Pirates!

Today Crafty Ribbons launched their new range of Skull & Crossbones ribbons, I've had these for a few weeks and keep going back and making more projects with them!

For today, here is the launch card I made, using Kraft card (swoon) with a grungeboard skull (I love the smell of Grungeboard, it smells like new shoes!) which I rubbed over with a black inkpad before spraying with my Teal Ink Spray. The background stamp is from a Tim Holtz set, I inked it up then blotted with kitchen towel to remove some of the ink and give it a more distressed look. The ribbon of course is from Crafty Ribbons!

I have some more projects to show with this later in the week, love it! You can see more info and another project over on the Crafty Ribbons blog :o)

Sarah x

New Goodies!

Well, Blogger is back up thank goodness! I've missed blogging the last few days, my head is too full, LOL.

Last week I received some lovely new goodies in the post, I was so excited that I went straight up to my studio and started making things!! So here are a couple of projects...

This card was made with Girls Paperie Papers and an October Afternoon sticker, and lots of distressing! 

This one is a Daisy Bucket stamp, coloured with my Promarkers and layered onto Kuretake paper. The grass is hand-cut from plain card.

Sunday I was working on lots of projects to show you over the coming week, yesterday I made 25 cards!! Thats a personal record I think!

Sarah x

Happy Birthday Fuzzybutt!

Today is my little Fuzzybutt's 4th birthday!

4 years to the day we got her, I remember all of the toys we had bought for her was so big that B rolled up one of his socks and gave it to her to play with, but that was still nearly the same size as her and she rolled it with her nose a bit before laying her head on it and going to sleep! She was so tiny she fitted in the palm of my hand, and every time we got up we'd pick her up and take her with us for fear of standing on her and breaking her! You really wouldn't know it now!!!

We were told she was part Chihauhau and part poodle, but as you can see from the size of her, there is no chihauhau in there!! We've since found out she is Part Yorkshire Terrier and part poodle, cute as a button!

Today she's had a lovely day, a big bath, a sausage for breakfast and a special dinner tonight, and I let her bark at the postman for a bit, LOL. 

Also, to mark my little girlie's birthday I have released the first bits of my 'Belle & Alfie' range (Alfie is one of my parents dogs!) which you can see here in my shop (you get each of the digi's in both colour and black and white) I also have a little free tag download below which matches the range perfectly!

Just click on the picture to download!

Also, just a little secret to share, if you 'like' the Promarker page on facebook they have a fab special offer for their Facebook fans, only valid tomorrow so don't miss out!! (and while you're there pop over and like mine too! LOL)

Sarah x

Harley's Egg Scrapbook Layout

Today after running a few errands and popping into the library I ended up on the phone for a few hours! So fried was my brain after that with everything bouncing around in my head, I felt like I had fireworks going off in my head! I decided to retreat to my studio to 'craft out' my stress - works every time!

I made this rather soothing layout (it makes me relaxed just looking at it!) of one of the days leading up to Christmas when we were at my mums, the snow was almost to the top of my wellies and I was ill from waiting around for trains for 9 hours (grrr!) but my little sisters really wanted me to go and see their animals, the chickens and ducks and rabbits, so off we trudged in the snow and cold, I could barely breathe! but it was so sweet to watch them cleaning up after them all and stroking them, making sure they were all happy. Harley was so happy one of her chickens had laid an egg, she wanted me to feel how warm it was but I could see a little bit of chicken poop on it and I knew where that warmth had come from - no thanks!! LOL

The paper is from My Minds Eye 'Quite Contrary' I got this in a Studio Calico kit and haven't been able to get it messy, but I thought it worked really well for this LO.

 

        

 Bits and bobs are from October Afternoon, Crate Paper and American Crafts, also used my Ranger Paint Dabber to run round the edge of the kraft cardstock and the LO.

This is also my first 2 picture layout! All of my layouts are usually just one picture but I was brave and I don't think it looks cluttered - I think there will be more to come!

Sarah x

Promarker Storage and A Quick Card

Today I made this card, again using the Kuretake papers that are my current obssession (it's not my fault, I love polka dots!) and my Woodland Whimsies Owl & Cloud stamps, coloured with my Promarkers. This took about 10 minutes - perfect for one of those last minute "ooops I forgot til just now" cards.

I've had lots of questions about how I store my Promarkers and what I keep them all in, well, you may have seen this big black box in the background of most of the photos taken on my work table....

Well, it contains all my Promarkers...

Finally, a box that fits them all in and with a bit of space in case Letraset make more colours! :o) and best of all it was only about a fiver in the sale from one of those 'homeware' shops my Mother-in-Law makes me go to every so often in her attempts to try and 'domesticate' me, while I of course look for things to store craft stash in or things I can alter, and completely ignore all kitchen and cleaning equipment, LOL

Thanks for popping by!

Sarah x

Kuretake Papers & Punches

Recently Kuretake sent me some of their lovely papers and punches (they do more than just pens you know!)

The papers are gorgeous and 12x12" so perfect for Scrapbooking and Card Making and I love the colours!

I already had some of these small white punches (pictured for comparison) but I was sent some of these larger ones which can be used as a corner punch, or if you remove the bottom bit (as per the one on the left) with a bit of patience and a steady hand you can use it as a border punch - you know how much I love things that have more than one use! LOL

So today I got cracking on some projects, for this card, the rose is an old stamp, and a firm favourite you have probably seen on some of my other projects - I just love colouring it in! This time I used Kuretake art and graphic pens for the rose itself (I have some tips for these coming soon, they work a bit differently to Aquamarkers!) and my Aquamarkers for the leaves and stem.

The background paper is from Kuretake and the strip is punched from another sheet, if I can line it up that straight(ish) first time, anyone can!

I'll have more projects over the next few days!

Also I must mention that today that the interview I done recently for Doodletuts has been published on their website, please pop over and have a look around their site (plus you get to see my face on their homepage, bonus! LOL) they have some fab tips and tutorials for artists.

Sarah x

Blog Candy Winners!

The Blog Candy winners are.....

For the Blog Follower prize...

Sharon Goff

For the Facebook Follower prize...

Carmen Wing

Please contact me here to claim your prize!

And for those of you who didn't win this time, keep an eye out as there is a new competition coming very soon!

Sarah x

A Day in London

It was back into London for me today to meet my lovely crafty friend Emma for lunch. We met at Carluccio's in Bond Street which is so close to Selfridges it would have been too rude not to pop in and have a little look! ;o)

We had a lovely lunch, catching up on all our crafty gossip and projects, it was such a gorgeous sunny day, lots of people were out and about enjoying the lovely weather. it reminds me of the things I love about London, the hustle and bustle, things going on around you and getting lost in a crowd and being anonymous for a while, Essex is lovely but it's kinda like the old song from 'Cheers' everyone knows your name! Although someone did tweet me to say they saw me in Bond Street so I guess you're never really anonymous! LOL

I'm looking forward to a weekend of crafty projects and I will be back over the weekend to let you know who won the Blog Candy!

Sarah x

An Interesting Book...

Last week when I went to meet my friends for drinks I met a friend of theirs whos wife was an art teacher, naturally we got chatting about illustration and all that kind of thing and he told me about a book his wife had given him when they met called 'Love' he loved this book so much that he actually went home to get it so he could show it to me and lent it to me so I could take some pics to share!

It's full of these really quirky illustrations....

and cut out pages that give you a little peek to the next page...

and interesting page shapes and colours...

 

I fell completely in love with this book! The pages are so bright and vibrant and the colour placement has been really well thought out, the little cut outs and interesting page shapes keep it really fun but the story is actually really touching and a little bit sad.

I can't wait for my own copy to arrive! You can get yours here, this is a more up to date version and I'm dying to see how it's changed since the one above which was from the 60's.

Love

I'd love to hear about any interesting or quirky books you love!


Sarah x

Making Cards Magazine - Bonus Projects!

For those of you who got a copy of May's 'Making Cards' magazine (if you haven't got yours yet its still in the shops for another week or so or you can order from their website) I have a few bonus projects to share made with the free papers I designed (you can see two of my projects there on the front cover to the left, woo!) and there are 10 in the magazine!. So here you go, some more cards for inspiration...

Up in the Air Collection

 

Down on the Ground Collection

All papers and embellishments are designed by me and free with the magazine and the ribbon is from Crafty Ribbons.

I hope you like them!

Also, thank you everyone for your lovely comments on my tutorials yesterday, now I (kind of) know what I'm doing there will be more soon, promise!

Sarah x

 p.s. today is your last chance to enter the Blog Candy - don't miss out!!

Ribbon Techniques

I've been promising for a while to show you the techniques used on these cards that I made for Crafty Ribbons

 So here we go!

Firstly, Ribbon Pleating, as shown on this card

You can view the video here or via my Facebook Page

And then the Ribbon Flower Technique as shown on this card

Again, you can view the video here or via my Facebook page

All ribbons (twill ribbon and seam binding) from Crafty Ribbons - big thanks to them!

These are the first videos I've made by myself, quite the Steven Spielberg aren't I... LOL ;o) 

Sarah x

Getting Organised

Yesterday and Today I spent trying to get myself organised, I'm working on so many projects for so many different areas that I was surrounded by different piles of paper - letters, sketches, emails, proposals, drafts, colour swatches, ideas scribbled on scraps of paper, product specs, lists, reference pictures, you name it, I've got it!!! So I spent a few hours with this book:

 

The Creative Entrepreneur: A DIY Visual Guidebook for Making Business Ideas Real

Working through step by step, getting all my ideas on paper, deciding what is important, what isn't as important, what I can cut out of my overloaded schedule and what I need to pay more attention to! The armed with multi-coloured files and folders, labels, notebooks and pens (I do love stationery! LOL), I got myself completely organised. I run all the updates on my pooter, backed everything up, sorted all the scraps of paper, filed all of my sketches and ideas then I sat down with a big pad and a sharpie and started mind maps for all the different things I wanted to do and how to start etc... I must say after I finished I felt a huge weight had been lifted!! It's like suddenly being given a map after walking round in circles for ages. All I have left to do is gluing all of my magazine cuttings into a journal which I might do tonight.

A few things that came out of it all surprised me, I was surprised by what actually wasn't as important as I thought and what I really really wanted wasn't what I necessarily thought it would be!

I also started organising my inspiration file on my pooter, my blogs in google reader and have unfollowed some people on twitter who were no longer totally relevant to me (I always feel horrible unfollowing incase someone thinks they done something wrong, but half of my feed was things not relevant to me anymore)

I think I gave OH the spring cleaning bug because he started tidying and organising the house as I was working, now it feels like the cobwebs have been blown off and I can move forward *sigh*

Now I'm back to the drawing board (literally) working on some new product designs :o)

Sarah x