Christmas cards!

I must confess to having a serious aversion to making Christmas cards early in the year. What I had perhaps underestimated was that having made most of the birthday cards for my family and friends this year, there would be more people expecting a handmade card. When I worked it out I thought I needed well over 20 - and I am not a fast card maker - oh dear!!! I needed to get my ideas in order!

Anyway, in the last 10 days or so I have got my act together and made a reasonable number. I never enjoy making a batch of the same design, so I have done a bit of a mix and match. Here are three of the design types I worked out.

First of all I used the lovely Sugar Nellie limited edition Cherub stamp. One version uses the hearts in the original design in a rather pink, girly version.

The blue design uses a little Elusive Images snowflake to adapt the design slightly, with a computer generated sentiment. 

Both versions have been coloured with Coloursoft pencils and highlighted with very fine glitter.

The next designs used some warm coloured backing papers from Websters Pages, K & Co and Bo Bunny. I used various Nestie shapes and stamped a Hero Arts sentiment and edged with stamps from an Artifacts set of fir branches. I finished off with this lovely green and cream gingham ribbon - my favourite of the year and a couple of Prima hydrangeas.

Finally, I used a snowy cottage stamp from Sleek Designs. Again, I used a Nestie shape to mount it and added a computer generated sentiment, backed onto Websters Pages and Basic Grey Wassail papers. This is a simple uncluttered design, but I felt it worked nicely. 

At least I have made a good start now. I need to make some more, but hope I can reach my target and get them in the post very soon, so as not to disgrace myself completely!!!!

Graphicus Paradise Weekend Retreat

I've been a little quiet for a couple of weeks, because I was busy preparing for, and taking part in, the first ever Graphicus weekend retreat and how lucky I was! I had to make some ATCs to take - I had never made any before, but I quite enjoyed doing it!

On Friday 13th November, after a long trek north, I was one of 40 lucky ladies who descended on the Blackwell Grange Hotel in Darlington for a weekend of some of the most intense crafting most of us had ever experienced!!

Starting at 4pm we were greeted by Glenda and Lynn of Graphicus, who were to be our tutors for most of the weekend. Our craft room was at that point beautifully tidy for the only time over the whole of the weekend, all tables laid out and covered with waterproof covers and all essentials for the session to come. Each of us had a goody bag containing most of our materials for our weekend projects, plus lots of treats of Graphicus papers and other delights.

Our first class was a foundation class and preparation for projects the next day. This was followed by a three course meal, and then we continued crafting with Lynn until 10pm making an accordian book with pamphlet stitching. This was a really useful skill to learn as I love making little books. Not content with this late finish, my room-mate Jo, next door neighbour Judith and I did some essential crafting until not far off midnight!!

Bright and early the next morning, we were raring to go and after a hearty breakfast, we embarked on an ambitious project - a diptych book. This incorporated an amazing number of techniques, using gesso, tissue, fresco flakes, paint and gold leaf to distress a cardboard cover. We also distressed and stamped the inside pages and made a mosaic edged acetate cover. We learnt how to use the amazing Golden gel medium to achieve a photo transfer technique which we then mounted on a tag. I cannot show you my finished book yet, because I was one of the class tortoises and it has yet to be completed!!

After another filling lunch, the afternoon session was to decorate four 6" x 6" canvases and make them into a wall hanging. This time we used paint and stamping on tissue paper as the main techniques. The ideas was to join the canvanses to make a hanging. Again, me being such a slow coach, I only managed to get part way through my project which I decided to base on the four seasons. This is how far I got, but I was very pleased with the start I made, because I have always considered myself to be completely useless in the art department!!

I mainly used the brilliant Ranger paint dabbers applied with baby wipes and little brushes. Little bits and bobs of ephemera were added and stamped images on tissue paper applied with Golden gel which help make the tissue edges disappear. As you can see I still have quite a lot to finish, but so far so good!! All these projects were decorated using the beautiful rubber stamps from the Elusive Images range from Graphicus.

After another meal - yes we did get fed very well (and I haven't mentioned the cookies and glittery cupcakes in the coffee breaks or the chocolate to keep us going during the evenings) - we continued crafting again until 10pm with Lynn and Glenda teaching us various card making techniques including gold leafing and direct to paper inking. As you can imagine by this time we were quite tired, but very happy crafters.

Sunday morning and we were, of course, all bright eyed and bushy tailed again, ready for a brilliant session with Jean Hardy of Crafty Individuals who a guest tutor for the morning session. We transformed a simple little wooden box into a delightful little shrine project, which I did finish and here it is!! We had a great time in this session using the fabulous CI background papers, images and stamps, which as anyone who reads my blog knows come from one of my favourite product ranges along with Elusive Images so I was indeed in my crafty element with the programme for the whole weekend!! For those who were fast enough, they also made a tag with a CI image and one of their new swirly frames that are popping up on many blogs and in articles like the latest Craft Stamper magazine.

After lunch our last session of the weekend was a Stampbord class with Glenda and Lynn and the main project was a pencil pot. I has tinkered with Stampbord before, but this gave me much more confidence and the simple idea for constructing the pencil pot was excellent.

Finally, we had our graduation session and I think many of us felt really sad to be almost at the end of what had been a brilliant weekend. As we started to go off our separate ways, many of us headed first to Graphicus for some late night shopping. This was indeed a treat for me as I had only ever ordered from them through the post before, so it was great to see the products they have to offer and the beautiful artwork on display in the shop. Of course I also had to do some essential shopping while I was there!

A small group of us with longer journeys stayed at the hotel on Sunday night, so we got the chance to have a good chat - mostly crafty topics needless to say.

The weekend was wonderful and I wouldn't hesitate to do it again in a flash! Glenda and Lynn were great tutors who worked hard to deliver some excellent sessions. The helpers for the weekend Lesley, Annette and Cath who espcially looked after us on our table, were tirelessly helpful and the weekend wouldn't have been the same without them. David, Lesley's OH who became water pot monitor extraordinaire, who always got the right brushes back to their owners deserved a medal and Adrian who carted stuff back and forth to make sure we had the supplies we needed and acted as photographer with loads of cameras at the end, also deserves special thanks.

I need to say a special thanks to Jo and Judith who were my special companions over the weekend - it was great to spend special time with you, but also to the many others I met and shared such a great time with. Here are some of the ATCs I swapped - the styles of everyone are so different which is one of the fascinating things about us crafters.

I had a long journey home on Monday and it's been a long week at work since. I just managed to do a little crafting in front of the TV with a new stamp plate from Elusive Images that we were allowed to use at the weekend. Using Coloursoft pencils I have coloured some huge butterflies, slightly embossed the edges and mounted them on a lovely lichen covered branch that came down in my garden in the high winds last weekend.

These stamps will be a lovely reminder of a brilliant weekend. My only regret was that it whizzed by in a flash, after the weeks of excited anticipation I can't believe it is over already!

What a mess!

I took the day off work yesterday to tidy my craft shed. I have mentioned before it gets very cold in winter and I needed to make sure everything that might get affected by it being a bit damp was put away safe and sound. I know some of my earliest posts gave the impression I am an unnaturally tidy crafter - so not true - this is what faced me and this is only one of my three work surfaces!!!

Once I had cleared all this debris, this picture shows evidence of a serious misdemenour - I had all these stamps to clean that I had left inky - how naughty am I? This is after they were cleaned - it took ages and was very boring - serves me right!

This was when I finally finished and there wasn't really any time to do any crafting!! 



So here is a card I made some time ago using Papermania paper, a postcard from a Tim Holtz paper, a German Scrap pen nib, a Prima hydrangea and a sentiment stamped from a favourite Penny Black stamp on a nestie shape

Leafy Lady

I had to make a very quick card this week for a friend who is about to go off on an exciting trekking holiday on the Inca Trail to celebrate a special birthday. I decided to use one of my favourite stamps Mollie from Beeswax again - a variation on a card I posted a while ago.

Sadly I couldn't get a great picture of the card because it had to be delivered the next day and the light wasn't great.

I stamped Mollie in purple Versafine and then covered her with Eclipse masking tape. I obvously didn't cut it accurately enough, because she ended up with a bit of a halo that I had to try and ink afterwards - very tricky and not entirely successful - still you live and learn!! I masked a sun with a round post it note and then stippled various colours of Adirondack dye ink to try and give the impression of a sunset. In real life, you could see the blends of orange, yellow, pink and a little purple so much better. I overstamped with a loose cloud stamp from Beeswax in Malted Mauve Versamagic and then oversprayed with a very light coat of irridescent gold Glimmer Mist.  I added a sentiment, I think it from Serendipity Stamps, mounted the design onto a 8 x 8 card and finished off with some thin copper peel off border and Prima russet coloured ivy leaves - I love these!!

I'm still here!

It's been quite a while since I blogged, both because I have been really busy, but also because I haven't been satsified enough with anything I made to share it! Finally last weekend I did manage to get some quality crafting time and tried out my new set of Inkadinkadoo Utopiary stamps.

My first effort is a card - my favourite 8 x 8 size.

The background is Basic Grey Marrakech Green Tea paper with leaves added in Adirondack Pesto dye ink, sponged through a stencil. The tree image and flourishes on the tag are from different stamps In the Utopiary set, stamped in Olympian Green Versafine, shaded with Citrus, Lettuce and Pesto Adirondack dye inks using a stipple brush and Cut n' Dry foam. The sentiment is from a Paper Artsy mini stamp using the same colours and cut out with a Nestabilities label set in the Cuttlebug. The design is finished off with some paper leaves and some stick on dots in the corners.

Next I tried some ATCs to practice my inking, which I think is gradually improving - inking backgrounds is something I have really struggled with for some reason - other people make it look so effortless. These also use the Utopiary set.

I added some pale Adirondack dye inking  in the background with the stipple brush and then I stamped the images in my favourite ink for a good clean image - Versafine. More ink was added with Cut n' Dry foam to add shading in toning colours. I think the pinky ones are my favourites, these used Sunshine Yellow, Sunset Orange, Watermelon, Cranberry and Eggplant inks.

I hope now I have got back into the swing of crafting, I might have more projects worth sharing.

Tags and butterflies

I have never really got into making tags before, but decided to have a few experiments.

First of all I wanted to use some of my leafy backgrounds. Actually I have mostly ended up covering them up, but never mind! The first two are part of a set of seasonal themed tags, inspired by the Debbie Moore set of seasonal defintion stamps which I have had a while, but used here for the first time. This one is autumn and the main feature is a lovely stamp of a wren from Crafty Individuals. Wrens are my favourite bird and they often visit my window box.

The other materials include a gold embossed and stamped chipboard dragonfly, Paper Artsy and Artylicious papers, Prima leaves and a jewelled beaded edging.  

This is my winter tag.

This one is a bit more sparkly! The main stamp is another lovely Crafty Individuals stamp that I heat embossed in a Moonshadow Turquoise Angel Wings interference powder that I love. Plus various brads, dewdrops, bling, Artylicious paper and snowflakes cut with a Papermania punch and backed with glitter paper and a beaded edging again. I have spring and summer tags underway and will post if they work out.

The next tag was one I quickly put together this morning. This one uses a Prima clear stamp I bought at Ally Pally last weekend. These stamps are very reasonably priced, so I was delighted with the quality of the image. The stamp is the frame and word, the butterfly image is another Crafty Individuals image.

This was a blue card tag which I inked with white pigment ink and then added blue disress ink around the edge and overstamped with flourishes in a blue Versamagic ink. The main image is stamped in teal Versafine and left paler to try and make it stand out. Leaves added have been cut out of Artylicious paper with a Woodware punch, plus a dragonfly button and a lovely paper flower I bought on the LB crafts stand at Ally Pally too.

Lastly, this lovely butterfly stamp is from Imagination Stamps- better know for their Rollagraph range (this was another Ally Pally purchase and a special offer bargain too).

This image is embossed in black and then I used Cut 'n Dry foam and a stippling brush to add several diiferent Adirondack dye inks to the background. This isn't a finished card yet, but I couldn't resist sharing this lovely stamp.  

Ally Pally and Just Rite Stamps

Yesterday, after a sudden change of mind during last week, I made a very early start (the sun was just rising) and headed up to London for the Big Stamping and Scapbooking Show at Alexandra Palace,  a place of pilgimage for thousands of avid crafters twice a year!! As always I really enjoyed my day, including meeting up with my crafty friend Jo. As it was such a beautiful day, we were able to sit outside in the sunshine with our lunch and catch up, looking at the fantastic view out across London.

There is always so much to see at the show, including some great demonstrations and importantly far too many lovely things to buy! I managed to find a very nice selection of new stamps and other useful and gorgeous additions to my stash.

Just when I thought I had finished I had another look at the Just Rite Stamps on sale from Once Upon a Stamp. These are not my usual style of stamp. These are very unusual stamps in that they have round and oval wooden mounts with a ridged grid onto which central panels, edge rings and separate letters of the alphabet can be mounted to make customised stamps. For anyone who can remember the old fashioned John Bull printing sets of childhood, these are very similar.

I am a keen baker and love to give home-cooked items as gifts. so seeing a set of designs made for presenting home cooked goodies, I couldn't resist the temptation to add it to my stamp collection! I have had a very quick play with these today. I think there is a definite knack to using these stamps and my first efforts had letters flying across the room, but once I had some practice I was able to get going and this is the first set of results, together with the stamp block in the centre. Once the stamp is set up it takes no time at all to make a batch of labels. I stamped the design in Memento Tuxedo Black ink onto cream card and sponged on some sunshine yellow Adirondack dye ink to add depth. I punched holes with my Crop-a-Dile and threaded them with paper string.

I have several cakes to make this week and think these will add a nice little extra touch to these foodie gifts and I am looking forward to playing with them some more very soon.