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Do you fancy a bit of a bargain?

Starting on Saturday 31st August through to the evening of Monday 2nd Sept there's a fantastic 50% off sale at Funky Hand.  Yes, that's right - EVERYTHING on the website, that is in stock, will be 50% off during that time period.

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Heavy metal

It's Friday again and that means Daring Cardmakers Day.  This time it's Svenja's turn and she says:

  "I’d like you to go for some

  Heavy Metal

Use metal in any way, metallic cardstock, metallic paints, tinfoil, wire… whatever! I’m looking forward to seeing what you come up with."

I was a bit of a Last-Minute-Minnie again - the BFoP (Bad Fairy of Procrastination) was responsible, it wasn't my fault.

In my defence I was playing with ideas in my head, but just hadn't actuall started making anything.  In the end it all came together without too many hiccups and I'm actually quite pleased with the end result for once!
I bought a roll of metal foil - I think it might be by Spellbinders, a couple of years ago and haven't used it - mainly because it's such a horrible, brash shade of gold.  Anyway I dug it out again and decided to force it into submission
My lovely DCM Teamie Sharon is now selling SU stuff and I ordered a few punches which arrived on Wednesday so it was only right and proper that one of them got roped in to help with this card.

Flower made, metal panel cut, embossed and inked to a lovely coppery colour, the only real problem was finding the right background.  Plain card didn't look right and nor did any of the papers I put behind the metal piece.  Then I remembered the pile of background pieces I made a few weeks back for the Paint Effects Challenge.  One of them had warm coral and copper shades along with some turquoise ones and if I just pulled them together with some matching turquoise ribbon then all would be good. There's more about how I made this very dimensional background HERE

A couple of months ago I was bemoaning the fact that I hadn't updated my collection of embossing folders probably for years.  Well, all that has changed rather suddenly with the arrival of my huge and wonderful Design Team starter box of goodies  from Crafters Companion!  I now have a fab set of 6x6, 8x8 and A4 folders in lots of gorgeous designs.  I managed to squeeze 2 onto this card :).  Well, if you've got it, flaunt it!

Materials;

15cm sq smooth white card blank

Coredinations card (flower) 2x Bazzill card (flourish)

Gold coloured metal foil, 

Versamagic Ink, Cats Eye Ink pads, Fresco Finish paints, Texture paste

Turquoise satin ribbon, turquoise gems

HomeMade Sticker sentiment

Tools;

Embossing Folders: "Swirl Corner", "Floral Frenzy" 6x6  Embossalicious by Crafters Companion

Punch: Blossom by SU

Dies: Spellbinders Labels 11, DieNamics Fancy Flourish  

Jus-Cutz A4 die cutting and embossing machine

To make the foil panel I first added a layer of ink, then ran it through the machine in the Floral Frenzy embossing folder. Next I cut the shape with the Labels 11 die. I left it in the die while I inked it again (stops me being too heavy-handed and squashing the fancy pattern ), After removing the shape from the die I went around the edges with more ink.

There's a great sense of satisfaction when you get to use such a lot of new stash on one project - and even manage to use up a bit of the "bits" pile too.  Or maybe that's just me - anyway, I had fun with this and I love the way everything worked out.....which is also a very satisfying feeling.  I should quite while I'm ahead, but I have a rather long to-do list so can't just sit on my self-satisfied botty any longer!

Do please head over to see the metallic marvels on the Daring Cardmakers Blog - they are sure to inspire!  

Thanks for visiting today, I hope you'll take a minute to leave a message ;)

Beach Notes

I'm not having a great time with photography just now.
I sent a batch of samples off to Crafters Companion ahead of a Create and Craft show they are doing soon - only remembering after they went in the postbox that I hadn't taken a single photo of them.   This on top of taking photos of something I made and sent at the weekend where, though I did remember to take photos - I didn't check what they were like....and of course the camera settings were all wrong and the photos looked as though they'd been taken in a dark cupboard. 
At least I could do something about that - even though it's taken ages fiddling about with the tools in Paint Shop Pro.
Anyway.  Remember the rejected card I made for Friday's daring Cardmakaers challenge?  Well, I've pulled it to bits and used some of the little icons to decorate a notebook and make a little gift card to go with it.

 Materials and Tool:

Notebook from Paperchase

patterned papers; Funky Hand (from my scraps pile)

Plain card; Coredinations and Bazzill

Blue and green dewdrops, Pink, yellow and Clear dewdrops

Flip-flops pewter charm, Ribbon,Stickles and Ice Stickles

Black Gel pen

Craft Robo to cut all motifs except the tiny bunting which is hand cut

 
I know the photo is a bit rubbish, but it's a whole lot better than the original version!

I quite like the way the notebook turned out so I'm pleased I didn't throw that card straight into the bin. 
That's all for now. thanks for visiting

Beaches and Cream

Well, just the "Beaches" bit actually, but I just thought of the pun and couldn't resist using it for a titla.
It's my turn to set the challenge for The Daring Cardmakers this week

   Life's a Beach!
I'm hoping that you'll be just as inspired by my challenge - we're staying at the seaside for another week, but this time, instead of working with seaside hues I'd really like your cards to feature some Beach Paraphernalia; deckchairs, parasols, swimwear, flip-flops, buckets and spades, surfboards and sun-cream....the list of possibilities goes on, and on...

Our fabulous design team have really come up trumps this week with a host of wonderful beach-inspired cards to share on our BLOG
We'll soon be celebrating the end of a full seven years of dare-setting and you'd think that by now I'd have learned to have a card mapped out at least in my head BEFORE I announce the challenge, wouldn't you?
So once again I struggled with my own challenge - and it wasn't helped as day by day the other girls shared their wonderful creations with the rest of us!
The card I finally made didn't look much like the layout in my head - but I'll save that idea and hope to make it work another time.  I really wasn't happy with my card but didn't think I had time to do anything else so it would have to do. 
Then I thought "No, it won't do" and grabbed a few pieces of card, switched the Craft Robo back on and started cutting again.  I will share the first card in a minute, but I'm pleased I had another go as I like this card much better, even though it's much simpler and missing some of the elements I spent hours making for the first one!

Materials and Tools:

Scraps of card in various colours

Ric-rac braid, Gel Pen

Craft Robo

It did give me a chance to use some new beach-hut templates I'd been making (you didn't think I'd manage a seaside card without one, did you? haha). The little yacht is a template I made a while back and is oooo cute!
This reminds me of some of the pictures and ornaments you can buy in the nicer gift boutiques and  RNLI shops in coastal towns and villages.  I love all that stuff and the house would be full of even more beach huts and seaside inspired nicnacs if I wasn't reined in!

All the little shapes for the flag bunting were hand-cut, but Mr Robo did the rest of the cutting

So, do you want to see my first attempt?  I made so many new templates to use on this - making the templates doestake a while, so it probably took most of Wednesday just to do that bit.
The LO is nothing like I had in my mind's eye.  I think I started from the wrong end by making all the little "icons" - I should have sorted out the placement of the tiles first, then made the pictures to fit.
You live and learn, don't you?

Materials and Tools:

Scraps of plain and patterned card from the pile on my desk!

Teal card is by Coredinations, Backing paper 6x6 "Clippings" from Basic Grey

Flip-flops pewter charm, Scraps of yellow and red narrow ribbon, 

Black Gel Pen, Decal sticker sentiment

Craft Robo: Beach Hut, Yacht, Surf Boards, Beach Ball, 

Bucket and Spade, Sandcastle

Tiny flags for bunting are hand-cut

That's it for today, thanks for visiting - please don't forget to pop over to the DCM BLOG to see this week's amazing range of cards.

Heffalump 2

So. today it's my turn to try and inspire people to get crafty with Funky Hand via our BLOG and I've been playing with left-overs again!

As I've mentioned on here last week it was our wedding anniversary a couple of weeks back and I had a little stack of "I Love You Sew" leftovers from making OH's card I wanted to see if I could use up.

Last time I showed the first of the elephant cards I ended up making, you can see that post HERE,  so here's the second;

 

Materials and Tools

All papers:   "I Love You Sew"download from Funky Hand

Elephant Image from  Colour Me Happy CD also Funky Hand
Black Bazzill card. Pink Twine, Black gem
Tiny heart punch

I thought I'd just show where the actual elephants went before I go - they formed a border for the inside of my card - they were cut out using my Craft Robo, but the same idea would work for the "holes" left after cutting out a punchie shape

That's it for this time, thanks for popping by :) It would be fab if you'd head over and leave a message HERE if you've time

Happy Crafting

Sea Shades

Gez's challenge this week on The Daring Cardmakers is simple - and perfect for this time of year. 

The Colours of the Sea

Any sort of card - not necessarily seaside-themed, but making use of those gorgeous sea colours; aqua, blue, green and all the shades in between.

I'm having one of those times when actually making anything is like getting blood out of a stone - and here was Gez, offering me the chance to use my favourite colours and still my creativity wasn't stirred.  Not good.
My one idea was to make a mosaic background and I wanted to use diamond or hexagon shape - but an unexpected extra OH-working-at-home day meant no Craft Robo yesterday and I don't have any dies in the shapes I wanted.  Hey ho at least I have the Neties scalloped squares, they'll have to do

The card I used for the background was made with various inks swooshed around with a baby wipe.  I made a couple of pieces, one lighter than the other, then sprayed over the lot with some of my new Crafters Companion "Spray and Sparkle " silver shade - I love this stuff - it gives quite a subtle sheen to the card and an extra glint to whatever is underneath = nicer than that dull look you sometimes get when you play with ink

I saved some of the lighter card for the upper section, then cut the squares from different parts of the rest, turning the die randomly as I didn't wnat the "stripes" going all the same way.

Materials and Tools

14cm smooth white card blank, A4 of the smae card for inking

Various inks applied with a baby wipe

 Crafters Companion "Spray and Sparkle " (silver)

Turquoise Seam Binding, Dew Drops in sea colours

Decal sticker sentiment (home-made)

Spellbinders scalloped squares die-set Fancy shape from Lace Doily Motifs set

Memory Box Rosette die - cut down to about 3c,s wide

It may have taken most of the day, and meant getting out and rejecting most of my stash but I got there in the end.  Please please let my crafty mojo come back soon

Do visit The Daring Cardmakers Blog to see some gorgeous sea shade inspiration from our fab design team

That's all for this time - please leave a comment :)

Heffalump Scraps

Well it was our wedding anniversary a couple of weeks ago and after I'd made a card to give to Hubby, I was left with a small pile of scraps from the Funky Hand  "I Love You Sew" designs I'd printed to use on his card.
Although they were small pieces, I still wanted to use them up, so this is the first of a couple of mini cards I managed to make without resorting to printing anything else. 
This is a 10cms square card, so you'll see that the pieces I've used are quite small

Remember the line from The Feeling's song "Fill My Little World" that goes "All I wanted was some evidence that you really loved me"?  Well OH always changes evidence to elephants, so it's become a sort of tradition that there'll usually be an elephant or two somewhere on the cards I make for him,  In this case the elephants were on the inside and I cut them on my Craft Robo using  Funky Hand image from the Colour Me Happy CD - I've used the elephant shaped hole I was left with to make this card!

Materials and Tools

All papers:   "I Love You Sew"download from Funky Hand

Elephant Image from  Colour Me Happy CD also Funky Hand

Black gel pen, 2cm circle punch, tiny heart punch, 

Tiny black square gems (Prima)

I hope you like this cute little chap, because he'll be back, wearing another "suit" next week sometime!
Thanks for looking

Splodging

The August LO on The Sketch File is called "Splodge Away!" because the main part of the sketch looks a bit like cloud shaped ink splodges.  What you use the "spoldges" for is up to you.  For my first project using this sketch I made them hot air balloons.

The main reason for this was that while I was flicking through my newest paper pads I spotted this lovely design with a couple of balloons in the left hand corner and thought "hmmm two down, three splodges to go!" haha

The other 3 balloons were cut using my Craft Robo. The balloons are slightly curved then adhered with 3D glue.   I wove a paper strip through some fairly random slits cut along the lower edge of the card and added some toning dark brown paper strips and some yellow and white Baker's Twine. 

LO from The Sketch File

Tools and Materials

Papers: MME 6x6 Sky's the Limit "Find Your Wings and Fly"

Brown paper from another paper pad

Yellow and White Baker's Twine

Decal Sentiment

Please visit The Sketch File to see this week's and last week's ideas from our DT - we'd love you to play along with us.
Thanks for visiting today

The Sweetest Things

 We've just returned from a little holiday to celebrate our 20th Wedding Anniversary.  We had a couple of nights in Hereford, followed by a week in Shropshire.  I've wanted to go to Hereford for ages, because that's where the amazing Mappa Mundi is kept.  It didn't disappoint - what an amazing thing it is, you could spend weeks looking at it and still find new things you'd not noticed before.  It's so interesting to see how Medieval scholars "saw" the world, and how they interpreted the things they'd been told.  The fascinating thing from a crafter's point of view are the little drawings of buildings and animals, both real and mythological - today you can find loads of stamps, digital images and other things that look so similar to those drawn hundreds of years ago.  If you go to the link, then click on the images to the side of the text you'll see what I mean.
In Shropshire we stayed just outside  Much Wenlock - hope of the modern Olympic Games - they were doing it here well before de Coubertin cottoned on to the concept - in fact, that's where he got the idea from.
Anyway - it's a brilliant place to stay with so much to see and do within about 30 minutes drive - we didn't actually manage to fit everything on our to-do list in to the week.  No doubt I'll bore you rigid with photos over the next lottle while :)

Now though, I have a question; why is it so hard to get back into crafting when you've had a break?

Zuzana set a lovely challenge  for The Daring Cardmakers this week but I still struggled to come up with anything until the last minute - and even then I'm not particularly happy with either of the attempts I made.  hey ho.

This week it's Zuzana here with a Sweet Things challenge:

We are invited to our dearest friend's wedding, so I 

came up with the idea to create cards with something 

sweet on. 

It can be wedding cake, cupcake, lolly, sweetie, ice cream... 
everything sweet and eatable.

Zuzana found a fabulous inspiration photo to go with her challenge - it's had us all licking our lips all week - I'll share that in a minute.

My plan was to make a card with cup-cakes and ice creams on it, but when I started assembling the bits I couldn't figure out a layout - so I just used the ice cream cones to make this one

 I ended up hand-cutting some lollies to "bulk" it out a bit.  I think the background looks a bit too busy and swamps the focus things, but I couldn't think how to put it right :(

Tools and Materials

Patterned papers; from "Wishes and Kisses" Funky Hand CD

Plains are all Bazzill card

White lace, Pink and Blue narrow ribbon, Pink Baker's Twine, Glamour Dust glitter, Tiny seed beads

EK Success Border Punch

Craft Robo for cones, Lollies are hand-cut

 So, as I was left with some cut and assembled cupcakes I thought I may as well use them up and make something else - in the hope it would turn out better, really, vut I'm not sure it did :(

Tools and Materials

Patterned papers; from "Wishes and Kisses" Funky Hand CD

Plains are all Bazzill card

Glamour Dust glitter, Heart button. Tiny ribbon bow

Tiny bunting is all hand-cut

Craft Robo for cup-cakes

Here's a peek at Zuz's inspiration photo:

 
 So there you go, 2 cards made and neither quite as I saw them in my head.  I need to get my mojo back as I have just this morning taken delivery of a giant box of goodies for a new and rather exciting development....I'll spill those beans later, I promise! 

That's it for now though.  Please head over to the Daring Cardmakers blog where you will find an array of tasty treats from our fab design team.

Thanks for visiting today

So Citrus

Our newest DT member Svenja has chosen the August colour palette for us over on the Daring Cardmakers this week.  It's a sharp and tangy palette of Lime, Lemon, Orange, Pink Grapefruit and a dash of White - just perfect for summertime!  Sorry if you're in a part of the world that's  currently in the depths of Winter....


Here's my card

Materials and Tools

Direct to paper Inking for the background

Papers: mix of designs from "Glad Rags" and "Barbadian Ecstasy" both from

 Funky Hand "Colour Me Happy" CD 

 Bakers Twine in orange and white

Small Black gems

Embossing Folder; Distressed Stripes (Cuttlebug)

PC generated sentiment

The bunting, flower shapes and the banner are all hand cut

Our clever Svenja has even arranged and taken the inspiration photo herself

 I really enjoyed using these colours - they aren't ones I use very often so it made a refreshing change - oh dear, I can never resist the chance of a pun, however small and however poor!

Please pop over to the DCM BLOG and see what other zingy creations the team have come up with this week.
Thanks for visiting today, it would be fab if you'd leave a comment

Lots of Dots

A couple of weeks ago Leo issued a "Paint Effects" challenge to us on the Daring Cardmakers.  I spent most of a day playing with paints and inks, trying to come up with something I liked and could use for my card.  In the end I shared one with a background made from acrylic paint mixed with Texture Paste and squidged into a die-cut stencil.  I made a few background this way and most are still in the "to be dealt with" pile
The other paint effects rechnique I tried out was one I found on Pinterest - it was in a "good to do with little kids" category, so I reckoned it might be something that even I could have a go at!

 I had a couple of goes with this technique and have to say I had a lovely time just painting with dots!  All you do is use a cotton bud dipped in paint or ink and gently "print" the dots all over the card, or maybe add the dots in a simple pattern - for a tree, or a heart etc
I made a paint palette from an empty hay-fever  pills strip (neat, eh?) for all the ink and paint colours I used here - it meant I didn't waste loads of paint and ink when you need so little to cover a big space.
I cut an aperture in the dotty card and added a frame, then placed it over a piece of card with the quotation printed on it 
The "crayons" are made from rolled coloured card and  the bunting hand-cut from the same colours

I've got something else made with the same technique in that "to be dealt with" pile, so hopefully I'll get that ready to share sometime soon

Thanks for popping by, hope you'll have a go at this technique - I'd love to know if you do and see what you make

Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny

I'm sharing another of the projects I've made with Funky Hand's lovely Season-themed wedding collections.  They may have "wedding" in the title, but don't let that put you off as these paper sets are wonderfully useful for sooooo many occasions.

Today it's a tiny little triangular box made with the "Autumn Wedding" collection 

Materials and Tools

All papers: Funky Hand Autumn Wedding collection 
printed onto Bazzill white card.

Ribbon

MFT Die'Namics Nested Hearts die set
Border created with Craft Robo

I found the tutorial for this box on Splitcoast Stampers - I don't have the direct link, but if you search for Triangular Box, I think you'll find it.  I used an 8" square rather than the 6* they used (if I remember rightly) and it still turned out tiny - I think you'd maybe get one nice chocolate inside this one!

That's it for this time, thanks for popping by :)

Creature Comforts

Nat is dog-sitting at the moment, and inspired by that, her challenge for the Daring Cardmakers this week is to add something pet-related to our cards

Its no secret that cats are not my favourite creature and I really don't "get" why people like them.  However, this was too good an opportunity to miss for giving a sneak peek of some new Digital Image downloads coming soon to the Funky Hand website.

This is Kendrick Cat - I'm told he's a fat, lazy and rather disgruntled animal - you'd never have thought that from the pictures, would you......, 
My card uses two of the first images to feature him.
I've resized and pasted the images on to a new document to make a border design for my card. With the digital work done, all I had to do was print the panel to the correct size for my card and mat it onto some bland and white cardstock . 
I printed the sentiment (borrowed from Rhe Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy) directly onto a DL card, added some ribbon and a little bell, the Kendrick panel and it was all done.

Materials and Tools

2x Kendrick images (coming soon) from Funky Hand

Black and white card for matting

Spotty satin ribbon, small silver bell

PC generated sentiment

There are some fun cards to see over on Daring Cardmakers BLOG  and we're hoping you'll join in and make a card featuring something pet related.

So that's it for this time, not much waffle for once, eh?
Thanks for looking in, please come back soon 

Fun(ky) in the Sun

I thought I'd share a postcard I made for a swap today,  The idea is that all postcards are sent "naked" - as in, no envelopes - a bit "shock horror" for anyone who loves adding dimensional stuff, or bits that are only partially adhered and meant to stick up and out from the card -  like I do with flowers etc., but it all adds to the challenge, eh? 

Our theme this time was "Summer" and tbh there was no real doubt as to what I'd be putting on my card hehe

It had to be Beach Huts!  

I knew exactly which papers I'd be using too!

 

The two Funky Hand downloads Rainbow Stripes and Rainbow Polka Dots are absolutely the ticket for a bright, Summery, Sunshiney scene like this.  Making the beach huts was a great way to show off how they can be "tweaked" to change the printing size and get bigger (or smaller) versions of the spots and stripes - this is my favourite "thing" about Funky Hand downloads!  My second favourite is being able to print them on different mediums (or should that be media?) 

Materials and Tools

Papers: Funky Hand  Rainbow Stripes and Rainbow Polka Dots collections
printed onto Bazzill white card.

Background created with various Paints and Inks, Ice Stickles, White gel pen, Glossy Accents
Plain card in matching colours for matting the Beach Huts

Beach Huts and "Just Beachy" sentiment cut with Craft Robo
Circle Punches for Parasol and beach ball, Surf board, and other bits are hand cut

That's it for this time, Don't forget to visit the Funky Hand website and blog for lots more ideas and inspiration and great value stash of course!
thanks for popping by :)

Learnng to Love my Scraps!

It's my turn to do the Funky Hand Weekend Inspiration slot this week, and here's what I'm sharing over there

I know I keep banging on about how fab it is to be able to crop and resize Funky Hand papers, but it's true - it may seem daunting at first but it's worth getting to grips with your graphics package and your printer settings because you will soon be customising your Funky stash and really making the most of it all.
As I've been using Bazzill card to do a lot of my printing on recently I'm thinking much more carefully about what I print, and trying to get the best from each sheet.  I'm much less likely to throw the unused bits away once the pile gets a bit high, and much more likely to see what I can make using those offcuts.

So today I'm sharing one of my "Scrappy Cards" - it's actually a lot of fun working out how to make the smallest pieces of paper turn into something pretty - and often I find I like these creations the best.  I really like this card and I hope you do too.

Pop over to the Funky BLOG for more info about how I made this card using scraps of the Funky Hand Winter Wedding collection left over after making the heart shaped box I showed HERE, plus a few bits from my stash.  

Thanks for visiting, please leave a message....and can I be greedy and ask you to leave one over on the Funky Blog too ;)

Have a great weekend

Paint Effect Playtime

Another Fan-tastic Friday (Fan, because it's my constant companion atm, hehe), another Daring Cardmakers Day:

This week it's Leo here and I'd like you to have a go creating:

Paint Effects

I've recently been looking through all the new product catalogues and sneak peeks and seen lots of watercolour and other paint effect looks out there so I'd like you to take inspiration from that but rather than use ready made products I want to see you having a go at using an actual paint effect or painting technique on your card if you can. Use any kind of paint or ink you want or even brush markers, just to get the look of paint.

First I had a look around for some ideas, then got out my Fresco Finish paints (all 5 of them - must buy more...they are lush) and spent a fun afternoon having a bash at some of the ideas I saw. 
The first few ideas were total disasters - mainly because I didn't have the right stuff to do them and had to improvise.  Sometimes improvising gets great reults, other times it's just a bin-filling exercise - as it was on Wednesday.

So, next I went back to using some die cuts as stencils, this is something I've done a bit of lately, and yes, boring to do the same again, but my confidence was waning!  To make it a bit different though, I dug out the texture paste (like the Fresco paints, I bought this on the suggestion of Arch-Enabler Slightly Wonky Crafts Kaz.) - it was actually bought for a project I'm yet to make a proper start at.
Anyways, I mixed a bit of paint in with the paste and squidged in with my finger into the gaps of the "stencils".  This was lovely, gooey, messy fun and whiled away a happy hour - and the results made me feel a lot better.  I've used one of the bumpy, stencilled pieces to make the background for my card.  I painted the card in a lighter shade before using the paste-paint mix

Here's a close up which I hope shows just how bumpy the stencilled sections are - click for a bigger image-loser look

  Materials and Tools

Paints: Fresco Finish (PaperArtsy) Beach Hut, Mermaid

Heavy Carvable  Texture Paste (Galeria)

Smooth White card, Purple card x 2 (Bazzill)

Purple gems and pearls (stash), Purple ribbon with multi-coloured dots (stash)

Butterfly die used for stencil and to cut the 3 layered butterfly (Memory Box)

I now have a little batch of textured backgrounds so hopefully I'll actually use some in the next few weeks.  I also tried another technique which I loved - plus, it was dead easy!  I'll save that for another post though ;)

If you head over to the Daring Cardmakers BLOG you will find lots of fab ways to use your paints and inks  - you'll need to click on the links for the DT members' blogs to get the lowdown on how they were all created.  I know I'm going to be doing that because it's always good to learn new techniques, tips and tricks

Thanks for visiting today