Freedom!

yay, they're back to school today and I've scheduled this post so I can get on with tidying and sorting out my craft desk. I've loads to do this week, new mattress arriving for Scott today, have ordered winter tyres for the car and then it goes in for it's 2nd service plus I have to get the place sorted out before I'm off to the SECC this weekend and leaving my mum in charge of the kids, cat, dog and house for a couple of days.
So in the meantime I'll show you some more samples I made for last weekend at Dundee's new Hobbycraft store...

 Image: The Winters Night - Gorjuss, coloured with promarkers and flexmarkers
Finnish star made with Bo Bunny papers from xmas 2010, MS large and medium snowflake punch
I'd like to enter this one into:
Christmas Inspirations - die cuts/punches
Totally Gorjuss - Pastel Xmas

Image: Fox Gloves - Gorjuss coloured with promarkers and flexmarkers
spellbinders dies were used to make the card blank and to cut the layers
marianne poinsettia die, pearls coloured with promarker. glamour dust
I'd like to enter this one into:
Crafting When We Can - Christmas
Secret Crafter - Wrap Up Warm

Off to the Sew Room

I'm off out to The Sew Room this morning with the kids, I managed to book them onto one of Anne's fantastic kids classes, this one is to make a Halloween Treat Bucket.
So I'm dropping Graham at the heliport then heading straight out to the class. Faith's probably a bit wee for the class, but I'll be there to help her so it should be fine.
If you haven't seen Anne's new shop then you need to pop over to The Sew Room blog for all the details of her upcoming workshops and some pics of the gorgeous things she stocks.


So I'm going to leave you with some more samples from Sunday's Hobbycraft demo...

 This is an idea I got from Pinterest..
I bought some pump bottles of body lotion from Tesco (£2 each and they are on 3 for 2 at the moment) , pulled off the existing labels then designed my own personalised labels on the pc and printed them off onto Letraset Safmat - all I had to do was cut round the design, peel it from the backing sheet and gently stick it onto the bottles.
I'm using this idea to make personalised teacher's xmas gifts that are quick and easy to make and don't break the bank.

GJWTHF - the projects

As promised, I'm back with the details of the project that I did at GJWTHF on Saturday. As you all know by know, my speciality is Promarkers so this is what we made...

The cream textured cardstock is available in 12x12 from The Papeterie
Butterflies CG130 (for the background) and Stencil Flower CG194 from Hero Arts, also available at The Papeterie. The flower image was coloured with Walnut, Cocoa, Cinnamon and Almond promarkers.
Kaisercraft brads
Calendar tabs are Anita's, card candy from Craftwork Cards and MS PATP corner punch


Now if you pop over and see Kath for the details of her gorgeous project, and Anne will be posting the details of her project too.


If you want to keep up to date with all all future GJWTHF events, join our facebook page here

Calendar gifts

You maybe remember me telling you that I had a bit of a mad dash on the evening before the last day of school before the xmas holidays - where I was trying to make wee treat bags for all the teachers. In the end it was a bit of a wasted effort because I couldn't get our great lump of a car out of the drive anyway due to the snow. So... seeing as I had a little more time, I decided to make little desk calendars for each of the teachers - I still have to make another one for the additional needs teacher who is in charge of the Lego Club that Scott goes to (but he's not there til Monday, so I have a bit of breathing space.) 


I decided to give the Wild Sprouts from The Greeting Farm an airing as they haven't seen the light of day in ages and I've missed colouring them.
This first 2 are for Willow's class teacher and the SFL assistant that looks after her...

Annika from TGF, coloured with promarkers.
papers, greeting and card candy are Craftwork Cards, cardstock is core'dinations, lace from stash

Maria from the Roll Call kit, TGF, coloured with promarkers
Papers are from Panduro, greeting is PI, cardstock is core'dinations


The next 3 are for Scott's class teacher, the assistant who helps him and the SFL teacher...

 Miko from the Roll Call kit, TGF, coloured with promarkers, 
paper is Echo Park Wintertime, ribbon, flowers and brads from stash, greeting is PI, cardstock is core'dinations

 Jade from Roll Call kit, TGF, coloured with promarkers
Paper is Daisy & Dandelion, cardstock is core'dinations, greeting is PI

Miko from Roll Call kit, TGF, coloured with promarkers,
papers are from panduro, cardstock is core'dinations, greeting is from PI


And this last 4 is for Faith's 2 nursery teachers and 2 nursery nurses...

 Odette from Roll Call kit, TGF, coloured with promarkers,
paper is Bo Bunny, cardstock is core'dinations, greeting is PI

 Sassy Suzi from TGF, coloured with promarkers
papers are Craftwork Cards, cardstocj is core'dinations, greeting is PI, ribbon is from Angel Crafts

 Dahlia from TGF, coloured with promarkers
papers are panduro, cardstock is core'dinations, greeting is PI

Nahla from Roll Call kit, TGF, coloured with promarkers
papers are Fine & Dandy from MME, cardstock is core'dinations, greeting is PI


so let's hope the teachers like them. Which one is your favourite?
Oh, and can I just apologise for the crappy pics, it was far too dark by the time I finished them this afternoon to take them in daylight and I couldn't be bothered rigging up the mini photo studio, so I just sat them on my desk in front of my laptop.


I'd like to enter into the following challenges..
Papertake Weekly - anything goes + lace (calendar 1)
One Stop Craft Challenge -  new beginnings (all)

Passion for Promarkers - December Extravaganza

Have you entered the December Extravaganza over at  Passion for Promarkers yet? the new challenge runs until 9am on the 5th January 2010 
You can use ANY COLOURS of ProMarkers and you can make ANYTHING BUT A CARD.


We have loads and loads of prizes to give away, so there will be loads of winners - want to see the prize list?

Grand Prize: 148 ProMarkers from the fabulously generous Letraset - that's the entire collection including all the old and new colours

Plus they have donated another 2 x 5 Promarker Theme Packs

 Sugar Nellie/Funky Kits have donated 8 prizes of Sugar Nellie stamps: 
4x Maggie & Hamish stamps PLUS 4x Home Grown stamps

Joanna Sheen has donated a £10 voucher to spend in her online shop

Stampeezee have also donated a £10 voucher to spend with them

Whiff of Joy have donated a Fred, Celebrating Elephant stamp designed by Alison Acton


Julie is an Independent Stampin Up! Demonstator and she is giving away a stamp set and ribbon



To give you all a bit more inspiration, the design team have made some more "anything but a card" creations, you'll get all the links on my sidebar. 


This time I decided to make crackers for the xmas dinner table, I don't know about you - but I'm totally fed up with the rubbish they put in shop-bought crackers, the only alternative seems to be to pay through the nose for expensive ones that have half decent gifts inside - but they still end up in the bin after xmas anyway. So I decided to make my own. Graham's offshore for Xmas and New Year this year, so my mum and dad are coming over for their Xmas lunch with me and the kids. I'm going to make a cracker for everyone.

I cheated a bit and used a cracker making kit from Hobbycraft which includes the cracker body, cracker snaps, jokes, and paper hats.
The image is a digi stamp from The Greeting Farm, coloured with promarkers: Baby Pink and Blush for her skin, Caramel, Cocoa and Walnut for her hair, Ruby and Burgundy, Pine and Holly for her clothing and Silver for the bells on her hat and boots.
I cut the image with oval nesties in the cuttlebug and attached with Anita's xmas ribbon, and also added ribbon from my stash at either end.
So this was a very quick make, just need to find something nice to put in it now lol
Here's the image close-up...

Judy's Class

Well, I'm not completely over the lurgy yet, but am feeling far more human than I did at the weekend. So I've finally managed to get around to showing you what we were doing at Judy's Winter Sing Song class at Simply Create on Saturday.

First we made an easel card - I have seen loads of these on other crafters blogs and had no idea how easy they really were. Of course Judy and Jacqui had everything pre- cut and scored for us which takes a lot of the work out of it too :)

The papers are Winter Song by SEI  (thanks for the reminder Kath x)

Then we made a wee gift box...

Finally we made another 6x6 card.. but I didn't have enough time to finish it off, or make the tag which was the 4th thing we were to make, but I took home all the materials for it and will get it done this week sometime and I think I might use it as a card topper.

 you can see I didn't quite finish colouring her in.

The images are all Gorjuss Girls from Sugar Nellie, and they were all coloured with promarkers.

Speaking of which, Jacqui has asked me to teach a ProMarker class at Simply Create in the New Year - so look out for more news of that soon.

Pink Post-its

This is Willow's first xmas at school and she's taking part in the Nativity play which they have called "Donkey For Sale" and I can't wait. Although I'm a bit gutted - she was chosen to be one of the angels, but decided that she didn't want to be an angel, and wanted to be a musician instead so that she could use a shaker! I was so looking forward to seeing her dressed up as an angel. Probably more so because I played the Angel Gabriel when I was in my nativity play many many moons ago.
In fact, do you want to see me?

There I am, second angel from the left lol and my claim to fame is - it was my doll that played baby Jesus :)


Anyway, moving swiftly on, I promised a pic of the pink version of yesterday's post-it holders. This one is for Willow's teacher, and she insisted on it being pink.

Image: Teacher Anya from the Greeting Farm (again, thankyou Natalie for stamping these up for me xx) coloured with ProMarkers: Orchid, Amethyst, Purple, Arctic Blue and Sky Blue, Pink Carnation and Fuchsia, Blush.

The card is core'dinations, the paper is Doodlebug, the greeting is Daisy & Dandelion, the snowflakes are Dovecraft and MS punches from scrap card. 

Here's another view and Anya's close-up...

Passion for Promarkers - December Extravaganza

You are in for such a treat this month over at Passion for Promarkers, the new challenge runs from 9am today (1st December) until 9am on the 5th January 2010 
You can use ANY COLOURS of ProMarkers and you can make ANYTHING BUT A CARD.


We have loads and loads of prizes to give away, so there will be loads of winners - want to see the prize list?

Grand Prize: 148 ProMarkers from the fabulously generous Letraset - that's the entire collection including all the old and new colours

Plus they have donated another 2 x 5 Promarker Theme Packs

 Sugar Nellie/Funky Kits have donated 8 prizes of Sugar Nellie stamps: 
4x Maggie & Hamish stamps PLUS 4x Home Grown stamps

Joanna Sheen has donated a £10 voucher to spend in her online shop

Stampeezee have also donated a £10 voucher to spend with them

Whiff of Joy have donated a Fred, Celebrating Elephant stamp designed by Alison Acton


Julie is an Independent Stampin Up! Demonstator and she is giving away a stamp set and ribbon


So, have we whetted your appetite yet? would you like some inspiration? the design team have some fabulous creations to show you, so please go have a look - you'll find all their links on my sidebar.
We'll also be showing you even more fabulous creations on the 15th of December - so look out for those too.

You can enter as many times as you like, so get creating all those non-card christmas creations.

I made some post-it note holders for Scott's teachers... 

 Image: Teacher Anya from The Greeting Farm (thankyou to Natalie for stamping these up for me), coloured with promarkers: Blush and Sunkissed Pink for their skin, Pastel Yellow, Mustard & Raw Sienna for the blonde hair, Caramel, Cocoa & Umber for the brunette hair, Pine & Holly for the socks and pullovers, Ruby & Burgundy for the apples, shirts and skirts/
I also added some Glamour Dust to the skirts and shirts.

I made the post-it holders from plain green cardstock, matted a panel of Fancy Pants Christmas paper onto plain red cardstock and adhered to the front. The greeting is Daisy & Dandelion. Martha Stewart snowflake punched from red cardstock and added a red gem to the centre. I used the cropadile to add the red eyelets and used Papermania xmas trims for handles. And of course added a pencil/pen and post-it pads

Here's the close-ups...

 

Tomorrow I'll show you the pink version I did for Willow's teacher.