DAY 19 - Christmas Inspiration

Hello Crafters!

Well Day 19 of Christmas Inspiration already!

Apparently only 11 weeks until the big day!

Today is a lovely mix of Marianne dies, toppers and lots of glitter and glitz.

The window, tree and branch are all Marianne dies (from last years designs - but still available)

the poinsettia flowers are also Marianne but are the punch and emboss punches. the background in the window is an image from Marianne too, these are perfect for window dies.

The season's greetings is a stencil from Sweet Poppy - I inked through the stencil and then covered it in double sided adhesive paper and covered in glitter.  The background is a combination of Stampendous Frantage glitters and mica and also flock.  These have also been stuck onto double sided sheets.

I really enjoyed making this and hope you like it too.

Thankyou to you all for your fabulous comments, I am really enjoying reading them and appreciate you all very much.  Don't forget to comment today - the blog candy could be yours!

Hope to see you tomorrow,

Bye for now

Jo xx

DAY 15 - Christmas Inspiration

Good Morning Everyone!

I hope that today brings you peace and quiet with lots of relaxation and perhaps a lovely roast Sunday lunch?

Mark and myself are still away and today we are running a workshop at Inspirations in Preston (Hunkydory)

Today I have a card that I really enjoyed making and love the simplicity of it too.

The die cut image is from last years collection from Marianne and if you cut it and leave it in the die you can stencil through it with ink and get some fabulous detail on the skates.

The background at the top is one of Ali Reeves Special touch masks and it has been simply embossed through a machine and inked over.  While the ink is still wet cover with Aurora Sparkle embossing powder and heat to fix it.  If the ink dries quickly just go over it with a Versamark ink so make it sticky again. This gives a lovely sparkly sheen to the card.  A wooden button and bakers twine adds some dimension.

The bottom half of the card has been covered with fabric from Hobby Fun.  A piece of ribbon with text on it through the centre finishes the project.   It is a 6" by 6" card size and is quite flat to post too.

I think I will make some more of this design for friends at Christmas.

If you have time please leave me a comment and you will be entered into the blog candy draw which will be picked at the end of the 30 days Inspiration.

Thankyou and enjoy the rest of your weekend,

Bye for now

Jo xx

DAY 8 - Christmas Inspiration

Good Sunday Afternoon,

I hope that you are all enjoying this gorgeous Autumn Sunday afternoon.  I think this is one of my favourite times of the year especially which the sun shines (and you can still get your washing dried out on the line!)

Are you still following the Christmas Inspiration? today we have another easel design ~

This is full of Marianne Design dies and the stamp is a Marianne too.  I have used a shaped card to make the easel which gives it a little bit more interest. I love this tree - it really is a great size and can be used on its own but also layered up like I have done here.  I have used Weathered wood distress ink to highlight all of the embossed details in the dies and also around the edge of the card.

I hope you like this idea and leave a comment to let me know what you think.

Dont forget if you leave a comment you will be put into a draw for some lovely blog candy at the end of the 30 days.

Thankyou, as always for popping by,

Enjoy the rest of the weekend and see you tomorrow,

Bye for now

Jo xx

Week 258 - Fancy folds - Allsorts Challenge

Hello my fellow Crafters,

Firstly welcome to my new couple of followers this week and thankyou for choosing to follow my ramblings each week (or if you are really lucky!! lol) maybe twice! I really appreciate all of my members.

It has been another great week in my crafty world with our usual workshops and chatting with our lovely customers. We are still laughing about our Melt pot workshop that we had last Saturday - thankyou for all of your lovely comments about the projects that I blogged on Sunday. What we need is a Tardis! so that all of you lovely crafters that live too far away can pop into it and transport yourselves to my shop so that we can all play together! If anyone has one stashed in their back room or garage please let me know!!!

Now onto this weeks Allsorts Challenge. It is the turn of our Wendy (L) to lead this week and she has chosen .......................................

FANCY FOLDS

for us to have a play and come up with an idea so that we can inspire all of you to have a go at the Challenge.

I couldn't choose between 2 projects this week so I hope that you don't mind me showing you both.

as you can see I have been one of many that has had a go at making a pop-up card and these are so easy but great fun. this one was for my Father in Law to give to his boss who owns a Bike shop! it is always a challenge to make a card with bikes on and get it totally different each year.  I hope he likes this one.

The Penny Farthing is a Marianne design and the cogs are from Rob Adams range of dies.  I have left the tag open at the front so that John can write his message on.

If you havent made one before the card folds flat and so fits in the chosen size envelope really well.

Papers are from my stash but they might be some old designs from Graphic 45.

My second project was one that we did in class today and it fitted the bill nicely.

  This is an easel card that I have made from another Marianne - this one is from the Creatables range.

I really love this set as it is so intricate if you want it to be or quite plain if you choose.

The flowers are from Pinflair and these are the dies and papers to match and cut out. They are really excellent quality and I would recommend them to you.

The edge has been finished off with Hobby House pearls on a roll.

Please pop over to the Allsorts Challenge blog and check out the other Teamies ideas. 

We have 2 sponsors this week and they are:-

Eureka Stamps

and 

Yours or Mine Papercrafts.

Thank you to both of these for their generosity.

Also I need to mention that it is Allsorts birthday on the 24th of this month and as usual we are having a blog hop. so keep your eyes open for this as there are prizes galore to be given away to lucky crafters.

We have a busy weekend coming up as it is our eldest Karl's birthday today he is 23! today and we are going out for a family meal this evening.

I hope that you all have a lovely weekend and try to fit a bit of crafting in.

Please leave a comment if you have time and let me know what you think about my projects this week.

Thankyou for taking the time to pop by and I hope to see you back really soon,

Bye for now

Jo xx

Week 236 - Anything but Christmas at Allsorts

Good Morning Crafters,

How are you all?  apparently there is only 16 shopping days until Christmas !!!??? oops where did that disappear to!!! better I get organised.

 

Last week we had the fabulous Ali Reeve at Let's Create and it was a very successful day - the last demonstration day of the year.  Ali is such a great crafter with so many ideas. 

 

Yesterday I was at Create and Craft and I was demonstrating an array of Spellbinders and they were Buy One Get One Free!! I know hard to believe but I hope that many of you took advantage of this great offer.

 

Today it is my turn to host the Allsorts Challenge and I have chosen ....................

 

ANYTHING BUT CHRISTMAS

as the Challenge and this is my offering ~

 

 

this is anything but Christmas with the bright summery colours and the butterflies and the flowers.

I have made the embellishments using the caught in crystal technique which I love to do

and we did this in a class a couple of weeks ago.

I have used a lovely Marianne design as a backdrop and also the Butterfly edge die also from Marianne to embellish it further.

I hope that you like the design and that it inspires you to have a go at the Allsorts Challenge this week.

Pop over to the Allsorts blog to check out the other Design Team members work which is all excellent.

 

Thankyou as always for popping by and hope that you enjoy a lovely weekend whatever you choose to do.

If you have time to leave a comment that would be lovely.

Bye for now

Jo xx

 

 

 



Week 227 - Autumn Colours

Hello Fellow Crafters!

 

I hope that this finds you well and have enjoyed a busy week playing with all of your crafty stash!

I have had a busy week with a couple of shows on Create and Craft demonstrating the fabulous new collection from Spellbinder D'lites and also have had 2 lovely workshops at the shop using Sheena's gorgeous Christmas design stamps.  It was also a lovely fellow member's birthday - Pat! today so we were all forced to eat cake!

 

We also held our 2nd Let's Create Together day at our local village hall and the fabulous Leonie and the Krafty Hands boys joined Caroline and myself teaching lots of Christmas ideas to 53 very eager ladies.  It was a fabulous day and if you were one of our lovely crafters I hope that you enjoyed the day as much as we enjoyed organising it.

We have booked another day for February and it is full already!!!

 

This week on the Allsorts Challenge blog our lovely Catherine (who joined us on Sunday all the way from Harrogate!) is hosting and she has chosen ......................

 

AUTUMN COLOURS

 

as our theme for the week.  This can be any crafting project as long as it has Autumn colours included in the design.

 

Thankyou to our sponsors for this week who are:

 

Digistamp and Crafty Ribbons.

 

This is my design that suits the theme really well and I love working with these colours as they are bright, cheerful and very rich.

 

 

 

 

The stamped image is from the Katy Sue designs Fashion stamps drawn by the lovely Sandra Wright.

I have used pro-markers to colour the image and distress ink to soften the edges.

The background paper is out of my stash.  You can't see that well but the flower centres have micro beads in them which I stuck with glossy accents.  The die cut frame is from Marianne Designs.

 

Please pop over to the Allsorts Challenge blog to check out my Teamies lovely designs for this week's theme.

If you pop in to check out the blog please stay a little longer and pop a comment in - I love to hear from you all.

 

I have another busy week at the studio coming up still demonstrating with the Spellbinder D'lites they are still exclusive to Create and Craft until 11th October.

 

I am in the studio:

Monday 3pm and 7pm

Tuesday 1pm and 6pm

and Thursday 10am and 4pm.

 

Thankyou so much for taking the time to check out the blog I really appreciate it, as you know.

Have a fabulous weekend and I hope to see you all really soon.

 

Bye for now

Jo



Allsorts Challenge: Week No: 216 - Transport

Good Morning Crafters,

Here's hoping that this finds you all well and enjoying this fabulous Summer weather.  I know some of you are loving it more than others but it certainly puts smiles on everyone's face and everyone looks so healthy.

 

We are so busy at Let's Create as it is only 2 weeks today that we move into our new shop!!!!!  scarey what we have to do in this short space of time.  Today I had my last workshop in this shop and next week I can concentrate on getting the workshop area packed away - it sounds so much easier when you can't see what needs to be done!! Big thankyou to Denise (Box lady) for the fabulous chocolate cake to celebrate the last workshop (well any excuse for Denise's cake!)

We also purchased a new lap top this week - not by choice I might add - it died on us! we didn't have one for 4 days and you really don't realise how much you rely on your computer.

 

Anyway, back to the matter in hand.  Today's challenge is from our lovely Wendy and she has chosen

 

TRANSPORT

 

as our Challenge for this week and I have chosen something that we may not always look upon as falling under this category ........

 

A Pram!

 

I made this card for Pat and Geoff to celebrate the birth of their Granddaughter Lyla.  She is only a day old and proud Grandad has sent me some gorgeous photographs of his beautiful girl that he says he isn't going to spoil!!! whatever Geoff!!!

 

I have used the Tattered Lace Pram as the main image and layered it onto a Marianne die. We are stocking Tattered Lace now at Let's Create and I am loving using them. The background has been embossed using the Crafters Companion Patchwork A4 embossing folder.  Pat chose the colours.  The flowers and the beads are from Hobby House and the punch for the border at the bottom is an EK Success punch.
The card is an 8" x 8" size and I made a box for it too.

Please pop over to the Allsorts Challenge blog to check out the other Team members ideas for this Challenge. 
Thankyou for popping by and hope that you can make a comment and also take part in the Challenge.
Thankyou also to our Sponsors for this weeks Challenge prizes.

Must dash I have lots of packing to do.
See you all next week,
Bye for now
Jo xx

 



Week 205 - Add some sparkle

Hello my fellow bloggers,

I hope that this finds you all well and happy now that the sun has finally started to shine. 

This week at Allsorts we have been asked to .................

ADD SOME SPARKLE

I am sure that there isn't a crafter out there that cant fulfill this request!!

This is my offering for this challenge.

This is a closer photograph of the stamped image which has been embossed in black sparkle embossing powder from Creative Expressions.

and a close up of the Butterfly showing the sparkle

I started with an A5 size Centura Pearl card blank and popped a layer of black glitter card over the front.

The decorative edges have been made using a new Marianne die - it is gorgeous.

The butterfly has been made using another Marianne but this time it is a stamp and die and it really works perfectly.

The stamp in the middle of the card is from Let's Create's new Victorian stamp range and we are so pleased with the way that these have turned out.  We have 6 sets in the range and I cant wait to get stuck in and make lots of samples from them.

I have a busy weekend ahead on C and C guesting on the half price event shows on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.  There is a varied list of products from paper stash to storage and it is really worth having a peep at some of the shows - it certainly is May Mayhem!!

Whatever you choose to do I hope that you all enjoy a fabulous weekend.

Dont forget to pop over to the Allsorts Blog to check out my teamies great work and have a bash at the challenge too if you can keep out of the sunshine for long enough!!

Bye for now

Jo xx

Week 183 - Advent - Take 2!!

Hello Again Everyone!

Well here we go with take 2 of the Allsorts Challenge which has been my week to think of a title.
I thought with it falling on the 1st of December it had to be

ADVENT

I would like to show you my Advent Calendar that I made for our Daughter Kate (who, as you know is 19 years old but just loves to have an advent calendar still!!)

I have used a Twiddlybitz Advent House which has been painted with white acrylic paint.  I have also sprayed it with silver Spray and Sparkle from Crafters Companion this gave it a little bling.

Because the House is so gorgeous and intricate you don't need to put much decoration on it but I have added some die cuts - snowflake from Spellbinders and the Sleigh and Reindeer is a Marianne design and I have cut these in silver mirri card.

The numbers have been cut from Tim Holtz Vintage Market Alphabet set which is one of my favourites.
The chocolates, of course, are essential just add your favourites and start to count down the days!
This is a project that will come out year after year and was lovely to do.  I hope that you like it too.  I would love for you to leave a comment and also pop over to the Allsorts Blog to have a look and the teams lovely ideas.

As mentioned yesterday in Part 1 of the post I was at Create and Craft demonstrating the Cuttlebug with a  huge amount of folders and the All-in-One system that has been so popular.  It was fun going back to demo the Cuttlebug.  I am back again Monday for a 10am show and if you are interested in a Cuttle Bug this is such an amazing offer.

I have quite a week at the studio and I am also there on the following days and times:

Tuesday 9pm and 11pm - Spellbinders Pick of the Day Launch!

Wednesday 8am, 10am, 12pm, 1pm, 3pm, 4pm, 5pm, and 7pm!!!  PHEW!!

I will be demonstrating the Spellbinders Pick of the Day throughout these hours.

Sunday 9th  10am for Scrapbook Sunday

1pm Demonstrating Teresa Collins gorgeous papers and stamps.

I hope that you can catch a few of these hours and please send an email to let me know someone is out there!!!

Thankyou for your patients this week and thankyou again for Brenda bailing me out yesterday.

Must dash as I have soooooo many demos to prep for next week

Bye for now

Jo xxx

P.s  Pictures of our Birthday weekend will be put on the blog, just waiting for Mum to pop them on a disc.

Week 182 - Bring on the Bling!

Good Morning Everyone!

Well I can't believe it but our 2nd Birthday weekend is here and we are all ready to PARTY!!!! 

As mentioned last week we have a fabulous weekend planned with the gorgeous Phill Martin and the lovely Anne-Marie from Hunkydory today and the very talented Ali Reeve from Stamps Away all day Sunday.

The demonstrations will start at 10am and run through until 4pm both days and there will be refreshments available all day so that there will be no reason to rush off!!

We have been getting organised for the weekend all week and would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for all their continued support for Let's Create and for making it such a wonderful success over the last year.

Anyway, back to Allsorts business!  This week is the fabulous Brenda's Challenge and she has chosen 

BRING ON THE BLING!! 

Thankyou to our sponsors for this week

                                                                        Flonz Crafts

                                                                     www.flonzcraft.com/

This is the card that I have chosen to show you 

I am not sure if you can see the bling but I have popped gems over the sky and the trees and houses are all sparkled with gorgeous Hunkydory Diamond Sparkles Butterfly Trails glitter.

The main picture is an embossing folder from Nellie Snellen entitled Snowy Village.  Just running it through your embossing machine and applying Broken China distress ink creates a really simple but effective design.

The frame has been cut from Spellbinders Labels 11 (a favourite of mine!) from navy cardstock.  The dies around the frame are Marianne poinsettias, branch and tree with a little bling added for good measure.

We made this in class today and everyone enjoyed it.  A great stop gap for the last minute cards that we all need to do!

I must sign off now as I have a million and one things to do before we have our guests arriving.

I will take tons of pictures and pop them on the blog after the weekend.

Please pop in if you are in the area we would love to see you.

Pop over to the Allsorts Challenge blog to have a look at my team mates designs and I would love you to leave a comment on here if you like what you see.

Have a go at the challenge too.

Many thanks and enjoy a fabulous weekend, thankyou as ever for popping in.

Bye for now

Jo xx

  

Allsorts Challenge Week 178 - In Stitches

Hello Crafters,

Firstly,  its great to be back posting for the Allsorts Challenge.  Thankyou to all the fab girls on the Design Team for keeping me on board after my absence.  I returned to the shop on Tuesday and it's fantastic to be back getting my hands dirty and seeing all my crafting friends and customers. Karen, Jac and, of course, Mark have done an amazing job keeping everything ticking over.

This week it is our lovely Brenda's challenge and she has chosen a design featuring stitching.  That gives a great scope especially with stitching being so popular on our cards at the moment.  I have chosen this design to show you

The main focal point of the card is the stunning butterfly from Joanna Sheen's I Love Knitting stamp set and I have stamped and embossed it with detailed white embossing powder so that it resembles parchment.  There is so much detail in the design it is a favourite of mine and was very popular when Joanna released it.   The background framework is a Nellie Snellan die and I have used the die cut eyelets to thread the decorative cord through.  The background paper is Bo Bunny and the floral embellishment is a Marianne.

It is a great little card that would suit so many different occasions.  As usual the DT have displayed some fabulous projects on the Allsorts Challenge Blog pop over to have a peep and have a go at taking part - I am sure it will be a really popular week this week.  Thankyou to our sponsors Flonz Crafts http://www.flonzcraft.com.

Thankyou for popping by please leave a comment,  I love reading them and I hope that you enjoy a lovely weekend - keep warm the weather has turned a bit chilly!

Bye for now
Jo xx

Allsorts Challenge - Paper Piecing

Good Morning Everyone

Well this morning's offering is the card that I made for the Allsorts Challenge and as the title suggests it is paper piecing.  This is a technique that I particularly love, it gives depth and interest to your design with very little effort.  I have used the Little Claire Cutie Patootie stamp, the whole set are so lovely and fabulous to colour in. (If you are coming to the Friday workshop this week we will be making this card) I have used a mixture of Copics and Pro-markers.  I have cut the image out with a circular Spellbinder and have also used some of the brand new Marianne Designs which arrived in the shop the same day that I was preping the card so I had to try them out! The ones that I have used are the fence, the ivy and the bird house.  The quality, as ever, is excellent and do emboss them as well as cut and then the design really pops!  I have coloured the fence with vintage photo DI and this brings the embossed areas even better. The papers that I have used are Echo Park for the backgrounds and Prima for the floral.  By distressing the edge with my favourite tool (Tim Holtz!) and then popping vintage photo over it finishes it off lovely. 

The paper piecing technique has been used on the girl and boys clothes and hats.  If you haven't done this technique before all you do is stamp the image onto paper of your choice and then cut them out and place onto the original stamped image.  A little tip do your colouring that you need to do on the bottom image before placing your paper piece down - it is easier.

I hope that you like this bit of inspiration, I always say it but do give the Challenge a go and good luck! Have a go at the paper piecing if you come across a query e mail me on lets.create@btinternet.com
Bye for now
and many thanks for popping in, leave a comment that would be great!
Jo x



                                                                            

Allsorts Challenge Week - 131 Pendants

Good Morning

This is my card for the Allsorts Challenge - I am also using it as a demo for Joanna's show on Monday ( 10 am and 4 pm Create and Craft) as I have the pleasure of using the Faye Whittaker All Our Yesterday's stamps which is called Special Day.  All the range of stamps are exquisite and so detailed as Joanna's always are.  I have used promarkers to colour the image which, as I am sure you know, I am fairly new to but I am enjoying so much.  For the pendant I have used white glitter card and a heart punch and distressed the edges with a little black soot to make them pop out more.  To set the scene I have used a Cheery Lynn die which I have fallen in love with and to finish off a few Marianne dies.  I hope that you like my take on the Challenge.

It is also our Birthday weekend so it is really mad here today! but we are so looking forward to the weekend events it is going to be fabulous.  Please pop in to help us celebrate if you are in the Lincolnshire area.

Must dash now everyone needs organising! 

Bye for now and thank you so much for popping into see the blog

Jo xx