A very frosty morning!

It's been a while since I posted, but I've been really busy and experienced considerable disruption thanks to the weather. Stupidly, though I think I was getting a little complacent, forgetting how cold it has been getting, because, guess what - I woke up today to ice on the inside of the bedroom window again and the water frozen again!!! There is an amazing frost here this morning - everything is sugar coated like this!

One of the reason's I have been neglecting this blog a little, is that I am excited to say I am part of a new craft blog venture with my distant crafting pals Jo, Judith and Lesley. We don't see each other very often as we live quite a long way apart. In fact Lesley and I have never met in person - only virtually!! We wanted to find a way to craft together across the miles and so we set ourselves the challenge of choosing one project a month from Craft Stamper magazine that we would use to inspire a project we would all complete in the following month. I was lucky enough to choose the first project which was Jean Hardy's Enveloped Elegance from page 34 of the February issue. As I have said before I am a big fan of Jean's work and I know I have set a hard challenge for some of the other girls. This is all about us going outside our comfort zone and trying new things and I know we are all going to interprete this project in very different ways. Having chosen the project, I think I am going to be the last one to complete my project though! You can see our new blog here. The others are streaking ahead and there are various posts so far of the materials we have all chosen and sneeky peeks of work in progress.

I put together a kit of materials for my niece's birthday today - Happy Birthday Hannah - to get her started on book making and art journalling. She loves her present and as she is doing a graphics course I know she will get stuck in and make great progress.

Here is the card I made for her. She loves black and white photography and dictionary definitions, so I chose a design I hoped she would like. The photo isn't great as I had to take the picture in artificial light, and the flash kept bouncing off the glossy paper.

I used one of the new Crafty Individuals stamps of tree silhouettes. I stamped these in black archival ink onto glossy paper. I am not keen on glossy paper even though it is great for really sharp images, but for a photograph-like project it was just right (apart from being impossible to take a flash photo of). I cut the panels of the stamp up into individual images and mounted them on black card I had punched with a film edge punch and matted the whole thing onto silver satin card. I used a dictionary birthday definition stamp I got from the bargain bin at a show and finished off with leaves punched from a printed page with a Woodware punch and edged with Weathered Wood Distress ink and silver maple leaf brads. 

Keep warm everyone! 

Lovely snow!!

We may be snowed in at the moment, but the upside is that we have the most beautiful views around our garden and into the surrounding countryside. I just had to share some of the photos.

This was what greeted me when I pulled the bedroom curtains this morning - ice on the inside of the window. This was after I thought to myself that it hadn't felt so cold getting out of bed after all!!

The pattern reminded me of the Elusive Images Ornate Leaf stamp that Helen Chilton used to stamp on glass in the latest issue of Craft Stamper!!

This is the sun rising over our veg garden.

The view across the countryside from our front gate.

The views from my shed today.

Other bits of the garden.

This is one of our wild visitors looking for food. We really love rabbits and we have made sure the birds and animals have been well fed over the last few days.

Keep warm and safe everyone and above all, try and take time to enjoy the beauty of this unusual weather.

Happy New Year and more Patchwork Butterflies

Happy New Year everyone!

I am now back to work after a nice long Christmas and New Year break at home. We have generally escaped the bad weather down here, although it is now snowing as I type and we have a completely frozen water supply! 

I have enjoyed some really good play time over the holiday. This is one card I made using the fantastic Elusive Images Patchwork Butterfly plate again - I am in love with this set of stamps. This time I used one of the smaller butterfly stamps.

This was another hard card to get a good picture of. I stamped the butterfly 4 times on green parchment in black Perfect Medium and then heat embossed in Moonglow Angel Wings Gold embossing powder. I absolutely love the Moonglow powders and treated myself to a whole new set of colours over the Christmas break. I then mounted the butterflies onto a sheet of butterfly paper sent to me as part of my Graphicus Guild membership. The whole thing is matted on a couple of layers of green Remake card and finished off with green dew drops and a nestie cut sentiment.

I'll post a couple more of my projects over the next few days.

Special Christmas Cards

I needed to make some special cards for friends and fellow crafters. Here are a couple I was quite pleased with. It hasn't been easy to take good pictures in these dull weather we have been having.

First of all the card I made for my crafty friend Jo.

This card uses the beautiful Websters Pages papers and I must acknowledge the inspiration I got from Paula Whittaker's Cardcraft Creations blog (see the link to the right) to use the papers in this way. I cut out the corner designs from the Snowflakes and Feathers paper, using a scalpel - I am a nervous user of craft knives, but I did OK! I backed these corners onto the lovely warm peachy snowflake design on the reverse of the paper. I added embellishments of some distressed sheet music, a little wooden fretwork Christmas tree decoration, some articificial ivy and holly and some Prima hydrangeas with pearl centres.I finally added a stamped sentiment from a Waltzing Mouse Stamps Christmas set on another piece of the Websters sheet, cut out with a nestie.  

The next card was made for a swap between Graphicus Guild members, where those who want to take part are randomly allocated a person to swap with. This is the card I made to send.

I used a fabulous Bo Bunny snowflake paper, that was sent to me instead of another BB paper I had ordered - I couldn't complain, this paper is luscious!

I used a butterfly stamp from the new gorgeous Elusive Images Patchwork Butterfly plate, embossed in Moonglow Teal Obsidian powder onto parchment. I then added some fine transparent glitter and some little silver gems. After cutting out the butterfly I made some wire antennae, tipped with pearl beads. 

I matted the whole design onto dark blue and then silver mirri board. The sentiment is from another company whose name I have forgotten! Before stamping the sentiment, I stamped a very pale blue background with an Eluisive Image snowflake stamp, although that doesn't really show in the picture. This was cut out with a nestie, a few tiny transparent stars added and then matted onto another nestie shape cut out of teal stardust card.

I finally added some chipboard snowflakes decorated with glass glitter and teal organza ribbon. As the card was so heavy I decided to decorate a little easel to match.

I loved making these cards knowing they were going to other creative people who would appreciate the effort that had gone into them!

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