WOYWW week 226 - Wednesday 2nd October

Good Morning Friends,

Thanks for all your 'welcomes home' yesterday!

This is the first time I've shared my desk in a while, mainly because you can't usually actually see it by Wednesday :) ! Full details about WOYWW can be found at Stamping Ground here

Anyway, I thought this would be a good time to share the goodies I bought in MIchaels and Joanns stores on our recent road trip across California. Amazingly both were offering 40% discounts across stores - so off a whole purchase - sadly I was limited to just lighter items due to suitcase space!  I Knew I should have left out some of those shoes I took!!

Since we got back at the weekend, I have been totally unable to get my creative juices flowing...I think Mr Mojo has stayed in California (can I blame him? NO). Truthfully I think the real reason is too much on my mind...work for instance...October is 'try something new month' in our town, so next week I have to out up a big volunteering photo display, plus I am going to be training three new volunteers to cover our Centre on the days I don't work...all that... and coming back to a pile of work after holidays (though thanks to my volunteers a lot of it was covered).

Then there's craft - next week we have  a workshop and the week after that? Wednesday I am helping set up a 'try a craft event' in the library where I work and also taking part. I have to make up about 30 'make and take' kits for people to come in and make a card ( and I still haven't completely decided what I'm doing!), then the Thursday in work I'm holding a social media drop in event all day, my social media expert, Paul and I, will be helping community groups to get into Facebook, tweeting, blogging and more... and then a  quick dash to our workshop in the evening...I'm worn out writing this...on the Saturday I have a craft fair! Less said about how unprepared I am, the better!

All this and all I want to do at this time of year is make Halloween items and I have no time this year :( ....and I still can't get my head around Christmas.

I think I am going to need another holiday..lol...I'll be lucky..not for  a long while I suspect!

The items on my desk are mostly pretty little autumn embellishments we don't see so much here, plus a stencil which I have the idea to use on an altered frame and for scrapbooking. I also got some Halloween and Flourish stamps. Much like our Hobbycraft stores here, they don't seem to have many in-store stamps and most of them were wooden..however they were good prices. There was a good die selection, about the same price - except for the big discount - but most of the Spellbinders ones I saw I had already, so I just bought a flourish because that is something I was really needing.

Do you see the little paper pumpkin? I made this whilst sitting on the sofa watching TV the other night: it's from a craft magazine I bought in the USA. It's just strips of paper and if I get the chance I will photograph it properly with a tutorial ..no promises though!

A lot of the above will be used for scrapbooking...the USA loves this craft and there is so much you can buy for pages. I could have been going on holiday anywhere in the world and bought embellishments to match..wonderful!

These are specific ones I came back with..

Before we went away I was working right up to almost the last day, finishing the presents I made for my folks in the USA, so my craft room is looking pretty unruly (even for me). At this moment, the only thing I can find is my iMac! So I am now off to give it a good tidy, hoping that Mr Mojo is actually hiding under something :)

Happy WOYWW day everyone!

Love and Crafty Hugs,
Carole X

TAP Tutorial - Thursday 21st March

Good Morning Friends,

A scheduled post today, I've been organising a big social networking training event at work and today's the day- thankfully, much as I enjoy social media, I don't have to teach it - we have a real expert for that - but, with the help of a colleague and friend from another Volunteer Centre, I have to make sure it all runs smoothly!

Welcome to my new follower and thank you very much for choosing to join my little corner of crafty blog-land!

Here is the mini tutorial I promised, showing the technique used to make my stamped bag

This is to create a project with a stamped image, but you can use TAP with your inkjet printer, remembering to print in mirror image mode if your artwork contains words, or freehand drawing.

As well as a hot iron (with steam turned off), these are the basic materials and tools you need:

Your stamp(s) of choice (try to avoid too much writing if stamping, as your image will be reversed); TAP paper; stazon ink, distress inks or your choice of colouring tools - pro markers, watercolours.whatever you like, but don't make your paint medium too wet as the paper can tear; you can transfer on to card, material, canvas..anything that will take an iron.

Stamp your image on to the white side of the TAP. This paper is expensive; it works out at about £2 per A4 sheet, but I have used those cheaper Tee shirt inkjet transfer papers in the past to make Tee shirts and I really can see the quality in this. The images really do look like they have been printed, it's amazing. You just have to remember to use it with care. The bag I made was big but I managed to make the whole project with one sheet. You could of course stamp direct on to some materials, but stamping on to TAP, makes colouring the image much easier, cleaner and vibrant.

Once you have stamped the image, colour as you wish.  I used a mix of distress inks blended with a little water for this project.

Using a hot iron place the TAP on your surface with the image face down and iron evenly all over. I only did this small image for about 10 seconds, but if you peel away a corner  slowly and it shows the image transferred underneath, you should be fine. If not, put it back and iron some more.

Here is the finished bag, the white line is only showing around because I put a piece of card inside, it's not actually on the bag. This image has a little writing, so I added some colourful tulips over the words. As you can see, I also made one earlier, which I framed and also added a few butterflies. TAP is available from quite a few places, I got mine and the bags from Crafty Individuals.

Thanks for stopping by!

Love,

Carole X

Sunday Stampers week 242 - Friday 1st February

Hello again Friends,

Welcome to my new follower...thank you so much for choosing to join my tiny part of this massive, warm-hearted creative part of blog land, I very much appreciate all of you!

As promised earlier  I am back with my Sunday Stampers project for this week...this time Hels Sheridan set us the theme of including the word 'Wish' in our projects. I have a confession about this one, it's still a work in progress! I had the idea on Sunday, started it Monday night, then got caught up with all the workshop preparations, plus I've had a lot of commissions land in my email box...so it was a bit of a hurried attempt to get it posted today.

I decided to make a grungy craft wish list book, somewhere to jot down all my craft desires and this what I have come up with so far...

 The cover is just a piece of cardboard I had saved in my 'art parts' box, from some packaging. I gave it a quick coat of gesso and after it hd dried inked it with Brush Corduroy and Vintage Photo distress inks. I wanted it to look quite grungy and like  a rough piece of wood.

I then inked the printed list with a Studio 490 stamp by Wendy Vecchi and distressed the edges. The typewriter stamp and letters are from a set by Sam Poole. I stamped the letters several times to use on the cover and index sheets. The corner element is a Teresa Collins Stamp. I stamped everything with clear embossing ink, fixed with clear embossing powder.

You can't really see it in the photo, but I did use a Cog Mask and put it through the Grand Calibur, the result is quite faint but does add another tactile element to the card.

The flower and butterfly  were in my box of die-cuts I'd already made and not used and the little button is something I made from salt dough after watchin Ali Reeve on TV a few weeks ago! I coloured it with Promarkers.

I wanted the cover to me a mix of all crafty items I love using..so we have stamping, Spellbinders, embossing, distress inks, masks and I had to get the Promarkers in there somewhere! I need to add more pages and index titles, but this was a fun little project!

Thanks for stopping by!

Carole Z X

Not a creature was stirring - Saturday 15th December

Good Morning Blog Friends!

Another Christmas House Mouse today...Christmas is all I seem to have been making lately and to be honest, I still have so many Christmas ideas buzzing around in my head and no time to try them, that I am really going to find it hard to switch back to every day mode. For our first workshop in January we are going to be looking ahead to St Valentines and I haven't even thought about it yet..apart from being my least favourite card making  occasion for some bizarre reason!

I came up with this design last Christmas and made a few more variations of it this year...it is a very simple card featuring a stamped House Mouse, coloured with Promarkers and die cut using a Spellbinders Grand Scalloped Rectangle.  I typed the extract from the story and die cut using tear drop circles threaded with ribbon.

The image die was matted and layered on a gold die cut the card finished off with a poinsettia, ruched ribbon and a little button.

Thanks for stopping by!
Carole  X

Emergency Crafter DT card - Saturday 10th November

Hello Friends,

After the LOTV baby card yesterday, I am returning to my other favourite stamp company,  House Mouse!

Today's card is my Design Team card for the new Emergency Crafters challenge, the theme of which is  'Get Well Soon'

I chose to use this cute House Mouse and Friends stamp, which I've coloured with Promarkers and cut out using Grand Labels 23; I also cut  the next side up on double-sided card to mount it and use as the frame for my easel.

The edges are shaded with Tattered Rose distress ink and framed with flowers from my stash box. For the base, I stamped the sentiment  with Butterscotch Adirondack ink and then heat embossed using a translucent embossing powder. To make the the 'stopper' I cut it out using Spellbinders Labels Four Small and repeated in the larger size using the same card as for the frame. Then I simply added some ribbon and a button from stash.

'Hop' over to Emergency Crafters via the link above, this time our sponsor is The Glittermonster, with a super papercraft goody bag from Trimcraft.

Hope this cheers you up if you're feeling poorly! Thank you so much for stopping by and leaving a comment, 

Crafty Love, Carole X

Sole Creation - Tuesday 30th October

Morning all!

I'm giving you a break from Halloween today (but there will be one more!)...

This card was made for a commission recently and I am told the recipient really liked it (phew!)

I used a pre-shaped card and embossed it using a floral 'That Special Touch' mask, which I then inked with Milled Lavender distress ink.

The sentiment is typed and printed and then cut using Grand Labels 23 and the Creative Expressions Sole Creations stamp was coloured with Promarkers and  die cut with Spellbinders Classic Rectangles (both dies are Spellbinders). I added a little cosmic sparkle and some gems and inked the edges using a mix of Milled Lavender and Victorian Velvet. The little flowers are from a punch and I made the pins from a kit that our lovely blog friend Linda sent me some time ago. The ribbon was heated with a heat tool to curl it

Hope you like it and thank you for stopping by and commenting, I really do read and appreciate them all!

Have a great day everyone,

Carole Z X

Thank You! - Tuesday 9th October

Hi lovely blog friends,

No new project today, I just wanted to say thank you for all your lovely comments about the snowflake card yesterday, it was actually such a pleasing card to make, do you know what I mean? It's one of those techniques that just develops in small bursts before your eyes.

I also wanted to say thank you to Linda and Christine for joining in with my question about how you came to paper crafting - everyone was quite different and I have loved reading them all. After reading all the responses, I felt I had skipped over my Mum and that just wouldn't do, because she too played a big part in my creativity...she wasn't 'arty' but she supported the love of art my dad and I shared; she also taught me to cook, knit and sew. I am the most frustrated knitter, I get bored too quickly - I've had a chunky knit sweater on the go for 18 months, but I still have a fabulous chunky sweater Mum knitted me when I was 18 and it's as good as new! Mum could make clothes, but my sewing is restricted to small craft projects, like the angels and other primitives, I have shown on my blog before, but many months ago, so a repeat peak for those of you who weren't following me back then...

Craft room door bunny 

Bathroom Angel

Garden Angel Fran

So these are the extent of my sewing - I was thinking about these patterns recently and thinking about finding time (lol) to make some more next year, then I remembered I had lent  some of them to a friend! 

Mum was also my biggest fan, when she passed away we found all the cards I had ever made her neatly packed in a drawer; even when her health was poor, she would want to be involved, so if I was doing  a craft fair, I would take my newly made cards to her house around the corner and we would spend an afternoon bagging them up...you can never replace times like that can you?

Happy crafting friends!

Carole X

PS I have been looking through all the entries so far in our Emergency Crafters Autumn Leaves challenge and there are some beautiful cards and projects there..there's still time to enter!

Christmas Bunny - Sunday 12th August

Hi Blog Friends,

Well it was certainly a scorcher yesterday, which meant that once we had settled in our two new hens, it was an afternoon in the summer house with my Promarkers, carrying on colouring those Christmas cards!

For my 'batch' cards, I'd chosen the little House Mouse stamp (which I shared last week) and this little bunny from LOTV (yes a Christmas bunny, not an Easter bunny). I never usually make a card more than once, there will be variations on the theme, but Christmas is the only time when I have to make a lot and for some of them that means making  a lot of simple cards, more or less the same.

My little desk in the Summer House

The finished image

The card above isn't the batch card, this one took a bit longer, but it's the same image and colouring, this time die cut using a Spellbinders die (labels 1 small), shaded at the edges with Spun Sugar distress ink. The sentiment is also an LOTV stamp.

So to the hens, we already have two, Cara a Black Rock who is 18 months old and Bella, a Bluebelle, who is  just  8 months old. Those of you who have been following me for a while, will know that we lost our oldest hen, Buffy, a few months ago and as we'd always had just two, we decided to increase our little brood to four. However, I wanted a pure breed Buff Orpington, I love them and have always wanted one, but we had to wait as there was a waiting list, where we get our girls from locally.

Today we collected our Buff Orpington and also a Speckledy hen (both 16 weeks old), so far they are in what we call our 'nursery' run; they will be allowed some free ranging with our other gals in a few days, but they won't be in the big coop and run all together for at least a week. We were always going to call the Orpington, Penny - I'm a fan of Big Bang Theory on TV and just hit on the character's name. The Speckledy was more difficult, but we have decided on 'Lacey' because her feathering just looks like an intricate lacey weave! 

Cara, our Black Rock

Bella, our Bluebelle

new girl, Lacey, our Speckledy

Camera shy, Penny our Buff Orpington

It's  such shame that every time you add to your hens you/they have to go through the whole 'pecking order' trauma. We've only ever brought in 'one on one' before and have been lucky at how smoothly it's all gone,but bringing in two is a whole other story. I wanted to get 2 Orpingtons, but they are very large birds and I'd had trouble convincing Tom that we couldn't bring in just one hen when we already had two, plus it's nice to have a mix of colour, so we went for the Speckledy and Lacey has already asserted her dominance over Penny, despite Penny being larger, but she is such a sweet natured hen..well I'll let you know how we get on. Tom is much more 'sensitive' than me around the girls(and I'm usually the emotional one), but it's their way of doing things and you generally just have to let them sort it out.

Before I go today and still on the subject of animals, I want to pass on this message from my blog friend Linda...

Thanks for stopping by!

Carole X

The longstanding campaign aims to raise awareness of the consequences of treating dogs as gifts or toys. Every year hundreds of thousands of children plead for the latest fad or top toy on the market, only to discard them a few weeks after Christmas when the novelty wears off. Unfortunately, the same perception is also apparent with dogs. We are continually seeking to change this.

"A dog is for life, not just for Christmas".

If you agree...copy and paste this into your blog....thank you

Linda xx