It chucked it down!

So today, I have decided to dig into the past and find something really colourful and springlike. 

These two cards were projects I made for previous issues of Cardmaking and Papercraft magasine. And I admit, this top one is my favourite... totally different to something I would normally make, but I enjoyed using toppers and card candi, keeping the card quite simple but pretty. 


I added a little bit of glitter and sparkle to the outside edges of the layers to decorate it up a little more.


This was a simple little stamped image, made for a Thank you card. I opted for a lovely stamp of a cute little girl (Woodware, I think!) and did a bit of paper piecing for her dress and bow.


Paper piecing is a great way of adding colour to your projects if you are not brilliant at colouring. It can be a bit tricky, but is worthwhile persevering with as it can give you a great look on your project.

I added glitter around this one too, then finished it off with a few little gems here and there.

Onto today's schedule, I am back to making samples and hoping to fit in a little colouring and stamping later again. Yesterday, I did a bit of a one-to-one teaching with my sister in law, showing her the glories of colouring with pencils (bulk standard, cheap colouring pencils, or watercolour) and blending with a little bit of essential oils. I will try to do a video at some point for this this week, as I have been asked quite often.

It is a bit of a misconception that you need special pencils to do a blended technique, you absolutely don't. I do have prismacolour and polychromos pencils and the like, but generally just use my £12 box of steadtler pencils and they do exactly the same... !

Well... onto work ... and I will get back to chat a little more tomorrow...

Happy crafting everyone!!!!

Wednesday 21 May 2014

Coffee anyone?

Gooooood Morning campers.... Hi de Hi.. 

Well, I told you that I would be back with a post with more inspiration, and here we are.. but firstly, would anyone like a coffee?

Not that I drink latte, or coffee, that often, but doesn't it look lovely? This was a break in shopping yesterday at Marks and Spencers, and the young lady who was in charge of the latte machine did this!! I mean, how lovely does that look? And she didn't use a template or anything! To say I was impressed is a very large understatement, so I had to take a photograph. 

And what's more..... when hubby drank the drink the pattern stayed at the bottom of the cup. Brilliant! I know.... little things.....

Today, I am going to show you a card I made using the new Header dies from Tonic. I love how this card came together. The header dies make the cards look exquisite and so pretty. And of course, you can use them as I've done here on all four sides of the card to give you a different shape.


The centre panel is raised on foam pads to give the card some height and a simple sentiment placed into the centre as a focal point.


Here's another angle for the picture for you. 


Now... the little picture below is one I found on Pinterest the other day when I was having a mooch, and thought I'd share.. I really need to remember this!!!

Tuesday 20 May 2014

Flowers and Butterflies...

What a wonderful combination to start a new lease of blogging with. 

Yes.. I'm back. I have had a break from blogging - unintentionally really - as I just haven't even given it a thought about blogging amongst doing other things. I've been out and around doing demo's here and there, and one of my demo's was out at Mountain Ash Crafts on behalf of Tonic. What a lovely place!

Here is one of the cards I made whilst I was there. I used the Tonic intrica punches, this one being the Regal Border, and I double backed it to create the strip along the edge. It makes your card look lovely and lacy. 


The stamp is one I used on the day from the shop, I think it's Woodware if I remember rightly. But what a lovely image. I think this needs to be on my hit list to purchase when I get around to it.

I finished the card off with a few pearls and a little bit of sparkle.

The card below is one I made for my Craft Clinic show on Create and Craft, again for Tonic, using their fantastic range of products... One this one I used the Butterfly border punch.

The border punches like a normal border, but gives you a lovely 4cm edge. So deeply detailed and full of gorgeousness! But as you know, you can also use it to go around a circle, so this circle was a 5.75 inch circle ( or the largest layering circle in your Tonic set) and you can see, it punches perfectly.


I finished it off with a greeting die, and a few Craftwork Cards Candi circles to match in with the lime green.

In addition to making projects for Jodie, shows, demo's and suchlike, I have also enjoyed being out in the garden taking photographs of my flowers. These tulips were put in last minute and I really didn't expect to have such a good show of colour, but as you can see, they look wonderful.



There are a variety of different ones that we picked up as a reduced lot inthe supermarket, and we just 'shoved' them in the garden hoping they would do something, with the intentions of moving them later on. They came out beautifully. Here are a couple of my favourites.


This one above is such a dark chocolate red colour. It's stunning. I only have around 4 or 5 of these ones but may look into getting a few more. They add a dramatic colour to the border and have kept their shape beautifully despite all the rain this week!


This one is another favourite. And it was from a pack called Sugar Candy (if I remember rightly). The colouring on the petals is lovely.. there were pink, yellow and lilac colours in the pack. Just lovely. 

Well... that's all for today. I will try to get back again at some point later to upload a few more projects for you from my demo's... *will try* being the words I need to remember. lol. 

Until later.. have fun. xxx

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