Emy's Crafty Blog

Fimo class fun

2012-01-31T01:47:00.000-08:00

Last weekend I spent a fun day teaching Fimo workshops at a local craft shop called Spinning Weal. It's such a lovely shop with a wealth of fabric , wool, felting, spinning and or course Fimo. It's also a great place to go for advice and help and has a fantastic "have-a-go" atmosphere.

I had 9 pupils across two workshops and we spent the day making millefiori canes from Fimo, particularly looking at kaleidoscope techniques, and how to make beads and buttons. This came in handy when one lady cut into her rose cane to reveal the finished design and was immediately convinced it looked like intestines instead of a rose! I showed her how to cut up the cane a transform it into a repeating pattern, which she was more pleased with (phew!)

I have classes coming up in April and June if you'd like to come and play. The information is all here.

January craft-along challenge

2012-01-25T05:27:00.001-08:00

There is a new monthly challenge over on UKScrappers titled "& Now For Something Completely Different". Shimelle is running the challenge and on the 10th of each month she will post a supply list and then on the 20th she will post a page tutorial. You can see her fab tutorial here.

I am so happy with this page. I have been struggling to scrap these firework photos for over a year. I've combined the photos with a piece of patterned paper which I loved (Anthem from Sassafras Lass) but had no idea how to use effectively. So from two scrapbooking items I was stumbling over, this page has been produced - Thank you Shimelle!

I don't always have a lot to say on my pages but there was lots to write about these photos. It was my daughter's first trip to the fireworks and she had been learning about Bonfire Night at school. She happily came home to tell us all she had learnt about "Guide Fox" and the new poem too..."Remember, remember the 3rd of October"!

Christmas gallery

2012-01-22T10:01:00.000-08:00

I have completed my Christmas scrapbooking marathon. My desk has returned to a tidy (ish) state and the festive sparkles have been filed away for another year. Here's a little gallery of my last few pages. The page above is a scraplift from Louise Nelson's fantastic article about using twine in issue 2 of Scrap365.

This layout about the gingerbread house features papers and die cuts from the "Colorful Christmas" collection from My Minds Eye.

The angel page used up some of the pieces from the latest Quirky Kit, along with some papers from the "Mitten Weather" collection by Cosmo Cricket.

Christmas Scrapbooking -Part 3

2012-01-16T05:29:00.000-08:00

Hurray, I've started scrapping this year's Christmas photos now. All this Christmas scrapbooking has been great, but I wanted all the pages to feel individual and not like they had been rushed all together. I took some time out and I had a hunt around for ideas. I didn't have to look far. I love, love, love the page above. It's a scraplift of Mahlin Wiggur's fantastic layout that featured on the cover of the first issue of Scrap 365.

I used some foam Thickers for the title , but they looked a bit neat compared to the paintyness of the rest of the page. A little white paint put on with a dry brush soon sorted it out.

Another great place for inspiration is Shimelle's blog, with her Starting Points series and regular sketches and tutorials. I started with her current starting point and this is what I came up with.

I used Cosmo Cricket papers, some fab snowman tape, bought in the sale at Cox and Cox, and some felt Christmas trees from Paperchase.

Christmas scrapbooking - Part 2

2012-01-12T05:23:00.000-08:00

My task of completing my Christmas scrapbooking from 2010 continues. My desk looks like an explosion of Christmas, with papers, snowflakes, stars and tinsel all over the place (I still haven't found the right layout for that tinsel though).

I received my Nov/Dec Quirky Kit at the end of November and I've been waiting until I can properly have a play with it. It was perfect to scrap the photo of my daughter as a Christmas fairy in the school play. I added in this pearly earring, which I bought for £1 for the pair at a flea market last year.

I love the photo on the page below as it is a great reminder that we actually had snow at Christmas last year! I hope the page does it justice.

I used my favourite Christmas stamp from Crafty Individuals again - although I stamped it onto textured Bazzill cardstock and so had to colour it in with a black pen - whoops.

Back to scrapbooking

2012-01-10T03:14:00.000-08:00

Hurray, I've finally got back to my scrapbooking. I have missed it while I've been sewing and crocheting over the past couple of months.

Just like this time last year, I am scrapbooking christmas photos that are a year old, because I don't feel in the mood to scrapbook festive pages when it's hot and sunny outside.

I love this page as I think it feels very christmassy without using traditional colours. I used distress inks and a piece of die cut cardstock as my stencil. The felt snowflakes come from Paperchase, along with a Jenni Bowlin bingo card and some Maya Road trinket pins.

I found the photos on the next page quite tricky to scrap. Opening stockings is such a great part of Christmas Day, but the photos are never brilliant. Making the photos quite small has worked OK on here.

I had to make the page a bit messy with some inky splodges.

More Christmas pages to follow soon - I'm on a roll now and I may even scrap some of this year's photos.

Bird bags

2012-01-08T10:23:00.001-08:00

I made some bags to sell at the craft fair way back in November and I had this idea in my head to make bags with appliqued birds on. The pattern for the basic bag comes from Amy Butler's book "Amy Butler's Style stitches" . It turned out much bigger than I though it would be! The original bag had a bluetit on one side...

and a goldfinch on the other side...

I love how these birds turned out. There was a lady called Louise who had a table on the other side of the craft fair who was enamoured by this bag and asked if I could make her some commission bags with different birds on.

So one bag became three bags...

The first bag had a robin on one side... (This was my favourite bird of all. It turned out so well)

... and an owl on the other side.

The third bag had a pheasant on one side...

... and a partridge on the other.

I love these birds and I will definitely be using this technique again. I think about cushions and aprons at the moment, but not for craft fairs for now, just for me.

2011 - a crafting year in review

2012-01-02T07:09:00.000-08:00

I was having a little look around on blogs and I saw a great review of the year on the Attic 24 blog and so I thought I'd have a go as well. It's been a very interesting exercise.

I can see that...

- January and September aren't great months for crafting, usually as I am trying to get the house back on track after school holidays.

- I'm happy that my August photos aren't about crafting but about getting out and about, building sandcastles, watching balloons and finding gorillas.

- I really enjoyed my scrapbooking from June onwards as the things I had learnt in online classes with Donna Downey, Julie Fei-fan Balzer, Christy Tomlinson and Emily Falconbridge all started to come together on my pages.

- It looks like I did little crafting in November or December, but actually I was crafting non stop making things for a craft fair and to sell to raise funds at church. My conclusion is that I can't manufacture items for sale like that at the moment as I don't have enough time.

- My kids are very photogenic!

You may notice a little robin just above - there's more on him to come soon.

Wishing you all a very happy crafty 2012 xx

Making Christmas sweets with the kids

2011-12-24T11:07:00.000-08:00

I have been attempting to continue Christmas crafting with the kids and today we made a few sweet treats for friends and family. We had a go at marzipan fruits, but I think I had the wrong type of food colouring and it wasn't going very well. We decided to make most of the marzipan into snowmen instead and they turned out much better than the fruit.

We had much more success with chocolate truffles. These were so easy and they are delicious. The ones rolled in icing sugar don't look great as the sugar has absorbed the moisture from the truffle, but the cocoa ones and the chocolate flake ones look good.

Here's the recipe...

Heat up 175ml of double cream in a saucepan until it boils and then pour it into a mixing bowl containing 225g Dark chocolate (chopped up) and stir it until all the chocolate has melted (I also added 2 tsp of Cointreau at this point, but I could have added a bit more). Leave this to cool and set. I did this the day before and left it in the fridge over night.

Use teaspoons to take a small amount of the chocolate ganache out of the bowl and roll it in some cocoa powder or some chocolate flakes.

Here are our little trays of sweets wrapped up and ready to go.

Happy Christmas!

A Father Christmas card

2011-12-17T04:17:00.000-08:00

I've started having a a little look at Pinterest and I can see how time can slip away looking at all the great ideas that are shared on there. I saw the idea for this card on there and thought it was so great that we had to have a go. The original link is here. My girls made some for their teachers and for their grandparents. They are so effective.

An artsy ornament

2011-12-15T11:44:00.001-08:00

I signed up a while ago to an online class called "12 Artsy Ornaments for Christmas". It's hosted by Christy Tomlinson and has a selection of artists contributing projects, including two of my favourites - Donna Downey and Alisa Burke.

This was my version of Alisa's project and I've made a few for friends. I love how they turned out. When my six year old said she wanted to give presents to some of her school friends, I showed her the tutorial video and she had a go too. She made some very pretty hearts.

A Peg Angel

2011-12-06T10:37:00.001-08:00

I am still crafting like crazy catching up with sewing embroidered cotton shopping bags for church and a couple of commission bird bags too. Yesterday I realised I've used up a 1000m reel of thread in about three weeks - now that's a lot of sewing! I'm also trying my best to get crafty with the kids, particularly as Christmas is such a great time for making and so this weekend we made presents for the girls' teachers. This year we have made peg doll angels to hang on a Christmas tree ( I just need to tie on a ribbon loop so they can hang up).

I used some small paper doilies for the skirt and we coloured bits of another doily in silver for the wings. The bodice is made from a piece of ribbon and the arms are a pipecleaner wrapped around the neck.

The girls drew on the faces with felt tips and this is the smiliest one. My younger daughter drew on a hilarious face saying "Look Mummy , this is an angry angel!" The doll has fringed paper hair and a tinsel pipecleaner halo.

I am hoping to get most of my sewing done this week and I am glad I took the decision not to make presents for the children I knitted toys for last year. I think it would have been a step too far! This year I have bought each of them one of our favourite books. It's called "Stuck" by Oliver Jeffers ( who is my favourite kids author). We particularly like the main character who is a little boy with ginger hair - my little ginger boy is very pleased by this.

The Whiffle Tree Trading Post

2011-11-27T11:14:00.000-08:00

I've been a bit quiet on here lately as I have been crafting flat out to get ready for the Whiffle Tree Trading Post, which was a local craft fair yesterday. I had a really good afternoon and sold lots, had lots of compliments on my work and lots of nice chats with fellow crafty people. As someone who normally sits at my desk to craft it so nice to get out and hear positive feedback on what I enjoy making.

My best sellers were my cards, which I placed in some nice little baskets from Ikea.

My crochet roses also sold really well. I have about 5 left.

I made a few of these bags. These didn't sell at all but I think they are gorgeous! They are based on a pattern from Amy Butler's book "Style Stitches", (with a few little tweaks). I don't mind that they didn't sell, as it means I have stock for a craft fair I've signed up for in January! I made a large embroidered bag, which you can see in the picture at the top. I did sell one of these bags and took commissions for two more for bags with different birds on. It was a good lesson to learn what people like, and my embroidered birds are a bit more individual than a patterned fabric bag.

Here's a closer look at some of my Christmas cards, including my favourite one made with a stamp by Crafty Individuals, which I coloured in and embellished with sequins - sometimes less is definitely more!

And a few more Christmas cards...

I'll be back soon with more photos of my other cards.

Millefiori - inspiration and beads

2011-11-16T11:43:00.001-08:00

While we were at the "Power of Making" exhibition at the V&A, my friend and I had a little look at the glass gallery. I was very pleased to find traditional glass millefiori as I have spent a lot of the past month teaching people how to make Fimo canes. I am always amazed at how the glass makers can produce the canes as I am used to making my canes in a malleable clay, not boiling hot melted glass!

I love the stripy edges of these canes.

This plate is made using large stripy canes.

And here's my version! I took the Fimo canes I had made at classes and demonstrations recently and made them into beads. It's my new favourite necklace and when people ask about it, I get to do my Fimo sales pitch. The assistant on the coach to London my be coming to one of my classes after our chat about my necklace!

The Power of Making

2011-11-13T07:40:00.000-08:00

This Saturday was an unusual day for me as a friend and I got on a coach early in the morning and headed off to London. I had been reading articles about an exhibition currently at the V&A museum called "The Power of Making" and after mentioning that I'd love to see it, my husband suggested taking the day to go and have a look.

It's a fantastic exhibition. I found it inspiring to see so many things that have been crafted in lots of different ways, using creativity and imagination. There is a great range of made items, from traditional crafts, using wood and leather to a range of 3D printers - which still seem like something from Star Trek to me!

I was particularly impressed by the computer-y items that were designed to be hacked and improved and shared. I loved the openness and appreciation of other peoples talents.

I'm afraid I haven't got photos I can show you as cameras aren't allowed - as the kind assistant told me! However the image above comes from the V&A website and it's of the astounding pencil tip sculptures of Dalton Ghetti. It took him two years to make this series using a razor blade and a sewing needle. The preciseness of the letters are mind blowing.

I came away from the exhibition feeling affirmed as a maker. My friend pointed out the following quote...

For many people, making is critical for survival. For others, it is a chosen vocation: a way of thinking, inventing and innovating. And for some it is simply a delight to be able to shape a material and say ‘I made that’. The power of making is that it fulfills each of these human needs and desires.

The exhibition runs until the 2nd January 2012.

A Maisy Mouse Quilt

2011-11-11T14:13:00.001-08:00

I've been a bit quiet on here lately and it's not because I haven't had crafty things to write about, it because I've been crafting so much that I haven't sat down much. A friend is organising a craft fair in a couple of weeks and I have a table. At the moment all the things I want to sell are still ideas in my head - don't panic! I've spent this week working on a Scrap365 project - I'm so please with it but you'll have to wait a couple of months to see it!

I've also managed to squeeze in a bit of sewing to make a little quilt for my friends' new baby girl.

I found some fantastic Maisy Mouse fabric which works so well and is really bright and colourful. It's also the perfect match for her older brother's Hungry Caterpillar quilt I made a couple of years ago.

Here's the flower in the centre made in a Dresden Plate style.

I used some lovely multicoloured thread to free machine quilt some flowers...

I parcelled up the quilt with a little Maisy Mouse book and this card, which I made using the Cosmo Cricket papers "Odds and Ends"

A Fimo Owl and a feather cane

2011-11-05T09:15:00.000-07:00

I've started teaching Fimo workshops again recently (after a long gap) at a fabulous local craft shop called Spinning Weal. The shop is known for fabric, wool, felting and spinning with great workshops and a while ago they added a stand of Fimo. I had an idea to make one of my owls to sit in the shop and apparently he has prompted lots of great comments. A lot of people have thought he's fabric and get a surprise when the owl feels hard to touch. I felt that a knitting owl sitting on a quilt would feel very at home in the shop!

Here's a closer look at how I make an owl.

I start with a big ball of scrunched up kitchen foil and then wrap a layer of multicoloured leftover Fimo around the foil to smooth it out. When I make millefiori canes with Fimo I always have a distorted image at the ends, but none of it is wasted as you can see here.

The next step is to construct a feather cane for the owl's tummy. For this can I used transparent white to make a sausage shape (cane) with white Fimo wrapped around the edge - this is known as a bullseye cane. I squashed the cane into an oval shape and cut it into short lengths to build up the feather pattern, including some tiny canes of black with white wrapped around it. As I used transparent white, the appearance of the feathers will change once they have been baked.

I cut lots of slices from the cane and covered the front of the owl.

Here's a closer look at the other feathers. There are three different canes on the back as I kept running out of feathers!

Then it's two white circles for the eyes and black eyes, beak and legs.

Can you see how the transparent Fimo has changed now it's been baked and the pattern becomes more obvious?

The millefiori cane for the wings is made up from a selection of bullseye canes.

The quilt is made up from millefiori canes that I made when I was doing a Fimo demonstration at Spinning Weal in September.

Scrap365 - the wait is nearly over!

2011-11-05T04:50:00.000-07:00

It's not long now until Scrap365 is in the shops. It's so exciting! This morning I was reading posts on UKScrappers and it appears that some subscription copies have arrived this morning. The comments have been fantastic... " it's full of gorgeous creativity", "Full of inspiring, creative and interesting projects and techniques", "it looks great".

If you haven't got your copy yet, you can see the front cover on the blog here. The cover star this month is the ultra talented Mahlin Wiggur. I worked with Mahlin on the Bubbly Scrumptious design team and her work is fabulous - I'm a huge fan!

There has a been a small disappointment in that the first issue won't be in WHSmiths but Traplet have sorted out a deal so customers can buy the first issue with free P+P from them. The details are all on the Scrap365 facebook page .

A Pirate cushion

2011-10-30T03:53:00.001-07:00

The Boy has moved out of his cot and into his big bed and he is doing really well. The girls have large cushions in their room which we call the "story cushions" as we lean up against them for stories at bedtime, and so I thought that the boy needed a story cushion too. At his request, I made him a pirate-y one.

I started off drawing a design onto paper and then placing my fabric over the top and drawing over it with a fabric felt-tip. I ironed the drawing to fix it and then used fabric paint to colour it in. Apologies for the photo - I was doing this quite late at night!

I used a watered down fabric paint for the sea and sky, which bled into the other colours more than I would have liked, but it still looked OK, so I layered the painted fabric up with some wadding and quilted it with my free-motion foot. I used white stitching for the clouds, sun and waves.

And I used black stitching for the boat.

Going out for a smoothie

2011-10-28T01:06:00.001-07:00

I've been working on my final post as Guest Designer for Quirky Kits and this time I was using the Rocky Road Lite kit. You can see more details about it on the Quirky Kits blog here.

If you happen to be in Gloucester tomorrow then I will be at HobbyCraft doing a Fimo demonstration all day. Do pop in and say hello!

Happy Words minibook

2011-10-22T02:43:00.001-07:00

I've been having fun with my "Hazelnut Coffee" Quirky Kit again and this time I've made a minibook containing some of the inspirational quotes I've been finding recently. You can find out more about it on the Quirky Kits Ideas blog,

Here's a look at the pages...

Happy Days with a Quirky Kit

2011-10-17T14:05:00.000-07:00

I've been continuing to play with my lovely Hazelnut Coffee kit from Quirky Kits and here is my page using the crochet doily I used as a mask earlier. I love the texture that the crochet pieces give to this page and I really like the colour combination. I am rapidly coming around to the idea of subscribing to Quirky kits once my time as guest designer finishes as I am really enjoying using the selection of items that I wouldn't necessarily have chosen myself.

You can see more about the layout on the Quirky Kits ideas blog here.

Felted Crochet brooches

2011-10-16T00:39:00.000-07:00

I have been working towards a little fundraising at my church again and I have been making these flower corsage brooches using my newly acquired skill of crochet. They have been quite popular and I have been taking orders!

The best thing about these is the wool. It's called "Wash and Filz it" and it's a washing machine felting wool. This means that I make a wobbly flower with my novice crocheting and then I pop it into the washing machine (usually with a load of dark or colourful washing) and it comes out all tight and neat - hurray!

The larger flower is made using a pattern from the Mollie Makes magazine, with a covered button in the middle, I found that pinning them onto a piece of printed card made the brooches look even smarter.

I'm afraid I can't link to the pattern for the rose as I'm fairly sure I've been following it quite badly and mostly making it up as I go along - it's all to do with the difference between American and English crochet patterns. However my method seems to work quite well and it looks nice at the end!

Guest Designer time for Quirky kits

2011-10-12T10:57:00.000-07:00

I'm really excited to be the guest designer this month on the Quirky Kits ideas blog. I've had one of their kits before, as part of an assignment for the Scrapbook Magazine and it was really great. The kit this month is called ""Hazelnut Coffee" and it's another fantastic selection. Apparently there are still a couple of kits spare.

This is my first page for the month and I am so pleased with it - I'm considering popping this one in a frame! To see how it's put together, check out the Quirky Kits blog.

A Christmas Robin

2011-10-11T14:26:00.000-07:00

I had a great day on Saturday in Abergavenny demonstrating Fimo. I was asked to make a few little friends to sit in the shop and here is one the the Fimo creations - sitting outside his own birdbox!

I'll let you into a secret... he's not solid Fimo. I don't like to waste Fimo where I can't see it so I make larger models by scrunching up kitchen foil as the centre. The shape is smoothed out by a layer of mulitcoloured Fimo, leftover from previous projects, and then covered with a final feathery layer.

Hexipuffs

2011-10-07T11:35:00.000-07:00

While browsing the Mollie Makes blog I saw this. It's so fabulous. The pattern is called "The Beekeepers Quilt", it's made with hexipuffs and I would love to make some. The pattern is byTiny Owl Knits and it's available on Etsy.

Could someone please invent a time machine so I could do all these craft projects in my head?

If you find yourself in Frogmore Street in Abergavenny tomorrow, then pop in to The Initiative and say hello. I will be doing a Fimo demonstration all day.

Machine embroidery happiness

2011-10-06T04:43:00.001-07:00

I am looking into starting up a new creative group at my church and so I wanted to start with a little fundraising. I looked into printed T-towels and cotton shopping bags but our church isn't big enough to support the numbers required and it would have been a big outlay for a tiny profit. I got thinking and I was particularly inspired by a pattern for a shopping bag in an issue Mollie Makes.

I have been loving free machine embroidery and I re-watched a tutorial that appeared on Kirstie's Homemade Home about sewing through tracing paper and I came up with this design for a church bag to sell. One thing I like about this is I only have to make one to start with and I'm going to take orders if other people would like to buy one.

You can see the stitching a bit closer up here. I finished the design with a little fabric paint and I printed our church logo onto some special fabric that can be run through the printer and is then washable from Crafty Computer Paper.

It folds up so nicely too...

Playing at the crop

2011-10-03T05:11:00.001-07:00

This weekend presented me with the rare opportunity to spend a whole day scrapbooking at my local crop. I went loaded up with all my paints, inks, mists, brushes, rollers, palettes, pens and an assortment of papers, stickers and embellishments. I'm very grateful that I can park just outside the hall! When I have a big bit of time like that I like to get a bit experimental.

I stayed fairly safe with my first page and included a fabric embellishment from Ikea.

I had a play with my Maya Mists for the next two pages. I sprayed some colours onto this page and didn't like too much and so I stencilled with gesso all over the top of the colours. I like the background now.

I used a couple of circle stamps from Claudine Hellmuth's Creative Layers collection and some circle stickers from Scenic Route.

More experimenting with mists on the "Sisters" page. I sprayed the mists onto my Teflon craft sheet and then used a brayer to roll over the mists and then lay the cardstock over the top.. I've watched other people do this online and it seemed to work better for them!

I wasn't very keen on the effect I created but then I added a heart mono print and a flower with a foam stamp and the background made more sense to me. I also included a brooch too ( an Ebay purchase).

Sitting by the pond

2011-10-02T10:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went to my local crop and spent a lovely day getting inky and painty - more of the results will follow soon. I also jotted down Shimelle's sketch of the week before I headed out the door and I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

I had a go at stitching through the title. I'm not sure I should show this close up as I could do with a bit more practising.

I enhanced the inky splatter with some bakers twine swirls and some Prima bling too. I curled the edges of all my paper strips. I love how this adds texture to the page so easily.

Yummy applique

2011-10-01T00:30:00.000-07:00

After the busyness of the summer and the sorting out during September my mind has been filling with ideas. In a strange way this has left me not knowing where to start. I thought I needed a push in the right direction and so I signed up for a class called "The Good Life" with Amy Tan over on Big Picture Classes. Amy is so inspiring and has made great crafting into a successful business. She has her own clothing line and now has her own scrapbooking line with American Crafts.

The first week of the class included a tutorial on how to make her fantastic reverse applique t-shirts. This is such a great process. I made two t-shirts in one evening. The cake t-shirt is my most successful as the blonde one loves it and wants me to make another for her.

The twinkle t-shirt worked well and I liked it, but the ginger one decided overnight that she doesn't like pink or blue anymore and so won't wear it. Never mind!

At least one of them is happy with their new t-shirts!

Ta-Da! Scrap365 blog hop

2011-09-22T05:32:00.001-07:00

Hurray I can finally let everyone know my very exciting news! I am on the Design Team for the brand new UK based scrapbooking magazine Scrap365. Have you heard about Scrap365 yet? It's a new magazine from the people who publish Craft Stamper with a fabulous international design team. I am completely honoured to be part of such a talented team of designers and crafters. It's going to be great! Hello to everyone joining me on here on the trail of the Scrap365 blog hop - if you haven't joined in yet, have a hop and you could win a great prize. More on that later...

Let me introduce myself, my name is Emy Buxton and I live near Bristol in the U.K. I have worked as a freelance crafter since 1999 doing various jobs and have been scrapbooking since 2002. I used to write for a few magazines a while ago but I took a break to have three children. I now have less time to craft but lots of lovely photos to scrapbook.

Five things I love about scrapbooking...

1. I love COLOUR! My pages are usually packed full of colour - pattterned papers, paint, inks, mists.

2. I love stitching. I like to use hand and machine stitching on my pages. I am particularly excited about free-motion stitching at the moment. I have also started working on projects bringing scrapbooking and quilts together.

3. I love making and finding unusual embellishments. I make my own bits and bobs using Fimo, chipboard, felt, paper and ribbon. I also love scouring auction sites and flea markets for bits and pieces too. The border on the page below is made with drinking straws...

4. I love telling the stories behind the photos. I am striving to get better at journalling.

5.I love being creative. Scrapbooking brings together so many of my crafty loves. I'm always looking to learn new things too.

I hope that lets you know a bit about me and my scrapbooking. If you'd like to know more about Scrap365 then you can keep up to date on the magazine blog. You can also like them on Facebook and follow on Twitter (@scrap365mag.com). The magazine will be on the news-stands and available digitally on the 18th November.

Would you like to win a great prize? How about a year's subscription to Craft Stamper AND over £20 of stamps ! To enter the competition you need to leave a comment on here and every other design team blog PLUS the Scrap365 blog. Please leave a comment on here telling me what you love about scrapbooking.

Now on with the blog hop, click HERE to meet the oh-so-talented Anna Bjorkland. Check out her fabulous use of paint.

Inspiration - Doily street art

2011-09-21T05:04:00.000-07:00

Through the wonderful world of friends on Facebook talking about interesting things, I've just found a website all about an art festival that has been happening in the Italian town of Grottaglie. It's called the Fame Festival. which is doubly interesting as a title as fame in Italian means hungry, so it adds a double meaning to the English version. It's a group of international artists who work in ceramics, printmaking and installations and who translate their work into street art around the town. It's not all to my taste - but the world would be a very boring place if we all liked the same thing.

This post here is about the work by a Polish artists called NeSpoon. She has created some beautiful ceramic doilies and also used doily stencils around the town.

A doily stencil - so lovely...

Creating ceramic doilies...

A ceramic inlay in a tree...

You can see more of NeSpoon's fabulous work here

Amazing Fimo

2011-09-18T09:10:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I spent the day demonstrating Fimo at my local craft shop (the most wonderful Spinning Weal). It was a really good day and one of the staff members referred to it as "standing room only" in the afternoon. The fish brooch above was one of the pieces I took with me as I think it shows the amazing potential of polymer clay. I cannot claim to make anything as fantastic as this. This beautiful brooch was made by the most talented artist Sarah Shriver. I was lucky enough to go to some workshops taught by her a few years ago.

Can you believe these pieces are made from polymer clay! (I know this post is titled "Amazing Fimo", but I'm not sure which brand of clay Sarah uses!)

This is why I love playing with Fimo so much. My kids think it's great and love making models, just like I used to, but the creative potential is limitless.

Fimo swirls

2011-09-09T02:32:00.001-07:00

My girls wanted to make some Fimo models recently and we had a big lump of multicoloured Fimo leftover from a recent millefiori project I had been working on. We used some of it to make the bodies of parrots and chickens and rolled out long sausage shapes to curl around into baskets too.

I saw a tutorial on Polymer Clay Central a while ago and decided to have a little play while the girls were making their models. It was so simple and really effective. The tutorial shows the swirls used as pendants and keyrings, but I'm also thinking they would make great buttons and maybe even the centre of paper flowers on a scrapbook page.

Pipecleaner Fairies

2011-09-07T05:38:00.001-07:00

On one of our last summer holiday afternoons, I got out lots of bits and bobs with my girls to make some fairies. I would like to add now that I didn't cut any of my kids hair to make these, even though it looks exactly the same colour! I found an old packet of dolls hair from when I used to make dolls for dolls houses as Fimo samples.

We started with a wooden head and a packet of rub-on faces and made a body from pipecleaners, with beads for hands and shoes. We wrapped ribbon around the body, gluing the ends.

The girls chose wide ribbon for the skirt and we folded it in half and they sewed a running stitch along the folded edge. My six-year old has done a bit of sewing before, but this was my 4 year old's first bit of sewing and she did really well.

We wrapped ribbon around the top to make a bodice and I stitched the skirt in place.

Some more running stitch down the centre of some wire-edged ribbon, which was gathered to make the wings.

Finally some of the doll hair was glued on and tied into bunches.

Crochet - at last!

2011-09-03T11:43:00.000-07:00

I've been very quiet on here for the past few weeks because the summer holidays are so surprisingly busy. I'm feeling very happy with the time spent with family outside - as Shimelle says "Live first, Scrapbook second". I've got lots of photos to scrap and stories to tell and the time spent doing something different has definitely been inspirational. I now have a very long "To Do" list!

I found myself with a quiet afternoon a couple of weeks ago and saw a Let's Get Crafting magazine about knitting and crochet which came with six balls of wool and knitting needles and crochet hook. We were away on holiday at the time so I only had my patchwork sewing with me so I bought the magazine. I've been promising myself that I would learn to crochet for nearly two years. I've had some beautiful books for the past two birthdays and I've been reading the fantastic Attic24 blog (very inspiring) but just haven't got around to it.

Here are my first attempts at crochet. The first is a little bear from the magazine and the second is a flower from the front cover of the Mollie Makes magazine. I am hooked ( pun intended!). I am particularly pleased with the flower and this morning I found some fine felting wool online called Wash+Filz-It which you crochet (or knit) and then wash in the washing machine to felt it. It even comes in some lovely multicolour versions.

So there's another craft I going to try to squeeze in!

Painting with light

2011-08-18T03:45:00.001-07:00

I'm always looking for ways to try a little creative experiment and sitting up late outside the tent with my husband and six-year old daughter seemed like the perfect opportunity to have a go at some torch pictures. These were inspired by posts I'd seen over on the Shutter Sisters blog here and here.

After a couple of tries and fiddling with the shutter speed on the camera we started to get some clear images.

Here's my go at "love" although it's a bit blurry.

Getting messy

2011-08-13T12:53:00.000-07:00

It's online crop time over at Shimelle's blog and her crops are always inspiring. I've found it a great way to have a look at my "waiting to be scrapped" photos and I have quite a few from last summer. I picked a few out and here are my layouts. I would love to have had time to do more, but things are go-go-go in our house lately (gorilla hunts, balloon fiestas, picnics, crabbing etc etc).

The first challenge was to use two different sticker lines on the same page. I used some 7 Gypsies stickers on here and also some Sassafras Lass stickers. I have been struggling to scrap these photos all year. I've attempted it a couple of times before, but when I matched papers to the photo it ended up looking like a really dull page. The vibrant blue background has totally lifted the design.

I used the stickers as inspiration to add some stitching to the page too. This page was also inspired by the very talented designer Michelle from the Sassafras Lass Design Team. Check out this post here to see her page which inspired mine. I love her painty details and the layering.

Here's the next page, which was based on Shimelle sketch here. I can't help but get my paint out now when I scrapbooking...

I dipped some string into acrylic paint...

I placed it onto my page...

I discovered pressing down the string with fingers gets a bit messy, but placing a sheet of scrap paper over the top and then pressing down works best.

I repeated the process again to get this...

My six year old had a go at the sketch challenge too...

The journalling reads..." I love my mum so much one day I think I will bang".

Summer stencilling

2011-07-30T06:18:00.000-07:00

Things have been a bit quiet on here lately as the summer holidays are here and it's been a bit of a social whirl. I think that will continue over the next month or so and I am trying to make an effort to be outside with the kids as much as we can, even though naturally I'm a "stay-inside-crafting" type of girl.

I've been pining after my craft desk for the past couple of days and found myself with a couple of free hours this morning and so dug out my desk from under the camping supplies to get a scrapbook page done...

Brightly coloured tie-dye items seem so summery to me and so I started my page by using my new Crafters Workshop stencil and some alcohol inks to make a tie-dye type background.

I found some butterfly punchies and stitched them together on my machine to make this garland. This was a project idea from Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's "It's Sew Easy" class.

I made my own tape with stamps and Promarkers too...

I would like to have time for a bit more crafting like this over the holidays, but I am definitely taking my sketchbook with me wherever I go, so I'm hoping to have lots to share from there.

A present for a teacher

2011-07-22T10:15:00.000-07:00

It's the end of the school year - hurray! I'm really looking forward to the summer holidays. My daughter has had a great teacher this year who has really looked out for her and her learning has come on really well. I wanted to make a gift for the teacher but never really know where to start. Last year I saw a project on UKScrappers where a mum had collected up pictures from her child's class and presented them in a beautiful folder and it really inspired me.

A couple of weeks ago we sent out letters to the children in the class with a piece of card to ask if they could do a little drawing for the book. I was really nervous about doing this as I wasn't sure about the response we would get. Families are really busy this time of year and I thought we might not get many replies. Thankfully we had a great response with pictures from almost everyone in the class and some lovely comments from the parents about what a great idea it was.

My daughter helped me decorate the book and here are some of the pictures and messages we got - aren't they great! (these aren't all the pages but I wanted to keep all the names out of the pictures).

Who me?

2011-07-21T10:46:00.000-07:00

I've been taking part in Cheryl Johnson's portrait class and picking up loads of great tips and techniques for better photos. Our last module was really fun with lots of ideas for characterful portraits. Here was my favourite shot of the ginger one. She was a very willing model, particularly when I got out the face paints. I'm looking forward to scrapbooking this picture - oh, the stories I could tell!

On a side note you may spot my name in the current issue of the Scrapbook Magazine in the Four Ways challenge. I got to play with a "Quirky Kit" from Crafty Templates. It was a fabulous kit and I was really pleased with my page. Unfortunately I was so excited about it I forgot to photograph a sneaky peek before I put it in the post - oops! I guess you'll just have to buy the magazine to see it!

Happy 21st

2011-07-13T11:06:00.000-07:00

This week is my friend's 21st birthday. She was our little bridesmaid 10 years ago but she's a lot taller now! I had to stop and think about how to make a card for a vibrant young woman and so this is what I came up with.

I used an old piece of die-cut cardstock as a stencil and used red and yellow alcohol ink together on the blending tool. I really like this tie-dye sort of effect.

I cut out the numbers from some patterned paper and then used my sewing machine to add free-motion stitching around them. I had to add a bit of bling too.

Painting on the walls

2011-07-11T10:41:00.001-07:00

The stencilling has escaped from my sketchboook and onto my walls. I'm hoping that the kids won't take this to be a sign that it's OK to paint on the walls - only Mum is allowed to do that!

This is the wall by our front door and it has become quite marked. The hall isn't painted very well (not by us) and it really needs all repainting but that's not possible at the moment. I'm hoping that these flowers will distract from the rest of the walls!

The stencil is from Stencil Kingdom and you can find it here.

A twirly tutorial

2011-07-09T00:49:00.001-07:00

Here is my latest page I've been working on and it features a beautiful photo that the official photographer took of one of my girls at the wedding we went to recently. This page has loads of techniques that I've learnt recently and so I thought I'd share my process with you to show the different layers.

I started this page by creating a background of torn tissue paper from an old sewing pattern using Claudine Hellmuth matte medium as the glue. Ths is a technique from a Live with Prima class by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer. You can watch her class and her fabulous page here.

I used floral patterned tissue paper from Paperchase to finish the background.

I'm really into using stencils at the moment but I don't have many bought ones. This was a punched border from a mixed lot of border strips I bought recently from Ebay (I've found it's cheaper than buying lots of punches). I used gesso as my paint to get a bold image.

More stencilling, and this time I used a butterfly airbrush stencil (another ebay purchase). They are cut out of acetate and so are much thinner than a crafting stencil, but they do the same job for a lot less money.

Time to get out the sewing machine. I did some free-motion stitching to add movement to the butterflies.

I stuck down the photo and added a gesso border then glued down a group of Prima flowers.

I've got an old book about ballet moves and so this book page seemed the perfect addition to a page about twirling. The page was finished with some journalling and a handwritten title (I was feeling brave!)

Mini tiramisu cakes

2011-07-07T10:50:00.001-07:00

Oh mini tiramisu cakes, how I love thee and all your yumminess!

I went to a barbeque with friends this week and so I took a tray of these cakes with me. They are so delicious. There were a few left at the end of the evening but some friends took some home for their other halfs to try!

I saw this recipe on "Baking Made Easy" with Lorraine Pascale and they looked so good that I had to try cooking them. I have made them before as the regular muffin size and they were a full on dessert portion. I made them this time as a fairy cake size which was perfect for a sweet treat.

You can find the recipe here.

Mixing it up

2011-07-03T13:51:00.000-07:00

I was feeling a bit poorly yesterday as so I couldn't go along to my local crop which was a big disappointment. My lovely husband let me play at my desk for the day and so I still got a few pages done using my new messy painty style which I am so enjoying.

My first page used stencils with mists and alcohol inks to create a background with some stamped details. I used masking tape as a frame and some chipboard embellishments.

I saw this piece of patterned paper from Echo Park sitting on top of my paper stack and felt inspired. I created a muted band of pattern across the middle by painting some gesso on. I wanted to add to the messiness and made some inky drops.

Have you noticed the border? Yes, it's straws - love those stripes!

I ended up with very sticky fingers as I glued down bakers twine to write the title and add the circles to the page.

Doodle stitching

2011-07-02T08:19:00.000-07:00

I made a card for a friend's birthday this week and I used my free motion stitching again. I stuck down the book paper and then stitched the flowers freehand over the top, which I coloured in with pencil crayons. This was my second attempt as I forget to open up the first one before stitching it, creating the amazing non-opening card!

Deep Peace

2011-06-28T11:17:00.000-07:00

I've been working on a piece of art for a friend's house and it's been a great excuse to play with some of the techniques I've been learning recently. The words are an ancient Celtic blessing.

I started with gesso on some 12 x 12 card. I wanted to add texture and I knew the colour of the background would be quite flat, so I made my gesso swirly...

I stamped some stars and fishes using StazOn ink and then added colour with my NeocolourII watersoluble crayons. I found that with a little extra water I could lift off the colour over the stamped images.

I built up the layers using stencils. Here's my bird stencil again. This time I used Distress Inks and I was worried that it was going to wipe off from the gesso background so I went around it with a pen.

My favourite part of the piece are my shining stars, some machine stitching swirls with some hand stitching sparkle on the top.

Playing with pages

2011-06-24T10:37:00.000-07:00

I've finally finished the two pages I started at the last crop using the art journalling techniques I've been learning recently. This first page started out with gesso as a background and used some old diecut flowery card as a stencil with pink distress inks.

The chandelier is an image transfer from a picture from an old magazine using gel medium. I haven't tried this technique before and it worked so well. I'm looking forward to doing this again.

Here's my favourite new stamp again from Stampendous. This time I coloured it with watercolours.

I started my second page by collaging lots of paper ephemera onto the background. I painted over to mute the effect. I used foam and clear stamps with paint and a Prima paintable stamp with black ink.

Looking through a lens

2011-06-23T12:43:00.000-07:00

I've been continuing with my attempts to improve my photography and I've been following the Picture Inspiration challenges each week. This week's theme was "Exploration" and so I added a picture I took in our garden a little while ago which I found exploring in the undergrowth.( Have you ever wondered why when plants get overgrown they become undergrowth - how does that work? ) This flower made such a perfect heart.

Last week's them was "Moody". This graffiti has been sprayed onto the shutters of our local fashion store. I've been meaning to photograph it for ages but it can only be seen when the shop is closed so it's been tricky to catch. The shop was being opened just as I arrived and the lady kindly left this shutter until last for me.

One of the areas I wanted more teaching on was portrait photography and so I've signed up for Cheryl Johnson's "Beautiful People" class. I used to go to Cheryl's scrapbooking classes many moons ago when I went to scrapbook weekends and I remembered how much I enjoyed her teaching style. I've heard lots of good thing about her photography classes and so I signed up for this - despite promising myself I wouldn't sign up for more classes for a while - oh well.

We had to start the class taking a self portrait. Here I am...

Plans

2011-06-22T10:21:00.000-07:00

Today's sketchbook page was an idea floating around in my head for a while. I used pages from an ancient A-Z to make the background which I coloured using distress inks. The ink didn't take where the gel medium had transferred onto the top of the papers when I was gluing it down, but I really like the effect.

I continued with the distress inks to stencil and stamp the rest of the details with StazOn ink for the title as I wanted it to be bold.

The bird stencil comes from a book, "Stencil 101". It has some fantastic , bold, modern stencils in a great size.

New watercolours

2011-06-21T11:29:00.000-07:00

I've had a couple of new art materials arrive over the past week - Neocolour II watersoluble crayons and Staedtler Aquarelle watercolour pencils. I've been watching various tutorials online which use gesso as a base and so I wanted to have a play with the materials to see what suited my style best.

I painted gesso onto half of a page in my A3 sketchbook and stamped my favourite new Stampendous stamp with StazOn around the page.

Neocolour crayons on gesso - the colours were vibrant and smooth but showed the texture of the gesso underneath. The colours stayed wet for quite a while which was great for moving them around but I also kept smudging them too.

Neocolour crayons straight onto paper - I love the bright colours here. The initial drawing can be seen through the colours but I like this as it adds shading. It dried quickly so not much smudging.

Aquarelle watercolour pencils on paper - colouring in firmly with the pencils gave a good vibrant colour. Pencil marks weren't very visible after painting. A subtler effect could be acheived than with the Neocolour crayons. You can see the smoothness of the colours in the corners scribbling I did.

Aquarelle watercolour pencils on gesso - The colours here were more muted and stayed wet for longer.

An experiment! I coloured in the flower with the Neocolour crayons and then used a mini mister to wet it. I added too much water and it all ran a bit. I was just wondering if this would work for when we are camping and I want to take some sketchy materials with me.

Dance in the rain

2011-06-19T11:15:00.000-07:00

This is a quote I saw as a print in a catalogue recently and I really like it. I watched a couple more videos from the "3 hearts" workshop and had a play...

The background was made with acrylic paint, then a mist then alcohol inks. You can see how wet it was.

I used Claudine Hellmuth's layered stamps to add the images to the page.

I used a foam stamp set to add the words but they weren't standing out enough and were getting a bit lost in the background. I went around each letter with a black pen but that didn't do much, so I went around them again with my new white Sharpie pen. I attempted to colour gel medium with acrylic paint and use a raindrop stencil I'd made to make some dimensional raindrops. It looked awful! I wiped them off and doodled over the marks.

Look at the birds

2011-06-19T10:26:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I got a Facebook invite from my friend Robyn to join in with the "30 day sketchbook challenge" . The idea is that it takes 30 days to create a new habit. I bought a new sketchbook last week as I have lots of ideas for images in my head that I wanted to get down on paper. I had been putting off starting the new book so this seemed like the perfect platform to make myself go for it.

Our church have just moved out of our building for the next year as we are undergoing a major refurbishment of the building. We are all really excited about new things. I feel like my work is moving towards church banners, in a modern, exciting multi media, stitchy, painty sort of way. I bought my new sketchbook to get some ideas down on paper. The book is A3, which is the size I felt happiest working in when I was an art student. This is new first new A3 book for years and I'm loving it!

I have learnt so many new techniques in Christy Tomlinson's "Three Hearts" workshop and I'm kind of amazed at what I achieved in my book in quite a short space of time. I couldn't have produced this page a month ago.

I started the background with some acrylic paint brayered on.

I put much too much paint on and so I lifted some off with kitchen towel. Look at this fab texture it created...

I had words in my head from Christy and from Donna Downey about adding depth and texture as I put the page together, so I added some white bubble wrap print to the background too. The tree is some corrugated card, painted. The birds are a gel medium image transfer using pictures from an old kids picture book.

I added some white Prima flowers with some paint centres too.

Choo-choo

2011-06-15T10:57:00.000-07:00

Today I have my very own "TA-DA" moment. Here is my art quilt I've been working on and I LOVE it! I have really enjoyed taking part in Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's class "It's Sew Easy" and I used the techniques from one of her projects to create this art quilt. I painted the train onto some calico with acrylics and then went crazy with free-motion stitching over the top.

I've been planning to make a pieced train quilt for my little boy's room for a while, in fact I drew out a pattern last summer. At the rate I was going though he was going to be 18 before it actually made it up on his wall! I love this technique of combining sewing and painting as it means I have achieved a finished piece in only a couple of weeks instead of a couple of years.

Can you see the words in the steam?

I switched thread to create the swirly white clouds.

Looking up, looking down

2011-06-14T10:47:00.001-07:00

Over at Picture Inspiration we've been looking up and looking up and looking down as subjects for our photos. A couple of weeks ago Tracey suggested we chose a subject, took photos looking up and down and put them together to make a diptych. I wasn't particularly excited about that initial challenge but then I looked at the class gallery. There are some fantastic pairs of photos on there and it really made me think. This is such a great technique for when I'm trying to capture a subject but can't decide which angle is best. Maybe the answer is take two different angles and stick them together.

My photo is of some elderflowers in our garden and I really like the looking up picture with the sun flare.

As for me and my house

2011-06-12T11:24:00.001-07:00

In March I signed up for Emily Falconbridge's class "Got Paint" over on Big Picture classes. I love using paint. I think it soothes my soul and I know I'm at my happiest when covered in a little bits of paint. This class was about using paint in various ways in scrapbooking. I didn't complete all the homeworks as some of the techniques were things I'd done before, but it was great to get Emily's perspective and she showed us some wonderful pages. Our final project was a wood-backed larger piece of artwork and here's my results.

Half term was the perfect time get my eldest daughter to help me make the background of the picture.

The base is an old shelf and the beautiful background was pieced together from my scrap paper box. It's such a fabulous technique as the effect is so similar to patchwork but it's so fast to do.

The title is from one of my favourite songs we sing at church and the painting will be put up in pride of place in my kitchen.

A wedding album

2011-06-09T10:40:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago we were privileged to be a part of a wonderful wedding day. I made a wedding scrapbook for the bride and groom, which I am pleased to report they loved! I used a Kraft album from Paperchase and I found the pages much thinner than when I used a similar book from them before. I glued two pages together for each page and used lots of Herma - the whole book used 5 rolls (I'm glad I found some on sale recently).

I used quite limited materials so that there was continuity through the book. I had five or six pieces of patterned paper, some white Basic Grey rub-ons, Maya Road Kraft Doilies and a couple of sheets of 7gypsies wedding themed stickers.

When I make a wedding scrapbook I try to journal all the things from the day I wish had been documented at my own wedding. I write out all the songs and readings, photograph the flowers and the venues, I include some confetti thrown on the day, and I write out a guest list. Through the wonders of Facebook and Photobox I was able to access some photos from friends and family, so these photos aren't all mine (but most are).

(I claim responsibility for these two pretty girls!)

Inspiration - Beautiful Things

2011-06-07T11:02:00.001-07:00

I read this quote a couple of nights ago on the Owl City blog. Owl City is actually a guy called Adam Young and whether his music is to your taste or not, I'd recommend checking out his blog to read the most beautiful, poetic writings there.

One of things I think I've struggled with in the past about the objects that I make is that I'm a very practical person and I've always thought about how I can make something useful. My artwork will be turned into a gift for someone or a cushion cover or something else to use in the house. I've also been inspired by the quote by William Morris, "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful".

I think I have to give myself permission to accept that what I am making is beautiful and that is enough purpose to strive for.

Creative scrapbooking

2011-06-05T02:45:00.001-07:00

I have found a new way to scrapbook and I LOVE it! OK, so it's probably not new to hardly anyone else but it's a new way for me. I signed up for Christy Tomlinson's art journalling workshop "She had three hearts" and it is so inspiring. Art journalling isn't something I'm doing at the moment, but I wanted to use all the techniques on my scrapbook pages. I've been a bit quiet on my blog over the past week as there are so many videos to watch and so many ideas to take on board from the class. Yesterday was the day of my local crop when I get to go and play for the whole day. I haven't had as much fun scrapbooking for ages. I sat with paints, inks, mists, stencils, stamps, gel medium, torn up cardboard, rub-ons and even a bit of glitter and got messy!

These pages are inspired by Christy's workshop, with a bit of Julie and a bit of Donna inspiration too.

Here's a closer look at my first page including my homemade heart stamp made from corrugated card...

Don't you just love this texture...

A painty page with that heart stamp again... And I love Christy's idea of dating the page using a page from a diary.

Another page which started with gesso on some black cardstock, then layered up with paint and ink and Claudine Hellmuth's stamps - love them!

This page also features the smallest title in the world.

I worked on two more pages as well which are nearly finished, including a gel medium image transfer which worked brilliantly.

I've been watching all these various videos from inspiring artists and I've noticed how often they use the phrase "That makes me happy". I've been working out what makes me happy and this way of scrapbooking if definitely one thing that makes me very happy.

Craft Stamper - project peek

2011-05-31T10:57:00.000-07:00

I mentioned in my previous post that I'd had a project accepted by Craft Stamper and the magazine arrived yesterday with my "Stamping for Scrapbookers" project. I wasn't expecting it so soon - time is really flying by this year (how can it be June tomorrow already?)

I'm so happy with this scrapbook page (it's very me, as it's a little bit painty and a little bit stitchy!) and here's a tiny peek at it.

Works in progress

2011-05-26T11:29:00.000-07:00

I seem to have been a bit quiet on here over the past couple of weeks when I've been doing lots and lots of crafting. The photo above is a sneaky peek at an art quilt I'm working on for my little's boys room. I'm so pleased with the painting part of it and now I've just got to finish the sewing part. I've shown him the finished painting and he points at it and says "Choo choo" - can you guess what it is yet!?

I've spent the past few days working on a wedding scrapbook and we may be seeing the bride and groom this weekend and so pictures will follow next week. I like the recipients of a present to see it first before I upload it to the rest of the world.

I've also been working on a couple of projects for a couple of issues of The Scrapbook Magazine. I have just completed my first project for Craft Stamper too. They really liked it and have asked me to write some more projects for them in the future - yay!

Just to top things off, I've signed up to another online class called "She Had Three Hearts" about art journalling with Christy Tomlinson. I signed up as I feel my work is moving toward a more multi media approach and the class looked perfect. Christy has uploaded 28 videos in the first week! I have no idea when I'm going to find time to watch all those, let alone play with paints. The class looks amazing and I'm hoping to devote some time to it in a few weeks.

So I guess - watch this space for the results from all these projects!

Picture Inspiration

2011-05-21T11:28:00.000-07:00

Here's an update on some photos from the Picture Inspiration class I'm taking part in at Big Picture. We are given weekly assignments and here's the results from the past three weeks.

The way this class works is great as I can mange one photo a week quite easily and it challenges me to take different photos. The photos I'm taking are proving to be a real inspiration for my other crafting whether it's scrapbooking or painting or just sparking off my new ideas entirely.

The photo above was for the assignment about taking a landscape photo with detail in the distance. Thanks to Picnik it has a lovely straight horizon, rather than one suitable for water skiing (as my Dad's jokes about sloping sea pictures)

The photo below was for the assignment about finding a mystery (in nature). I really love all the textures inside this poppy. You can see the black dots on the petals too as these are the "ladybird poppies" we grow in our garden.

This week's assignment was to shoot from the ground up. I got muddy too taking this picture of my daughter making mud pies!

Scrapbook stitching

2011-05-16T10:00:00.001-07:00

This weekend I had a little time to myself and I decided I wanted to do some scrapbooking. I have so many crafty ideas at the moment and a huge list pinned up next to my desk that my head is a bit confused and looking at an enormous pile of unscrapped photos didn't help much either. I've learnt that I like to follow a challenge at times like these. Just a little suggestion to get me pointed in the right direction. I really enjoyed the challenges Shimelle set for International Scrapbooking day and so I had a go at her sketch for this week too.

The large photo is printed onto linen from Crafty Computer Paper and I made the photo a little paler before printing too. I couldn't resist a bit of free-motion stitching again and you'll see on the close-ups that I did it twice as I tried it in white but it was too subtle and could barely be seen so I did it again in blue.

I saw a tutorial at the Maya Road Design Team blog about microbeads on chipboard, so I had a go at that too. I took photos of the layout to put on here and when I looked back at the pictures, the red bucket seemed to jump off the page. The colour ties up nicely with the bucket and spade in the photos but it looked too much. I added the blue starfish to the top (which echoed the colour of the shorts in the photos) and created the triangle of colours. I think it all works together much better now.

A page with a story

2011-05-15T03:50:00.000-07:00

This is one page that definitely needs journalling to explain the weird and wonderful world of my daughter! The question was how to create a page about something only in her imagaination? She loves to make up creatures. She tells us their names and what they look like and uses them as a way of name calling, (but in a nice way) - "you snuffer", "a punkiskunkunk is small and looks like an ant and a tree".

I tried to capture at bit of her at this age by using her fingerprints to help tell the story...

I used the Monstorosity collection by Sassafras Lass on this page. Shimelle set a challenge to create a page with a story behind the photo. I really pleased with how I've told this story.

Reading together

2011-05-14T10:13:00.000-07:00

I've been inspired to think about scrapbooking materials in a different way by Jenni Bowlin over at Big Picture Classes with her "Re-purpose, Re-think-Re-invent" class. It's got me looking in the vintage and collectable sections on Ebay to see what I could find. I found a great book which is an almanac from the 1890s which part of me found very hard to tear pages out of, but the crafter in me won and there's a page used on here.

We were sent a package of materials to use on challenges which included these little labels.

I also found a fantastic bag of buckles which included all sorts of metal and plastic buckles, including this button shaped buckle, which in turn inspired me to use red buttons on the layout to match.

Shimelle set a challenge to make a page using a patterned paper background, so in my continuing effort of doing two things at once, I think this has enough pattern on it!

Splashed by penguins

2011-05-14T10:01:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to do this age for months and the photos have been sitting in a bag with the penguin papers by Three Bugs in a Rug. I was inspired to get it finished by Shimelle's challenge to create a triangle of embellishments. My triangle is made up of the two penguins and the corner of sparkles. This page is based on a sketch from the March Pagemaps.

I had to get some stitching on the page too...

A photo challenge

2011-05-14T04:20:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we had a wonderful time at a beautiful wedding. The wedding was in a stunning medieval church but as the vicar pointed out it wasn't the best environment for photos. Shimelle ran an online event for International Scrapbooking day last weekend and one of her challenges was to edit a photo. I'm going to be working an a wedding mini book for the bride and groom and so it's a great opportunity to start on my photo adjustments.

Here's the new version, adjusted on Picnik. I particularly like their rotate tool which makes it so easy to correct all my wonky horizons (which my other half likes to point out!)

Malteser cake - the yummiest cake in the whole world

2011-05-13T11:19:00.001-07:00

My daughter has named this "the yummiest cake in the whole world" and so I thought I had to share it with you. After Easter we always end up with too much chocolate and I find it hard to fit it into our day to let the kids eat any. They always ask at inappropriate times - such as just before supper or just after breakfast, and so the chocolate sits in a collection for months. My usual way to use it up is my standard choc chip cookie recipe but we had lots of maltesers left from a birthday party this year and so after googling Malteser cake for a while I found this - YUM! The kids then ate a small piece of this with a bowl of strawberries for their pudding. This contains their Maltesers, mini smarties and two and a half buttons easter eggs!

I found the recipe HERE, but I adapted it a bit, so here's my version....

Ingredients

100g unsalted butter
2o0g milk chocolate
4 tbsp golden syrup
3 tbsp granulated sugar
4tbsp cocoa powder
225g Maltesers
225g Digestive biscuits

Mini Smarties

1. Put the butter, the milk chocolate, golden syrup, granulated sugar and cocoa powder together in a pan and melt together over a low heat.

2. Put the digestive biscuits into a plastic bag and crush them up.

3. Mix the digestive biscuits into the melted chocolate mix and then stir in the Maltesers (stir them in as quick as you can as the chocolate melts from the outside of them).

4. Press the mixture into a lined 8" square tin and press the mini smarties onto the top while it's still warm.

5. Leave to set in the fridge (this didn't take too long).

6. When it's set, use the paper to lift it out of the tin. The original recipe cut it into 12 squares but we cut it up much smaller (about 1.5" square or smaller)

7. The cake has lasted for three days in an airtight tin and the maltesers didn't go soft in that time. It's all gone now though!

I'm never sewing in a straight line again!

2011-05-11T11:55:00.000-07:00

I've been working on projects from Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's It's Sew Easy class again. I loved making these projects so much that my title is what I said to my other half as I was sewing away with a big smile on my face. Free-motion sewing is so much fun!

These are quilted ATCs which included birds from Digital Collage Sheets, which I transferred onto the fabric by printing them onto an inkjet transparency and using a gel medium. It's such a great technique. I stamped on my favourite feather stamp and them painted on the branches and blossoms before going crazy with the quilting!

I was so pleased with how the design how turned out that I didn't want to cover it up with text and so I printed my text onto vellum and then sewed each word on and finished the blossoms with some beads.
I've got a Dylon fabric pen which is almost the same colour as the sky blue and so I've written the bible verses where the text comes from onto each ATC, but it's quite subtle in the background.

Here's another play with free-motion sewing on a scrapbook page. - Love this!

Guest at Scrap Revolution

2011-05-10T11:05:00.000-07:00

This month I'm the guest designer at Scrap Revolution's blog. Here's a sneaky peek of the layout and card that's already on there...

And here's a peek at the project soon to be appearing...

Check out all the details here

Crafting around the edges

2011-05-05T11:14:00.000-07:00

A popular theme for crafty blog posts is WOYWW (or "What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday") and so this post should probably be titled WOYLFT (or"What's On Your Lounge Floor Thursday"). This shows an update on how the big quilt I'm working on is coming along. I've sewn all the diamonds onto papers (nearly 800) and so now I can start stitching them together.

My lounge floor...

This is a great example of "crafting around the edges" which is how I get anything done. Most of my time is spent looking after my three kids and the general tidying, cooking and washing that accompanies that but I squeeze in crafting whenever I can. I have this basket of sewing so I can stitch a few diamonds together given a spare half an hour. I organise my photos into scrapbook kits with coordinated papers and embellishments and sometimes a sketch too, so that I can whip a page up if I find a spare hour. I also have sketch books for jotting down ideas as I find I have quite a bit of thinking time in the day but not a lot of sitting at my desk. Now the kids are getting a bit older they like to sit next to me and create alongside me. I've now introduced the girls to Fimo, so I can play along with them - they particularly like winding the handle on the pasta machine for me!

Do you have any top tips for squeezing in crafting into your day?

A complete album

2011-05-04T11:25:00.001-07:00

Today I can show you a whole album! I've finished my album from Donna Downey's London workshop "Gotta Love the Everyday" and so here it is. I've included the painty pages I showed you yesterday to show how the album looks together. The painty pages don't look quite a vibrant in these pictures as they are sitting in their page protectors, but it gives you the idea of how the colours of the next pages peek through the page protectors.

I learnt lots of new techniques in this album and my favourite was using the gel medium for the first time. I've been playing with it again today making image transfers, but more on that on another day.

Here's the finished album...

Hope you made it down this far! Thanks for looking at my colourful, painty creation!

Two projects in one

2011-05-03T11:21:00.001-07:00

I've been trying to catch up with the techniques in Julie's "It's Sew Easy" class but I've also been aware of all the other projects waiting to be finished. I was particularly keen to finish off my album I started at Donna Downey's workshops in London a few weeks ago. We had worked on the canvas pages on the day but there were several paper pages waiting to be decorated. I decided to put the two projects together and use Julie's fantastic techniques as backgrounds for my pages.

The pages at the top show the tag techniques from the sewing class, and below shows the completed pages in the album. (Click on the pictures to get a closer look)

Julie also showed us mono-printing techniques and I had a fun time getting really painty making these pages - you'll notice a bit of free-motion sewing creeping in too!

I'll show you the rest of the canvas album tomorrow...

Tweet tweet

2011-05-02T11:34:00.000-07:00

We've had lots of holiday days together and it's been a great chance to spend time as a family and also to catch up on a bit of crafting. I'm taking part in the online class "It's Sew Easy" with Julie Fei-fan Balzer and she has been showing us so many great techniques. Some of the early projects include things that I've done before but working together with new ideas and so I've have customized my own projects to try something new.

This little birdie includes techniques from two of Julie's projects, including customizing the fabric using stamps. The pattern for the bird comes from the book "Little Birds" by the Design Collective. It's a great little book that my mum bought me recently with loads of bird themed projects from lots of different artists.

I'll show you more of my Sew Easy projects tomoorow.

We've had another birthday here too, with a castle cake requested. Here it is complete with cone turrets, a biscuit portcullis and marshmallow battlements. The kids at the party had great fun picking the sweets off!

Something new from something old

2011-04-30T10:51:00.000-07:00

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

2011-04-26T14:29:00.000-07:00

See more days here

Happy Easter

2011-04-24T11:12:00.001-07:00

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

2011-04-23T01:06:00.000-07:00

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

2011-04-22T11:33:00.000-07:00

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

2011-04-19T11:24:00.001-07:00

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

2011-04-18T11:23:00.000-07:00

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

2011-04-16T12:06:00.000-07:00

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

2011-04-16T11:50:00.000-07:00

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

2011-04-15T11:40:00.000-07:00

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

2011-04-14T11:25:00.001-07:00

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

2011-04-13T11:29:00.001-07:00

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

2011-04-12T10:45:00.001-07:00

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

2011-04-10T00:59:00.000-07:00

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

2011-04-09T11:12:00.001-07:00

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

2011-04-03T11:26:00.000-07:00

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

2011-04-02T08:27:00.001-07:00

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

2011-04-01T14:20:00.001-07:00

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

Guerilla Knitting

2011-03-30T11:52:00.000-07:00

On a rather grey day here, things were definitely brightened up by the addition of some bright red knitting. I saw this while driving past and had to come back to photograph it. I've read articles about "Guerilla Knitting" before and I was so pleased to see some in our town. It's probably no coincidence that it has appeared outside our local wool and fabric shop. I'd love to have time to do something like this, so thank you to whoever spent their time making our town a bit brighter and a bit woollier!

If you'd like to see more Guerilla knitting, check out Flickr here.

Tissue flowers and some good news

2011-03-28T11:34:00.000-07:00

I had a crafty afternoon with the girls and we made these. They look rather striking and I'd quite like to make a few more for a bolder effect. They come from a book my sister gave me for my birthday last year called "Green Crafts for Children"

My good news is that I have been asked to be a Guest Designer for the Scrap Revolution blog and I had a lovely parcel of goodies arrive this morning to play with. I'm buzzing with ideas! My projects will appear on the blog in about a month's time.

A birthday weekend

2011-03-27T11:37:00.000-07:00

We had a couple of birthdays this weekend and an excuse to eat cake - yum yum! They are both Victoria sandwich cakes with strawberry jam in the middle. The top one was covered in chocolate ganache and topped with strawberries.The bottom one was covered in ready to roll green icing with sugar decorations (bought not made) because my 4 year old has been planning her ladybird and butterfly cake since last October. The addition of the chocolate finger biscuits around the outside of both cakes was inspired by a family tradition from my friend Pip.

A trip to the circus

2011-03-26T01:54:00.000-07:00

I've been working on a little mini book about our trip to the circus last summer, using Echo Park papers and stickers. You can see more about how I made it over on Bubbly Scrumptious HERE.

A quilt motif

2011-03-25T12:10:00.001-07:00

A couple of weeks ago our photography prompt on Picture Inspiration was to take a photo with the title "Motif". It took me ages to think of anything and I was about to give up when I saw the light shining through my patchwork blind. I thought my motif could be squares and so I took this photo.

I haven't taken a good picture of this quilt before and it looks particularly good when the light shines through as it resembles stained glass. This patchwork took my mum and I a year and a half of Sunday afternoons about 12 years ago. The pattern comes from Kaffe Fassett's book "Patchwork" (It's the pattern on the front cover). I went to a talk by the man himself a few years ago and asked him to sign the book for my mum. I told him how long we'd taken to make the blind and he said he wasn't surprised as it was a complicated pattern and that's why they had made it into a small blind rather than a larger piece! Our blind is twice the size of his one!

A thank you card

2011-03-22T11:40:00.000-07:00

I made a thank you card for a friend today and I had another play with my Sizzix Texture Boutique. This time I tried embossing patterned cardstock and sanding it back. I think it worked quite well.

Stacking up

2011-03-20T04:47:00.001-07:00

This week's homework on Picture Inspiration was to take a picture with the theme of stacking. I've been dreaming of all the beautiful china cups I could stack if I had some, but then I had a wander in the garden on this beautiful spring day and looked at the drawing the girls have been doing with the chalks on the patio. This is a regular sunshiney activity in our house and I've never really been able to capture it well in a photo, so I tried collecting up the chalks and stacking them up. I'm really pleased with how this photo turned out (after a little play on Picnik).