Bauble time....

Morning folks.... 

How are you all doing? Things this week have been a bit busy - not too bad - just sorting out show products for upcoming hours on Hochanda, and also been out and about visiting a very lovely person... but more on that another time!

Today, I thought I would share a little project I've made for Stix 2, and I've used a few other Woodware bits on there... and a little bit of watercolouring. Who doesn't love putting away the alcohol pens and getting back to watercolour. It's such an easy way to start - don't get worried with your colouring with pens, they can be a little daunting... 

So here is the project for today. 

I will give you a full list of what I've used at the end, but I started by stamping the beautiful Jolly Holly stamp with cloudy grey Stazon ink. I used stazon because I needed a permanent outline as I was watercolouring, and I chose Cloudy Grey so it wasn't too harsh against the vintage papers. 

I coloured the stamped image in with Brunzeel Aquarel Expressions pencils - boy, these are gorgeous! They don't leave harsh lines, but if you are in any doubt about any pencils you have, just scribble off the point of the pencil to give you a softer start. 

After I coloured the bauble with the pencils, I took a little darker colour on the brush direct from the pencil and added shading to the side edges. As you can see, there is also a little glitter on there. This was from adding some of the Sakura Stardust pens and painting them out with water to spread the glitter. 

I had stamped two lots of the foliage around the swirl and coloured these in the same way with the pencils. I cut them out so I could add dimension to the finished card with the silicone adhesive. 

I added some shading around the bauble and the swirl by using a charcoal pencil and I blended it out with a paper stump. I chose to add some extra colour to the swirl with a Micron pen, and then used my Stix 2 2-in-1 glue pen along areas of the swirls. I left it to go tacky (it will go clear) and then added some foiling to give it some sparkle. I chose the dark brown foil from the Transfer Foil pack. 

Some finishing touches were the ribbons, flower and greeting board, and I added some already cut paper snowflakes which I had stuck around the card. 

Here's your quick step by step and shopping list. Enjoy!

1. Cut your base card to 8" x 6".
2. Use the Layer Perfect tool to cut layers of mirror card to 7.5" x 5.5" and the papers to 7" x 5". 
3. Use an offcut strip of paper to add the detail down the side, it doesn't matter what width and add mirror and white card down the edges. Stick your snowflakes to the card and trim edges. 
4. Stick these layers to your card with your Tape Runner. 
5. Stamp and colour your image as detailed above.  Foil the image if required. 
6. Add shading around the outside of the image with distress inks if you want a nice vintage look.
7. Trim to leave a small edge and layer with mirror card and white card. Use Silicone glue to the back of the topper to give height and attach to your card. 
8. Cut out the remaining leaves and shape with your fingers to give it a curl. Add silicone glue to the back and add to your card. Add some white dots to give details. 
9. Tie a large luscious bow and attach this, a flower and your sentiment board to the card with silicone glue. 

SHOPPING LIST

S57321 Stix 2 layer Perfect Tool. 

S57269 Stix 2 Tape Runner

S57100 Stix 2 Silicone adhesive

Stix 2 2-in-1 glue pen

S57109 Stix 2 Transfer foils

S57275 Stix 2 Snowflakes

JG5284 Woodware Jolly Holly stamp

White cardstock

Guillotine

Gold Mirror card

Papers (I used Dovecraft Winter Blooms)

Hobbycraft Mini Christmas signs

Stazon ink - Cloudy sky

Brunzeel Aquarel Expressions pencils

Sakura Stardust pens

Sakura Micron pen 0.1

Well, 2014 is well underway.....

and I guess that means that it's only about another 50 weeks to Christmas! lol.

How are we all anyway? I'm trying desperately to get back into the realms of this bloggin' malarky, but as yet, time is just running away again with hospital appointments, minor ops, moving craft rooms blah, blah, blah...

The moving of the Craft room is the biggest upheaval known to man I'm sure... I hated moving from my shed to the room I was in, never mind moving even more stash to the new room from the old one...! Talk about a headache! It is giving me chance for a good tidy up though and a sort out.. and in fact, I love my new room better than the last. It's a little bigger so alot more room to 'grow'.

As it's the New Year, it also means that we need to make our resolutions and I have already completed one. I'm working on the other - blogging more and completing the monthly challenge on the filofax page on Facebook. I think it may be easier to do it on here and print it out each week, rather than write it down.. but you never know. Watch this space.

It's also new demo time for Docrafts, and this first loop of 2014 is just beautiful!! There is a mixture of old and new, a little vintage, a little fresh and a little french. A great concoction of goodness me thinks!

Here, on this card, I've mixed a little bit of the Madame Payraud with the older Gorjuss stamps and you can see just how wonderfully they work together. Of course, with stamping, you can colour to coordinate with anything which is what I've done here.

The image was stamped in a permanent ink and coloured with watercolour pencils. I did a little stump blending with them to give it a softer look.

These butterflies are a fantastic addition to the craft room as they are preformed and shape wonderfully as you can see. They have a mixture of different colours and sizes. Perfect for any card.

The letters are new urban stamps - the red rubber cling stamps from Docrafts. And I love these. There are lower and upper case available in two different sets and the lower case fit perfectly in the small circle punch as you can see. They also fit - when punched out - onto the top of the circular foam pads. Great fit eh?!

Well.... that's all for now.. my little pinky finger is still finding it hard to type with the lack of an end! And it's quite painful too even after a few weeks of recouperation! My mouth and jaw are still hurting after the wisdom tooth got took out the other day, and my little wooflets are waiting for me to turn the light out and go to sleep.... so I will bid you goodnight, and I hope that you will check on my next post (which will be this week sometime, promise!!)

Until then, Happy Crafting!

Well.... hello there!!!

I have had a blogging break. Did you notice? I'm sure you probably didn't, but I just felt today that I wanted to do a post as I have sooooo many things on my mobile that I've worked on over the past month or so, but not gotten around to posting!

Life has been a bit of a bind over the last month or so with one thing or another, and I really haven't been bothered about posting. I've had no inclination to do much, other than what I needed to. I'm sure you know how that feels. However, I am back in the land of the living again, and trying my best to regain my mojo and get it back to full working order!

I also really need to suss out how to post off my new mobile, so I can update whilst I am on the go. In all honesty, I'm not really managing to get onto the laptop to do anything other than check my mail and print out things from Digital Designer for an upcoming demo!

So... what have I to show you today? Well, just a little Gorjuss or two me thinks... these were some samples that I left at Ackworth Garden Centre after my demo the other week..

This card combines both the Gorjuss stamp, which has been coloured with watercolour pencils, and the Kraft Notes Forever Friends papers... I love these papers. The colours are beautiful!

Again, the same stamp coloured slightly darker and popped onto an 8 x 8 inch card which has been decorated with the Gorjuss papers from the 12 x 12 inch pack. The colours in the 12 inch pack and the 8 inch pack are two different colours and both are lovely!!!

I was asked to combine the heartwarmer sentiments, so dutifully did as I was told and used them as a feature on the card. They are perfect to go with everything really, but this matched in with the kraft notes papers perfectly.

Now.. this little beauty. She is actually on a puffy box made with my Xcut score board, and she was coloured in with the Artiste brush markers. It gives a totally different look to the usual pencils that I love to use, and if you're wondering how to get the skin tones, then I've done a step by step guide in the last Creativity magasine (March issue).

As well as the Gorjuss, there are many many things that I am totally loving out of this past two months demos, and I will be sure to come back and show them to you!

I will leave you with a little photo of my boy.. Senna...

He is such a sad little fella at the minute after losing his companions.. we lost his brother Biela quite a few years ago, and his sister Kiarra passed away at the end of January. He loves his cuddles and kisses, and even though he is loved very much, he still seems to miss his buddies. Bless him. 

On this photo he's looking quite old. Well, in fact, he actually is. He's nearly 15 now. A good age for our boy. I hope to have a few more years with him yet.. love him lots. 

Answering a few questions...

Hi all...

Just a very quick post this morning as I really need to get on with some work, and I've had a really bad couple of days... but quite a few folks have messaged me regarding a card I made on Create and Craft last week.

I had coloured an image using my watercolour pencils, but blended it with a paper stump. Now, for those that asked, in the jar I had the sponge part of a washing up sponge plonked in the base of the small jar (mine was a baby food jar, but you can use one of the mini jam jars) and then soaked it in sansador.

Sansador is what I use because when blending it stays nice and dry and means that I can blend tones on top of each other. Now, you can also use baby oil (small amounts of!) and also white spirit. The sansador is basically white spirit with the fumes taken out..

As you can see, you can get a really nice textured blend using the stumps. Now, you can also use water to blend the pencils, obviously, but this gives quite a light, watercoloured type of image, whereas the effect I wanted was a little darker and more tonal.

The other thing that was asked, was about what colour I use to stamp the outline with. Usually, I tend to stick to black, well... I say black, it's actually Coal Black from Ancient Page, which gives quite a light black, more a grey, colour. I find this less harsh than a solid black. 

On the image above, I used Artiste Chocolate dye based ink pad. Now, remember not to use the dye inks when you are using water, but if you're using blending solution, then dye or permanent ink will suffice. 

Using the chocolate dye based ink as my outline meant that I could add darker tones around the edges to blend in the coloured edges, giving an overall softer look. 

Is that okay? 

I hope I've explained everything as you asked... I hope it helps a little. xx

A great day...

Evening all... it's been quite a good day - and last night was fab too!

Why? Well... I was out doing a demo today at Ackworth Garden Centre, and boy, do they have a fab little craft area! Everyone was so lovely... Fiona and all were so helpful and nice, it made the day go perfectly. We shared lots of hints, tips and ideas, and both myself and others went away with a few extra techniques under their belts I'm sure. 

I can't wait for next weekend when I'm up there again doing a Childrens Demo... we've already lined up what we're going to do, and it's all very exciting!!!

So.. onto my other good news last night. 

You know I've discovered Sherri Baldy digis, and featured them on my blog this past few days? Well, the wonderfully talented lady herself has only asked me to be part of the Design Team. Well, I took an oodle-second to think about it, and immediately said YES!! 

I really like these images.. downloadable, and they work with the Creativity Club downloads and the rest of the Docrafts range so perfectly too... and they're great for sitting and practicing my 'colouring in'. 

Here's the card I've made the other day. I chose to do it in Pink and Brown. I decided to do another one for the besties challenge blog, and use sepia watercolour as my base. The pink was added as a highlight colour, along with purple shading! lol. 

 Here are a couple of pictures in the process of being coloured.

 She looked so perfect that I thought she needed a little tiara. I knew I had one I bought aaaaages ago, and it only took me a few minutes to find it and plonk it on. What do you think? Doesn't she look perfect?

I hope you like my card today... and I promise to be posting more of my demo samples soon. I was asked by a few today, so will make sure I get them up on here this week for you.

Happy Sunday everyone... I'm just going to have a lovely day at home chilling with the Mr. What are you doing?

A right l'il cutie!

First things first... I just need to say I AM IN LOVE!

As you may - or may not - be aware, I absolutely love anything cutey-fied... so, it's absolutely no surprise that  the new characters from Country Companions, bought to us by Docrafts, was on my 'need to have' list as soon as I saw them!

These are quite small stamps, so absolutely perfect for those little cards you want to make, but as you can see, they are a beautifully stamped image, which are honestly an absolute doddle to colour in!

Here's my card.

I have taken the opportunity to get my mitts onto the Vintage Notes papers again - love love love this range so much!! Such beautiful delicate colours and isn't this background blue rose paper stunning??? Did I tell you I love it?!

As you can see, the Vintage Notes has a wonderful textured feel to it too. The colours are delicate, the patterns soft, quite perfectly pretty vintage! I scratched around the edge of the papers and card layers with the craft knife (blunt of course!). A few gems just finished the label off.

You like my flowers? Well.. you can buy these too.. ready crocheted and ready for your cards. I can do these, but why would I waste a valuable 20 minutes when this is all it would take to finish my card?

I added some of the new fab Bakers Twine to the button too as a decoration. The buttons are Vintage Notes too - a mahoooooosive bag of multicoloured, multisized buttons at a totally ridiculous price! Go check   it out... you'll see what I mean!

The leaves were cut freehand from a folded green card, then run through the ribbler to create the veining.

And finally.. my bunny!

Isn't he the cutest little thing? I've coloured him in with the Artiste brush markers - the vintage colours were perfect for my little guy. Once coloured, he was then matted and layered onto white and blue to match in with the card.

I have linked to all products within my post so you can check them out.. I really hope you like my card. It will be making an appearance at a demo near you soon! lol.

Until next time,
Happy Crafting!!!

Lickle Wellyfants....

How are we?

I've had a really lovely weekend, all nice and relaxing - and even had a trip out to Lincoln Christmas Market yesterday with the family. Although, I must admit, it always seems to come to life more when it gets darker. We went around midday and the atmosphere wasn't there until the sun set around 4pm and it started to get dark. Suddenly, everything changed and it all seemed more Christmassy.

I could even be tempted to find my Christmas tree and put it up!!

So.. onto today's card, and I thought I'd share a card using some stamps that I won as a blog challenge prize. I totally love elephants, and these little guys are just the cutest!

I got a set of four... so it was difficult to choose which to colour up first, so I went for this one first... the other will be shown tomorrow!

Here's how I made it... 

• Make it darker - I firstly coloured the image using watercolour paints, then decided to make the background much darker than I usually would. I went for a mix of dark blue and purple paints to add depth. Somehow it helped to make the colours of the elephants pop a little. 

• Flush it - Of course I had to add some flush! A very good friend of mine once laughed that all my little animals have flushy cheeks... of course they do! It adds a little bit of personality doesn't it? 

• Highlight it - A little dot or three of white gel pen (I use Papermania Artiste) on the eyes and on the cheeks add a little highlight to the important areas. 

• Cut it out - I've decorated the card using a few different die cuts. The trees have liquid applique on them to give them extra dimension too. Using die cuts also helps to fill an empty space. 

And whilst I was colouring up these little cuties, I also decided to play with another couple of lovely stamps. 

This one was my total favourite from the set of Papermania stamps which came out with the Art Deco range. Isn't it just stunning. I love it. 

Again, coloured with watercolour paints and a very light wash background to make the colours pop. 

And this one was one I picked up from a local craft shop last week. I had got my loyalty points voucher, so used it for this lovely set. So classy isn't it.

As you can see, I haven't got around to making these two into cards yet... not sure how to finish them to be honest, but I'm sure I'll think of something by the end of the week. lol. 

Well, that's it for today... check back tomorrow for another little elephant card... I hope you like today's cards and pictures... Happy Crafting until next time!

Teddy love....

How are we? I have had a really lovely few days at home this past week.. nice and quiet. And I can't exactly believe how close it is getting to Christmas! Town is stupidly busy, people still buying presents and the car parks are choc a block! Meadowhall the other day was totally full in the car parks - 12000 spaces and they were full!

So, today, it's been a nice quiet day getting the car sorted out - general stuff - and back to blogging to share this little card.

I am in love with these cute little bears... and combined with the pinks and reds they're just perfect for any occasion. 

I've kept this card quite nice and simple so it's suitable for a beginner. All I've used is a little layering on the topper and a border punch for the edges.

Here they are in closer detail.

You don't even need to have any glitter glue - there is encapsulated glitter on the heart and other areas of other images, and you can see how it adds a little bit of glitz to the card.

And a bit of bling? Well, of course you need some... so a small amount of Anita's ribbon and some sparkly Papermania gems was added to finish off the card and add a bit of luxury.

So... that's the step by step decoupage... and what if you fancied a bit of stamping?

Oh gosh..... I've just realised the lace has decided to do a bunk! Sorry about that.. let's just focus on the stamping eh? lol.

The card was stamped in Me to You grey ink - it was bought out a while ago, and it makes a perfect permanent ink.

I then coloured it with the Artiste markers in a grey tone. Just odds and spots of colour..

Here's the watercolouring on the card in a little more detail..

Well... I hope you like these cards. i'll be back soon with a few more - and maybe not teddies! lol.

Just to say...

Evening!!

I really don't know where the last two days have gone - and I started this post yesterday! Didn't get very far did I? lol. In fact, yesterday I spent having a bit of a reprieve and doing a little bit of colouring on and off, in between the housework and furball cuddling!

I wanted to share with you one of the cards from the Just to Say range from Docrafts / Papermania.. and I think they're just soooo lovely for every occasion. 

Now, I know this is a sympathy card, and I will go into details below on how it was made. But here it is in full... 

And here are the smaller images..  A little close up for the embossing detail on the frame card.

And a little close up of the detailed stamp. So fine, yet so perfect to stamp with!

Ok... so here's how I made it.

• Keep it simple - The cards I have used come from the Just to Say range. They are a perfect little 5 inch square card and they come in plain, scallop emboss or dotty emboss detail. I chose to use two of the scallop frame cards, kept one as it is, and cut the frame out to stamp into. 

• Softly does it - Because this was made as a sympathy card, I used the greeting that was in the lily stamp pack. There are three sets - a sympathy set, get well set and thank you set. I chose to ink up in brown dye ink, pull the colour out with a brush pen and add a little lilac to the petals. 

• Babywipes again?! - yes.. they came out in force again, to shade in lilac ink around the outside of the smaller cut out frame. It emphasises the embossing detail a little more and adds a subtle colouring to the edge. 

I hope you like the card... I don't like making sympathy cards, but I just wanted to show you how the sets work. Perfect for any occasion me thinks.

Right... it's Horlicks time, then bed.... it's been a long day today.

Night night everyone!!!

Roofle the Reindeer

Morning all!!!

How are we all? Sooooooo sorry that I haven't managed to be around for a few days (well, over a week!) but just when you think that you may have a bit of time, things take over and you end up running yourself ragged. I'm sure you know that feeling well!!

So, what have I been upto? Well, I had a show or two on Create and Craft to get myself organised for, and a couple of demos too, one last Saturday at a fab little shop up in Oldham - Sophies Crafts - and also one yesterday, Thursday, in Ashbourne at Fairways Garden Centre. I had a very busy couple of days, both different types of demos so lots of sorting for those.. but all went well, so I'm a happy bumpkin!

One of the cards I made to take to my demo's with me this past few months was this one below.. just a simple stamped one layer card. I opted to use the boofle-y cute (get it?!) stamp from the new range of Boofle Christmas (available from Docrafts stockists) and I've coloured it in with watercolour pencils.

The one thing I love about doing my demo's is meeting wonderful crafters, and sharing ideas, and the technique I've used to colour this image is one I learned from Kat, a fantastic colourist who works at Craft Central in Derby.. honestly, her colouring is to die for, and we had a little lunchtime tutorial the other week. So, Thank you Kat, you're a treasure!!

Here's the image a little closer up... isn't Roofle the Reindeer a great little character!

And here he is again a little closer up. Pictures were taken on my mobile, so I do apologise for the fuzziness..

Anyway, that's all for now. My aim today is to take lots of photos of my projects and start to get them uploaded a little more often.. lol. Famous last words me thinks, but I do have a few days off.

See you again soon everyone!!!!