Beautiful butterflies

I was hit with crafters block this week when it came to planning next weeks classes - I had started working with one idea, but it just didn't come together the way I wanted. So I sat staring at the cat for inspiration - no joy, just communicated a telepathic message to him to jump up on my desk!

So I went back to my notebooks - ever since I started crafting I've kept notebooks with sketches, ideas & techniques I've seen & want to try - nowadays they'd be called something fancy like a smash book lol! But mine are tatty old spiral notebooks with scribbles & drawings & lots of arrows & notations :-)

Anyhoo - this was an idea inspired by something I saw on tv a year or so back. The butterflies are stamped in a circle. The outer border is stamped, then a circle of butterflies created by stamping & cutting out scraps of beautiful papers. 

Sorry for the waffle! I'm linking this to Pixies Snippets workshop, cos snippets were used!

Thanks for stopping by

Debs x

Sun -v- snow

I've been away for a while on my hols. I must be one of the only people I know who leave UK in a heat wave, to holiday in the Arctic!

I kid you not, we cruised to the land of the midnight sun, which is in the Arctic Circle - and yes, the sun stays up for 24 hours - thank goodness for blackout curtains!  We had snow, sleet, rain and a force 10 gale, all the time knowing family & friends were bbq'ing in the sun!! 

Still had a lovely time, seeing real live wild reindeer in their natural habitat was amazing. And the Norwegian fjords are gorgeous. 

So no crafting for a few weeks, and have to say its been so hot in my craft room I couldn't summon up much enthusiasm. But today made this stepper card

I'm hoping it qualifies as a snippets make to enter the challenge over at pixies playground, as the whole thing is made from a leftover aperture card. I bought loads of these in my early crafting days, but struggle to use pre-printed cards now, I prefer to stamp & decorate myself. These were too pretty to get rid of, with glittered butterflies, so I set to with the scissors & this is all that's left of the original card!

Going in the snippets folder for another day! And the centre stepper card will be the basis of my classes next week - a twofer!! :-) 

Hope everyone has a lovely weekend, whatever you're doing. 

Thanks for stopping by

Debs xx

WOYWW

Happy WOYWW fellow snoopers :-). This is my desk today.  It's grey & cold here & I'm a bit lacking in enthusiasm today. Will visit some of your desks to gain some inspiration!

My desk looks fairly tidy (for me!!) On the left you can see an A4 box crammed with stuff in need of sorting - I made a new rule that if box was full I had to sort it - so instead I piled on top& stacked underneath - lol!!

On my cutting mat (if you look closely it's warped at front where I forgot to use heat resistant mat when embossing - doh!) is a paper pad & some orange flowers ready for my next magazine project.

Centre back is a part-finished butterfly project inspired by something I saw on C&C. Not happy with it so will take a diff approach. Then there's my trusty Cuttlebug & the spotty caddy stuffed with the essentials.

On the right is my big yellow box where I have all my unmounted stamps catalogued, with a couple if new sets at the front of the box waiting to be added. I have 10 (gulp!) foolscap ring binders full of stamps sorted into categories - 3 folders of florals!!! Next project is to unmount my boxes of wooden stamps & integrate with the rest - I find I don't use my wooden stamps that much as they are piled in boxes, but I have some lovely ones, so they need sorting!

Right, enough waffle (sorry Julia!) off to desk hop! If you want to join in pop over to Julia's Stamping Ground.

Stop press!! The universe must have heard I was lacking enthusiasm, cos postie just delivered this little lot :-))

Thanks for stopping by

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

It's Friday, it's 5 to 5 , and time for.........................

Anyone remember this???? I used to love Crackerjack, and always wanted to win a Crackerjack Pen LoL!  This popped into my head as I was listening to the radio and the presenter said 'it's Friday and it's 5 to5' but I think he was too young to remember the rest :-)

There's a 'guess the year' programme on our local radio station in the mornings, and it's fun with all the memories the old songs generate, but so many of them have been used in ads, I now end up singing the ad jingle instead of the actual lyrics - those ad men must have been good at their jobs lol!

OK, so it IS Friday and I'm about to pack up crafting for the day and have a well deserved cuppa so I thougI would share some recent projects and a sneaky peek of a DT project I finished today!

This is a wedding card using pearl embossing powders and a brocade background stamp, so pretty to work with. Even embossed the background card behind the panel cos I got carried away with the lovely pearl effects!

These two are cute boxes I made recently, and all 3 projects will be on show at the NEC next week on the WOW embossing stand

Finally, the sneaky peek...............

These are easel drawer cards, and they are so much fun to make (showed some stamped versions in an old post). You can really go to town on the decoration, and there is a little drawer in the base that you can fit yummy chocs in (or something more boring if you are so inclined!). I got a bit carried away with decorating these two, feathers, leaves, flowers, butterflies - a cornucopia of embellishments!

OK, that's it for today, my feet are freezing so I'm off to put the heating on and hit the biccies!

Have a fab weekend, thanks for stopping by

Debs x

Butterfly stepper card

This is my DT project for the WOW! Feb colour challenge using fluorescent colours.  I wasn't too sure about the colours when I saw them in their jars - a bit brighter than my usual choices, but they are lovely when embossed, and I am a convert! also found I was able to emboss small panels and then punch shapes out of them without any cracking or flaking - brilliant! 

Went to Make it show at Farnborough last Friday, and spent way too much! Had a lot of fun though, and already started experimenting with my new stash. Strangely for me, didn't buy many stamps this time, but tons of card and paper, plus Flitter Glue (not tried that yet) embossing paste, punches and some fabulous dies.

Off now to get ready for this afternoons class

thanks for stopping by. Happy crafting!

Debs x

WOYWW 138 and more boxes!

This is today's crafty corner of the dining room, prepping samples for this Saturday's class making gift boxes.  Centre front we have a cute little butterfly hexagon box (templates from a CD by Payperbox) stamped and decorated with butterflies.  Behind that is a pyramid box decorated with hearts (yes, Valentine's Day soon dear, if you're reading this :-)

Then you have a small collection of my Stickles glitter glues, and just behind that a teeny tiny set of dragonfly and butterfly stamps that I've had for years and absolutely adore! They are tiddly tho, perfect for backgrounds!

I didn't dare take a pic of the whole table, cos anyone who read my blog last week might notice that most of the same stuff is still there! Have been super busy this last week, and lost a day yesterday after a visit to the osteopath (old war wound lol!) after which I felt like I'd been kicked by a mule (actually petite and blonde, but she still packs a punch!)

After doing a quick flick thru my Blogger reading list, has anyone seen the preview of the new Distress Ink Marker Pens???   Ooooooooh, I really NEED these!!!! 

I have deadlines coming at me all over the place, 3 classes in the next week, and samples to make for the trade show at the NEC, so forgive me if I don;t make it to your WOYWW entry this week.  I will do my best later today when I have a bit more time, so for now, I'm off to add my name to the list over at Julia's blog, then it's back to the inkpads :-0

Thanks for stopping by

Debs x

Love is in the air!

Beautiful sunny day here in the South of England, and I wanted to share my DT project for this week - a Valentine's card.

Yup, Easter eggs are being advertised on tv and it's Valentines day a month from today! Any ladies thinking of proposing, it's also a Leap year, so brush up on your proposal etiquette lol!

The card was made using WOW! stamp sets - With Love, Build a Butterly (so cute!), and Flowers background stamp and WOW! embossing powders in red glitz and pale gold.  You can see the rest of the DT's projects here

The ribbon band across the centre of the card was an experiment, I tried embossing on mirror card and it worked a treat! My advice would be use an anti-static pad on the mirror card before stamping.  WOW powders are all treated to be anti-static but mirror card holds finger prints etc so it is better to be safe than sorry (the voice of experience!!)

Thanks for stopping by

Debs xx

CF Weds Class - Using Decoupage Twisters

Our Weds Class last week was all about using decoupage sheets in a different way. We all have them - sheets of decoupage images with borders, tags and little embellishments - something we fell in love with and then can't think how to use it!

We cut the front of the card on the diagonal and fixed the main image to mirri then on the inside face of the card so it showed over the diagonal (if your decoupage is not square, you could just mount it on a square of mirri or toning card). Front & inside of card was covered in toning paper, and we reserved the smallest layer of decoupage & cut an aperture lower right front to fit - the little swan looks great peeping through the aperture!

On the front of the card are a tag and border from the decoupage sheet, layered onto mirri, and a couple of vellum butterflies (glittered, of course!!) and the rest of the decoupage layers.  Added some card candi on the inside of the card to finish it off and balance it out - we were quite pleased with our finished design!

Debs x

Chandlers Ford Class - 13/07/11

We had a fun evening on Weds in Chandlers Ford.  We were a little low on numbers due to summer holidays and rehearsals for plays!

The nice thing about small numbers is that you can go slow, chat and try things out, which is what we did, and we produced some beautiful stamped and embossed vellum wraps. 

These are stamped on the front of the vellum with Brilliance ink, then dry embossed on the reverse before colouring with Pro Marker, also on the reverse. 

We also stamped and coloured the embellishments. Then we threw a whole lot of glitter over everything :-) We all came away covered in glitter, and with some beautiful samples to take home.