More Provocraft Loveliness!

I mentioned yesterday that I learned to do the auto-fill on my Expression 2, so I thought I would cut out a whole bunch of doilies as they are great for so many projects - the aim being of course to have lots ready for different projects but I couldn't resist and used them all up on one project!

So here is my doily filled layout!

 

The doilies were cut from one of the built in cartridges in different sizes, I used them to make a random pattern on plain cardstock. The ribbon and ticket is from Pink Paislee. Chipboard is from Cosmo Cricket, the Alphabet is from Making Memories.

I love this pic of Fuzzybutt in my studio, she loves to come and lay in there while I work and she loves ribbon, she's always trying to run off with it if I drop a piece, I think if she was a real little girl she would definitely be a crafter!

And today, the lovely Fedex man came (I like him better than the postman because he only ever brings good post!) he had two big boxes for me....

You know I'll be busy later!!

Sarah x

My First Cricut Card

Lots more crafting last night (and early hours of the morning, totally lost track of time! I've started re-watching Desperate Housewives from the beginning while I craft and I get so lost in it that it was 4am before I noticed yesterday!) and again today, OH went to do some bits for my MIL so I thought I'd have some time with my Cricut and learn some more about it. I think I'm getting there!

Today I made my first card from all of my cricut parts - I was learning how to make the internal shapes line up properly - it's very easy when you get the hang of it, if I can do it, anyone can! :o)

The shapes are from the pre-loaded Cosmo Cricket cartridge, my favourite one! I also learned how to do auto-fill so you can cut out a whole sheet of shapes - I'll show you the project with that in the next few days!

Thank you for the lovely comments on yesterdays free download and hello to my new followers and Facebook friends!

Sarah x

Build A Flower

Yesterday I finally got round to having my first play with the Expression 2 - wow! I can't wait to learn all the ins and outs of this machine because from the basic few things I done yesterday, amazing! I love the cute cartridges that come built in as well, especially the Cosmo Cricket one, adorable! Expect lots of Cricut projects over the next few days :o)

Today I launched some new projects in my shop, one of which I have been asked for so much since I first demonstrated the flowers from my Woodland Whimsies CD on TV, so I have made these as a download in lots of different colourways including the plain and polka dot options.

You may remember this card I made with them during my demo, each layer was scrunched and distressed, layered together and fastened with a brad then I added some glossy accents to make dew drops. You can also mist with your spray inks, add glitter and buttons, so many things! They are a great way of getting the layered flower look if you don't have a die cutting machine.

And to mark the launch of the 'Build A Flower' downloads, I'm giving away one of the sets for free! This Red and Blue is the one I demo-ed and you can download by clicking here or on the picture below.

I'd love you to share what you make over on my Facebook page, leave a pic and your blog link if you have one!

You can get hold of the other sets in lots of colours here... 

Have a great weekend!

Sarah x

London - Part 2!

I was very naughty yesterday and didn't get around to blogging, not very often that happens! But I was just so exhausted when I got in that I didn't have the energy, I fell asleep about 9 o'clock and slept for almost 12 hours!!! If you have ever suffered with insomnia like I do you will understand what a HUGE thing that is - I feel pretty good today!

So, yesterday, I had 2 meetings in London, the first I can't say too much about just yet, but it seemed to go quite well, fingers crossed everybody please!! LOL. Then I went on over to pick up my Cricut Expression 2 from Provocraft before they flew back home. Squeeeeee! so exciting. Although I have to confess, I haven't opened it yet, how much self control is that?! Actually, not really, only because I was asleep and now I'm catching up on emails and things, otherwise it would be up in my studio in pride of place already!! I'm sure you can guess what I now have planned for the WHOLE weekend :o)

Also, I must mention that Basically Bare are having a referral contest on Facebook, if you refer lots of 'likers' to the page you could win a $50 gift certificate! What are you waiting for? :o)

This weekend I'll be making lots of craft projects to show you next week and maybe some sneaks of a new product... ;o)

Have a lovely long weekend!

Sarah x

A Lovely Day in London

So today, I was back in London where I met Emma for lunch and to visit the Progressive Greetings show. The show was fun, quite small but very interesting to see all the brands of cards under one roof (think a visit to a massive Clintons Cards!). I think I'm allowed to say, that recently I was approached by a card company to design a range of cards for them, I thought the show would be great market research seeing all the different trends and what is out there already! I've already started testing the waters somewhat by making a few sets of cards for my Etsy shop to see what proves popular, at the moment I only have the 'Save the Date' ones up...

 

 You can view all the sets in my Etsy shop here - more coming soon!

Then we went for some lunch and of course a bit of a gossip and cooking up some plans ;o)

Tomorrow I have another day in London for some meetings - exciting!!

Sarah x

p.s. I hope you've been watching the launch shows for the Cricut Expression 2 - marvellous!! :o)

Belle & Alfie

Today there is a new digi kit available from my shop - from the Belle & Alfie range launched last week. The Kit has 4 downloadable papers and 4 digi stamps (2 colour and 2 black and white) all for just £3.50! You can get yours here - hope you like!

Also, I want to thank everyone again for your lovely comments on my second piece of good news. I know you want to hear the rest, and I want to tell you!! LOL and I will just as soon as I can, promise!

Don't forget the Cricut Expression 2 is being launched tonight on Ideal World and will be shown again tomorrow on Create and Craft - I know I can't wait to get mine!!

Sarah x

Sharing Good News - Part 2!

Firstly, a big 'Thank You' to everyone who took the time out to leave me blog comments, messages on Facebook & Twitter and emails and texts on my first piece of good news (below, if you missed it!), what a really lovely lot you are! :o)

Today I'm pleased to be able to share another part of my news, and that is that I have been asked to join the design and education team for a FABULOUS new company called Basically Bare. They produce fantastic chipboard alterables such as albums and embellishments and I'm joining a fab team of ladies, I can't wait to get started! Pop over to their website to take a look at their products and get to know the rest of the design team, I just know you're going to love them!

I hope to be able to share more soon - busy week ahead! ;o)

Sarah x

Sharing Good News - Part 1

Last week I posted on twitter that I was having a pretty incredible week, it's been so good I literally found it hard to believe. A few people sent me messages of congratulations, not even knowing what was happening (how nice is that!) and I felt like I should share but I just coudn't. I don't know if its something you've experienced but sometimes when good things happen, especially quite a few together, or something you'd kind of given up on, and even more especially if some of them you've wanted so badly, or didn't even realise you wanted (if that makes sense) but when they happen it feels *right* and makes you so happy you're kind of afraid to 'put it out there' and share, I guess partly because you know there will always be that minority of people who tear it down, belittle it and make you feel it's not that great after all, make you doubt yourself and partly because you're scared that if you let go of it, it might break, they might change their mind, or think you were someone else or something! Silly, right?

I've literally been like a kid at Christmas this week, can't sleep with excitement, keep waking up thinking of it all, wanting to wake OH up at 4am to whisper about it in the dark like you did when you were a kid, crazy!

Anyway, I really do have to start sharing now, becasue literally, there is a quite a bit to get through! I can't share everything right now, some of it is still in discussion, and I have to keep those things private until it's all worked out and also, I might jinx it! LOL

But today, I am sharing my first piece of news....

I am thrilled to say that Provocraft have asked me to work with them - yup, *THE* Provocraft.... seriously... amazeballs, right?

I'm too excited! Can't wait to get started! Squeeeeeee!!


I'll be back with more wonderful news soon!

Sarah x

Help Save Daisy!

I completely forgot to mention yesterday, fellow lovely crafter Kirsty Wiseman is running a huge crafty raffle to raise money to help a family who have a dog that needs urgent treatment but sadly it's £1600 and they need some help, if Daisy doesn't get help she will have to be put down. Just the though makes my heart break, if anything happened to my little Fuzzybutt I'd be lost, I can't even imagine how the poor family are feeling right now.

Myself and other craft companies have donated lots of prizes so the prize is going to be a super-duper one, please pop over to Kirsty's blog, read the full story, see Daisy's cute face and dig deep for a good cause!

Thank you!
Sarah x

Alcohol Inks on Holographic Card!

I've been playing with my Kuretake Alcohol Inks again making lots of backgrounds for future projects - I was using up lots of old paper, coating it with acrylic paint first to seal it (a great way to use up old stash you'll never ever use) in with all my old stash was a whole stack of holographic card I bought about 10 years ago, it has a glossy surface so no need to prime it first, so I thought I'd give it a go!

 

The first is yellow and pink swirled with grey dripped into the edges. The second I layered on lots of yellow and pink with purple around the edges then I dripped purple into the middle and the blending solution on top which gave it this 'tie-dye' kind of effect.

I wouldn't recommend doing this in a brightly lit room, I nearly blinded myself! But it's definitely a great effect.

I had my silouhette Lavinia stamps to hand so i made a very quick card just to show off how striking it can be - literally this took about 5 minutes to make!

Sarah x

Safmat

Recently Letraset sent me a sample pack of Safmat to try out, I'm not sure if you've seen this yet? although they have had it for ages it's only recently that they introduced it to the craft market, its a clear sheet of sticky on a backing sheet that you can run through your printer! So perfect for unusual greetings and titles (where else would I get anything that said 'Fuzzybutt'? LOL) or for adding peoples names to projects or even just if you have a font you particularly love and want to use.

But, the best use I've discovered for it is for using with your Digi stamps! I've got quite a few digi stamps that I love to use for paper piecing techniques but I often find that I waste lots of my patterned paper by doing that because you have to cut the paper down (if it's 12x12" scrapbook paper) or you have to run a whole sheet through when really you just want to use up your scraps.

So.... I printed out my digi designs onto the Safmat, then cut them out, peeled off the backing sheet and stuck to my scraps, rub firmly so the clear backing goes completely invisible (it has a nice matte finish not glossy like laminating) then trim! It now means I can use my scraps up with my digis, yay!

Here is a little card I made with my Butterfly Digi from my Woodland Whimsies CD and some scraps of Crate Paper (the greeting is also on safmat and attached to another scrap of kraft card)

I can see this being one of those 'Craft Cupboard Essential' items!


Sarah x

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!!