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Showing posts with label Crudy Reshuffle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Crudy Reshuffle. Show all posts

Tuesday, 23 June 2015

Happy Day

Hello crafty peeps welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you've all had a brilliant Tuesday and if not just think, we're almost half way to the weekend! :) I'm not sure if anyone remembers me mentioning that I was taking part in a Readers' Design Team for Quick Cards Made Easy Magazine a couple of months ago but the magazine has finally come out! They only show three cards of the ten submitted and the others are supposed to be on a readers' gallery on their website. I've looked (pretty much every day since I got my subscription copy on Friday) and I can't find a readers' gallery on the website. As you can probably tell my card wasn't one of the three showcased in the magazine (check page 40 to see the beautiful designs that were - I especially like the one that used the Large Ringlets die by Memory Box, I will so be getting that die when I've got some money!) however if you look at the bottom right hand corner of the page where it says, "Find more amazing reader cards at www.cardmakingandpapercraft.com" you may notice a rather simple card in blue polka dots - that's mine! To be perfectly honest it's taken me until this afternoon to actually notice it which just goes to show how much I need to go have my eyes tested! I'm thrilled to be able to say that QCME magazine have also put my card up on their timeline along with the three showcased cards and if you'd like to have a look please click the link here https://www.facebook.com/QuickCardsMadeEasy if it's not showing please click on QCME photos and it's under the heading Reader Design Team issue 141 or click on the Facebook button on the sidebar and check out my timeline.



Here are a couple of photos just in case you aren't on Facebook. As you can see I kept my design very simple, the brief for the card was that it had to be flat, no larger than 15cm square and that the papers had to be the main focus of the card. We were allowed to use basic craft supplies. I think I may have taken the brief too literally (I do have a habit of doing exactly what is stated) as the cards showcased had 3D elements to them (absolutely gorgeous though!) and I even die cut a panel within the frame so it would lay totally flat rather than being layered and raised as I would normally do. I chose the simplest of the patterns available mainly because as they were mostly bird and floral patterns, I was worried that the sentiment would be overwhelmed by any other pattern apart from this polka dot one. And if I'm honest I really like polka dots! If I had the chance to do the card again I'd probably be a little bit more daring and add more layers to the card and a couple of embellishments. It was a lot of fun and I'm chuffed beyond words to see my card both in the magazine and on Facebook.

I'm progressing nicely in the Crudy Reshuffle, it's not complete but to be honest it's the sort of room/project that's always going to be a work in progress. I'm loving the extra room I have to actually craft, even though the surface of the breakfast bar is covered with items looking for a home (craft orphans - poor things!) I still have twice as much room as I did on my desk - in fact I actually had my paper trimmer fully on the desk rather than half on and the other resting on me! It's making a huge difference to being able to cut a straight line lol. I have a couple of projects that I need to complete in the next few days so once I've added this post to my blog I shall go into the crudy and find new homes for the craft items on my desk. Then I shall get on with Charlie's prom card (luckily I found the stamped and coloured images I've already done when I was putting stuff back). Once it's finished I shall add another post. As always if you have any comments or questions that relate to either this blog or to crafting please leave them in the usual places, please be aware that all comments are subject to moderation and any that I consider to be spam will not be added to this blog. By all means add links to your craft blogs but please don't add links to electroplating, lifestyle sites or similar - it's rude quite frankly. Mini rant over! lol. Until next time - keep crafting!

Love and craft hugs,

Sarah xxx

Monday, 15 June 2015

Crudy Reshuffle Update and a card share

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you've all had a good weekend, it's been raining and very cold here in Brid but it looks like it's going to be a beautiful day today. I haven't got as far along in my crudy reshuffle as I would like - to begin with I managed to drop a couple of 12" x 12" spiral bound scrapbooks on my foot at the beginning of last week and although it took 3 days for the bruising to show it's still quite painful and I can't wear shoes yet. That obviously slowed me down somewhat not least because I was scared of dropping more stuff on it as I was transporting everything out so moved things a lot more carefully than I normally would. Now to add injury to injury I've managed to strain my shoulder and can't raise the elbow to shoulder height without a great deal of pain. To be honest I'm not sure if I've done it lugging boxes around or if I've just slept in a funny angle, my cat Jinx often pins me down while I'm asleep and it's not unknown for me to wake up with my body contorted in various weird shapes because Jinx has wanted to sleep in just so a spot lol. Regardless of how it occurred it's slowing me down somewhat and I'll be glad when it eases up. I'm half wishing I'd not started it in the first place as the entire flat is a pig sty, I'm quite shocked at how much stuff has come out of such a tiny space and I just hope I can get it back in once the breakfast bar is moved into place.

It's very frustrating having everything so disorganised, I really need to make a Father's Day card (have a great idea for one but can't either find or get to the supplies I need) and I was halfway through making a Prom card for my niece which I can't finish as I'm totally clueless to what I've done with the bits I'd already completed and the bits I need to do! I'm making her a card in the shape of a wardrobe using some printed toppers called "Grandma's Wardrobe" which I got from Every Craft's A Pound. They are uncoloured and have dots where the handles should be so you can personalise them and add brads or mini door handles on the drawers and wardrobe doors and I'm planning on cutting a flap on one side so it looks like an open door and having a rail inside with card clothes hanging off wire coat hangers. I've stamped and coloured all the clothes and stained a skewer to look like a rail so far, I've even decorated a long dress that looks a little like Charlie's Prom Dress although my version is a bit "My Fat Gypsy Wedding" compared with Charlie's actual dress and  I'm planning on hanging it on the outside of the closed wardrobe door - that is if I could find anything!

I did find enough supplies to make a card for the lovely Roxy who celebrated her birthday on Friday (I'm really hoping she got her card in time). 

Cupcake Card For Roxy
I recently found out that Roxy likes to bake and decorate cakes, I like to bake too although I'm not very good at it - the last cake I made set the oven on fire! - and I certainly give the decorating part a miss so I'm totally in awe of anyone who can make pretty cakes. I thought Roxy would like a cupcake themed card to celebrate both her birthday and her baking ability. To make this card I took a sheet of A4 cardstock and scored it at 1 1/2" and 3" and then folded the remainder of the card in half to make a card blank with a step at the front, I'm sure this sort of card has a special name but I don't know what it is but basically it's like a stepper card but with only one full length step and no cuts. I decorated the front panel using some Dovecraft Cupcake Boutique paper and decorated the front step panel using the matching washi tape in blue spots and stripes. The sentiment panel was stamped using the sentiments stamp set that's from the collection (it's the only stamp set of the collection that I have so far) and I decorated the ends using more washi tape and a couple of gems from the matching gems and pearls set. I wanted to keep the card fairly flat so just stuck this sentiment down to the back panel using wet glue. The cupcakes were made using a stamp set I got free with Simply Homemade Magazine last year which was called "Handmade Kitchen" and consisted of three stamps in total and 6 polka dot buttons. I stamped the cupcakes 4 times using a pigment ink (I should have used a different ink as this smudged a tiny bit but couldn't find any other) and coloured it in using my lovely W H Smiths watercolouring pencils - am I allowed to say that I'm rather proud of the cherries?? I think they look really glossy but that's just down to leaving a highlight spot on each one by not adding any colour, a trick I shall attempt to take with me for alcohol colouring! Once the cupcakes had been coloured and had dried completely, I fussy cut around them and added them to the front 'step' as shown. If I'd been able to find the supplies I would have added some clear Wink of Stella to the frosting and some Glossy Accents to the cherries to make them even more shiny. In case anyone was wondering how I got the cherries to be such an intense colour compared to the rest of the cupcakes, I coloured them by wetting the tip of the pencils and colouring directly onto the paper wetting the tip each time the colour changes from paint to pencil - this probably doesn't do your pencils a lot of good but does give you a really intense colour that just isn't possible by adding the water to the pencil coloured image. The 'paint' made by the water to tip method is opaque rather than the translucent paint you get using the normal method.





I hope you like my latest card, I shall add another post once my crudy is finished or by Friday at the latest as I really have to make the Father's Day card for my Dad-in-law. As always if you have any questions or comments then please leave them in the usual places. Until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxxx

Monday, 8 June 2015

Crafty update and a crudy reshuffle

hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! As regular readers of this blog will know, we had our kitchen completely gutted and a new one put in a few months ago and it left me with a breakfast bar I'm reluctant to get rid of just because it cost more than I wanted to spend and I basically want to get my money's worth! This breakfast bar has been cluttering up my lounge for months and has ended up becoming a dumping ground for all the stuff that should have a home but for some reason don't. I finally had enough of trying to work around it so I've decided to dedicate this week to half emptying my crudy and finding a new home for the breakfast bar, this will probably mean I won't have a great deal of time for either crafting or blogging. I just wanted to let everyone know that I will be back to regular posts next week at the latest and to say sorry for not being around this week. I'd like to share my latest crafty buy, my lovely hubby passed on a £15 gift voucher for W H Smiths that he hadn't used and I put it towards a set of 36 watercolouring pencils in a wooden case and a pad of watercolouring paper that still has to arrive. The pencils are fantastic and unlike ones I've bought recently are actually water soluble!

A rainbow of colours

Art set includes sketch pad and pencil, two brushes and water bottle, sponge and tray

Here's my first picture - image from issue 1 Art Therapy.

First image coloured with new pencils
I can certainly see why adult colouring books have become increasingly popular, there is something deeply therapeutic about colouring in a repeating pattern - it gets you in the 'zone'. I'm looking forward to colouring these images from Art Therapy using my Promarkers however as the company who supplies Art Therapy is experiencing "distribution problems", I won't be able to colour them in any time soon. Although I'm a subscriber so far all I've been sent in two months is issue 1 without pencils, and issues 6 and 7. The pencils finally turned up a month after the first issue and I haven't had any of the subscription free gifts yet - to be honest I consider them to be in breach of contract and if I don't receive the missing issues soon and the free gifts I shall be reporting the situation to Trading Standards. I'm not the only person who has experienced rubbish service from Hachette Partworks.

Anyway mini rant over, as always if you have any questions or comments then please leave them in the ususal places and until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,


Sarah xxx