Xmas gift tag card/wallet

Hi everyone, and Merry Christmas! (well, nearly!)

So last week was our last craft class before Christmas [sigh] and we had a lot of giggles, as well as working on a lovely project for Christmas.

We made a card that can be a stand alone card on its own, with cute tags to decorate. Or, you can slip a gift card into one of the pockets, for a nice surprise!

This is a pic of one that we made, and it's really sweet, with the 3 tags poking out of the pockets :-)

Well, I'm off to make more mince pies. Made 3 doz last weekend and they're all gone lol! We eat a LOT of mince pies - I make my own mincemeat with no fat or sugar, so of course we can eat twice as many :-)

Happy crafting

Debs xx

Art deco cards

This is not normally my style, but I'm demo'ing the new DoCrafts Art Deco range tomorrow at Hobbycraft West End.

I sat for ages looking at the pictures before I came up with any ideas! What worked in the end was finding the embellishments that I could add to bling up the decoupage images! an unusual approach for me, as I normally start with the shape/fold of the card that works with the image. I realised that it was the size of these images that threw me, they're all pretty big!

Once I got started I found that the pictures were beautifully detailed and, even though they are already foiled, I couldn't resist adding extra bling like Stickles glitter glue & gems!!

Hope you like them, and maybe see you at hobbycraft tomorrow from 2pm!

Deb x

What stops you crafting????

This is one of my main reasons (excuses???) for not crafting :-)

Pro Marker Cottage

Had a lovely morning with the ladies at Bella Crafts in Fair Oak. I was teaching a pro Marker class and we focused on landscapes and cottages - great fun!

This is just one of the projects we worked on. We practised blending & shading, combining drastically different colours, using the blender pen to create glass & sky effects, brickwork & stippling (think I called it blobbing today :-) - and that was just the first project!

Will post other pics when I have time

Deb x

Christmas window card

Haven't blogged for ages - holiday disasters & family issues = no time for crafting!

But......classes have started again, and I wanted to share a pic of the lovely window card we made today.

I designed this for the Christmas special edition of Making Cards, and the ladies in today's class had a lot of fun making this one, and experimenting with the Cuttlebug!

Next class is Tues Dec 4th, and I'm running a Pro Markers class at Bella Crafts on Sat Nov 17th.

Now that I'm over the flu (hopefully that's it for this winter!!!) I'll try to post more often :-)

Happy crafting

Debs x

Go Team GB!!

I don't normally watch sport, but I have been glued to the Olympics! So I thought I would share my epitome of Britishness.....a cup of tea and Union Jack finger nails!

Go Team GB!!

WOYWW & Barbara Gray workshop projects

Happy WOYWW! No pic of workdesk today as I was off on a jolly yesterday! Had a lovely day on a Barbara Gray/Clarity stamps workshop. And here are my projects.......

Had a great day and improved my brayer technique, plus learned some new tips

Happy WOYWW, please visit Stamping Ground to see what other crafters are up to - will blog hop later!

Debs x

Barbara Gray class today

I'm so excited today, I'm going to an all day workshop with Barbara Gray of Clarity Stamps! Hoping to have lots of new ideas to share soon :-)

Made this tissue box cover recently for my desk at work - needed something crafty to cheer my desk up!

Will let you know how I get on

Debs x

WOYWW 160

So I had a fun weekend of making baby cards for a friend, couldn't decide which one I liked better, but now I'm leaning towards the 'BABY' one.

I also found time to try something I've been meaning to do for ages - I've seen all of these sets of mini stamps/tapestry stamps used at shows, and very nearly bought them as I loved the patterns they were able to build with a few small stamps. But I resisted buying them on the basis that I had so many stamps at home. So this weekend I went through all my stamps and pulled out any diddy ones that I thought might work, and had a play. The first couple of attempts weren't that great, think I put way too much on the page, didn't know when to stop! But they started to get better, and this is what i came up with..........

I'm thinking they would be a great subject for one of my classes, so will see what my ladies think!

OK, no pic of my desk today, only what I've made on it :-) I'm off now to link up with Julia here, and to join in her weekly trip around the world to see what other crafters have been up to!

Happy crafting

Debs xx

WOYWW and stress toys!

So this is my desk today (well last night, but not done anything since!) A mix of craft stuff and work stuff - didn't realise the calculator had taken centre stage til I uploaded photo!

On the right is a folder of Kanban kit leftovers, and I was doing my 'use it up' bit and trying to construct cards from the bits and bobs left. All sorts of offcuts and rubbish at top left, and bottom left is the folder from last year's birthday pressie, which I only recently got around to booking!  Hubby paid for me to have a day flying Birds of Prey at the Hawk conservancy near Andover. They get booked up months ahead, so we are going on Aug Bank Hol weekend, just in time for this year's birthday lol!!

And this is a pic of a cute little penny slider card I made for someone at work, whose Grandson is into tractors......

The tractor rolls across the card, and was almost tested to destruction when I took it into work, as it got passed around an everyone had a play!  It was suggested that they would make good stress toys for adults......hmmmmmmmm ;-)

OK, I'm off to check out a few blogs in the weekly snoopathon at Julia's - Happy crafting everyone

debs x

It's wedding season!

 Hi blog-hoppers! I've had a few commissions lately for cards on wedding themes, so thought I would share them with you.  The first one uses ready made tag toppers I've had in my stash for ages, and the colour theme was just right for this request. The die cuts are Spellbinders Grand Labels 4.  

The background layer is an old Hunky Dory Whispers pearl embossed card, and I ran the white top layer through an embossing folder - I love this particular one, which is swirling vines - think it's Crafts Too.  I added some punched swirls and a few gems to finish it off.

The second one uses a freebie download I've had since last year, from one of the crafting mags, think it was Papercraft Inspirations but not sure! Anyway, I've used it a lot!

This one was matted and layered on more Hunky Dory card, the darker layer is gold embossed, and the lighter layer is the whisper pearl again. Then I cut out a bunch of Kanban flowers I've had in my stash for years, curled and layerd them and added gems. The colour theme for this wedding was metallic turquoise, and I added Stickles glitter glue to the tiny flowers on the topper and all over the skirt of the dress - hard to see unless you look really close, but so pretty!

I have a class in Chandlers Ford this afternoon and another tomorrow night, and this is what we will be making - I got carried away with the flower theme after the wedding card!!

The Grand Labels 4 die came out again - Labels 4 has to be my most used die, it's brilliant! the larger flowers are made from cutting spiral circles, and I've added different sizes of spirals for interest, plus punched flowers, swirls and leaves.

OK, time to go pack the craft box! Thanks for stopping by, and happy crafting :-)

Debs x

Spotlighting rubber stamping

 Hi blog hoppers, this is the sample made for our last class in Chandlers Ford. We focused on the spotlighting technique,where you pick a part of your image and stamp it again, colour it so that it stands out. We also double embossed our spotlighted section so that it really jumped out at you, and used embossed Core-dinations card as a backing - the cards the ladies made in class were fab!  Lots of bright colours and great finished projects.

Next class is at Bella Crafts in Fair Oak this coming Saturday, this will be a Pro Markers class focused on florals and landscapes. It is a repeat of one we did earlier in the year, where we were over-subscribed, so we agreed to tun it again for those who were disappointed to not get in the first time.

Hope you all have a lovely Jubilee weekend, I'm off to do some more crafting ;-)

Thanks for stopping by

Debs x

WOYWW 153 and a busy desk!

Hi everyone, I've been quiet for a few weeks, been a bit chaotic here, and not much crafting being done at all
 :-(.................But this Bank Holiday weekend I managed to spend some time in the craft room, and this is how I left it...........messy, huh?

I know those lovely crafters who manage to tidy away after themselves will be looking at that and thinking OMG! I am a messy crafter, and even though I now have a lovely craft room and big desk, still end up with piles that threaten to overwhelm the desk.

Quick tour round my desk, bottom left some papers for a DT project I was finishing off, with my ultra sticky tape, and just above that a couple of older projects that I love and am trying to decide how to display. Above that to the left you can see my trusty heat tool peeking into the pic, and my DAB radio, cos I have to have music while I craft! I am often heard singing along to the Bee Gees....ssssssshhhh, don't tell anyone!!

then you ahve my craft caddy stuffed with essentials, behind that various shades of pink tissue paper for making paper carnations, my memento black inkpad, which never leaves my desk, a pile of paper with sketches and notes for cards (think back of a fag packet style!), my steel edge ruler, craft knife, reels of tape, and 2 pairs of scissors, one detail scissors, and one pair I use just for 'sticky stuff'.

That's my desk, if you're wondering why i;m sharing hop on over to Julia's stamping ground where she hosts the fab Whats on Your Workdesk Weds blog hop through craft land

happy crafting!!

Debs xx

TP Mini albums - made from loo rolls!

Hi blog hoppers, it's been a while since my last post, and my only excuse is work - and not the crafty kind!

Several people have commented on how quiet I've been lately, so I resolve to try to post more often :-)

This is a pic of a recently completed mini album. We made loo roll mini albums in class a few weeks ago, and we had so much fun!  You make them by squashing the inner tubes from loo rolls ( or kitchen roll if you don't want to use loo rolls!) I ran mine through my cuttlebug to squash them as flat as possible.

I covered mine in a range of co-ordinating papers by covering the loo roll in PVA glue and wrapping paper around then trimming. If you want a pocket just fold one end up on the second side and glue only the left and right edges on that page

You can slip tags inside the ends of the loo rolls, add pockets, mini envelopes, photo corners and embellishments and tags of all kinds. I used a cropa dile to punch and set eyelets and book rings to bind the pages.  It takes a while to stamp all the tags and mount all the photos, but the end result is so cute - I have another 2 part finished :-)

Last week's class in Chandlers Ford covered mica powders and we had a lovely sparkly time dusting, painting, spritzing and spraying! I feel like I owe all my ladies' other halves an apology as they all went away with plans to stock up on mica powders and masks :-)

Off now for a cuppa and kitty cuddle - happy crafting

Debs xx

WOYWW 148 -Easter Bunnies

hi blogland! Just a quick post from me tonight as I'm shattered, and there's nothing much happening on my craft desk so thought I would share some Easter cards I made for a feature in Making Cards magazine.

The stamp is from the Helz Cuppleditch bloom & grow range, and is so cute I couldn't resist! The panels are cut with a range of different Nestabilities, stamped and coloured with Pro Markers. I've picked colours out of the main pic and used those to colour the edges of a larger nestability die cut to create a perfect colour matched background.  I stamped the images a few times, and cut out parts of the image to layer up and to use as mini images on some of the panels. I think they look really spring-like!

Anyway, enough for now. If you came to this through WOYWW enjoy your trip around the crafty world via Julia's stamping ground!

Thanks for stopping by

Debs x

WOYWW 147 and Pro Markers

I've been absent from blogland for past couple of weeks - phenomenally busy and with new job taking up all my time, so not much crafting done in the Willis house :-(  Really missed my WOYWW fix last week, so will do my best to visit lots of crafty boltholes this week, spread over the next few days. If you want to see what other crafters are up to visit Julia's Stamping Ground and join in the blog hopping fun!

But I have the day off today and this is my desk today, batch stamping lots of images for a Pro Marker workshop this Saturday. Got to get it done today cos I'm working tomorrow and Friday, so today's my last chance!  Took a few mins to colour one of my favourite images, the little row of mice from Penny Black 'Micey Nice Day' - they are so cute I love these meeces!

Aren't they sweet? If we have enough time on Saturday this will be the 'challenge' image at the end of the class (which is focused on skin tones, hair and fur) to make each little mouse a different colour using only a few pens.

Well, that's me for today, hopefully I will get a bit more time soon, as I am missing my crafty play time

Thanks for stopping by

Debs x

It's Friday, it's 5 to 5 , and time for.........................

Anyone remember this???? I used to love Crackerjack, and always wanted to win a Crackerjack Pen LoL!  This popped into my head as I was listening to the radio and the presenter said 'it's Friday and it's 5 to5' but I think he was too young to remember the rest :-)

There's a 'guess the year' programme on our local radio station in the mornings, and it's fun with all the memories the old songs generate, but so many of them have been used in ads, I now end up singing the ad jingle instead of the actual lyrics - those ad men must have been good at their jobs lol!

OK, so it IS Friday and I'm about to pack up crafting for the day and have a well deserved cuppa so I thougI would share some recent projects and a sneaky peek of a DT project I finished today!

This is a wedding card using pearl embossing powders and a brocade background stamp, so pretty to work with. Even embossed the background card behind the panel cos I got carried away with the lovely pearl effects!

These two are cute boxes I made recently, and all 3 projects will be on show at the NEC next week on the WOW embossing stand

Finally, the sneaky peek...............

These are easel drawer cards, and they are so much fun to make (showed some stamped versions in an old post). You can really go to town on the decoration, and there is a little drawer in the base that you can fit yummy chocs in (or something more boring if you are so inclined!). I got a bit carried away with decorating these two, feathers, leaves, flowers, butterflies - a cornucopia of embellishments!

OK, that's it for today, my feet are freezing so I'm off to put the heating on and hit the biccies!

Have a fab weekend, thanks for stopping by

Debs x

WOYWW 145 and cogs

This is my desk today, not too messy, just a little project in the middle half finished. On the left you can see the lead to my heat gun, a finished tag project, and my trusty digital radio. At the back we have my ice cream tub of acrylic blocks and a pot of brushes - must find new ways to store the blocks lol!! A jiffy bag full of new stamps as part of my WOW! Embossing Powder DT goodies, and a set of large oval dies.  Not too messy at all for me - you can see both table top AND craft mat!

Much easier to keep everything relatively tidy now everything has a home on a shelf behind me.  Although I still leave stuff out at the end of the day if I know I'm coming back to work on it again.

Last pic today is my cogs all ready to go! now I'm off to link this blog to Julia's at the Stamping Ground, and I will try to get round more desks than last week!

This is a close up of my die cut cogs - all embossed and ready to use on my next project - got some great old metal effects with a mix of Earth Tones and Verdigris embossing powders!

Inspiration Tag

Hi everyone, thought I would share with you my latest DT project for WOW! Embossing Powders - I had so much fun making this tag, and was so pleased with the results - love the colour scheme and the elegance of the design (I do like elegant projects, but elegant is not the real me at all, I'm a jeans and hoodie girl - lol!!)

The month of March is all about pastels, and I chose 'Inspiration' as my theme for this tag, as so much of my inspiration comes from nature, and I had a ball making this project!

For full details and a 'step by step' how to guide, click here to visit the WOW! blog

If you decide to give it a try, I hope you have as much fun making this tag as I did!

Debs xx

WOYWW 144 - and frustration with sticky stuff!

Happy WOYWW everyone, if you aren't sure what that means then click here to visit Julia's Stamping Ground for a peek into craft desks across the world!

I missed WOYWW last week, cos I was rather busy (see yesterday's post!) and didn't visit anyone, so will try to do better this week :-)

This is my desk - in my lovely new craft room [happy sigh]

I have everything I need in one place (on the shelves behind me that you can see in yesterday's post!), electrical sockets for my heat gun/glue gun etc, and s-p-a-c-e!! Of course, Deb's law of crafting states that 'you will expand to fill all available space' lol!

The frustration in the title of my post comes from the pile of dies you can see on the kitchen roll on my chair. I bought some lovely new cogs dies at Farnborough, and this is my first opportunity to try them out. They were stuck to the inside of the packaging with something akin to super glue, and the residue was stuck all over the dies, causing them in turn to stick to my Cuttlebug C plate. I had to use my craft knife to pry them off!  So they have been liberally bathed in Stick away, and rinsed in the sink, so that I can actually use the blasted things again!  Grrr......rant over!

And this is Barney investigating my new crafting space.....just cos he can!

Sorry for the cat butt in shot - he's not the best trained moggy and tends to flash everyone, witness his shameless sunbathing in the unseasonably warm weather this week.......and yes, he is fast asleep lol!!

Looking forward to seeing some of the goodies created by you lovely WOYWW'ers, probably take me a few days, but I will visit as many as I can before next week.

Also, if anyone is planning a visit to the NEC on Friday 23/3, come and say hi, I will be demo'ing on the WOW embossing stand all afternoon from 1pm and would love to meet some WOYWW'ers.

Thanks for stopping  by

Debs x

Craft Room at last!

I've been a bit absent from the blog for the past week or so, partly cos I've been busy with deadlines, and partly cos I've been converting one of my bedrooms into a Craft Room!  Yippee! :-)

I've worked from home for a long time, and had a bedroom as an office for years, but my crafting was always done in the dining room/kitchen/living room/floor etc etc! (As many of you will know from past pics on the blog :-)  I decided to tidy (ahem - use that word loosely) my office and get rid of all unnecessary paperwork/reference material etc. Vast quantities of shredding and about 6 wheelie bins of recycling later............................ ta daaaah!!!

I now have all of my crafting supplies in one room - huge improvement! And a dedicated desk where I can leave 'work in progress' and shut the door, no more working out how we are going to eat at the same table lol!  In the second pic you can just see the top shelf is full of files - 11 files of unmounted stamps to be precise [gulp!} and that doesn't include the 2 baskets of wooden stamps, the box of sentiment stamps, the box of Christmas stamps.....
But now my Cuttlebug is accessible without removing 3 layers of other stuff to get to it - hurrah! 

And this is the first project I made at my new desk using some of my new goodies.....

The card front is covered in dark red paper which is overstamped with dragonflies in dark orange ink - nice subtle effect. I clear embossed (WOW! clear gloss powder - of course!) the grasses and flowers (Artemio clear stamp set) at the bottom of the card, then used my gorgeous Inkylicious ink dusters with Big and Juicy 'Soothing Sunset', Distress Inks Wild Honey and Brushed Corduroy to shade the background.

I overstamped the grasses with the different shades of ink that I used on the backgound, and then used my new Inkylicious script stamp all over the background (it's only a small stamp, but you can repeat it over and over to create a whole page of script and it looks like a continuous stamp - magic!)

Finished the background by stamping a few dragonflies, then used a Marianne die to cut out a lacey frame, coloured the die with the same colours using my brushes, then stamped the verse on the die cut to finish, and mounted on the front of the card.  I haven't made anything 'just cos I wanted to' for a little while, and this gave me so much pleasure! Hope you like it, and sorry if I've rambled on a bit ;-)

Thanks for stopping by

Debs x

Butterfly stepper card

This is my DT project for the WOW! Feb colour challenge using fluorescent colours.  I wasn't too sure about the colours when I saw them in their jars - a bit brighter than my usual choices, but they are lovely when embossed, and I am a convert! also found I was able to emboss small panels and then punch shapes out of them without any cracking or flaking - brilliant! 

Went to Make it show at Farnborough last Friday, and spent way too much! Had a lot of fun though, and already started experimenting with my new stash. Strangely for me, didn't buy many stamps this time, but tons of card and paper, plus Flitter Glue (not tried that yet) embossing paste, punches and some fabulous dies.

Off now to get ready for this afternoons class

thanks for stopping by. Happy crafting!

Debs x

WOYWW 142 - an almost clear desk!

This is my desk today, almost clear! (For me lol!!)  A pile of paper ready to be sorted for my next class, at the back my little box of WOW! Stamps - an old washing tablet box covered in pretty paper and awaiting embellishments! 

(The WOW! Feb embossing challenge is still open til 29/2, with a nice prize for the winner or 12 embossing powders of your choice in a carry case - still time to enter!!)

 And this was my work table on Monday - lots of Pro Markers, finishing off my paper weaving projects, and with a special Helper!

My husband is keen on clocks and pocket watches, and is also a good photographer, so I asked him to take some pics of them last year, and set about turning them into toppers, backing papers and borders.  Not really done anything with them, but thought I would share them. My hubby isn't into the 'traditional' men's stuff of football/rugby etc (although if it has an engine and wheels he will watch it lol!) so I have to stretch the brain cells to come up with ideas for cards for him, and using his own photos was great.  I have also created sets of papers and toppers from pics of CD's, music tapes (!), fountain pens, DIY tools, beer, wine  etc - it's fun creating my own papers, so I really should get around to doing something more with them.

For those who are wondering why I am blathering on, take a look at Julia's blog where Weds is the day for world travel!  We get the chance to check out crafter's work across the world, and share pics of our work desks, tidy or messy, empty or full!

Thanks for stopping by

Debs x

Here's to using up leftovers!

Many of you already know that I run regular craft classes, so I thought I would share the aftermath of my Weds night class.......

 This first pic is all the stamps and Distress Inks piled high on my table, ready for cleaning and sorting.  We always end up throwing everything in the crates at the end of the night, and I start my day with a cuppa and a sort out!  Well, this particular class used a lot of card pre-cut to size, and I had an awful lot of identical sized strips of card left afterwards.........................

Being a typical crafter, I didn't want to throw it away, lots of good quality card, what could I do with it...hmmmmm..............the craft brain went into overdrive and started thinking about weaving the strips together to make a decorative background, so out came a set of Penny Black stamps I've been wanting to play with, and my trusty Pro Markers, and I had so much fun!

I coloured some strips to match my main stamped image, and left some white, then wove them together in a basket weave pattern.  The main trick is to stick one end of each strip (just one direction to start with) in place with double sided, then to weave the strips thru from the other direction until you're happy with the layout, then attach double sided tape to the underside of the end of each strip and fix each one in place as you go.  I found using the lines on my craft mat invaluable to line up the strips evenly along both edges!

They looked a bit boring on a plain white background, so I stamped a quick background with one of the small flower stamps from the set (Micey Day) and quickly coloured the centre of the daisies to match and presto! Big improvement. See what you think.............

And as I had so many strips, I made quite a few cards, but can only give you a quick peek of one here, as they are now destined for Making Cards magazine, along with a set of tea bag folding cards I've been working on.  Again, I had a ball making these, not having tried tea bag folding before, so I made flowers, medallions and butterflies, and made a beaded body for my folded butterfly out of twisted wire, and it came out pretty good! But that's for another post......

For all those who asked, I will get around to a TP mini album soon, and show you how to make one from scratch, and the finished sample...it's on the crafty to do list!!!

Thanks for stopping by, and have a fab crafty weekend

Debs x