*New* Documented365 and Project Life!

In my previous post I mentioned that lots of new Documented365 goodies were on their way and they are now here! Here is a little peek...

These are all now available right here in my shop!

I wanted to show you how I use my Documented365 bits and pieces, and hopefully give you some inspiration. Of course, I use them in my regular scrapping but just recently I've started my Project Life album and these fit perfectly with that. The reason I created Documented365 was because I loved the concept of Project Life but it was just a little bit too quick and simple for me (I do love to complicate things! lol) and I wanted to mix things up a bit and keep my own style and keep things very creative and tailored to each week. I know lots of people love to use the core kits to make a perfectly coordinated album, but for me, every week is different and I wanted my album to reflect that.

I did buy the gorgeous Honey core kit and recently swapped half of it for half of someones Jade kit (which I loved so much I will be buying a whole one, though I will probably swap half for something else too!) but I add in other bits, cards made from scraps, cards from other manufacturers, cards from my 'A Few of My Favourite Things...' kits and of course, my Documented365 cards and embellishments. So here is a weeks spread for you to see how I put it all together... (you can click to see the pictures bigger)

This card was made just from scraps of October Afternoon, used to make a custom header card - I like to put the dates at the beginning as I didn't start from January 1st.

Here are some Documented365 cards in with the Honey cards and a custom card - see how it all fits together - love! I also used one of the chipboard slide frames and covered it in gold stickles to highlight my shiny gold picture!

 

Here I've used some of my stamps directly on my Instagram prints (I get mine from Printed.com in 2 sizes)

I cut into this Honey Project Life card to make a photo holder, the clouds hold the picture in place! those alpha stickers are from Simple Stories Sn@p and are brilliant value as you get lots of different colours in one pack! The 'Awesomesauce' stamp is one of mine :o)

Here the 'Everyday Moments' header card is a Documented365 chalkboard card, the gold foil letterpress card is from Skipping5 (gorgeous!) and the little chalkboard pin badge and hashtag and 'amazeballs' stamps are from my range.

The currents card is from Documented365, (there is a little sneaky peek at my big exciting project right there in the top corner if you have a look ;o))

Here are another couple of close ups - you can see I've done a lot of stamping in Hero Arts neon pink ink -love it so much, I'm obsessed! and there is some washi tape too

Finally, a close up of each side, here is the left side...

and the right side...

My album is still coordinated but it won't look the same as anyone else's who has the same core kit, which is what I wanted. The Core Kits are such a great foundation, I just wanted to build on that and keep things unique and I think Documented365 fills that gap - I hope you agree!

I'll be sharing some more of my Project Life soon - I'm still catching up from the middle of June when I started - B bought me the core kit and album as one of my birthday pressies (he knows me so well!)

Thank you for dropping by today!
Sarah x

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

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

Christmas Snowflakes Card

Today, as promised, here is card number 2 in my Christmassy Set of 2 (I showed number one yesterday)...

This one uses a fancy card blank from Craftwork Cards, the Blue Bazzill and bleedproof white cardstock were cut using the Sizzix Fancy Labels Framelits dies which fit perfectly with these card blanks! The blue label shape, I embossed with a snowflake embossing folder. The swirl is also a Sizzix die (and one of my current favourites!)

 

I stamped the Hero Arts stamp and coloured with Promarkers. the snowflakes were cut from white, ivory, blue and Kraft Bazzill and layered up, I then added a touch of stickles to finish.

Now, I must get back to work, I'm putting the finishing touches to Volume 2 of the Sarah Hurley Lookbook magazine - so exciting! If you haven't had chance to look at issue one yet, you can see it here.

Thank you for dropping by!
Sarah x

A Christmas Easel Card

Well, just as yesterday I was lamenting the fact that I am nowhere near being in the Christmas spirit (despite their being only a few weeks to go) today I woke up to a real life winter wonderland! There is nothing like snow to get you in the festive spirit fast! So now I have Christmas songs on, tucked up drawing (ironically, I'm drawing lovely springy things!)

Today I'm sharing a Christmassy easel card, I originally made this as part of a set of 2 for Making Cards magazine, but at the last minute they didn't have room to fit them in the December issue so I can share them here instead!

 

The Circles are cut using my Martha Stewart circle cutter (don't know what I'd do without it!) the blue one is from Bazzill cardstock and embossed with a Sizzix embossing folder.

The smaller white circle is cut from bleedproof card and stamped with  a Hero Arts stamp which I coloured with Promarkers and then added stickles to.

The snowflakes, dove and swirls are all Sizzix die cuts from 3 shades of bazzill cardstock, once they were all positioned and layered with 3D foam I added stickles to some of them for a frosty finish!

I'll post the second card in this set tomorrow for you to have a look at.

Thank you for dropping by today!
Sarah x

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

Quick & Simple Kaisercraft Hummingbird Cards

Today I'm sharing a set of quick and simple cards that you may have seen as they were recently featured in Making Cards magazine (yay!) For these I used the Kaisercraft Hummingbird range which features one of my fave colour palettes - teal, red and yellow - delish! (You can click on these pics to see them bigger)

These were made using papers from the range along with the die cut shapes pack and a few of the stickers from the sticker sheet. For stockists of this range you can email Jones & Co, the UK distributor. The only extras I added were some twine, gems and stamped sentiments from one of my fave Hero Arts sets.

Each card took around 10 minutes to make - perfect for when you're in a rush or making lots!

Thanks so much for dropping by today!
Sarah x

Welcome to the Sarah Hurley DT Blog Hop!

This weekend (Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th April) we are holding a Design Team Blog Hop to celebrate the release of my newest CD!

Each of the DT members has projects and sneak peeks on their blogs along with a letter of the alphabet, if you hop through the blogs in order (we'd love you to follow us all and leave us a comment on our projects and peeks!) and collect the letters they spell out the name of the new CD (the CD is available to buy now here!) - then all you need to do is pop back here and leave a comment on this post with the name.

You will need to start with Jaine's blog and hop through from there.

Along the way you’ll be able to capture a sneak peek at the new CD as well as gather some fabulous inspiration from the team.  There will be new posts on each day so pop back both days to make sure you don't miss anything!

Next week I will be picking three winners from the correct answers at random to win some fabulous prizes from our sponsors...

 

The Prizes are as follows:

1st Place - a download of the new CD, and your choice of either a set of 24 Derwent Watercolour pencils or a set of 12 Pastel Promarkers and a 15% discount voucher for my shop (www.sarahhurley.com) 

2nd Place - a download of the new CD, a set of 5 'Summer' Promarkers and a 10% discount voucher from my shop

3rd Place - a download of the new CD and a 10% discount voucher from my shop

(There is also a little competition among all of the DT so they would appreciate your comments to help them win a prize ;o) )

The competition will close at midnight GMT on Sunday 15th April and any entries after that will be discounted. Winners will be picked at random.

Here is what I made with the new CD, using my favourite Digi stamp (he's just so cute!) and papers from the 'I Love London' collection (the 'Hello Handsome' stamp is from Hero Arts)

I look forward to seeing all your comments and I wish you all the best of luck!

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

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

Home Sweet Home Card

Today I'm sharing a sweet 'Home' card I made late the other night, I love housey things and ended up colouring in about 20 of these little houses! Now I just have to find projects for them all!...

Another bright and cheerful card, and a great excuse to use *that* background stamp again - I'm obsessed, I love clouds, you may see this on every project I make ;o)

I've been swamped with design and illustration work as well as other bits and pieces going on *sigh* so have had very little time to craft, my mojo is also being slow in returning, although I'm sure it will be back soon!

Also, I must mention, today there is a fab lesson from Jaine up over on the Craft Academy site - I can't wait to have a go myself!

Sarah x

A Quick Cheery Card

After blitzing my office and studio clean following the manic CHA phase, (they are so tidy! though I'm guessing not for long, lol) I couldn't wait to start some crafting again, my mojo seems to have gone off with my boxes of goodies to CHA though, so I only managed a quick card...

It did give me an excuse to break out my Promarkers again though, and I used lots of bright colours and papers (from Echo Park) to cheer myself up :o) I can feel my mojo floating back to me slowly...

I love this stamp set from Basic Grey / Hero Arts - I'm sure you'll be seeing more of it soon!

Thanks for dropping by
Sarah x

First Craft Academy Lesson!

The first Craft Academy lesson is up - eeek!  

Paper Piecing is one of my favourite techniques so I had fun putting this together!

I hope you will pop over to take a look, and join in :o) and I look forward to seeing your projects.The first Crafy Kids Academy lesson will be posted tomorrow.

Sarah x