7 hearts for 7 years..

... back in 2005 I married Matt.
Here's the card I made for him this year - I always try to include the same number of heart motifs on the card as the number of years we've been married - this may get trickier the longer we've been married - I imagine the card for our 25th Anniversary will either be reeeally big or the hearts will be reeeeeally small! lol

The pattern on the hearts is quite significant - my lovely husband has over 20 work shirts in his wardrobe and they are nearly all white shirts with variations of blue check/stripes.... that man loves blue!
& I love him.

So many rosettes, so little time....

Love how this tag turned out - I used Tim Holtz stamps, Nestabililies dies, and the 'cafe' set of Perfect Pearls powders - the Cappucino colour is LUSH- a deep brown.

Last year I made a group of cards (of which these are some - I'd show you more but I can't find the photo's on the pc, grrrr):

and as usual punched out extra pieces which I've now used on these:

(I don't think they're nearly girlie enough - really should try harder.. lol)

(maybe I could make them a bit goth by using Basic Grey's Scarlet's Letter paper - all red black and grey... - embrace my inner goth!! lol)(cut the wings to look sharper and they'll start to look like bats instead of butterflies.. mwahahhaaaa (that's my evil laugh in case you were wondering!)
(no butterflies were harmed in the making of these tags & embellishments)

Take care

A this'n'that catch up.... Part 1

... so lots of little bits and pieces going on & being made/created and I've been a bad blogger and only been putting things up on Twitter - cos its so quick! 140 characters and its done... but that makes my blog a bit dull for you lovely peeps out there who aren't on twitter and so stop by this blog (and to be honest with you I'd get more done if I wasn't on twitter lol) - and I'm very grateful to you for popping in.  :o)

Right here's the this'n'that round up:

It was my lovely god-daughters birthday last month so I made her a bunting banner with her name on it..
It started off life like this - a lovely little dress that I bought at the charity shop (reduce, reuse, recycle!), washed and ......

 

....ta-daaa!!  its now very cute bunting for a very cute girlie. Her favourite colour? yep- pink! of course! lol

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I've started teaching a few classes at Hobbycraft in Chelmsford, only a few, its good fun... different style and products to the other classes I do.
First class was a 'Die-Cutting' class aimed at people considering buying a machine or who had one but wanted to know more.  It was a mix of demo'ing the machines (cuttlebug & bigshot) and teaching.  2 hours of fun. Lovely ladies who went home happy (and inspired) - job done!
Here are a couple of the cards we made:

I'll be doing a couple more classes soon - I'll keep you posted.

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I haven't bought stamps for a while but in the past few weeks I seem to have bought loads a few - some I've bought just because they're soooo useful - like these from Papermania - big numbers.. You don't get plain numbers like these very often do you? they're about 3 inches tall - really versatile - just the outline - great for journaling, paper piecing etc. I bought all of them (£2.00 each and buy 2 get 3rd free! kerching! love bargains like that)

so i settled down on the sofa and just doodled inside the numbers - just to see how it felt, how easy it would be to fill the numbers with just black ink. like these a lot - just good simple BIG numbers.  I'm sure there are lots of other filler patterns but they're for another day....

Thats all for now - thanks for stopping by - please 'follow' the blog - its nice to know who pops by & it'd be nice to visit your little corner of www.

xx

Things that make you go 'hhmmmm'

Another 'something' where I was just playing with 'stuff'.... acrylic paint resist, stamping & resist, cuttlebug embossing, die cuts, shimmer sprays, perfect pearls sprays - you name it I used it - layer on layer, on layer, on layer...
Sometimes you have to get inky, and random, and Embrace the Inks!

oooh baby its cold outside... so I've been staying in and making stuff....

I'm in Essex and I realise we don't have half the amount of snow as the rest of the country - yesterday on my way up the garden to feed the birds I stuck a ruler in the snow, when M told one his colleagues (based in Pickering, Yorkshire) how much snow we had the colleague scoffed a little & said "call that snow we've got 3ft's worth!"  !!

Ooh I'm glad I'm in Essex!  lol

but it looks like it warming up if these are anything to go by:

and below is the mother of all local icicles (from neighbours guttering) which is getting longer as the day goes on, thankfully its not anywhere that people could be walking under as it could do someone serious damage! (as anyone who has watched Grey's Anatomy knows! (remember Christina & the icicle!!) ouch!)

and one more snow picture:

small spiders web - I tried to find bigger ones but with no luck..... I wish I could remember where I saw a photo of spiders' webs on traffic lights - very cool - on someone's blog -sorry I can't remember who's it was (EDIT: it was Angela Weimer's blog! - go take a look: http://pagesbythesea.blogspot.com/2010/11/its-begining-to-lok-alot-like-christmas.html  its a really great picture...)

Aaaaanyhooo, enough about the weather...

I made this for M, its an advent thingy-ma-jig and each little box contains little notes or treats.  Made out of matchboxes and coasters, its small- measuring just under 10x10x10cm. The little boxes' labels work as a tab to pull them in & out and text was created on the PC. 
Papers are My Minds Eye, snowflakes are Nestabilities and Martha Stewart, ticket stamp is Purple Onion.
I'm pleased with how it turned out but next time I'm going to use sturdier and bigger matchboxes! lol

(if you want to know how to make one of these look in back issues of Craft Stamper (I'll look back when I get a minute and let you know which issue).

Tag-a-liscious 2/too...

As promised here is the other tag I made with the lovely embossing folders that the Postie delivered in a snow 'storm'...

All the embossing folders are Cuttlebug, tags cut with Tim Holtz tag die (big fave of mine!), inks are Distress (pitch black, peeled paint).

I like how the flame of the chandelier candles are deeper embossed than other bits (?) and so colour doesn't settle into them making them look bright.  Nice.

Bit of crochet, some vintage buttons, gems and a length of bobble trim - lush!

Hope you're all warm and safe.

Tag-a-licious! & bbrrrrr

It feels like I should be posting something festive today as its 1st December.... Eeek! 1st December!!

aaanyhoo,  I'm not going to! but here's a picture of our snow! lol  I'm in Essex and our snow isn't nearly as deep/impressive as some parts of the country but its enough (and too much at the same time! lol)

None of us has ventured out into the garden - not Me, M or Lola (fat chance of her braving it) or Bertie (give him half the chance & he'll go take a look) - but I will later to feed the wildlife.

The Postie made it round yesterday - he's a hardy soul (part of a Postie's job description?) and so I thought I'd make something with what he delivered so his delivery wasn't wasted (lol)... more tags.
btw Tim Holtz 12 tags of christmas started today over on his blog so if you're interested (and how could you not be) go and take a look - lots of loveliness and make sure you watch the video from a couple of days ago... genius)

aaanyhoo - tag:

The Postie delivered a parcel from Craft Obsessions - the romance/love pack of embossing folders for the Cuttlebug... had my eye of these for a while! I need/want to make an engagement card for a friend and they are perfect! (and on sale!) ... but I made a tag first..

 

I really like how the Glossy Accents sits on the lettering and gives it a bit of pop. I intended this tag to be more pink than red but could find the pink inks - but its a happy accident because I really like it.  The colour combo's like Basic Grey's Scarletts Letter papers - LOVED that range.... oooh ooh I could have used a bit of that on the background... ggrr why didn't I think of that earlier......

I also made a really nice green & black one which I'll show you tomorrow.....

Take care and stay warm!

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas!...

Here's a pretty tag I made with things that came in the post last week - making a tag lets me quickly use new 'toys' ahem sorry, craft equipment.  Snowflakes are Martha Stewart Scandinavian snowflake punch (large) lovely, lovely snowflake (and it looks like these are the only snowflakes I'm going to see - our area of Essex seems to be the only part of the country that doesn't have snow - humph).  The blue panel is a Tim H punched tag embossed using one of his embossing folders - love those!

There's an acetate tag peaking out on the right handside (sanding picks up the embossed design), and some scallop edged cardstock 

Its christmas and glitter is expected, no - its an essential requirement! I really like glittered chipboard but it can be a bit of a pain when the glitter ends up EVERYWHERE! But I discovered the solution (and duh! how could I not have realised/used this before) when I went to Imagine That on their birthday weekend..... STICKLES!!!!  Emma had covered a chipboard Eiffel Tower in stickles and it was soooooo lovely! I can't believe that I've only use stickles to dot accent things! Oooh so much more to do (and cover!) with stickles! (or any glitter glue for that matter)  Pretty!!
So I glammed up a chipboard 25 (sizzix dies) with Stickles. Lush!

I think duck-egg blue & pale gold are going to be my christmas colours this year - on a white tree....

Rudolph the {not so} red nosed reindeer....

OK, I don't want to scare anybody but its only 51 days 'til christmas!!!

I'm easing myself into this gently - afterall I completed christmas projects for Craft Stamper (what seems like) ages ago & taught christmas classes in September, so Christmas seems to have been coming for a looooong time.  ho ho ho!

Another tag today - this one is made up of 3 layers -
*  bottom layer is PaperArtsy Rum&Raisin papers stamped with a Stampin-up stamp 'Bella Toile',

*  middle is the torn edge layer which has been embossed with a Cuttlebug xmas embossing folder and coloured with distress inks (frayed burlap- I like that colour a lot) and faded jeans (or maybe broken china),
*  top layer is acetate run the the 'bug with the Swiss Dots (goes with everything) embossing folder.

The reindeer is cut using another of Tim's dies (reindeer flight) - cut from a paper I made using same Stampin Up 'Bella Toile' stamp embossed in clear and coloured with the faded jeans/broken china. I accented its underbelly with frayed burlap ink which seemed to give it a bit a dimension and stopped it looking so 'clean'.

The cute little rosette is made with Tim Holtz' 'paper rosette' die - love these - it makes creating rosettes sooooo easy! Love it!

The rosette on the tag is the smaller of two I've made using the same die. The picture above shows the original and smaller size- create the smaller one by cutting about 1cm off the depth of the diecut (remember to run a length of sticky tape along the reverse to avoid the folds tearing)

Thanks for popping by!

November!

A pinch & and a punch for the first day of the month! by that I mean a pinch of embossing powder and a Martha Stewart punch - of course - what else could it be?! {chuckle}

The pc is now mended - yay - though after the tower was fixed the screen died! ......

So, I like a tag, or several, they're great for using up scraps from the desk, or testing out new stamps and/or techniques - whatever the reason - I like tags!! (and now I've bought Tim H's big tag die I'm liking them all the more because I can cut them out of all manner lovely cardboards, acetate, paper etc etc etc - the list could go on!

This tag was created with a plain luggage tag & a piece of leftover corrugated cardboard - love the HotPicks PaperArtsy stamps : the flower head is from HotPicks 1005, long 'branches' 1008, & words are from HPXT04.  I liked how this turned out - especially as I am continuing to embrace yellow (if you've been reading my blog for a while you'll know that I'm really not keen on yellow but now I coming around to it)(when I find the photos I'll show you my recent ArtsyCrafts project - lemon&lime!! bring it on!)

You'll have to excuse the wierd angle of this photograph (in the folder its landscape oriented but on screen Blogger seems to think it would look better portrait! gggrrrr) aaaanyhooo - I wanted to include it to show two level of black image stamping - I stamped the long branches, dried them, and then stamped the flower heads & added embossing powders and heated.  I liked how it made the flower heads 'pop' as they are now 'shiny'. (you can just about see that in the photo - tilt your head to the right.....)

Edit:  I altered it in Photoshop - yay for me! lol - see you learn something new every day!!

This tag is again using a parcel tag & another piece of leftover corrugated cardboard - there's a lot of that on my desk at the moment! lol  These dimensional paper flowers are all over crafting projects at the moment - I think this is first/second one I've made and they're really easy to make - though to glue them in future I'm going to use hot glue.. Leaves are PaperArtsy dies, the loopy border strip is a Martha Stewart punch (punching atlas paper) and the wording is a Tim H stamp.. oh and there's a little Sizzix flourish die in there too.. & some distress ink, silver versacolor & a scrap of book text....

Take care

Jessica's card

Birth card for a friend's new arrival - I can blog it now she's recieved it.  It has a lot going on and I love how it turned out! (am patting myself on the back.. lol) Its sooo girly and pink, with sparkles (obviously!). I always like to make baby cards special but I wanted this to be extra special because this little lady arrived 8 weeks early and weighed just 3lbs 10oz!!  She's at home and doing well, and I'll be popping round for a cuddle very soon! Big congrats to V&T!

Getting warmed up.....

.... to create samples for PaperArtsy - using their new range of great dies that will work with most die-cutting machines...
Some dies are made to work directly with the stamps (dragonflies, birdcage etc) while some are more generic - rectangles, circles etc - and all are good! .. obviously - we wouldn't expect anything less from PaperArtsy would we?!

I made a few flowers with the dies (see above*) and this 'warm up' was also opportunity to get acquainted with the latest addition to my craft room - a Big Shot... yes I know, I'm a big Cuttlebug fan but I have to admit the BS (or Bertha as I've named her, lol) is a good machine - so it will sit along side my Cuttlebug rather than replace it....

* These are just mock-up of the flowers (reason for only a sneak peek photo) - I was just trying them out - the ones for the board will be created out of patterned/ stamped papers & metal.

June Craft Stamper..

... is a bumper issue as the magazine is TEN YEARS OLD - how fantastic is that!

Its a great issue, and I have an article in there too- my butterfly mobile which must have have been a nightmare for the team to photograph with all its dangles (which rotate in even the slightest breeze!) so well done to them for doing such a great job with it - I'll try not to create something so 'unstable' in the future.. lol

I loved creating the project... it brought together lots of my favourite items to create with....

Go check it out...   and I'm looking forward to another 10 years!

1st time for everything...

.. and for me this 1st time is showing my desk(s) on WOYWW (whats on your workdesk? wednesday)..

Neither of my home work desks is particularly tidy today (laugh, are they ever?...oh yes there was the day they were set up - they were clear then!) but here they are today in their creative mess glory....

This is the main desk, facing the window...
Things I like about the desk are the undershelf wire rack (on right) - its great for stashing colouring equipment - pencils, felt pens, promarkers etc.. it has adjustable height options (got to love Ikea), the tressle legs have shelves and there's still enough space underneath for my legs and a wire trolley for some of my punches.

On the desk:

My trusty Cuttlebug (shush! don't tell the Bug but I'm going over the dark side and buying a BigShot! I'll keep the Bug (LOVE my bug) but I'm having a Big Shot too - all in the name of research and business etc.. ahem.

Massive plastic pink spotted teacup bought recently in Matalan - it made me laugh - its meant for plants  but its a perfect size for keeping bits of Cut&Dry

PaperArtsy HotPick stamps (of course - always seem to have PA stamps on the desk somewhere)

Drawer of Stickles waiting to be put away - there's a lot of stuff on the desk waiting to be put away lol

Jar of buttons - love buttons!

Nestabilities dies

Old linen top being cut up to make suffolk puffs (or yoyo's - whatever name you prefer)

Equipment wrap - A wrap I made to keep all my tools in - a couple of people have commented on how much they liked it and so I'm going to start making and selling them.

rotating tool caddy in the top right hand corner (by Pampered Chef) ...rofl ... cooking is not high on my list of things to do but I went along to a party to support a friend who is a PC consultant and I couldn't resist the rotating tool storage thingymajig. Perfect for storing rulers, scissors, crop-a-diles, paint brushes etc etc etc.

Here's the other desk.. this is the 'clean' desk that I use more for sewing. I've got a mini table top ironing board (thank you again Ikea) and the buttons storage (some of) is on here too.  Another linen top being cut up, cottons, paints (unopened - waiting to be put away) and a rack at the back with loads of recently made cards...

Organised chaos! but in a good way  :o)   Hopefully next wednesday the desks will have changed - and I won't give you such a full tour next time! lol  I don't think the desks will be any clearer though - I'm a bit of a hoarder - I like to save things 'just in case'!  lol

See you next Wednesday - I'm off to look at other peoples creative spaces.

What no stamping?

Nope, none at all!!  ...on this card I made my mum for Mothers Day - just lots of die cutting/ embossing.. that butterfly die is a complete bitch to work with but worth it!  It has a blue finish of 'something' which is really thick, makes the die hard to go through card stock (or even paperstock) and comes off when it does.. gggrrrr) I'm considering taking paint stripper to it....

Finished!!

ArtsyCrafts is taking place in Warrington this weekend - its a weekend of all the best bits (so many to choose from!).
I posted my arch to Leandra'n'Lin yesterday - I reeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaally hope it gets there! lol ... safely, in time, not bashed about! fingers crossed.
Here's a detail shot of my version of the Arch, its such a great project they designed - covers a whole range of techniques: metalwork, stamping, sewing (there's even a bit of cuttlebuging in there!)...   Love it!

I'll post bigger shots when the weekend workshops are over...