Fear the Beard!

Hello!

Yes I have totally missed July in terms of blogging!

This is due to several things - 1) being made redundant - sad, but these things happen, 2) post-redundancy holibobs with my friend Emma and her Mum, 3) being silly busy with house and work related things!

I have been crafting and when I find 5 spare minutes, I will upload a million photos at some point in the not so distant future. Not least of the amazing cards JT and I made at our last playdate.

I have been loving the Olympics, which might explain the random main picture!! Hubby and I are big Basketball fans and have been super excited about our only Olympics tickets. Which just happened to be for the Men's bball final!! We had a great day out at the 02 - and the picture is of me in my James Harden beard!!

In craft related news, JT and I are off to the British Craft Festival this weekend, it is our first 'Craft Awayday' we have been stockpiling our pennies and will probably enhance our stashes quite a lot!

I've also been making cards for National Cardmaker of the Year 2012 - most excited by this, as I have wanted to enter for a while, but not been confident enough! I will do a big post showing all of the wonderful cards I have made for the categories.

Bye bye for now - hopefully not for so long this time.

Cx

New ideas

Hello! We have been having a wonderfully sunny week here in London, which makes me all cheery and positive, as I get to wear all my new summer gear!

I've been experimenting with new ideas and thought I'd share them with you. I have also been naughty and purchased a few new tools and bits and bobs, which I wanted to play with, but I also thought it would be fun to try some new things.

Today's main picture is based on a Pinterest idea I saw and I thought it would be a great use of scraps, of the new candle stamp and the new tags / labels. I'm pleased with the colour contrast, I think it works well, I don't normally work with orange, as I think it can be a bit in your face. I'll be making more of these and this one is winging it's way to a customer in a batch of samples.

The card below came about because I was playing the new Martha Stewart punch that JT bought me and I saw an idea in a card magazine this month using a similar punch and a bird. Using the Stampin' Up bird builder punch always makes me happy and I like the vintage feel of this card.It will be going in my personal stash, I might make more for sale, but I am undecided about that right now.

The next two cards were made because I wanted to try out my new flowerpot die (which I am not sure if I like it or not yet!). It's a good way to use my millions of flowers, but the pots are really not doing it for me - what do you think? These are going to be a gift for a friend, as I think she might like them more than I do!

It gets difficult to keep the card making fresh, so I am pleased I've found a few new things to add to my repertoire.

Cx

Over complicating things!

As you are all aware I love bunting and have been enjoying making bunting cards. Recently I wondered if I could add a twist to the bunting cards. So I had a little play and I came up with this little sketch - 

I drew the sketch using PPT - which I often do, when I am working on new ideas.

Sentiment banner - unfortunately I broke the eyelet!

It all looks nice and simple and the result is stunning - today's main picture, but it is a total pain in the bleep to make. Mainly because you can't stick all the flags down before you sew them to the card, as the top row overlaps, so you have to sew the bottom row first, then stick down the top row, then sew again.

Essentially I took my nice simple bunting idea that I have used a bejillion times and over complicated it. Needless to say, I have only managed to make 2 of these cards and no matter how beautiful they are, I will not be making them again!

Here are a few close-ups for you.

The fabric and foam flower, with jewelled brad

Close-up of the stitching

I made this card nearly 2 months ago, but I have been so traumatised by the experience it's taken me all that time to recover :)

Rule no.1 - do not over complicate. A rule that I think might be handy for more than just crafting....

Cx

Kids stuff

I recently decided that my kids cards were lacking that 'kid appeal' and have been racking my brain trying to think of good ideas. By chance I was in a wonderful art shop and saw a Galt colouring-in book. Voila! Lightbulb moment.

I bought the book, chose some of my favourites and scanned them in, retouched them, printed them out at a suitable size and coloured them in using my Promarkers! Today's main picture is one of the cards I made using this technique. Below are a few more.

Clown

Witch

I think it's a good technique - but a word of warning, if you are planning on selling your cards, I would suggest you do not use anything from the Galt books, peruse your local pound store for generic colouring books, which will minimise the copywrite issues. The ones I have shown here are not for sale, they are for my godchildren (of which there are a bejillion!). 

I have also been re-using my favourite Bugaboo Poppi Penguin digital stamp. I've been making these for a while now for customers, but never for friends and family and decided, if I used certain colours they would be great for boys of all ages (= men too). Here are a couple of pics - I love the glittery glasses!

Blue Poppi + Red Glasses

Close-up on the Red glittery glasses

Red Poppi + Yellow glasses

I am now happier with my 'kid' options and think this will please my customers and possibly some of my friends with kids, who are always on at me to make more kid cards!

Cx

Pottering around

Due to a rather large Friday, this weekend has been a nice pottering around the house one.

I've just been doing the easy craft related things this weekend! Like buying some stamps from Bugaboo that I have started colouring in, I am going to use them for my friend's Daughter's birthday - I want to frame them as I think they will look really nice in her bedroom and make her a matching birthday card.

Today I have been taking photos for the blog and my customers - I enjoy taking the photos, but need to catch the light at the right time, I really need a home studio set-up, so I can take the photos more often. I also went through all the recent personal cards I've made and matched them to the birthday / anniversary, etc book - very satisfying.  I have to do this every couple of weeks, as it can get a bit confusing in the craft room! Generally every thing I make fits one of three categories and I kept everything organised in these categories. These categories are -

1) Things for sale
2) Things for my personal use
3) Ideas I am trying out

It may seem a bit OCD, but I realised a while back that the things I am selling need to be relatively quick to make, as they are often required in big batches. The things I make for my personal use, I spend a bit more time and essentially play!

JT and I have been discussing this weeks Mojo Monday sketch challenge 246 and felt that it was a good one to enter. Here's the sketch -

Today's main picture is my entry, I decided I'd rotate the sketch and instead of a bow, I used a sentiment. I think it's a fun card and fits the things for sale category! The star paper is by Pink Petticoat, blue squares were made using DCWV brights adhesive stack - so easy to use. The red foam stars are from Michaels. Sentiment from the batch I cut last weekend. It's nice and simple and I think it's quite a 'man' type card, if you changed the colours it could work for 'girls' too.

Back to the craft room for me :) enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Cx