Tuesday 31 March 2015

Just a quick hello.....

I thought I would just spend a minute updating my little bloglet, seeing as the computer is whirring away updating and doing it's thing.....

I hope you have all had a very relaxing weekend, I know I have here... although finishing off the bits for the kitchen and buying a new kettle and toaster was a little more taxing than what I thought it would be!!

However, we are more or less done in the kitchen now, just a little decorating and touching up on the paintwork to be done and that's it... we can move on to another room. Slowly, slowly catchy monkey so they say!

I hope your weekend was all you thought it would be.... tell me all about it, I'd love to hear what you was upto!

Until then... Happy Crafting!

Saturday 28 March 2015

NEC weekend workshops and a little tutorial

Last week went by in a bit of a hurry!

It was a bit of a panic to start with, as you may know that my little buddy and partner in crime, Jodie, had been admitted into hospital. So, off I toddled to the NEC on the Wednesday afternoon, only to be asked to cover shows at Create and Craft. Well, anything for Jodie, so off I went and was introducing you all to the new Sentiment panel dies... they are just beautiful and I had a great day. 

On the Thursday evening, I drove back to the NEC to resume the workshops that my very lovely buddy, Alison, had taken over doing at short notice. Bless her, she drove down from Wales from the Office to cover for me. That's what Team Tonic do.... we look out for each other. And what a team we are!

Anyways... enough waffle, and here's my post for today. This is the lovely Cheremane who has been helping us out at the workshops this past couple of weeks, and as you can see, the NEC show was so busy, and we had full workshops for the days we were there. 


Can you see the new Tonic machine... I tell you, it's AWESOME!!! I love it. And this weekend, at the Excel in London, they are completely in full swing on the tables... YES! A table full of orange Tangerines for the lovely customers to play with... what more could you ask for eh? 


Doesn't it look bare without the customers? lol... it's so funny being there before and after hours.. it's very strange. Very quiet, and if I'm honest, just a tad messy! 


Now, here's one for the photo album too.... here is Sharon, Cheremane and our little new friend, Ron. He lives with Julie, who owns Art and Glitter Greetings.. but she needed us to monkey-sit whilst she was working, so of course, we had to oblige. He settled in well, if I say so myself. Haha. 


So. What did we get upto making... well, this is the sample that people used as inspiration to create their own cards. We were working with the Tonic Cameo Creatives dies, and they are really lovely if you haven't seen them. There's a little tutorial on how to quickly make the central panel, and the background is simply matted and layered up. 


Firstly, the paper packs we used are also made to coordinate with the Cameo dies.... you see the little flowers at the sides? Well, they match up perfectly with holes in the dies... and make lovely background papers too. 


The border strips in the pack come in sets of two, with two outside edges, a straight one and a scallop edge one, and also you get the cameo cut outs for the shapes. You can choose to cut the holes into the card, or into the paper and layer up on top. 

So... start by placing your strip die onto your piece of card. Run it widthways onto a piece of A4 and you will get a perfect top and bottom border. 


Once the centre panel has been cut out, you will notice the centres of the frame are still intact. The seperate dies enable  you to choose an aperture shape that you like. 

Now, put the border edge onto your strip, leaving a small border along the edge. Cut both sides the same. 


Stick your panel onto a piece of contrast cardstock. Use the border edges to recut your shaping, or simply cut a 4.2cm section of card and stick to the back of your strip. 

Choose your aperture shape from the ones in the pack. and cut out your three shapes through both pieces of card. 



You can now take your paper and layer your border over the flower shapes at the side. Trim the paper to size, and stick into place behind your apertures. Lovely eh?

Now, your strip is complete to create your layer onto the top of the card above. 


Below is another sample of the same type of card, but simply using the aperture shapes to cut your panels from the paper, and layering up on top with foam pads. 


I hope you like the two cards, and are inspired to create something similar with your Cameo Creative dies..... I personally love them. So many different things you can do with them, and indeed, many of the crafters that we had come to the workshops did just that... they changed how they did the layering, how they cut the apertures, and how the cards looked. Simply beautiful. 

Products used for the projects

Cardstock available from Payperbox

Wednesday 18 March 2015

Busy busying......

It's been a busy time here at the House of Austin. New kitchen, Painters and decorators, workshops, TV shows and project sorting...... the list has seemed endless!

However. We are now - sort of - back on the straight and narrow, and are looking onto tomorrow morning and a quickish run down to the NEC in Birmingham to do a full four days of Tonic Workshops.

Helping me over the four days will be Sharon and Cheremane. I have had Sharon with me for a while but I am sure you will all welcome Cheremane to the team, just as you have Sharon.

I thought I would leave you with a quick pic of our crazy little Shazbot that was taken at the SECC shows in Glasgow. Xxxx

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