Papercraft Inspirations Decoupage Free Gift

In this months Papercraft Inspirations the free gift is a decoupage booklet by Crafters Companion and a pair of decoupage scissors.

Papercraft Inspirations is the only magazine I subscribe to and did so after only one issue. I love how they give you a booklet and free gift each month so you can discover new crafting techniques.

I've done decoupage before but my cutting out is awful, this was before I tried using the decoupage scissors! My normal scissors are small fiskars ones and just thought it was my fault I couldn't cut thing neatly. I'd never heard of decoupage scissors but they have really think sharp tips to cut really finely and thin blades to glide smoothly round shapes. The kit has three A5 designs, seaside, playroom and outside a house with cobbled streets. All bits were easy to cut, although due to the small scissors it was uncomfortable by the third set I cut out (I'm guessing usually most people could only cut one design at a time).

I've not made the cards yet, just cut the bits out due to lack of foam pads but have purchased a silicone glue syringe which should be here soon as I find it better than the fiddly squares (and cheaper).

Once the cards are made I'll try and upload photos. (update, photos of these cards can be seen on the blog post entitled 'Busy Busy Busy', unfortunately I was in a rush getting them ready for my friends charity tea party so forgot, while making them at midnight, to take individual photos)

*this blog was written while drying my hair (I'm very good at multitasking).

Had a lovely surprise this morning

My husband came back from the sorting office with a few parcels for me, one of them I though was maybe some things to test from BuzzAgent but it was full of craft goodies! I'd won a competition from Cardmaking & Papercrafting Magazine!

I received a load of The London Line goodies:

• 8 x 8 Designer Paper pack (half glittered) - full of flowers, cakes, union jacks, umbrella and butterflies
• 8 x 8 glittered pyramid decoupage full of animals doing sports, with presents or with a beefeater
• 2 packs of glitter stickers
• 2 clear stamps
• 3 lots of craft twine

So much stuff... What to make first!

The packaging is lovely, especially the paper packs and decoupage pack as it shows exactly what you get including the glitter! These a lovely girly pictures and they have a few hedgehogs in hehe!

Better order more silicone glue and bigger acrylic blocks!

Tea Bag Folding

Quick post to show you my first attempt at tea bag folding (folding circles of paper)

Snow White Card

Here's a card I made today using my Tilda stamp, mirror card and backing papers from Kate Knight's Handmade Cards magazine.

My Snow White Stamp Arrived!

While looking in the In2Crafting blog I saw a few years ago someone made a snow white card with a really cute stamp and I went on the hunt to find one myself!

This morning a parcel from Norway arrived and I've been stamping and colouring ever since!

How cool is this stamp!

A quick trip to my local craft store turned into two visits!

I went to visit my local craft store yesterday, In2Crafting in Wickford, Essex, for a few bits for my Christmas cards. I'm not making my Christmas cards just yet but wanted to get the design finalised so I know what I'm doing (and don't end up buying more and more Christmas dies when I won't be using them). 

I went with my sister and brought some textured brown card for my reindeer's body (the rough design was just white card coloured with promarkers), sequin dots for his nose, card blanks, Marianne Designs dies (Merry Christmas and Seasons Greetings), and some other little bits. We came back home then remembered we wanted some card toppers and also remembered seeing some Christmas toppers which I was wishing I'd brought.....so we went back!

I love In2Crafting as their items are really well priced, it's not too big there and the staff are always on hand to help if you need assistance. I'd had my eye on the Marianne Designs Merry Christmas set but was looking at paying nearly £8 for them, but in the store they were just under £7!

Must now use what I've brought and not go on a spending spree again! (even though my second visit cost me only £4). 

I do still need some other Christmas dies for my parents Christmas cards and for my sisters cards but I'm waiting until we find something we really like rather than just buy things for the sake of it.

Having just searched for In2Crafting online, I've just found they have a blog! Why not head over and pay them a visit http://in2crafting.blogspot.co.uk/

Testing out my deer die

I brought the sizzix deer die for my Christmas cards this year (brought it early while cheap) and have only just tried it out after having it for over a week!

I don't have any brown card or paper so used white and coloured it in myself.

Forget Rudolph, this is Diva the diamonte nosed reindeer! Lol

It was just a rough first try to see how. I can decorate it etc.

Full on glitteriness

I am covered in glitter glue after making this card. The glitter glue bottle split (I've stuck it back together with silicone glue :os ) Not sure why it split but the plastic of the bottle seemed a bit hard!

Anyway...after moving all my craft stuff into our study I've made a card for my husbands aunt who is 50 this month and just went a bit glitter mad taking inspiration from the glittery flowery chipboard '50' and just took it from there. It was a bit of a quick card as I was told we needed it by the end of today even though her birthday isn't until the end of the month (hope the silicone glue dries by then!)

Craft Adhesives

I seem to be forever collecting craft adhesives but still don't have the one I want for the job!

I have tacky PVA glue which is good for gems and ribbons, silicone adhesive for decoupage and gems, pritt stick type glue for flat items, roller adhesive and double sided tape for layering backgrounds and big bits, sticky square foams for decoupage and copydex for materials. 

I am still to find an adhesive that will allow me to stick paper onto card to use for decoupage that doesn't make the paper curl. For example in some magazines you get toppers within the magazine which I stick onto card to cut out and use, and recently there were some digital downloads printed free with a craft magazine but they were on paper and too flimsy, but as soon as I stuck them on card it make the card curve. Even pritt stick has a similar effect or doesn't glue all the way up to the side properly.

Does anyone have any suggestions? 

Sizzix Dies from QVC

Last week on QVC the Todays Special Value of christmas craft papers sold out so they did a one time only offer of Sizzix dies. I wasn't sure at first but after seeing the demonstrations (and not having any Bigz dies or embossing folders) I decided to buy the deal, especially since I had a £10 off voucher for QVC! 

The deal included 3 Bigz (flower with leaves, large flower and large leaves), 4 embossing folders, a cut and emboss die of bluebell like flowers, heart flower sizzlets and a DVD from Sizzix.

The pack arrived on Saturday morning and I sat down to watch to DVD in the afternoon (after a nice little visit to an art gallery in Westcliff on Sea to see my Dads photo on display and a spot of lunch and shopping with my Dad and Mum in Leigh-on-Sea). The DVD is really informative but a bit of a pain as there isn't a 'play all' feature, so you have to click each short clip separately. It did have a lot of great information on, especially about sizzlits and how to build them up.

The dies are really lovely and the Bigz are perfect as they fill up large space so not much is needed on the card if you want to keep it simple.

Below you can see two quick cards I made with the dies (plus a sentiment embossing folder I already had from crafts-too). They were really easy to make and I used a lot of ideas picked up from the presentation on QVC such as making the petals curve by running your nail across them, and making them more 3D by folding the petals.

I'm really loving the Bigz dies and another die arrived on Monday for my Christmas cards which I can't wait to try out.

Excited after my craft drawers were shown on QVC!

Catherine Huntley tweeted pictures earlier of their craft room at QVC and asked for photos of viewers craft rooms but as out study/music room/craft room isn't finished (ie only half my craft stuff is in there so far, the rest is surrounding me in the living room) I thought I'd send a photo of my craft drawers I made on Monday and it was shown on TV!

Quite funny as I was out of the room on the phone and the photo was shown just as I came in the room.

Craft stash storage using old Glossyboxes

I subscribe to Glossyboxes and currently have my craft bits in 4 of them.

Box 1 - Promarkers

Box 2 - card blanks

Box 3 - finished cards

Box 4 - toppers (mostly things from craft magazines)

I've seen on a few cosmetic blogs that people have made drawers from the boxes and use this to store their make up in but I have another use for mine...

My husband (nearly wrote fiancé, still not used to calling him my husband) made some room yesterday for me in the study as I am turning the living room into a craft room! Sizzix dies all over the place, boxes on chairs and under them! I thought I'd make this set of drawers as a neat storage item in the study so everything is in one place without boxes falling over.

I used the below blog for instructions on how to make the drawers:

http://sorjanban.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/re-using-glossybox-es.html

I used silicone adhesive rather than superglue and then tapped everything in place to hold it more securely.

My boxes are all different colours but it doesn't matter as I want to cover mine with craft paper I have from magazines. As you will see from the photos, the top tray has the word 'cards' stamped on it and some drawers have marks on them from colouring on top of them so that's another reason I'm covering them.

I put glossybox ribbon loops on the drawers for handles and punched holes and threaded the ribbon through as the drawers are a tight fit and glued on ribbon would just come off when pulled.

The only thing I would like with these drawers would be to add runners as if you take the bottom drawer all the way out, the top ones would fall down but it's not to bad as I will just move the drawers around.

I'm going to use the top tray for my adhesives and scissors as they are then on hand whenever I need them. The other drawers I will use for my pens, card blanks and toppers. I have another spare box for my finished cards so I can store them separately.

The photos show the progress so far before I cover it with papers and the final product!