Hand Crafted Memories

I've wanted to emboss frames with my Nesties for a while now but never seemed to have the right card. I stamped several images last night, just to colour them with my Copics . I don't like stamping and not using them, so I decided to try the embossing technique out with this one. I love the card and managed to get the effect I wanted, see the embossed line that follows the red mat shape. Unfortunately I got a little bit extra, I got a line down the right hand side. I've done it a few times and keep getting a line somewhere. I give up and am going to use my iron to get rid of this one! They say practice makes perfect, so I'll keep practising. See the mess in the background, this is my craft room, I've made a mental note to tidy it up.

This weeks theme for the challenge over on Bubbly Funk is Grandparents, with Christmas fast approaching I decided to make a Christmas card for special Grandparents. I love this stamp and any excuse to crack out the Copics for a bit of colouring. I didn't think the acetate snowflake on the left would photograph very well, but it's not bad.

I've made another page that fits in with the pencil lines sketch 153 , another one for my brother. This is one of my techniques for getting multiple pictures onto one page. I use some free software Picasa that allows some editing of photos, it also allows you to create a collage from selected photos. This takes the stress out of me trying to fit loads of photos onto the page, as a collage that's printed out I can treat it as a single picture.

This week I got a phone call from my brother. He, his partner and some friends are having a Come Dine With Me dinner party. They won't be on TV, it's just amongst the three couples. He asked if I could make him some place cards for when it's his turn. The theme is a night at the Oscars, so I put my thinking cap on and remembered seeing something when I was blog hopping that may be suitable. It was a card made using the Cricut, so off I went surfing the blogs again and found the card again, this one . The colours Robin & Jo are using will be black, white, silver and gold, this is what I came up with. I'm really pleased and I'm just waiting to hear if this is what they want.I used the Home Decor and Plantin Schoolbook cartridges along with the design studio software. This is now making me think about Christmas place cards with my new Christmas cartridge. The votes are in and I can announce, the place cards won. Here they all are.

Another fabulous challenge set by Pencil lines this week, it's funny how you can have photos for years and then suddenly a sketch speaks to you about one photo. This picture was taken when I visited China 16 years ago. One of my lasting memories of this visit was the amount of bicycles everywhere. I know that is is the thing that everybody associates with China there was even Katie Melua's song, Nine Million bicycles in Beijing, but I didn't imagine that many. They were parked anywhere where they could be fastened to something, trees, railings anything. There was something calm about it though, not so much of the tooting and road rage that I experience on my now daily commute.

I've had a secret for quite a few weeks now and I have been busting to blog about it. I had a lovely letter from Julie Hickey, (yes I mean THE JULIE HICKEY ), inviting me to join the Design Team for Craftwork Cards < insert loud scream here >. I have been absolutely buzzing about it since I got the letter and accepted the offer, I am one of a team that has other great crafters on it all of who I have heard off and admired their work for quite some time. I can't believe that my 'little hobby' has resulted in this offer and I have to keep pinching myself. In case it's not coming across, I am soooo excited to start. This whole new episode in my crafting life began by me attending some workshops at their Leeds base, from the beginning I loved their generosity, kindness and encouragement. This has never changed but had developed into friendships with both Sue and Julie. As a trainer I love meeting people who give their time to encourage and enable other peopl

Over on the Bubbly Scrumptious challenge blog , this weeks challenge is Vintage. I appreciate Vintage but it's not something I do, I guess that's why it's a challenge! So here's my go for this week, a vintage Christmas card, I have to admit it was fun. I have a ton of Christmas cards already left from last year so didn't need to make any this year, however, it's what I'm inspired to create at the moment. This one will be perfect for one of my really good friends.

Back to scrapbooking, I haven't done much lately, well actually I have but not managed to get pictures onto them. I've got a bunch of photos to do for my brothers pages but as you know he likes lots of pictures and I don't so this is always a challenge on it's own. This is my take on the pencil lines challenge number 152 , I love this DCWV paper with all the feet along the bottom, finally I got the Sports Day pictures done, well some of them anyway. This little boy is not sporty at all, so we were all thrilled to bits with his second place, if awards were given for effort, he'd have got all the medals.

A couple of Christmas Cards from leftovers today, recently I made a few projects for Craftwork Cards , it gave me such a buzz to see them on their stand at the Extravaganza in Harrogate last weekend. I can't post photos because in my excitement to get them to Sue I forgot to take any. I had quite a few bits of odds and sods laying around that I didn't have the heart to throw away. I've used a few of the Joy papers up on this card, everything is from Craftwork Cards except the Sugar Nellie stamp , unfortunately the photo doesn't show the lovely shimmer on the papers, right lets attack the rest of the bits. Here's another one I made with some scraps from the other paper collection, Candy Cane. The stamp is a Magnolia that I got as part of my goody bag from the breakfast workshop I did at the Harrogate show.

Here's a really quick and simple card that I've made to add to the stock for boys. I used an image that's been kicking around for ever, and I love how it turned out. The thing is I just sold this on e-bay so it's gone! I haven't used it in a lifetime and never really know what I could do with it to make it interesting . That was before I got my Copics , now everything looks great when you colour it in. It also fits with Bubbly Scrumptious weekly challenge of vehicles.

The Bubbly Scrumptious Challenge this week is vehicles and in keeping with me trying to come up with ideas for men's cards, here is my effort. I love this little car that is an Art from the Heart purchase, it has some many uses and always stamps beautifully. I coloured it using C opics and added some glossy accents to the wheels, although you can't tell from the photo. I'm also quite pleased with the blue and orange combo which makes it bright but not girly .

I had a great day on Saturday at the Papercraft Extravaganza in Harrogate , it all started with a breakfast workshop. I chose to do the Copics and Magnolia one, I was hoping to pick up some techniques. Unfortunately there was very little tuition but what was fantastic was the goody bag. The workshop was £11 but the goody bag included 7 C opics pens at a value of £1.99 each and a magnolia stamp, how good was that? I was thrilled, this is the card we made. I was absolutely shattered when I got back. I'm now counting the days to pay day but at least I've got plenty of purchases to occupy my time until then. I've also made this card for one of our sales team that is leaving this week, I've used two C ricut cartridges to get the image. I welded all the letters and the car together using the Design Studio software, it's great and makes lining everything up so much easier.

Here's a birthday card that I've made for my brother's girlfriend.It's her birthday on S unday so this calls for something special. Hooray for the Cricut again! I've also used the gorgeous new vellum's from Craftwork Cards , they have to be seen to be believed they have a lovely weight that makes them easy to work with but still have that lovely translucent effect.

I'm going to visit the new baby and have lunch with my friends today, I can't wait to cuddle the tiny boy. There's something so enchanting about lovely new babies. It's also Dad's birthday so it will be lovely to see him as I'm missing him while he's on paternity leave. Of course you can't go and visit a new baby without taking a gift, ages ago I saw a nappy cake on the Internet and thought what a fabulous idea, I thought this would be a lovely unique gift for them so set about making one. The recipe included 35 nappies ( Huggies of course, 10 pairs of tiny socks, two little beanie hats, 5 feeding bibs and a cuddly toy. The whole thing is built around a paper towel holder and held together with string and ribbons. The little socks were rolled up to make the little roses.It was such fun to make but takes a long time to get it right. Here are the photos.

The challenge this month over at Bubbly Funk is Houses , it can be whatever you want. So here are some houses I've made. One is a Doodlebug house, a couple used a template that I got from Nicole Heady's blog, but most of them are using the new Home Sweet Home boxes from Craftwork Cards .

What a busy day I've had so far, I was hoping for a nice relaxing week. A couple of weeks ago a lady opened her car door onto mine in the supermarket car park. I was walking to wards the car so saw it all. She managed to chip the paint on my door and seemed to be a little bit upset when I didn't say it was OK, in fact she was upset that her car had been chipped. In fairness it's a very small problem but it needs repairing and that will mean it has to be paid for, and I don't think it should be out of my pocket. I got a quote done but then she asked for three quotes, in fairness the first quote was being done through somebody I know so is being done very reasonably, but no she wants 3 quotes, which means I've had to go round getting them. Anyway to prove my point the other two quotes are twice as much as the original. Hopefully she will be a bit more careful when she's getting out of the car in future. I've also booked appointments at the doctors, opticians

The baby we were waiting so patiently for a couple of weeks ago has arrived, Dylan put in an appearance this week, of course this requires a card. In my excitement to get it in the post I forgot to take a picture of the one I sent from me. I did manage to retrieve this one that was being sent from work. It's based on one that is on display in Craftwork Cards shop, it's so easy to make and always gets a warm reception from those that receive it.

This weeks challenge over on pencil lines was a double page spread, the thing that took me the longest was picking the photos. It's taken me most of the day to come up with this, I've no idea why, but I really like it. How come it takes me forever to come up with a page when I'm at home but if you go to a crop it takes between one and two hours? I've got next week off work and don't have too much planned, just the normal car servicing, trip to the dentist. A typical catching up week. Next weekend it's the Papercraft Extravaganza in Harrogate, I'm so looking forward to it, I'm starting the day off with a breakfast workshop to learn a bit about using copic markers. I love them and they are perfect for colouring the fabulous colour me ovals from Craftwork Cards . Hopefully after the workshop I'll be even better.

Over the weekend I brought all my Christmas stamps down from the attic, looking through it seems that at Christmas my favourites are snowflakes, snowmen and holly. I promised myself that I wouldn't be buying anymore Christmas crafting goodies this year because I have tons of it, I also have enough cards left from last year to see me through this one. That was until I went to Craftwork Cards on Saturday, they do it to me every time ! I bought these absolutely gorgeous snowflake stamps and made a card. I have to say their stamps always print beautifully and these are no exception, I was so impressed by how fine the detail is on the snowflakes .