Hello Today Desk Calendar (for Jones Crafts)

In my happy post on Saturday, I received a collection of papers from the newly released Kaisercraft ‘Hello Today’ collection. I couldn’t wait to get started on them – but I was still in the middle of my Advent Village workshop, so had to wait until yesterday! Over a couple of hours yesterday and today, I came up with this desk calendar:

The calendar is 7″ x 5″ and features the handy 3″ x 4″ calendar tiles alongside the inspirational quotes. By mounting the months back to back with the quotes either side of an acetate sheet which is a half inch longer, the holes for the wire binding doesn’t spoil the month title, and allows the choice of six quotes per month view. Flipping over June and turning the calendar around reveals July onwards and another six quotes to choose from. Edge your pages with Frayed Burlap Distress Ink, and use the Zutter Bind-it-all to pull it all together.

Pages used: Document / Right Now / Nowadays / Current / Mod / New

 

Exploding Bauble Box (for Creative Expressions)

This is my last project as a member of the Creative Expressions Design Team – and I thought I’d go out with a bang! For some reason the inspiration came at 3am in the morning, and then again at 5am, so 12 hours later, here it is! It also happens to be my first ever exploding box.

The exterior is decorated with heat embossed baubles, coloured with Cosmic Shimmer Mists used as paints as well as the Cosmic Shimmer Acrylic Inks and Sparkle PVA, embellished with Cosmic Shimmer White PVA and topped off with a grosgrain ribbon bow.

An all white interior shows the die cut filigree baubles beautifully, whilst the centre bauble seems magically suspended (if only acetate wasn’t quite so reflective!). Here’s a short slow-mo video of the ‘explosion’:

 

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Potted Poinsettia (for Creative Expressions)

NB-140910When I first saw the poinsettia stamps and dies from Sue Wilson’s Festive Collection for Creative Expressions, I knew I had to go 3D. There’s nothing quite so Christmas as a classic potted poinsettia. A simple, though repetitive, make, this will brighten any room.

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Baubilicious (for Creative Expressions)

This month sees my swan song as my term on the Creative Expression’s design team comes to an end at the end of September. But what a ending – this month I’ve been sent the fabulous new set of Sue Wilson dies and stamps to play with, including these gorgeous filigree Vintage Bauble dies. I’ve done them in two colour ways for inspiration and rather like them, even if I do say so myself and don’t overly go for frilly things!

PDFiconTo download a step-by-step tutorial and kit list, click here.

 

The Potting Shed – for Craftwork Cards

This morning saw the launch of Craftwork Cards latest paper and die cut collection – The Potting Shed – on Create & Craft TV. Once again I’ve had the chance to make some samples for the show which will be featured on their blog on 26th August. In the meantime, here’s a tutorial video I did for a pop-up insert for one of my cards.

 

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Powertex Stone Art

140803_wAs I was teaching my Powertex workshop last weekend, I was also able to make a piece as we went – after all, one of the best ways to learn is to see one, do one… So this was the result of my Stone Art playing. It’s yet another piece that hasn’t made it to a stock list as it’s now taking pride of place in the newly decorated hallway. However, if you’d like a copy, please get in contact 🙂

 

St Nicholas Collection/House Shadow Box (for Jones Crafts)

Christmas for crafters starts soon enough, but for distributors and sample makers, it starts even earlier! This is the first of many I have been working on to be published – and is a little late as well. I blame the drying time… Anyway, enough of that, here’s Kaisercraft’s St Nicholas Collection of papers and stickers, their wooden snowflakes and laser cut tree, and House Shadow Box in a festive assemblage:

House Shadow Box

It’s a cracking set of double sided papers, some of which are designed to be backgrounds, others are vintage postcards and quotes ideal for cutting up and making into boxes, mounts and individual items for layouts. Others form great backgrounds for shadow boxes. The House itself is 30cm square with the roof on top and is pre-cut MDF which is easy to assemble. Here’s a gallery of close ups:

Other things you might need: Cosmic Shimmer Crystal PVA, Glossy Accents, Walnut Stain/Fired Brick/Peeled Paint Distress Inks to colour edges, Kaisercolor Raw Umber acrylic paint, Cosmic Shimmer Specialist Acrylic Glue, and Cosmic Shimmer Polished Silk Glitters for the tree. Oh, and lots of patience for all the cutting out!

A snapshot of summer (for Creative Expressions)

A snapshot of summerI was wondering how to use the fabulous beach/summer themed stamps from Creative Expressions for this week’s DT card as the sky clouded over and the temperature dropped. Though it’s allegedly summer (according to the meteorologists), this card captures memories of beach-side sun far better than the grey clouds outside! Framed by a Polaroid instant photo size frame, the individual images are layered to give depth and allow easier stamping and colouring. A perfect snapshot of summer.

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Creative Expressions June 2014 Blog Hop

BlogHopWelcome to the Creative Expressions June 2014 Blog Hop! Hopefully you got here from Donna’s blog, but if you didn’t, here’s the start at the Creative Expressions News Blog!

The four new large Frame stamps from Creative Expressions have been designed with co-ordinating mini frames inside, which can be used separately or as a whole and also swapped with other frame designs in the range. There are also an additional four mini frame designs, plus sentiment sets which have been designed to fit inside the various frames.

One randomly selected person commenting on this blog post before the closing date will win a fabulous prize of some of the new stamp designs.

Here are my blog hop makes (as seen on TV, well, two of them!):

For the boxes, I created a cut file to cut the box from an A3 sheet of 300gsm card using my Silhouette Cameo so that the sides were sized to fit the large frame stamps. It has a crash lock base, so will fold flat for posting. For the coloured decoration, I embossed with Cosmic Shimmer Bright Gold Metallic before colouring with the CS Pastel Iridescent paints. Cut out the centre of the frame, and replace with heat proof acetate stamped with the centre square and embossed with the same powder. The purple box is embossed with CS Tropic Violet Lustre for the large frame and CS True White Detail for the centre and sentiment onto Foundations A4 Card – Amethyst. For the wedding box, I created the niches by cutting a square out of the centre of each side leaving a 5mm border that I could fold inwards to stick the centre square onto (also with a 5mm border folded upwards). It’s all embossed with CS Arctic Pearl Lustre. The classic blue on white is CS Denim Lilac Aurora, which matches the CS Purple Violet Pearlescent PVA wonderfully for the raised dots. Reprint and emboss the centre and rotate to create the raised diamond sentiments, mounting with foam pads. Finally, I made the card by mounting the frame (CS Arctic Pearl Aurora again) onto a card with the centre cut out, using foam pads. I embossed the sentiment with CS True Black Detail and mounted that in the centre with foam pads again, leaving a gap. The lilies were left from a previous card.

Thank you for visiting my blog, please leave a comment below in order to be in with a chance of winning a prize! Here’s the allocated prize for my stop-off on the blog hop:photo

If you’d like to receive notification of new posts on my blog, don’t forget to sign up using the box at the top of the side bar to the right of your screen.

Once you have done that, you will need to click here to visit Tracy’s blog.

To help you along the way, here is a list for the Blog Hop:-

1. Julia Watts

2. Kim Robertson

3. Tracey Laughton

4. Donna Ratcliff

5. Neil Burley – you are here

6. Tracy Heaton

7. Kerry Hickton

8. Pam Smith

Start page, prize details and how to take part: Creative Expressions News Blog. The blog hop started on Thursday 12th June at 10am and ends Tuesday 17th June at 5pm.

Thank you for taking part in our Blog Hop – good luck!