Hand Crafted Memories

So as its New Year's Eve, it's time to get the calendars ready for tommorrow. Each year I make calendars for a few people. It's the same formula that I use every year, originally posted here , it works so well and easy to make on a production line. Wishing everybody a Happy New Year.

I recently signed up for Jessica Spragues free Inspiration Everywhere workshop. I was working away quite a bit before Christmas so I've only really got around to looking at it over the Christmas break. One of the items was a banner with the work Create on it. I loved this idea but didn't like the idea of just printing it off, leaving me with nothing to do but cut it out. So I set to and replicated it using up some of my stash mountain. I did print out the letters and 3D mounted them onto a scallop circle. This is now hanging in my craft room and is the first thing I see in there. I'm hoping it will keep the mojo thief away this year.  

In the summer I gave lots of hints about a top secret project that I was involved in, the cat was let out of the bag last week when I told about the Inspiring your Passions CD. I really enjoyed working on the projects featured on this CD and confess to being inspired even further by the other fabulous projects created by members of the DT. Today I am the featured team member, go over here to take a peek. Here is another of the items that didn't make the CD, I made that many it would have been impossible to feature them all. and a Brucey bonus of a card. I love the Anglomania range of papers, they are great for men's cards and the colours always look fresh.

Sometimes you make a page and are just not sure about it. I recently made a page on a Cybercrop and although I loved the technique, it just didn't feel right. I kept going back to it and couldn't bring myself to putting it into my scrap book. This is the page I loved the idea of making my own background using masks, but wasn't too sure about the inked colours of pink and blue. I thought I'd use my glimmer mists to have another go and am so pleased with the results here I remember when I first started scrapbooking reading an article, the author had said you should always give yourself permission not to like everything you create. I also know that there is never such a thing as a mistake. I learnt a technique but took it a bit further until I came up with something I like better.

I recently took part in my first swap over on UK Scrappers . It was for 3D flowers, the only rules were, they had to be 3 or more layers and they had to be no smaller than 2 inches. I deliberated and thought and played until I came up with 10 that I thought would be worth submitting and here they are After I'd packaged them up it dawned on me that they could have all been the same because they were going out to nine different people not all going to the same person. Oh well! I had fun making them. Here was the stash booster I received in return. I have now signed up for a tag swap for January, this time they will all be the same and the rules are Black, white and garnet are the colours to use and we must include one snowflake. I'm also doing a heart swap, that Kirsty Wiseman has arranged, so for the next couple of days its all tags and hearts.

I was so chuffed today when I received my  Inspiring Your Passion CD from Craftwork Cards . I hinted on several occasions through the summer about a top secret project I was working on, well this was it. The DT were all sent boxes of the most delicious goodies and we were ask to create projects and cards from the box. Well you know what its like when you just get loads of gorgeousness in a box and no restrictions, I just couldn't stop. I delivered my work to the warehouse and just hoped that they were good enough. Here it is the reason I am so chuffed is that 5, I will repeat that 5 of my projects feature on this disc. I am so pleased. I am especially pleased when I see some of the beautiful work from some of the other team members, they really are lovely. Here is one of the projects that didn't make it, but it is one I loved, it features the lovely Vintage Rose papers. I have taken loads of pictures of the Christmas preparations and snow but just haven't had time to pos...

I've been missing for a little while, I've been working away and seem to have been busy trying to catch up. I haven't had any time for crafting. Hopefully this week things will slow down enough for me to do the stuff I want to do. On the recent Cybercrop over at UK Scrappers the tutors made cards along with their pages, I made a few of them while the scraps were out. Here is a nice simple one.

I didn't mean to, but I posted last week saying that was the last page from the cybercrop. I then realised I hadn't shown this one. Oooops! I liked the concept of this page but you try getting two nearly teenagers to write a list to Santa! I thought this page captured this stage of their life perfectly. I love that it's not obviously Christmassy. A little plea, I recently made this hinge lidded box, but can I find the instructions anywhere. No! I know they were on somebodies blog and I think it was a recipe box.If anybody knows can you give me a nod.

Something a bit different on this months UK Scrappers Cybercrop was the card challenge. Each class designer also produced a card, they also earned points. As the cards could be made from the 'leftovers' from the scrapbook pages and everything was already out, I made a few of them. This was made from the leftovers from Di's Christmas Village workshop.

This is the last page that I made on the recent UK Scrappers Cybercrop. I love this colour combination and really like the little embellishments that I made. I really like pages that have white space on them. This design abd the embillishments are ones I can see being used on other projects.

One of the classes on last weeks Cybercrop was to make a snow village scene. I should have known when I saw the tutor what would be involved. Di always does the most stunning classes, that are not a page. This one took me four hours, so most pf last Sundays crafting. I do love it though. It will look lovely on my coffee table. Each tutor also made a card so keep coming back for some of the cards I made.

Another page from the Cybercrop, this was a bonus class centred on journalling. I love the papers and idea of this page and can see me doing something like this again.

What is wrong with traffic? The roads I need to get to work have been completely cleared of snow but it still took me nearly 2 hours to drive a 40 minute journey. That was each way, adding a phenomenal 4 hours onto my working day. It didn't help that I was already tired from all the crafting this weekend. Here is the next page I made. I took the photo from another page that I'd made at a class and never really did like the original page, I immediately thought of this when I saw the instructions.I'm loving it now. Also Kath is looking for photos of snow in the garden well here's mine Yes that's a whopping 2 feet on the table, notice my hanging baskets? here they are close up  They have caused much amusement to everybody that has seen them.

The UK Scrappers Cybercrop is great, I have made some lovely pages, usually there is something I'm not to keen on but this time, so far, I'm really happy with everything. Each class has a technique that earns you points towards a teams total. This class was all about creating the background using masks. Here it is.

The UK Scrappers Cybercrop continues today and I can't believe how well I'm doing at keeping up. This mornings 8am class was scheduled to take an hour, what am I doing that it takes almost three. Again once I saw the page I changed my mind about what I wanted to do. I had made a layout way back when I first started scrapbooking that I didn't like, I didn't think it showed the pictures to their best. I took it to pieces and used Claire's class to rework it. Here is my page

I've been in a bit of a crafting ditch for a while now. I wanted to scrap but none of my photos seemed to speak to me. That was until tonight, over on UK Scrappers they are having a Cybercrop and the first class was enough to inspire me. This was called learning to ski designed by Maria Needles. I had my papers all picked out and ready to go, but when I saw the layout and instructions I knew which pictures I wanted to use, so the papers were swapped as well. The class was supposed to be 1 hour, but I spent an hour on the stitching alone, I also swapped out the felt flowers for felt berries. I'm really happy with the finished page.   This year each designer is making a card as well,so I thought in for a penny in for a pound and here's my card.