In The Pink!

Oh my goodness!!!  The weeks are just flying by and we are nearly at the end of June which of course means that this coming weekend is The Craft Barn's Extravaganza!!!  I have been busy beavering away in preparation for this which is why I've been so quiet!!  I've managed to get a few sample cards done but still have some more to do.  I just LOVE this event as there is always such a lovely buzz around the place.  For those of you who are able to make it, please do come and say 'hello' - I shall be in the Day Centre which is the little room, around the back of the Community Centre.  I'll be demonstrating with some of the Gorjuss Girl stamps and Copic markers.

Talking of Gorjuss Girl stamps, today I have a Gorjuss Girl card to share with you featuring Daisy.

Other products used:
Hobby Art CS023D Anna's Collection/Just For You
Black Memento inkpad
White pigment inkpad and White Detail embossing powder
Magnolia 12x12 Bumble Bee paper
Memory Box - Madera Corner
Magnolia die - Doily Flowers
Nestabilities - Grand Labels One and Labels Seventeen
Martha Stewart punches - Monarch Butterfly and Hydrangea

All available from The Glitter Pot.

Copic Colours
Skin - E000, E00, E02, R20
Hair - E50, E53, E35, E57
Flowers - Y02, YR23, B000
Clothes - RV0000, R81, R83, R85, C1, C3, W1, W3, W5
Background - W1, W3, W5, BG90, BG93, RV0000, RV000, R81, 0 blender

I am soooooooooo in love with my Grand Calibur at the moment!!  It cuts all the Memory Box dies so cleanly without the need for any shims whatsoever. (I can't stop using it or buying Memory Box dies - LOL!!!)  Talking of dies as I used quite a few on this card I'd like to enter this into the current Allsorts challenge which is Any Die Will Do.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope to see some of you soon!!

Delightful Daisy

Helloooooooooooooo!!  Did you all have a good Jubliee Weekend?

First of all I must say thank you to all of you who came and stopped by my table last weekend - it was soooooooooooo lovely to see you all :)  Thankfully I had managed to finish all my cards and here is one of them -

For this card I used the Gorjuss Girl clear stamp set called Daisy which was coloured using Copics. The background paper is Magnolia (Pink Magic Bubbles) which I stamped and embossed using a white pigment inkpad and white detail  embossing powder using different stamps from the Hobby Art Just For You clear stamp set. 

Here's a closer look at Daisy for you.

The markers I used are as follows -

Skin E000, E00 E02, R20                                         

Hair C1, C7, C9

Flowers – Y21, YG23

Clothes – BG90, BG93, BG96, C1, C7, C9, Y21, W1, W3

Background – W1, W3, W5, BG90, G40, G82

Other products used and are available from The Glitter Pot are -

Nestabilities  - Labels Ten

Magnolia Die – DH004Leaf and Swirl

Martha Stewart – Deep Edger Punch/Floral Vine and Monarch Butterfly

Ribbon and self-adhesive pearls and crystals

Stardust and Tiara glitter glue

On Wednesday I popped out to The Craft Barn to pick up my products to use for their Extravaganza Weekend and you'll never guess what stamps I am using .............................................................................................................  GORJUSS GIRLS!!!!!  LOL!!!  They are different images to what I was using at The Glitter Pot though :)  

It looks as if there will be lots of Gorjuss Girl cards appearing here for a little while ;)

Just Gorjuss!!

Morning everyone.  So sorry that I haven't been round visiting you all.  I spent over a week trying to sort out my new craft room and then had to abandon it in order to begin on my sample cards for The Glitter Pot's Summer Spectacular which is this weekend.  Am now in 'major panic' mode as so far I haven't got my cards finished!!  I'll try and visit you all next week!!

Meanwhile here are a couple of peeks as to what I'll be up to this weekend.

Hopefully by Saturday they will have made it onto some cards - eeeeekkkkkkk!!!

I think that I am right in saying that there are 8 demonstrators for the weekend so there will be plenty to see.  If any of you make it, please do stop by my table and say 'Hi!'.

Toodles.....................................................(things to do!!!!)

Spring Flowers

Hi everyone.  So sorry that I've been quiet for a couple of weeks.  I've been trying to sort out my new craft room!!  What a mammoth task that has turned out to be but will be so worth it once it's completed.  When it is all spick and span I'll take some photos so that you can picture me beavering away in my new surroundings!!!

Meanwhile I haven't been creating anything but I thought I'd share a couple of cards that I made a couple of years ago for one of my demos for Stamp Addicts using the DeNami Spring Flowers stamp.  For the white background I used a Cuttlebug embossing folder and the black strip of card was stamped with a white inkpad using another favourite DeNami stamp of mine!!

Just love this flower stamp as it is so whimsical and best of all so quick to colour!!

Here's another card using that same Spring Flowers stamp.

In both cases the flowers were coloured using Polycolor Pencils (sold by Stamp Addicts).

Relaxing!!

Hi everyone.  My sincere thanks for all your kind comments regarding my last post.

Today I'm sharing a card that I made for my recent demo at The Craft Barn using the Artemio clear stamp set called Sleep.  This mouse is definitely my kind of girl!!

I used a Grand Nestabilities die to make my main card and a smaller Nestabilities die for my mouse panel.  The paper came from a First Edition 6x6 paper pad called Daydream and of course I coloured Lily (the mouse) with Copic markers. Talking of Copics I keep meaning to mention that I have provided a link at the top of my sidebar that will open a PDF document for a blank 2012 Copic Colour Chart.  This is so you can dowload it to your computer, print it out and then fill it in with your own Copic markers, which not only gives you a true representation of the colours of markers you own but also allows you to see what markers you may need to buy in the future!  I use mine all the time and find it so useful.

Here's a closer look at that mouse panel for you.

All materials came from The Craft Barn.

So it has been a couple of weeks and I'm now proud to announce that I have carpet in my new craft room!! 

It's starting to look like a proper room now!!

Cupboards are currently being built along the lilac wall and then I will just need to shift all my stuff that is currently downstairs all covered up to protect it from the dust.

See what I mean????

And there's more behind those clear boxes!!

And then there's the other side of the room!!!!!!!!

Oh dear!!!!!  Do you ever get the feeling that I have too much stuff as all of these boxes are full to overflowing?????

R.I.P.

Hi everyone.  Just a quick post from me this time around.

This week I am off to a funeral as a very close friend of mine died just before Easter.  This is the card that I made to send to his family.  The background papers were from my stash - I think that the white one was an old Doodlebug paper and I believe the black one was an old Bo Bunny design.

The flowers are a Penny Black stamp that I coloured using brush markers, then spritzed with water before stamping several times onto the white panel.  The wording is from a Francoise Read clear wording set.

No progress to report yet on my craft room as the carpet man cancelled :(

Time For Tea...

Morning everyone.  Thanks so much for your kind comments on my last post.  It was so nice to hear from you all!!!  Please bear with me - I still can't spend very long at the computer but hope to visit all your blogs soon :)

Today I thought I'd share one of the cards that I made for my demo at The Craft Barn on Saturday.  This mice is just soooooooo sweet.  Infact all the mice are from this particular stamp sheet by Artemio.  The papers are from the Daydream First Edition paper pad and the die-cut label is Nestabilities Seventeen.  I didn't have any appropriate wording for this stamp so I handwrote 'Time for tea...'

Here's a closer look at the cute little mouse which of course I coloured using Copics.

Mouse - W7, W5, W3 and W1 Warm Greys
              R20 and R000
Yellows - YR23, YR21 and YR000
Oranges - YR68, YR61 and YR000
Browns - E77, E71 and E70
Greens - YG67, YG63 and G20

 I've decided that you lot know me too well as you were spot on with lilac featuring in my new craft room!!  Brown will feature too in due course as that will be the colour of my worktop.  Here's what my craft room looks like at the moment -

Still a way to go before I can start to move all my stuff in but I'm REALLY looking forward to it!!

Anybody There???????

Helloooooooooooo!!  Is anybody there????  So sorry that I have been away for sooooooo long!!  I can't believe that it has been half a year since I have posted anything!!

Anyway I am back now to tell you that this Saturday (7th April) I will be demoing at The Craft Barn's Mini Fest using Copic Markers.  So if anyone fancies coming along and has any questions about using Copics I will do my best to help you.  I have a couple of more demonstrations booked in for this year as well. Details of which can be found here.

Here's a couple of sneaky peeks of what I will be doing on Saturday.

These cute little critters are taken from clear stamp sets by Artemio.  They are just soooooooooo sweet!!!

I haven't actually made them up into cards yet but once I have I will upload them for you to see in due course!!

Since moving house almost 4 years ago I have been waiting for a dedicated craft room and at long last it is in sight. One of the bedrooms is being converted into a craft room and is currently at the redecoration stage!!!!  Want to take a guess as to what colour it is being painted?????

Flowers and Swirls

Oh my!!  I can't believe that it is almost a month since I last posted anything!!  First up my sincere thanks to all of you who have sent me your best wishes - they are all truly appreciated.  I am REALLY sorry but at the moment I am struggling to sit for any length of time so just haven't been able to make it round to your blogs lately as the time I spend on the computer is so limited.  I hope you'll bear with me on this!!

Anyway talking of limited time I had better get on with showing you my card for today.  I realised this morning that I had never gotten around to showing you a card that I did actually manage to make this year for my Mum so thought I'd show you her Mother's Day card.

The papers used were by Prima and were from the Jack and Jill collection and the main image was stamped from my Daisy Daydreams stamp set (Aspects of Design No.38).  The swirls were die-cut using a Magnolia swirl die and the added flowers were numerous ones that I had got in my stash.  The Happy Mothers Day was a stamp that I cut into three pieces.

I coloured the main image using Copics and added a muted dotty background around the flowers using my lighter coloured Copics.

I then took a dark brown Copic and run it around all the edges of the die-cut swirls to help them stand out and also used my Copics to lightly stain some of the flowers to match the distressed look of the background papers.

This was a circle that I punched out from a piece of scrap Prima paper and then handwrote the words.

As this was a 'special' card for my Mum I went ahead and decorated the inside of it too using those same Prima papers and nestabilities dies.

Here's a closer look at the left hand panel. I used a LOTV sentiment for the wording and mounted it too a large yellow daisy to simulate the 'sunshine' sentiment.

And a closer look at the right hand panel before I went ahead and wrote in it.  I added some 'distressing' of my own to the nestabilities panel using distress inks to match the papers and a sponge to apply them with.

I hope you like it!!

I'd like to enter this into the Allsorts Week 120 Flowers and Swirls Challenge.

Nestabilities Storage

Oh my goodness I cannot believe that I haven't blogged for almost a month!!  Where does the time go??

My sincere thanks to those of you who keep asking how I am. The truth of the matter is that I am currently waiting to have an operation performed on my back.  Actually I say 'an' operation, it is infact two major operations in one go.  It seems that my back has got to the stage where it won't get better on its own and so I've agreed to have these operations done.  It will take me 3-6 months to recover from the operation itself so during this time I won't be demoing or tutoring at all and probably not even card making either as I won't be able to bend, twist, lift anything or infact do very much at all.  Originally I thought the operation would be happening this month but my surgeon is on leave and it won't be happening until around mid November.  I'm finding it very hard to sit for any length of time which is why I haven't been blogging very much.  However I do still have some things to show you that I made last year so when I feel up to it I will pop on and load up something for you!!

So without further ado here is one I made earlier - lol!!  As you can see I used my Bind It All on the side of this to hold the pages together which consist of magnetic sheets and plasma as this is one of my notebooks that hold some of my nestabilities.

The cute image is by StampAvie which I stamped with black Memento ink and coloured using Copics and then die-cut it with one of the nestabilites labels die.

I find the magnetic sheets so useful for holding the nestabilities in place.

The paper is from my stash that was from one of the collections by My Minds Eye.

StampAvie stamp, paper and copics from The Glitter Pot
Magnetic sheets from The Stamp Man
Bind It All from Stamp Addicts

I'd like to enter this into -
Allsorts Anything But A Card Challenge
Sir Stampalot Anything You Fancy Challenge

Summertime

Hi everyone.  I thought I'd amaze you all by not leaving it too long this time before showing you another card!!

This is one that I made a little while back using a cute stamp by Penny Black along with some swirls and wording from my Fancy Flourishes stamp sheet. Thought this would be quite an appropriate card to load up as the sunflowers are just beginning to come out now even with the distinct lack of sunshine that we've been having recently!!

The image was coloured using Copic markers, (What else - lol!!) and the background stamping was done using a Versamark inkpad and Crystal embossing powder.

Penny Black stamp and Prima flowers from The Glitter Pot.

Fancy Flourish stamp sheet from The Glitter Pot or The Stamp Man.

Don't forget that if you fancy picking up a bargain to check out The Craft Barn's half price Summer Sale!!

I'd like to enter this card into the Flower Power challenge at the Penny Black at Allsorts Challenge blog and also into the Allsorts Free and Easy Challenge Week 112.

Shaped Stepped Card

Hi everyone.  First of all I would just like to say thank you to everyone for your kind comments regarding my Copic Certification.  They were all very much appreciated!  (Also I know that some of you have been asking how I am now - I'll tell you all another time!!)

Without further ado here is the card that I've got to show you today which is one that I made earlier this year using some of the fabulous Molly Bloom stamps from Sir Stampalot.  I can't tell you how much I enjoyed working with these stamps!  As you can see I thought it would be nice to make something a little different with the stamps and decided to create a garden scene with dimension!

The girl (Molly), the stamped flowers, butterfly and bee are all from the Molly Bloom range, the fence and flower border are MS punches and the large blue die-cut flowers and swirls are Magnolia DooHickey dies.  The shaped panel at the back is a large Nestabilities die (Labels One) and the papers are from an old range by My Minds Eye.

Here's a closer look at the back panel for you. The stamped leaves around the flower panel are from a Leafy Swirl clear stamp set by Woodware that Francoise Read designed and the wording is from a Personal Impressions stamp set designed by Paula Pascual.  The shaping at the bottom of the panel is a MS edging punch called Topiary.  The small punched out flowers were done using the MS Hydrangea punch.

And here's a closer look at Molly for you.  All the colouring was achieved using Copic markers.  I hope you like it!!

Molly Bloom stamps from Sir Stampalot.
Copic markers and MS punches from The Glitter Pot or The Craft Barn.
Grand Nestabilities Labels One die and Magnolia DooHickey dies from The Glitter Pot.

And talking of The Glitter Pot and The Craft Barn they are both having a 50% of Summer Sale at the moment so you may want to check them out and see what bargains are to be had!!

I'd like to enter this card into the Allsorts Free and Easy July Challenge (Week 111) and the Sir Stampalot Anything Goes July Challenge.

A Summer Snooze

Hi everyone.  Sorry that I've been missing for so long but things here are a little challenging at present!!

Anyway today I thought I'd share another card with you that I made using that Penny Black Make A Wish clear stamp set.  (As I think a lot of you already know I just love this set and so I thought I'd enter this card into the Penny Black at Allsorts June Challenge.)

The background paper is by Basic Grey, the wording came from my Fancy Flourishes stamp sheet and the imagery was coloured with Copics.  And talking of  'Copics', I am now
Copic Certified!!!  Hurray!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here's a closer look at the main panel for you.

I also added some subtle sparkle to the dandelion heads using the Clear Spica pen. Hopefully you can see it a little clearer here!!

All products and materials used on this card came from The Glitter Pot.

Hope you like it!!

Having Fun?

Hi everyone.  First of all many thanks to those of you who left me such lovely comments on my last post - I truly appreciate each and every one of them so THANK YOU!!

Today I thought I'd share a card with you using one of my favourite clear stamp sets by Penny Black called Make A Wish.  There are quite a lot of stamps in this set and they all interact with one another really well.  For the background swirls and the 'best friends' wording I used my Fancy Flourish stamp sheet.  The paper is from my stash and is an old Basic Grey one from the Kioshi collection.  I distressed around the edges of some of the panels using a brown inkpad.

I used three separate stamps to create my focal panel which I stamped with a black Memento inkpad onto Craftwork Cards smooth Digital White cardstock and coloured using Copic makers.

Here's a closer look at the colouring for you.  Hope you like it!

I'd like to enter this into the Teddy Bear's Picnic challenge over on the Allsorts Challenge Blog. (After all with all the fun these cuties are having they must have packed their picnic basket - it's just not in view!! LOL!!)

All products used came from The Glitter Pot.  Talking of which don't forget that it is their Spring Spectacular weekend coming up next weekend on Saturday 28th and Sunday 29th May and then the weekend after it is The Craft Barn's June Extravaganza weekend (Saturday 4th and Sunday 5th June) and this time they have 24 demonstrators to show you lots of different techniques and products.  Most definitely a date for your diaries!!  Click here to find out more about the Extravaganza. Unfortunately, much to my chagrin, this time around I am unable to be at either event but I know that they will be super weekends!!

Stepped Easel Card

Morning everyone.  Today I'm sharing my second and last card that I have made for the Belles 'n' Whistles Challenge Blog as part of my guest dt work.  The challenge this time around is called Shaping Up For May Flowers.  To find out what it is all about click here to go and visit the BnW Challenge Blog.

For this challenge I thought I'd make a stepped easel card which I think worked out quite well.  I have photographed it at a slight angle so that you can see what I did. I used the BnW Wishes stamp for my main image along with some green Basic Grey backing paper, the Magnolia Lovely Fence DooHickey Die, Prima flowers to decorate, the Martha Stewart Flower Patch edging punch and the Frond Branch punch.

Here's a closer look at the front step of the card where I used the Flower Patch edging punch and hand drew the grass.

Here you can see the fence die a bit better which I coloured using Copic markers.  I also coloured and shaped the punched out Frond Branch pieces before sticking them into place.

And here is a close up of the main image which I stamped with black Versafine onto watercolour card and coloured using Distress inks.

I hope you like it!

Belles 'n' Whistles Wishes clear stamp and Martha Stewart punches came from The Craft Barn.

Magnolia Lovely Fence Doohickey Die and Prima flowers came from The Glitter Pot.