Paper Piecing

This week I've been sicky again, bleurgh! I've managed to infect B too (not a happy bunny, oooops!) yesterday we spent the evening curled up on the sofa eating soup (we never eat soup so I have no idea how we even had a tin in the cupboard! I imagine his mum popped it in there so we had some 'proper' food in the house, like mums do! LOL) and watching funny stuff to lift our spirits (I did sneak my sketch pad over despite my orders to rest though!)

Today I had to get back to my desk (albeit under a duvet and wrapped in lots of warm PJ's)  Craftime have got me hard at work on the new collections, and I only have a few weeks now to get them finished - there is SO much to do still, eeeeeek!

Today I'm sharing a paper piecing card with October Afternoon's 'Rocket Age' line...

I stamped the different parts of the image onto scraps of cardstock and then cut them out and layered them - I love paper piecing whether its to make up an image or a scene, I think its so effective and a great way to use your stamps if you're not keen on colouring in!

Supplies - October Afternoon Rocket Age Papers & Stamps from Sarah's Cards, Seam Binding from Crafty Ribbons

Thanks for taking a look, I'll be back tomorrow with lots of Halloween projects to share!!

Sarah x

Cardmaking with Crate Paper

Todays card is made with Crate Paper goodies, Emma's Shoppe paper and chipboard stickers...

The lovely seam binding ribbon is from Crafty Ribbons and the Bakers Twine is from The Twinery.

I actually made this to try out my new Woodgrain Cuttlebug Embossing folder - I'm obsessed with it already, this is like when I got my corner rounder punch (notice most of my cards have rounded corners!) well, now you will be seeing a lot of embossed backgrounds! LOL

Tomorrow I'm off for a meeting with the Kuretake girls in London, I've been pulling samples together to take with me for the shows on Thursday so look out for them and see if you can spot any of mine, I'll post them on my blog after the shows too so you can have a proper look.

Sarah x

Making Cards Magazine Bonus Projects (July Issue)

For those of you with July's Making Cards magazine I hope you are liking the papers and projects I designed for the summery issue, lots of ice lollies and deck chairs and cold drinks! You can see two of my cards on the front cover (center and bottom right)

Here are some bonus projects for you to get some more out of your papers!

Summers Day Collection

On the Beach Collection

All papers are free with the magazine or available from their website. All ribbons are from Crafty Ribbons.

There will be another fab card with these papers from Clare on the Challenge Blog tomorrow, so look out for that!

Sarah x

Missing!

Apologies for the lack of blog post yesterday, I am still up to my eyes in prep for all the things I have happening next week and by the time I unburied myself from the pile of paperwork, samples, products and discarded DVD's (Desperate Housewives is getting me through!) Cups of Tea and Sweetie wrappers it was 4am, birds was singing and it was beginning to get light so I headed straight to bed, still covered in ink and paint!

So today I'm sharing a simple card I made using my favourite Basic Grey Basics paper (I got some more for my birthday from a friend - yay!) and some Basically Bare birdies, one felt and one chipboard. The pearls are also from Basic Grey and the seam binding ribbon is from Crafty Ribbons - I crumpled it first (I actually store these stuffed in a box and not neatly like my other ribbons as it adds to their lovely vintage look!)

I will be back soon with lots of the DT projects with the new Oz CD - there are some absolute beauties and I can't wait for you to see! All orders placed up til Thursday lunchtime have been despatched, so you should start receiving them soon - don't forget to come and share your makes on my Facebook page!

I hope you have a lovely weekend!

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

Goth Girl Card

Another project to show you today, today a fun digi stamp card...

The digi stamp is from The Stamping Boutique (pop over to see their range, gorgeous stamps!) which I coloured with my promarkers. The lovely skully ribbon is from Crafty Ribbons and the dotty paper is from Echo Park.

I have some more things and fun projects for tomorrow!

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

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

Free Digi Stamp!

I've had so many lovely comments about my Royal Wedding Digi Stamp Kit and Illustrations that as a 'Thank You' today I'm giving away a free Corgi Digi Stamp.

Just click here or on the image to download the little Corgi in Colour and Black & White (colour with your Promarkers or Pencils)

Also, there is still time to enter the Blog candy competition - great prizes from Letraset, Derwent, Kuretake, Crafty Ribbons and me! click here for all the details.

Sarah x

Bank Holiday Blog Candy!

Right, I promised you a lovely giveaway today so here we go....

First up, for the followers of my Blog....


The prize is my ever popular CD's Woodland Whimsies 1&2, a set of Woodland Whimsies clear stamps and a set of Aquamarkers kindly donated by the lovely peeps at Letraset.

To win this prize you just need to be a follower of my blog! How easy is that? no comments, no challenge, just click follow :o)

Secondly, a prize for my Facebook peeps....

The prize is my ever popular CD's Woodland Whimsies 1&2, a Derwent Card making Kit (Butterflies) which includes cards, a design and some gorgeous metallic pencils, a selection of pens and some gorgeous pink brads from Kuretake and a selection of ribbons from Crafty Ribbons Thank you to Derwent, Kuretake and Crafty Ribbons for donating these prizes!

To win this prize you just need to be a follower of my Facebook Page! :o)

Of course if you follow both my blog and my Facebook page you have the chance to win both prizes!

This is open to UK and international entries. The winners will be drawn at random after the next Bank Holiday on 5th May.

Have a wonderful Bank Holiday!
Sarah x

Holidays!

It's nearly time.... 4 days off... I know you're probably counting down like I am, my xbox keeps winking at me, my pile of library books are calling me, my PJ's are ready and waiting - I won't be leaving the hosue the whole time I can tell you!! I did plan to have the whole time off but got a job in this morning that of course just can't wait so I will be working a bit (not complaining because it's a fabbo job!) and probably crafting too as I just can't stop (I have a ton of digi bits from GallimaufryUK printed out to finish off some hybrid LO's) but this is the most time off for ageeeees so I'm looking forward to it :o) I hope the sun is shining where you are (if you like that kind of thing, I'm not a fan myself being as I can sunburn through a brick wall!) and you have lots of fab things planned.

If you're short of a project then Crafty Ribbons have a children's apron project made from a teatowel up on their blog here, just try not to get distracted by all the fabby goodies, LOL

Also, I'm looking for some European crafters for a little something, if you are in Europe (not UK, sorry!) please leave me your blog link so I can have a nosy - thank you / merci / danke schon / gracias etc... :o)

If you pop back tomorrow I have a little Blog candy going up - don't miss it!

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

More Crafty Ribbon Cards!

I mentioned last week that I had been to Olympia to drop off some samples for Crafty Ribbons, now I can show them to you!

The set of 5 were made from Basic Grey Basics papers (my favourite base to most of my projects!) with Websters Pages papers and a couple of Jenny Bowlin stickers, all of course with Crafty Ribbons Seam Binding! The colours of the Seam Binding matched the papers perfectly, they are fab for vintagey style projects!

Here are some close ups....

Thank you to those who have clicked 'Like' on my Facebook page, makes me happeeeee! I've now updated the pic on my personal facebook page to something with my actual face (sorry about that, LOL) although it still has my art on it :o)

My tweety buddy Lyn has started to post art tips on her blog from this week - I think it's a great idea, always nice to learn something new! I'm always fascinated to learn how others work as well, sometimes I think maybe I'm doing it 'wrong' and reading others processes makes me feel more confident as they all so different - after all, there is really no 'wrong' way at all! and I often pick up tips which is fab, if you have anything like that on your blog please leave me the link, I'd love to have a look :o)

Part two of 'Waking the Dead' tonight - scary stuff!! Last night I happened to choose a Creme Egg as my snack of choice throughout all the eye gouging - ick! I may never eat one again....

Sarah x

Lovely Ribbons!

Tomorrow I'm off to the Stitch and Craft Show at London Olympia (come and say hello if you see me!) to shop and to meet the lovely peeps at Crafty Ribbons who I've been doing some work for. I will be dropping off some sample cards for them showing a few ribbon techniques that I LOVE! If you go to the show please drop by and take a look, for those of you that aren't here are a few for you to see...

These are using the lovely twill and seam binding ribbons that I'm obssessed with at the moment!

This card uses the twill ribbon which I've pleated to make a little ruffle (love ruffles!)



This uses the seam binding simply tied around and into a bow with a button popped on to finish it off



And this one uses the seam binding again, I've folded it in on itself to create a flower and secured with a big Pink Paislee brad

All on kraft card of course - another obssession! I do have rather a lot of them don't I..... I may do some videos of these techniques if anyone would like to see?

If you do pop to the show tomorrow make sure to stop by and see Crafty Ribbons, they have sooo many goodies, I can't wait to raid in person :o)

Also, after quite a few people said to me I should have a Facebook page I have finally got round to setting one up, please come and 'like' me here if you are on Facebook (of course, only if you actually do 'like' me, if not feel free to ignore, LOL)

Hoping to get the new release up tomorrow but depends on what time I get home, you know what the Tube can be like!! If not definitely Friday so keep your eyes peeled!

Sarah x

A Funny Old Day....

Today really was a funny sort of day, I stayed up late last night illustrating again, I seem to be more productive at night! But I woke up feeling ready for the day ahead and yet very relaxed and not my normal stressy self!

I think I'm making progress and I'm ahead of myself on my plan so thats a good thing. I'm also loving the way these illustrations are coming together. Sometimes it's too easy to be critical of ourselves, especially when you see fantastic work by other artists / crafters / designers. But you can only be yourself, of course you have to try and improve and better yourself but but never change your style or try to fit a mould, you don't want to be "the next 'whoever'" you want to be the first YOU!

Last night I had the whole ranty angry thing from yesterday swirling round in my head - I often carry these arguments out inside my head to make sure I dont say anything uneccessary when it comes to actually confronting who has hurt me and to make sure I have clear what I want to say, nothing worse than finishing an argument or impassioned speech and then thinking of something else you really wished you'd said - do it all at once and get some closure! It basically boils down to an issue of trust, I have a very hard time trusting people in the first place, but once I do, I do so implicitly. Once a person has broken that I've never been able to regain it, even when I've really really wanted to, I just can't. I feel an art journal page coming on! The best place to spill everything out... Maybe the fact that I had done that was what made me so calm today!

I've been planning out my diary today and the next few weeks and months look pretty busy (yay!) but I'm taking some time to go to the craft show at the Olympia next month to see the lovely peeps at Crafty Ribbons who I design for, I'll also be meeting some more twitter peeps, always fun! If you're going let me know :o)

Ah, no pretty pics today... will try and make up for it tomorrow, promise! Thanks for your guesses yesterday, keep them coming!! ;o)

Sarah x

New Ribbons!

Over the weekend I got to play with the new Seam Binding sent to me by Crafty Ribbons, lovely cololurs!...

I havent tried crumpling and spritzing yet, I'll be doing that tomorrow!! Here are a couple of cards I made with it.

The Rose card is the stamped image I showed being used with the Derwent Watercolour pencils, I cut it out and inked the edges with Distress Ink in Antique Linen, the papers are from The Girls Paperie.

The Enchantment card, the stamp is from Imaginisce, shaded using Kuretake pens and Stickles, the papers are Anna Griffin and American Crafts (Dear Lizzy)

I think I'm getting better as Bow Tieing now, I need to try on some bigger ribbons! Tomorrow I'm going to try distressing and spritzing the undyed seam binding to see what I can create. I think they will go perfectly with some cards I'm making using Kuretake Alcohol inks.

Sarah x

Derwent Inktense & Watercolour Pencils

At the weekend I got some time to play with my lovely Derwent pencils. I must admit my natural instinct when it comes to colouring pencils is to reach for the Coloursoft pencils, they are so great to work with, they blend easy and I can get my usual bright bold and colourful look with them. I'm not really very good with watercolours, I find the overall result (in my hands at least!) to be too wishy washy and too messy, but I thought I would be brave and have a go with the Watercolour and Inktense pencils and see if I could get to grips with them and the differences between them.

I started with the Watercolour pencils, I used them to colour a stamped image using a water brush (also from Derwent) to blend. I don't think I have ever coloured in a stamped image before (and it probably shows!) I used a Staz-on Ink pad as these are solvent based and so won't bleed into your colours as you add water. The stamp is an old one from PSX that I've had for about 10 years.

I started by stamping my image and using the darkest red to shade the shadowy areas. I did make a few smudges as you can probably see! but on the whole I found it much easier than watercolours and much easier than I was expecting!!

As I got braver I started using strips of colour to boldly highlight the light and shade areas and using the waterbrush to blend them - as with the leaf below.

On the whole it took me far less time to colour this than it would have done with watercolours and I found it much easier. I definitely need some more practice though!!

While I was still feeling brave I broke open the Inktense Pencils, I stamped my image with Staz on again and started shading the face ready to blend with the water brush....

But as you can see in pic 2 I didn't take into account that when you add water to these the colour POPS, really seriously it looked like my witch had had a run in with a spray tan - BAD! luckily using the water brush I used lots of water to flood the area (do this slowly or it will smudge) and blot using kitchen towel, this reduced her luminous orange glow down to a healthy tan - she maybe just flew her broomstick too close to the sun one day!! LOL. The bold colours really appealed to me and overall I think I preferred them for that reason. Here is my final result....

As you can see I still made a few smudges, but I thought it was not bad for a first attempt! and you can still get a more subtle finish if you use the pencils very lightly (as I did on the background here..) I added some distress stickles to the background on the finished image and added to my card (using MME papers and Halloween ribbon from Crafty Ribbons, I can't remember where the Spider button came from, I think someone sent it me as part of an art swap,.)

Both pencils were very easy to use, overall I prefer the Inktense for the vibrant finish but if you prefer a more subtle tone then the Watercolour is the way to go, they would be great for vintage / shabby chic projects! I definitely will be getting in some more practice with both - I need it!!

Now back to the drawing board for me (literally!!)

Sarah x

p.s. if you're looking for the DT call you need to scroll all the way to the bottom and maybe even go back a page now I've done this epic post! :o)

Busy Busy Busy!!

Today I had SOOOOO much to do, seriously, I cannot begin to tell you how crazy my schedule is, I worked til 2am yesterday and was back up at 7 to start again, and will probably be working again all night tonight. have to say though, I'm having the BEST time!

Working on new designs, sorting out new products, working on my illustrations for the Bologna Book Fair, looking at all the DT applications coming in, and all the other stuff going on that I'm not allowed to say yet, crazy! I havent even had chance to check in with my DT girls yet - thats what later tonight is for, right? LOL

Today I decided to get myself "in the zone" LOL, I wrote a condensed list of what needed to be done TODAY (down from my 4 page list of what has to be done at some point this week) on a pretty post it note and everything, I wore teal tights to match my nails and my fave boots, I was all stocked up with coffee and currant crunch ryvita - ready to GO!

The positive approach definitely worked, I got everything sketched out and started working on final pieces, lots and lots done - yay! Think with a few more hours tonight I will be very happy with todays progress.

I also got a lovely parcel from Crafty Ribbons with their new Seam Binding, it is SO gorgeous, the colours are lovely muted tones, perfect for vintage / shabby chic projects and they also sent me some undyed so I can use it with my Ink Sprays and Promarkers to recolour it, I really can't wait to have a play with them, I'm almost sad to cut them as they are all my favourite colours, I just want to wrap them round a canvas and frame it! LOL

At the weekend I made a couple of Easter cards with the previous lot of ribbons they sent to me, it's so hard to find lovely things for Easter! The bunny ribbon was so nicely printed I cut a couple of the pictures out and used them as embellishments. The big button is also from Crafty Ribbons.

I have quite a few more of these to come but won't bore you with them all at once!

I also had an email from an old friend today, it was so nice to hear from him and I'm hoping to get my Skype set up this week so I can chat to him later in the week properly (he's not in the UK) and a couple of other people. I speak to a few of my European and American contacts via MSN messenger but it would be nice to speak to them in person a bit more often! It certainly racks the bill up if you do it all the time (hence the MSN now, LOL).

Anywayyyy.... he said to me today that you can see my sense of humour in my work, I thought that was such a lovely thing to say and I hope others see it too and not just because he knows me!

And one last thing, yesterday I got an Invite to Pinterest - wow! it is SO addictive, at first I couldn't see the point but as you get going it's fab - if you're on there let me know or if you would like an invite leave me your email address and I'll send you one!

I'm off for a quick dinner before I get back to burning the midnight oil!

Sarah x

p.s. if you're looking for the DT call please scroll down a bit!