Something Completely Different...

Hello! I don't know about you, but I'm pretty keen now on having a rest from Christmas organizing...Although that is not really going to happen until it's all over!

Today I'm sharing a little side project I've been working on - some little crochet creatures for my baby's cot mobile (the baby isn't actually born yet, but you can't be too prepared right?), which we plan to make ourselves somehow...

So here they are:

Yep, they're amigurumi jellyfish! I just made them up as I went along. I've got 2 more to do I think. which will go around the outside of the mobile, then I plan to make an Octopus for the centre! Still a fair bit to do, and the baby will be born in January (or hopefully a wee bit sooner!)

Thanks for checking out my blog :)

Julie x

Thank you card - another diversion from Christmas themes!

Good morning, I hope the weather is better where you are - the UK is getting to look like a giant water resevoir after all this rain!

Today I am sharing a thank you card that I just made. Someone very kind has already sent me some beautiful home-made gifts in anticipation of the birth of my first baby (a girl, due in January), and I wanted to show my appreciation with a hand-made thank you card!

These are the beginnings of the card:

Materials I used include: Marvy LePlume II markers, various cardstock, the Dear Lizzy Neapolitan Jar stamp set, some 3D foam squares, Brown parcel paper, Clear embossing powder, ultra-adhesive double-sided tape, and some gorgeous Thickers from American Crafts.

I also printed out a couple of Digital Stamp Downloads from www.artsanddesigns.com to choose from. In the end (and after colouring both!) I went for the Magic Toadstool design:

I'd already done a test-run using blu-tack to see which positions I liked for sticking on my little bits of cardstock, then taken a picture so I could remember the layout later:

I also stamped the word "thank" onto some recycled paper, using the Dear Lizzy Neapolitan Jar stamp, and used clear embossing powder to give it a little lift. The stamp set actually had the word "thanks" on it, so missing out the "s" with the ink pad was a wee bit fiddly!

All that remained after that was to assemble my card (on a blank card) using ultra-adhesive double sided tape and 3D foam squares:

Thanks for stopping by at my blog!

Julie x

Birthday Card made using Romantic Rose Digital Stamp

Hello,

Today I'm having a little break from Christmas preparations, and sharing a birthday card that I made using one of the www.artsanddesigns.com Digital Stamps - the Romantic Rose Digital Stamp in Teal/Black.

There is now quite a range of downloadable digital stamps over at www.artsanddesigns.com - ideal if you want a design that you can download, print out, and use immediately. Not to mention the cost advantage: a budget-conscious bargain price of 99p! (Currently around $1.60...)

Anyway, I began the birthday card by gathering a few supplies:

Some Helz Cuppleditch products (which are often quite Christmassy, but I've found that there are such a range of colours etc that you can go ahead and use the products on so many projects!), some lovely ink pads, a blank card/envelope (in white), some super-useful adhesives, some of my trusty DecoArt Glistening Snow Writer, a few odds and ends, like pink cardstock, my current favourite thing: Brown paper! So useful! My Marvy LePlume II pens, and last but not least, the Romantic Rose Digital Stamp in Teal/Black, printed out onto some lovely high-quality paper.

First off, I got to work colouring my Romantic Rose:

Fun and easy to do! Next, I went to the effort of cutting close around my coloured rose, using a tiny pair of scissors. I think it was worth it for the overall effect, as I then went on to roughly blob an outline of the rose on a cut-to-size piece of my brown paper, using just a hot-pink ink pad:

Happily, I remembered to do the ink-pad blobbing before I stuck anything down! I quite like the effect. I wanted to add a little something extra too, so I got to work with my DecoArt Glistening Snow Writer, which I used to blob on some "dew drops" onto the rose petals:

Et voila! I'm starting to think that I should probably make and stock-pile a few occasion cards, since I always seem to be making them with the event looming large. Then again, I have a tendency to do my best work (and actually get things finished!) under pressure, so I might just stick with the current system!

Thanks for checking out my blog, feel free to pop over to www.artsanddesigns.com for a bit of a perusal.

Julie x

Christmas Gift Tags

Hello,

Today I'm sharing a little Christmas gift tag project that I'm working on - they're not quite finished yet, and actually, the home-made Cranberry Infused Vodka they'll be attached to isn't quite ready either!

I decided to test my caligraphy skills and do a spot of fancy writing to start with:

After perfecting my text with pencil (this took a little while!), I just went over it with a black ink fine-liner pen:

At the moment, I find myself really into good old-fashioned brown paper for backing etc:

This paper, along with other Helz Cuppleditch Special Delivery collection items, can be purchased here. This is what I did with mine:

Finally (well, not really finally, since they're not quite finished!) I backed the labels with some good cardstock in green, and added some sparkle in the form of DecoArt Glamour Dust, after stamping with one of the tiny little star stamps from the Dear Lizzy Neapolitan Jar stamp set:

 

Once I've finished the vodka (it needs to rest in the fridge for a week!), I'll finish up the tags and add them to the bottles with this lovely twine:

And there you have it, some home-made Christmas gifts ready to go! Pics to follow :)

Birthday Card made with Digital Stamp

Hello, I know it's been a while since my last post, but I've been all over the place (well, all over the UK anyway). I've been up to Scotland to visit my family, and also to Somerset to visit my sister and brother-in-law, who have just welcomed their twins (one boy and one girl) to the family - very unexpectedly, as they were two months early! Both babies are doing well, but will not be out of hospital for a while yet because they hardly weigh a thing, just 4lbs and 3lbs 12oz.

A little while ago I made a fairly simple birthday card for my mother-in-law, using one of the new Digital Stamps that you can download from www.artsanddesigns.com here.

I started by gathering my materials together, and printing out a few copies of the Birthday Bouquet digital stamp:

As you can see, I used a variety of materials for this card, including ribbon, vintage buttons, various adhesives, Gold Glamour Dust, Marvy Le Plume II marker pens, and cardstock.

I started by colouring the Birthday Bouquet stamp, which was actually quite relaxing - the design is very detailed but clear, so overall a nice colouring and shading experience! Here is the almost finished product:

I thought the stamp needed a little something extra, so I used the extremely useful Craftime Craft Glue Pen to adhere the gold Glamour Dust in a few places:

I can't resist a bit of sparkle! Finally, I used my Craftime Glue Dots to adhere the image onto a blank card, along with some ribbons and vintage buttons:

And there you have it, the finished article! Mrs L senior was very pleased :)

You can download your own digital stamps here for only 99p! Absolute bargain - you can then print them as many times as you like on your home printer. There are even some Christmas themed digital stamps, so have a little browse and see what you think :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Julie x

Helz Cuppleditch Special Delivery!

Hello!

I'm back from my little holiday to France (La Rochelle) now, and am excited to announce that the full "Special Delivery" Christmas 2012 range from Helz Cuppleditch is now available to buy over at www.artsanddesigns.com !

Here are a few of my favourites from the range:

Above is the gorgeous "Presents" glitter sticker set, featuring my favourite cute little penguin there.

These lovely wooden ornaments have been left bare for you to embellish however you like! I've got plans to smother one or two of those snowflakes in glitter!

...my favourite penguin again, this time in clear stamp form. He really is a cutie - can't wait to use him on my Christmas cards this year!

This Washi Tape is such a great idea - so easy to use on your Christmas cards or scrapbook pages, with no mess.

Finally, I love this:

Gorgeous mini pegs! I'm picturing a winter washing line here, maybe with Santa's red suit pinned up...quite an ambitious project maybe!

Thanks for stopping by at this busy time of year!

Julie x

www.artsanddesigns.com

Good Luck card made with odds and ends...

Hello! It's been a while since my last post, as we've been busy moving house...exhausting and time consuming, even though it was only 2 miles up the road!

A friend of mine is moving back to her home country (Indonesia) soon, so I made a "Good Luck" card that I hope she'll like:

 

Ta daa! For the card I used a wide selection of bits and bobs, including some buttons from my vast vintage button collection, and this gorgeous stamp from the American Crafts Dear Lizzy collection:

 

Anyway, these are the materials I started with at the beginning of my crafty day:

 

I started by stamping "good luck", and using clear embossing powder to give it a little something extra:

I did the same thing with the Dear Lizzy Neapolitan collection jar stamp:

Onto the blank card, I arranged some old wrapping paper that I found in my stash - it was too lovely to throw away! I also mounted the stamped words and jar from earlier onto pink pearlescent card, and added a think mink-coloured ribbon to the edge:

Finally, I "filled" the jar with buttons from my collection, as well as little self-adhesive crystals:

And voila! A good luck card for my friend to see her off.

Thanks for checking out my blog, please feel free to have a browse over at www.artsanddesigns.com!

Julie x