To do a fair or not to do a fair, that is the question

So its the run up to xmas and there are fair to attend, but are they worth it? Unfortunately it took ages before I found when Aston cps xmas fair was being held, by which time I was already booked on Ashton school fair.  Local schools in Helsby and Frodsham when I checked there wer seven schools all with the same date and time for their fairs! Stupid!!

So I attended the Ashton school fair they charged £15.00 for a large table plus a donation to the raffle. Busy event but no one stop and looking at stall. Craft stalls in a separate room so none of us sold much if anything. I took £10.00, £5.00 of which was from the lady running the stall next to me.

The maddening thing is if I had gone to ASTON GOING BY PREVIOUS YEARS I WOULD HAVE SOLD AROUND £60.00

So tomorrow I am doing a tabletop sale in Elton, cost £5.00. Hopefully I will cover my table cost this time!

Rustic christmas cards

So its been a while since i last posted. In my defence i have tried to a number of times, but have failed spectacularly! Three times i tried to record a youtube tutorial and three times my ipad crashed or froze! Result...i gave up! I will not be beaten i will try again, but i have let the ipad think it has won for now! It has been stroppy since its last update but hopefully it will soon see the error of its ways!!

Anyway i decided to mix things up using my downloads from Pink Petticoat, framlet star dies, buttons, lace, cord and stampin up ink! I am really pleased with the results and hope you like them as well. These cards just goes to prove that basic can look amazing!

Lovely handmade soap slices gift box

JSo here i am playiing with my stampin up christmas papers, the merry moments cardstock 139018, and the merry moments designer series paper 138450, also in a paper stack of 6 x 6 papers 139595. I recently went to the Chester Grovenor Garden Centre where they were selling handmade fancy soap slices so i just had to buy some for gifts, and this card and paper just were what i needed to make my boxes.

One point before i cntinue make sure that you wrap your soap in either cellaphane or cling film before putting them into the coloured card boxes as i found out to my cost that the colour of the card bleeds onto the soap, obviously some science reaction was happening lol.

By the way my soap was 3 x 2 3/4 x 14/16

Instructions

Cut card for box at 8 1/2 x 5 1/4

On long side score at 1, 3 3/4, 4 3/4 and 7 1/2

On short side score at 1". Turn round and score on other edge at 1" also.

Hole punch sizes used were. 2", 1 3/4" and 1 1/2"

Follow instructions from youtube video. http://youtu.be/TDWr1U3BGa0

Triangular opening dvd box

Busy getting ideas together for some workshops and ended up with this dvd box that opens up into two triangular boxes.  I thought it was rather original so i hope you all like it too.

instruction

1 to make box body cut 2 pieces of card at 9" x 6 3/4"

Score all sides at 3/4"

Cut one sheet diagonally from top left to bottom right and the other from top riht to bottom left.

Make as shown on video http://youtu.be/YR1AE3frlB8. 

Decorative panels are as follows

2 pieces 7 x 5

2 pieces of 6 x 4

2 pieces dsp of 5 3/4 x 3 3/4

Tag use 1 piece 4 1/2 x 2

1 piece 4 x2

1 piece 3 1/2 x 2

Christmas cards, workshops and old friends!

Well in the past week I have been making Christnmas cards, using up old papers from my stash, so that I have a valid excuse to go off and order new paper from the Stampin Up catalogue! Plus I have run my first workshop, and there's nothing like starting big, I had been asked to do a class with a group of ladies and gents in ages ranging from sixty to one hundred, oh and between twenty to fourty people!

So I decided to go with some simple cards all ready with double sided tape on, and covered notebooks. i prepped fourty five packs, just in case, and with my knees knocking I went to the Tuesday club!!

Well if I say so myself it went rather well with thirty people attending. Would be easier with less people but hey ho!!

So I have another smaller workshop booked for September and I am intending to run another one here at my home in a few weeks time, as I have had a couple of people showing interest in attending I am quietly confident that this could work out well.

The first home workshop will make the attached picture, its a lovely little set that can make an ideal gift and in my opinion is fun to make.

As for old friends, today I met up with a friend I haven't seen for a couple of years. Had a lovely time catching up and we have promised not to leave it so long before we get together again.  

So here's to old friends and the chance of making new friends!

A dozen cards decorated with one A4 sheet

So I have been playing with my new favourite stamp set, Garden in Bloom (139433) .   But I wanted to ring the changes and as I had found my old Twinklinh H20s lurking in the depths of a cupboard so decided rather than stamping the centres of my flowers I would paint them.  So I stamped the flowers in a randow pattern all over my white A4 card then using my H20s I coloured them in.  I then cut the card up into various sized pieces and then made cards with them using 4" and 5" square cards.  I stamped the sentiments from the stamp set Endless Birthday Wishes (140273) and Petite Pairs (122497)

If I say so myself  I think these cards are fun to make and fun to receive.

New Family and good friends

Well two weeks ago right out of the blue we found that we were due to become grandparents  again.  Last Sunday our grandson was born!  Yes rather a quick pregnancy  for our family at least. Our son is still reeling as he hadn't  heard anything from the mum to be for eight months.
Long story short his most recent girlfriend, now ex, had been blocking anyone who was female from his Facebook friends list! That included school friends, ex girl friends, cousins......she had been quite the busy bee!!
But luckily I was contacted, although the message did end up in my others folder, where it had sat for weeks with me totally unaware of its existence!  But now baby Theo has arrived and he is beautiful!  Granted the new parents have a lot of talking ahead of them and bridges have to be mended,but I am hopeful that all that can be worked on.
At this mad time  I was glad for the friends I have who were prepared to listen to me as I suffered melt down!
So with this in mind I designed these cards, using some of my lovely StampinUp products.

Time away at the seaside

Well not creating anything as the moment as we are away for a few days with two of the grandkids!

Having said that, there are ideas floating around and i am itching to get hold of papers and cards. Even more so when i found out hat the winter catalogue is due out soon with Stampinup!! Being a demonstrator will mean i can get a preview.........can't wait!!

Till then, let me share what i was working on the other day.  The bear is from Build a bear workshop, but the flapper costume is all my own work. Really pleased with how it turned out, especially as done without any pattern.  Next i need to make a birthday card to go with it in the same theme.  Watch this space............

Cheap wine made to look expensive

Firstly I must thank CraftyCarolineCreates for this wonderful idea.  I found it whilst searching through the Internet for inspiration for doing a workshop. So very easy a project , but oh so impressive a result.
Me and hubby, well we can't  profess to be great drinkers, so when I came to make this up I had to scamper across to Tesco to get a bottle to use.  Being g a total cheapskate  I went for the cheapest bottle of plonk I could find,  £2.99  just fitted the bill lol.

I decided to use some new papers I have recently got, those being the Merry Moments designer series papers. 138450 being the purchase number. A sheet of 12 X 12 card stock that I had in my stash, along with the Scalloped tag topper (1333324), the Banner Triple (138292)  the 2" circle punch (133782) and the 1 3/4 circle punch (119850) and there you are a perfectly respectable Christmas gift.

Please go along to my Stampin Up shop and have a browse, please use the code ZFZ6CM6X if you visit during July/August 2015. More recent codes will be on my more recent blog posts.

Die cutting made easy

If like me you have struggled to remove those intricate dies from the metal cutter, well struggle no more because help is on the way!

The other day whilst browsing the net I saw a link to a way to cut the dies using ordinary plastic bags. Well I just had to give it a try and blow me down it works' so hop across to my youtube channel cos you really must watch this!

http://youtu.be/lpIADrfJ-q4

Running a workshop

It does what it says on the tin!

Have you ever heard that expression " it does what it says on the tin!"?  Well this card does exactly that.  So many of us struggle with doing a mans card, and I must admit when I bought the English Garden Designer Series Paper (138440), I most certainly didn't expect to be able to use it for a mans card. After all bees, flowers and pastel colours, there was nothing I could see there that shouted man to me.  So there I was today all ready to get all girly with cut out butterflies, ribbon and my dsp, until I opened the pack and started flicking through to see what paper to use for my girly creation.

Then.........POW....... i saw these earth colour spotches, well the girly idea flew right out of the window! I found some cream cards that I had waiting to be used up plus a sheet of olive green card, although in hindsight I could have used the Old Olive cardstock that match the papers (139010), but I had this card in my hand and it needed using up!

Well a bit of matting and layers.  A wrap a round of linen thread (104199) plus the happy birthday from the Age Awareness. Stamp set (135381), stamped using Mossy Meadow (133645) and I had a card that any bloke would love to receive.

Biscuits and notepads

Well this morning has seen me once more in a baking mood! So it looks like once again the Tuesday Club are going to benefit from my urges!

So I have ended up making Ginger biscuits, double chocolate biscuits, melting moments biscuits and carrot and pineapple cake. Now as long as hubby keeps his fingers out of my boxes I should have more than plenty for the fourty ladies and gents who attend the club.

After that i have started to sort out cards to make with the club in a few weeks time, but whilst doing that I sort of got sidetracked and recovered this noepad that I purchased from Asda for 22p!

I used a piece of dsp paper measuring 3" x 6.5" and scored on the long side at 1" and 1 1/4". 

I removed the original paper cover, leaving the bit stuck to the back of the notepad, and stuck the dsp paper onto the pad.

Using my new Garden in Bloom set of stamps (139433) I stamped the outlines of the flowers using Memento london fog, andd then used Hello Honey (133643) to infil the outlines. i did this onto white cardstock which I then cut down to a 2.5" x 4.5" panel, which i mounted onto the front of the notebook.

The sentiment was from the Garden in Bloom stamp set and was cut out using the Decorative label punch (120907l which I mounted onto a circle cut using the 2" circle punch (133782). Both of which were raised using dimentionals.

So for very little effort I transformed my notepad to this

Getting the most from your 12 x 12 paper

http://fantasyfirebird.stampinup.net

This is a way of making the most of your 12 x 12 papers. We all want more bang for your buck, and i really think that i have achieved this with this selection.

If you follow the directions on my youtube tutorial you will be able to make the following:

One gift box containing four 4 x4 cards with envelopes and four gift tags, also a matching gift tag to attach to your box so you can use it as a lovely gift, plus a fifth card for you to use yourself when you gift this all to someone. Finally a little mini tote bag that will hold something such as two small Green and Blacks chocolates.

youtube video

To make these items as well as your 12 x 12 paper you require four A4 sheets of card. 

http://youtu.be/Qe0SwmpmPA8

From your 12 x 12 paper cut the following:

Two strips of 3 3/4" x 12" these then need to be cut so they make 3 3/4 squares. These two strips will make six.

Next cut a strip 1 3/4" x 12", cut this into 3" lengths, this will make four 1 3/4" x 4"

From the remaining paper cut a 7" strip and cut it down to make it 2" deep.  This piece will measure 2"x 7"

The cut off from your 7" strip can be used on the base of your tote.

Finally cut another 3" x 1 3/4" piece.

..............................

Fom your A4 card 

Cut 8" x 8" from card, then cut down to 8 x 4 (do this twice, making 4 card pieces)

Cut six 3" x 3" pieces ( for on cards and box)

Cut five 2" x 4" ( for tags)

Cut one 3" x 2 1/4" ( tote base, score all sides at 1/2")

Finally using last sheet of A4 card make the following score lines:

Long side 1", 5 1/2", 6 1/2", 11"

Short side, 1", 2", 6 1/2", 7 1/2", 8 1/2"

Let your dreams take flight

I have been asked to run a workshop for our local Tuesday club.  As there are men and ladies, ranging in ages from 60's up to 100, i thought that this card might be a good one to do with them.

Tote bag and 4x4 cards

Here i have cased a bag tutorial that i found on youtube known as tge hallet bag.

This was made to fit a selection of matching 4x4 cards and envelopes in.

Two brothers cuddle each other

So our boys are now five years old. Sometimes they act all grown up and others they forget ab

Nd revert back to kittenhood!

Then of course its the big fit of who gets to be the one laying on top of me. Well on this occassion they decided if they cuddled each other then they could both be on me! 

Welcome to Stampin Up!

Well i have today made a leap of faith, i have signed up to be a Stampin Up demonstrator. Hopefully i can actually manage to make it work and actually make some money making cards and selling the items i use.

So watch this space!

Triangular closure box

These measurements will make a box finished size 5 x 5 x1.

Cut 2 card pieces 7 x7 inch.

score both at 1" and 6" on both sides, then cut across diagonal to make 4 triangles.

cut the squares from two of the triangles and notch the squares on the other triangles as per the pictures below.

• Glue or tape side on the triangles with the squares removed and tape together with the notched triangles.
• remove the "V" from the triangles but leave one, this will become the hinge joining the two boxes.

You now have the basic closure box, it can be decorated using either squares circles etc