Craft Room Revamp

My craft room/study use to be my husbands music room but now he used the second bedroom however my desk still had 2 computer monitors and a sound mixer on so crafting area was limited. The computers weren't used! However....yesterday Lee finally got round to sorting it out so I could set up my Cricut Mini and have room for my sewing machine etc. 

This is it currently but I'm waiting on my Spectrum Noir storage trays which will go where the blue box is (my pens are currently in the black rolls on top of the white drawers) and I'm also going to get a shelf just under where the two pieces of white paper are on the wall (they're my cricut mini guidance sheets)

I just got back from Hobbycraft (popped in after work) and managed to buy more Spectrum Noir pens (original style) for £3.50 for a pack of 6! So I now have all my core pens plus two of the larger packs meaning I now have 120 pens! Just the last two big packs left to get (birthday list!)

I'm off now to put all my Hobbycraft goodies away then start on dinner. 

Welcome home Cricut Mini!

I had such a lovely Christmas Day. The homemade crackers were brilliant as everyone got useable gifts not things that ended up in the bin. The crackers also cracked perfectly! My Dad did the jokes inside each cracker so it was nice not to have the same jokes you have each year and they were suited to each person. 

Inside all the crackers I filled (ie all but mine) I put a Molton Brown minature plus a handmade item. Mum had a keyring with their dog on, Dad got cufflinks with one of his pictures he had taken of a cat woman statue, Lee got cufflinks with his tattoo design on (treble clef and heartbeat) and my sister got earrings I'd made. In my cracker my Mum put a Revlon nail art nail varnish duo.

Also I recieved a Cricut Mini from my parents! I've wanted one for ages but haven't had the room and felt they were too expensive to justify buying one or someone buying one for me but you have to love Amazon Black Friday. I did know I was getting it so purchased a few cartridges I wanted if I could find them at a good price on eBay including Disney Dreams Come True and I made this quickly when I got home on Christmas Day before bed (we were up by 5.45am, at Mother-in-laws by 7.30, then at my parents by 12, home at 8.30pm)

If it doesn't move, it gets personalised with vinyl!

I think I may have a dodgy cricut blade as the cuts aren't that crisp but I have been playing with some vinyl and personalised my hard plastic beaker using Cricut Disney - Mickey Font

Merry Christmas!

Hope you all have a lovely Christmas and get lots of crafty goodies! I know one present in getting tomorrow and sooooio excited! 

Christmas Crackers

After buying the Tonic cracker die in August and having issues with the paper it came with (it kept tearing while putting the crackers together) I decided to just make my crackers from scratch myself. I used Centura pearl card stock for the main cracker and used the template from Simply Homemade magazine to draw then out the design. I added a wrap of silver adorable scorable plus some DoCraft sticky back fabric. I added cracker snaps from Hobbycraft, personalised the crackers with names and sprayed the whole thing with Crafters Companion Spray and Sparkle. 

I've not completely done them up yet as my Dad is doing the jokes for them and my Mum is putting a present in my cracker so I don't know what it is. Each cracker has a handmade hat, handmade personalised gift and another little gift. To stop the presents falling out or going missing I've wrapped them in a little parcel paper (I can't say what they are or it will spoil the surprise)

I'm really please with how these have come out and hope everyone enjoys them. 

Merry Christmas

My Saturday Morning

Moma porridge while making the Christmas crackers and listening to Christmas songs on Spotify

My Bauble in Cardmaking & Papercraft Magazine

Firstly sorry for the blog silence, I did blog but the posts didn't upload from last week. This post is from Monday (16th December)

You may remember my felt bauble from a few weeks ago. Well I sent a picture of it to Cardmaking & Papercraft Magazine as I got the inspiration from an up-cycling feature. Today after a hectic day at work I found my copy of the magazine had arrived and had a quick flick through to see how they used the free gifts when I saw my bauble! It was 'editors favourite'. I'm so surprised and happy

Now I really ought to start preparing dinner (currently leaning against kitchen sink with a half made coffee!)

Final Christmas Cards for this Year

This year I've made around 200 Christmas cards and these are the last 50 which I made for my parents company. 

I used Craft Artist to design the card and printed them onto a variety of different types of photo paper, attached to a card (all of which I scored on my Ultimate Pro) and also added an insert. We weren't sure if the gold would come out very good on the printer but it looked really great on both the glossy and mid gloss paper.

I'm really please on how these came out.

Christmas and Birthday Card in One

My sister asked me earlier today if I could make a birthday and Christmas card in one for her friend whos birthday is a few days before Christmas so I thought I'd have a go. I didn't want it to look too strange but found a great embelishment on the Fizzy Moon Home for Christmas Digikit on Craft Artist. The embellishment has the Fizzy Moon bear hanging a banner while wearing Christmas clothing and I added 'Happy Birthday' to the banner.

Once printed I'm going to be adding some glitter to the santa hat and some glossy accents to the balloons.

I love using Craft Artist to make cards. I didn't really like digi crafting when I began crafting but now find it's great for making quick cards, making cards on behalf of other people so you can show them options, and if you just want to play around without getting messy or wasting your craft stash if your not sure what you want.

Crafty Creatives Christmas Box

Recently I've had an awful chest infection which seems to have gone on forever, but I got something lovely in the post last week....the Crafty Creatives Christmas Box! I'd ordered this back in September for £20 plus p&p - although I stopped my Crafty Creatives subscription this was a one off box and I thought I'd treat myself as I love Christmas crafting.

The box arrived Wednesday morning while I waited for my oven to be installed (after 6 weeks without an oven) and was so excited when my Mum brought in my post (she came round to help when the oven was delivered). The box came in a red bag instead of the normal pink bag and was packed with goodies - so much so that you couldn't get it back in the box to shut it properly!

Here is a Vine or the unpacking (I hope this works ok, I've never tried adding these before):

The box included:
Wooden snowflakes
Tree shaped beads
Christmas cameo
Stix2 Wrapping Seals (see my post http://www.saraleighuk.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/christmas-wrapping-and-using-some-bits.html for a review of these)
Three cardboard cones which fitted together like a Christmas tree (like the Decopatch models)
Christmas tree stickers
Christmas papers
Card blanks and envelopes
Mini coloured bells
2 gift boxes to cut and assemble (assembled below

The contents of the box also included three kits. I don't usually like the kits but these looked quite good including lip scrub (with 5 little tubs), a felt decoration and a beaded bauble.

I've not made the lip scrub yet but ended up using the items from the felt decoration and beaded bauble kits in other ways. I used the felt from the felt decoration kit, along with the two small wreath rings to make wreaths to go round the bottom of candles. I'm a bit addicted to die cutting small flowers out of felt to decorate things with at the moment so I covered the wreaths with wool (wrapping it round) and then layered the ring up with felt flowers and adding some glitter. I used the felt from the kit as well as some of my own. I then did the same to the Christmas tree/cardboard cones.

With the bauble I put the beads in my stash and decorated the bauble with some glittered snowflake stickers (our Christmas tree is black with black, white and silver decorations so decorated it in this way so it stays in keeping with our theme).

With the Christmas tree beads I coloured them with my Spectrum Noir pens to make them red and deep purple to stick with my wrapping theme and then glittered them up. I've used them on some of my Christmas tags and will be using them on Christmas crackers too

Christmas Card - A Different Type Of Card For Me

This is a different type of card for me. I used glossy accents for the first time and used this cheeky image from Kenny K. 

I was having a look at some blogs recently and found some lovely digi stamps including some from Kenny K so had a look and found this image which I really liked and thought it would be perfect for my husbands Christmas card. I coloured it with Spectrum Noirs and added glossy accents to the bow, lips and eyes as well as on the 'to my husband' sentiment, scroll and bow in the bottom right corner.

I was so excited to give this card to my husband and he really liked it (it's the first card up in our flat lol) 

I apologise for the photo of the card on the radiator. My craft room is currently Christmas present central and I cannot get to the desk for all the presents, wrapping things and piles of Christmas cards to send out.

I've entered this card into the Through the Purple Haze Christmas Challenge which you can visit by clicking here

Christmas Wrapping - and using some bits from #ccchristmas

I decided how I was going to wrap my Christmas presents for this Christmas in Decrmber last year while finishing off the Disney Princess Christmas paper (it took nearly three years to finish off the Disney rolls I'd brought from Costco....hubby didn't seem that impressed when I arrived home with them...). So this year I was going to wrap all my presents in parcel paper, add stamps and ribbon but after wrapping one I found the tape didn't want to stick (unless I used lots of it) so I did a few parcels this way and sent Lee to pick up some nice paper from Aldi (by nice I mean modern and not too colourful) and he came back with two lovely rolls. I also had to wrap my sisters huge parcel so normal wrapping paper was much easier. I added curling ribbon and some handmade tags. On some I used the tree beads from Crafty Creatives Christmas Box and on others used Christmas stamps from Creative Stamping magazine (I've never brought this magazine but loved the stamps).

I also tried out the Stix2 wrapping seals that came with the Crafty Creatives Christmas box. These are adhesive discs to use instead of tape. They are really easy to use and having tried them on numerous shapes and sizes of presents I found they work best on small to medium sized parcels and ones which are square and firm as you need to press them on to ensure they give a firm seal. On larger presents and odd shaped ones I went back to using tape but these do definitely speed up wrapping 

The only downside to these is that the sheets are clear (as well as the seals) so if you put them down its a bit of a challenge to find them (I had four sheets on the go at one point). Also it's hard to see if you've used a sheet up, you have to feel for them or try to catch the light on them to see if there are any left. 

I wouldn't go out of my way to buy these but they were a nice addition in the Crafty Creatives Christmas Box.

Girly Birthday Card

I've been a bit quiet recently due to a chest infection which I still have but thought I'd post some cards which I made recently. I'm loving my new corner rounder (as you can see) and think it adds a whole new dimension to the cards. 

This card was made using Panda Paws backing card (I used it for the backing and the topper was actually from the background card too!). The sentiment and lacy pink card was from Hunkydory (the spring kit I believe). 

This card was used using toppers and backing card from Kanban Sugar Buttons. It's such a shame Kanban are no more, I love their toppers. 

The pink card and button card are glittered so this card really sparkles.

I'm going back to coughing and knitting now. Have a great weekend

Christmas Wreath Making With Women's Weekly and Hobbycraft

On 20th November I went to a workshop arranged by Woman's Weekly and Hobbycraft to make a Christmas Wreath. I'd seen the workshop on Facebook and booked tickets for my Mum and I.

I already have two wreaths but wanted to make my own and thought this sounded a great idea for £10. 

I arrived at Chelmsford Hobbycraft with my Mum and we found the workshop was going on upstairs so we made our way up. We were joined by two ladies from Woman's Weekly, one being Lifestyle Editor Jayne Marsden, two members of Hobbycraft and another 4 people who had booked onto to workshop. 

We were supplied with tea and biscuits while we crafted and each made our own green wreath, being shown how to add the different elements (lots of wire twisting).

We had a lovely time talking about Woman's Weekly and crafts we like and if we would like somewhere to share our makes online. The ladies at the workshop were into lots of different crafts including one lady who was currently doing a jewellery course. I explained that I liked lots of crafts but didn't really like projects where you can't do anything with them once finished, I like papercrafts where you can use them in someway as I don't have anywhere to store them and never know where to put things.

I really enjoyed making my wreath and it smells lovely with dried orange and cinnamon. My Mums was quite full in depth as she mainly used red berries on hers and I suggested she could use it as a ring for a large candle to make it a centre piece for the Christmas table which she thought was a great idea and maybe adding satsumas pierced with cloves 

The great thing about attacking the elements onto the wreath with wire means that we can change it whenever we want to. 

I've never been to a craft demonstration or workshop before but really enjoyed this one as we could do what we wanted and didn't just have to do what they said. 

Once we finished we all posed for a photo with our wreaths (keep a look out for me on the Woman's Weekly Blog.) I then went off to spend my vouchers we got for taking part. I brought a few bits I'd had my eye on but which weren't in my Christmas list - I brought liquid pearls (in a white, silver and gold), corner rounder punch and decoupatch glue. I did want to get glossy accents but they had run out so my Mums going to look for it when she goes shopping in there for my Christmas presents with the 20% voucher we each got. 

Christmas Decorations Using Felt Flowers

I've got quite a lot of felt and had this idea while laying in bed recovering from a migraine (the part where I think my head feels fine but am scared to move incase my migraine is just pretending it's gone)

I absolutely love cutting fabric and felt on my Sizzix Big Shot using the bigz dies and had a polystyrene ball from the Crafty Creatives birthday box still left over. 

The things I used to make the flower ball were:

Three colours of felt 

Polystyrene ball (mine had been drawn on when I was contemplating another project)

Red satin ribbon (5mm wide)

Sizzix Bigz Flower Layer #10 die and my BigShot

Silver glitter glue

Silicone glue 

To begin with I used the Sizzix Bigz Flower Layer #10 die and cut two large flower shapes from red felt (if you dont have a die like this you can cut one by hand, its only to cover the top and bottom of the ball and wont really be seen). I then cut lots of the small flowers from the die. I cut around 100 flowers from the felt in three colours(cutting 5 at a time...got to love Bigz dies) and put these to the side. You dont need 100 but I wanted enough for other projects. 

Take one large flower and cut a slit in the middle as wide as your ribbon then thread the two ends of your ribbon through the slit so you have a loop one side. Glue the two loose ends to the felt.

Next glue the flower with the ribnon to the top of your polystyrene ball (I used silicone glue for a firm hold) and place the other large flower on the bottom. The flower shape easily moulds round the ball due to the petals. 

Next cover the ball with your small flowers again I used silicone glue, and I started on the middle which didnt have any felt on, built this up and then covered the rest of the ball. I found it was best to randomly dot glueon the ball, add the flowers then work on the gaps inbetween. If you also glue just the centre you get a more 3D look to the flowers.

You can stop here but I then added some glitter glue to the centre of each flower (that was showing). To do this I put my flower ball in a small cup so I could glitter one side without touching it, left it to dry, turned the ball round and glittered the other side.

I got so enthusiasic about covering the ball with flowers that I did it to the woodern hearts I got free with Cardmaking and Papercraft magazine. This would be great on the front of a card and the recipient can then hang it on their tree.

Youcould also use just one colour felt to fit in with your theme or leave off the ribbon, add a wooden stick/rod and put it in a little bucket or pot for a table decoration (which could be used all year round)

Crafty Birthday Card

Now this is kind of spooky...I made the below card at the weekend as a break from Christmas card making and today I've seen Polkadoodles Digi Choosday Challenge is to make a craft related card!

I love the Emma Canning Digis and brought her CD back in August from Polkadoodles and loved the digi I've used in this card as it has a Sizzix Big Shot style die cutting machine in. I coloured it in Spectrum Noirs and framed it using a frame made die cut from foil takeaway tray lids (see one of my previous posts). I used similar dies to the one in the digi to bring it all together then I used felt flowers from Craft Artist as embellishments. 

Back to Christmas crafts now for me - can't wait for the Christmas Wreath making event at Hobbycraft tomorrow. I'll post a picture of our finished wreaths once they're done (I booked tickets for my Mum and I and as we have similar tastes they'll probably be very similar) 

Love Robbins...

I made this card using the toppers and background 'Love Robins...' card from Hunkydory and added a bit of texture with an embossed foil lid (see on of my previous posts) with the embossing folder from Crafters Inspiration Christmas 2013 edition.

The camera didn't pick it up well but the sentiment in the bottom right says 'merry Christmas' 

Reindeer Friends

I made this card with the Reindeer Friends topper and background sheet from Hunkydory along with one of the sentiments I die cut using the foil lids. The sentiment is from the Tonic cracker set 

Up cycling Unused Foil Tray Lids

I use foil trays a lot at home as I make meals and freeze them but I always seem to have loads of left over foil lids (as I usually freeze 3 meals and use one or I cook stuffing in them) but I've found a great use for them! They are great to put through a die cutting machine to make a mattish silver embellishment so great for Christmas plus fingerprints done show up as easily as on mirri-board.

They also emboss amazingly and done cracker (unlike some cardstocks)

I used a mix of spellbinders, sizzix sizzlets, Tonic dies and Darice embossing folders (plus one free from Simply Homemade). They cut great in my Big Shot and came out so easily. 

Do you have any novel uses for other household items in crafting?

Twelve Drummers Drumming Card

I used the Hunkydory Twelve Days of Christmas topper set and cut a little window big enough for the drummer boy toppers, then covered the base of the card with adorable scorable card. I used foam pads to raise up the patterned card with the window cut out. I used 3D glue gel to put the drummer boy in the window and added a bow. For the sentiment I used Anitas gold peel offs from DoCrafts 

Hunkydory Christmas Card

Another cards made using Hunkydory toppers using Stylish Season - Pretty Presents.

I used peel offs on an off cut of the boarder to make my own sentiment and glued a bow to the bow on the tree to give it added dimension 

Christmas pudding Christmas card

Thursday I made my first ever 8 x 8 card and love them!!!! 

Here is a card made from Hunkdory toppers and backing card. I used Classic Christmas - A Festive Recipe.

The lattice background was cut by hand and took an hour but I think it's worth it 

Leaving my craft room now after a fight with cracker making - 2 hours and the Tonic cracker card keeps breaking when I go to glue it together so giving up for today and watching a film on the sofa with my husband 

I've made crackers successfully before with the die but the cracker card packs are thinner than the card I used previously