More Mrs Herb

Quite a traditional colour scheme for this card in red and green but with aqua paper added to make it more modern. This is yet another card that I did for The Craft Barn's weekend earlier this month. This Whiff Of Joy snowman was stamped using Starlite Black Brilliance and coloured with the Copic Ciaos and Spicas. The Spicas have small glitter particles in them which add a soft shimmer. These are pigment based rather than alcohol ink based like the Ciaos and they have a bullet tip so are great for detail work.

The background papers as you have no doubt guessed by now are by SEI and once again everything can be purchased from The Craft Barn.

More Whiff Of Joy

Here is Mrs Herb and her Baby.  This card was a real cheat to do as I simply stamped her onto white card, coloured her with my Copics and then placed her onto a piece of SEI background paper which has already got the sparkly snow and the trees printed onto it!  I simply then added some stamped and embossed snowflakes using Versamark and crystal embossing powder and then overstamped the greeting.  The snowflakes were taken from the Stampendous Snow Spindle Lite stamp set and the greeting from Woodware's Traditional Christmas Greetings stamp set. All products again are available from The Craft Barn.  Don't forget that The Craft Barn aren't allowed to put the Whiff Of Joy stamps onto their website so you will need to give them a ring on 01342 836398.

Back To Sarah Kay

Back to those Christmas cards that I have been having to make recently for today.  This is that cute Sarah Kay image that I showed you a few days ago but this time coloured in an entirely different colour scheme.  I did of course use my Copics again though and in the Colouring Technques DVD that will be released soon I show you how I colour my Sarah Kay images using these markers.

The paper is by SEI again and you can see I stamped and embossed the pink Bazzill cardstock using a snowflake image, Versamark inkpad and crystal embossing powder.  The wording and smaller snowflake were stamped in Brilliance Cocoa Bean.  The snowflakes were taken from that Stampendous Snow Spindle Lite clear stamp set and the wording is from Woodware's Traditional Christmas Greetings clear stamp set.  All of these products can be bought from The Craft Barn.

An Extra Special Card

Over the last couple of days I have showed you some of the cards and flowers I received for my birthday but I purposely held one back as so much work went into this that it deserved to be shown all on it's own.

This absolutely fantastic card was made by a very dear friend of mine and she absolutely slaved over it as she wanted it to be just right.  It really is a work of art and needless to say I absolutely LOVE it!!  As you can see it is a concertina style card.

Here is the other side of the concertina.

Here are the close up pictures of each of the individual pages.  As you can see the little hedgehogs are all excited as they are off to a party!!

Now we can see that it is a 40th birthday party that they are attending and as you can see they have brought presents!

This next page shows that the party has now started and the hedgehog looks very pleased to see that bottle of champagne!

On this page the hedgehog has spied a present!

Time to start unwrapping!

Present opened!!

Did you notice all the appropriate wording on each of the pages too!!  It really is a work of art.  Thank you Jenny Wren.

Birthday cards

As promised here are some close ups of some of the wonderful cards that I had sent to me for my 40th.  As you can probably guess this one was from my parents.  I just LOVE the Art Deco ladies that Clinton Cards now do and last year bought a calendar of them.  Not only was this card beautiful outside but it was also decorated inside too.

This one I loved too as it was really stylish.  I just wish that I could draw things like this!!

And this is the one that Jill (from The Stamp Man) made for me.  Isn't it lovely?  Knowing that my favourite colour is lilac she designed it with that in mind and as you can see she used one of my stamp designs too!


I also had a fabulous card from Sara but unfortunately the picture that I took didn't come out very well.  However if you head on over to Sara's blog you can see it there in all it's glory!  Click here to view it.

Some birthday photos

First of all my thanks to everyone who posted a comment under yesterdays post.  I really appreciate them so thank you!!  I am not the most confident person in the world so it means a lot!!  This week has just passed in a flash - most of the time I have been sat in front of the tv being hyper critical watching two of the new DVD's.  For some strange reason I blinked an awful lot!!  As far as I'm aware I don't normally blink that much.  All I can think is that I had two very bright lights about two foot away from me pointing directly at me and I guess that was why I was having to blink soooooooo much - not a good look at all!!  Anyway once the camera is off of my face and onto what I am doing it is much better!

Anyway I have finally gotten around to downloading some piccies from my camera that I took of my birthday flowers, cards etc... so here are some of them.

As you can see I was absolutely inundated with flowers which was absolutely marvellous as I just love them.  The middle bouquet that you can see of the roses and freesias and the balloon were from Jill and Ian (from The Stamp Man). The magnificent bouquet on the left and the bouquet on the right were both from some very dear friends.

And yet more flowers!!  I must say that all the flowers were really fresh and lasted such a long time.  Infact today I have just thrown the last of them out!!  You can see a few of my birthday cards underneath too.  Two of which were handmade so were extra special.  The card on the left was made for me by Linda (former owner of The Craft Barn), the cake card was made by Clare who is an old friend and owns her own craft shop in Hailsham called Crafty Clares and the card on the right (with 40 on it) was the card I received from Carolyn and Bryan (owners of The Glitter Pot).  It was waiting for me on my demo table when I turned up the day after my birthday to demo for them at their Birthday Weekend.

And here's my chocolate bottle of champagne from Thorntons!!  It is still unopened as well because as you know I recently found out that I am allergic to dairy products so it will be a while before I will be able to break it open!! 

Tomorrow I'll post up some of the cards I received.

Exciting News!!

Morning everyone!!  As you all know for the past few months I have been REALLY busy and I can now reveal what it was I was up to!!  Earlier this year I was approached by Traplet (the people who produce Craft Stamper) about making some craft DVD's.  So very shortly there will be three brand new DVD's coming out featuring yours truly!! (This was why I had to have that photo done on my sidebar!!)

The first DVD has now been put to bed and should be coming out very soon.  This particular one is called Creative Crafting - Basics and Beyond and features Basic Stamping, Stamping and Embossing, Working With Bold Stamps, Combining Solid and Outline Stamps, Kiss Stamping and Interactive Stamping.  As for the other two DVD's  - one is based on Colouring Techniques and the other on Shrink Plastic but more about these another time!!

It has been really hard for me keeping quiet about what I have been up to and even worse having to watch the drafts of the DVD's!!  I really do not like watching myself at all!  If any of you fancy buying a copy it will be available through Craft Stamper magazine and also some craft shops.  The Craft Barn are already taking orders for all three of the DVD's and I know that Jill (from The Stamp Man) will be stocking them too.  (Thanks Jill :))  If any of you do get it and watch it please be kind!!

Heeeeeere's Herb!

Here's Herb again in a slightly different layout to what I showed you previously.  Once again I stamped and coloured him using my Copics and then masked him off with Eclipse Tape to stamp those Stampendous trees behind him.  He really is such a cute character.  To get those white highlights on his hat I simply used a White Opaque pen after I had done my colouring.

As you can see I used some more of that SEI background paper from their Winter Song range and stamped and embossed some pale green Bazzill card using a snowflake out of that Snow Spindle Lite clear stamp set by Stampendous.  The wording was stamped from the Woodware Traditional Christmas Greetings stamp set.

All the stamps, papers and products can be bought from The Craft Barn.

More New Christmas Sarah Kay

I think that this is most probably my favourite card from the cards I designed for The Craft Barn's Extravaganza Weekend.  I just love this new Sarah Kay Christmas image - I think she is sooooooo sweet!!  Again many of you at the Weekend Extravaganza agreed with me as there were only 2 left by the end of the weekend and therefore I was unable to use her for my classes last Saturday.  Once again I used these gorgeous SEI background papers which go so well with her.  She was of course coloured with my Copic Ciaos with the Clear Copic Spica added here and there to add some shimmer which the scanner didn't pick up.  If I get the time I would dearly like to do some more of these for my Christmas cards this year but we will have to wait and see on that!!  If any of you live near The Craft Barn you will be able to see this card and most of the others that I did for their weekend on display there. Meanwhile I'm afraid that I will be bombarding you with yet more Christmas cards for some while yet as that is what I am currently having to make!

Manic Period Over!!

Morning everyone.  I had fully intended to post yesterday but somehow yesterday just disappeared in a flash!!  After having to work three weekends in a row I am looking forward to not having to travel anywhere for a few weeks!

My sincere thanks to everyone who booked onto the classes on Saturday - we ended up having two full classes so my thanks to you all.  I just hope that everyone enjoyed it!  Having full classes is always a bit manic because of lack of supplies but I have got to say that I was really impressed with all the cards that everyone did.  Both classes were based on using the Copic markers and considering that most of the ladies hadn't used them before I thought they did an absolutely incredible job.  (You all deserve a pat on the back.)  I will be doing another class at The Craft Barn before the end of the year and will post up details on the left hand side of this blog under My Event Diary a bit nearer the time.  Meanwhile if anyone else fancies booking on some classes based on the Copic markers I have a day of classes at The Glitter Pot at the end of October booked in.

New Sarah Kay Christmas

As soon as I saw this stamp I had to have it and I think other people thought the same as we ran out of this stamp last Saturday at The Craft Barn's weekend.  She is just soooooooooooooo sweet!!  I had hoped to use her for my class today at The Barn but because she sold out I had to opt for another one instead which I will show you in a few days time!! However even though I couldn't use this particular stamp I took the design of this card and just juggled it around a little for one of the cards we are making today.

I think these background papers by SEI suit the Sarah Kay images really well.  These particular papers are from their Christmas Mint collection.  The wording is from Woodware's Traditional Christmas Greetings clear stamp set and of course the image was coloured using Copics.

Hope you like it!!

Christmas Tree Ted

I just don't know where this week has disappeared to!!  Originally I had thought I would have plenty of time to prepare for my classes at The Craft Barn tomorrow and here I am panicking like mad!!  I have just finished composing the project sheets for each of the cards and now need to read them through to check that they make some sort of sense before printing them out!!  Tomorrow we will be using those cute Whiff Of Joy snowmen in the morning and a Sarah Kay image in the afternoon and colouring with the Copics!  So in honour of my fave new markers I have posted up a card I did for The Glitter Pot's birthday weekend using the Copics.  He was stamped out using Starlite Black Brilliance and coloured using Copic Ciaos.  I just can't get over how smooth these markers are.Tomorrow we will be having a Copic day so hopefully everyone on the classes will fall in love with these markers too!

Anyway back to this card.  The teddy image is by Penny Black the holly on the background panel is by Hero Arts and I have no idea whose paper it is but The Glitter Pot sell it!!

Mrs Herb

Here's Mrs Herb enjoying a warming cup of hot chocolate - just what she needs on a cold winter's day!!  This is the last design of the Whiff Of Joy snowmen that I was working with at the weekend but there are two other designs in this range that I didn't pick.  As stated previously, if you go to the Whiff Of Joy website and look at their Winter 2008 range you will find all the different Herb snowmen there. Unfortunately The Craft Barn are not allowed to show the images on their website but they have got all of them in stock so just give them a ring on 01342 836398 to order any of them.  The trees and snowflakes are from that same Stampendous clear stamp set that I mentioned in the last posting and the wording is from Woodware's Traditional Christmas Greetings clear stamp set.  Mrs Herb was coloured using both Copic Ciaos and Copic Spicas and stamped with Brilliance Starlite Black. 

The background paper is by SEI from their Winter Joy range.  I have got to say that they have brought out some stunning designs this year and I want them all!!  Me thinks I will be buying a few more when I'm at The Craft Barn on Saturday!!  You'll notice that I embellished the actual paper by stamping one of the trees from the Stampendous clear set along the base of the card.  The fainter trees were stamped in Versamark and the foreground trees were stamped with Stone Grey StazOn as too were the snowflakes.

Thanks for looking :)

Mrs Herb and Baby

Today I thought I'd post up another of those Whiff Of Joy snowmen that I was demoing with at the weekend. These snowmen are just so appealing and are designed by Elisabeth Bell - I just love all the decoration on their bodies. The trees (that I stamped behind) are from a Stampendous clear stamp set as too are the little snowflakes that I stamped onto the background paper using a dark grey inkpad. To position the trees behind the snow people I stamped the snow people onto Eclipse Tape (which is a low tack masking tape), cut it out and placed over my main stamped image. This then protects my image. Next I stamped my trees onto the panel and then peeled away my mask to reveal the trees positioned behind Mrs Snowman and her baby.

The imagery was coloured using both Copic Ciaos and Copic Spicas. The background papers are by SEI which I then decorated further using snowflake stamps from that same Stampendous clear stamp set called Snow Spindle Lite. The wording was stamped using Stone Grey StazOn and was taken from the Traditional Greetings clear stamp set by Woodware.

All of the stamps and products can be obtained from The Craft Barn. Don't forget that they are not allowed to mention that they stock Whiff Of Joy on their website so if you want any of these fabulous stamps give them a call instead on 01342 836398

Glitter Pot's Birthday Celebrations

Well finally I have uploaded a few of the cards I did for The Glitter Pot's birthday weekend at the beginning of September. The teddy is by Penny Black and coloured using my fave new markers - Copic Ciaos. The trees and holly swirl (that you can see on the background) are both by Hero Arts. I can't remember whose background paper it is that I used on the left of the card but I do know that both the paper and the stamps can all be obtained from The Glitter Pot.

I haven't had a lot of experience yet using my Copics but I was quite pleased with the way my teddy turned out! Mind you I did use 4 different shades of brown on him to get him to look like this!

Hope you like it!!

Having A Chat!

Well The Craft Barn's Extravaganza Weekend is now over with and I can return to normality (whatever that is!) for a little while!! I'd just like to thank everyone who stopped by my table over the course of the weekend to say Hi to me. It really was SO nice to meet you all and also to put faces to names!

My sincere thanks to those of you who gave me such lovely positive feedback. It is really nice for me to hear that I have been able to inspire or help some of you. (It really does make all the hard work worth while!)

As you can see I have posted up another card using a different snowman image. This is still Herb but this time he is having a heartfelt chat with the robin. This particular stamp was the most popular out of all of the Herb range of snowman stamps by Whiff Of Joy over the course of the weekend. The Craft Barn still have ALL of them in stock though (as they ordered loads to be on the safe side!) so if any of you must have him you know where to go! Unfortunately though The Craft Barn are not allowed to show the stamps on their website but if you go to Whiff Of Joy's website you can see the full range of Herb stamps and then contact The Craft Barn on 01342 836398 to order them.

As I was colouring with the Copics and because I didn't want a harsh black outline I stamped him out in Brilliance Starlite Black which is a soft grey and then coloured him using the Copic Ciaos first and added the Copic Spicas here and there for some shimmery accents, which I don't think the scanner picked up on! The background papers are absolutely gorgeous and are by SEI - these particular ones are from their Christmas Mint range and can also be found at The Craft Barn. I don't normally go for this type of colour scheme for my Christmas cards but I must say that I am very tempted to this year.

Anyway I hope you like it! There will be more to follow in the next few days...........

By the way if any of you live close enough and feel like coming along to my class this coming Saturday at The Craft Barn, you will be able to make a couple of cards using two other versions of the delightful Herb snowman stamps as there are still a couple of places left!

A Peek At What I'll Be Demoing!

This is one of the cards that I will have on display this weekend at The Craft Barn's Extravaganza Weekend.

This cutie pie is from Whiff Of Joy and is called Herb! He has been coloured with my new fave markers - Copics!! I'll be demoing how I coloured this image and others all weekend so if you are at a loose end do stop by and say hello!!

So Much To Do!!!

Hi guys. Sorry for not posting yesterday - time just disappeared on me!! Very much like I think it is going to do today!! I still have loads to do in preparation for tomorrow!! Royal Mail really let me down and I didn't receive the stuff I needed from The Craft Barn until Wednesday so this has only given me 3 days in which to do all the cards and the preparation required for the weekend. Needless to say I am not very impressed with RM at the moment!!

I haven't had chance yet to upload any of the cards I did for The Glitter Pot's birthday weekend or the photos I took of some of my birthday flowers and cards so meanwhile here is the card that I made for Mum's birthday.

She also really likes the Sarah Kay girls but doesn't like too much on her card as she feels it detracts from the image so I kept the card quite plain just for her!! The background papers are by Basic Grey and the image was coloured using Copics.

Don't forget I'm at The Barn's Extravaganza Weekend on both days this weekend, where I will be demonstrating with the Copic Ciaos so if anyone has any questions about these markers I will do my best to answer them for you. However I am still learning myself with them so I don't know everything 'Copic' as yet!!

October issue of Craft Stamper

Yesterday my issue arrived of the October issue of Craft Stamper and guess what??? My project is the star of the cover!!!

Here is a sneaky peek of what my project inside is all about - intaglio shrink plastic. Intaglio shrink plastic is where you stamp into the shrink plastic whilst it is still hot and molten to create a textured piece of plastic. Never ever do this with clear stamps though - only rubber ones. You will find that you get the best results when you use deeply etched stamps which is why the Aspects of Design range from The Stamp Man is so good for this technique - their deeply etched stamps are second to none.

Anyway to find out more about intaglio shrink plastic you'll need to buy the October issue of Craft Stamper!!

Under The Weather??

Morning everyone. Well thankfully the weather we are having here on the south east coast of the UK is nothing like the weather that the little chick is experiencing in this card!! Today the sunshine is absolutely glorious and really warm too.

This card is another one that I did for the Stevenage show using those Denami stamps. All of the stamps on this card are by Denami apart from the wording which is a Printworks stamp - they are all available from Stamp Addicts.

Apple Pickin'

Here is the other card that we made in the afternoon class at The Glitter Pot. The little girl is another Sarah Kay stamp and she is just sooooooooo sweet!! I really like these images as the detail is amazing and they look sooooo dainty. Just like the last card she was stamped onto watercolour card using Brilliance ink and watercoloured using Tombow/Marvy pens and a water brush. The background paper is by MME and is the reverse side of the brown flowery paper that was on the other card I showed a couple of days ago.

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As you already know I had a lovely time on Saturday whilst I was demoing at The Glitter Pot. I was kept busy most of the day demoing the Copic Ciaos which I must say I do love and will load up some of the cards that I made using them as soon as I've sorted them out. Meanwhile if anyone is interested I am doing a day of classes at The Glitter Pot on Friday 30th October using these wonderful markers. In the morning class I'll be showing how to achieve a good blend using the markers and along with showing the benefits of the blender pen (which I could not live without!!) and in the afternoon we will be progressing to adding the Copic Spica pens to add some subtle shimmer to your colouring.

Thank You SOOOOO Much!!

I've literally just got home from demoing today at The Glitter Pot and before I head for the settee I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has taken the time and trouble to wish me a Happy Birthday. All wishes were most gratefully received - THANK YOU!!!

I must just tell you all that Sara (a customer of The Glitter Pot's who I have got to know quite well) turned up today with the most beautiful 40th birthday card for me made in my favourite colour of lilac - it is absolutely gorgeous and I hope that she won't mind if I post it up in the next few days for you to see. It really is a work of art!! Not only that but she had also bought me a box of chocolates and had baked me a chocolate cake as well. Sara came through to the room I was demonstrating in carrying the cake aloft with lit candles singing Happy Birthday!! It was SO nice and totally unexpected so Sara if you are reading this THANK YOU SO MUCH - it made my day!!

I also was presented with some other birthday cards too - one from The Glitter Pot owners and another from Paula Pascual who found out today that it was my birthday yesterday. Both of these were again totally unexpected and were therefore really special.

Right I'm off to go and collapse now.................

Pretty As A Picture

This little girl is SOOOOOOOO sweet and is definitely one of my favourite Sarah Kay stamps. This is one of the cards that we made at The Glitter Pot in the afternoon the other week. She was stamped onto watercolour card and coloured using Marvy/Tombows and a water brush. When working with water you do have to be VERY careful not to saturate the card too much otherwise the ink will run outside of the lines. Once you have mastered it though it does give a lovely result but practice does make perfect!! The brown and pink paper you can see is by MME. Both the paper and the stamp can be purchased from The Glitter Pot and don't forget that I will be at The Glitter Pot tomorrow demonstrating the Copics so if you are in the area do come along!!

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Well so far I am having a lovely day. This morning I was greeted by a Thorntons chocolate bottle of champagne that had been personalised with Happy 40th Birthday Kay written on it with icing. Which I have got to say was extremely well done - I couldn't do it that's for sure! This was from my parents and they had bought it before I discovered I was allergic to dairy products so as the chocolate is made with milk it will mean that the bottle might actually last a while!!

I have already received some lovely cards. Jill (from The Stamp Man) made me the most gorgeous card with a very large pink 40 on it!! If she doesn't mind I will post it up at some point so you can all see it as a lot of work went into it. This morning I received two wonderful bouquets of flowers which turned up together as they had been ordered from the same florist. I absolutely LOVE flowers and so was absolutely delighted to receive them. I'll see if I can get my act together and take some photos of them later to post up next week sometime. My living room now looks extremely festive with three wonderful bouquets of flowers along with my cards, the chocolate bottle of champagne and Jill's balloon bobbing about!

Well I have been good for long enough ....................................I'm now off to go and open my presents!!!

AWOL!!

Yesterday Mum and I decided to go on another shopping spree for our birthdays! I had finished my cards for my demo on Saturday at The Glitter Pot and am currently awaiting supplies for my demo the weekend after at The Craft Barn so as I was unable to get on with anything workwise it seemed the ideal time to hit Tunbridge Wells, so that is exactly what we did!! I think that we literally shopped until we dropped! I was really pleased with what we got though. My Mum is extremely difficult to buy for so I was so thrilled when we found some things that she liked. So her birthday is now sorted - thankfully even her birthday card is done and dusted and in its envelope!

When I got home after about 6 hours of shopping I found a lovely surprise waiting for me!! I am sure that Jill (from The Stamp Man) won't mind me telling you that she had thought my birthday was yesterday (Wednesday) when it is infact tomorrow! Upon arriving home I discovered the most beautiful bouquet of pink roses and lilac freesias along with a pink and lilac Happy 40th balloon!! It really was such a lovely end to the day so a massive thank you to both Mr and Mrs Stamp Man - the flowers are absolutely gorgeous!

Second morning card

Here is the second card that we made on the morning class this time using a Penny Black stamp called Gossamer. As you can see I kept the colour scheme the same for both cards so as not to have too many different dye based inkpads on the go.

I forgot to say yesterday that the background papers are by My Minds Eye and you will probably notice that some subtle stamping went on over them using a bold leaf stamp from a Hero Arts clear stamp set.

The colouring was achieved again using dye based inkpads and then one of those inkpads was used to do the background stamping with as well so that the inks would match perfectly.