Françoise Read Class at Crafts U Love

Françoise Read held a class at Crafts U Love today and I went along with Linda and Jill. We completed a one hour class to make this card using her delightful Christmas elf stamps. Here is the finished card I made:
This is what it looks like inside the present on the front of the card. We used Copic markers to colour the stamped images.


Françoise demonstrating the clever techniques she uses.


Here are more of Françoise's delightful card ideas. We just had to add to our stamp collection! Just need time to play now!

5 Minute Wonder!

Afternoon everyone! I took delivery of my new toy this morning - The Cricut Create from Jill at Cardinal Colours. That's NOT what I'm referring to as the five minute wonder, I feel sure this tool will be worth it's weight in gold over the years to come.


I set the Cricut up and was loading the Design Studio Software when my daughter announced she would like to look through my box of cards for two 18th birthday cards suitable for boys. I said I was unlikely to have what she needed made up. With my new toy maybe I could make something for her, knowing she had their joint party tonight. She then told me she was leaving in 30 minutes to go to a friends house where several of the girls we planning to spend the afternoon getting ready to go to the party later! So I set about making two very quick cards! We know from experience, that multiples appreciate receiving a card each on any special occasion.

This is what I came up with (sorry photo a little blurred, not much time, Catherine rushing to get them signed and into the envelopes!):


I used Scenic Route papers and 8x8" cards from Craftwork Cards, the numbers were cut using the 'DonJuan' alphabet cartridge and 7 3/4" numbers with shadows. I added 'Happy Birthday' peel offs for the greeting.

Given more time they could have been inked and their names etc. added, but I didn't do too badly. I couldn't have done them this quick without the Cricut. Thanks Jill and happy birthday to Dan and Nick.


Now I want to study the manual for the Design Studio and see what that can do.

Shopping trip

Today we went to Lakeside to do some shopping and had a bit of fun with the camera in some of the shops, we loved many of the decorations in Habitat.



Emily's new hair cut.

Some photos for the scrapbook in the future.
Lights, decorations and a lovely rug.

Rose Bruford

Catherine and I returned to Rose Bruford Collage of Theatre and Performance for a second open day today. Two weeks ago we went to look into acting courses, and today she wanted to find out more about stage management. Having spent two weeks doing word experience at this college during the summer Catherine would love to study here. We had another beautiful autumn day and after the talks and tours we went for a wander round and took some photographs of the stunning surroundings. What a wonderful place to study.

Strawberry Hill

Catherine and I have had a long day today, caught a train at 07.10 into London and then another out west to Strawberry Hill. We walked along some beautiful leafy suburban roads in all their autumn glory to arrive at St. Mary's University College at Twickenham. Unfortunately I did not have the camera, and this image is from their website.

Just one more Uni to visit tomorrow and then Andrew Catherine and Emily all plan to finish off the personal statements, ready to complete the UCAS forms. This half term has been busy for them all for Uni visits and essays this time, but we hope to go out all together on Friday. No time for crafting so far this week!

Potty Pumpkins!

Greetings - Do you remember my post from 2nd October called Terror Cotta? Today I got around to scrapping some of the photos I took. I used the new Basic Grey Eerie papers., and a Page Map sketch. These papers are so much fun, can't wait to get some good Halloween shots to use more of them later this month. Not easy to see but I machine stitched lime zig-zags around the edges.

Busy Weekend

Butley Priory

What a busy weekend! We travelled up to Suffolk and Andrew's girlfriend came along too. Stopped off at Paper Maze on the way to the house and got some lovely new stash. On Saturday we went shopping in Woodbridge, and the kids went off shopping together, leaving Alan and me to look around on our own. We have been married 25 years this year and one of the claws broke on my engagement ring and I lost a diamond. We had thought about getting it repaired but it was going to cost as much as he paid for the ring. We have been looking for weeks and decided to look around this lovely old Georgian town. We both spotted this ring and loved it, what's more no alteration was needed. We rounded the shopping trip off with a lovely pub lunch, and a walk around the town and went back to the house to chill out for a few hours.

In the evening we set off for Butley Priory, and as their web site says, it is - "Set in the wilds of the Suffolk coast, between Rendlesham Forest and the sea, this fairytale 14th century monastery has been beautifully converted to offer luxurious accommodation. With its striking Gothic exterior, Butley Priory has been carefully restored and sensitively renovated to offer beautiful accommodation on a bed and breakfast basis."

As the nights are drawing in and Halloween approaches, the Priory hosted a show with a difference. An evening of metaphysical magic with Dr Todd Landman! A fascinating show in beautiful surroundings, we were treated to mulled Pimms on arrival and sat around in the drawing room on sofas warming up by the open fire. Later we were shown to our tables to watch the show, and enjoy our cheese board and drinks.

The show wasn't frightening, Dr Todd was an excellent entertainer. For more about him see http://www.metaphysical-magician.com/.

The photos are from the website as (I can't believe it but...) we forgot the camera!!

On Sunday it was bike riding in the forest, and after lunch we drove out to Needham Market for a scrapbooking and card making extravaganza held in the community centre. Paper Maze had a stall there and Vanessa had told me about it on Friday when I called in at the shop. Here are some of the super papers and alphabet stickers I bought at the shop on Friday.

Ooh La La

I have been busy working on the November kit for Scrapaholix. I have made two layouts and still have plenty of goodies left in my kit for another layout or several cards. This months kit features the use of cork on your page as the technique. The papers are from My Mind's Eye - Ooh La La for him range.

This first page features my daughter Emily's goblin, Magpie. Please see earlier posts here and here. I used a sketch from Pencil Lines as my inspiration for the shape of this layout. There is a lot of distressing on this layout bu crumpling, sanding and inking. I used sizzlets and the Side Kick to create the letters. The frames and swirls are raised up with 3D foam pads and I enhanced all the little dots on the paisley swirls with white opal (from a previous kit) and mint green Perfect Pearls and Cinnamon Stickles all by Ranger Inks.


Garden raffia finished off the natural effect started with the cork and the colour scheme.





In my second layout I have used an old photograph of Alan's grandfather Ernest Frank Cooper, born 1875. The photo was twice the size so I had to scan it in two halves and stitch it together.
If you look closely it has been heavily enhanced with pen and ink at some stage. Ernest lived in Bedfordshire and was a farm labourer.

For the layout I used tho sizzlets again and cut the title and the photo corners. Played around flipping the double sided paper and used lots of the paper embellishments.



November's kit contains:

8x8" sheet of cork
My Mind's Eye - Oh La La
2 x For Him Papers (double sided)
1 x For Him accessories sheet
4 sheets Cor'dinations card stock -
2 x Vanilla Cream
1 x Forest
1 x February Gold

Please see the Scrapaholix site for details of the November crops.

It's a Family Thing

I saw a beautiful layout called 'All things grow with love' by Lynn Biermann (see below) on the Basic Grey website and then again when I was looking on Scrapbook.com. I love the way the hearts work around the scalloped circle to make such an interesting shape. Lynn's inspiration came from a sketch by Liz Qualman.

Often if I decide to scrap lift, I will choose different papers, but these colours work so well with the photo of the triplets, and I just happened to have them both left in my Lemonade collection pack, so I decided to stick to the same papers and colours.
The photo I have used is the one I posted about a few weeks ago -
Seventeen Years Later, same adults, new set of triplets!

I used my QuicKutz dies for the all three hearts and the flower stems. The flowers are cut using two different size retro flower punches. My lettering was created with Basic Grey rubons and Making Memories felt alphabet stickers. I made use of scraps of lace and ribbon. There are a lot of crystals on this layout, I used the smallest pink and blue gems I could find in my sash. I bought the beautiful Flutter Vine embellishment by Prima from Cardinal Colours at the last crop.

If you want to see more of Lynn's work pop on to her blog, Pretty Paper Swirls, or take a peek at her layouts on Scrapbook.com where she is known as 'Foamy'. Well worth a closer look.

Just popped back to add this image of the layout I did about four years ago using the photo from seventeen years ago!

Old Favourite

Going through my stash, I came across these Marjolein Bastine stickers the other day. I knew I had them somewhere and spent some time looking for them a while back. I wanted to use them on a layout and make some more cards like these:

Some of the stickers come from a craft shop in Rochester called Frances Isles, others are from Cardinal Colours and more recently from Pinnacle Crafts at Barleylands.

The first picture shows (L to R) card for new baby, birthday, Anniversary and another birthday card. I just love those pencils and brushes.

Most of the card blanks are from Craftwork Cards, but some I made myself but cutting and folding watercolour paper into standard card sizes.



I used some old K and Co. papers and in some places the stickers are added to acetate and stuck to the card with 3D foam pads. The borders are pieced together from the sticker sheet outlines.


I have always admired the art work of Marjolein Bastine and when I used to do cross stitch made several of her kits up, they were produced by Lanarte and somewhere I have two UFO's (unfinished objects).

Here are my finished, framed cross stitch pictures.

I have a watering can which is nearly finished and another smaller sampler which has a lot more work needed on it. Think it would be good to dig these out and have another go at getting them finished.

... And because I have liked these designs for some time, my friend Barbara in America often sends me Hallmark cards and other things with the drawings on.