Vroom! Vroom! - Monday 7th July 2014

Hello Friends,

I hope you all had great weekends, especially my followers in the USA who have all been having a lovely 4th July Holiday weekend!

Just a quick post today, this is a guy card I made recently...

It's a 7x7 blank which I covered with red card. I cut a panel of white card and using a small polka dot mask inked through using Dried Marigold distress ink. I then used something that I got at Ally Pally this year and is quite fun to use with my Promarkers.  It's a little colour spritzer airbrush, which gives a similar effect as ink sprays. I sprayed once with the dried marigold and a second time with worn lipstick.

The arrows and 'Hooray' are also masks, but I can't remember if they were also an Ally Pally buy or I picked them up in the USA last year...good fun though! The Happy Birthday stamp was free with a magazine during Jubilee year when we are creating lots of patriotic crafts.

I matted and layered the centre panel on to black card and also cut black strips to finish off. The car stamp is definitely an Ally Pally buy, but from a few years ago. It doesn't have packaging but I'm pretty sure it was in the bargain box on Sue Wilson's stand (one of her Rubbernecker range). I coloured it with promarkers.

That's it for today, I will be back tomorrow with my Design Team post this week for Sam Poole..again it's not a card, but it is paper craft this week......:)

Thank you so much for stopping by,

Love and Hugs

Carole X

'Juliet' - Tuesday 30th April

Good Morning Friends,

Thank you very much for visiting my little corner of blogland and leaving your comments, you know I really appreciate them all..and even if you're just stopping by for a peek, thank you!

It's a big day at work today...I'm following up on our very successful social media workshop that we held a month ago, with a social media surgery! It's nothing medical..we have representatives from six community groups and parish councils, coming in for appointments during the day. They will have one to one sessions with our social media expert Paul about how to tweet, blog, Facebook - whatever they want. Yesterday was a particularly bad day..one of those where silly annoying things happened one after another..but today is going to be great, I am totally optimistic!

Back to crafts....I made this card a few weeks ago when I was having a play with some Indigo Blu stamps. 

Whilst I had always admired some of the cards made with these stamps, I wasn't sure that I would use them much, so having a chance to play with them was great and actually you know, I have now added this one to my ever increasing stamp wish list! This particular one is 'Juliet'.

I used an A5 card blank and used a piece of matte gold card, embossed with the Sue Wilson Hearts Lattice folder as my base. Then I stamped the image on black card with flitterglu and covered with gilding flakes. The flourish is from Spellbinders Venetian motifs and the flower, the smallest Bitty Blossom. I used Grand Decorative Ovals for the image die cut.

Hopefully some time over the next few weeks I'm going to have a blog revamp. In July I will have been blogging for 2 years, so it's time for a face-lift! I looked back on my first attempts at blogging..goodness I didn't have a clue! LOL

Thanks for checking me out!

Love and Hugs,
Carole X

Sunday Stampers week 237 - Thursday 27th December

Hello Blog Friends,

I hope you have all been enjoying a wonderful Festive time! We had a lovely pre-Christmas meal on Sunday at Tom's parents' house; spent most of Christmas Eve prepping and baking for Christmas Day and had a wonderful day with family. All the card making, gift wrapping and festive cooking all over for another year!

Still, as long as we are on holiday from work, I refuse to concede to Christmas being over  and we still have plenty of friends and family to visit and to visit us before New Year!

With that in mind, this is a short post - Tom spends all his working day cooped up in an office, so when he has a break such as this, he wants to be out and about, so not much time for crafting at the moment! Normally we would go for some long walks, but they are all pretty much clogged up with mud and water, so we went to Bath today. On our return from our not too hectic day in Bath, I managed an hour in my craft room to play with my bestest present...a Melt Pot...wow it's fab!

As it was Hels Sheridan demo-ing it on TV, which convinced me that I needed one, I thought my first play around with it should result in my contribution to this week's Sunday Stampers, this week's theme to include a heart, so here it is...

It's a really simple card..I'm still trying to break free from Christmas mode and not having much time, my mojo is still off somewhere in Holiday mode! 

I used the melt pot and a mixture of Lapis Jade and Cobalt Sky UTEE. I stamped the Wendy Vecchi heart on some 'chipboard' I'd made from sticking cereal packets together and then cut it out. When the powders had melted I dipped the heart and then whilst it was still warm I stamped one side of it for a broken pattern. To do this I pre-inked the stamp with embossing ink. I wanted to just stamp half because I liked the pattern that had formed itself when I dipped it. It's not great, but it was my very first 'dip', so it can only get better!

I had a play with some moulds and metal pastry cutters whilst I had the hot liquid - I can see that I am going to have a long and happy relationship with this new toy..er, I mean product!

To finish I simply covered a card blank with polka dot paper, inked the edges with peacock feathers distress ink, stamped the greeting and added some thin twine.

Carole X

Sunday Stamper week 234 - Tags!

Good afternoon friends in blogland!

It's a late post for me today, but I had made my project for this week's Sunday Stampers and wanted to upload. This week Hels (Sheridan) has set the theme of tags...whoopee! I am way way into making tags...love them...and for the main family and best friends' presents, I have been making tags...so good to make a project that will get used straightaway!

I used  a large parcel tag and covered it with some gorgeous paper I have in my stash..you can't see it in the photo, but it's dark blue, has 'Merry Christmas' imprinted all over it and is all shiny and satin (feels gorgeous, I use sparingly).

The stamp is a bit of a mystery because the original packaging has disappeared! I'm pretty sure the little set was free with a magazine, but who it's made by is a mystery, hidden somewhere under the piles of stamps and papers currently surrounding me in the craft room..ooops!

Anyway, I stamped it on black card with versamark ink and then heat embossed it in snowflke embossing powder mixed with a little cosmic shimmer glitter jewels. I roughed up the edges a little and mounted in on some blue glitter card - then gave the edges of that a bit of a scraping too. 

The little set with the deer stamp also has a  border stamp, so I stamped and embossed this along the bottom edge. Then I cut a snowflake from Spellbinders 'Create-a-flake four- and a little flourish from Ironworks Motifs - I cut this with the blue glitter card and some wax paper and have used both on the tag.

To finish I added some ribbons and gems...thanks for stopping by!
Carole X

Happy Anniversary - Thursday 19th September

Hello again Blog Friends,

A quick second post to show you the anniversary card I made for Tom on our anniversary today...he is a bit of a romantic (the Italian blood!), but I never go overboard on the romanticism in my anniversary cards, I like to also reflect the humour we share, so when I saw this stamp, I just had to buy it!

I used a pre-cut large card, which I embossed with an M-Bossability and then coloured with Victorian Velvet distress ink. The stamp is by Stampendous, coloured with Promarkers, die cut using Spellbinders Classic Rectangles and mounted on polka dot coredinations card to which I added a hint of cosmic twinkles. I used the little heart and ribbon from stash (well I saw the ribbon out and about last week and had to buy it!) and I typed the sentiment. You can probably guess it's translation from Italian, but if nor, it says 'Love Conquers All'

We have spent our anniversaries in some wonderful places over the years...from a soggy but lovely honeymoon in the Lake District to the pyramids in Egypt, visiting my family in California, his family in Venice, various places in our own beautiful Country and this year, on holiday at home, where we have a lovely day planned (I scheduled this as we left early!).

We will be dropping our hens off at the farm for their little holiday, then driving about half an hour to a lovely National Trust property called Newark Park for a nice long walk. After that to a gorgeous country pub for a late lunch...and the sunny is shining on us too as I write this at about 8am!

Hope you all are having a super day, thanks for calling back,
Carole Z 

Fantastic Ribbons DT Washi Tape Boxes - Monday 17th September

Washi Tape Month at Fantastic Ribbons!

I was thrilled when I was recently asked to become one of the new members of Fantastic Ribbons Design Team and as someone who loves ribbon, how excited am I to be bringing you a monthly project using this crafting 'must have'!

This month we are looking at ways with washi tape, something which I have to admit to never having used before, but now that I have, I am quite addicted and can't stop thinking up ideas.

 I decided to make a box for my first project: in fact, I made one box and gift wrapped another  - and wow! This is my gift wrapping sorted from now on!

 I cut out my first box using  a simple exploding box template and chose to work with two different designs of washi tape from Art Deco and Cranberry and Gold collections, alternating them around the sides of the box.

I decided to  cover the inside of the box as well, but covered opposite sides with stripes and script and used a square of black card on the base to strengthen it.

The  lid is covered in the same way as the base, but I laid the tape in the opposite direction to give contrast. 

To finish off I made a bow for the top simply by cutting several  lengths of tape about 10cms and folding them in half to make them double-sided. For the little rose on top I took a length of tape (about 25cms) and folded it in half length ways. It's easier if you start off by wrapping it around tweezers or a pokey tool. Once you've got it started, ease it off and then just keep folding  to form your rose. You don't have to be accurate, if you leave some 'sticky' it will help it keep together. You may need a little glue to hold it, but all I did to finish was add a little glitter.

 The second box is a gift box, wrapped in brown parcel paper; I used  washi tape from Candy Floss for the wrap, finishing off with a flower made in the same way as the bow, but with more layers and I snipped the ends with deckle edge scissors and scrunched it up a little. I topped this with a sentiment and button threaded with a washi tape bow.

Stamp: Lily of the Valley

Box Template: Billie's Craft Room


That's all from my first project, hope you like it!

Carole Z X

Woodware craft day

Good Morning Blog Friends!

Well, wasn't the closing ceremony for the Paralympics fab last night? I just loved all the Steampunk...what an amazing conception and for someone like me who is just fascinated by Steampunk, I was captivated!

I was pretty worn out last night though,after a whole day of crafting workshops courtesy of Woodware. I  attended a workshop day for retailers, having been invited along by my friend Amy, who owns our local craft & gift shop and with whom I teach our workshops.

The event was taking place in Thame, Oxfordshire, about a 2 hour drive from us, so Amy picked me up at 7am to be there for 9am. There were about sixty people there and we were divided into groups..people teaching the workshops included Francoise ?... From Dreamweavers, Stampendous, Fran from Frantage and of course Woodware.

It was a very intense day, consisting of 3 classes before lunch and 3 afterwards, finishing at 5:30pm. I think I was the only person there who didn't own or work in a shop, but it was really nice to meet lots of  people who were so passionate about crafts and do workshops from all over the Country. So thanks to Amy for giving me the chance to attend.

Here are a couple of the projects, I'll explain them during the week....unfortunately because the groups were quite large, we didn't get to finish many of the cards we started, or we just worked on techniques, but when I get time this week I'll finish them off and share them with you.

It was a very intense day of six classes, learning some new techniques and using some products I'd never tried before.

A couple of photos from yesterday

Well, as most of you know, Tom and I are on holiday from work these next two weeks, though not off anywhere to stay, except London next week for a few days. It was lovely not having to get up at 6am and get ready for work this morning and later on, Tom's parents are taking us out to lunch.

I'll be back later to catch up on your blogs from yesterday and today, happy Monday everyone!

Carole X