BEAUTIFUL BAMBURGH AND BEAUTIFUL MAKES....

As mentioned in my last email Malcolm, Monty dog, and myself had a few days in Bamburgh in Northumberland just before Christmas, and it was delightful.  The weather was perfect and it was lovely on the beach.  We also managed to visit four great galleries, so it suited us both very nicely.  We stayed in Bamburgh village which looked very beautiful with all the trees decked in lights for the festive season, and Malcolm took this cool photo of the lit up castle at night, as seen from the front of our hotel, with the full moon above..

We hope you all had a restful, or maybe merry Christmas, and we wish you lots of happy times and good health in 2019.  Thanks for all the good wishes you sent us on my last post and over the Christmas period.  Lets also hope 2019 is a very creative year for all of us, as stamping and crafting generally is a perfect way to relax, spend some absorbing 'me time' and create beautiful things to share.

As always I now have some beautiful things to share with you made by our very creative team.  I adore this lovely make by Dora, with it's delicate white embossing, pretty CI papers and stencilling using a CI mask.  The stamp involved here is CI-389, Tea at Three..

My next two beauties are by Flo - sooo pretty! They feature CI-302, and CI-386 ..

In a similar colour scheme I have this gorgeous make by Sandra, using the two mallards from CI-297 on a delightful background created with help from CI-430....

....as well as this very nice card/gift with the 'Tea at Three' stamp again...

My final makes for this post are by teamie Sylvie.  Here we have a lovely make with the 'Summertime' stamp again....

.... as well as an adorable Christmassy tag using the new tag stamps on CI-503.

Which one is your favourite?

Bye for now,
Back soon,
Jean x

CHRISTMAS GOOD WISHES TO EVERYONE FROM THE TEAM AT CRAFTY INDIVIDUALS....

I suspect this may well be my last blog post before Christmas Day.  Malcolm and I are having a couple of days in Malcolm's 'happy place', which is Northumberland - Bamburgh to be precise, at the end of the week, and then Christmas Eve will be upon us.  He certainly deserves a trip to this happy place as his life has been very busy since his heart attack - as well as work itself, he has also had lots of doctor and hospital appointments, as well as his rehab class (which I naughtily call his dance classes - dance and Malcolm don't really go together, lol).  The NHS have been brilliant with his follow ups and the rehab exercise classes, where he has to complete 16 sessions before he is allowed to stop going, so that will take him into February.  Anyway we both sincerely wish you all joy and love at Christmastime, and happy days in 2019.

Here is some more inspiration from the wonderful CI teamies.  Some with Christmas in mind and some with a more general theme...

A beautiful folding triptych by Dora..

Check out CI-296, CI-386 and more appearing in the above.

Helen made some adorable bag charms with some of the same stamps...

..... and I love this colourful beauty by Sylvie..

..which features CI-302, the butterfly from CI-296, and a very useful background stamp CI-461.

Another make in a similar colour scheme features peacocks - CI-310 - by Sandra.  The background is gold leaf, which doesn't really show in a photograph, but looks gorgeous is reality..

Here is a lovely Christmas card by Sylvie featuring CI-359..

And finally I have two more Christmas beauties to show you by Flo and Helen.  Love this stamp...

Both very different but totally gorgeous I would say.

Thanks to all our customers, friends, blog readers and comment leavers for your goodwill and general loveliness. That's all for tonight.
Back soon,

Jean x

AS PROMISED WE NOW HAVE A FABRIC PANELS WINNER - YAY!....

In my last post we showed you some blog candy we had put together, and asked for comments, ready to pick a candy winner. When asked to pick a number between 1 and 31 (comments) my son picked out number 11, and it seems the name linked with that comment is Pat.  Therefore Pat wins all six of the printed fabric panels, plus the shopping bag 'blank' to decorate. Could you now forward your full name and address to us please Pat at: info@craftyindividuals.co.uk, and we will send off the package. Well done you, and do show us what you do with your crafty winnings please - no pressure then, ha ha. 

On another note hopefully you all received our newsletter today full of lovely images of makes made with the new fabric panels, as well as the two new festive stamps.  So to accompany this brief blog post here are another couple of images of makes with the new products...

Another cushion by me.  I really loved making these cushions....

Plus another stunning card by Flo...

Bye for now,
Back soon,
Jean x

FOREVER IN FABRIC, PLUS A CHANCE TO WIN SOME BLOG CANDY.....

You may have recently seen our brand new products - printed fabric panels!!  We have taken the images of some of our most favourite stamps, ones that are perfect to colour in many different ways, and had them printed beautifully and permanently onto silk cotton fabric.  We love them and it seems you do too.  Here are the panels printed in three's.....

They colour very nicely with an assortment of materials.  I have had great results with the Koh-i- Noor, Anilinky, Intense Watercolours, but you can also use fabric paints of course, metallic fabric paints, acrylic paints and more.  They look great in the centre of a cushion, on a bag, on an apron, as a bookcover, so give them a go and see what you can make.

Monty loves sitting on the panels, whilst I am trying to cut them out, what a helpful doggy he is - not, lol!

He's such a cutie though - how can you possibly tell him off!

Here are just a few of the makes created so far with them.  Lots more to show you soon....

A lavender bag by Flo, so pretty....

Also by Flo is this adorable duck bag in denim, with a duck pocket on the front and a nice long over the shoulder handle...

... and this is the front image of another bag Flo made, nice and bright and very pretty....

Finally two items by Helen Chilton.  Firstly the centre piece on a beautiful cushion, which we will photograph in it's entirety soon....

.... and here is a small bag looking lovely wearing the 'Tea at Three' bird and some lovely lace...

If you would like to win for yourself all six images as printed on fabric, pictured at the top of this page, plus a bag to decorate, then please leave a comment as soon as you can, and we will pick a winner on Wednesday.  Good luck all.

Back soon,
lots more to show you,
Jean x

SMALL YET PERFECTLY FORMED JOURNALS...

In the middle of tv preparations for Monday, and a very early start.  We will be on our merry way to Peterborough at 5.15am - aaaagh.  The products are up now on the TV Schedule (12 and 4pm) - https://www.hochanda.com/TvSchedule#031218 - exciting, and we are raring to go.  At least we will be by the time I've packed the makes, demo boxes, meals, coffee and suchlike.  Many of the makes are much bigger than usual, and an absolute feast for the eyes!  Please don't miss!

Now my small but perfectly formed images for this evening begin with this teeny tiny little tickets junk journal by Helen Chilton.  All held together by a large paperclip.  Which reminds me you will see another use for a large, very pretty paperclip on Monday too. 
Helen's mini journal cover ......

Followed by the pages inside...

Very cute!

Sandra also made an adorable little shabby chic journal recently.....

.....Filled with CI stamps, images and more.  I also had another beauty of a mini journal to show you by Flo, but that's going in an issue of Creative Stamping soon, which will also have some of our stamps gifted with it too - certainly one to look out for!  Which reminds me we also have projects in the new issue of Craft Stamper as well I believe, although I haven't seen a copy yet.

I also started a new junk journal a few weeks ago, which was the main theme for our weekend of Art, Stamp and Play.  Still lots of pages to fill inside, but here are a sample of the beginnings.....

Keep a lookout because you will also see this journal in it's entirety on Hochanda on Monday too.  All will be revealed soon.  I do so love the latest A4 background papers used in this, I'm even making rather lovely Christmas cards using them as well.

Will you be watching?  Do leave a comment, we love reading your comments!

Back soon,

Jean x

FABULOUS NEWNESS FROM CI COMING TO HOCHANDA SOON, AND BEAUTIFUL MAKES...

I do hope you can join us for our next Hochanda shows on Monday, 3rd December at 12pm and 4pm. We are very, very, very excited about them and our delightful brand new products that are being released for the first time, and some lovely new stamps will be appearing too!!

Myself and lovely Lesley (Chocolate Baroque) will be demoing and showing you how easy and rewarding it is to play with all the good stuff you will see on there.  The makes from our clever teamies have started arriving and we are stunned and amazed by their continuing creativity and the love and care they have put into crafting with all the products.  What a joy it has been to open the packages, thank you so much ladies.  Lesley will also be on tv with her own CB products the following day, another couple of shows that shouldn't be missed.

As usual I do also have some other cool crafty stuff to share tonight as well from Helen and Flo.  The following makes all appeared on our last tv shows and here they are in close-up detail...

These by Helen - a clipboard full of travel tickets, images and other delights..

Helen has used our latest A4 background papers, plus CI-239 and lots more on the clipboard.

Plus three great cards, also by Helen....

..... featuring tags and more from CI-427, CI-428 and CI-469.

Flo made a couple of really cool junk journals for the last lot of shows, and here is a little taster of some of the inside pages....

Again there are the A4 background papers featuring here as well as tickets and tags and CI stamps.

I thought I would end with a couple of photos taken by Malcolm recently, showing the lovely colours of Autumn this year.  They were taken in our local park where we walk Monty.  One day the trees were covered in this fabulous curtain of colour, and after winds during the night the next day the leaves had all gone.

Thank you for your company today.

Back soon,
Jean x