Birthday train & big Dahlia

I have just been working on trying a novelty card for my grandson's second birthday. I found a few train die cuts in my stash - no idea where they came from but I'd also had a train stamp from Woodware on the shelf for ages and since they went in opposite direction I thought we'd have passing trains on a pull tag.

And then for something completely different........
In our craft group recently we spent the evening folding squares of paper into cones and making flowers from them as you can see. Some stopped after 1 or 2 layers and adding a large button or equivalent to the centre. A good activity that requires no specialist equipment and takes time .... if thats what you need anytime.

Versatile dies

I have been trying different ways with some of the creative expression dies recently. You will have seen other variations on previous cards so look back to view the full versatility of some of these dies.

Ok so its annoys me as well that the flowers in the centre don't form a perfect circle!. That's because I used 3 groups of the 3flowers dies then decided I didn't like the gaps so I added extra flowers in the gaps - so now it looks as though it should be a circle but isn't .....the idea is there though for us all to improve on.
The bird is from stampendous - another to add to animal magic. The lady and the flower basket (good if you like colouring in) are from the creative stamping magazine stamps. Butterfly is a Marianne die.

Stampendous Animal Magic

I definitely am having a slow new year - hence the delay in posting - sorry.

I have been working with the new dies and stamps from Stampendous. Namely the Rabbits and the bird which I have added to my dogs - which I just love using. I have used each with the pop up die system but then with other backgrounds including some backgrounds produced with their creative palette and old paints including a bit of frantage when I could, so a real stampendous workshop!

I tend to do quite simple fronts to the pop up cards

The middle row above used the creative palette backgrounds ( as I mentioned this is great for using up all of your old paints), and the bottom row was a masking exercise using the stencils provoided with the stamps.

 Then I couldn't resist using the horse again!

Flowers and marbling

Very quick now as I have to open shop in 5 minutes and I have no internet access down there.
We had ben doing some marbling with shaving foam and then there was the thought of how we could use the backgrounds so I thought I'd link it in with the flowers. Some are last years flower dies others are new out. I have a door full of other flowers we can do with punches and dies and so I shall adjust workshop to whatever people prefer  - flowers, marbling or a mixture of the two.

I have individual pictures which show them better but that's for another day when I have time to load them.

Creative stamping "The Red Carpet"

I'm sorry not to have posted for a while. The fatigue side of the PBC I suffer from has caught up with me since Christmas and so only urgent jobs have been done. I have spent my time preparing 2 workshops though and since they are both on this week I thought I really must get the boards shown for people to see. I'll start with the creative stamping "The RED CARPET collection" then if time do another post on flowers and marbling. Creative expressions dies have been used

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to you all.

As promised I have taken photos of the cards I have received this Christmas from customers and friends to share with you

Many thanks to all of the contributers

christmas specials & basics

I hope you all had avery happy christmas. I had all of my family stay with us so it was a busy couple of days and week before preparing. Well that's my excuse for not having posted for a while.
I'll start by showing you the specials done for my boys. My eldest son has a young boy and the youngest 2 dogs so you can work out which went to each of them

This card uses the Stampendous Pop up die and their dog stamps

Then after doing family specials I had to do some quick cards  for neighbours and customers

The die above was from creative expressions and the stamp below from woodware - stamped in white  as a resist then going over with colour cloud inks and smoothies

Apologies as usual for poor quality of pictures but it's me doing thinks in a rush as usual!
I'm sharing ideas not perfection!!!

I'll try to remember to share the handcrafted cards sent to me when I take them down

wall art

I had been asked to repeat this workshop after we did it in summer but left it until people (including me) had had a chance to do their Christmas cards. This workshop has proved popular with attendees being very pleased with the work they had done and so I am showing you these canvases from last week.

Well done to Jenny Dave Christine Sharon & Marj.

I've not had chance to post much lately since I've been so busy with workshops there hasn't been much time for new cards. I do have a few customer cards to show you (although I can't find them all! will keep looking) using Woodware's trio  of trees stamp and a few specials with pasting embossing folders and dies.

Shaped Specials

I've been working on using different shaped cards for our specials recently. This shows the double diamond shape with the striplets from creative expressions in the centre and then other dies on the diamonds (sorry about fussy tablecloth - as usual done in a rush should have sorted a plain tablecloth!)

The above are variations on the 3 tier card we did with Jane Gill on our retailer workshop and below we have variations of trees and deer while I tried to decide what worked best. I do need to work on some more with flowers but that's for another day

I then tried using the clear scraps acrylic sheets with craftwork card and other papers. I did have problems with light while trying to photograph these since the acrylic showed up lots of refections but hopefully you get the idea