Workshops at Imagine That

I'm going to be teaching the workshops below at Imagine That in Upminster.  A few places left so if you like the idea of a creative painty day call the shop on 01708 641198. 
I look forward to seeing you.

Clearly for Cards

Thursday, 26 January 2012, 14:00-16:30

Wednesday, 15 February 2012, 14:00-16:30

Getting Fancy with Fresco Finishes

Thursday, 26 January 2012, 10:00-13:00

Wednesday, 15 February 2012, 10:00-13:00

ACP Week 1: Grey + A = Aperture

The letter of this week is A, & I'll admit it is skidding in on the last day but that's because I was busy posting all the introductions to the project I've started - next week: less talk, more projects :o)

Throughout  the year I'll by putting the main colour together with other colours - and grey has been a nice colour to start with - I like grey a lot - and colours seem to go with it really easily.... today's project uses grey with yellow.

A = Aperture

Today's project is quick'n'easy!  This is a card design I've used before (taught it as part of a class) and I really like it - simple but effective (and using 3 types of paper its a great stash-buster!) - I like that the aperture becomes a window: I covered the aperture with acetate - makes a great space for mounting something - this time a fabric flower that I added a sparkly button to the centre of (more of those later in the month)... The die used to cut the aperture has to be one of my favourite Spellbinder dies - Labels 1.

The funny little mannequin  to the side is a Lego piece - I came across it on Ebay and couldn't resist it - it just makes me smile - I have dressforms/mannequins in several sizes - life size all the way down to Lego size - got it all covered! lol

Aaaaanyhoo back to the project.... if the design or colour combo has inspired you please leave a link to your blog in comments & I'll pop by and have a snoop at your creation :o)  

Thanks for popping by!

Jo

Project of the Day :: Wrap it Up :: Banana Frog

Typepad is not in a happy mood and is not letting me load up my Banana Frog project of the day - so I'm blogging it here and linking across - so instead of the usual sneakpeek I show on here this month you get to see the whole thing! (I need to blog it somewhere and here's as good a place as any! lol)

My project of the day is made with three things in mind:
1) Attacking the stash
2) Recycling
3) Gift Wrapping - christmas is only 40 days away!!  :o)

Through the year I've bought several packs of Sizzix Embossing folders and they come in clear plastic pillow box - no printing or embossing on them - great for recycling! :o)

I got out a couple of my favourite Banana Frog sets - Backgrounds & Cake Greetings:

I cut deep strips of paper - about 9x30cm - and stamped along the length to create a decorative background.

Then I punched some decorative borders and attached them to the back of the above strips.
I stamped up a greeting strip and stuck that on top.

I'm still working my way through the pile of rosettes I made a while back so picked out ones that worked with the colourschemes and used them as a focal point for the wrap.

I stamped and punched motifs & attached them to the rosettes that I then attached to the wrap with glue dots.  I wrapped all of this around the plastic pillow boxes, added some bakers twine (love!) and stuffed with tissue paper.

I really enjoyed making these - reduce, reuse and recycle - and are such a cute way to wrap something.  All they need now is a gift inside.

For more details on Banana Frog products go here: http://www.bananafrog.co.uk/

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!

Card Inspirations....

... is where I spent a lovely couple of days (fri & sat) teaching and getting creative with the ladies - much fun had with shaving foam, inks, stamps and the Cuttlebug! (not all at the same time you understand! lol)

But there was a small hitch in the plan when one of the sample cards I'd made was awol from the shop - so to the ladies from that class who wondered what the card looked like...

...  here it is - its simple but v cute (even if I say so myself! lol) - its only a sneak peak because the class runs again towards the end of the month.... (and by then the card - and another thats m.i.a- will have been found - or I'll have recreated them... I think the latter will be the case! lol)

any questions - please email using the addy under photo top right.  (love the stamps used by the way - the detail inside the petals)

TV debut...

I was quite excited when the cards shown here appeared on live TV at lunchtime today as part of the show where Bev of Banana Frog was demo'ing her products!
Please excuse the photo quality - I was photographing the computer screen!

photo quality bad on the above because the presenter was moving the tag to show that the space ship was mounted on acetate to give it movement!

Demonstrating at Card Inspirations

I normally teach CI, and occasionally I demo and that's what I was up to on Saturday. 
It was a good day - played/worked with the Cuttlebug - of course!
(apolgies in advance for the slightly dodgy picture quality on this post)

After demo'ing the Cuttlebug here's some of what I created later:
I created this card using the 'flower' embossing folder and one of the cute little 'Notelets' from one of the new PaperMania ranges: 

I also worked with one of the PM clear acrylic albums.  These come in various shapes (scalloped hearts, circles etc) but I used one of the simple square shapes.  Instead of creating an album I turned a page 90degrees so the binding holes were at the top and made door/name plaques.

On 'Freya's' I stamped on the acetate's surface with white stazon, used the PM notelets again as a mat for the name, and painted a couple of chipboard flowers and of course some buttons & bling!

For 'Max's' name plate I die cut a few images from Basic Grey's Archaic range and matted and layered it up.

I really like the transparency of acetate - seeing the different layers behind and infront.

Later in the week I'm going to use a few more of the pages as album cover.... 

These albums come with 6 pages in the pack - so I'm thinking these could be used to create:

• 3 albums with acetate covers or
• 6 name plates or
• 1 12 page album (2 pages per piece of acetate - using front and back) or
• 6 panel hanging decoration (achievable because the crop-a-dile will punch through the acetate!)
• or a concertina album could be created in the same way as the above!

and there must be lots more other combinations!

Cuttlebug christmas....

I'm on a bit of a roll so here are some more cards.....
I love my cuttlebug (nice new one after a slight mishap with my first one) and these are a couple of the cards I designed for Cuttlebug classes at Card Inspirations.  The machine can give you such great results - how can you not love it! lol - I'm teaching more Cuttlebug classes at CI in the new year - check the site for details or to request a copy of the brochure.

The card below is a bit of a favourite of mine - and deceptively simple to make, and really versatile.  I really like this card - its so cute! lol (even if I say so myself!)

Round up...

I'm sorting out my home studio and so its time to tidy up! and I keep coming across projects that I've completed but don't seem to have posted about - such a lot going on and a lot of it I can't share because its going to be published, used for classes etc etc etc ..... So here are some pictures (apologies if I have shown them before - I did do a quick check back through the blog - which has made me realise I must start tagging things....)
(btw:I'm not supposed to have a 'home' studio because I have studio space that I rent and therefore all my creative bits and bobs should be there but over the past month or so a lot has made its way back home (in my defense the studio can be quite cold)

Firstly here are some of the spreads from a mini-book I made of a day trip M & I took to go and see Seth Lakeman perform at the open air theatre in London's Regents Park - fantastic day and a great concert. Its 6x4in (approx) & I love that the pages show around the front cover - not all the same size.. books like that make me want to look inside! lol (btw - the flowers on the last 2 spreads shown now have buttons or pearls in the centres)

Next is a card I've made for my new nephew. I'm loving using acetate for cards and minibooks but they can be challenge to photograph! Aaaanyway his name is Ethan and he's bundle of cuddly loveliness! - though I may be biased of course! lol