Here's looking at you...

Hi everyone,

How are you all today? Super quick post for you all today. This is a really quick card I made a few days ago. There's no stamping involved at all! Anyone who knows me will tell you of my obsession with owls. I love them (even though I'm terrified of birds. Weird I know). This card is really quick to make. It only uses 2 punches, 3 colours of cardstock and a bit of patterned paper. Couldn't be easier!

Products used (all Stampin Up) -

Cardstock in Baja Breeze, Whisper White and Sahara Sand

Spotty paper in Pool Party

1 3/8" circle punch

Owl Builder punch

Marker pen in Basic Black

Right then I'm off to make a patchwork cushion (it's practice for my patchwork quilt which I'll be starting soon). Wish me luck!

Bye for now!

Cardmaking Challenge

Hi everyone!

You may have seen on the previous posts comments that I have entered a challenge on Cardmaking and Papercraft. The challenge was to create a card for a man. Now all us crafters know that making cards for men can be really hard so I thought I'd give it a go. I made two cards, the first is a bit more younger and the second is a bit more suited to an older man. The challenge ends today but there are some other challenges and competitions on the site, so go check it out!

This was my first entry, I wanted to do something a bit younger and a bit more childish, but still boyish. Punching out all those branches/leaves absolutely killed my hands! I made a few of these cards so I ended up punching out 100+ branches/leaves in various colours. My poor little hands hurt a lot after all that! But it helped me to use up a lot of scraps and colours that I wouldn't normally use on my cards. Project Scraps is going good :) This card uses the monkey stamp from the Fox & Friends set by Stampin Up. The little monkey is my favourite stamp out of that set. He's just so cute!

The card below is my second entry. This is much more grown up. This combination of colours and images is kind of m trademark. I've made so many cards like this over the last couple of years. I just love the way they look! It takes a while for me to make cards like this one, because it involves a lot of masking. But I think its worth the extra time :)

Here is a list of all the items used on these two cards.

Monkey card -

Fox & Friends stamp set by Stampin Up

Whispers ink in Chestnut

Stampin Up cardstock in Old Olive, Early Espresso, Crumb Cake, Soft Suede, Certainly Celery, Garden Green and Always Artichoke

All other cardstock used is from The Paper Mill

Linen Thread from Stampin Up

Bird card -

Touch of Nature stamp set by Stampin Up

Stampin Up cardstock in Early Espresso, Always Artichoke, Crumb Cake and Very Vanilla

Vellum paper by Create and Craft

Memento ink in Tuxedo Black

VersaMark watermark ink

Promarkers in Soft Green, Mint Green, Shale, Henna, Cocoa, Cinnamon, Buttercup, Pastel Yellow, Duck Egg, Cornflower and Blender

Stampin Up seam binding ribbon in Crumb Cake

I hope you like my two cards, fingers crossed for the competition! There's some lovely entries by other people on there, it's a great source of inspiration. I've got a little jubilee themed item to share with you all over the weekend. Make sure you stop by soon to check that out. As always I love to hear from you so feel free to comment. See you soon!

Bye for now

French Fancies

Hi everyone! Hope you've all been enjoying the sunshine?

I've been so busy this week! I had an interview, I was swotting up like mad before hand on everything I thought they might ask (even though really I didnt have a clue what they were going to ask!) But it must have paid off because I got the job! I'm really excited but nervous too.

Anyways onto the crafting...I've got a lovely card to show you all today. It's not my usual style but I think it turned out really nice :) I used a stamp set by Stampin Up called Artistic Etchings. I've owned this for ages but to be honest I've hardly used it. It's one of those that I think looks nice, but I never seem to have any inspiration to actually use it on a card/scrapbook page. But I finally managed to come up with something so here's the card in full and a close up of the main image.

The crowns, keys and words behind the tower were stamped in VersaMark ink and then embossed with clear embossing powder. Originally, I just had the tower stamped but I though it needed something else so I added the other images. I think it looks a lot better :) I chose a colour scheme of chocolate brown and dark pink to pick up on the colours of the gorgeous backing paper.

Products used -

Artistic Etchings and Happy Moments stamp sets by Stampin Up

Stampin Up cardstock in Chocolate Chip, Rose Red and Very Vanilla

My Minds Eye paper from the Bohemia stack

Stampin Up Rose Red seam binding ribbin

Whispers archival ink in Henna

Staz On ink in Jet Black

VersaMark watermark ink

Papermania clear embossing powder

Hope you all like it. I'll be back tomorrow with some more things to show you all :)

Bye for now

Cake decorating and magazine woes!

Hi everyone! Hope your all having a nice weekend?

Slighty different post today. I've entered into the world of cake decorating, I recently started baking so it seemed the next logical step to start decorating my cakey creations :) I've actually only ever been to one class and made the panda you can see in the picture on the right (in case anyone is interested I did the class at Patchwork Cutters with Marion Frost who is amazing!) and the only other cake decorating thing I've done is the little carrot cakes I made for easter.

I recently started buying a cake decorating magazine from DeAgostini called My Cake Decorating, which is what has sparked my interest. Now, the magazine is pretty good, it's got really good clear instructions for all us newbies, the recipes that I've tried have all turned out great and the freebies are pretty good. However, the customer service is not. I subscribed to the magazine after 3 issues and got told that I would recieve my first 2 mgazines in 14 days. I didn't. It took over 3 weeks for them to deliver my magazines. In this time the website had gone down so I couldn't check my subscriptions and see if my magazines had even been sent, so I tried to ring them (I was put on hold for 30 mins and cut off twice so I gave up), messaged them on Facebook (which they didn't respond to) and emailed them which I didn't get a response to until AFTER my magazines had been delivered a week later.

Having read the forums on their Facebook page, there seems to be an awful lot of disgruntled customers, a lot of which are cancelling their subscriptions due to packages not being sent, missing magazines, broken items and poor customer services. Its a shame that such a big company seems to have messed this up so much. I understand that they were overwhelmed by the amount of people subscribing, but in my opinion this is not a good excuse for poor customer service. I really hope that they can sort it out. I don't want to slate the magazine because I personally really enjoy it but my experience with this company has not been the best. I've decided not to cancel in the hope that DeAgostini sort out these 'teething problems'.

But anyways, enough about that. I told some of my family that I want to get into cake decorating and one of my family members has asked me to create her 30th birthday cake and 2 towers or cupcakes, all decorated! Eeeek! Talk about being thrown in at the deep end! But I like new challenges and so I've decided to dive in :) I've bought a few cutters from eBay (see the pics right), and I'm going to buy some colourings, sugar paste/icing and cupcake cases at the end of the month and have a bit of a practice. Ive got until July to master it. Should be easy...right?

From top to bottom, left to right, I bought plunger cutters in daisies, butterflies, sunflowers/gerberas, blossoms, rose leaves, and maple/ivy leaves. I haven't actually tried these out yet but I will do in the next couple of weeks and I'll be sure to show you all my cake creations :)

Bye for now!

Lots of hearts

Hi everyone!

Just a quick post today. I've been really busy with work and haven't had much time to craft over the last few days. Continuing with Project Scraps (see here) this card uses a lot of old papers and odds 'n' ends of card. Even the ink is old! Its from a set of Whispers inks I got ages ago (too long ago to mention) and I used to use them alot until I started buying Stampin Up ink, they kind of got pushed to the side then. I found them after my cleanout and have rekindled my love of them.

All of the hearts were punched out using the Stampin Up small heart punch, and then glued onto white cardstock using PVA. The pink cardstock heart is double layered and is raised up on 3D foam. I think its adds a small focal point and a little bit of dimension. I love the sentiment, it's really personal to me especially after everything that has happened this past year. No matter what life throws at you, you can always get through it with the help, love and support of your friends and family.

Products used -

Stampin Up Vintage Vogue stamp set

Stampin up cardstock in Calypso Coral & Whisper White

Pale blue cardstock from the Paper Mill

Pretty Please papers by My Minds Eye

Various Stampin Up papers (I think its Nursery Nest, Cottage Wall and Lap of Luxury)

Whispers archival ink in Azure Seas

Bye for now

Pride and Prejudice and Project Scraps!

Hi everyone!

Hope you're all doing ok? I've got a little scrapbook page to share with you all today. I've got so much scrapbooking to catch up on. I haven't done any for months! The photo on this page was actually taken last summer when my parents and I went to Lyme Park for the day. There is actually another page with more photos on it, however the photos on that page are of me and my family and they don't want family pictures up on the web. So I'm only showing the first page. Nobody really wants to look at my ugly mush anyway! Haha!

Lyme Park is one of my favourite houses to visit. It was used as Pemberley in BBC's production of Pride and Prejudice (which is one of my favourite books/films) and the shot of the house across the lake is iconic to fans. Below on the left is a shot of the house from the film, and on the right is a close up of my photo. I think I did a pretty good job at replicating that iconic shot!

I used a colour scheme of browns and greens for my scrapbook page to match the colours in the photo. I found the paper while I was having a bit of a clean out. It's a Stampin Up set of papers called Elegant Soiree. Its actually from the old catalogue and has been discontinued since september. I found my pack untouched and unopened (cue me feeling guilty about buying things and not using them). Which brings me round to Project Scraps.

Now I don't know if Project Scraps already exists, if it's got a different name, or it's ever even been thought of! But this is what I'm calling it and I'm starting it today. Basically the idea came from 'Project Pan', this is a makeup thing where you have to use up makeup you already own (ie. hit the metal pan of eyeshadows etc, finish a tube of mascara) before you can buy any new makeup. Its a way to save money and use up what you have. I will say that I have tried Project Pan before and failed miserably. I'm too much of nail polish addict to ever be able to wait and finish a bottle before buying a new one!

Anyway, I had a bit of a tidy up of my craft stuff and found that I have a ridiculous amount of discontinued Stampin Up DSP, half used stacks of paper by DCWV, Dovecraft, My Minds Eye etc, loads of scraps of cardstock and ribbons, buttons and brads everywhere. So the idea is that I have to use up a pack/stack of paper or a colour of card or a reel of ribbon before I buy a new one. I don't have much space for my crafting things so using up what I've got is probably a good idea.

Has anyone else ever tried anything like this before? I'd love to know how you got on with it!

Products used -

Stampin Up Elegant Soiree DSP

Stampin Up cardstock in Very Vanilla, Wild Wasabi, Soft Suede and Chocolate Chip

CuttleBug Fancy Pants alphabet dies

By for now!

Edgelits and Cuttlebug problems

Hi everyone!

Another day and another card to share with you all. This uses one of my all time favourite stamp sets, a Rose is a Rose by Stampin Up. I love this set so much and I can't believe they discontinued it! It's a 2-step stamp set meaning that you stamp the base of the rose first in a pale colour and then line up the second stamp and stamp the second layer in a darker colour. It gives a really lovely, realistic look, but can take a little bit of getting used to.

You might notice the new sixxiz edgelits/embossing folders on the white cardstock down the middle. I had a slight problem with these. Sizzix are designed to go through the Bigshot die cutting machine. Now I don't have a Bigshot, I have a Cuttlebug which is a similar sort of thing but made by a different company. These new edgelits only fit through through the Cuttlebug if you place them on the plates vertically. They are too wide to go through horizontally. This causes problems as it limits how you can use them because you can only cut card/paper that is the same size as the Cuttlebug plates (if that makes sense?).

Here is the list of supplies used on this card -

Stampin Up a Rose is a Rose stamp set (discontinued)
Stampin Up cardstock in Whisper White, Certainly Celery & Old Olive
Stampin Up ink in Certainly Celery, Wild Wasabi, So Saffron & Summer Sun (discontinued)
Nestabilities Labels 1 die
Sizzix Adorning Accents edgelits
Sizzix Adorning Accents textured impressions embossing folder
Pale green grosgrain ribbon

Bye for now!

I'm back!

Hi everyone!

It's been a while hasn't it. I've kind of been missing in action for the last month! Sorry about that.

Basically I was ill for 2 weeks and had to have time of work and didn't really feel like crafting much because I felt so rotten. Then when I finally got better me and my boyfriend went to Staffordshire for 4 days and went to Alton Towers. We'd got free tickets from a newspaper a while ago, they chose what day you could go and we got May Day which we thought was going to be horrendous but it was actually pretty quiet. We decided to go again the next day because they had this 'bounce back' thing were a ticket for the next day only cost £5 if you bought them on your way out of the park. It would have been rude to refuse!

The new Stampin Up mini is out and I've got some gorgeous fabric to show you all. Its called 'Twitterpated' and I love it! I've already got some plans for this lovely fabric. My project for the summer is going to be to make a patchwork quilt. Now I've never done this before. I made a baby bumper and quilt for GCSE textiles but that was pretty basic. SO this is going to be a bit of a challenge for me. I've designed my quilt, its going to be quite simple (famous last words!) with just squares rather than fancy shapes and it's going to be all in pastels and girly 'Kath Kidston-esque' florals...providing I can find them in my local fabric shop :)

I got some lovely free papers from Stampin Up last month. They had an offer were you got a free set of papers when you spent over a certain amount. I got 2 sets of papers called 'Berry Blossoms' and 'Nursery Nest'. Below is a the 'Berry Blossoms' papers and quick card I made. I'll post some cards using the other set of papers in the next few days.

(I've finally learned how to make collages so I can put 2 pictures next to each other! So proud of myself haha!) This is a super quick, no stamping card but I really like the way it turned out. I love the colour combination, its so fresh and fruity looking which is a perfect match for the cupcake and cherry paper.

That's all for today, but I've got lots more to show you all so be sure to stop by again soon. I promise not to go missing again, and I'll try to update at least once a week (but hopefully more).

Stampin Up cardstock in Whisper White, Calypso Coral, Lucky Limeade, Crumb Cake & Poppy Parade

Stampin Up papers in Berry Blossoms

Stampin Up cupcake builder punch
Corner rounder punch from Hobbycraft

Bye for now!