Vintage Lady card for Making Cards Magazine

Today I'm sharing another card I made for Making Cards magazine recently - this is part of a set of 3 (I'll share the others another time!)

The stamp is from one of my favourite Hero Arts sets of vintage ladies, I stamped and watercoloured it. The papers are from Cosmo Cricket - love these too! I may have a few extras of these stashed away ;o) which I distressed around the edges with my scissors and then Tea Dye and Walnut Stain Distress ink (what did I do before those colours came along!) and stitched together (I stitch by hand as I've never got to grips with using a sewing machine) The flower is from the Tattered Florals die byTim Holtz for Sizzix, I cut it from kraft paper and layered with a brad through the centre.

This set was featured in the July issue of Making Cards, if you don't have it I think there are still a few copies available on their website here. My friend and DT lovely Emma also has a fabulous set of cards in there you just have to see, one of them is on the cover, fabulous!

Now I must be off, today is a rare day off for me and desperately needed if I'm honest! Of course I have a few emails to catch up on first... ;o)

Have a fab weekend (I'll be in my studio working on some projects - yay!) and thank you for dropping by.
Sarah x

Featured in Inzpira Magazine!

I promised to share a crafty project with you today and here it is! You may remember a few months ago I mentioned I had been asked to contribute for an international magazine, well that magazine was a fabulous Swedish magazine called Inzpira - the projects in this magazine are just amazing, even though I don't understand a word of the writing I love receiving my copy for the eye candy! :o)

In the latest issue I had this card featured...

I made this using a LOTV stamp, coloured with Promarkers, the fabric rose is made from a scrap of my treasured Cosmo Cricket fabric (glued with Beacon Adhesive - super strong!) The background is done with distress inks (I'll be doing a video tutorial on this soon as I'm asked about it a lot!)

Here is the magazine cover and a sneaky peek of my page...

 You can get hold of the magazine here.

Thanks so much for dropping by today - I've been a busy bee working on some fab new crafty products which are almost ready to reveal to my Design Team, I can't wait to get their feedback! (don't forget you have just a few days for our DT call now!) I've also had more excitement today which I'll be able to share soon (ish) can't wait! Now I must get back to it, I have a ton of stuff to do and tomorrow promises to be my busiest day yet this week!

Thanks so much for dropping by today
Sarah x

Autumnal Scrapbooking

With the change in seasons all the colours of the world around us seem to change, the blue of the sky gets a bit hazier and the leaves turn into yellows, oranges and reds, I literally see this change in front of my eyes as my desk looks out over the forest so every day it looks a little bit different, I love the changes through Autumn and Winter - they're my favourite seasons!

The Autumn colours are some of my most favourite colours and inspired this layout that I finished last night of my little sister Xena...

 The leaves were die-cut from my Cricut Expression (using the 'Preserves' Cartridge) on white paper and then coloured using Promarkers. I then embossed some of them in my Cricut to give them some texture.

 The little envelope contains a hidden journaling card made from a scrap of October Afternoon cardstock...

  

The papers are Cosmo Cricket from quite a while ago, I've been saving them! I've also used a scrap of the Cosmo Cricket Coredinations which I LOVE - some of my favourite cardstock ever! and the embellishments are Cosmo Cricket and October Afternoon.

Thank you for all the lovely feedback on my Christmas Cards yesterday, for those of you who emailed me about buying different sized packs, I will be getting back to all of you later tonight! I've been spending today revising the packaging designs for my the big launch of my new craft ranges, as well as actually working on the designs for them (I can't wait to share everything thats coming!!) and getting things ready for my little blog and website makeover - such exciting but very busy times! :o)


Sarah x

Basically Bare

I have been dying to get stuck into the box of DT goodies I received from Basically Bare and I had the perfect opportunity while I was scrapping the other night to use the doll form (and I couldn't resist one of the banner pieces as well!)

I covered the bottom half of the chipboard doll form with one of the canvas doll form pieces (also from Basically Bare) you can paint ot colour / ink these canvas pieces but in this case I left it bare and stitched on some gathered tulle. I hid the stitching with some ribbon and a tiny bow made with cord from Crafty Ribbons. (All papers are Cosmo Cricket Material Girl collection.)

I also used one of the chipboard banner pieces at the top, covered it with paper and adding a thicker with Xena's initial

You can see the chipboard and canvas pieces a little bit clearer in this picture

This is some of the best quality chipboard I've used, it feels lovely and smooth (some I've used feels a bit cheap like a cardboard box and I want to cover it up, this looks nice enough to be left bare) and its nice and thick and sturdy (I had a sticky dots incident covering the banner piece and thought it would split but it done no damage at all, didn't even bend!).

I'm already working on my next project!

Apologies for the late post today, I think it will be pretty much like this for a week or so, this is one of the busiest times for me, I just have so much on, I hope to tell you more about it all by the end of the month!

I have also been answering some of your questions on Formspring as promised, so if you have a question please pop over and ask!

Thank you to everyone for the lovely comments about my papers in this months Making Cards magazine - I can't wait to see your makes!

Sarah x

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

Inappropriate Scrapping??

So Saturday was the hottest day of the year (so far presumably...) and what was I doing? sunbathing? enjoying an ice lolly? putting aftersun on my sunburnt shoulders? Nope, naturally I had an overwhelming urge to dig out all of my christmassy snowy scrapbooking stuff and start work on a snowy LO - absolute madness!!

So while you were all no doubt basking in the sun, I made this....

The papers are from Cosmo Cricket, the stickers are from October Afternoon and the Seam binding ribbon is from Crafty Ribbons. The picture is of the view from my window by my desk on one of the snow days last year.

I am a bit of a winter fan so maybe all the sun got to me and I had to be reminded of the colder weather!!

Today was the start of the London Book Fair and my work is there - wahooooo! I'm off to visit both the Book Fair and the UK Stationery show tomorrow - so a busy but exciting day in London! I'll make sure to try and get some pics and blog all about it tomorrow :o)

Sarah x

A Card!!!

Surprised? I am, its been soooooo long since I done any crafting and this was made in a bit of a rush at 6am before my day really got started, but still I made it, its the first thing I've made with my 'Wonderland' CD that I have been dying to use since I started designing it so I'm happy!

I also received this gorgeous Cosmo Cricket fabric in the post - YUM-MY! as well as some lovely October Afternoon goodies that I cant wait to have a play with.

I NEED some crafting time soon! First though I have to finish my studio - it's mid 'clear up and organise' so looks great one side and like a tornado went through the other side *sigh* it's definitely being done in the next 24 hours, If I don't get some pretty paper time I will fall into a pit of despair!

A couple of other things I completely forgotten to mention are:

I have a sale on at the moment with free shipping using the code 'FREESHIP' at checkout - see here for barginous bargains galore!

This is the last week to submit your links if you are a mixed media artist / art journaler to try a fabby new product - go here or email me if you arent a facebooker

I just want to say a big thank you for all the lovely comments the last few days :o)

Thats all folks!

Sarah x

Mini Portfolio

Last week I made a mini portfolio from a lovely Crown shaped Kaisercraft book - every time I tell people what I do they say "ooooh, lets see" so I thought if I had a tiny portfolio I could carry in my giant Mary Poppins style bag I could actually show them. It also gave me an excuse to break out the Ranger distress crackle paint (tattered rose - my all time favourite!) it works so well on wood and I loved the final effect. I printed some pics of previous work and even managed to squeeze in some ATC's as they were a perfect fit!



I also managed to use some of my lovely Melody Ross textile tags as they had lovely sentiments like "I make Stuff" which fitted in perfectly.

Right now I'm working on some Scrapbook Layouts for samples and for myself - I have sooo many photo's to scrap, this is what happens when you fall behind! I'll post some pics soon. I'm loving the new Cosmo Cricket lines, Material Girl and Garden Variety - they're actually not so new now, Ive had them for a few weeks but only just got to the stage where I could actually cut into them!