The importance of photographs!

Excited tonight as I'm off to the NEC tomorrow with a friend - I won tickets on Ali Wade's blog - thanks Ali!! Haven't been as a visitor for a couple of years, and wasn't going to go this week as I went to Farnborough a few weeks ago. But having won the tickets it would be rude not to!!

Many of you know that I design for Making Cards magazine, and I wanted to upload photos of my Tea Bag folding projects that are in this months edition. then I realised I forgot to take any!! So here are pics of a couple of the mag pages instead :-)

Must remember the importance of photographing the projects when I'm in that frantic rush to submit them!

Maybe I'll bump into some of you tomorrow at the NEC - happy shopping :-)

Debs x

WOYWW and beer!

Hi fellow world travellers, hope you're enjoying your hop around the world. If you're not sure what's going on pop over to Julia's, where she hosts a weekly snoop into the crafty desks across the planet :-)

This was my desk yesterday afternoon, and nothing has changed since then. The beer in my post title refers to the Guinness cans you can see centre stage! I cut them up and die cut or emboss - great source of thin metal sheets, and Hubby is happy to help me build up my stash lol!! Have used them and loo roll inners on a magazine DT project with cogs and clocks - sorry, had to move that out of shot as not published yet!

Other things you can see are my trusty heat tool -heat embossed some of those cogs to look like rusty aged metal! Also a wedding card using the kanban Jasper Set, a spring card  for a blog challenge (see previous post) my fave fiskars scissors lower right of pic, and my Scotch photo glue (anyone know where I can buy more?? It's fab glue and I have a small stash but can;t find anywhere that sells it any more)

Ok, I'm off to blog hop and check put other creative desks

Happy woyww

Debs x

Happy Tuesday!

Had a lovely weekend in London at the O2 arena. Andy's Xmas pressie was a
Pair of tickets to a country music weekend festival - had a great time but Monday was a washout cos I was exhausted!

Bit more with it today and hit up the orange snippets folder in a big way! Just seemed like the right sort of colours for spring :-)



Used snippets of orange spots & stripes papers - no clue where they were from originally. And snippets of white card for my topper & die cut flourish & punched butterflies - have so many of these cut off pieces of white card, and they're perfect for these little die cuts!

The stamp is a Penny Black one that I love, coloured with Pro Markers - so entering this in the following challenges:
Penny black Saturday challenge
Pixies Playground Snippets
Pro Marker Challenge 
Forever Friends Challenge - flowers

Off to sort the washing :-)

Debs x

WOYWW and the kindness of crafty folk!

Hi everyone, I can't believe that it's Wednesday again (where on earth did that week go?!) and time for another whizz around the globe at Julia's Stamping Ground, to see what other crafters have on their desks.

You probably already know that I don't tidy my desk for your visits, but today is pretty dire! Dies that need the leftovers 'poking out', a part complete project on the left, planned for a future class, and my 'overflow' box on the far left - same place as last week, with much the same stuff in, and an experimental card fold on top!!

And this is what I've been working on with my Inkylicious dusters - the sand dunes image was inspired by one I saw at Farnborough, that was made using Adirondack inks, and I wanted to see if I could make something similar using my Distress Inks. Don't know about you, but I have a lot of Distress Inks, and I love them, (Julia asked about my colour chart on my desk last week - it was for my DI's!) and I can't really justify buying another set of inks (Adirondacks) if the DI's will do the same job - I was quite pleased with the results, and they will be the basis of a future class:-

My class yesterday was such fun, and one of my lovely ladies brought along a gift for me - a fab tartan scrapbooking bag! A friend of hers was throwing it out (!) and as she doesn't scrapbook, and already has a travelling craft bag, she decided to give it to me. Aren't crafters lovely people?



Anyway, Julia asks us to keep these posts relatively short (sorry Julia!) so I'd better stop waffling and start blog-hopping!

Happy WOYWW

Debs x

Tissue box covers

This is what I have planned for classes today and tomorrow. Tissue box covers, tailored to your own colour scheme & design!

The basic box is incredibly quick & easy to make from 2 sheets of A4 - I deconstructed a tissue box to make the template. And all the decoration is using Inkylicious Ink Dusters and stamps - plus a few punched shapes!

Thanks for stopping by

Debs x

Chocolate Birthday card

This card is for a relative who had a bit of a chocolate addiction! The card was inspired by the gorgeous chocolate spotty paper, but I only had a little left.

The snippets are all leftovers from the Hot Diggity Dog kit, so I am entering this in the Snippets challenge. I stamped the letters and cut them out, fixed them on the front of the card and covered them in Glossy Accents.

The little cupcake covers a stamping splodge :-( must take Di's advice and stamp first in case I make a boo boo!

Off to Pixies Playground to see if anyone's planning a snowball fight!

Happy crafting

Debs x

Snippets

This snippets challenge is quite addictive! Only problem is I have tons of snippets - years worth all sorted into folders by colour - plus folders for b&w and mirror card - cant believe how much I've accumulated!

Anyhoo....this card uses snippets of pink & green Core-dinations card - like the linen Texture finish on this so don't always emboss/sand it to show the core. The topper & sentiment are from the Hot Diggity Dog range - made me laugh! Pet owners will relate :-) Entered in the Snippets Challenge.

Scheduling this one again, and will catch up with Pixies Playground chums later :-)

WOYWW - organised chaos

My desk looks a bit chaotic today - working on several projects and bits of all scattered everywhere!


You can see my stamping scratch pad centre stage (old flipchart pads of which I have tons!!). I use this as a stamping base, and to scribble notes - currently planning next weeks class!!  and seems like lots of people in craft land are having a bit of a spring clean/storage sort out - I have posted several storage solutions this week, and I'm still sorting - and I've noticed a definite trend in that direction among crafty blogs!

And this is my desk 10 seconds after I took this pic! No wonder I don't get much done lol!! Barney demanding attention trumps any project - he has the loudest miaow ever!!



Scheduled this as I'm not around today. Will visit your lovely worth desks later via Julia's weekly global desk hop

Happy crafting!

Debs x

Snippets

Had some leftover bright orange textured card that I can't for the life of me remember what it was originally used for! But.....was perfect contrast for these papers and toppers from the Hot Diggity Dog range - love the colours in this pack - all candy & chocolate shades!

Scheduled this post as I can't come & play at the moment - will visit the playground at Pixies later :-)

Entered for Pixies Snippets challenge

Thanks for stopping by

Debs x

Farnborough Make it & Stickles Storage

Had a lovely day out in Friday with a few ladies from my craft class. We went to the Make It craft show at Farnborough. I bought lots of lovely crafty stash, but I am now going on a self-imposed buying ban! This is what I bought.......

Some fab stamps, paper, scrapbooking goodies & my bargain of the day - huge 23metre reels of ribbon at £1.20 each!!

And here's a pic of some of us having lunch & showing off our purchases (sorry to the people who I managed to not get in the pic!!)


So today I've been working on DT projects that I can't show yet, being good & doing housework, and having a bit of a craft room sort out.

I'm always looking for new ideas to maximise space & re-purpose boxes etc for storage. This idea came about because my Stickles are thrown in a box & I have to rummage for the right colour, plus they're not quite ready to use as they're not stored nozzle down.

I couldn't face spending £18-20 on a purpose made carousel, and it's not really practical as I need to be able to transport then to classes - so I took one of my many saved boxes, and a length of foam insulation we had in the garage..

I cut the foam into 1.5" lengths and fixed to base of box. Hey presto! Nozzle down storage for 18 Stickles at a cost of £0 :-)

 

This has turned into a very long post - sorry peeps! Off to cook the dinner now.

Happy crafting!

Debs x

Scrapbook Craft Storage

I am always on the lookout for boxes that I can 're-purpose' in my craft room. Unfortunately very few are capable of holding 12x12 scrapbook papers, and my papers have all been stored away in a Really Useful hanging file box specifically sized for 12x12. The problem is they're out of sight so don't get used so much. And the box tends to get used as a spare table too!

So this week I bit the bullet cos I found a super deal where you get a K&Co scrapbook, plus 36 K&Co papers, plus grand adhesions & stickers, all in a sturdy 12x12 paper storage box complete with dividers - for £15! I bought two :-)

They were delivered in these really sturdy cardboard boxes into which they fitted perfectly - hmmmmmmm

So, I used one of the 'proper' storage files as a template, drew round it into the cardboard and started cutting.

 

Hey presto! 2 additional 12x12 storage boxes for nowt :-)

Then I had to make them look pretty, and here they are on the shelf above the 'proper' ones - double the storage, looks good, and super sturdy - and I can see all my lovely papers at a glance - one happy crafter :-)

 

Off to Farnborough tomorrow with a few ladies from my craft class - my poor credit card!

Happy crafting

Debs x

WOYWW

Happy WOYWW fellow snoopers :-). This is my desk today.  It's grey & cold here & I'm a bit lacking in enthusiasm today. Will visit some of your desks to gain some inspiration!

My desk looks fairly tidy (for me!!) On the left you can see an A4 box crammed with stuff in need of sorting - I made a new rule that if box was full I had to sort it - so instead I piled on top& stacked underneath - lol!!

On my cutting mat (if you look closely it's warped at front where I forgot to use heat resistant mat when embossing - doh!) is a paper pad & some orange flowers ready for my next magazine project.

Centre back is a part-finished butterfly project inspired by something I saw on C&C. Not happy with it so will take a diff approach. Then there's my trusty Cuttlebug & the spotty caddy stuffed with the essentials.

On the right is my big yellow box where I have all my unmounted stamps catalogued, with a couple if new sets at the front of the box waiting to be added. I have 10 (gulp!) foolscap ring binders full of stamps sorted into categories - 3 folders of florals!!! Next project is to unmount my boxes of wooden stamps & integrate with the rest - I find I don't use my wooden stamps that much as they are piled in boxes, but I have some lovely ones, so they need sorting!

Right, enough waffle (sorry Julia!) off to desk hop! If you want to join in pop over to Julia's Stamping Ground.

Stop press!! The universe must have heard I was lacking enthusiasm, cos postie just delivered this little lot :-))

Thanks for stopping by

Debs x

Cold enough for Christmas!

It's still freezing here, so making Christmas cards seems totally right! Just had time to play before I have to nip off to the  torture chamber hairdresser ! I hate going to the hairdresser, so I tend to wait until I look like the Dulux dog before I give in and submit, and it's that time of the year again [sigh]

This card was inspired by Crafty hazelnuts challenge where the theme is '1 word is sufficient'

The Stamp is an old but much loved Personal impressions wooden stamp - think its called 'Hilltop Village'. Stamped & heat embossed with WOW black sparkle, then coloured with pro markers. Double mounted on white & black card.
The main image is Mounted on silver mirror card embossed with Cuttlebug Snowflakes folder then mounted on plain white card. The Peace star is from an old kit, mounted on black card to match the rest of the card

Also entered in:
Rudolph Day Challenge
Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas Extra

Thanks for stopping by!

Debs x

Crafty weekend

I had a lovely crafty weekend, spent loads of time in the craft room! Some of it was spent sorting and organising - I am not a tidy crafter lol ! Some of it was spent playing and making :-) It was bitterly coldhere so didn't feel too guilty about staying in lol !

I also did a lot of blog-hopping and found several challenges that looked like fun. This card was made for the pro Marker challenge, which was in a theme of Princes or Princesses & had to feature a crown! So I dressed up my Little Prince with his own crown :-)



Entered in the following challenges:
Pro Marker Challenge
Pixies Crafty Workshop Snippets as I used paper snippets from my bit box, and more leftover flowers
Milk Coffee Challenge - Make it Cute, cos it is!


And I made progress on another scrapbook layout. I am new to scrapbooking, and I am loving it! I get to use all my card making stash, but I get to keep it when it's finished :-)


This was supposed to be a short post, as I need to do some housework (aaaargh!)

Happy crafting

Debs x

Love is in the air!

This is the cute card I made for Hubby for Valentines day.  I used a Penny black stamp from the Purrfect Day set, coloured with Pro Markers and die cut.

I used a die cut heart, cut around the paw and slid the heart under, so it looks as thought kitty is holding the heart :-)  the finished image was layered on die cuts of toning colours.  The 15cm square base card was stamped with hearts using Distress Inks in Tumbled Glass and peacock Feathers before fixing the die cut image in place and finishing with a few gems.

Entered in the Penny Black Saturday challenge.

Happy Crafting

Debs x

Snippets

I have been visiting Pixies Crafty Workshop for ages, but never joined in with the Snippets (been a 'lurker' in the playground lol) - so here goes!

This was made using papers from a Pink Paislee 6x6 pad 'Spring Jubilee' - 1 full sheet mounted on black card, then the snippet I had left over with the bird on the corner, artfully torn to fit :-)

The white base card is overstamped with a tiny rose and butterfly in distress inks - Victorian Velvet and Spun Sugar.  The main image of the cottage is a Stampendous stamp 'Cottage Path' -  retired but I love it so much!  This stamped and coloured image was a sample from a recent Pro markers workshop, so I die cut it into a tag shape and mounted it on a snippet of black card (I have a whole box of black & white card snippets!)

The 'Home Sweet Home' stamp was a freebie as part of a collection in a recent cardmaking & Papercraft mag and is really cute! coloured with Pro Markers to match the papers.  the paper flowers are from a big pack I bought years ago, and the colours are quite bold, so they tend to sit in the bottom of the embellies box - a great chance to use them up!

I added pink gems to the centre of all the flowers, and the final 'snippet' was the little shrink plastic butterfly which was mistakenly stamped in a dark grey and when shrunk looked almost black - could be a bat I suppose (!) but actually looks more silver grey on the card than in the pic - was found languishing with the paper flowers in the embellies soup at the bottom of the box lol!

so, as a newbie to the playground, will there be a swing free for me, or will I end up being the one pushing the roundabout [sigh]

Happy crafting

Debs x

Finished sign!

So the sign is finally finished - here's a close up. I painted this with Pebeo acrylic paint, then stamped with Versamark using an old Elusive Images set, and embossed with WOW Pearl gold sparkle and Metallic Copper Sparkle - these are the most beautiful glitter embossing powders! I then added a few Kanban die cut butterflies I've been saving, they inspired the colour scheme of blue & copper :-)

A few people have mentioned that they have MDF projects so here's my tips from getting it wrong and then learning to do it right lol ! -

• Sand the MDF before you start - pay particular attention to edges to get a smooth surface. Please make sure you sand in a well ventilated place, preferably outside, and wear a mask as MDF dust is toxic!
• Seal the sanded MDF by painting with a 50/50 mix of PVA Glue & water - leave to dry
• Paint with several thin coats of acrylic paint until you achieve the required depth of colour

And it's finally in pride of place on my door :-)

So I have a few chores to finish this morning, then I have the rest of the day to myself - crafty heaven :-)

Thanks for stopping by

Debs

Craft Room progressing!

So this was my desk yesterday You can see on my craft mat the MDF sign for my craft room, painted in blue acrylic.


I bought this at a show last year and, never having used MDF before, I  painted it without sealing it - big mistake! All the paint sank into the MDf and left me with a horrid mess, so I lost heart a bit and set it aside.

It's been sat on a shelf ever since just looking at me! I finally got around to researching how to paint MDF, sealed it with PVA and painted it again & voila!  I'll share the finished version in another post.

On the right is a scrapbook layout I've started, working on our hols from last year, and just above the layout some 12x12 I've set aside for future pages.

At the back is my trusty Cuttlebug and on the left my digital radio - I'm always singing along when crafting :-)

At the back on the right is a card I made with one of the lovely Tina Wenke stamps, of a hedgehog reading - I make tons of cards, and when they're finished they tend to get stored away in boxes, so I had the idea of displaying my favourite of the moment somewhere I could see it, so I get to enjoy them too!

If you're wondering why I'm telling you what's littering my desk, pop along to Julias blog, where she hosts a fab peek at desks around the world.

thanks for stopping by

Debs x

WOYWW & can anything be a desk?

So this week it's been pretty cold in my craft room, and to be sociable (stay warm :-)) I've reverted to crafting on my lap in front of the telly!

Now this creates it's own problems, but has definite advantages.......
On the plus side, warm, cosy in front of tv, on the downside....
My craft room is upstairs, and I'm up & down like the proverbial yoyo cos I always need just one more thing from my stash. And working on 12x12 is a challenge on a tea tray lol :-) plus the ginger furball keeps trying to sit on my lap - any time I'm in the armchair I'm fair game!


So, this is my 'desk' and the floor area around the footstool, you can see a bit of xmas paper peeking out & snowflake peel off's - I was having fun making Christmas cards lol!!- time to check out other desks over at Julia's - why not join in the blog-hop?

Happy crafting!

Debs x

Creative mojo missing!

Had a bit of a loss of the creative juices recently, so decided to throw myself in the deep end and made my first ever scrapbook page!

Have to say I'm rather chuffed with the result :-). There's tons of stuff on line to help you with scrapbooking, and I have a friend in the States who can always point me in the right direction (thanks Donna!!)

Happy crafting!

Debs x

WOYWW and OMG what a mess!

OK, so I know the ethos of WOYWW is share the desk, but I am rather ashamed of mine at the moment! I've had a couple of projects which had tight deadlines, so I just pushed the leftovers aside and carried on. Then I started working in front if the tv cos it was Christmas & I wanted to be sociable

Next thing I know I've turned my lovely craft space into an inaccessible dump that I haven't had time to sort between projects - and I can't even sit on the chair cos I've used that to plonk down my store of card candi! Guess what tomorrow's task is????

So I'm off to take a look at other desks around the world. Hope you'll join me over at Julia's Stamping Ground

Happy Crafting

Debs x

Never ending card

Happy New Year everyone! The first class of Jan is next week and I've been playing with never ending cards!


I love figuring out the mechanics of a kinetic card design, and I'm looking forward to doing this in class next week. This is a fairly straightforward design, but the decoration can take as long as you have available :-)

Hope you like it!

Debs x

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