Scrapbooking with my Cricut

Today I'm sharing a scrapbook page I made using my Cricut Expression - this was an idea I had a while ago and finally got round to last night - I loved making it :o)

 Supply List - Once upon a Princess cartridge, Woodgrain Paper (light - Dream Street, dark - Crate Paper, textured - Coredinations) Cream bazzill Cardstock, Studio Calico Chipboard Butterflies, Miscellany Frame & Woodgrain Alpha Stickers - October Afternoon, Bird Paper - American Crafts, Twine, Acrylic Paint, Brown Journaling Pen, embroidery floss, Instax Picture

First I cut a square of the Light Woodgrain paper approx 8" x 7.5" and stuck it to my cricut mat. I lined up 9 Hearts on the screen and autofilled them to the paper - it evenly spaces them and fits them to the page - a brilliant feature!! I then cut 3 smaller hearts from the darker woodgrain paper.

I backed four of the hearts with the bird paper from American Crafts - this was my last sheet, I need some more of this, fast! its such a great paper from a few collections back. I stuck my completed square to my Bazzill Card Stock. I hand stitched the darker hearts in the remaining gaps with embroidery floss. Lightly sanded the coredinations cardstock and added my instax picture. The frame I painted with cream acrylic paint before adhering on top.

As a finishing touch I added the butterflies from Studio Calico to the top corner, I stacked two of them and added a button and some twine. Then I used the woodgrain alpha's and my brown journaling pen for my title and journaling.

I love the fact that despite only using one small picture the rest of the layout doesn't detract from it, the focus is all on her (my little sister)

I can't wait to try some more experiments with the autofill to see what other effects I can make on my layouts!

Thanks for dropping by today :o)

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

A Creative Day

Now my studio is all tidy and I have space (although the Fedex man arrived at 7am with boxes to fill some of that!) I decided to get cracking on the long list of projects I have to do so today I was covered in paint, ink, marker, glue, medium, you name it! Most of which are in various stages of drying and are not ready to show yet but which I will be showing you over the next few days.

Here are a couple of quick cards I made with some scraps while I was waiting for various things to dry etc...

 

Today was obviously a flowery day! Most of the bits used are October Afternoon and Crate Paper.

At the weekend I sorted my papers by manufacturer (replacing my old system of paper just being put in the top box and then moved around while I was looking for things - just a piece of advice for you, that system does NOT work!) while I was sorting I found that most of my paper is October Afternoon, I wasn't too surprised, I tend to buy 2 of everything! LOL

While I was working I carried on watching Desperate Housewives - I'm on the last DVD of series 6 now so I'll be finished soon, I don't know what I'll do after that! Fingers crossed series 7 is out soon, I might try 'Mad Men' in the meantime, I've only seen one episode but it was pretty good, any recommendations? (I've got a LOT of studio time over the next few weeks and need entertaining!)

Sarah x

Tips for Selling Your Cards!

One othe things I get asked a lot about is how to go about selling your handmade cards, so over the weekend I put together my 10 top tips for selling your cards, you can see them here on my Facebook Page. I will be doing some more of these articles regarding questions I get asked a lot, so if you have any special requests just let me know!

The card above I made today, with Crate Paper and Girls Paperie goodies. I took a couple of hours out to go and craft, I had a headache (silly me for having toast after a week of no carbs, ick!) and I was feeling grumpy so I took some time out, sometimes it's more productive to have a break! I also cut out lots of things with my Cricut for later (it's a bit noisy to use at night with OH trying to sleep next door!) I have lots of ideas already and can't wait to get started!

It was back into snuggly PJ's and fluffy booties today as it was cold and rainy (not that I'm complaining, much better than the icky heat!) I always feel more productive in the cold :o)

Now, I must get on, I'm finalising the last few things for a product launch this week - can't wait to show you more!

Sarah x

p.s. if you're looking for the Punky Scraps blog hop please see the post below!

Birthdays & a Daisy Update!

There are so many Birthdays in May and June, I feel like I spend weeks just making Birthday cards! Here are a couple of recent ones to share....

Firstly, my mums birthday was last week, here is the card I made for her with October Afternoon and Crate Paper goodies...

 Then it was B's brothers birthday, I first made him this card using the Molly Bloom stamps that were free with a magazine recently (can't remember which one, sorry!) coloured with my promarkers. The papers are from some K&Co pads I've had for literally AGES! (I dont get to make many 'boy' cards)

 Then I remembered that the card I made for B's son he thought was too young had a cutesy character on, as his brother is older than Sam I thought he might feel the same way about this one (he actually ended up loving it!) so I made this more grown up Birthday cake card instead...

Again, the cake is a Molly Bloom stamp coloured with my Promarkers.

And finally, an update on Daisy! Daisy's op went well, she still has some pain but she is doing well. Kirsty has now drawn the lucky raffle winners so pop over to see if you're among them!

Tomorrow I'm taking part in a fun blog hop so pop back to join in!

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

Crazy Days....

Today was totally manic, up early to run some errands (which I only just got done in the nick of time) before meeting up with my lovely friend Karen from ScrapShed who I haven't seen in FAR too long!! With one thing and another a few months (months!!!) had passed - crazy, we live 20 mins apart! Anywhooo, we met up for a spot of shopping, some junk shop rifling, love these 2 vintage books I found, one dictionary and one hymn / music book - they won't be staying whole for long!!

I can't wait to chop them up and get them all inky and painty..... The dictionary had the cutest sentiment in it...

'Make Friends with Words' how lovely... Both books have fab pages, here's a little glimpse before they ripped up and inked to make them even more vintagey looking, I feel a collage coming on....

The a quick half hour for posh coffee in a little place obssessed with grilling EVERYTHING! It seems we always find these places who insist on serving everything warm and toasted - bagels are supposed to be cold and anything with salad in it grilled is just plain WRONG! I also picked up the newest issue of Popular Crafts as they featured my blog this month (woo!)so I wanted to have a look. Then home for not so posh coffee and some catching up on emails - amazing what builds up when you go out for one morning, I'll still be catching up tomorrow *sigh* All done while dealing with excruciating joint pain - ouchie!

Now I'm off to swoon at the Crate blog for a bit, they just posted their CHA sneaks and I'm in love already - MUST have!

Sarah x

Not Grim Up North!

Have arrived safely in "The North" albeit to freezing temperatures and lashing rain! Can't have it all, at least I'm tucked up in my jamas being fed and tea and biccies at my parents house :o)

Tomorrow we have a trip to a new Hobbycraft to look forward to - looking forward to seeing what goodies I can treat myself too! Although after raiding two deliveries at ScrapShed yesterday I should be being good! Have got the lovely Paper Doll range from Crate Paper and all the new My Little Shoebox collections waiting for me back in my studio. I'm sure they will be added to......

Right,I'm off now to scrapbook with the little squishies as I have a Pyjama Party tonight - wooo!

Ta-ra! x