Hand Crafted Memories

Back to Christmas cards, here I've used the big chipboard numbers from Craftwork Cards , they were painted with acrylic paint then edged with a Krylon pen (still can't get on with them) and the stamped with the lovely Craftwork Cards A Sprinkling of S nowflake stamps. Easy and effective.

I've bought my sweets for this weeks trail of trick or treaters , so many sweets I would need the entire town to pass by my house. I decided to take some into work for all my colleagues to take home for their kids. I remembered making these little packets last year with choccies for Christmas in them, so a quick change of colour and a few ghostly cut outs and hey presto, little spooky treats.

Last night I arrived home to find a lovely little surprise, these little boxes. Now on the surface I admit there isn't a lot to get excited about but these are special boxes. Some time ago I saw a gift box in this shape and wanted one, well they were quite expensive to buy and often I wanted to just put a little inexpensive thank you gift in it. I also wanted to decorate it myself. So I decided to make a template myself after all I can craft so it wouldn't be hard would it? Wrong, I can't tell you how many templates I made, how many tears I cried and how many times I wanted to give up. I'm an IT trainer and document author by trade who likes crafting so this was a bit of a challenge . Many hours of work were invested into creating a card stock template and I made a little box up using some of Craftwork Cards Christmas papers. I also made this one for my friend to give his wife a present in when they had their baby. When Sue saw it, she loved the little box and I sug...

Well after the mammoth induction into creating a tutorial over the weekend, I then settled down to making the calendars I meed to give as gifts each year. I've started a little earlier this year because I make them for our accounts/admin department and they work ahead of themselves. Thye love this little calendar because it sits nicely on their desk but without being intrusive . I've used my new Stampin Up 'a flower for all seasons' stamps and of course I used my copics to colour them in. This little calendar is a good way of using up those pieces of DSP that are too big to throw away but too small the cover anything. Again I can't take the credit for this design, I first came across it here but various versions of it was all over the Internet last year, so I bookmarked it for this year as it works well in a production line. Oh, if you're going to make one, the calendar for 2010 can be found here .

Here I go with my first tutorial, I kept forgetting to take pictures and would get carried away with the next stage, but here goes.I' ve used the flowers from Craftwork Cards because they are a decent weight card, but the card can be manipulated really well.The large ones are 4 1/4" wide and the smaller ones are 3 3/4" wide. I used the 6 petal shapes but this can be done with five petals as well, they will just be smaller. Supplies needed: Candle, flower shapes, glue, scissors, rubber stamp, ink pad, glimmer mists, card stock circle ( mine was 4" diameter). You need three flower shapes per rose. 1. Stamp the flower shapes with the script stamp, using the ink pad. Stamp one side only. 2. Spritz the flowers with the glimmer mists, I used Tattered Angels Candy Apple Red, Tiger Lilly and Yellow Daisy. Spritz both sides. They will curl up a bit, just leave them to dry out, you can use a heat gun to speed this up. Don't worry about the coverage being even, I think i...

Me a winner I can't believe it! Last weekend was Pencil Lines 3rd birthday so I threw myself into helping them celebrate. I didn't manage to complete all of the challenges but I promise I had a really good go at trying. What have I won, well I'm not too sure but I'll post pictures when the prizes arrive. The first one I entered was Blog hop and I was picked out by Jessica Jo , I also entered her sketch challenge t his was the page I entered. The second challenge was a mini book challenge set by the UK founder of Pencil Lines herself Anna Bowkiss . I had the pleasure of attending a couple of Anna's workshops last year at the Scrapping Angels retreat . Anna is also the lady who took the photo I use on my blog profile, so now I am very pleased to have been chosen as a winner for the mini book. I haven't finished it yet but it will get finished and will be posted in all it's final glory. I'm filling it with favourite things or things I love. I had it in mi...

I went to my monthly scrapbook crop last night at Craft Haven , this months theme was friends. Well when it comes to that there's one I always have to use my bessie mate Theresa. I've known her for 10 years now, we met when a family trip was arranged for us all to go to London, she is the Aunt to my brothers ex-wife. I know it could have been all very awkward when they split up, but it wasn't, our relationship is much stronger than that. We've been there for each other through some very difficult times and some really brilliant times. What do I like about her most, she cares, she makes me laugh and likes all of my paper craft projects! Watch out for a tutorial this week, I was asked by Crafty Dawn to do one for the candle decoration I posted recently. Why not? The challenge has been accepted. I've never done one before, so I will have a go this weekend.

Recently I was at a Craftwork Cards workshop and Sue showed us how to make these roses, well I loved them and they have been sitting on my counter. Last night I made some more to go with them. This time I used the back to basic flower shapes, stamped them with the script and spritzed them with some glimmer mists before folding the shapes. When they were all folded I stuck them to a circle of card and hey presto. Now I'm thinking table decorations for Christmas.

My little op yesterday went very well and I'm back at work now. Just to prove that its a small world the surgeon was a very lovely lady who had a student with her, when I got to work today one of the boys was asking how it went and it turned out his wife was the surgeon! What are the chances of that, especially when I work and they live in Sheffield and I live and had the op in Barnsley . Spooky! Anyway here is a quick Christmas card I made to add into my ever growing stash of Christmas cards I don't need.

I've made another nappy cake, for a little girl this time. My friend at work's sister in law has just had a little girl, so Hannah asked if I would mind making one. I'm really pleased with how it turned out, it's so cute. We just need to wrap it in cellophane and it can be delivered. I'm going to hospital this afternoon to have a lump removed from my head, nothing serious but my God I'm nervous. Not for anything other than the needle into my scalp. Hannah bought me these lovely flowers to wish me luck, so I've had them next to my computer in my craft room all weekend, its where I spend most of the time so I've had their lovely fragrance to relax me.

Here is my entry for the 7PM birthday challenge , this one was set by Ingvild Bolme. I 'm really pleased with everything I've done this weekend, even if it means I've not done any ironing. I will have to get that done tommorrow morning, but it's been well worth it.

I was just going to begin the 4PM challenge and this sketch reminded me of this page that I'd already done and posted previously, so here it is.This page challenge was set by Michele Beck .

Continuing with the Pencil Lines Birthday challenge, this mini book was set by Anna Bowkiss . My book is not so mini its 8X8. I've had this book for a little while, bought from Craftwork Cards for an amazing recession busting £1.75. I decided to make a book of my favourites, I've done 4 pages so far and they aren't completely finished but I want to post it. You get the idea, I usually crop my pictures down so get rid of 'fuss' in the background, but I've left it in the first picture. Yes that mess in the background is my craft room, I have serious cleaning up to do.

I almost forgot to uplaod the entry for the weekly challenge at Pencil Lines, this is my entry for challenge number 156 . I've been so taken up with the birthday celebrations this one was nearly forgotten.

Here's my en try for the 2PM challenge another layout challenge, my goodness this weekend is forcing me to put my thinking cap on. This layout challenge was from Sandie Vincent .

Here's my entry for the 1PM Pencil Lines birthday challenge. You should see my craft room, I'm loading these posts and then I'll have to tidy up before I go at it again. I am working my way down my stack of phots really quickly, this is a good thing some of them have been kicking around for a while. This was a layout challenge from Jessica Salber .