Steampunk CD - In the News!!

More excitement - my Steampunk CD has featured in a couple of craft magazines this month which will be in the shops tomorrow!

Firstly in Lets Make Cards, which has had a fab redesign...

And in Crafts Beautiful who have a whole special feature on Steampunk this month and also featured two Scrapbook layouts using the CD made by the lovely Nat from my Design Team!

 

It's always exciting to have my work featured - I hope you'll pick up copies of them both and have a closer look! You can order the Steampunk CD from my shop here.

Now I must get back to those deadlines, it's super busy here at Hurley HQ but sunshine and Earl Grey are keeping me going! I'm pleased to say my face is now back to normal - yay! and the antibiotics have stopped making me feel sick, I just have one more day of them left thank goodness.

I hope you have a lovely weekend, thanks for stopping by.

Sarah x

My Fuji Instax Interview!

Hot on the heels of last weeks excitement at being featured on the Ancestry blog, this week I'm featured on Fuji's 'Choosefilm' website!

I was interviewed about my uses for my Instax camera and how I use it in my Scrapbooking and Crafting, to read the full feature please click here!

This week continues to be crazy busy and I'm working to meet so many deadlines, they are all super fun projects though which is a good thing!

The swelling of my face has gone down a little bit now and is much less painful - yay! Thank you all for your lovely messages, they did cheer me up when I was feeling a bit blue about looking like Popeye and being in pain. The antibiotics are making me really nauseous though so I'm managing little more than cups of earl grey and the odd slice of toast - tonight though B is trying to tempt me with one of my favourite things, Paella! It looks so scrummy I think I might just have to try my best :o)

Time for me to get back to work! thanks so much for visiting today

Sarah x

Monthly (ish) Round Up!

I know its not quite the end of March yet but I haven't done a 'My Month in Pictures' post for a while so here we go, lots of instagrams...

    

 

 

I had indulged with a few treats, a cheeky glass of wine and some choccy while working late and cupcakes with a good friend to celebrate. I started working on my family History project with Ancestry.co.uk - one of my most exciting projects yet! I became obsessed with Hero Arts stamps and Art Journaled a LOT! Fuzzybutt was cute - thats old news really, she always is! :o) I worked a LOT! and discovered this old pic of me working when I was just a tiddler - thats probably why I'm such a workaholic now, I started young! I'm still writing and researching and designs for my new products are underway even before the current ones have finished production - its a crazy manically busy time and there is more excitement on the horizon that I can't wait to share!

Today I have been to the doctors yet again (thats twice in less than a week!) this time because I woke up with my face swollen hugely on one side (it was even affecting my eye!) it went down a bit over the course of the day but the doctor says I have an infection above my gum, under my cheekbone - I'm now on a super strong course of antibiotics for a week to get rid of it, hopefully in the next day or two I'll get my real face back!

Now I'm back to the drawing board as I have lots of big deadlines due this week - eeeeeek!

Thanks for popping by

Sarah x

Lots of Birthday Cards!

This month seems to be full of Birthdays, family and friends, so I've been making cards constantly! This weekend is B's sons birthday, you may remember last year my Pirate card was rejected as being too young for a 30-something year old man (ha!) I still say he would have liked it... ;o) Anyway, this year I made a more grown up card using Echo Park's Times & Seasons range...

B's mum also asked me to make her one to send to him, so I used the same range of papers to make this one for her...

It's always difficult making mens cards, but this range was perfect for them! The stamps I used for the greetings are all from Hero Arts.

This week has been such a crazy busy week, I have 6 HUGE projects I'm working on all to be finished by the end of March, thats exactly one week, just one week, 7 short days... not that I'm panicking, honest... I'm sure you can guess what I'll be doing this weekend, work work work! :o)

Thanks so much for popping by, I hope you have a lovely weekend.

Sarah x

Family History with Ancestry.co.uk Update!

There has been a fair bit of progress with my family history project, I haven't started my scrapbooking of it yet so I won't share too much as I want to show everything properly, but I had a long telephone conversation with my aunt who lives in Cornwall (my Grandads sister) and she told me what she could remember and promised to send me some picturess and bits she had in the post. The package came at the weekend and she had made notes of her parents and their relations as far back as she could remember, her parents wedding certificate and some pictures and little facts she could remember so I have lots to add to my tree on Ancestry and to my scrapbooking project! There was also a CD of pictures from old slides she had - the originals must have been a bit scratched so I have some picture restoration and cleaning to do - but its so fun to see them all!

I have a few more relatives who I plan to quiz soon, including one my aunt has put me in touch with in America - that sounds like a fun story to share with you all soon!

This week I also featured over on the Ancestry blog - yay! You can see the full feature here on their UK blog. I've already had some people contact me after seeing it to share their family history story with me, its so fun to see what people have found, how they have documented it etc... I am going to try and share some of them soon once I've spoken to them a bit more and got their permission to feature them here.

Now I must head back to my studio, I thought I had finished all my magazine submissions this week on Monday (I even took the luxury of finishing a bit early yesterday as it was B's birthday!) but today I had two urgent jobs come in so I have 12 cards to make by Friday - eeeeek! That on top of all the design and other illustration, research and writing work I have on and I'm a very busy girl - no rest for the wicked! ;o)

Thanks for dropping by today.
Sarah x

Bye Bye Basically Bare!

Last week was my final post on the Basically Bare blog, I have been with Basically Bare since they started out so I took the time to review some of my favourite projects I've made for them, including this scrapbook page...

You can see my final post and all of the projects over on their blog here.

Today has been super productive, lots of design work and some book research as well as lots of product planning. So much is happening at the moment that I have piles of lists to make sure nothing gets forgotten and no deadlines are missed. The only trouble is, I have so many lists, I need a list of my lists to keep track of them all! ;o)

Thanks for visiting today.
Sarah x

Mothers Day

Don't forget this Sunday is Mothers Day (in the UK) in case you haven't got round to making your card yet, I'm giving away a free digi stamp today! :o)

 

Click here to download your free Digi Stamp

Here is the card I made with it for my Mother-in Law, the paper is from my Easter Tea Party Digi Kit, which you can find here in my shop. I coloured the stamp with Flexmarkers - the subtle colours were perfect for this!

Have a lovely weekend!
Sarah x

A Princess Card

This week has gone so quickly, I can't believe I haven't blogged since Monday! Where does time go... Today I have a card to share that I actually made a couple of weeks ago and forgot to photograph - I found it yesterday while I was trying to create some order in my studio (ha!)...

The stamps are from DoCrafts, I picked them up from Hobbycraft when I was up north visiting my parents and sisters (I can't keep away even when I'm on holiday! LOL) and they are coloured with promarkers. The background stamp is from Hero Arts. I popped the little frog on a spring so he hops about :o) Here are a couple of close ups... (you can click to make them bigger)

The last few days have been pretty crazy, a bit of an emotional rollercoaster, some absolutely exciting fantastic stuff has happened which I will be sharing with you soon! Actual jumping up and down excitement going on here at Hurley HQ!!! But there have been a few difficult stressful things too, not everything works out quite how you hoped but usually thats because there is something better around the corner - I keep reminding myself that everything will be OK in the end - as someone very wise once said to me, if its not OK then its not the end!

Thanks so much for dropping by today - I'm off to cook for B (miracle I know, it doesn't happen often! Please pray for us as I try to make something edible, LOL) and then I'm back to work, my schedule has gone slightly crazy with all the new projects and I have some planning to do before I get back to lots of design work!

Sarah x

a Gorjuss 3D card...

Today I'm sharing a card I made over the weekend (I got time in my studio, yay!)...

and a couple of close ups... (just click to make them bigger and see all the details)

I made the box frame from Kraft card, cutting an aperture in the middle. The cloudy background I made using watercolour paper and distress ink with a homemade template. The fence is cut from leftover kraft cardstock using my cricut and then run through my Cuttlebug with a woodgrain embossing folder, I then stained it with tea dye and walnut stain distress ink, adding gold screws with a metallic pen.

I stamped Gorjuss girl stamp onto bleedproof card and coloured with Promarkers before layering with 3D foam for a dimensional look, I then added glitter to the butterflies and dragonfly and some glossy accents to the toadstools and finishing touches like her coat buttons.

I've never made one of these before but I love the effect, I think there may be one or two more coming soon!

This morning I finished up my magazine submissions and sent them over before a quick lunch, a phone meeting with a new client (more about that soon!) and then back to work on my illustrations for the Bologna Book Fair - today is my last day to finish them up - eeeeek!

Thanks for dropping by today.

Sarah x

A Steampunk Card!

Today I'm sharing my first card made with my new Steampunk CD!

I can't believe I didn't have chance to get crafty with this CD until just 2 days ago but now I'm hooked! so there will be lots more projects coming up next week :o)

For this card I used the grey circles backing paper, the pre-coloured digi stamp of the Steampunk Gentleman, a sentiment, a bingo card and the Hot Air Balloon pre-coloured digi stamp (everything is on the CD). I layered everything together with 3D foam for lots of dimension, I've just noticed that I didn't round the corners on the backing paper though, most unlike me! I love the colours on this and its great for mens cards and scrapbook pages. (Just to let you know, if you want to get the Steampunk CD this weekend, there is a 10% discount for this weekend only, just click here and use the code MARCH2012 at the checkout!)

For those of you that have asked, I print everything onto Rymans bleedproof paper, its nice and smooth for printing out backing papers, you can use your markers onto it without it bleeding and its thick enough to make all the embellishments etc... nice and sturdy so you can shape the paper, fold it and layer it without it buckling in like thinner printer paper would do. There are other types of card that have been mentioned to me which I believe are similar but I've not had chance to try them yet - I'll let you know when I do! I usually print everything off and cut out when I have some free time (when I'm tucked up watching a film with B usually) and then everything is ready to go when I want to use it.

Today has been a busy one juggling lots of design work and other projects and trying to get on top of my emails - one day I will catch up completely! This weekend I have some magazine commissions to do, including one for an international magazine - ooooooooooh! but I am going to try and have at least one afternoon off, I'm not sure whether to use it to curl up quietly with a library book or shoot zombies on my xbox, hmmmm....

Have a lovely weekend!

Sarah x

*New* Wizard School Kit

Just a quick post to let you know about a new digi stamp and paper kit that went up in my shop yesterday, Wizard School, if you love Harry Potter I think you will want to see this!

The kit contains pre-coloured and black and white images and papers that match - you can get yours here!

Now I must rush off, its been a busy busy day and I still have to upload the Craft Academy post (more about that tomorrow!) chase up some suppliers, respond to an interview request, confirm some submissions, finish a proposal and send a few emails - a busy evening ahead, luckily I have my favourite giant mug of Earl Grey, my desk duvet to keep me warm and any minute now (when she hears the rustle of the biscuit packet) a snuggly Fuzzybutt to curl up next to me on her little cushion!

I'll be back tomorrow to share a Steampunk project - I finally got time to make a quick card with the new CD - yay!

Thanks for dropping by.
Sarah x

Basically Bare - my last CHA 2012 Album

This week I was featured over on the Basically Bare blog with my final CHA 2012 album I made for them...

This is using the Krafty Keepsakes album, I used lots of the recent October Afternoon Holiday Style papers and embellishments to make this album - love this range! The album is full of policy envelopes so I made my layouts on the front - they are the perfect fit for your photographs! and then filled the inside with journaling and keepsakes.

 

You can see more details and close ups over on the Basically Bare blog.

Thanks for looking!
Sarah x

Family History Scrapbooking with Ancestry.co.uk

 

Today I'm so excited to share with you details of a new project I will be working on for the next year (or maybe longer, depending on how I get on!) I will be working with the lovely people at Ancestry.co.uk to research and document my family history and I will be blogging everything along the way!

I have wanted to do this for some time but knew it would be a huge project, my family is quite spread apart, my mum knows little of our family history and I have little or no details past my grandparents. To say this is a mammoth and overwhelming task is an understatement! However the few things I have heard sound mysterious and exciting and I'm ready to find everything out, the good, the bad and the ugly and I will be scrapbooking and documenting everything along the way as well as sharing my tips and tricks so you can follow along with your own family history. I'm a complete beginner, I have only been signed up to Ancestry for around 2 weeks and I have mostly been familiarising myself with how it all works and gathering my starting information. Luckily Ancestry provide a ton of help to get you started!

You can get your own 2 week free trial of Ancestry.co.uk right now on their site - just click here to sign up! (if you aren't in the UK please click through to Ancestry.com)

If you scrapbook your family history, or you decide to join me in this project now, I'd love to see your posts, please leave me your links so I can pop by and check them out.

I can't wait to get started!

Sarah x

Focus on Imaging

Just to let you know that the lovely peeps at Fuji will be at the Focus on Imaging show at the NEC Birmingham from tomorrow until 7th March. You can find all the info here.

If you go please drop by and see them on Stand D10.

Have a great weekend!
Sarah x

Steampunk and a Challenge!

Just a quick post from me today as I've been rushed off my tiny trotters and I need to go and sit in a dark room wirh a glass of wine! LOL.

Today my lovely DT have some more Steampunk projects to share with you, please pop over and see gorgeous creations from Elaine, Claireliz, Emma, Jaine and Lisa.

We also have a new challenge over on the Challenge Blog with lots of inspiration! We hope you will join in.

I have lots to share with you next week inlcluding a new kit and an exciting new project!

Have a lovely weekend

Sarah x

Doodle Mania!

Kuretake will be hosting a new challenge over on their blog later today and this months theme was 'Doodle Mania' it gave me a great excuse to get some long overdue Art Journaling done! So here is my doodley Art Journal page...

This is in my little Derwent Journal so its around A5 size across the two pages. I sprayed the background with various colours of inks then added the quote (from Roald Dahl) in printed text - the font looks like Dymo tape! some silver star confetti and a mish mash of magazine cuttting faces then doodled the girls body, and then around everything with some shooting stars, a border, some random patterns and some text around the girl using Kuretake writer pens - most of this is done in black with just a bit of colour on the hair, dress and flowers - I thought the background was colourful enough! As with most of my art journaling there was no plan for this, it just happened!

Here are some close-ups - you can click to see them bigger.

I hope you'll pop over to see the rest of the Kuretake Design Teams work and and join the challenge, it will be up later today, you can find the Kuretake blog here.

Sarah x