Shopping, Stash and Exhibitions~!!

It must be all down to the cold weather! all this crafting......... having found my mojo or whatever you call it... anyways some friends and I went to the Brighton Centre Creative Stitches exhibition at the weekend..... didn't buy much in the way of papercrafting stash!! [amazingly] but I did buy some beads to make these lovely bracelets with........... great fun to do - mind you, you do need a bead mat - 'cos otherwise the beads go rolling all over the place!!!  I do quite like millefiori beads...... so very pretty..... now, I wonder how I can incorporate them into cards?.........'scuse me, must have a go!!

TTFN!!

They're some of those stamps that you get now and then......

Oh..... you know the song......or maybe you're too young?!, but i've been having SUCH fun with these stamps............ I've come out with all the cliches imaginable........ 'love is in the air'..... 'love is a many splendored thing'.... 'love, love me do'...... I could go on....... anyways, I hope you like tonights blogging.... there's THE romance stamps from Artistic Stamper [of course].... along with some bits of ribbon, punches, bead leaves.... and Shrink Plastic....... now what fun is that! - if you haven't tried shrink..... you just gotta have a go!....... and while you're playing, check out some of the fab designs on Gingersnap for their challenge!

I did find some incredibly lovely embroidered flowers at The Brighton Centre Creative Stitches exhibition yesterday....... and I have a plan to use them with the rather gorgeous 'Roaring Twenties' stamps from The Artistic Stamper......... 'course you could use Prima Flowers......... so maybe i'll do two.... just for fun, seeing as I'm on a roll like!

I blame the fumes from the Stazon ink for all of this!... but I have had a lovely play day......... only problem is, my workbench that was so lovely and tidy, is now - not!   I really do think I need to have a bit of a clear up!!  Ah sweet Love!  Just in case you're wondering

the frilly bit under the shrink tag, is the frill from one of the Roaring Twenties ladies hats-coloured and stamped with Brush pens!   Hope your day has gone well...... enjoy!!  Happy Crafting xx

It must be all that Red..........

Having been a florist for some 25 odd years..... one gets a bit jaded about Valentines day..... so it was with trepidation that I grabbed some red papers onto the workbench along with some new stamps......I've only put two designs here, there are many more!! but don't want to bore anyone :-(  anyways some girlfriends and I went to the Creative Stitches exhibition at the Brighton Centre today.... there was loads of red around..... but I didn't find any stamps better than the lovely new ones from The Artistic Stamper! with a little bit of glitter....... and I raided a bit of feather from an old feather boa in my grandkids dressing up box !!  Well......crafting materials come from all over don't they??  I haven't made this many Valentine cards for............well, ever!  Must be the stamps!!  More Jenny please!

Romance is good for us.......

It's that time of the year when Romance is in the air! It's a great time to let 'rip' with the Mojo and have some fun..... a bit of saucy red & black.... a bit of glitz......... but these stamps from The Artistic Stamper are just F A B  for making love notes!   thought I might just send this to our postie.........well, he needs a bit of cheering up on the 14th.... !  I've entered a great challenge online at Gingersnap check this one out peeps! You too can win the new set of stamps!! Happy Crafting 'till next time.

New Years Resolution #101 - Clear up my workroom!, being Tidy and all that rubbish!!

I'd love to have big chunks of time.... but if I waited until I had a whole day when nothing else was going on or elderly parents wanting for attention or a mound of washing to see to, I'd never make another card or scrapbook a photo again!  Mornings are crazy, but in reality, you only need a few minutes before you leave for work to plan the composition for a new card.  When I return home in the evening I may have more time to begin more complicated techniques, such as acrylics or spraying backgrounds.... so that I can leave them to dry until morning, or just a half-hour to finish a card or two...  mind you, it can take a week or more to put a project together, but by the end of the week I'll have a completed project and not the regret that comes from making excuses about having no time. 

I'm not ultra organised - I confess to being a tad untidy.... having been a florist for over 25 years, a very good friend & colleague once said to me, that if she was shown a tidy workroom, she would know that the shop wasn't very busy!, and since in our shop we were always rushing around with shedloads of work, our workroom always looked like a pigsty!  My cluttered workroom space is testament to the fact that i've always got several projects on the go at once - it is I grant you easier to create when you can actually find the surface of the desk - and although I have every intention of having a clear up at the end of the day [ok, most days - alright sometimes] usually I feel very self righteous  when the room is a little tidier and more welcoming and yesterday's mess is gone - amazingly, one can also find things again!  

Talking of being tidy...my good friend Nicky invited us to a workshop the other evening, and we made some really lovely cards.... with her Stampin Up 'stuff' - it was such a fun evening!  We were using 'bits' of paper to make lollipop flowers........... that was a fun thing I hadn't done for ages, so everybody's getting lollipop flowers on everything now - for a while - well, it helps with the clear up!!

So here's to New Year's resolutions and being tidy [ha!] - I forever live in hope!!  Happy Crafting 'till  next time.

A New Year.... A New Start - Resolutions and all that!

Greetings, fellow bloggers – Happy New Year!

I hope all your Christmas & Yuletide jollifications went well, and you had a great and relaxing time with family and friends.

I confess to being very remiss about blogging for the last month, Alas, Christmas caught up with me….. did I make all my cards……… well no, I have to confess that I didn’t; some, but not all – ah the best laid plans of mice and men!, and so here we start a brand new year, and I promise to try to do better!  I had an idea to use up some random papers that I had in my bits box – they were papers that I wasn’t too enthusiastic about – and let’s face it, we all have them! …… by stamping with Versamark ink and embossing with clear embossing powder, then covering/colouring the paper with a dark colour of distress ink, finally wipe the surface with kitchen towel to remove any trace of ink from the embossed image…. and hey presto! you have a transformed paper……… open design stamps work best…. but as at this point [along with most of the rest of the country I should think] I cannot see a single green bush or plant in my garden, being that it’s all buried under 8” of snow, I thought these lovely flower and leaf stamps from The Artistic Stamper would cheer my day!  [The punch border is from Stampin Up, I have a very good friend Nicky who is an agent.... she has some really great ideas.... check out her website http://www.kilncards.co.uk/ ], and the flowers were some Prima flowers.... which I have loads of - they are just sooooooo fabulous!   For the red & pink card…. I’ve used some of THE most gorgeous natural silk paper, as a backing, it was given to me by one of my Adult Education students, in the form of a sample wedding invitation from India… it was almost sacrilegious to cut it up - but I think it was worth it!

So, two cards – variations on a theme……… I do love ‘quotes’ and ‘sayings’ to put onto cards,and I trawl the web [don’cha just love the internet?!] for poems and sayings. Hope you like…… have a go……. each and every card is going to come out differently…. would be good to make as an embellishment for a scrapbook page too!

Happy Scrappin until next time!

Are we all in Christmas Card Panic Mode Yet??

and if not.............Good on you!
Frankly I haven't made a single one -that is if you don't count the demonstration cards and the cards made for classes, and the cards for other people [orders] etc., but made for me.........nah, not a one!

However, couldn't resist this little chappie, another new stamp from the Mabel Lucie Attwell range from The Artistic Stamper

I cut out the circle in the white card, and used Acetate, then glued the stamped and coloured image on top - stamped and coloured and decoupaged the holly - which I just love! on top... and fixed the whole thing to the card front with 3mm foam pads.  The patterns were made using Zig Calligraphy Pens and I coloured the image in with the Calligraphy pens and a Water Brush - Simple!...... The piccy does not do the card justice, at least I don't think so... but then I could be biased.  OK, hope you like, off to make so chrissy cards for me now............... Happy Crafting xx

Pretty Flowers...................

I had such fun creating this........... the new... new ... new  Mabel Lucie Attwell stamps from Artistic Stamper are just gorgeous! I used Zig Calligraphy colour blending pens to paint with........ yep! just put a little colour onto a tile or a piece of acetate/plastic or whatever, and use as paint with a water brush - simple!  The little pearly flowers came from The Glitter Girls new range of Crystal Flowers - they are so pretty...... I'm going to send this card to a friend who protests loudly that she cannot do anything crafty.... but hey! you should see her garden - it is a canvas of beauty!  The text says "we are all artists - even if we don't know how to draw", is so so true, 'specially in her case!  Happy Crafting. xx

A simple request!

Greetings fellow bloggers.  Thank you so much for all your lovely comments!  I've had such fun and garnered some fabby ideas from scouring all your lovely blogs - such wonderful creativity!

I had a simple request from a friend the other day... she wanted a birthday card for her daughters 16th birthday and could it include a picture of a rather fabulous drawing she had done of a young lady - no problem thus far - until she mentioned that her daughters ambition was to be a Tattoo Artist!!!!! and could I include this as a theme.???????????  Don't know if Jennie at The Artistic Stamper had this in mind when she created these rather lovely swirls and flourishes...... but I think they fitted the job exactly!  Stamped onto pearlised card with Stazon [I confess to using a brand new ink pad! - just to make sure that I got sharp images] - I just love the monochromatic colours, think I might do something like this again, and maybe use fun flock powder on the stamped images....... how lush would that be?!  Hope you like.

Ye Olde Style Congratulations - New Baby

A work colleague has just sent a colleage/customer of his, a gift for his new baby..... there were some lovely muted colours in the outfits they chose for the new baby's gift... it made me think of the gorgeous Mabel Lucie Atwell stamps from The Artistic Stamper - and while the 'title' of this stamp is 'A Jolly Day Out'...... somehow, I thought it might make a splendid New Baby Card...... I've used Ranger Distress inks on the background of the card - sponged and 'crackled' with a bit of screwed up cellophane.  Torn and distressed the edges of the papers.... added some gorgeous ribbon from Craft Fairy and coloured the image with Sakura Gelly Roll pens for a lovely glossy finish - and despite my general 'dislike' of peel-offs...... I thought these finished it all off rather beautifully!  Oh yes..... the little button, is wooden....... came from the wooden button stand at Ally Pally [actually it might have been Farnborough... but it's the same guy!]  Hope you like.