Another Mimi Card

I felt it was about time to show you another Mimi card that I did for a workshop at Stamp Addicts a while ago. You will have already seen some of the other Mimi stamps that are available from Stamp Addicts. I just love these stamps as the lines are so clean and simple.

A Secret!!

Well yesterday I did sort of promise to let you in on a secret...................

A little while ago Katy (editor of Craft Stamper magazine) approached me about designing a free stamp for the cover of the magazine. I was absolutely thrilled to be asked and of course said that I would be delighted. So a little while ago I sharpened up my pencil and drew a little something!!

Today that 'little something' arrived in the post for me to design some cards with for Craft Stamper. So keep a look out for the August issue (on sale in July)!

As to what it is....................................well I think I'll keep you guessing for a while! After all I've got to have some secrets haven't I?

My First Sarah Kay Card

Good morning everyone. As promised here is a sneaky peek of one of the Sarah Kay cards we will be making next weekend made in my favourite colour of lilac. As you'll already know from my Oh My God post I am truly amazed at the quality of these clear stamps - the detail you get from each stamped image is remarkable.

Being that this is for a class I can't go into detail as to how it was made but I will tell you that all the backgrounds have been created by hand - not a backing paper in sight and the image has been coloured with Copic Ciaos which are fast becoming a firm favourite.

I will post up the other class cards next week.

Meanwhile if you check back here tomorrow I might let you in on a secret!!

More Penny Black Mice cards

Hi Guys. I'm glad you liked yesterdays card! Hopefully you'll like this one too as I used the same colouring and materials - just a different layout. The sentiment and the background stamps are from stamp sets by Inkadinkado.

The 2nd card wasn't done for the class but was made up with the scraps that I had left over from doing the other two cards. It only measures 10x10cm but sometimes it is nice to have a little card to hand to write a quick note to someone so I quite like to do this when time allows!!

Tomorrow I'll post up a sneak preview of one of the Sarah Kay cards we will be doing next Saturday at The Craft Barn.

Best Wishes Mouse

Oops I'm a bit late today with my post!! Today has just gone by in a blur as I have been really busy getting my Sarah Kay cards done for my class next weekend.

Anyway talking of classes this is a card I did last year for The Craft Barn using one of the cute Penny Black mice - I think that this is one of my very favourite mice stamps by Penny Black.

I'll post up the other card we did as well on this class tomorrow.

Some Dates For Your Diary

Well for the last couple of days I have been preparing my card samples for my classes at The Craft Barn next Saturday (4th April). The morning class consists of Sarah Kay stamps using Copic pens and for the afternoon class I am using cute elephant stamps by Little Claire along with Inktense pencils. The card samples are beginning to come together quite nicely now and I am absolutely loving the Copic pens - the ink goes on so smoothly - they really are incredible to work with and are fast becoming my favourite type of marker. If any of you live locally to The Craft Barn and fancy doing one of these classes it would be lovely to see you - currently as I write this I know that there are a few spaces left. For the rest of April I am having a rest from classes and demos as I will be re-charging my batteries for May.



On May 2nd I will be demonstrating at The Glitter Pot's Spring Spectacular weekend and on May 16th I'll be back at the Glitter Pot for a day of classes. Both the classes and the demo will be based on the different techniques you can use with shrink plastic. The classes (Sat May 16th) will be split to incorporate the two main different techniques that can be used with shrink plastic. In the morning we will be stamping onto pre-sanded shrink plastic, colouring in the image and shrinking to create perfect little minatures and in the afternoon we will be shrinking the shrink plastic and then stamping into it while it is still warm, which creates lovely textured glass like embellishments, so if you fancy either of these classes and live close enough it would be great to see you. As for the demo (Sat May 2nd) I will be busy showing all the different effects that can be achieved using this great medium so if anyone has any difficulties or questions, do come along and I'll do my best to help!

Then on the 29th and 30th May (as you already know) I will be zooming up the motorway to Kempston to do a class on the Friday and a demo on the Saturday at Stamp Addicts. Sarah (from Stamp Addicts) and I have still to decide what I will be doing for the class so you still have time to let me know if there is anything in particular that you would like me to cover.

The 2nd DL K Card

So here is the other card that I made at the same time as the one posted up yesterday. For this card I chose not to make it as a normal K Card but used the rectangle aperture on the template to make an aperture in the vellum for the flowers to sit in.

As I said yesterday these cards were actually made a few years ago now. It is amazing when you look back on past creations and realise how your style has changed throughout that time!

DL K Card

Here is a card using Penny Black stamps that I did for one of the June Weekend shows at The Craft Barn a few years ago this time using the DL size K Card template. So just like the square K Cards the place where the flower is stamped peeps through the front of the card to create a 3D look. As you can see I used the same background stamp as I used for the teddy K Card posted up a few days ago. Because the flower used for the main image was one of the Brush Stroke types by Penny Black I actually coloured the image with Marvys/Tombows then misted it slightly with a fine mist spritzer before stamping it out. The best way of doing this is to spray the mist of water up in the air and then allow it to fall onto the inked stamp - this way you just get a fine covering of water which is all you need to create the watercolour look.

Tomorrow I'll post up another card using the same stamps but this time with vellum added.

By the way thank you to Debbie, Lisa and Dawn for your kind words regarding yesterdays post - I really appreciate your comments.

Lilac Dragonfly Card

Good morning to you all. First of all I hope that all you Mothers out there had a lovely day yesterday.

Over the weekend I was busy creating and this is one of the cards that I came up with using my Flitters and Flutters un-mounted stamp sheet plus a Katzelcraft swirl from one of their un-mounted stamp sheets. I hope you like it!

By the way I think that my Mum liked her Mother's Day card - well she says that she did anyway!!

I have also posted up the Flitters and Flutters stamp sheet so that you can see the other imagery that is on it too. As always my designs can be purchased from The Stamp Man. The Katzelcraft stamps are available from The Craft Barn.

Mum's Mother's Day Card

Well I am sure most of us are aware that tomorrow (in the UK) it is Mother's Day and as I am fortunate to still have my Mum around this is the card that she will be receiving tomorrow.

I nearly always make Mum a big card as somehow I feel that it is more 'special' so this one is 20x20cm. The stamps are all by Magenta and can be obtained from The Stamp Man. I coloured all the imagery using Coloursoft pencils, paper stumps and Sansador all of which I bought from The Craft Barn. I must say that I am really pleased with the results I get colouring with these products as the colours blend seamlesssly together. I'm afraid that I had to buy the largest tin (72 pencils) so it was quite an expense but definitely a worthwhile one. The pencils are absolutely fantastic to use when colouring anything created by nature i.e. birds, animals, country scenes, flowers etc... But I would say that I probably wouldn't use them on any very finely detailed imagery as trying to blend colours (even with the smallest paper stump) on a tiny area would be quite difficult. For the imagery above though they were perfect.

The zigzag borders I drew by hand with a fine black Millenium pen (which I got from Stamp Addicts) and used this too for writing the wording and letters. The background was stamped with Versamark Champagne inkpad and embossed with Fine Detail Clear embossing powder (from The Stamp Man) for the pink and light green panels and just stamped and allowed to air dry for the dark green panel. The Coloursoft pencils were then used to add some colour to the leaves.

The flower embellishments I have blatantly copied from Debbie (http://pinkpoppycraftbox.blogspot.com/) but I had asked her permission first!! If you hop on over to her blog you'll see that she uses her retro flower punches to create her flower embellishments but as I don't own any of these yet(!), I used some different flower punches and then like Debbie does, I used a white opaque pen by Ranger Inkssentials to add the dots around the edges to add interest.

As you can see, being as this was a special card I went ahead and decorated the inside too. I only ever do this for my parents as I just don't get the time to do it on a daily basis! The flower stamp is another one by Magenta and it was coloured again with the Coloursoft pencils, paper stumps and Sansador. Diamond glitter glue was added to these flowers and also the ones on the front of the card in order to add some subtle sparkle. Being that this was such a large card I had to use two 12x12 background papers for the inside of the card by My Minds Eye which I purchased from The Glitter Pot.

Then lastly I had to make a box for the card to go in, as I didn't have an envelope the right size. This I stamped and embossed using the Versamark Champagne inkpad and Fine Detail Clear embossing powder and then coloured the leaves with a Colour

soft pencil. The matching gift card was made with yet another Magenta stamp.

So this is what my Mum will be receiving tomorrow! Just don't let her know that you saw it first!!

Keep a look out for the July issue of Craft Stamper for some more cards using these stamps.

Oh My God!!

This afternoon I finally got round to trying out my new Sarah Kay stamps that I got to do a class with at The Craft Barn in a couple of weeks time, and I cannot believe what marvellous quality they are!! Normally with clear stamps you cannot get the fine detail and they never stamp out well the first time but with these the minute detail is just staggering and they were an absolute dream to stamp out. Why has no-one told me this??? I would have gone and got some ages ago if I had realised how superb they are! To be honest I am not normally a lover of clear stamps because you cannot normally get such intricate designs but these are just amazing. I cannot wait to get more!

I am afraid that is as far as I got this afternoon was just stamping out some images as I was busy finishing off other things. Can you believe that I have made 18 cards this week?? I was making some cards for my submission for the August issue of Craft Stamper using some Magenta stamps and as I had got lots of pieces left over I just had to go ahead and use them all so I went ahead and made lots more cards! Unfortunately I cannot show them to you as although they vary slightly they are very similar to the ones I have done for the magazine.

Tomorrow though I will post up the card that I have made for my Mum for Mother's Day which was created in the same style but on a larger scale.

On a totally different note, today is my 1 month anniversary of blogging!! I cannot believe how quickly this last month has gone. I have really had some lovely comments over that time so thank you to all of you who have taken the time and trouble to do this - I do so love receiving your comments. Thanks too to those of you who bother visiting my blog and to those who follow it - it really means a lot. So if you'll have me I plan to stick around for this blogging lark for a while longer!!

Another Square K Card

Hi Everyone. Today I thought I would post up another Square K Card design that I did a while ago. Infact it was at the same time that I did the blue teddy card that I posted a few days ago. As you will note I have used the same background stamp for this one, but this time it is a different teddy image and made in my favourite colour of lilac!

All the stamps are by Penny Black. The images were stamped with black StazOn and then water coloured with Zig Brushable pens. The background was stamped with a white pigment inkpad and then embossed with crystal embossing powder. (By the way the wording isn't stuck on crooked I just didn't scan the card in straight!!)

Don't forget to let me know if any of you have made any cards with the K Card templates as I would love to see your creations!

Square K Card

Good morning everyone and what a lovely sunny day it is here on the south east coast!

I have had a little rummage in a box of old cards that I have got and have found a Square K Card that I did for Papercraft Inspirations (for either the January or February 2009 issue - I can't quite remember!!) using my Plum Blossom stamp sheet. So I hooked out my camera and have taken some photos of it so you can see what it looks like properly! (Normally I just scan the cards in as I find this so much quicker but for 3D cards this doesn't really work!

So as you can see the middle part of the card (the plum blossom flower) comes through the square aperture which was what I was trying to explain for the teddy card that I posted up the other day.

The 2nd picture shows the inside mechanism of the card. As you can see it is like a concertina effect so that the card when closed will lay flat to go in an envelope for posting. This is created with a WS Designs template which can be bought from The Stamp Man. There are other templates in the K Card range too which all operate in the same way. The Plum Blossom un-mounted stamp sheet is also available from The Stamp Man - as too are all my other designs.

As you can see I didn't bother decorating the inside of this card as it was not for a recipient. As this was a magazine card I cannot go into details as to how it was all created - for that information I'm afraid you will have to buy the back issue of the magazine!

If any of you out there have created any K Cards do post me a link as I would love to see what you have created with yours!

NEC

Well Hobbycrafts at the NEC is now over and done with. As I wasn't able to attend this year I am absolutely desperate for news so if anyone went and would like to tell me what they thought of it I would love to hear your comments! Were there any good stalls there? Were there any new products that caught your eye or any really good buys? I'd really love to hear what you thought of it.

Stamp Addicts Workshop

Exciting news!! Sarah (of Stamp Addicts) has asked me if I can do a 2 hour workshop on Friday 29th May from 3-5pm at their unit in Kempston (near Bedford). This is my first workshop at Stamp Addicts this year. We have yet to discuss what I will be doing so here is your chance for anyone that lives close enough to Stamp Addicts and who would like to attend the workshop, to put forward some suggestions as to what you would like the workshop to cover.

Stamp Addicts are then having a Demo Day on Saturday 30th May which I will be staying overnight for so if anyone would like to come along and say hello it would be lovely to see you!

A 'Blue' Card

Morning Everyone! In honour of my 'blue' day yesterday I thought I would post up a 'blue' coloured card!! This was actually made a couple of years ago now (if not more!) when I was demoing at The Craft Barn at one of their June Weekend events. The stamps (which were brand new then) are all by Penny Black. Unfortunately The Craft Barn doesn't stock a lot of Penny Black now but both Sir Stampalot and The Glitter Pot have a really good range of Penny Black stamps.

To create the background the Baby's Breathe stamp was inked with a blue marker and repeatedly stamped onto blue vellum. The In A Pot teddy was simply stamped with black StazOn and water coloured with Zig Brushables.

You can't tell from this picture but this is actually a 3D card as it was made with a WS Designs 'K Card' template (so called because I had a hand in designing them!). I am really rubbish at explaining how this works and I don't have a photo of it standing up to show you but the teddy part of the card is actually stamped on the inner part of the card and it comes through the square (vellum) aperture. I'll have to see if I have another one of these K Cards around somewhere so that I can take a photo of it standing up to show you what I mean!

A Bit Blue.....

Today I am feeling just a little bit blue or at least I was until I saw some of the new designs by Sugar Nellie just now!! I cannot wait for them to be released!! I don't know what is wrong with me as I don't normally go in for 'cute' girls but as you already know I have recently become a fan of Sarah Kay and Elizabeth Bell and now I simply must have them!!

Normally at this time of year I would be busy demoing on Stamp Addicts stall at the NEC but instead here I am at home and today I have kept thinking about the NEC and wondering how the Stamp Addicts girls are getting on. I am definitely missing being there this year. Least of all because I am on a mission to find old Sarah Kay stamps and the NEC could have been a good place to talk to some other stamp retailers! Still perhaps with all the spending I have been doing recently maybe it is a good thing that I am not there after all!!

I absolutely LOVE demoing as it is so nice meeting like-minded people and I won't get my next 'show demo' fix until Newbury and July seems so far away........So being cooped up here at home has made me feel a little bit blue.......Still one good thing Kati from The Craft Barn rang to tell me that the Sarah Kay stamps were in that I am going to be using on my class in April so all being well they should turn up here tomorrow so that should cheer me up!!

Buzzy Bee

This is a card that I did some while ago now back when my Double Delights un-mounted stamp sheet was released under The Stamp Man's Aspects of Design range (No.29). I can hardly believe that is is almost 3 years ago since it came out! Time definitely does fly!


I was pushed for time when I did this card so as you can see I decided not to make my own backgrounds for this one but instead used some pretty background papers from K&Co. I don't know if you can still get these particular papers any more but there are so many pretty papers available now that I am sure you could find something equally suitable.


I have posted up the Double Delights stamp sheet too so that you can see the other imagery on this un-mounted stamp sheet. This sheet was called Double Delights because of
there being both solid and outline imagery of the butterflies that match each other i.e. you can stamp the solid image first in a pretty colour (or colours) and then stamp the matching outline image over the top in a darker colour! Plus of course you can also use these images separately. Originally the flowers were also supposed to have solid counterparts but I ran out of room on the stamp sheet!

Swirly Flutters

Here's another card as a result of my 'play day' the other day. This is using one of my un-mounted stamp sheets called Swirly Flutters 'n' Florals which is available under The Stamp Man's own range of stamps called Aspects of Design. The butterflies were stamped in black StazOn and coloured with Tombow markers and a waterbrush. The background was sponged with Blue, Lavender and Lime inks. Blue vellum was stamped with white ink for some of the images and stamped and embossed with others and layered over the top of the background.

I have posted up the actual stamp sheet as well so you can see the rest of the images that is on this particular sheet of stamps.

Classes at The Craft Barn

Hi Everyone. The Craft Barn have now put up the April class list and I am pleased to say that I have a day of classes at The Barn on Saturday 4th April so if anyone lives near enough and would like to book on, it would be great to see you! It has been a little while since I did a day of classes at The Barn as this is a bit further for me to travel to, but I must say that I am really looking forward to it. In the morning we will be using 2 of the Sarah Kay stamps and colouring with the Copic pens and I literally can't wait to get my hands on these stamps - how sad am I?? All of a sudden I am really into these cute characters and I have got this passion to own loads of them. (Talking of which I know that there are some Sarah Kay stamps that are no longer available but I was wondering if any of you out there know of anywhere that still has any stock of the older images?? I have seen some lovely Sarah Kay stamps on peoples blogs but no-one seems to sell them.) Anyway getting back to The Craft Barn classes....... in the afternoon I have chosen 2 cute Little Claire elephants which we'll be colouring with Inktense pencils and then combining with Core-dinations cardstock.

I thought it would be nice to add my event diary to the side of this blog so you can see what I will be up to over the next few months. There are still some events to be added to this but as they aren't advertised as yet I haven't been able to include them!

Bee card

Here is the bee card that I spoke about yesterday which I made up with all the leftover pieces that I had from designing the other 2 cards. I think that this bee is so adorable. As you can no doubt tell the wording was handwritten onto the acetate which didn't come out as well as I had hoped as the pen I had to hand didn't have a fine tip to it. Still never mind.........

Flutterfly class card

What a lovely sunny morning it is here - it is still cold outside though so I think yet another day of staying indoors crafting will be called for!

This is the other card we made on Friday morning using the same set of Stampendous Flutterfly Friends images and the Hero Arts Fantastic Flourishes clear set. Yesterday I made another card with these stamps this time using the delightful bee so I'll let you see that one tomorrow. It is so very rare that I actually get time to just sit and play and to be honest I should have actually been making a start on my next assignment for Craft Stamper but as I had already stamped out and coloured some images of the bee when I was trying to decide which images to use for the class I could not let them go to waste!

Flitterflies

This is one of the cards we created yesterday morning at The Glitter Pot using both vellum and acetate layers. I'm afraid that I can't go into too much detail on how the class cards were created as it is not fair on those who paid to do the classes but I thought I would post them up for inspiration!

All of the stamps used (apart from the white flourish) are from a clear stamp set by Stampendous called Flutterfly Friends. It has some really nice images on it. The flourish is from the same Hero Arts clear set that I mentioned yesterday. All products of course are available from The Glitter Pot.

Check back tomorrow to see the other card we made using the same set of stamps.

Pink and Black Dandys

Hi Guys. A relatively quick post from me this evening before I head towards the settee and collapse for the rest of the evening as I have been out teaching all day. However before the settee beckonings me I thought I would post up the other card that we did this afternoon.

This card as well as the one posted up yesterday are both made with a Penny Black stamp called Quite Dandy. The flourishes are from a clear set from Hero Arts called Fantastic Flourishes and I tend to use these an awful lot as I find them really versatile. Both of these cards went down really well today so I hope you like it!

Thanks so much to all of you who have posted me comments these past couple of weeks - I can't tell you how nice it is to receive such lovely feedback and to know that there is someone out there bothering to visit my blog - it means a lot!

Oops nearly forgot to say that of course these stamps are available from The Glitter Pot!

Tomorrow

So tomorrow I am teaching at The Glitter Pot all day. In the morning we are combining acetate and vellum to make some lovely layered cards along with butterflies and dragonfly imagery and in the afternoon we are taking 1 stamp and creating 2 different looks with it. The card pictured here is one of the cards that we will be making in the afternoon. There are still some spaces left for both of these classes so if you are at a loose end tomorrow and live near The Glitter Pot (based in Scaynes Hill, West Sussex) why don't you book on and treat yourself to a day of fun filled crafting with like-minded people! Simply click here and this will take you to The Glitter Pots website where you will find information relating to the classes. Due to other commitments this will be my last day of classes at The Glitter Pot until the middle of May but I will be at The Craft Barn on Saturday April 4th teaching classes in the morning and afternoon. These classes are not actually listed as yet so once they are I will post up more information incase anyone is interested!

Pregnant Mimi

This card is made in the same way as the other Mimi cards using the same background stamp and products. However this time I decided to add some pretty background paper and so coloured Mimi with the Zig Brushables to match. I'm afraid that I can't remember whose background paper it is but I do know that it came from Stamp Addicts. The Congratulations stamp is by Denami and once again the squares have been punched out of suede paper and the letters handwrittten.

I've been asked about the glitter on the Relaxing Mimi post - I guess I should have explained a little more thoroughly. The Fine Prisma glitter is actually a 'loose' glitter by Denami. All I did was trace all the bubbles with a bullet tipped glue pen (Stiki glue pen) and then sprinkle the glitter over the top and tap off the excess. The glue then holds the glitter - this makes it more sparkly than traditional glitter glue (i.e. glitter mixed in with a glue base) as the particles of this Fine glitter (as opposed to the Ultra Fine) are bigger and therefore catch the light more. I hope this helps!

Mimi Out and About

I think that this is such a fun image. This time Mimi is out and about with her friends. Both background images are by Judikins and of course the main image is by Denami - and so is the wording. All available once again from Stamp Addicts.

Relaxing Mimi

I just love this particular Mimi infact along with the chocolate Mimi that is on the top left of my blog she is probably one of my favourites. In particular I like the fact that there is only a minimal amount of colouring so she is really quick to do. I have added the Denami 'Fine' glitter with the use of a glue pen to all the bubbles as opposed to the 'Ultra Fine' as the 'Fine' glitter has slightly bigger particles which catch the light more and really incorporates the look of soap suds. The squares have been punched out of suede paper and the letters were handwritten with a fine black pen. The border around Mimi was hand drawn, as were the borders along the top and bottom of the card using the same fine black Millenium pen. Zig Brushables were used to colour in the image. The background stamp is a Judikins one and this was stamped with Versamark and embossed with a clear glitter embossing powder. All of the materials that you see on this card including the ribbon are all available from Stamp Addicts. I'll try and post up another Mimi card later on today.

ATC's

I don't normally go in for making ATC's but last year I really enjoyed working with the Mimi stamps by Denami and some of the smaller Mimi's were just the right size to go onto an ATC so I decided to have a go at making some.

Mimi is the name of this particular lady and she has been created doing all sorts of things. As you can see on these ATC's she is walking her dogs and has been on quite a shopping spree! All of the Mimi range are available from Stamp Addicts and if you haven't seen it look out for the Mimi show on Create and Craft to see even more Mimi's and card ideas. Tomorrow I'll post up some different Mimi's.

Before I disappear I must just say a huge thank you to Debbie - I went on over to her blog yesterday and she makes the most amazing cards. In particular I loved her vellum flowers that she had done so I posted a comment asking if she would mind if I could incorporate her idea on some of my future cards. As you will see from her comment on my Dashing Around post below she very kindly gave her consent. If you want to see some stunning cards I thoroughly recommend you visit her blog - she is a very talented lady!

Dashing around

Ooops my post is a bit late today! As it was such a lovely sunny day I decided to take the opportunity to go and buy some craft supplies. So I hopped in the car and went to The Craft Barn in order to go and buy some more of those Copics that I was speaking about yesterday! The particular Copics that the Craft Barn sell are the Ciao markers which are the smaller barrelled ones - think normal marker size. There are currently 4 different colour sets of 36 markers as well as some smaller sets which to be honest I didn't really take much notice of as I knew I wanted the bigger sets! But the thing is how are you supposed to choose which set you want?!! I already had Set A which was a no-brainer as this set contained pastel colours which is very much my thing - in the end I plumped for Set C and Set D.............................well in for a penny in for a pound! The really bizarre thing is that as yet I haven't even coloured anything in yet with the set I have already got! In my defense though I have seen quite a lot of imagery that has been coloured with Copics and it looks really good so I am hoping fervently that my colouring will improve dramatically once I start using these markers. I also really like the idea of them - being that they are alcohol ink which of course means that the markers are going to work on a wide variety of surfaces too, so with that in mind I also got some metal to play around with. Once I have used the Copics I'll post up some imagery and you can let me know what you think!!

Now I know that Core-dinations cardstock has been around for sometime but it is a material that I have just not got around to exploring so while I was at The Barn I picked up a couple of packs of Core-dinations that caught my eye. One of the 12x12"packs contained an assortment of pretty pastel colours one side and black on the other which I thought could be quite interesting and the other 12x12" pack that grabbed my interest looked as if it was already 'distressed' in that there was a lighter colour and a darker colour already on the surface of the cardstock. Then as I wanted a selection of the normal Core-dinations I plumped for a smaller sized pack (can't remember the size off-hand - it might have been 8x8") of pretty pastel colours, so expect to see some core-dination based cards in the near future once I have played around with it. All I can say is that it is a good job that I don't normally get the time to go visiting craft shops - you really don't want to know what my bill came to!

A rare day!

Good morning! First I must just say thank you to Debbie and Judith for telling me about the Cutest Blog on the Block website hence my blog now having a pretty lilac background and some green flowers. What was really nice was that setting it up was really easy and completely hassle free so thanks girls!

Today is a 'rare' day for me as I am actually having a day off - well almost! I just have a little bit of paperwork to catch up on this morning and then the rest of the day is mine! For some strange reason I am actually ahead of the game which is most unusual for me as normally I hit deadlines by the skin of my teeth. My project for the next deadline of Craft Stamper (which is tomorrow) went off on Thursday. My cards for my classes at The Glitter Pot on Friday have been completed and yesterday I did the project sheets for them too and my next lot of deadlines are not until the end of the month so I am feeling quite relaxed and jubilant until I no doubt realise that I have forgotten about something!

Why is it that I keep seeing lots of craft things that I simply must have at the moment? I had gone most of last year without having to buy much at all and suddenly there seems to be 101 things that I must have! It all started towards the end of last year when The Craft Barn started stocking Derwent Coloursoft and Inktense pencils along with paper stumps and Sansador and of course I had to have the 72 tins of both of these. Then shortly after that I just had to buy 4 sets of Nestabilities - now with the new ones about to come out I want another 5 sets of them! Then I heard tell of the new Pink Bind It All which I purchased from Stamp Addicts when I saw them at Stevenage - however this really was a necessity as I needed it for a project! The Craft Barn have recently started stocking Copic markers - of which I've already bought 1 set (36 markers) of these and am planning on buying another 2 sets very shortly! Then there are stamps that I simply must have - I love the Art Impressions range of scenic stamps and a few months ago they bought out a new range of English Cottages so I immediately got in touch with Sir Stampalot and had those. Now I have decided that I must own some Elizabeth Bell and Sarah Kay images as I have seen some fabulous cards using these stamps on other people's blogs. Then lastly inks and inkpads - apparently the best inkpad to use with Copic markers is the Memento Tuxedo Black which I promptly got from The Stamp Man and now I am after the new range of Ranger alcohol inks in Lights which I've got on order from Stamp Addicts and don't even get me started on papers and cardstock! So all in all I don't know if I can afford to have this day off!! So if anyone needs a demonstrator let me know!