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I have spent the last few days having a lovely time making this album using Bird Ballard suite from my Stampin' Up shop. It is A4 landscape made using A4 pieces of card mainly in basic grey card with petal pink, pool party blue and pear pizazz green to co-ordinate with the Bird Ballard papers. I utilised the stamp set called 'Free as a bird' , 2 packs of 12x12 papers, the trinkets (bird ballard trinkets) and the cards and envelopes that come in a sweet pink tin to make the album. (Bird ballard laser cut cards and tin) I have some plans to make another mini album inside the tin at a later date - but for now I hope you like the album - I have put together a short video showing the insides of the album. I am not sure exactly how I put it together as it was not really planned I just had a couple of basic ideas from things I had seen online and I wanted to make something big enough to put bigger photos into and lots of them and it developed as I went along. This made it...

I like these papers soooo much I decided to put them in full view in my craft room where I can enjoy them every day. After all, craft purchases should be used and not stashed!! I know lots of people don't agree with me but at the risk of being controversial ... what is the point of having drawers filled with stuff you only occasionally look at - or sniff!  The paper I used is from the Beautiful Promenade dsp pack by stampin up - you can buy a pack from my shop - just click on shop in the menu above and then click on the shop button and search through the designer series paper which is 12x12 inches.  If you cut the paper and arrange it in the same order it is a lot easier on the eye. Also you can use it to make a puzzle later!! I cut the pieces and glued to the IKEA drawers using Tombow - or PVA glue  When dry sand the edges the bits of paper overlapping the edges then meet exactly and the edges that don't meet the edges of the wood take on a shabby chic s...

 Yesterday I showcased the other stamp in this set and today it is the 'Hooray - its your day' card with a little box I made - more information on this tomorrow! I stamped the card onto white card - already cut using a stitched rectangle die in navy ink. I have this new stamparatus I am just getting used to it and I stamped the sentiment with it to get good placement.  Then I coloured the image in with watercoloring pencils helped along with a blender pen. I stuck to 2 colours only (pink and yellow) and didn't totally colour the image in for a different, less busy look. Then mounted onto stitched cut pink card and finally Navy card base. Yesterday I mentioned that the retired stock was showing up - retiring 3rd June - However it is a little bit confusing because the stamps are changing from wood and clear to 'cling' - the stock also shows some stamp sets that are going to still be available in the new catalogue but they will be in the new cling - hence ...

This card was 'coloured in' using designer series papers. It is a lovely technique if you have the patience for all the cutting work. I used the stamp set called Birthday Statements in the Spring Summer catalogue - it is a lovely big imaged stamp and works great with this technique - however the Hooray stamped image did not work so well as there are too many background images - so choose your stamp carefully if you are using this technique.  I stamped the large birthday image onto the white cardstock in navy ink. Then, using the same ink, stamped it onto some closely patterned papers in coral, green and purple. I used the papers from the butterflies Sale - a - bration freebies. Then cut around images - so for example on the coral patterned paper I cut around the flower images and the green patterned paper the balloon images and the purple patterned paper the bunting image. Originally I used a patterned paper with a white back ground and different colours in the ...

When I attended the Knitting and Stitching Show last month I signed up for a class in Sashiko embroidery. This is simply running stitches and originates from Japan when Fishermen and Farmers used these stitches to repair their garments at a time when material was not widely available to them. Developed now for decorative purposes I particularly like the simplicity of the bold running stitch in contrasting colours and it looks fabulous as edging to household items and on borders of garments. I showed it a few posts back on my return from the show with my haul! Here it is completed. It was stitched on a double length piece of fabric and so I simply folded it in half with the right sides inside and sewed around the sides using a sewing machine leaving a small gap to turn back the other way. I cut across the corners being careful to avoid the stitching to help it to lay flatter before turning back and doing a discreet hand sewn slip stitch to close. I definitely will make m...

I was having a look at some papers I like and a stamp set I wanted to use and I thought they would sort of go - the papers are called Petal Promenade and they include some borders and these little framed pieces. They would make great labels for jam but also I thought they would make a nice easy frame for a card - so I just cut them out with the trimmer and then stamped with hanging basket images from a stamp set called hanging garden which also has the sentiments on the card. I then coloured the images with watercolour pencils and also some felt pens.  I mounted them onto card blanks made with co-ordinating card folded in half. I had a lovely time making these three cards yesterday - sitting at my desk the sun coming through the window - although cold outside a feeling of spring from indoors!!  I photographed them up on our new piece of trellis work outside.I am sending to a couple of friends today to cheer them up.  JoPx ...

Dear lovely crafting people who follow my blog. I am sorry I have not been around lately but I did something to my computer and the keyboard appeared to be broken as some keys did not work - after travelling to the apple shop and parting with £99 for a new keyboard and plugging it in I found it was doing the same - so I help-desked my lovely son-in-law and I had accidentally turned on 'mouse keys' - so actually both keyboards work Today I have received some news from Stamping up that they are retiring the Stampin Trimmer - Already blades are out of stock and I will be keeping in touch to ensure that when they return to stock I can buy a few to last me a few years and if you have a trimmer you may want to do the same. Soon - (in 3 days) a retirement list is being announced by stamping up and there will be a huge scramble to get the retiring products - my experience of this is that I miss them all! Sooooo if you have purchased one of the 2017/18 in - colours namely tranquil ...