Promarker Practice Sheet - Skintones

If you are watching Create & Craft live right now, this may well have come up already (or I might be about to talk about it!) but I have put together a practice sheet for you with a quick face I doodled, so you can practice skintones and keep this as a reference with the colours you used for when you're colouring in your images - kind of like your colour charts!

Click here to download yours now! 

If you would like me to share my chart that I complete over the course of the next few days during my show, then please let me know and I will upload it as soon as I can for you to have a look at some of my favourite skintone combos.

Thank you for dropping by today!

Sarah x

p.s. there are just a few days left for our DT call! see all the details here

Create & Craft Shows

Just a quick reminder that I will be back on Create & Craft tonight, tomorrow and Saturday! Today's show has been rescheduled from 8pm to 10pm, so if you had it set to record, don't forget to change it!

I hope you can join me, there are some fab Promarker sets and stamps, here is a little peek at one of my demos, some unusual choices for skintones... ;o)

If you pop back later I have a little download scheduled for you too to fit with the new sets :o)

Thanks for dropping by today!
Sarah x

Free SVG Cutting File

Another little freebie from me today - I must be in a generous mood! (it's the promise of all that chocolate at Easter, haha) today, an SVG cutting file, perfect for your last minute Easter projects...

Click here to download your file!

I'd love to see your makes with it if you want to share them here in the comments or over on my Facebook page

Just a quick reminder of a few things too! I have more Create & Craft show dates added, and I'll be back on your screens Thursday, Friday and Saturday this week (see times on the right) with some lovely Promarker sets and as many demos as I can possibly cram in - get ready to email me your questions into the studio!

There is also just over a week left on my DT call - see all the details here! and last but not least, the March 'A Few of My Favourite Things...' kits are in single figures and will be sent out tomorrow - if you want one, grab it quick!!! available here in my shop.

Thank you for dropping by today!
Sarah x

p.s. if you missed the free digi stamp yesterday, scroll back one post for your cute bunny download! :o) 

Papercraft Inspirations Easter Blog Party - Free Digi Stamp!

Today I'm taking part in the Papercraft Inspirations Easter Blog Party! I have a free digi stamp to giveaway and a little project that I made with it to show you!

First up, a little springy card using the free bunny digi stamp, I printed him onto bleedproof paper and coloured him with Promarkers, using the blender pen to create texture to make him look fluffy!

 

The gingham paper is from a Rico designs pad, with the green strip left over from another project, I hand cut along one side to create a grassy effect. 

The die cut panel was made using the Cricut Mini and I stamped a sentiment into the centre finishing off with a fabric bow and a resin rose.

To make your own springy creation using my cute bunny, you can click below to download your free digi stamp

 Click here to download your free digi stamp

The kit includes one black and white file and one of my hand coloured images for you to use in your projects or as a colouring guide.

I'd love to see your makes with it if you would like to share here in the comments or over on my Facebook page.

Thank you for dropping by today!
Sarah x

p.s. please check out the updated Create & Craft show times on the right!

Tim Holtz's Tattered Floral Challenge!

Today I'm sharing my entry for the Tim Holtz Tattered Floral Challenge! I've actually only ever entered one other challenge before (by my lovely crafty friend Fab) can you believe that?! but as soon as I saw this one, an idea came to me and I just had to do it! So here is my altered vintage wooden spool...

I don't often craft with flowers, I'm not really a 'flowery' type of girl, lol, but I'd had in my head, a picture of metal flowers, I tried cutting them from aluminum but I couldn't mould them as much as I wanted to so I had the idea of covering grunge paper with one of the Ranger foil sheets before die cutting with the Tim Holtz / Sizzix Tattered Floral Die, and that worked a treat! Once cut, they looked exactly as I'd pictured all along (and how often does that happen?? lol) Here are a few more close ups...

I wanted the metal finish to be more aged and not too bright and shiny so once I'd made the flowers up, I dabbed a tiny bit of the new Distress paint in black soot onto my craft sheet, misted it with water and then used my finger to dab it onto the petals before drying with a heat gun. I then finished them off with a dab of crackle accents to make them even more vintagey (yes, it's a word! lol) and the tiniest hint of Rock Candy stickles. Here's a close up...

The vintage fabric label is from Rico, I scrunched it and aged it with Distress stains in antique linen and tea dye, then done the same to a ticket. I added a layer of crackle accents to the ticket and then cracked even more after by re-scrunching (also a word... ;o) )

I joined the label and the ticket together with a little paperclip and added one of the tiny game spinners and a vintage glass button, tied through with some cream button twine

I didn't do an awful lot to the vintage spool (available in my shop) just added a touch of tea dye distress stain to the edges and the coated in rock candy stickles before drying off with a heat gun. I added a length of twill ribbon around the centre, plugged the centre with a scrap of the grunge paper that was left over to create a little step for the doll (also from Tim Holtz) - I love broken and disembodied dolls (weird, right?) so had to include this one! I filled the gap with Beacon Adhesives 3 in 1 glue and held him in there for a few minutes until it dried around him, then added blobs of Beacon 3in1 around the cotton reel and to the bottoms of the flowers to secure them in place around him on top of the cotton reel.

I finished it with a hint of rock candy stickles on the dolls hair...

Thanks for bearing with me through that epic post! I hope you liked my creation.

Thank you for dropping by today!
Sarah x

p.s. scroll back for the DT call details and new Create & Craft TV show dates! :o) x 

Scrapbooking with American Crafts & new Create & Craft TV Show dates!

First up, I want to share a LO I made the other night, since my studio has been moved around and I have more space, I've re-found my mojo and I'm loving it! I've been colouring, card making, scrapping and art journaling my little socks off every night for at least an hour before I head off to bed! This is the page I made the other night...

The paper is from the new Dear Lizzy line for American crafts, I just fell in love with it and didn't want to cover it all up, so I used one instagram pic of B and Fuzzybutt, and layered with some more Dear Lizzy and Amy Tangerine papers, I also added some stitching, foil thickers (love!!) and I made a bow from glitter tape - I'm having a bit of a gold moment recently, it goes with both my neutrals and neons which is what I seem to be working with mostly at the moment. Here are a few close ups...

I love using American Crafts products, everything is such great quality and nearly everything they produce is totally my style! Everything used in this layout was from Sarah's Cards (thats not me by the way, another Sarah!)

I also have two new show dates for you today! I will be back on your screens, next Friday (bank holiday - yay!) 29th at 10am and 2pm with some new Promarker sets and demos, I hope you can tune in!

Thank you for dropping by today!

Sarah x

p.s. the 'A Few of My Favourite Things...' kit reveals went out yesterday, so check your inboxes!!

Be Amazing!

Last week when my new art journal stamps came in, I couldn't wait to have a go with them myself! Unfortunately my art journal was wet as I'd just done lots of inky pages, but I grabbed a card blank and had a go on that instead!

I showed you a little sneaky peek of this in my last post, but here is the whole thing! I used Pentel watercolour tubes to make a painty background - I'm usually not a fan of watercolours but these come out almost like acrylics they're so rich so I can still get the bold colours and the bit of texture that I like in my work.

I used the bubble wrap stamp from my backgrounds set with a Hero Arts neon inkpad and randomly stamped over the top once dry (I used a heat gun, too impatient!) then using a Staz on ink pad I stamped my girl and accessories onto a separate piece of card and coloured them with Pentel watercolour pens and a waterbrush

Finally I layered everything together and stamped the border and 'Be Amazing' words along with lots of the bookprint stars (my fave!) and doodled with a white gel pen to highlight a few of them

You can get hold of my art journal stamps here and check out your local Pentel stockist here.

Thank you for dropping by today!
Sarah x

New Products! and a Design Team Call...

Big post today! First up, lots of new products, I've done a massive update to the shop and you can see all the new products here, but I especially wanted to mention my favourites, firstly... the new stamps in my Journaled365 Art Journaling range, there are 3 sets plus some large (by demand from my lovely DT!) and small texture stamps, I'm totally in love and was playing with them last night, with some Pentel pens and watercolours, here is a sneak peek at what I made from my Instagram feed, I will share the full project next week...

 

Also in today, my new Day Books! Another project I've been working on and perfecting for a while these A5 size mini books make a perfect mini book / journal or day book and have 20 printed patterned pages inside for you to fill up and doodle on! Here is a little peek at those....

As I said, you can see all of the new products including the stamp sets and day books here (and snap up one of the last 2 kit places if you're signed up yet for this month!)

and now, the moment I know a lot of you have been waiting for... I haven't had a DT call for a long time now, almost a year again! but we are now rushed off our feet with lots of new products and projects and we are looking to welcome a couple of new people to our small friendly team!

Please do read the requirements carefully, due to the number of applications we receive we unfortunately won't be able to consider anyone whose application doesn't meet the criteria.

Our team is small, friendly and fun, like a little (slightly odd!) family... We are looking for one or two new members. You must be comfortable with at least one of the following - traditional paper crafting and / or digi scrapping and / or hybrid crafting (i.e. CD's and digi stamps) and / or stamping - card makers, scrapbookers, digi scrappers, altered artists, art journalers are all welcome! to work with my existing range of digi kits, stamps, CD's, paper and other products as well as all of the exciting new products being launched soon. (To view the product range and some samples you can check out my website or Facebook page) If you have other crafty skills in addition to those above, please do let us know, you may be just the person you are looking for for one of the new ranges or products not yet launched!

You will be required to join in our Challenge Blog every month and leave comments for entries as well as making samples for the quarterly Lookbook magazine, the 'A Few of My Favourite Things...' monthly kit club, product releases, marketing purposes, shows and exhibitions.There will also be the opportunity to get involved with tutorials for Craft Academy and other projects. You must have a regularly updated blog with clear photographs of your work and be able to commit to at least a 6 month term.

As I mentioned, we are a friendly team with many of the girls with me since I first launched back in 2010, those who weren't already friends have become so over that time! We regularly have DT blog hops, internal competitions and prizes and opportunities to work with the other companies I am in partnership with.

To apply, please send me an email here with your blog link, a little about you and 2-3 pictures of your favourite work. Please also let me know what your speciality is - cards / scrapbooking / altered and mixed media art and / or other crafts and if you belong to any forums, are on social media or have any galleries i.e. 2peas, flickr etc etc.... If you are a digi scrapper, please let me know what software you work with.

It may be helpful to you to read this post I wrote with my Design Team tips!

The call is open to UK and International applicants and will close at midnight GMT on 31st March - the new DT members will be notified approximately one week later. If you have any questions please feel free to ask me via email or my Facebook page. We are looking forward to seeing your work!!

Let the fun begin! :o)

Sarah x

Secret Rose Garden Launch!

Today was the day I had been preparing for, along with Phill Martin, for months now! the launch of our brand new craft range, Secret Rose Garden!

The new range includes a CD, digi kit, papers, stamps and embellishments and we are in love!

You can see the full range here on the website and we have a little giveaway running if you check out the blog!

I also must say a massive thank you to the lovely girls who made the beautiful samples for the inspiration gallery - Carol, Sharon, Nicole, Geraldine, Jess, Suzy and Irene, please check out their blogs to see the full reveal of each of their projects, we will be featuring them on the Secret Rose Garden blog in more detail over the next few days!

I'll be back tomorrow with something else new to share and details of my Design Team call so please do pop back!

Thank you for dropping by today!
Sarah x

Scrapbooking Again!

So, this week I completely reorganised my studio (with B's help of course!) and broke my finger in the process (boo!) which gave me some more space, a load of 'new' stuff I'd forgotten I had and a fresh desire to get back to scrapping - I'm not good at chaos and with the addition of all my stock and new products I'd started just closing the door and not wanting to go in there, sad really as it was my little haven, but now it is my haven of calm and creativity once again, I'm so happy!

I actually took the time out, after finishing up some magazine projects, to break open my own 'A Few of My Favourite Things...' kit and get scrapping! I made this layout using Instagram prints...

I also used a set of my 'Say Cheese' Stamps, a Hero Arts Neon ink pad and some glittery letters from Pink Paislee. Here are a few close ups...

The new subscription places I added for this months kits are nearly all gone now, so if you'd like to sign up, please do hurry! I'd hate you to miss out, you can get all the info and sign up here on my website.

Now, I must be off, as you may know, myself and my lovely friend Phill Martin, who also guest presents on Create & Craft, have a brand new range launching tomorrow, if you'd like to join us, you can get the info here on Facebook!

I know some of you are desperately waiting for the DT call info, I will be posting it Friday so I can get the launch sorted out first, so please check back then, we can't wait to see your applications!

Thank you so much for dropping by today!
Sarah x

Promarker Charts & Stamp, Kit Club and DT Call Updates!!

so, an epic post from me today basically! Thank you to everyone who watched the show on Create & Craft on Thursday, I had so many lovely messages and have now got round to replying to them all!

As promised, I'm posting here the updated complete Promarker chart with the new seasonal colours added, free to download, nothing to sign up for, no catch - I'm just nice like that ;o)

Download yours here!

Now, a few updates from me - firstly, I have been working with a fabbo new stamp manufacturer to make my stamps and as a result I've managed to bring the costs down, I'm passing the whole saving straight to you, so my A6 stamp sets are now £1 cheaper!

 

I now also have stock of my stamps for Personal Impressions which are also on my website for you.

Secondly, I've opened up some more subscription places for the next 'A Few of My Favourite Things...' kit club and I have a sneaky peek of the stamps that will be in that kit...

Please do be quick if you want to sign up, sub places went in just a few days last time and the extra kits sold out within 2 days!

Finally, the rumours are true! I will shortly be holding a Design Team call, details will be posted here on my blog next week. I'm so looking forward to adding a couple of people to our lovely friendly team! :o)

I hope you have fun colourful weekends!

Thank you for dropping by today
Sarah x

A (special!) New Range - All Sewn Up!

Today is the launch of a brand new range and something a bit different and a bit special!

The range is called 'All Sewn Up!' and I shared this preview earlier this week...

 

You may have noticed, that she is hand drawn! Most of my previous work I altered digitally from my hand drawn sketches, however after putting out my hand drawn roses stamps and receiving a fantastic response, I decided to be braver and share some more hand drawn artwork!

Here are the cover previews for the Digi Kit and Digi Stamp sets...

There is one other thing that is a bit special about this range - a little secret I shared earlier today over on my Facebook page... The range doesn't just have a Digi Kit and Digi Stamps - there are also 2 Clear Stamp Sets AND a Paper Pack - thats right, a real life, touchy feely strokey paper pack!!!!

You can get hold of the whole range here on my website!

You may notice a few other new bits and pieces on my website and I will be filling you in on those, kit club developments, a future DT Call and a new Promarker chart on Friday, its going to be another epic post - don't forget to pop back!

My lovely Design Team have been busily beavering away with this kit to whip up some fab samples to give you some inspiration...

Jess

 

Jaine

Carol

 Nicole

Please click through to their blogs to check out the full projects - they've done an amazing job (as usual!)

Now I must be off, I have a show to prep for - I hope you'll tune in to Create & Craft at 9am tomorrow where I will be showing off the fab Promarker limited edition pens that sold out last time I was on air!

Thank you for dropping by today!
Sarah x

Create & Craft Show

Just a quick post, to let you all know, I'll be back on your screens this Thursday (7th March) at 9am with the sold out Limited Edition Promarkers, I'm working on some samples and demos for you this weekend so if there is anything you'd like me to cover, please shout!

See you then!

Sarah x

A Sneak Peek!

Today Phill and I are sharing another sneaky peek of what we've been working on! The launch date is very very close now...

If you are on Facebook please come and join us here, if we get to 1000 attendees to our online launch event we'll be doing a very special giveaway!

Thank you for dropping by today!
Sarah x