Birthday Pressies

Crikey, I have been so busy this week - but none of it involved crafting (booo).

Lots of travelling around for work and then out to a barbecue on Saturday.

Yesturday we spent the day at Cadwell Park watching the British Superbikes in action.  The weather wasnt too bad but it was so windy, heaven knows how they managed to wrestle their motorbikes around the circuit!

As I havent done any crafting, here is a picture of the items my friend Hazel made me for by birthday, and just look at the colour ORANGE!!!  They look gorgeous on my mantlepiece (I keep forgetting to take them down...)

Thank you, Hazel - they are stunning!
Hope you have had a great weekend and thank you for taking the time to visit.


Jan
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And the Winners Are...!

I think we have just about recovered from the craft fair at Elsecar. And WHAT A BRILLIANT time we had!! 

We had lots of our lovely ladies come to see us (thank you ladies **waves**) plus other SU demonstrators, friends and family.

The fair was held over two days (the longest one we have done) but it was so much better than having to set up AND clear away all our items on the same day.

We are DEFINITELY doing the next one, so put 15th & 16th October in your diary and come and see us for a natter!!! 

The winners of our prize draw were

First Prize - Tracey from Sheffield

Second Prize - Marilyn from Horbury

Third Prize - Denise from Rotherham

Well done ladies, hope you all enjoy your goodies!

Heres a picture of another of the decorated boxes.  This one is made using Crumb Cake cardstock which has been distressed on the edges and then run through the Vintage Wallpaper embossing folder.  I inked the raised areas of the embossing folder before running throught the Big Shot and glueing it to the box.

I ruffled the Crumb Cake Seam Binding Ribbon before securing it to the edges of the lid and added a die cut Top Note shape which had been stamped with a sentiment from the Occasional Greetings stamp set (the edges were sponged to give a little definition).

The butterfly was die cut with the Beautiful Butterflies die with Crumb Cake cardstock and then stamped with the En Francais background stamp.  The edges were sponged with ink and a little strip of Crumb Cake Seam Binding was added before the layers of the butterfly were secured to the box.

I loved this box and was gutted when someone bought it.  Mind you I did well - it didnt sell until Sunday afternoon (partly because I kept hiding it!).   I just hope its gone to a good home - sniff!  I may just have to make some more...

Thank you for stopping by.

Jan

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Elsecar Craft Fair

Wow! Its been a brilliant day today. Me Sara & Joanne have a stand at the Elsecar Craft Fair and its been so much fun. Here is a picture of Sara at the stand this morning.

Come and see us tomorrow for a chance to enter our prize draw, make and take a card and see some fabby items up close & personal! Jan X

Getting Giddy

I have had a shocking week at work this week and am soooooo glad its the weekend, yey!!! Me, Sara & Joanne have a stall at the craft fair at Elsecar tomorrow & Sunday so I am finally starting to chill out & look forward to some proper crafty chatting & a play with lots of new people. Hope you have a bit of spare time over the weekend to come an see us. We will have; - a prize draw - make and takes - some handmade items for sale plus a fantastic show SPECIAL OFFER. The show is FREE so bring your freinds & family for a lovely day out! Here is a photo of one of the items I will have for sale.

I bought the box from a craft shop and inked the edges and corners with Pear Pizzaz ink before decorating it to save having to fold the cardstock around the box & lid. The Whisper White cardstock was run through my Big Shot using the Square Lattice embossing folder, inked in Pear Pizzaz ink and then the edges were sponged in ink to soften them. A long length of Pear Pizzaz Seam Binding Ribbon was gathered and then adheared around the lid, then I added embossed butterflies cut from the Beautiful Wings die in Rich Razzleberry cardstock. The sentiment is from Just Believe and was stamped in Rich Razzleberry Ink onto Whisper White Cardstock. I punched the sentiment out using the Decorative Label Punch and then I used the punch twice on Rich Razzlebery card. These were then each cut in half to position them behind the sentiment and provide a coloured border around the sentiment. Sorry this post is a little rushed, I have everything to get ready for tomorrow! Hope you can come and see us for a little chat! Jan x

Desk Calendar & Memo Holder

Just a quick post to show you one of the desk calendar & memo holders I made last week for the craft fair at Elsecar this weekend.

I bought the acrylic holder as part of a shared order from another demonstrator who arranged to buy lots of them and split them between myself and a number of other demos. I have mainly used them for holding small notices on stands at craft fairs until now, but I did make some calendars a while ago. Here is a photo from the side of the holder.

Newsprint DSP was used as a wrap to cover the whole of the acrylic holder with a shop bought calendar and part of a memo block secured to a mat of Basic Black cardstock. A loop of Basic Black Grossgrain ribbon was used behind the mat to hold the pen which was also decorated with the same DSP. The top of the memo block was decorated with mats of Basic Black cardstock & Newsprint DSP. Thanks for coming over to see me. Sorry its a short post! Jan x

Back to Work...

The title says it all, I am back to work tomorrow after two weeks off.  No more crafting, chilling out or just doing what I want - its back to the real world, sigh... I have even tidied up my craft room as it will be a while before I can play again.

But it was my birthday yesterday and I had the most amazing cards and pressies!

Here is the card my Mum made me.  She hasn't been crafting very long and as she bought some flower punches the other day - she has obviously been practicing.  She had mentioned that she was proud of the card she had made me but I got really emotional when I saw it - its beautiful.

Here is a card my Auntie Val made me - her parchment work is incredible and the colouring is stunning in real life.

Then there is this gorgeous card & pressie from the amazing Sara

She has all the information on her new website here.

And last but by no means least here is the card Joanne made me.

Can you spot a theme?  Yep, lots of orange cards Woo Hoo!  I love orange its such a bright, cheerful colour. 

I had a lovely day too & also went out for a meal at one of our favourite restaurants La Fortezza in Wakefield.  I was so full I couldn't even manage a sweet!

Well, thanks for bobbing over to see me, I will have some more photos of the items I have made for the craft fair at Elsecar soon.

Jan
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Mini Book for Craft Fair

Hello!

I have had a fabby week, crafting!  Yep, all week - just in my craft room, playing to my hearts content.  Its been such a brilliant week.

Here is one of the many Mini Books I made for the craft fair (its only next weekend - eek!).  The DSP, ribbon and flower are all retired products, but I used my new die cut alphabet set for the first time!

I have had a few die cut alphabet sets over the years but the Timeless Type Junior Alphabet is the PERFECT size for cards.

The images are from the All in the Family set which allows you to make your cards so personal.  Every element is on a separate stamp so using the Stamp A Ma Jig you can 'build' the people with different hair styles, clothes, children & babies - theres also a cat & a dog in the set!!!

The basic photo album is of clear plastic with enough pages for about 36 pictures.  I decorated all the inner pages with strips of DSP or stamped copy paper so you can make a cute little mini scrapbook with trimmed down photos.

I have lots of pictures to show you from all the stuff I have made so bob back soon for more sneeky peeks of some of the items I am taking to the craft fair.

Jan
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Whats been going on?

I have been on holiday this week, but have been too busy to craft!!! 
Its been a great week though, we went to Doncaster Wildliife Park on Wednesday and I have fall in love - with Vladimir..

Unfortunately, hes only two so I may have to wait a while before anything happens between us!!  We had to go twice to see him awake - he was fast asleep until about half 4 but the wait was so worth it! 

The lions from Romania have settled in now and have lots of space to play in.

 

Here is another cutie - a baby camel!

I also had my Big Shot class on Saturday, which was fab.  Thank you for driving all the way over Hazel & Cheryl - it was a brilliant day!!!  We went though LOADS of techniques using the Big Shot machine, including partial cuts, cutting different materials (card/paper, tin, chipboard etc) and embossing (general, frames, embossing ribbon, double embossing etc).  Hope I didnt overload you with all the ideas ladies?!

Sunday was lovely too.  I met up with my SU friends Sara & Joanne to go through what we need for the Elsecar Heritage Centre Craft Fair on 20th & 21st August.

The craft fair is FREE and will be a brilliant weekend.  We are planning a prize draw, make and takes, live demonstrations and an unbeatable exclusive show offer on the Starter Kit!!  So if you fancy finding out more, come and see us for a natter!

Jan x

Hidden Message for July Customers

June and July have been great months for me as the two month Stampin' Up! promotion was a big one for Hostesses.  Workshops for £250 meant an extra £20 in freebies - so £45 in FREE products PLUS a free stamp set.

I had THREE lovely hostesses who achieved it during the promotion too, well done Jean, Sue and Anne ***waves***!

As I give all the ladies who place an order with me a thank you card - there were quite a few this month!!

They look quite simple at first, but I made them so that there was a little hidden message behind the topper.

The flourish and text clear mount stamps from the Strength & Hope were mounted on a large clear block, stamped onto Pear Pizzaz card in Bravo Burgundy ink.  As I was making so many cards, it was so quick to do as I had a sort of conveyor belt system for the stamping and just had to line the block up once to stamp both images.

The Hope image and Thanks {so much} from Tiny Tags were stamped in Bravo Burgundy ink onto Whisper White card and punched out with the Large Square and Medium Jewellery Tag punches. 

The butterfly was stamped diagonally in Regal Rose onto Blushing Bride card and then two holes were made in the top and bottom of the card.

The Hope image was mounted on the diagonal onto a mat of Bravo Burgundy card and then the butterfly mat was layered over the top of the Bravo Burgundy mat a hole made for a gold brad to fit through both layers.  The Thanks {so much} tag was added in the same way to the bottom of the Blushing Bride butterfly mat.

The topper was added to the Pear Pizzazz stamped mat and this was then secured to the Blushing Bride card blank.  It was a really simple card to make, however making over twenty took a while to do!

Anyway, I would just like to say a massive thank you to my hostesses for June and July as they helped me to smash my sales target for the promotion - meaning I get extra freebies from Stampin' Up! too

Woo Hoo - I just lurve this job!

Thanks for stopping by
Jan
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