Something new from something old

I have been looking at ways of making my scrapbooking a bit different for me as I have been scrapbooking for over 8 years and I have been finding it a bit unexciting for a while. There are loads of new paper products coming out all the time, but I don't want to spend lots of money to keep my creative inspiration flowing. One thing I have decided to do is to limit the manufacturers I buy from. I have already found this really helpful. I have decided to stick with Cosmo Cricket, Echo Park, Prima, Sassafras Lass and Maya Road (with a bit of American Crafts - I love Thickers!). So even though Basic Grey has just released some fantastic new papers I am not tempted to buy.

I really enjoy taking part in online classes and I like learning from a variety of teachers to gain new perspectives. One class I am taking part in at the moment is called "Re-purpose, re-think, re-invent" with Jenni Bowlin at Big Picture Classes. Jenni has been giving us tips for using vintage materials in all sorts of ways and the class included a little pack of items to use during creative challenges. The layout at the top has been made using some vintage milk tops (along with Echo Park's "Summertime" range). I love this page!

The class has been leading me to look at things in a different light. We have had some kids birthdays in our house lately and some of the toys were wired into the packets with the plastic tags below. They look like robot parts to me! I added some wire spirals, beads and wobbly eyes (because everything looks great with wobbly eyes) on a birthday card for a little boy.

This class has also left me dreaming up a piece of wall art for our porch based on the cover for

an old fan. I have been making tips to our local recycling centre to try and find one in the "Small electricals" skip. After a few unsuccessful trips, I was very excited to find this a couple of days ago...

My Day in Photos

See more days here

Happy Easter

Happy Easter! We've had a beautiful sunny day here and another great opportunity for taking pictures! We joined friends and family at church this morning and had great fun with an Easter egg hunt this afternoon.

I guess there's just one question left - is there such a thing as too much chocolate?

An Easter chick card

My post for today over on Bubbly Scrumptious is a little Easter chick card using Madeline papers by Prima, and you can see more about it HERE.

This is going to be my last post on there for now, as I've asked to step down from the design team due to family stuff. I want to thank Caroline for the fantastic opportunity she gave me when she asked me to be part of this fantastic design team. I have been truly amazed to have been able to place my work next to the amazing creations of the talented ladies on there. I have learnt so much over the past year and it was a fantastic introduction to blogging. I've also been able to play with some lovely craft materials from Bubbly Funk.

Something new

This might not look like much, but this is my first fabric yoyo. The fabric isn't very exciting as I was experimenting. I LOVE this!! I am going to make LOTS of these! Coming soon to a scrapbook page/card/cushion/quilt/hairband/bag (I'm sure I can think of more uses..). How excited can a person be over a gathered circle of fabric?... Very!

A scrapbooky sneaky peek

Here's a sneaky peek at my layout that appears in the current issue of the Scrapbook Magazine. It's one of my favourite layouts that I've made recently.

A feathery ATC

This week I've been thinking of a friend of mine and I wanted to send her a bible verse in the post, so I thought this was a great chance to make an ATC. I've only made a couple in the past but I really enjoyed making a pocket sized piece of artwork. Continuing on my quest to use up my scrap paper, I created the background using torn strips of patterned paper, with a Martha Stewart bird punch over the top. The main bird image is one of my lovely new Crafty Individuals stamps.

Here's the back, where I printed the verse on the computer and used a feather stamp over the top.

Having fun with Fimo

Today marked my return to Fimo demonstrations after a 7 year gap (due to having kids). It was really nice that my first demo was a HobbyCraft Bristol, as I used to work there many moons ago and so I felt at home and a little less nervous than I would have been otherwise. Demonstrating Fimo used to be a main part of my freelance work and I travelled all over the country. I felt like I had a really good day and I haven't lost my touch! I spoke to lots of customers and most went to buy Fimo afterwards.

I spent some of the day making samples of the great new Fimo Starter kits for kids. They are so fun!

A group of ladies sat with me for a while as they were interested in making their own beads and had started playing with ideas last week. We chatted for ages and when one mentioned she had a pasta machine, it was a great excuse to get mine out and show how to make a Skinner blend and then turn it into a cane. Here's the rose cane we made based on the Trueleigh rose cane by Leigh Ross.

An inspirational journal

I have an enormous collection of scrap papers that no longer fit in the box they are supposed to and this has prompted me to get crafty with them. I have a new category of "scrap paper" on here to keep a check of ideas. My first idea was to make an inspirational journal using scrap paper as the pages and to decorate the binder, as inspired by the new K& Co Smash books and techniques learnt in Big Picture's "Got Paint" class. To see more about the journal, check out my post this week on Bubbly Scrumptious here.

Too much paper...

Out and about

If you are out and about tomorrow, I'll be demonstrating how to make lots of lovely things with Fimo at HobbyCraft, Cribbs Causeway, Bristol from 10am - 4pm. Maybe see you there.

Crafty cards

A couple of cards from me today. The top one is for my friend and her new baby girl using Cosmo Cricket's "Material Girl" papers. The one below is a simple thank you card made with Prima loveliness :) .

It's Sew Easy

So I was going to step away from online classes to catch up on all the projects that I still haven't finished from "Fun with Fabric, "Got To Paint" and Jenni Bowlin's new class on Big Picture, but then I saw that Julie Fei-Fan Balzer is running a class called "It's Sew Easy". Julie's work is fabulous and I am feeling more and more drawn towards art quilts/ fabric scrapbooking and so, how could I miss this? I thought I would sign up now and then work on the projects later, but Julie's excitement in the videos in infectious and I had to start sewing!

The first project was a great one as I could get my girls involved and they really loved making the art papers that were the starting point for the banner. The papers are in the photo above. Can you guess which was mine, and which were done by the 6 and 4 year old girls? They all looked fabulous when the shapes were punched out.

In my continuing quest to introduce more creativity to our house, I've been looking for projects to decorate the playroom with. This banner looks so great. My photos really don't do it justice, but here they are...

I'm definitely going to use this technique again :)

Crafting in London

This weekend I headed up to London for a couple of days to myself. I don't think I've done this since I had my children and it was great. I spent the whole day on Friday in workshops with Donna Downey. I love her work and really enjoyed her online classes, so I have been really looking forward to the workshops. The day was fantastic and I learnt loads of new techniques.

I was the only person who was there for all three workshops through the day ( there were lots of others there for one or two classes) and Donna and her husband Bill very kindly invited me to join them for supper in between the second and third classes. They are really easy to chat to and I had such a great day.

Here's the camera bag/ purse we decorated...

Here is album we worked on in the evening...




The main workshop took up most of the day and it's about two thirds finished as Donna packed in so many ideas and techniques. I'm really looking forward to spending some time finishing it off.


On the Saturday I spent some time wandering about Covent Garden and watched a fabulous street performer - he was so funny. I headed up to Alexandra Palace after that for the Big Stamp and Scrapbooking show. There was a lot of excitement on online forums about this show, but I was left a little underwhelmed. I think I'm heading in a more mulit-media direction in my work at the moment and so I guess there was just a bit too much stamping and scrapbooking for me (the title of the show should have given me a clue to that!). I still managed to find a few things to buy though!

London reflections

I've spent the past couple of days in London having a crafty adventure (more on that later) but it was the perfect opportunity to catch up on this weeks Picture Inspiration assignment. We had to take a photo of a reflected image. This is a new technique for me and it's a great challenge to get an original shot. I saw this phone box reflected in a window that had horizontal blinds. I've played with the image on Picnik to get a more graphic image and then flipped it over so that the writing on the box was the right way round.

Beautiful Melody

I'm so pleased with how this page has turned out. It's based on a sketch from PageMaps and uses elements from the new Melody collection from Prima. You can see more about it HERE at Bubbly Scrumptious.

Crafting on a sunny Sunday

We've had a newsletter from school asking for the children to make hats for an Easter Bonnet Parade at the end of term. "Hurray!" I shout. "Not many mums say that when asked to make Easter bonnets" says my other half, "Not many mums did a course on millinery at college!" I reply.

I made the girls hats from cardboard as the base. We attempted a wool nest as shown by Mister Maker. We got really gluey making them and the girls loved it - dipping the wool in PVA glue and wrapping it around a clingfilm covered bowl. After a day of drying it still looked like a big pile of wet wool but after another two days in the airing cupboard we were able to remove the bowls and the shape remained - phew! The girls made pompoms which we made into chicks and I even found some plastic eggs amongst my craft supplies. We've spent this afternoon making tissue flowers and gluing it all together.

And after all that work, no Sunday afternoon is complete in our house without Silly Sandwiches...

Cupcake birthdays

I've made a couple of chipboard cupcake cards this week. You can see more about them over on Bubbly Scrumptious HERE.

Mothers Day card

Here's a little card from me that I've made for Mothers Day.