Sparkles & Shopping

Firstly, I want to share a card I made last night, my first attempt at an 8 x 8 card, not sure why but this size intimidates me a bit, I'm never quite sure how to fill the space (I'm fine with A5 and even A4 though, odd!) but with some new stamps to try out and my crafty mojo having returned (who knows for how long!) I thought I'd give it a try...

The stamps are from Lavinia Stamps, I added extra details and colour with distress inks and then worked over the top with my Kuretake Wink of Stella pens, I'm not really a glittery girl but I love the subtle shimmer of these pens! I had to take this pics in just the right light to try and capture the detail... (you can see better if you click on the pics to enlarge them)

   

The new stamps were part of my weekend haul! I took a trip to the Big Stamp & Scrapbooking show at Ally Pally on Saturday where I also met up with Emma and Kim, this was my first time to just visit as I usually demo at the show, so nice to just enjoy it (and shop of course!) and shop I did, oooops! (it's only twice a year though, lol)

Funnily enough I bought hardly any paper (my usual weakness!) but lots of stamps, although I do need to expand my collection and Clare from my design team has me hooked on lots of new brands, I was particularly excited to get this bag...

I'm loving LOTV stamps! Lots of colouring in ahead for me! :o) and of course a few more Lavinia Stamps for my collection which I used in the card above and some gorgeous little bits from Artistic Stamper to use in future projects - they do the most adorable little things for your printer trays and vintage style projects, I got dominos, keys, chipboard angel wings and lots of other little trinkets, just fab!

Now I'm back to work on deadlines for my new craft ranges (of course!) with my pre-Christmas releases all wrapped up I'm now working on the designs for my big launch at the trade show early next year (sounds ages away, in fact I have about 6-8 weeks to design a gazilion ranges and add-on products!!!) and I have a few illustration pieces to finish up for the Frankfurt Book Fair which is just around the corner as well as my usual mag projects and bits and pieces and some other exciting projects I can't share just yet - this is literally the most exciting time ever, but I'm so busy, the other night I actually didn't go to bed at all, I just didn't have time to sleep! LOL (I did get in trouble from B who woke up for his early shift and found me still awake from the previous day though - oooops!)

Sarah x

Alcohol Inks on Holographic Card!

I've been playing with my Kuretake Alcohol Inks again making lots of backgrounds for future projects - I was using up lots of old paper, coating it with acrylic paint first to seal it (a great way to use up old stash you'll never ever use) in with all my old stash was a whole stack of holographic card I bought about 10 years ago, it has a glossy surface so no need to prime it first, so I thought I'd give it a go!

 

The first is yellow and pink swirled with grey dripped into the edges. The second I layered on lots of yellow and pink with purple around the edges then I dripped purple into the middle and the blending solution on top which gave it this 'tie-dye' kind of effect.

I wouldn't recommend doing this in a brightly lit room, I nearly blinded myself! But it's definitely a great effect.

I had my silouhette Lavinia stamps to hand so i made a very quick card just to show off how striking it can be - literally this took about 5 minutes to make!

Sarah x

Early Bird!

Today I'm posting early as I really need to get off my pooter and get some drawing done!! I have been saying I can draw at my desk but i'm sure you know what its like, an email comes through, you reply, the phone rings, 2 more emails come through, the phone rings again, you turn round and you have 40 unread emails - WHAT!! Typical, LOL. I do have my Blackberry with me but get less distracted when I'm not in front of the pooter checking every email, tweet etc....

I now have a little over a week to finish my pieces for the Bologna Book Fair, they are all sketched out, some are started but none are finished - yikes!! I also have the trade show Stitches at the end of the week and a couple of client meetings as well as my usual crafty projects and working on some new products, it's a long list! I actually stayed awake til 2am last night / this morning just to clear my backlog of emails, luckily I feel quite awake today!

I finished my projects with the alcohol inks but am waiting for them to dry so I'll photograph them tomorrow and hopefully blog them in the next day or two, I used them with my Lavinia Stamps which are beautiful silouhettes - I found them at last years Ally Pally and fell in love! Definitely some more on this years Ally Pally shopping list!!

I also have to sort my Skype out soon as my list of calls to make and receive is growing ever longer! Thats tomorrow mornings job, definitely!

Finally I'll leave you with a very very quick layout from the weekend, its a very similar colour palette to the Vogue one I done a week or so ago, not sure why I'm so drawn to these colours at the moment!

ooops, and just remembered (this really is finally, I will stop babbling - see what I mean about getting distracted!!) the lovely Crafty Ribbons who I design for have their ribbons in this months 'Lets Make Cards' magazine, so you can test a few of their products and see the quality for yourself, bargainous!

I'm definitely going now, Fuzzybutt is waiting on the sofa office...!! LOL

Sarah x