WOYWW...

Another week has gone by sooooo fast. Its time for WOYWW. An early post from me today as there's lots to be done in the day....

Kitties to the vets for their injections and microchip amongst other things. That probably explains them being MIA in this photo, they've gone into hiding to escape the vet lol.

As for my desk....

 Looking pretty empty at the moment but you can just see some finished cards for my Christmas in June class along with the sketches I'm working from and my trusty colour coach to the right.
Top centre is a card made for me by my wonderful friend Jeannie (the American in Italy!). I know she took ages to get our flag just right.

One thing that is missing from this pic is my laptop...

  It sits on a raised plinth to the left of me while I'm crafting and as you can see the background screen is a mermaid. This is a pic of a card sent to me again by the lovely Jeannie. The reason I'm showing this is because my laptop usually has the good lady herself there. Skype is a wonderful thing and we chat most days while crafting together!! How fab to have another crafter on hand to ask opinions of or just to chat to while you work.

Hope you all have a fab Wed.

Till next time.... Happy Crafting

Birthday celebrations

 It was a special birthday last week for my Mother-in-law (to be) and I just knew her card had to be something special too. I don't usually make cards this size but this one is A5.
Mum's favourite colour is purple so Concord Crush and Wisteria Wonder were the obvious choice. How strange that after 2 years and just as it is about to retire I find myself liking Concord Crush!. I used the flourish from Creative Elements along with Beautiful Wings Embosslits and the numbers are from Timeless Type junior Alphabet.

The photo really doesn't do the card justice but there are pearls and shimmer a plenty!

 I wanted the inside to  have a little decoration too - something I find myself doing more these days. Again the flourish from Creative Elements and a couple of the smaller butterflies from Beautiful Wings Embosslits. Don't you just love how all the work to get those gorgeous butterflies is done with one simple pass through the Bigshot?

I'm happy to say Mum loved her card and had a fabulous birthday to boot. Shame we couldn't be there but we were under quarantine at the time with Caiden's Chicken Pox.

Till next time... Happy Crafting

Sunny day...

Happy Sunday everyone. I hope you are enjoying the lovely weather we are having just now. I'm making the most of the Sunday sun as I missed it yesterday. I was indoors for the whole day..... but for the very best of reasons.

My Mablethorpe ladies came over yesterday for our monthly stamp class and we had lots of fun with the colours from the Brights Collection and a new stamp set called Mixed Bunch. This set comes with a matching punch so makes putting cards together that much easier.

I kept the designs of the cards simple to let the stamp set shine.

 I normally shy away from the brighter colours but I turned to my trusty Colour Coach (available for only £13.50) to help me put the colours together and just knew that they would work.

A huge Thank you to Mary for keeping me laughing throughout the day!

Till next time... Happy Crafting

Post... the Good kind!

I received a parcel yesterday from my good friend in Italy and it had the most gorgeous goodies inside. Top of the pile was this stunning card lovingly made with some of the new DSP which is available in the American SU Catalogue (and which I hope is coming here in Oct!).

I know how much time was put into this card and so it sits proudly on my window sill.

The inside... Showing a popular English saying that has stood the test of time and is now everywhere including in the crafting world.

Also in the box some goodies of a non crafting nature. A GORGEOUS Venitian glass bead bracelet in the most stunning colours. Pale greys and grey/blues.

A close up of the beads.

Every crafter needs sweeties/choc to munch on while they wait for their mojo to kick in lol

A little something to keep the man of the house happy...

Lovely papers for my other love.. Magnolias

A gift of some new dies (only available in the US Catalogue)

More goodies for my Magnolias

New clothes to keep the little man happy... How happy does he look with his new T-Shirt

Time for the beach?

The last of the craft goodies....

and probably the best lip balm in the world.... with a hint of Pomegranate Oil.

If only all my mail was as gorgeous and as useful as this lol

Thank you my friend x

I will be back soon with photos of tomorrows class. We will be making full use of the lovely new stamp set we got at Regional Training last Saturday - Mixed Bunch and the matching punch!

Till next time... Happy Crafting

WOYWW

Another Wednesday already.... Wow where did the week go? Most of my week was lost to a child with chicken pox so I'm really happy that the week is behind me. Time to head on over to see what's on everyone's desks at WOYWW
My desk has been super busy this week with a class to prep for, my youngest daughters birthday (today) and my mother-in-law (to be)'s 70th (also today!!!).

The kitties have been helping out lots too and they are getting much braver. It's a wonder I get anything done with those two around lol.

 You can just see the remains of my daughters birthday card to the right. I was lucky at regional training this weekend to win some prizes and you can see a couple of them just in front of my little box drawers. I won ruffled ribbon and cherry scented embossing powder amongst other things.

 Maya (our little girl kitty) found a spot of sun and wasn't going to move lol. Normally I am chatting to my American friend on skype while I'm crafting as she is as addicted as me but Maya had other plans.

 Mauser (our boy kitty) in his favourite spot. Just a shame its on my chair!!!

 And finally, although technically I know its not my desk but I couldn't resist sharing this one of Maya snuggling up to my jars of bits and bobs.

Hope you all have a wonderful Wednesday.

Till next time.... Happy Crafting

Leeds Swaps...

I promised you pics of my swaps from training on Sat and here they are...

 I made several different colour flowers using the punch that matches the Mixed Bunch Stamp set (which we were given at training). The bottle caps we kindly saved for me by customers and my Dad.

 Side on showing the depth to the flowers. Apologies to those who wanted one but got to me too late. I received some lovely swaps in return and will try to get some uploaded here over the next couple of days. All the girls put in so much effort and I now have lots of new ideas to try out plus a longer wish list than before lol

 You 're never too young to get into paper crafting as my youngest is showing here... He regularly pinches bits from my desk and does his own 'stamp, punch' work. I love that he understands what I do and even calls it work lol

Concentrating very hard!!! He brought this table into my craft room some days ago and spends ages here at his 'desk' doing work. maybe one day I will be brave enough to give him stamp and inks... Till then its bits of paper only!

Till next time... Happy Crafting

Lucky me....

Stampin Up training events are always a good time and I was lucky to catch up with old friends and make some new ones.
I was lucky to get some fab swaps (more about them tomorrow) and I was lucky enough to have people tell me they loved my swaps too.

Now you would think that I had exhausted my luck for the day but not so....

As we arrived on the day and booked in we were asked to pick an envelope at random from those on the desks and under no circumstances were we to peek. I picked this little one and put it in my bag.

Prize patrol is part of the stampin Up day at these events and it is where prizes are won by random attendees. Now I don't normally do well in these things and after my luck winning one at convention last Nov I was prepared not to win.... BUT..... I did and here is my pile of goodies

A pack of Sweet Treat Designer papers... (12"x12" double sided papers, some with embossed designs), a roll of the new pleated ribbon in Blushing Bride, scented embossing powder in my favourite.. cherry and a pot of Jelly Bean brads!!!

                                                         WOOHOO!!!

Look out for some projects in the coming days using these goodies....

Old friends and new...

for me that was the best part about meeting up with everyone at Regional training yesterday. We all gathered at the totally gorgeous Weetwood Hall in Leeds for a fun filled day of swapping, business talk, general chatter and of course plenty of hugs and laughter...

 Over the next few posts I hope to share with you some of the gorgeous swaps I received and some of the fun we had.

 Waiting for the doors to open and a chance to catch up with friends....

 Some of the displays in the 'waiting'area.. They were all so fabulous and I came home "needing" stamp sets that hadn't really struck me before!

 Everything co-ordinated and looking scrumptious... Need that die now too lol

 My favourite set from the Summer Mini... Open sea.

Oh and the fortune cookies I made for everyone there. I will show you my swaps tomorrow but these were just a little something I decided to do on Fri afternoon (Thanks J! x). Each cookie is just a circle folded with a litte printed fortune (worded by me) punched out in the centre. I hope those ladies who got them see their fortunes come true!

Need to spend some time with the family now as they gave up their day for me yesterday.

Come back tomorrow for more scrumminess.....

Till then... Happy Crafting

Braving the Brayer....

Sometimes life just throws a challenge at you and its sink or swim time... Thats what happened to me at my class in Stamford back in March. I asked the ladies what they would like to do next time and they all wanted to try thier hand at Brayering.

This is not the easiest technique to master but when you do it has the most fabulous results.

I have to admit to shying away from this technique after trying it once and failing dismally!! However, not one to want to let the girls down I set to and made myself work at it. Now not one to normally blow my own trumpet and, even though I know there are much better works of art out there made using the brayer, I am proud of the way these card turned out. More importantly the girls all LOVED the class and were over the moon with their results.

So here they are...

 Blending several shades of the same colour family together.

 Using the brayer in a non conventional way!!!

 Brayer meets reinkeres and a happy accident lol

Graduating the colour.

I hope you liked the cards and it inspires you to tackle that technique you have been shying away from. After all its only card and ink and you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

I will be running this class from home again at the end of the month so if you are interested then just get in touch using the contact me button on the left hand side of my blog. 

Till next time... Happy Crafting

WOYWW

I've been following the WOYWW (Whats on Your Workdesk Wednesday) posts on and off for sometime and rather than just be a follower I thought I would join in...

So here it is.... My workdesk.

As you can see its in a bit of a mess this morning and a current project is being inspected by the new addition to the family! I had to make a name badge for an upcoming training event and inspiration from that lead to the start of a 6x6 scrapbook page. Union flags are so current right now. Hopefully this little page will be the start of an album.

I hope you all have a fabulous Wednesday.

Till next time... Happy Crafting

More tea Vicar?...

What could be more English than a cup of tea...?

A good old fashioned Tea Shoppe thats what. So that was the inspiration for my swap in the recent Summer Mini Swap on ILWS.

The idea is that several demos create a card using new products from the Summer Mini Catty. As a demo we have the chance to pre-order items a month before it goes live to the public so that we can create some gorgeousness to tempt everyone with.

I was part of a group of 10 ladies (there were 3 groups in total) and this was my offering

I remebered a little Tea Shop that I used to go to when I was at boarding school that had the canopy and the leaded windows and so with the help of my new favourite tool the Simply Scored I was able to give my little shoppe some leaded windows of its own. I used the diagonal plate which sits on the main board to get the criss cross effect.

You can see the effect a little better in the 'arty farty angle' shot lol.
The sign in the window swings and the canopy which you can just see at the top of the picture is raised slightly to give some depth.

I hope you like and have fun creating your own 'Shoppe'

Happy Crafting

Summer Mini Blog Hop

Hopefully the Start of May will bring with it some good weather but in the mean time the girls over at In Love With Stamping have put together a blog hop to get you in the mood.

Today is the first day of the Summer Mini Catalogue. This has been introduced to the UK this year so it's an exciting time for all us demo's as we get to offer you loads more product.

So grab yourself a cuppa and get ready to see some gorgeous projects using all new products.
Aplogies for the shadows but the sun has been shining all day long for once!

These 3 cards are all made using stamps from the set OPEN SEA which, being a mermaid, is my favourite and so handy to use when designing cards for men which I know can be a struggle sometimes lol. The last card uses the new EDGELITS which also have  co-ordinating embossing folders.

Next is a desk caddy with notelets using TEA SHOPPE... It's amazing how many times I think I should send a quick note of thanks or thinking of you and I never have a card to hand. Well now I have. The caddy holds 6 cards and envelopes.

 I saw the design for this caddy over on an American demos blog and she had filled it with hot choc. It's a simple but effective design and just perfect for these little 10cm x10cm notelets.

I hope you enjoyed your visit and enjoy the rest of our blog hop.
This is the start of group 2 so from here you will hop on over to carolyn who I know has some gorgeous offerings for you.
The end of group 2 can be found here where the talented Vicky has some lovely things to show you.

To hop on over to group 1 you need to go here. Have a great time and don't forget to leave some comment love so we know what you think of the new goodies.