Naughty step .... AGAIN!

Uh oh, I've done it again!!

Took my MIL and her friend to the Crafter's Companion store in Chesterfield for a free make and take (so I could play with the new SN Illustrator pens 😆) however I did not come away empty handed ... oopsy 😳

Anyhoo, the Illustrator pens are lush. Unfortunately my make and take turned into a make and leave. The lady kept whisking my colouring away from me to show to everyone 😲 so in the end I said I would leave it for her!

I do love me a spot of colouring, we must have been there a good few hours just colouring and chatting. Bliss. This is what I left with them:

The flowers were just two colours of pen with colourblend pencils over the top. I must learn to take better pictures, these really don't do it justice!

My place on the naughty step is booked because of this:

I've never done steampunk before but I just love the lady and the cogs; looking forward to playing with them next week 😊

Twist and .... pop!

I'm loving the twist n pop cards and now I've got the hang of it it's easy to turn most cards into one. The latest card is for little mister to give out, a birthday party for one of his friends at school this time. I thought I'd go for something a little bit different this time.

Clean and simple on the outside:

The when you look inside POW! an explosion of colour:

The only problem with adding the twist and pop part is that it does make the card fairly weighty, thank goodness I don't have to post it!

A florist I am not...

I thought I would try my hand at making some ribbon flowers for embellishments. I mean, they can be pretty pricey to buy and I have loads of ribbon in my crafty stash. How hard can it be....

So the one at the bottom was my first full flower (I have thrown many other attempts away that didn't gather up properly) then I did the polka dot one and lastly the organza one. At that point I'd been at it about 2 hours and my poor fingers were well and truly cooked with hot glue.

Now I see why people buy them as they're so damn fiddly to make! I think it's safe to say I won't be going into mass production of these any time soon

Fantasy watercolour

I used to be a Create and Craft only girl but just lately I've been watching a lot of Hochanda. I find that they do more technical demonstrations rather than C&C which are mostly putting cards together from a kit.

Lately I've been branching out and doing more things that are a little out of my comfort zone. Inspired by a demo done by Sheena Douglas with Spectrum Noir aquatints (these are next on my wish list) I thought 'ooh, I could do that'. I had to improvise as I only currently have aqua markers and with the addition of a clear sparkle pen (I do love me some sparkle overlay) and my shiny new set of Hunkydory Twilight Kingdom stamps I came up with this:

It could do with the stamped images being a bit darker - I used Memento tuxedo black, which in hindsight is probably not the right choice for a watercolour background. I might have to try with some Staz-on or perhaps heat emboss in black next time.

I'm loving the moon and the effect with the clouds ... thanks for the inspiration Sheena :D

Birthday treat

So it was my birthday at the beginning of the month - I'm 21 and some months, before you ask ;) - and as luck would have it there was a make and take demo at my local Crafters Companion store. Two places were booked and on my birthday I dragged my crafty MIL along with me for an hour and a half of messiness with Leonie Pujal.

What a blast :)

We played with sparkle pens, water misters, paintbrushes, pots of water and, the piece de resistance, shaving foam! I've always wanted to try out the shaving foam technique but never quite wanted to cope with the mess (I'm actually not a messy crafter normally). What a fab morning we had. It was great to learn a new technique and have a natter with other crafters; and of course, the highlight was meeting Leonie, she really is lovely (and as mad as she appears on TV!!)

These are the results of our playing:

I particularly like the one on the right in the first picture, it looks like the milky way or something from Star Trek! I was also really surprised with the way the shaving foam works through a stencil (bottom picture). I'll definitely be doing it again

Fiscal satisfaction

Very excited!!

Following on from the birthday card I made for my son's friend I was asked by her grandmother to make a card for her soon to be new great granddaughter :)

Over the moon to have my first card sale, this is what I came up with:

And then, when I went to deliver the card, the daughter then asked if she could have one done also ... WOOHOO!!

So I thought I'd have another play! I love the idea of the twist n pop cards however I don't want to rely on buying card blanks or an expensive die so it was another morning spent researching google, wasting scrap card getting the measurements and folds right.

This time, I didn't need my S&C as the mats and layers were all basic shapes. Plus, I have a shiny new cuterpillar crop (thank you darling hubby for allowing me to order it) so no more frayed edges from my V-trimmer!

The end result:

I'm very pleased how these both turned out and now I know how it's done the twist n pop cards are actually ridiculously easy to do. I think I'll be doing more of these in the future.

Experimenting gone right

My little lad went to a birthday party the other week and I wanted to make a card for him to give to the birthday girl. I've always liked the look of shutter cards but I've never actually done one. So I spent the morning searching Google for templates, wasting about a dozen sheets of scrap card getting the measurements right (and destroying the blade on my craft knife in the process by dropping it on the floor!) and then getting all the mats and layers right in Canvas for my S&C - I would be lost without that machine!!

Anyway, this is the result of my hard work:

Safe to say I was pretty happy with the result :) I was even happier when Georgia's grandmother asked me to make a card for her for her new great grand-daughter :)

My first ever sale ... YIPPEE!!