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.

Roll up, Roll up....

... there's a circus in town!  & the star attractions are PaperArtsy & Lynne Perrella!!

This is a piece I made with the PaperArtsy Lynne Perrella stamps, October Afternoon papers, Nestabilies dies, Tim Holtz dies and good old corrugated cardboard.
(& it took a lot of self-restraint not to stick a red clowns nose on one of the above stamped faces lol)

and there's a sideshow of 3 linked tags:

Right, I'm off to look at the pretty (but slightly inconvenient) snow... looking at it through the window obviously.... and get some work done- nice painty inky 'work'!

** Edit ** I just read a tweet that reminded me to do this:  The tags were influenced by what I learned at a class I took with Lynne Perrella at ArtsyCrafts - the stencilling behind the main images and the row of hats.. ...but its also a revisit to the stenciling I did for interiors - just on a much smaller scale! 
It all comes around again doesn't it.  :o)

have a good day - stay safe and warm!

Christmas... part 4...

The temperature is definitely dropping, and all the leaves are falling off the trees (which is keeping Mr JoFY and his newly acquired leaf blower busy)(can't get my head round that - he's basically hoovering the garden isn't he! lol) so Christmas is on its way - confirmed by hearing 'last christmas' by Wham! played in a shop - that's how I know its christmas!

Here are the last of my Christmas samples. First up is another Cabinet Card pennant:

 this time I embossed the pennant (made from mount board) with the Sizzix 'starry night' embossing folder (see this post for more details.. or just scroll down - its in 'christmas part 2'), coloured with distress inks, distressed with water, added a bit of bling with 'frosted lace' stickles - gotta love those for subtle accents of sparkliness!  'frantage' embossing powder around the edge and I covered the big iron work star (under the rosette) with the same - love that embossing powder! So much so that I applied it to the edge of the rosette too - blinging it up!  It is christmas!!

So the pennant is a bit distressed but the next sample I made is more shabby chic but without much shabby! lol 
This sample is just.. erm.. well.. hhmmm.. pretty, yep its pretty.  I wanted to do something with the rosettes other than sticking them onto something and so I made a hanging decoration:

The main rosette (slightly larger that the die made rosettes- this one's made using a Martha Stewart scoreboard) is made out of Tilda double sided paper - such a pretty spotted paper - lovely soft blue. Its topped with a book text rosette & another ironworks star/snowflake (I'm getting a lot of use out of these dies aren't I lol)

On the other side of the rosette is the pretty rose print, all the fixings of the rosettes are hidden by another rosette, and a Martha Stewart snowflake - bought last year & I still love it!
All blinged up with stickles and a self adhesive gem!

Pretty!

This is the decoartion from the side showing the layers of rosettes:

Once our tree is up - scheduled for the weekend - I'll take a picture of it on the tree....

I'm off to watch my youngest nephew in his Nursery's play - he's 3yrs old and very cute - I may require tissues....  Its all getting very christmassy!!

Wrap up warm and have a nice day..

PS before you go - maybe you could help me - I'm putting together a 'christmas alphabet' any suggestions for the letters v-z??  Please leave any suggestions in the comments! Ta muchly in advance  :o)

PPS - Just a reminder: 100 followers or over on this blog by 2012 and there will be a give-away!! 
I'm just going to mention this every so often, not every post, or it'll start to sound like nagging! lol

Looking like Christmas, Part 2

Better pic's of the Craft Barn samples.. This is quite an unusual colour scheme for christmas cards but people liked the colours so here they are, but unfortunately the camera isn't picking up the shimmer on the backgrounds or the shine on the embossing.. :

Tag with embossed snowflakes/stars/fireworks (quite a versatile background I think...), and paper die cuts inked up and embossed with the Stampedous 'aged silver' embossing enamel.

EDIT:  The embossing folder is by Sizzix and is called 'Starry Night', its a set with 1 12x15 folder (the stars), a sentiment folder - used on the flourish card, and 2 small motif folders - its a favourite of mine!

 I think this might be my favourite card - but its a close call between this and the one below...

The inside background is the debossed side of a white piece of card coloured up with distress inks, while the front of the card blank has the embossed version (I simply turn the embossed piece of card over & use which one suits) - love the background:

I like how the card has a short front so the inside and front panels can be seen together, several layers - and I'm loving those flourishes - expect to see those in a lot more projects.. lol

(the sentiment on the card makes me want to sing the song its taken from - but I'll try not to do that too often or in public....)

Its beginning to look a bit like Christmas!!

On the first Saturday of each month The Craft Barn has in-shop demonstrations and this month I was providing one of them... I had a lovely day, lots of lovely peeps came and watched the demos - bought the products I was demo'ing which was great - but in the afternoon it meant that it was as much an improvisation as a demonstration! lol
Here are some sneak peeks of my samples - a few of the originals will go to the shop...

Lots of techniques & products on these - Rosettes - created with Tim Holtz die (I think I've mentioned before how much I like these! lol); Distress Inks (antique linen, frayed burlap, weathered wood, black soot); dry embossing - with Sizzix folders - these give a really good deep impression; die cutting - Spellbinders - great flourishes (love); and wet embossing - covering the die cuts making them look like metal - this effect was achieved using Stampedous 'Fran-tage' embossing enamels in 'aged silver' and aged black (which is a really lovely colour.. we're talking reeeeeeally nice! (& so is the 'aged silver' judging by how fast it sold out!)

Thanks to everyone who watched the demos, I hope you were inspired.  Demo's wouldn't be the same without you!

xx

A Journey...

... or two - PaperArtsy style:
I recently received some of the lovely, quirky, steampunky new HotPick stamps. Here are pic's of all 6:

 

 1106                                                1107

 

 1108                                              1109

 

1110                                                1111

I made some quick pieces with the stamps - just wanted to play with the stamps - a card and a tag (the tag might get a bit more attention (its missing 'something', but I'm not quite sure what yet....). 

I had a lot of fun looking through a book and cutting out random phrases - I have quite a few lined up so expect to see more (I prefer to cut them out as they read in the book rather than make them up ransom style (or to read down the lines as opposed to across) )

(there's one that says 'the cops with curious hindquarters' that made me laugh out loud but as yet I have no idea where/when I would use that - but I'm saving it just in case.....)

Happy Birthday!!...

... to my Hubby - who turned 40 yesterday - here's the card I made him - quite simple.  I love this card structure - deceptively simple...

So its fairly simple but it took quite a few bits of equipment - the big numbers are cut with the Slice, the panel they sit on is a Nestabilities die, the big 'happy' is a new stamp by Imagine That (love those stamps - they have a great 'christmas' set of the same design), 'happy birthday' is a Hero Arts stamp... I think that's enough for one card!  Oh no, hold on, 'happy' was stamped in silver ink & I brushed Perfect Pearls over the top. yep thats all.
I love/chose the colours for the card because my Hubby has a fondness for shirts that have a blue check pattern! Seriously - I think he might have cornered the market in them! lol

Take care - enjoy the long weekend.

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

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).

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.

enough about cakes how about a nice cuppa...

... its more about a nice cup actually - how cute is this cup that I bought in Primark the other week - too cute - they put these things in the racks along where you stand in the huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge queue!  I love it - its going to sit on my desk providing somewhere to keep the camera and my mobile phone out of paints way.  I love the retroness of it.

So the mug inspired me to make these cards - the one of the far right was M's valentine card.. I couldn't decide which way to spell 'pair / pear' so in the end I left the picture to do it!  Lots of Kraft card stock, and my new favourite punches make quite a few appearances on these cards.

I particularly like the tall slim card on the right of this picture - all the little elements... its got a bit of everything going on - cuttlebug, text, nestabilities, stamping, buttons, sewing and of course more punching from my new favourite sets!  The stamps are from Hero Arts and the paper is Lemonade from Basic Grey.

All about CAKE!

Its the 16th of the month which means its my day over on Banana Frog... and this month my pieces are all about CAKE!!  Head on over later today for more nice mouth watering piccies......