My Creative Spirit (Blog Archive)

Morning, how's your week going?  Ours started with a weird weather phenomenon as Hurricane Ophelia bought sands in from the Sahara, turning the sun and sky orange.  Very eerie.........   I'm sharing my finished Advent Calendar and a new kit with you today.  It has an oval diorama in the centre that you can build up and alter in so many different ways and two sets of twelve boxes for treats.  As you know I'm a paper girl and altered my sample in papers from the gorgeous Winter Wonderland collection by Graphic 45.  I love the blend of the Christmas colours with the brown in this paper line, and all the imagery you can cut out.   As we do I cut out far more than I ended up using.  Here's a few more pics   If you'd like to make your own Advent Calendar, kits are available via the link below.  Advent Calendar Kit  Black Construction Tape  Our Birthday Bonanza is in full swing over on the website....

Afternoon everyone, I hope you've enjoyed your weekend. I'm excited to be able to share the finished Seasons Album Set with you as promised.  The project took me on a colourful journey through the year as I worked on each of the albums, with birds singing, warm flowers blooming, leaves falling on pumpkins and all the chill that winter brings.  I loved how the designs of the patterned papers and the solids work together to give a really vintage blend of gorgeousness.   Take a peek at the video below to see the full project.  If you've fallen in love with this paper collection and fancy making the album set yourself I've put together a PDF Tutorial and On Line Workshop for the project.  The stand, with it's handy drawer has been designed to hold my Shadow Box sized albums plus a little extra room for four full albums to sit in.  I altered my sample in two 12 x 12 Autumn and one 12 x 12 Autumn Collective sheets from the Seasons collection (...

Hello there and happy Sunday to you.  I'm sharing my latest make here on my blog and You Tube channel today.  The latest Penny's Paper Doll Family collection by G45 took me back to when I was small and fun filled days cutting out the paper dolls that came in the Twinkle comic - my regular weekly read ........ shout if you remember it too:-)  This relatively quick and easy little book to make as a great gift or stocking filler for any little person who loved to dress up paper dolls.   the book has two pockets, magnetic dolls that can be mounted on the pocket fronts and lots of outfits to dress them up in and colour too.    There's enough paper in the pads (I used sheets from the 12 x 12 and the large patterns and solids pad) to make a few of these little books too. If you'd love to make one yourself I've put together a PDF Tutorial to go with the project available from my website via this link .   If you'd like to see the full proje...

Afternoon my lovely crafty friends.  Friday is here and the weekend is just around the corner.  I've been overwhelmed with the response to the reveal of my Grand Ambassador project yesterday.  Thank you so much for all the comments left on social media and sent via e mail.  You're all too kind.  Lots of Compendium of Games Box kits have been pre-ordered too :-)  You'll love making your project if you've ordered one.  I'm heading over Northampton way in the morning to host a Graphic 45 workshop for my lovely friend Sue.  We've gone for the Master Detective collection again (I love these papers) and will be bringing ATC Boxes to life with the gorgeous papers, and making a mini album inside too.  Looking forward to seeing you there if you're coming along. You may have noticed from the title of this little post that our  20% off Summer Sale   starts on Sunday.   There's no better time to grab yourself a bargain o...

Hello my lovely crafty friends.  You'll probably know I've been crafting with Graphic 45 papers since I started my You Tube Channel back in Jan 2011, and am just as much an addict now as I was back then - maybe more lol!!!  Over the years I've designed and shared over 1500 Graphic 45 projects though my YT channel, blog, Craft TV and workshops and must have cut up thousands of those gorgeous papers we really only like to stroke and stash. Sharing creativity and inspiring others to be creative is a very special gift that I get a huge amount of pleasure and reward from, and  to have been invited to be the face of Graphic 45 here in the UK again for the fourth year is really the icing on the cake.  Thank you Diane, Charee and Amie - I'm really looking forward to sharing more of my inspiration and Graphic 45 products with lovely crafters over the coming year. I'd also like to thank everyone who follows me here on the blog and on You Tube. I really value your suppo...

Happy Monday everyone.  Get me, two posts in two days lol!!!  I must be on a roll. They've been a while in the planning but I'm really pleased to be able to share the first of two new album boxes with you today.  If you're an avid follower and maker of my album projects you may have noticed that I have two standard sizes for the larger albums I make. Size 1.  a square 8 1/4" x 8 1/4" designed to fit the gorgeous 8 x 8 Graphic 45 papers,  and  Size 2.  a taller/wider one measuring 9 1/2" x 7 1/2" that suits larger G45 paper pads I love to design with.  After oodles of requests for a box that fit's both album sizes, they are finally here, well the square one is! I'll share the other one with you shortly. Coordinated with the pre cut album cover kit the decorated album and box would make a beautiful keepsake album for a special event in your life.  My samples below have been altered in papers from the Portrait of a Lady collection....

Happy Sunday everyone.  I'm just drinking a coffee and enjoying the total peace and quiet in the house after one of the most hectic weeks ever.   Ols and Sophie are now officially home owners, and seem to be settling down in the fab new house, Harry has completed his Landscape Architecture work experience (no more mum la taxi needed), my little Sis is celebrating her 50th Birthday today, Hap Hap Happy Birthday Annie Lou......xx   I hope you have a wonderful day in Clovelly , and we are all just home from a day at the Races - well the Newbury Papercraft Show actually - not a horse in sight. What a great day we all had yesterday.  Sarah and Cathy, thank you sooooo much for all your help, before, during and after the show, and thank you to everyone who came onto the stand, shopped with us and joined me for some crafty demo's during the day. Here's a few pics from the event.  Mr & Mrs Tiger Lily Crafts  The lovely Debra - just browsing lol!!!! ...

Pinch Punch it's the first of the month......... can you believe it....... another month gone and one month nearer to Christmas!!!!   I had a great time last weekend running evening make and take sessions at the Dare to Create event on Coventry. Huge thanks Di for inviting me along, Tony and Karen for all your help and ladies for joining me for some late night crafting. It was great to see you all - we definitely had a ball ........................ Di & Tony - Tando Creative Ltd    and here's how we made them A6  Notebook Cover Kit  Black Construction Tape It's been another mad week here with very little crafting done, and nothing actually finished. trying to work around early morning pick ups for Oli, taxiing Harry to and from his work experience placement at a Landscape Architects firm, shopping for dresses with Sophie and a last minute dot com rush to take Oli to get a suit yesterday morning - 3 hours before the wedding the...

Morning everyone, we've woken up to sunshine this morning after a very wet and rainy week here. I've been running an early morning taxi service for Oli as his car is really poorly, and have to say despite my moaning (lol!!) I've enjoyed the early starts to my days. ......  Today I thought I'd share a couple of fun videos on how to make slider cards and create neat magnetic closures for your projects.  I included both ideas in some of my latest projects, we've had fun making them in recent workshops and I finally got round to doing the videos for them yesterday.  Neat Magnetic closures   Here's how to make them  Slider cards to fit your 6 x 4 cut aparts   Here's how to make them Have fun if you make these yourself.  I'm off to host a surprise workshop tomorrow - so exciting :-)  I've got kits and bags to pack up today so will love you and leave you to enjoy your day.  Thanks for calling by and look forward to sh...

I've been updating samples of my products for my show stand and decided to use papers from the Portrait of a Lady collection on some of the boxes from our range. I've gone for a green theme (my all time favourite colour) and coordinated a mix of papers together for different looks on each of the boxes. It's such a pretty collection with so many options for co ordinating colour and designs, I have to admit it took me a while to decide on which papers to put with which and I love how they all work so well together.  A while ago Sophie (the new girlie in the family) asked if I would make beautiful things for her once she had a house to put them in.  Now that's happening I decided to alter the large box (above) into a Memory Box for her.  She loves it and was really touched that I'd added the date of her first date with Oli.  Here's a few more pictures of it taken from various angles: The number stickers were perfect for the date on the front of th...