Kuretake

Today I met with Kuretake and Emma and Kim who are also on the Kuretake Design team, we had a lovely lunch together in central London, chatted about all the new things coming soon - very exciting! and loaded up with some new things to try - I will be taking pics in the next few days and blogging all about them for you to see, it was a bit dark for pictures by the time I got home!

When you work from home you tend to feel a bit isolated so it was nice to get out for the day and network a bit and be with the real people! LOL

I also booked my train ticket to go to my Mum & Dads for the day in a couple of weeks, yay!

I'm off to relax for a bit now, a day in London is exhausting!!

Don't forget a new challenge is up today...

Sarah x

Happy Hump Day!

Wednesday already, this week has just flown by, I didn't even see it!! Sooo much has been done though, so thats good :o)

Thank you for the lovely responses to the new designs and the DT work, so glad you're loving them and there is more coming soon!

I hope you all enjoyed your pancakes yesterday, I had lime juice and sugar on mine, YUM-MY! As far as cooking goes, I'm not very good, actually I suck at pretty much everything, but I make an awesome pancake!

Today I have been looking up train tickets as I'm trying to get a day up north to spend with the 'rents, who knew trying to coordinate schedules and train times could be so complicated?!

Tomorrow I am meeting Emma and Kim who I speak to on Twitter quite a lot, we all design for Kuretake and we are meeting with them to chat about new things (exciting!!) I have met Emma once before but very briefly as I was rushing off to demo at Ally Pally!

and last but not least - the lovely Sue, one of the DT girls has been featured on the Making Memories blog today - wooo! Congrats Sue :o)

Thats all from me today, I will have exciting news of my trip to 'London Town' tomorrow as I leave my little Essex bubble for a few hours....

Sarah x

New Collection - Pirates!

The new 'Pirate' Collection has been launched today, a range of digi stamps, both colour and black and white, you can see and purchase the digi stamps in my shop - Here! There are also lots of other lovely special offers which may catch your eye. My Wonderland CD is sold out for the fourth time (!!!) but new stock is on its way so you can pre-order and I will send it out as soon as it's in, about 3-4 days I think (I won't hold up the rest of your order)

Now here is some lovely work by my Design Team to show you a couple of things you can do with the Pirate Digi's....

Lisa has used them digitally to make this fabulous invitation, great for children's birthday parties!

Melly made these fab cards, colouring in with Promarkers

Camilla made this gorgeous card, loving the string and corrugated card!

Christine made this fab Girl Pirate card - I love the skull bunting!

Claire made this lovely bunting, this would also be great for a party! I love the way she made the girls top stripy :o)

A beautifully coloured card from Jaine!

Siobhan made the pirate ship on this one herself, gorgeous!

And last but not least these fantastic invites from Tammy L - it looks like they have been printed on driftwood or tree bark! Fantastic distressing to get that effect.

Hope you love the new release! There is more coming very soon so watch this space....

Sarah x

New Things!

Just a very quick post from me today as I'm afraid exhaustion has overwhelmed me again and despite my full diary I can't fight it any longer.

This weekend I finished some lovely craft projects which will be shown soon. There will be a new release of digi's tomorrow - yay! and some lovely projects from the DT showcasing them, this will be the first work from the new girls so keep a look out :o)

Here is a teeny weeny preview....

ah, I'm such a tease..... LOL

Right I'm off to crash and burn, hopefully I'll get a second wind later so I can finish off todays 'To Do' list *fingers crossed*

Sarah x

The End of a Hectic Week

I'm so pleased that it's Friday today, the end of a very up and down, emotional and crazy week.

I've completed 4 deadlines (including the ginormous Bologna Book Fair one, yay!) designed a new collection of digi stamps coming to the website next week (sign up to my newsletter here if you want an update on when!) started working on some others which I hope to finish soon and picked up some other lovely jobs that I can't wait to start, I have also been getting to know all of the new DT girls a bit better, they're a lovely lot I have to say and I'm so looking forward to working with them all! I will do some more personal intros over the course of next week so you can get to know them a bit better, there might even be a little Blog Candy so make sure you're following so you don't miss out!!

I have a whole weekend of crafting ahead of me which I think will be some much needed therapy :o)

Also, the lovely illustrator Lyn Stone, and one of my favourite tweety peeps has set up her own blog this week - please pop over and follow her here.

Finally, Thank You again to everyone for your lovely messages this week regarding my uncle. I'm pleased to say that the man arrested and charged has been remanded in custody until the 8th June. All we can do now is hope for the right result. I can't say too much at this stage because of the trial but I will keep you posted as and when I can.

Have lovely weekends!
Sarah x

Introducing....

The newest members of my Design Team - just a few more than the 4 or 5 I had planned on!! but in my defence there were so many entries and such a lot of talented people in a wide range of areas with different styles and all of them will be put to good use in my future endeavours! Lots of new things coming soon, wooo!

Sooo, the new peeps are...

Sandie
Jo
Tams
Siobhan
Leticia
Sue
Renee
Christine
Natalie
Ria
Taraleigh
Claire
Tammy
Jaine
Camilla
Sarabeth

Please give them a warm welcome!

They join the existing DT members Lisa, Claire, Amanda, Melly, Patsi and Ev

I will introduce them a little bit more over the next week or so, not really practical to do it all in one blog post or your eyes will probably drop out before you get to the bottom!

In the meantime though please pop over to their blogs and take a look and say hello.

Finally, I just want to say a big thank you to everyone that left me lovely comments yesterday and took the time to send me e-mails, texts, twitter and facebook messages, all are very much appreciated, thank you

Sarah x

Thank You

Yesterday I tweeted the sad news that my 80 year old uncle had been murdered in his home in Hainault, Essex. Lots of people 'retweeted' for me and sent me lovely messages of support and I thank you all for your kindness.

We have heard this morning that a man has been arrested on suspiscion of the murder and we hope that this is it.

Obviously this news is totoally shocking for my family and I and we hope that the right person has been caught.

I know some of my blog readers are from my little corner of Essex and if you have any further information that could help (the police are trying to find out where he went in the hours before he died) please contact the police - you can read the full story here.

Thank you again

Sarah x

Update

A very quick update as I'm nearly done with my deadline and it all gets sent off tomorrow! woo - then I can take a minute to breathe before the next thing :o)

All of the DT e-mails went out yesterday and I'm very pleased to say all were accepted so look out for the announcement of the new DT later this week!

I will be burning the midnight oil again tonight to get these last few bits done and out the door in the morning, I may not sleep!

Sarah x

A Quick Post...

Happy Friday everyone!

I was hoping to finish a bit earlier today but typically it hasn't happened and this has been a really really busy day! I had a lovely night out last night, catching up with friends having a cheeky glass of wine or two (ok, it was 3...) what fun, can't wait for the next one now, have been too hermit like recently!

Today I have narrowed down the DT apps as much as I am able to and have sent a few people additional questions, once these are back I'll make the final announcement - yay! This has definitely been the most difficult to narrow down, soooo many talented people, I nearly had the biggest Design Team anyone has ever had :o)

Now I'm going to have the evening off before a manic weekend as I finish off all of my illustrations and work on some craft projects.

Hope you all have lovely weekends!

Sarah x

Some Pics...

I must say today started off pretty yuk, I was hoping to go back to bed and start again but much to do and not much time so I battled on after a little scream and a cry to my mum on the phone, OH got me a Belgian Bun (my 2nd of the week, yikes!) and suddently I felt much better.

So.... last night was another late and productive night of illustrating, I even managed to squeeze in 2 little art journal pages to empty my head of all the swirly yuk-ness. Today I continued with some digital illustrations. I also had to print out lots of bits and pieces for a hybrid layout with gallimaufryuk's digi kits.

The I got to have a play around on my camera, since I got my new camera I've pretty much used in in automatic mode all the time, I'm not really too sure what all the bits do and I'm a bit scared to fiddle with them in case I break it! I really must get a book. I decided to be brave today and have a little play with some of the settings, I'm taking some pics tomorrow for another project I will tell you about next week and I want to make sure they look their best so I had a little practice taking these - the view from my desk!

I think with a bit of editing they would be OK, sure I will be out of auto mode soon!

I also took some time to narrow down the DT applications today so for those of you waiting you will have an answer soon, its so tough, I've halved it but I'm finding it difficult to narrow down any more at the moment, I'll go over it with fresh eyes tomorrow!

Now I'm off out with OH and some friends, first night out for a while, looking forward to a glass of wine :o)

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

Crazy Day!

Today has been a mad day, I stayed up last night til about 2am working on one of my book fair illustrations using my lovely Derwent Inktense and Coloursoft pencils, I can't show too much or I'll be in trouble!! but here is a sneaky peek.

the lovely peeps at Derwent were trying to guess what this could be today, the guesses so far include an Alien Landscape, A mountain scene and a Bird - none of these are correct though! I will reveal as soon as I can! In the meantime please feel free to leave a comment with your guess, if anyone does actually get it I'll be so impressed I might send you a little something... ;o)

I also finished off the two mini collections I was doing today, they might need some changes, I shall wait for the verdict! Will be able to let you know what they are as soon as it's all signed off - yay! I made that deadline with about 3 minutes to spare today...

All in all a pretty good day after a bit of a yucky start (I'm over it now so won't rant again! LOL) Thank you to everyone that patiently puts up with me on Twitter as that usually where my venting ends up! Luckily B came home with a Belgian Bun and some drawing pencils (I'm always losing them!!) so that cheered me up and of course once I start working, drawing and colouring is so therapeutic you can't not be happy!

I'm off for a quick dinner before more drawing!
Sarah x