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

Some More Cards!

Well, thank goodness it's about 10 degrees cooler here today and we've had a big thunderstorm, yay! I'm back in London on Thursday and I honestly don't think I could have survived it in that heat again, phew!

So, today I had a million emails to catch up on as well as some illustration work, which I'm still working on now, proposal sketches for a potential book project - it's very exciting and a bit nerve wracking, wondering if the project will go ahead, if I'll be picked, when will it happen etc etc... so fingers crossed!

I also want to share a few cards with you, I made lots and lots for my recent meetings and projects so I will share them as I get time to photograph them, here are the ones I done today...

A very quick 5 minute card using the Lite Four Legged Friends catridge for my Expression - I wanted to test some of the cuts on this cartridge and this chihuahua just stood out - he's so cute I had to make him into a quick card - this took less than 5 minutes and was all cut from scraps!

And this one is using my Woodland Whimsies stamps coloured in with Promarkers. The branch I cut from kraft card, again this was super quick, probably about 10-15 minutes with the colouring in.

It's always good to have a few 'less than 15 minute' card ideas to hand for those moments where you forget a birthday or occassion - B always always tells me at the last minute before we are going somewhere so I have to make something in 5 minutes while I'm running a bath and finding a dress to wear!

I also have this little pile of lovelies waiting for me in my studio - I feel some late night crafting coming on - I'm working on an altered book project and I can't wait to finish it, waiting for the paints / inks etc... to dry in between stages is soooo frustrating! LOL

Speaking of dresses I have a few vintage beauties waiting for me on eBay so I better go and check my bids before I get back to the drawing!

Sarah x

Basically Bare sponsors Sketch Inspiration!

This week Basically Bare are sponsoring the Sketch Inspiration challenge - with $50 worth of Basically Bare goodies up for grabs this is not to be missed!

Here is my Layout for the sketch...

I used the Basically Bare felt banner and the chipboard flowers - which I distressed with crackle paint. To see the sketch, the other girls work and to enter the challenge please click here!

Today I spent the day in London (the hottest day of the year and I'm off and on trains and buses crammed against sweaty people - nice!) it was a fun day though! but now I am exhausted, my head is full of new things and I think I need an early night - lots of illustration work to do tomorrow!

Sarah x

A Ridiculously Good Special Offer & a Free Digi Stamp!!

As you know I've been celebrating this week, I will be able to tell you why very soon! but in the meantime as I'm in such a stupidly good mood I've decided to share my joy by offering you a fantastic special offer (if you've ever wanted to try CD crafting, now is the time!!) and a free Digi Stamp.

So, firstly, here are all the details you need for the special offer, just click here or on the picture to be taken straight to the special offers section of my shop where you can get your Woodland Whimsies CD's for just £5 each or £10 for the set!! (the matching stamps are also on sale!)

and a free digi stamp, some of you may have this one already from when I first launched Woodland Whimsies but I know a lot of you won't have seen it and I wanted to offer it again as it was so popular last time round (I was sent some lovely pictures of things you made with it, so thank you if you were one of those people!) Just click here or on the picture to get your free digi!

If you would like to share your makes with this or any of my products please feel free to post them on my Facebook page and leave me your blog link if you have one, I'm building an inspiration gallery of projects at the moment and you could be included!

Have a lovely weekend!
Sarah x

Quick Update

Just a quick update from me today!

Firstly, there are just afew days left to enter the handmade flower challenge over on the Challenge Blog - come and join the fun!

Secondly, I will be posting details of a super duper special offer tomorrow that will only run from midnight Friday to midnight Sunday so keep a look out here or on my Facebook page for all the details, you won't want to miss it!

Sarah x

A little Promarker Project

Yesterday I had a lovely day in London, a VERY exciting meeting, I haven't stopped smiling since! and tonight I have had a belated celebration with B, some pink champagne and a chinese takeaway - yum! I hope to bring you news of that very soon!!

I recently made this card with one of my favourite stamps, this time coloured with Promarkers - simple but I like it a lot!

I made good use of the blender pen here to create highlights, once you get the hang of the blender pen its fab for all kinds of effects! More on those soon too :o)

Sarah x

Some Oz Inspiration!

I should have posted this yesterday but naughty me stayed up all night Sunday night and ended up falling asleep about 8.30 last night! probably a good thing as I had to be up super early for a meeting today!

So here are some of my Design Teams projects with the new Oz CD to give you some inspiration and project ideas...

Clare

Clare made this gorgeous pop-up card using the Dorothy and Castle Digis and my cloud stamp from the Woodland Whimsies set

 

 Jaine

Jaine made this gorgeous 3D frame using the papers and digi stamps fromthe CD all coloured with Promarkers

 

Melly

Melly used the whole cast to make this gorgeous Oz card!

 

Tams

Tammy made this gorgeous card using the Glinda digi stamp adding stickles to her wings to make them sparkle!

Claire

Claire made this stunning canvas using the digi stamps from the CD along with some of the trees from the Woodland Whimsies CD - gorgeous work!! I want one!! :o)

If all of those gorgeous projects have inspired you and you want to get your hands on your very own Oz CD then click here!

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

Echo Park Cards

I recently discovered 'Echo Park' and I love their ranges, they are so bright and colourful and fit totally with my style of crafting! Also they are constantly bringing out new things which is great (B and my bank manager may not agree with that! LOL)

When my first box of goodies arrived I made a ton of projects to submit to magazines so I havent been able to show any of the projects, but I found out this week that this set hasn't been picked up (oh, the rejection *sob*) so now I can show, yay!

 All three cards are made with the Summer Days range of papers and stickers and the dots and stripes paper, so bright and fun!

As much as I love to create vintagey inky / painty / messy pieces (and I really do, you can tell by the floor in my studio, LOL) I love to make things in bright, cheerful colours that are just pretty.

Sarah x

Derwent Inktense Pencils

Another late blog post, my apologies another manic day! I even roped in B to help me for a bit (and again tomorrow packing your Oz CD orders!!) but enough of that, I'm sure you're not here to read about my manic schedule or how tired I am and how much coffee is propping me up right now!! LOL sooooo, here we go with another project!

As you probably know by now, I just LOVE to colour in, Pencils, Pens, Paints, any medium at all really! because of that I get asked lots of questions about colouring in and colouring mediums. One of my favourite mediums is Colouring Pencils and one of the easiest ways to get the same professional vibrant finish you would get with Promarkers is to use Derwent's Inktense Pencils.

I first used these to do a base for an illustration for the Bologna Book Fair - I worked straight on my illustration without even testing them first - I'm kinda foolhardy like that, I always figure you can slap some acrylic paint or gesso over it if it goes wrong and start again! I started shading with them and honestly, I thought 'yeah, and?' but THEN I added water and they just *Pop* it reminded me of those colouring books you used to get as a kid that were just little dots and when you added water the colour appeared (I hope you know the ones I mean!)

Once they are dry they are like a permanent vibrant ink wash so you can add more shading over the top with other pencils / pens etc.... They are sooo bright and bold and give a perfect blended finish.

On this card I stamped my image (using a Staz-On pad as you will be adding water and, if you're anything like me, going over the lines a bit!) used my Inktense pencils to add the colour, blended with a waterbrush and then when dry I used a tiny bit of coloursoft pencil to the face and jeans to add some extra shading.

Thanks for looking!
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

Making Cards Magazine

The new issue of Making Cards magazine is out now! and I am the Guest Designer (yay!)

So quick, rush and out and buy your copy!! Or get it here online. Would love to see anything you make with my papers, come and share on my Facebook Page!

Thank you all for your Birthday wishes on Friday, I had a lovely day with B and Fuzzybutt and then drinks with friends in the evening followed by a fairly relaxing weekend (actually had little choice in that as I could barely keep my eyes open, ME relapse urgh!) but I'm starting to feel perkier which is lucky because I have SO much going on for the rest of this month - yay!

Also a big 'Thank You' to those who have already pre-ordered my new 'Oz' CD - the packages are here, all labelled, just waiting for the CD's to arrive so they can be packed and posted!!!

Sarah x