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

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