Polka Doodles & Me

Create and Craft TV

2012-02-27T09:00:00.001Z

Just a quickie reminder - I will be on Create & Craft tomorrow Tues 28th Feb at 10am with more Candy Doodling goodness!
This is my last hour until later in March so make sure you check it out! xx

Stitches 'n Swirls at Elisabeth Bell's World

2012-02-25T09:00:00.000Z

Hello peepsicles! HOW many posts this week? Oh my! I can't keep up, think I need a bloggy PA lol!
Today is Challenge day over at Elisabeth Bell's World with my wonderful teamies - and my first EBW post, yay!! Exciting! I am loving being on the GDT over at EBW and Digibells, it's really pushing me into making lots of cards for me,me,me!! This month we had the theme of Swirls and Stitches - two of my favourites!
I used this adorable Li'l Princess image which is a digi over at Elisabeth Bell's gallery for a snippet of casheroo.

I love this image and I have to say I was well pleased with the colouring on this one, it's so soft. I must admit I did spend longer than my usual rushy 5 mins colouring this and you can tell, it does take a little while to get colouring spot on I think. I wish I always had hours to spend on one image LOL! I used a mix of Promarkers and Flexmarkers on this.

The Papers are a mix - the blue gingham is from Magical Winter (although a wintery CD there are so many bits of it that can be used all year round), and the pink dot and check is again from Pretty Sweet, I am so in love with that Strawberry colour it may well inspire a whole collection of it's own I think!

We got lots of new Marianne Design creatables in the shop this week and I am loving these pretty flowers...

The sentiment ticket is from the brand new revamped Candy Doodles collection - looove these cute little tickets, watch out for lots of stamps coming with these...

hmm, piccie overload maybe, but who cares LOL! Have a great weekend everyone - you can catch me on Create and Craft Tuesday morning at 10am with more Candy Doodles - so I will be prep prep prepping all weekend! xx

Summer Fever

2012-02-24T19:37:00.000Z

My blog seems to have turned into a Digibells blog LOL!! I've made tons of cards lately but I can't share any of them at the moment, I'm so sorry! There are good things to come though!
Over on the Polkadoodles blog today we have a Summer Fever challenge going on to blow away the winter blues and a chance to win my brand new Candy Doodles Collectors edition CD - make sure you're in it to win it!

You can get the new CD here. Candy Doodles was my second ever collection but it has been supervamped and now has a brand new collection of digi characters and paper called Candyland, together with some great new sentiments too - you'll LOVE it! And if you already have the old CD, we have a special UPGRADE version for you to trade in!! What a fab idea!!

On another point, just a reminder about issue 2 of the Pen & Paper Circle too! We are now taking orders for this and you only have until 7th March to get your order in and snag yourself a copy! I have to say I love the stamps and CD on this issue, the papers are totally SCRUMMY, and the stamps are sooo versatile!! I've lost count of how many people have asked me if we're reprinting Issue 1 and can we bring it back because they missed it...the answer is a big NO! The whole idea of the Circle kit is that you pre-order and know exactly what you're getting up front in terms of stamps - I don't know another kit club that offers you that peace of mind, so what do you have to lose!?? Get ordering now!x

24 Feb - Creative Genius!

2012-02-24T09:00:00.003Z

It's Friday, yay! And it's my turn to host the post over at Digibells today! Have you done the blog hop yet? See below or over on the Digibells blog!
This week I picked one of my fave images "Creative Genius" from the Elisabeth Bell gallery (lets face it, they're all my faves really!). In a fit of laziness at not being bothered to bring my pens back upstairs from the weekends shows I decided I would go back to basics instead and picked up a plain old cheapo HB pencil.

Now, the trick with doing this technique is that you really do need to pay attention to the shading but there are a few different things you can try too - I love the texture you can achieve with pencils of any kind. On this image I used a crosshatch pattern...

The card itself will be my Mothers Day card this year I think. I decided that to really show off the image and the shading it was best surrounded by white so I got out my Marianne Design swirl dies and this GORGEOUS new Anja die which isn't shown to it's best in this photo I have to say, it's been swamped a bit by the flowers. Its one of the new Creatables and only cuts on one side so you can use it as a border or a pocket, it's so versatile, I love it! Talking of the flowers - see on the photo how they look blue against the rest of the card? They ARE white, they're made from our Ultimate Graphic and considering that I thought the other elements and the card were all made from a brilliant white cardstock the flowers are showing a true blue white against them - it never cease to amaze me at how great this card is!

Have a great weekend everyone! x

19 Feb - Patti's Kisses

2012-02-19T06:00:00.007Z

It's a Lissy Bee & Digibells day! Yay!
Today I decided to use this beauty of an image for this week's post. This is called Patti's Kisses - isn't it adorable?...

I haven't done much doodling lately on cards so I went a little overboard on the border here but it's nice to have a change I think! These papers are all from the Magical Winter CD yet again and are the most DELISH auberginey purpley colours...in fact, if you have Promarkers, this colour is called SHALE. It's one of those tones that changes colour depending what else you put it with - it can be purple or brown or even blue-grey, loooove this colour so much and I have to say I blummin' love this card too! I think the whole colour scheme works really well.

I'm still in need of that light meter, am heading off to track one down right now! In the meantime make sure you checkout the Digibells blog this week for lots of inspiration and go download your Patti's Kisses right now!

17th Feb - Digibells Blog Hop - win some candy! LINK UP IMAGE!

2012-02-17T16:00:00.000Z

Hey everyone - woohoooo!!!
It's blog hop time over at Digibells today!

The hop will start at 9 AM today, ARIZONA TIME ( 7hrs behind the UK!)

If you got here from the Digibells blog then you're in the right place!

This month Elisabeth has created the most gorgeous digi image which is inspired by nothing else but loooove of course! What else would it be in February, huh? Ooohh I love this image, her little clouds and cherubs are so cute!!

You have 2 chances to win this lovely digi so read carefully! ...

1.To be in with a chance of getting your mitts on this adorable digi image, you must hop through and leave comments on EACH team member's blog. To improve your chances to win Lynda will pick 2 blogs at random that the winners that will be picked from in the comments - so do make sure you leave a comment on each blog! You have until March 2, 2012 at 9 AM (Arizona time) to leave comments. The winners will be picked and posted to the Digibells blog on Saturday March 3, 2012.

2. The second way to win will be to do the hop as above, leave comments and then to make a card and post it on the Digibells blog. Your theme must be " Lots of Lace" and you can use ANY Elisabeth Bell image. This challenge will also end on March 2, 2012 at 9 AM Arizona Time and the winner will be posted on the Digi Bell's blog the next morning. (Saturday March 3)

So, you have 2 ways to win so make sure you get in quick and don't miss the deadline - I know lots of you Polkadoodlers already have Elisabeth Bell stamps anyway, so come on, get creating!.....Good luck everyone - keep reading to the bottom of this post to get your next hop link!...

Here is what I did with this adorable image...hope I did it justice...

So, now you need to hop on over to see the lovely Lynda and leave her a comment too!

(I'll let you into a secret, the first time I coloured the heart it looked so real it kinda freaked me out a little so I had to colour the whole thing again so it didn't look like the little cherub was sat on top of roadkill LOL!)...ttfn xx

15 Feb - Digibells First Post - Click!

2012-02-15T06:00:00.005Z

Oo exciting!
Today is my first official post on the Digi Bells blog!
Woohoo, get me and checkout the post here! So much inspiration in one place, the Digibells team are just awesome!
To mark the occasion I have a card to share today and I really quite like this one. I chose the gorgeous 'Click' image from the Elisabeth Bell digi collection. This is a new image and I think it's just fabulous! Elisabeth always really thinks about her designs and they each have a proper tale and character behind them, something I totally understand as I have to do that with my own characters too or they are lifeless drawings with no meaning. You can get the digi stamp here and in my opinion it's worth every cent...

I love the whole way this card turned out. As soon as I saw Janiel and Lynda use this image the other week, even before I was picked to Guest for the Digibells team, I knew what I wanted to do with it. I bought this Tim Holtz camera film many many moons ago but as it's such precious stash it has remained squirried away in my speshy drawer for at least a year or so waiting for a perfect moment like this!

I coloured her with Pro and Flexmarkers, must sort out my lighting a bit, the camera seems to be washing out my images slightly so I clearly have my light wrong, I must get a new light meter. (if you don't know what this does, it's a very simple gadget that basically makes sure you always take a photo with the right setting - I haven't used one in 25 years and I keep promising myself to get one again - no more photoshopping ever!).

The strawberry paper is from Pretty Sweet (again) and the blue spotty is from Magical Winter. Tee hee, the little paper flowers were made last week whilst I was in the hairdressers! They do laugh at me, in I went armed up with sheets of paper, scissors and glue and started making flowers sat there with my hair covered in bleach and foils! I think the other customers must just think I'm some big old crazy weird lady with some kind of OCD sat there cutting paper with big orange scissors! Well, it's 3 hours of total boredom I can put to better use every 6 weeks! I might go in with supplies and make some cards they can sell for me next time, who knows! It's always so embarassing because the girls tell whatever customers are in there that I am this big shopping TV star LOL - I could literally die with shame!
Anyway, back to the card - I finished this as ever, with gorgeous Marianne Design swirlie wirlies. The sentiment is one of the stamps from our first issue of Pen & Paper Circle - if you missed out on it then hard cheddar, it was an exclusive but man o man have I used it loads lately! The next issue of PPC is on saleNOW so make sure you catch it quick!

Make sure you check into the Digi Bells blog on 17th Feb because we have a big Blog Hop, woohooo!! See you there!! xx

12 Feb - Digibells Little Best Friends

2012-02-12T06:00:00.007Z

Hello everyone! Time for another lovely Elisabeth Bell creation today! I decided to go all summery to try and snap us all out of the wintery weather and I've been dying to colour these cuties who are called Little Best Friends in for ages. This image is available from Elisabeth Bells digi shop - adorable aren't they! I'm sure I had a red bucket like that and that is so me and my little best friend Bella, we were inseparable until we were 16! I got so carried away colouring this one that I ended up doing the seaside to match.

I made this last weekend and had the post all scheduled in advance (get me, so organised!) and then this morning I woke up at 6am with seashells and starfish in my head! This happens to me quite often and once the thought was there and I was visualising how much better it would look, I couldnt fall asleep again! So much for a Saturday lie-in! The little starfish were just cut from some scrap paper and coloured with a ginger and spice promarker. I added a few little white highlights with a white pen then went back over with ginger once it was dry - this takes the edge of the harsh white but still leaves a slight highlight, I do this little trick a lot, but make sure you let it dry! Then I made a little pearl in a shell, again with scrap paper and coloured with pastel beige. Cute huh, it really did finish the card off.

I kinda wish I'd chosen a different colour to the peach as it looks a bit too dirty for my liking but it was a little late once I'd glued it all down! Make sure you head on over to the Digibells blog - we have posts almost daily over there with loads of inspiration galore for you all. We also have some exciting news about our upcoming Blog Hop soon so make sure you check it out! Don't forget you can also buy Elisabeth Bell's clear stamps from Belles n Whistles or if you're in the UK, you can buy almost all the Belles n Whistles range from Polkadoodles if you want it a little faster. I'm so pleased we're working with Summer over at Belles n Whistles now, she's soo lovely!

10 Feb - More exciting News!

2012-02-10T06:00:00.001Z

No card from me today, been really busy this week! BUT, over at the Polkadoodles challenge today we are all about lovey dovey hearts and there is a lovely digi up for grabs all free, free, free so get on over there pronto!

I do have some really exciting news though and I'm still getting over the shock - I found out yesterday that Polkadoodles has been nominated in the Craft Business Trade awards as Best UK Manufacturer! Woohoo! This is amazing news, I had no idea until someone gave me a heads up about it! We are up against Personal Impressions, Sizzix and Woodware who are all really big hitting companies so I'm truly flattered that enough people know who we are and what we do to have nominated us up there in the top 4! In fact, I'm still reeling about the whole thing. I guess sometimes you just get caught up in your own little universe so much you sometimes need a reality check - and what a nice one it is too! I don't think we'll win but quite honestly I really don't care, I consider it a real achievement to be on the same platform as the other 3 brands up there and it means a lot that these nominations have also come from the UK trade - I think we all want to be recognised by our peers at some time for the work we do, don't we. Of course, I've said it before and I will again a million times - we are nothing without our lovely customers and that is YOU, so a huge thanks to you all for helping us reach this point. Right, I'm welling up now *sniff*. Have a great weekend everyone!

Craft Stamper Feb issue

2012-02-07T08:49:00.000Z

I am very lucky to be asked to contribute to Craft Stamper magazine occasionally and I'd totally forgotten about this project until someone told me they'd seen it!
The gallery this month is all about Home and whatever your interpretation of that is, so here's mine, sorry if you find it boring that I use these stamps over and over again but I just don't tire of them, I have to say...

The sentiment is one i found online and as I didn't have anything else around me at the time I just quickly typed it up in Word and then cut the words out - I do this a lot when I don't have the right stamp to hand and need a quick sentiment, I love putting them all criss crossy at jaunty angles...

I coloured the images with a mixture of Promarkers and Flexmarkers and then also added some Wink of Stella sparkles to the lights. Again my camera has washed it out a little, I think it looks much nicer in the magazine, there's much more depth to the colouring.

If by some chance you've never seen the stamps before, they are from my Neighbours range and you can find them here on the Polkadoodles website.

Exciting news!

2012-02-05T14:09:00.000Z

Hi everyone! I have exciting news today!
I don't get much 'me' time to craft for me these days as I'm always so busy making samples for Polkadoodles and everything else, but I am determined to make time for my own crafting this year, I'm particularly fed up of never having a card when I need one LOL! It's really important that you don't become stale with creativity and when you work with your hobby sometimes you can get in a rut, especially if you only craft with one particular type of product. Much as I love my own designs I also love loads of other designers' work too and Elisabeth Bell is truly one of my favourite designers on the planet, she just evokes my memories of childhood with her gorgeous images.Last year we started to stock the gorgeous Belles n Whistles range of Elisabeth's designs and I adore them so much but she also has her own exclusive digi range too. Anyway my news is that the girls on the Digibells team have kindly asked me to join them as a Guest Designer until April and I am sooo pleased!! I consider this a great honour as the girls on the team are such talented designers so it's extremely exciting and make sure you follow the Digibells blog, it's great for inspiration! I'd just like to wish Wendy and Rosie a big well done for making the GDT spot too, looking forward to seeing these girls work, the whole team is just fab!
So today is my first official GDT post! So here we go...

This gorgeous image is called I Love You This Much. To me she looks like she has the wind running through her hair and is just full of joie de vivre! I coloured her with a mix of Pro and Flexmarkers and wanted to get some lovely soft blending to make her look all vintagey and shabby chic (cant you just tell I am in such a craze of this right now!). I used one of my Grand Nesties and an Ironwork nestie for the message, then finished off with Marianne's flourishes which are some of my favourites I have to say. The Papers are from Pretty Sweet (again, groan! sorry but I have a big pile to hand which just seem to suit everything I'm making right now!)

The actual card shape is a parentheses (brackets) shaped card which I folded in half, I adore this shape right now. I added stickles for some sparkles and that's it!
So don't forget to head on over to the Elisabeth Bell digishop where you can pickup this image for a snippety snip!
bbs xx

Swoon...

2012-02-05T06:00:00.002Z

Mine.

All mine.
Minnie, move over girlfriend, you have nothing on me!
; )

Show me the light...

2012-02-04T06:00:00.003Z

Hello again! It seems I am keeping my promise to blog more in 2012!

Just a quickish post today to show you my project from this month's issue of Simply Cards & Papercraft magazine. As you may or may not know, I was asked to join the design team as a regular contributor for 2012 and after much discussion we now bring you a "hopefully interesting and useful" colouring tutorial each month. SCP is one of my favourite craft mags as I find it caters for absolutely everyone and is informative as well as bringing lots of good quality freebies and news you want to know.
So this issue I am concentrating on Directional Light within colouring and this is something I know a lot of people do struggle with. There's a really great technique in there which will get you working out your light and where it should be easy peasy stylee so if it's something you want to be better at then make sure you get a copy as it's out now.
This is my project...

I have to say I forgot all about posting this until I saw a reminder from someone about it and now I've refound the piccies I love the way the light is really soft on this image...

The image and the papers are of course from the much coveted Pretty Sweet CD (yes, yes, we will be making them into stamps as soon as we physically have the time to do so!)...this CD is sooo usable, I just reach for it time and time again, the papers really are to die for on here I think...

The flower is made from lots of hearts, creased down the centre and shaped and glued to a big blob of Pinflair glue. Some Marianne's dies of course and a little fringey fringe and that's it. The image was coloured with Flexmarkers, love the softness of it.

Right, well I'll be back Sunday with a very special post! x

Polkadoodles Challenge Wk4 - Looove!

2012-02-03T08:00:00.001Z

Hi everyone! I've managed to join in the PD challenge this week - very last minute.com as usual but better late than never hey! We are giving away a £10 voucher to the winner of this challenge so get yourself over there and enter as many times as you can! So as Valentine's is coming up the theme this week is to show some looove and hearts. Now, it's my Momma's birthday today so a big up massivo Happy Birthday Mum! I was a naughty tinker and kinda forgot to make a special card so I had a root about in my little stashbox to see if I had one that nice enough that was befitting my lovely mother. Indeed I did! Phewee! But as I was rooting about I had a great idea - I pulled out a card I'd made a few weeks back for something or other and decided to deconstruct it masterchef stylee and make it into something different. Ok, so it's not rocket science, but it meant I could make a card for today in 15 mins when I probably would have ended up not entering the challenge. So, cue card...

Now you can see this way back before Crimbo somewhere on this here blog, but to change it was not quite so easy as you think because of how certain elements are glued down originally.
First thing I did was twist it on it's side, originally the ribbon crossover was along the bottom. Next I had to pull off a load of die-cuts which didn't now work. I cut a heart from some paper and then distressed it up with some Ranger Crackle paint and grunged it a little. I took some new die-cuts from the adorable Marianne's and added them so they're twisting around the heart. I just happened to pickup a pile of printed stuff from the Pretty Sweet CD (the large gingham is from Magical Winter) and the girl was in it so I quickly cut her out and her feet are hiding a glue patch and then the bright pink dotty bit is actually some fabric which I'd made up into a ribbon length thanks to my new "Seambinder" gadget I bought off C&C for myself for Christmas (I made OH pay for it). Cut out some quick letters by hand from some scrap white paper and added a bow and a couple of buttons and that was it! Considering it was all a recyled card I quite like it! Why not give it a go? Root out those cards that are ok but you would change things if you could - and change them! It's quite therapeutic really, I was quite smug afterwards! x

Taking stock...

2012-01-30T18:49:00.001Z

Sometimes you just have to reflect a little, it always does you good to take stock. I was asked to take part in something a while back and totally forgot all about it until today. If you're a woman in business and have never heard of the FEA then you should check it out - inspiring real stories from inspiring real women. Grab a coffee and a choccie biccie and go have a good read.

Another "me" post

2012-01-28T18:45:00.002Z

Wooahhh I'm getting so selfish! crafting for me! who'dathunk it! My world must have gone mad!

Y'all know by now how much I love and love and love Elisabeth Bell's designs so here I am with another make. This is one of my favourite stamps from our Belles n Whistles range. I made this heart box whilst I was supposed to be prepping for my last TV show, I had no idea why I was making it mid-prep, my fingers just suddenly went off in another direction and I knew I didnt have time to be getting distracted with being on such a tight deadline but make it I did. Then I decided it was too nice to get lost on TV and then get stuck in the samples box and filed away to only see daylight for another show and I kept it on the side waiting to be decorated up when I had more time and could be more girlified and more liberal with what I wanted to do with it (TV samples can be a bit restricted in what you're allowed to use). So here it is, my little Valentine's box, and I love it so I'm keeping it for me me me! I'm also entering this into the Elisabeth Bell's Hearts, Hearts, Hearts challenge this month too. This is pic heavy but below is also how to make it so I hope you all like it too...

To make the box all I did was make a big heart shape, use that as a template to make another but make it a couple of millimetres larger all the way around (or make one smaller if it's easier!). Then cut some long strips of card about 1.5" wide, score at 0.5" right along the edge and fringe that scored section at about 5mm intervals all the way along edge, cutting in to the score line. I had to make 2 to fit around the whole heart, join them together with a strong glue.

Now fold back all those little fringey bits and fit the strip around the edge of the smaller heart to make the sides of the box, gluing as you go with a nice strong wet glue. The neater you can be with the edges the better so you might find you need to snip into the segments a little more to make it fit better, and it is worth it for the neater finish. Either glue the fringe under the heart or inside if you're going to decorate inside the box. It's actually really easy but just a tad fiddley diddley so make sure you do it before you add any nice decorations.

Now you need to do exactly the same to make a lid but this time you have to make sure the lid fits outside the base, hence making that 2nd heart a little bigger. Little tip - if you actually make the heart for the lid even bigger you can have an overlap and that makes it a bit more forgiving in terms of getting it all neat and tidy. Hence having the ruffley ribbon as it is hiding a multitide of sins, dont think I sat making this for hours, it was a quick job I can tell you! Once you're happy it all fits you can decorate! Great for adding little chocolates inside as a giftbox! hmm may use it as a hideyhole....ooo look what seems to have popped out when I took the lid off! ; )
xx

2012-01-27T09:58:00.000Z

It's time for Diddydoodles today!

Do you have under 16's who love to craft? If you do please tell them about our fab new challenge blog - we'd love to see what they can do and we ask our favourites each time to be Guests on the next challenge so it helps keep them motivated in their crafting!

I've been amazed at how great these youngsters are and how grown up all their cards are. Ok, so maybe some have a little bit of help from a grown up but I have no doubt that most of the work is all theirs! I LOVE that kids are so into craft, it's just brilliant and starting off the Diddydoodles challenge is undoubtedly one of the most rewarding things we've done at Polkadoodles, I just love it! The team are setting the challenges themselves, doing the comments and choosing the winners so all I do each time is just blog the post because I really want it to be THEIR blog, not mine! So come on you adults, get the kids in your life crafting! I know all our Design Team are totally thrilled to be involved and are telling everyone at school, checking their entries in ICT lessons etc - all their teachers are very impressed! Don't you think it's great that they are so motivated and who knows, maybe we're helping to inspire them to be a great artist or designer or have a business when they leave school, it makes me jump up and down for joy, I tell you!

Please stop by the Diddydoodles blog and leave them a comment, their work really is amazing! thankyou!

Stuff of dreams....

2012-01-21T09:00:00.000Z

Sigh...

Sigh....

Sigh....

...ouch, ouch, ouch....
If I had the money I would just buy to stand on my shelf and look at them...and people ask where I get my inspiration from lol....
x

Polkadoodles Challenge - Sketch & Blog Candy

2012-01-20T08:41:00.000Z

Friday again, where does the time go?!

Over on Polkadoodles blog today we have reached a milestone 1000 followers - woohooo!! So we're giving away extra blog candy, make sure you check it out! And we have a great challenge too so have a look and get your entries in!

It's been a busy old week here but a bit of an unproductive one for me so no card from me this week - I spent last Saturday and Sunday with my Colour Studio Workshops in the company of a lovely group of ladies on both days. We had much laughter, cake and food thanks to a lovely venue and I worked those girls hard for the day LOL! I think their fingers were almost bleeding by the time they left! Both days were totally fab and I think there were a few firm friendships made around the room - nothing can forge friendships like crafting I think! So many thanks to everyone who came and if you didn't I think you missed an awesome couple of days. We will be scheduling some more for later in the year so watch out for further dates coming up soon.

Dont get mad, get even...

2012-01-10T10:01:00.002Z

At the moment flowers are everywhere in craft. And I mean everywhere!
I love flowers, as does everyone else it seems. They can turn a mediocre project into something beaut at the drop of a hat. And all-white projects are everywhere too.
The other thing that's everywhere right now in craft is thievery.
Yep, that's right, good old idea (and copyright) theft. Although this isn't just with craft, it's with everything. Particularly rife at the moment because of the recession. Also there aren't any new innovations coming through into the craft market. I think the last big innovation we had was the launch of the Cricut machine and a few months later the Cuttlebug and the wonder of its embossing folders, which is a good 4/5 years ago now. When these huge companies stop investing money into R&D of new machines and gadgets everything becomes a bit stale and that's the effect of the recession, simple as (in my opinion) - if people stop buying stash, the development stops. I get a bit mad when I hear people having a moan about no new products on Create and Craft, not enough this, not enough that, blahdy blahdy. People, it's simple: It's a SHOPPING channel. Quite simply they are there to sell you stuff. If they show CD's all the time it's because they are selling lots of them! If they start to show you loads of Clarity Stamps it's because they're selling loads! They don't won't and never will show you things that don't sell very well because they have to make money, just like everyone else does. And along with that, it's not all about the channel making money, the suppliers (of which I am one) also have to make money. And some things just aren't worth my time and effort taking to TV because I can't sell them for a profit, even a tiny profit. So to all those people who at the moment are going on about QVC not delivery craft shows, have a word with yourselves! QVC are a giant in the world of TV shopping and if they can't make money bringing you craft then they ain't going to, no matter how much blarney the presenters throw at you across the screen "we're having a sale to clear the stock for new stock coming in". Of course you are, love. Every business brings in new stock all the time. At Polkadoodles we do the same, stock control is an important part of any business. Get it right and you rarely need to have sales because your stock flows in and out correctly, get it wrong and overstock or buy the wrong products in and you've got problems and need to get it shifted out. We rarely have to do a sale because quite simply, I'm really fussy about the products we do stock and if we get something which doesnt sell well we reduce it straight away so our prices are always pretty keen.
Anyway, I'm rambling. How on earth did I get onto all that? What I actually wanted to whine about today was people nicking other people's ideas and passing them off as their own being rife.
So, going back to when Provocraft launched the Cricut, we'd just opened our first shop and were one of the first in the UK to stock Cricut. Oh my, how I loved my trusty steed! Obviously the Craft Robo was around at the time but you needed to be a bit of a PC whizz and I just wanted something to plug and play and so did my customers. I used to spend an hour with a customer demo'ing what the machine would do (I knew it inside out and I WAS Cricut Queen). Half those customers who let me waste an hour of my time would then go and buy it somewhere else for a tenner cheaper I have to tell you, so I stopped stocking the machine in the end, what was the point? Yes, they all used to come in asking me how to do stuff though didn't they. Anyway at the time I was playing around one day and I had a brilliant idea. White flowers. On the Cricut.com forum at the time some of the more creative people were making bouquets but they were all flat. They would take the cricut flowers on a cartridge, cut them and then put them on a stick. Flat. I pulled out a mountain of white card and I made dozens and dozens of flowers in different shapes, changing the sizes by going through each increment. I had an idea in my head and this was what I wanted to achieve....

And this, my friends, was (to my knowledge) the first ever all-white project of full on 3D flowers that started a worldwide trend back in September 2007. The Cricut forum went wild over it. Instantly people copied the idea of making an all-white project and then started in colour making their own 3D flowers, my post had 1000's and 1000's of views - why had no-one ever thought of doing this before? I didn't and don't care that people copied it, if I had I would never have unveiled it to the world. I'm a bit miffed the picture isn't the best and the vase (yes the entire thing is card) is long gone now after it got a bit trashed in the shop move which is a bit sad, I'd have liked to have kept it really as even the flower stalks are made by hand too and aren't straws.
My point is, I made this just BEFORE Prima came along and hit our shelves. I have no doubt in my mind, and yes it's a big claim and one I've never made publicly before, that this very project started off the trend for making flowers as we have it now across the world of papercrafting and I know I have witnesses LOL! So I just do get a little bit peeved when I go to blogs or magazines and see projects similar to this and they are hailed as a new trend and what a stunning idea blah blah and those people NEVER seem to give credit to anyone else, you should always link back to where you got your inspiration from, there's no shame in doing so, we all glean inspiration from each other all the time, just give credit where and when it is due please! I'm not saying I want all the credit for every single flower created right now but my point is that I am proud that this project started all of that. So it doesn't really matter that I never got any credit for it because down in the back of my heart I know that I started it off and that's all that counts to me.
Back in the early days of the Cricut forum there were many people who ensured that I did get full credit for the inspiration when people tried to steal it and I thank all of those who did that, it really meant a lot at the time, but 4 years on I know I am long forgotten over on cricut.com. I go on there now and then and people are still posting similar projects and getting all sorts of glory for things they shouldn't. I do think it's funny though how this trend started all the way back then and there hasn't really been anything else come along in the meantime has there.
Of course, I had to try and top the project didnt I and this was the next one I made in Dec 2007 which was actually out on display in the shop at the time...

If this doesnt play then try this link which will take you back to my old blog ....

So, all I'm trying to say is...don't feel like you have to steal someone else's ideas to be deemed creative. Everyone is creative in their own way and one person's cup of tea is another's idea of hell, we all like different things so stop trying to beat a tune to someone else's drum, just do what YOU like. Passion in what you do is everything and I wholeheartedly believe that shines through in your crafting. You can tell the people who do it because they just love it and don't care what other people think, their card or layout may not be the best in the world but you can tell when you look at it that every single element was placed specifically and that person took 10 minutes to place it there and changed their mind 6 times when they were doing it and probably took a couple of hours to make a card which should only have taken 15 minutes to put together. But it doesnt matter because they loved making it and it's theirs. All theirs. And all their own ideas. Be passionate with your crafting, it shows.

I just remembered what got me rambling...Diddydoodles. Diddydoodles is our new under 16's challenge blog. Someone else launched a similar one a week after we did this. I'm not saying Diddydoodles is the only one in the world, it's not. But this person who launched the other one follows me on Twitter. Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not. Just like my good friend Leandra who always gets her stamp ideas copied. And my good friend Kate who makes the best Brownies in the world and gets all her ideas nicked too. It's rife. Don't do it, get your own ideas, how can you ever think of a good idea if you're too busy copying everyone else instead? And yes, it is the biggest form of flattery blah blah blah when you're copied, we all say it. But really - we all get narked by it, no matter what we say. I see Polkadoodles copies everywhere these days, some blatant, some not so blatant, I try to ignore it but every now and then I just have to have a little moan. Moan over for now! x

Polkadoodles Challenge - Wk1 sketch

2012-01-06T09:00:00.030Z

One of my biggest tips to anyone who is struggling with mojo for their cardmaking or scrapbooking is to try sketches. They really do help massively.
Very often when I'm prepping for TV shows where I have to have 10 demo's up my sleeve through the course of a couple of shows (yes, we usually do have to prep that many even if we only ever get to show one!) I can really struggle to come up with loads of different ideas in one go as I tend to be in a "zone" with something and I know a lot of you probably work that way too. It very much depends on what stash I have around me as to what I end up with, I don't have the mental capacity to remember to use xyz when they're all put away in drawers and boxes, I need the visual stimulation to inspire me.
And that's where sketches come in. A quick scribble on a post it note really does help - if you've never given it a whirl before then you should especially if you're sat staring at a piece of paper for more than 5 mins. You don't need to draw, you don't even need imagination - just draw some squares and circles and lay them out, overlapping and choose the one you prefer. The bonus is you can keep all the sketches in a folder or a box as an inspiration pile later on if you need them! If you're batch card making this is a good way to make the same card design but to have them all a little different - really what you're doing is thinking about the positioning of your mats and layers which are the outline and frames of what you actually design. Don't forget, you can make a sketch and then turn it round 3 times to get 4 entirely different looking cards - are you getting it now? Go on, give it a try, I bet you're amazed how easy and effective it is. When I don't have time to sit for an hour looking at a piece of paper thinking of what to do this is my method and it works a treat for me.
Right, enough rambling, it's my turn to set this week's Polkadoodles blog challenge and yes, you guessed it, I did a sketch!

I sort of cheated a little bit as the actual theme was supposed to be Shades of Grey but I forgot when I made the card LOL!! So mine isn't shades of grey at all! This is the card I made using Kuretake's Kurecolor markers for the day 22 advent calendar just before Christmas. There's a full tutorial over there for this so check it out here for a how to.

Saturday 7th Jan

2012-01-05T19:17:00.002Z

Hi everyone! Just a quick post to let you know that I'll be on Create and Craft on Sat 7th Jan at 11am and 4pm, hopefully with a few new ideas and a bit of inspiration for you. See you there! xx

SC&P 5th Jan

2012-01-05T09:00:00.005Z

Hello everyone.
Starting today each month in Simply Cards & Papercraft magazine you will find me with a double page tutorial on colouring techniques. Hopefully each month we will have a giveaway with some fab products from some of your favourite brands too. This issue I have gone for a Monochrome look with a colour highlight - the highlight this month being red. I think this is perfect for a Valentinesy look, now the smoochy season is coming up!
This month the lovely guys at Letraset have kindly agreed to give away 5 sets of Grey Promarkers and Flexmarkers which I used in the tutorials to lucky readers so make sure you grab your copy and enter to win! Greys are an absolute must-have in your collection as far as I'm concerned. Here are the projects I made for this issue, which is out today...

So make sure you go and grab your copy of this month's issue from your newsagent - Simply Cards and Papercraft, and I'll see you in next month's issue soon! x

New Year, New card.

2012-01-01T09:43:00.000Z

Hi everyone, Happy New Year's Day!

I hope everyone had a lovely step forward from the old to the new and isn't suffering too many bad heads this morning! Although it's been Christmas and I was supposed to have some time off I am shattered, I've been so busy this week getting things ready for the new Pen & Paper Circle first issue and launching Diddydoodles, I feel like I havent stopped!

In my quest to be a better blogger this year I thought I would get off to a good start by sharing another Elisabeth Bell card with you all which I made this afternoon whilst watching the most atrocious New Years Eve TV! I decided to choose Flowers, Lace and Pearls as my tic tac toe (dont you just love that phrase, so much more poetic than the English Noughts and Crosses!) and as it's nearing my birthday (better to forget that in hindsight!) I decided to use one of my favourite stamps...

...I love this stamp, she is treasuring that cupcake just the way I do myself...before I take a massive bite that is!!! I'm not massively keen on the colouring on this, I was when I did it but now when I look back her tunic doesnt look finished, although I think it's the photo which is too high in contrast maybe, the shadows are much softer in real life and I think it's also down to the Flexmarkers still working their magic after you walk away! (sorry but I cant be bothered to re-photograph it when I've put my camera away and tidied up!).

I love the pink polka dot ribbon on this, it's actually fabric which I've had stashed for ages that I made into a ribbon. The flowers are handcut from felt (the rough look was intentional LOL) which I made one night...I seem to be really into making EVERYTHING at the moment rather than using shop produced stuff for some reason.
Now, before I go, come on, own up...who was it?

We saw a report yesterday which said our local sewage works had reported some of the strange things they'd found over Christmas...apparently there were several Christmas trees which people had shoved down drains...WHAT THE??? WHO would do that????....I mean, COME ON, people!! REALLY?? Man, there are some stupid planks out there.... Not to mention loads of soft toys, decorations etc...the one that made us laugh most in this house though...the X Factor Little Mix Christmas CD single had also turned up! No doubt flushed down the loo in a fit of rage by some ungrateful recipient do you think??!! I feel like emailing them to let them know how popular they are!...pppfffft!
See you all soon x

Happy New Year!

2011-12-31T09:52:00.002Z

So out goes one year and in comes another.
2011 has been an amazing year for Polkadoodles and I've loved (mostly) ever minute of it, but New Year is always a time for reflection and to decide on whether you need to make changes in your life isn't it?
Hard work and determination go a long way in this life and Mr Doodles and I certainly know the former very well indeed. My parents always had a really strong work ethic so it's been drummed into me from a very young age. They had a milk round and another business whilst I was growing up and I was expected to help out as and when needed like most kids who grow up in a family business. I used to deliver milk as soon as I could carry a basket and whilst all my schoolfriends were lazing about on a Saturday morning watching cartoons and Tiswas or Swapshop I was collecting milk money from the age of 5-6 with my mum. She started off sending me to people who gave the right money each week, then to the people who always gave me the same money so she could give me pre-counted change but then very quickly I had my own cashbag and was giving out change at age 6! I have to say I got loads of gifts and tips from our customers at Christmas, they were all very generous, when I consider the age I was now I bet they couldnt' believe their eyes! On top of this my parents decided to build their own house for us having never laid a brick in their lives before so I also got to wheelbarrow bricks and breezeblocks around and help mix concrete and all the other stuff involved most days when I left school too. (Am making my parents sound like Dickensian slavedrivers, I did get to play too!) I just had chores to do - a lot of chores! I never did see an episode of Tiswas although I got an odd snippet whilst I was stood at someone's door waiting for someone to get their purse sometimes.

I detested those mornings and long days kicking my heels on a building plot with a vengeance, for making me miss out on a lot of fun but now I'm quite glad I had to do it (and boy, did I have to do it), it taught me very early on that money doesnt grow on trees and you have to work hard in life instead of waiting for someone else to come along and hand it to you on a plate. I wish more people had that same value for sure, it seems that more and more people are just standing there waiting to take take take all the time these days - a generational thing maybe? It seems a lot of people the generation below me are lacking a lot of core values these days but I suppose it was the generation that were kids in the 80's when everything was plentiful and loadsamoney was on the telly. No wonder really is there? They missed the 70's when everything was plastic, made in Hong Kong and you were posh if you had a colour telly and your mum could afford to buy an Arctic Roll once a month for dessert. MacDonalds was probably a type of Tartan and the most exciting part of Christmas was deciding which Annual you were going to ask for and whether you'd get a Sindy or a Barbie (remember the days when Barbie was just a slut with her ginormous EE cup and her ugly boyfriend, Sindy was the good girl next door and poor Pippa was the poor relation who lived down the road?)

My reflections for 2011? It's been a strange one really. I try not to have regrets. We all make mistakes and I just try and learn from mine quickly and move on. I think I'm quite a poor judge of character sometimes, I take people at face value and that often bites me on the arse quite frankly! So maybe my resolution for 2012 is to be a little more guarded and a little less trusting in future until someone has properly earned it. And I need to be a bit more tolerant, this is not one of my greatest features I have to admit. I try not to be judgemental but lets face it, we all slip on that one, who are we kidding, but tolerance I must try harder with.

So I would just like to wish everyone a very Happy New Year and a big heartfelt thankyou for your support in 2011, Kris and I are very aware that without our customers we are very little indeed (something many other businesses would do well to remember) - we have another exciting year ahead so come on, bring it on!!

Happy New Year everyone! x

Diddydoodles Day One

2011-12-30T09:25:00.001Z

Well today is the launch of day of Diddydoodles - our brand new Challenge Blog for 16 and Unders! Woohooo! Power to the kids!
I meet quite a lot of kids on my travels who are into crafting and I had the pleasure of meeting Caitlin earlier this year, who just overwhelms me with her selfless attitude when she has so much to deal with herself. She does lots of charity fundraising in her area and has just won some awards - she could teach us all a lot for sure...she's a huge Polkadoodles fan so I just had to have her on this team, together with Darci who I met at NEC in November. She took over my table with her colouring and for a 7 year old she also has some talent, so I promised myself and Darci we would start Diddydoodles when I got back. And here we are! So please please spread the word about this great challenge - we made it once a month so it doesn't interfere with schoolwork and there is plenty of time to join in. There's a little prize for our favourite 3 and they will be asked to Guest Design the following month so make sure you all blog and link it up please - we want to get as many kids involved as we can and the whole idea is that it is THEIR challenge, my involvement is merely in making sure it's published and adding a supporting idea each month. It would be fab if you could leave a comment to encourage my teamies and we know people are reading it, it can be really slow to get blogs off the ground sometimes until enough people know about it and link up.

So here is my card for today, I wanted to do something quick and simple...

And you can find out how I made it over here at Diddydoodles!....feel free to grab and share our blinkie!

Best of 2011

2011-12-29T09:00:00.001Z

Morning everyone! I popped onto my good friend Kath's blog the other day and she'd done a post which was her best of 2011 which I just loved so I know she won't mind me blatantly copying her idea!

So here are my faves from this year too...enjoy!...(I have used some artistic licence regarding the months as I was a bit of a naughty blogger midyear lol).

January...

February

March

April

May

June (at this point I was a naughty blogger for a while so I've cheated with the months LOL!!!)

July

August

September

October

November

December

So there you go, my Top 12 for 2011. I love this, must try and do it again next year! Happy New Year everyone!

Excited.com

2011-12-27T21:51:00.000Z

*jumps up and down a million times*

I am SO SO excited!! I can now announce the launch of our brand new stamping club - the Pen & Paper circle - woooohooooo!!...

Following the success of our collaboration with Practical Publishing in producing the Christmas magazine kit this year we were absolutely overwhelmed by YOU requesting us to bring you a regular Project Magazine - so here we are! I have worked in publishing on and off since I was 18 all those many many moons ago so producing my own magazine is something I've always had on my wishlist. Knowing the ropes and how to make it happen has always meant I was just arm's length from doing this and now at last I have managed to get the whole kit and caboodle together to bring it to you at last!
And I am totally excited about it. BIGTIME.

We were going to make this a subscription club with a bi-yearly signup but quite honestly in these current hard times I didn't think it was fair to do that to our lovely customers. After all, why should we take all your cash up front when it's easy enough for us to take pre-orders each month instead? So this is what we shall do, to make it easier on your pockets. Quite simply, you will need to order by a set time which will be published when you purchase and then the kit will be despatched to you within the following few weeks. This will not be a monthly kit, but we are intending it will be each 7-8 weeks.
And best of all, I get to share my wonderfully talented Design Team with you all!! They are absolutely brilliant and they never get enough credit for the marvellous projects they make, so this is my chance to help them showcase their work and give you a little inspiration along the way. Each issue of the Chronicle will include at least 12 full step by step tutorial projects with loads of hints and tips and special club discounts and offers along the way too,

SO that's the jist of it - and I have been virtually BURSTING to tell you all this news which has been in the planning stages for some time now! So I truly hope we can tempt you to signup - we might not be the cheapest club but I honestly believe it will be the most inspiring club you can join, and we are trying our hardest to give you the maximum value we can. Until someone comes along and copies us, that is ; )
Go fill your crafty boots!

2011-12-23T17:26:00.000Z

Have a Wonderful Christmas and a Very Happy New Year!
lots of love from Nikky & Kris x

Kuretake Advent Calendar - Door 23

2011-12-23T11:55:00.002Z

Zig Metallic Calligraphy pens

White Card

Wink of Stella Gold and Silver

Draw a circle onto card with a pencil (a CD is an ideal size).

Roughly sketch out your Merry Christmas text in pencil to ensure you get the layout right around the circle.

Then taking a gold and silver metallic Calligraphy pen and using the 3.5mm tip, add gold colour to the tip of the silver by gently pressing the gold halfway onto the tip.

Holding the silver pen at a 45 degree angle now trace over your text. Break down each letter into sections. Use the fantastic printable guides and tutorials on the Kuretake website to help you and refer to the A-Zig Calligraphy book.

Don't worry too much if your spacing isn't correct as we can resolve this later. Now add some little swirls onto the ends of your letters to make it look fancy.

Practice this "S" shape on some scrap paper. Once you can get the shape, draw a centre dot and starting from the centre point turn your paper each time to make a flower.

Now add lots of flowers around the edge of the circle on your card. Once you're confident, change the tip size to make some smaller flowers and change colours. Try to make the positioning quite random.

Keep going and build up the design, each time turning the paper as you create your petals. Finally, add some swirls to the circle to finish. You can add little berries to the flower centres. Add some sparkle with a Wink of Stella pen!

Merry Christmas!

Door 22 over at Kuretake - Magical Kurecolors

2011-12-22T08:58:00.004Z

In December Kuretake are doing an advent calendar of tutorials, if you haven't seen them all you should check them out here. So today, Door 22 is ME!
I seem unable to escape from the adorable Neighbours stamp range a year on from when we launched them, no-one gets sick of seeing them which is amazing! I must admit even I still adore them each time I create a new scene, I really do think they are my fave stamps of all time ever. So below is a quickish tutorial on using Zig Kurecolors which are a totally awesome alcohol based marker. If you're wondering WTH is Nikky doing, has she given up Pro and Flexmarkers - the answer is no! but we all have to get a bit of variety and different markers have different properties and can give you different results. I love the Kurecolors because of their rich juicy pigments so when I want to produce something really vibrant I pick up these babies. The blender is awesome and guess what - it really does blend rather than bleach! You can use them with your other products anyway and as you know I'm a big believer in mixing your media and materials whenever you can.
I also tried out a new technique on this tutorial which turned out even better than I thought it would!
Enjoy, peepsicles...

You will need: (all products used are available from the website here)
Selection of Zig Kurecolors & blending pen, Clear Mushroom stamps from Polkadoodles, Wink of Stella Gold pen, White Zig Chalkwriter pen, Memento inkpad, Zig Alcohol inks - clear blending solution

Using the memento inkpad, stamp your images and create a little scene by adding lots of trees and bushes.

Kurecolor alcohol markers change colour as they dry so it's really useful to make and keep a colour swatch chart every time you buy new colours. The handy storage wallets are already in pre-selections of bright and muted tones. I store mine in colour families within the wallets in numerical order but if you struggle with putting colours together you will find the pre-selected colours really helpful as it makes selecting colours that work together really easy peasy.

There is no right or wrong way on how to colour but with I tend to work light to dark depending on the image I'm colouring. For this image I will use a lot of the skintone colours to give me a nice soft look to my project but I try to restrict my colour palette to less than 10 colours as I find when too many are involved you can end up with a garish result with too many colours clashing. As you can layer Kurecolors you can achieve as many colours as you wish by simply mixing colours together and this means all the colours in the palette you use will work together well. The Kurecolor markers have a really precise point which is far more accurate than many other markers and means you can get right into fine details.

The Kurecolor blender is an awesome tool for achieving soft blending techniques. If you find the colour you have is a shade too dark, add some of the colour onto the tip of the blending pen and then sweep across the image in small circles to spread and blend a more muted form of the colour.

You can also use this technique to mix colours together - simply add 2 colours onto the blender to make a third variation and get a lovely smooth blend when you colour. The colour will simply flood out of the blender as you use it so you will never spoil the blending pen, you simply reload the colour again if you need more.

Kurecolors have brilliantly strong pigments and give super-rich coverage but not all your projects have to be vibrant and strong. I want a more muted, softer look to my project so I decided to try out an idea I've had for a while...scribble some blue onto a piece of acetate or acrylic block (as a palette) and then add some clear blending solution, mixing with a paintbrush.

You need to work quite quickly as alcohol ink does dry very fast, but take a paintbrush and swirl the colour across the sky to give a really soft look which looks a bit like watercolour! Great technique, it worked so well! If you run out of colour or it's a little patchy just add more blender and blend it around until you're happy. I ended up with a really soft wash which looked broken up by clouds. If I'd done this any other way it would have taken me ages and lots of blending!
Now start to add some more colour and foliage colour - don't forget you can mix your colours together which I find handy when I'm trying to get the right tones for foliage.

Once I'd built the colour up I decided to make my lanterns light up. Use yellow 106 in the centre of the lantern and then using the blender pen swirl round and round the head of the lantern in a circular motion to spread the light. Then take the same colour and add touches of it where the glow would be picked up on the house and on the mice etc.

Remember to add the casting shadows and glows too for added effect. Again I used the paintbrush to get the wash across the grass in the front of the picture. Take a white chalkwriter pen and highlight along the lanterns and anywhere you feel you need to get a little contrast. Finally, take a yellow or gold Wink of Stella pen and add to the lanterns and windows and some of the flowers for a little sparkle.

Finally make up into a project for any occasion.

A cute little sketcheroo...

2011-12-21T22:38:00.001Z

Well, this is a little unusual for me, but this is a card I made for the Elisabeth Bells challenge for December. I don't do anywhere near enough crafting just for me and I am making a concerted effort to do so...didn't you know that crafting is good for the soul...
This is a fab digi available from Elisabeth who I have had the pleasure to meet across the email highway and she is so lovely...this month's challenge is to use a sketch and I am a sucker for a sketch you all know that, right...(I must apologise for poor pic quality on these, must go check settings as the res on these is pretty poor and washed out for some reason)...

The papers are all from my Pretty Sweet collection with the chunky gingham from Magical Winter - two of my favest paper collections ever! Spotty ribbon is East of India, the little pom poms are from my stash. Blingy leaves are also from the website and the little flowers I made with the use of Martha Stewart snowflake punches - those snowflakes make awesome flowers if you layer them up, the photo doesnt really do them justice here.

The image is coloured with Prisma pencils and I made the sentiment by cutting a couple of tabs and then just writing a little message by hand.

I just realised it's my sister's birthday next week so she may just receive this card I think, been ages since I got to give my family handmade ones, I really must make more effort! shocking!
I am also entering this card into the Digibells challenge too for the December blog hop - if you haven't checked it out yet you must, both blogs have amazing inspiration and the DT's are wonderfully talented! Go soak up the creative talent over there now!

Oh my Word!

2011-12-20T19:24:00.000Z

Look what the postie brought me today!

Absolutely beautiful!...

You can't really see on the pics but they're all glittered and gorgeous! Way way too nice to eat!
Big thankyou to all the lovely peeps at Kuretake, they have impeccable taste and clearly know the way to a girl's heart! However, the OCD in me has dictated I start small and work my way up. They DO taste as good as they look LOL!
x

Vader strikes again

2011-12-19T20:53:00.001Z

So who is ready for Crimbo? You? How about You? ...no me neither!
I decided we're staying home alone for Crimbo day this year instead of having to drive the 80 mile round trip to my family (don't do OH's family for crimbo, don't even go there with that one). We havent had a tree or any decs up for the past few years as we've been too busy/too tired/too grumpy and the house has been a tip but over the past couple of weeks I think we both decided we need to reclaim the living room! I went to see my lovely friend for lunch on Saturday, opened the door when I got home and nearly fell over in shock - he had emptied all the old shop stuff out and was actually sorting stuff out! OMG! If you could see our back bedroom which is his "den" you would realise why this is shocking as it looks like Mr Trebus lives in there, tidying is not my OH's strong point. Give him his due, he did sort out a load of stuff the other week which was actually loads of my old stamps which my classes used and then we found more old stock too so I parceled it up and sent it off to 5 different charitable crafty causes. To be honest I could've sent it to about 20 people there was that much stuff but I had to think about the postage! So anyway he's earned serious brownie points for shelf moving and clearing out at last and going to the tip, after all I've only been waiting 2.5 years. So this meant it was time for a good clean and I do like a spring clean before crimbo. I was savage I tell you, SAVAGE! There was enough ginger ninja fluff under the sofa to knit an Axminster and I have to admit I was thoroughly ashamed at the state of the place. 5 hours later and it was done though (not the whole house, that would take another week!), and the downstairs is now looking almost the best it can. So long as you ignore the wildlife that is living between the cooker and tumble dryer.
Anyhoo, thought I would share this little gem with you...

Here is my Darth Vader impresh. I look well happy don't I! I apparently have sleep apnoea, something I suspected but it seems it is much worse than I thought and is partly responsible for why I wake my OH every night chuntering and shouting in my sleep and bashing him in the ribs all the time. So I got summoned for an appointment and had no idea this was going to happen...hopefully it won't be too long but I really feel sorry for people who do have to wear this every night for life. It's not as bad as it looks because it's very relaxing, sounds like waves lapping on a beach so it makes you nod off very quick but I do keep waking up in the middle of the night and I don't have it on. It's all very bizarre, I obviously rip it off at some point, put it away neat and tidy and go back to sleep LOL! Clearly I am as bad as the nurse said I was haha!
Definitely a pash killer though so if you value your marriage I suggest your partner puts up with being punched in the ribs as there'll be nothing else happening once this enters your life I can tell you! x

Polkadoodles Challenge - Through the Window

2011-12-16T09:06:00.000Z

Well, it's the last Polkadoodles challenge of the year so I had to try and join in - 10 minutes before we publish! I came across this project yesterday which I thought I'd forgotten to photograph and it fits perfectly.

A frame can be the same as a window to me, right?! I made this a while back for Craft Stamper magazine and it was actually a class project of mine which we did as well...I love this, it's just a bit different to the norm.

Take 12 pieces of paper all the same size and roll them up and glue them to make a frame. It's a bit fiddly and takes a little time but well worth it I think. Once they're all glued down they become very stable and if you use 120gsm like I did then it's actually quite heavy and strong. I used a mixture of papers here, kraft and from the Double Sprinkles of Kraft collection.

I then stamped some houses from our Be Neighbours range of stamps and used masking techniques to create the perspective and overlay the circle for the sentiment - yes, that's part of the stamping too. Then I cut a circle sentiment from the CD and added it to the circle. Look at the depth and dimension you get to this side on...obviously it needs a box but it's well worth the effort for someone special.

I reckon if you were selling these at fairs you'd easily be able to charge about £7-8 each with the embellies etc too.
Right, that's it for today, I will be back in the next few days! x

WOYWW

2011-12-14T12:00:00.001Z

Well, first What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday for me - ever!
Not been creating much in terms of cards this week unless 36 Crimbo Cards counts - yes, I did finally get round to making them thanks to all the people on Twitter and Facebook making me go in a blind panic about not doing them yet! It wasn't until I got them all done I realised there's still another 12 days till Crimbo eve yet FGS! Some people do panic about stuff don't they! I have never seen such a drama over decorating the Christmas tree unfold ever - it seems this is a really big thing to the whole world except me, people seem to take days to put the thing up and then finish decorating it, twitter is rife with tree trauma I tell you, rife! I'm bish bosh bash up and done in an hour, finito. Takes the cats 2 mins to dismantle it though! We haven't had one for the last few years, mainly because of the ninjapaws launching themselves at it like a cannonball and not enough room in our titchy house but I'm squeezing one into our living room this year for sure!

Right so onto WOYWW, pretty boring really and my desk (believe it or not) is actually quite tidy at the mo...

I call this mission control on account of having 3 screens in a row plus 2 printers and the sky box stacked at the right hand side! The Christmas card is from the lovely Kay Carley and the huge tag is a promo thing sent to me - these have been installed there since last year LOL! I just forgot to take them down! I do have some little battery fairy lights that hang along the bunting but you can't tell they're on in the picture. Note the big pile of cards waiting to go out and the 3 boxes of Fortnum and Mason's chocolates and fudge waiting to go off to someone important...not me unfortunately!
The Purple and white thing is my brand new mini sewing machine which I bought off Ideal World last week - I ADORE it! For the price of it it's a great little machine and so light and portable I can actually put it on my desk, I've been wanting one like this for YEARS! The pink and blue thing next to it is my lush sewing box which I bought off QVC a couple of years back and I love it, I store allsorts in there. Hehe I had to just go back and edit this post as when I clicked on the image and it was larger I did notice something peeking under all the chaos - my bra!! I thought I'd lost it, must have been a bramagic kinda moment if I left it there!!!

But as you can see, it's a pretty tidy desk really as I'm in a bit of a designing week. I have to split my time up - I either design a lot or I create a lot, I can't mix them both up as I need to have my desk clear for my graphics tablet. The one you see there is a new emergency one because I brock my big momma who is now on her way to Deutschland for fixing. Me no likey new imposter, feels very difficult to use in comparison so can't wait to get Ida back.

Here's the other corner of my desk...Clip It Up installed nicely and about 1/3rd full. I tend to use it to hang up my WIP cards and stuff I can't tidy away yet. Notice the diary snooked behind the PC - all that tiny writing is THE LIST!....

...THE LIST of things to do which seems to never get any smaller and is always full of juicy secrets I can't share yet. And my Tesco vouchers I always forget to use. That £10 one will be paying for my Turkey Crown this week!Sneaking behind my water is a nice pile of felt flowers I made on Sunday whilst watching X Factor.
And then I had to share this little monkey of a picture...caught in the act at the same time, emptying my rubbish bin so he can remove the DST and nosh on the bloody glue...he IS addicted...all that mess on the floor is HIS mess!

"Who, me?? I didn't do that!"
Yes Ninja, we know, it was a ghost ninja from Christmas past wasn't it you little....
x

Blog Candy winners

2011-12-08T11:02:00.001Z

I'm a little late I know, I know, I forgot, sorry!
Had my head up where the sun doesn't shine over the past week doing nasty paperwork and accounts which simply had to be done - Mr Taxman waiteth for no woman! Can't believe this time last week we were in the Dales at our lovely hideaway battling with Phil the Pheasant (if u have no idea what I'm on about see the post at the top of the page!)

Because I've been paperwork mental (have just shredded the HUGEST pile of paper ever, so satisfying!) I have no makes to share today but I will be back with some in the next few days, I promise.

Ok, madly I agreed to give away 6 lots of blog candy during my blogathon, what was I thinking! Anyway, here are the winners, well done folks, can you all please email me with your addresses and deets asap please:

Post 20th November - Jan (your comment on stealing the poinsettia heads made me snort!)
You will be winning a £7 voucher to spend online at Polkadoodles

Post 21st Nov, Kitch fail - Victoria - You have won the exclusive Amelia stamp woohoo! Only 9 exist in the whole world!

Post 23rd Nov - Ang - You have also won a £7 voucher to spend online at Polkadoodles

Post 30th Nov - the final. Chosen by a Random Number Generator to each win a £25 goody bag:
Lindsaycraftymonster
RibenaRuby
Craftymissymo

So well done to you all and thanks for all your lovely comments over the blogathon, I really appreciate it and I WILL be blogging more from now on!

Day 14 - the final. Sob. And more blog candy than you can poke a stick at.

2011-11-30T09:00:00.000Z

So everyone...here it is, my final day in this little mini tour of our Belles & Whistles stamp range with designs from Elisabeth Bell. Don't you just love it??

I do.

Wholeheartedly, I just adore these images they are right up my street and I was like a whirling dervish when we got these in all the way from the States. There will be more from this range on this blog, I can guarantee it, but for now, it must end as I really must show some other things instead of just obliging my own fanciful cardmaking LOL!

This, my lovely bloggie readers is my favourite image I've done so far. I ADORE her. And I have to admit I totally adore this card, it is soooo vintage shabby chic for me. I coloured the image with Prisma pencils, apologies the close-up isn't better but my camera was playing up and I couldn't get it on the right setting for love nor money but hopefully you can see the shading and tones etc.I really like the colour palette I used here with those olive greeny trousers, just delish.

So, Belles and Whistles fans, that is it for this round.
I have enjoyed my blog marathon although it's been quite hard making sure I update every day or schedule a few days in a row! It's fine when I'm home but when I've been away twice this week I soon lose my routine! I am away a few days this coming week but I promise to try harder from now on and hopefully this little exercise has given me the mojo to keep going more regularly with my posts and got me into the routine of posting regularly. As a special finale thankyou for all those of you who've read and commented this week, if you leave me a comment and I get 40 comments on this post I will issue blog candy worth at least £25 to 3 different people!
You have until 4th December to leave your comment to be in with a chance of winning and don't forget to leave comments on the other posts over the last 2 weeks to win the other candy too!

I will draw all the winners from the different posts and this one, on 4th December at noon! Thankyou and goodnight. For now at least!xx

Day 13

2011-11-29T09:00:00.002Z

I think I miscounted my 15 days of Belles n Whistles...I'm only on Day 13 and it's the penultimate day LOL!!

I love this card. This particular paper which I shall call *strawberry pink* is just totally delicious, every time I see it and print one off the Pretty Sweet CD I just smile and hold it to my bosom cos I love it so much! Sad I know, but I have always been a big paper geek and I will go to the grave a paper geek. I love paper. 20 years ago I worked for an advertising agency and we used to get sent lots of different fancy schmancy paper samples from different manufacturers...my boss used to go mad cos he used to go back to the archives and would always find pages missing out of the sample books and swatch files...yep, you guessed it, he would have found them all hanging in clipframes on my flat walls LOL! People used to think I was well weirdo, they'd come round and go "err WHAT is that???" and point to a piece of paper 4 x 4" in a 20 x 20" frame on my wall. They just didnt get it. People still don't! And to this day you will find two large A1 clipframes on my living room wall which house sheets of those pretty handmade papers with flowers encapsulated between the layers. I just love it and I love what you can do with it. Have you ever made your own paper? It's awesome, I really must do another batch again I havent done it in years and I love it, you never quite know what you'll end up with!

So this lovely girl is called Braids & Patches - isn't she adorable?? I wanted to capture a certain light direction with this and I think I got it perfick. She's coloured with Prisma's mainly but also a hint of Promarker and Flexmarker in there too if I remember rightl. Love all the texture on her clothing and just the general colours I used here (I did this a few weeks ago so I'm now seeing it with fresh eyes again).

Talking of which - little tip for those of you who are always hard on yourselves...if you don't like something you made, walk away, come back later... 9 times out of 10 you will see it differently and if you still don't like it you can usually see what the problem is if you've had a break from it. Try it, it works!
So that's it today - see you tomorrow for the final Belles n Whistles day! sob!
xx

Day 12

2011-11-28T09:00:00.001Z

I am SO tired my eyelids are going doing this post - and it's only 7pm! Had the usual long busy and tiring day at Create and Craft but oh my, I do love it! It's the only opportunity you really get to catch up with fellow professionals in the green room and the only chance I ever get to see Nancy Watt. Now let me tell you...I love this woman. She absolutely cracks me up, she's so laid back she's horizontal, a position she's very familiar with in her usual gin-fuelled state LOL. She's such a sweetheart and although I don't know her that well I do know I would still count her as a friend cos she's so lovely. So it was a stayover last night in the hotel from hell...well not quite, but it was certainly a bit Fawlty Towers to say the least and it was the first time and last that I will be staying at Ramada Peterborough! No wonder it was cheap! So it was up at 5am today - half an hour early! The bed was SO uncomfortable I couldnt wait to get up, so I jumped out of bed and was ready super-early for a change.

I know lots of you watched the 9am show because we sold out of the Letraset metallic markers in 15 minutes - woohooo!! I know you're all going to love them and try the little spellbinders trickypoo I showed you, I am addicted to that!

So, onto Day 12 of my Belles n Whistles showcase and I've saved my favourite cards till last, natch...

Here is the very lovely Wishing Well, which I just adoooore!!....

This one I've coloured with my Prisma's. I do love trying all the different colouring mediums I must admit, I'm a colouring magpie I think but you really do get what you pay for when you buy pens, paints and markers and from bitter experiences I never buy cheap as you will almost always regret it...you have to look on pens as an investment in your toolkit and if you buy right they will last you a long time...

So again, yawn yawn, Pretty Sweet papers and the scallop die is a Marianne's I think, distressed and the little scallopy bits have a translucenty glitter on them. Again, ribbon roses and that lush velvet lace from the website. I love the colours on this card, it's so pretty and delicate even with the heavy distressing. Hope you like it! x

Day 11 - Belles n Whistles

2011-11-27T09:00:00.000Z

Funny how your life goes in peaks and troughs and left and right and sometimes backwards too, isn't it. I've said it many times before, but I strongly believe that different people come into your life for different reasons and some come and say hello for a short while and then off they pop again, never to be seen again. I find this a lot with work - you leave a job and then NEVER ever again see any of those people you spent 10 hours a day 5 or 6 days a week with - it's completely weird! Sometimes though YOU have to make the decision to remove yourself from some of these people for whatever reason. I see people getting in such a twist over how they've been treated by others, whether it be friends or family (family, groan!). We all have ups and downs in all our relationships, sometimes you just have to know when it's time to walk away (for your own mental health usually LOL). The world would be a much happier place if everyone learned to do this without guilt I think. Just learn to let go and move on because until you do, all those nice things and nice people that are waiting for you round the corner can't happen yet.
I must admit I'm in a bit of a cleansing phase right now, sometimes you just wake up and see things for what they are I guess...temporary. Much of life is temporary if you think about it, not much lasts forever. Yes, your ego may be a little bruised along the way but if you take off those rose-tinted specs and see life for what it is, it's much easier to cope with and you'll be ultimately happier along the way. Life is way too short to fit in all the good things so let's leave all the rubbish out of it!
Anyway, enough of the waffling, here is today's offering...

Watering Flowers is the name of this delightful image...

And I coloured her with Flexmarkers. Papers and sentiment are yet again Pretty Sweet (what else) and the roses and die-cuts are from the website too. Cute.
If you're reading this and haven't realised - I'm on Create and Craft right now showcasing letraset products - tune in and send me your questions on an email to the studio, it really IS live TV you know! :D

Day 10 of Blog Marathon

2011-11-26T09:00:00.002Z

How do people find enough interesting things to blog about each and every day? My life must be duller than dishwater as I am seriously struggling here. Today I had cheesy scrambled eggs, a shower, chicken chow mein and a headache. The end. Interesting?? noooo, don't fink so!
My mojo has been lacking for sure that is for certain, I managed to make 8 cards before noon and then the rest of the day was a washout and seemed to involve a lot of shuffling stuff and not actually doing much so I am feeling mightily unprepared for Sunday's Letraset shows. I'm sure it will be fine, I just don't seem to have any samples or much to take with me which is making me slightly nervous, but I think it's just because it's a go-with-the-flow kinda show packed with techniques rather than cardmaking. We don't get anywhere near enough time with Letraset on C&C so I feel that I don't want to waste it sticking and glueing and would much rather dedicate the precious minutes to actually showing you how to use the products if that makes sense.
At this point I have to apologise that the Pretty Tuff gallery cards still aren't loaded online but the week has been a busy one and I have SO many samples to photograph I swear it's a full day job and this week it's not going to happen, there are more pressing matters I'm afraid. I WILL do them as the next priority job though, promise hand on heart!

So onto today's card from Belles n Whistles again...This is Belinda with Teddy...soo cute! Quite a simple layout on this one and very quick to make and colour. Those ribbon roses are de-lish and are on the website here. All I did was use a Nestie and little swirly die-cuts. Since I got my Grand Calibur I have been die-cutting crazy! Well, what I did was to spend a whole afternoon one Sunday about 5/6 weeks ago cutting out with all my dies, and I literally cut 100's and then laid them all out between sheets of acetate so they don't get all twisted up and wrecked...it's definitely a task worth doing rather than cutting one die at a time, I will definitely do it this way again, I now have a whole drawer of lovely shapes all ready for me to use. I tend not to use coloured cardstock that much which you've probably noticed. This is just a personal choice for me, I like to always have plain white on my cards somewhere, I find it really makes things pop off the card and looks really pretty in my opinion.

So I coloured Belinda and her Teddy with Flexmarkers here, again I just adore how I can get the faded jeans with a swish of a brush whereas in the past I've used 3 or 4 colours to achieve the same effect and still not got the fade as nice as these here, love it...
Right, that's it for today, I will try my hardest to do a post for Sunday but I may well be doing it from the Green Room between shows I think, it will be a busy and long day tomorrow and Sunday! x

Day 9 Belles n Whistles...

2011-11-25T09:00:00.001Z

Day 9? but this seems to be taking forever! Note to self: before setting a 15 day post challenge next time make sure you have a clear diary and plenty of interesting stuff to talk about.
I am currently sitting prepping for Sunday's Letraset shows (9am and 12-2pm) and I'm using some products which are probably not really my bag. But sometimes it really does you good to get out of your comfort zone and try something different. The one thing with doing samples and demo's for TV is that you often have to use stuff you wouldn't normally look at and to top it all you have to really try and make it look good. So here I am working with metallics and things I normally steer well clear of and actually quite liking some of the results I have to say. I'm running out of steam and in a random act I have just discovered a new technique using a new product I will be showing on Sunday - and I LOVE it! woohoo!! nothing better than discovering something new in a happy random accident but it's just made me go from loving this product to adoring this product! I can't wait to show you, I think you'll like it too.
So, onto today's card...let me see what we have here....

I have to admit this photo is quite washed out and not really doing the image justice, her hair looks pretty poor on this image and the stamp is called Jam Jars. I coloured her with Prisma's and of course the papers are all Pretty Sweet, as is the sentiment. Another Marianne's die-cut too, which as you know by now, I am in love with.

Did you spot the velvet ribbon again? Swooooon. This is the pink version, it really is orgas-mo.

Right, one must get on, time is a tocking and Sunday's a knocking!...
ttfn x
Oh by the way - if you havent checked the Polkadoodles blog today you must! Blog Candy is on offer!

Polar Bear dreams...

2011-11-24T09:00:00.001Z

I woke up last night at 4am to the sight of my OH lurched over my desk mooching around in the dark. Now sometimes he is prone to a little sleepwalking, I often wake to find him trying to open the wardrobe doors or rattling stuff about, it can be amusing but also annoying if you're really tired.
But this was the first time I've seen him mooching round my desk..."What's that noise?" he said when I asked him what he was doing - ok, I know you're not meant to wake a sleepwalker but it looked like he was about to interfere with my desk and my desk is off limits! "It's just the traffic outside" I said, as he stood looking puzzled at me, "are you sleepwalking?"I asked, getting grumpy at his antics. And off he shuffled to the loo, chuntering about "the noise, been listening to it for last half hour" blah blah blah. So as I went to go back to sleep it suddenly dawned that at 4am there IS no traffic and it sounded like we were next to a motorway outside, not on a quiet street with very little traffic ever...so I wondered what it was for all of 3 seconds...then I realised...just before I went to bed I'd been watching polarbearcam.com in the arctic and I'd left the page open on my PC! So it was the Cam's wind howling and blowing and it had been there for 4 hours LOL! So I turned it off, chuckling to myself and hopped back into bed again. He came back, still chuntering on, so I thought I'd let it remain one of life's little mysteries for him tee heee. Go on, go check out www.polarbearcam.com and you'll hear the noise then you'll understand why it was so funny!...

Anyway, I hope you managed to catch today's shows on Create and Craft where we launched the new Pretty Tuff CD to the TV audience. Wowser, this has been so popular, I can't believe how many we've sold already, we've had to order more production already and we only launched it at NEC 2 weeks ago! Needless to say it virtually sold out this morning which I'm not surprised at that price, I must have been asleep when we agreed that multibuy deal I think, outrageous! And did you see Tracie on her tv debut - she did great I thought, never known her so quiet though lol.

So, onto whatever day it is for Belles n Whistles...one has lost count by now of how many days...

This lovely design is called Sweet Summer Days. Oh, how I wish I could choose a fave but I just can't. I do have a thing about hats and I'm loving this one. This card was made in a snippet of time, i think it took 15 minutes from start to finish including the colouring with the ultra speedy Flexmarkers.

The thing I love about Flexmarkers - did I say that before? that I love Flexmarkers? the thing is they're just SO SO SO super speedy to use! You no longer need a blender pen, just sweep a flexy over the top and it blends itself - awesome! I have some Letraset shows on Create & Craft this Sunday 27th at 9am and then toolshed between 12 and 2pm - if you want to find out more about Flexies or any Letraset products (and I have something new to show you!) then tune in. Also if you have any techniquey questions you want answered, please let me know and I will try my best to answer as many as I can. I'll also be showing some fab stamps and the fab Safmat from Letraset too - again if you don't know what this is you NEEEEED it in your stashbox, so tune in and I'll show you why!
ttfn campers xxx

2011-11-23T07:45:00.000Z

This forward scheduling thing is kinda neat isn't it...I suppose I shouldn't really be telling you that I'm not really hunched over my puter typing furiously before I go on air! anyway, I'm scheduling this for 8am Wed 23rd and if you're reading it at this point - turn on Create and Craft, we're on!! :D
And if you've missed it we're on again at 10am with Dawn Bibby!

Anyway here is today's card from Belles n Whistles...something for Crimbo...

This stamp is called - funnily enough - Christmas Door. Funny that! She's such a cutie, I loved colouring this one and because it has so much detail you can keep the rest of the card really simple. I seem to be having a diamond phase right now, a shape I usually don't like, but I think it's more because yet again it breaks up the edge of the card here for me...

A Marianne's leaf die and papers from Magical Winter and a bit of ribbon and Bobs your Unc, Fanny's your aunt. Ooer missus.
I am going to give some more blog candy away today - one of these lovely Belles n Whistles stamps (not sure which it will be yet, depends on which I can bear to part with)...so to be in with a chance of winning tell me if this was you knocking on this door, who would you find on the other side of it?? Leave your answers in the comments below this post!!
See ya tomorrow.

Quickie post

2011-11-22T09:00:00.000Z

This will have to be a quickie post today, I'm struggling to keep up with my allegiance to post every day for this 15 days or whatever it is LOL! I've literally just finished prepping for Wednesday's shows and had to have a little mini sort out at the same time just so I could actually FIND stuff I need to take with me! This room is in some serious need of organisation and a damn good clean, it has a ginger carpet again. I bought a new hoover that could sit just inside the door thinking I would use it each week if I didnt have to lug the Dyson upstairs...yeah right, as IF! Twice, I say twice in 6 months is more like it! Maybe 3 times.

So, Tracie will be on my shows with me this week, please give her your support as I think she's seriously bricking it, I've never known her so quiet ever, but she'll be fine. She actually has it easy anyway, I could've been really mean and made her do the entire show on her own first time bwaaahahah! Anyway she'll be great, I have no idea what she's worrying about tee hee...yeah ok easy for me to say 3 years down the line, I do remember how much I was quaking for my first show too! And all the rest afterwards! Now I just don't think about it any more. At NEC Create & Craft asked me to do a half hour show with them on their stand - I found that much more frightening, having an actual audience in front of me, I was papping my big girl pants I can tell you! Then I noticed the screen was so bad the poor audience couldnt even see what I was doing anyway, it was a complete waste of time really but we had a laugh.
Right, onto today's submission - are you sick of Belles n Whistles yet? Well I am on a mission to introduce this gorgeous range to you so it's bloody hard chedd., I loooove Elisabeth Bell's designs and I am rather starstruck as we've been emailing each other lately, she's such a sweetheart, but mad as an aussie hatter.
So what do we have today??...how about this beauty...

I do love this image, I think it has to be one of my favourites from Elisabeth, it so reminds me of my Sarah Kay duvet cover when I was a kid, it totally takes me back to being 18 LOL! Well, ok 10 then. This is called Happy Mail and it does make me happy each time I see it, it just evokes images of playing out in the summer holiday and yummy cold lemonade and baking with my mum and grandma for me.

I've coloured this with Flexmarkers and Prisma's and I wanted those lovely soft vintagey tones which I love on here. Papers of course are yet again my 2nd fave combo from Pretty Sweet and that flower I made with one of the brand new EK Success punches which sorry, we sold out of at NEC! Love them, as did you!

I'm really into having everything falling off the sides of my cards at the mo, have you spotted it yet? and did you spot that ribbon again? oh my, yes I am actually using it LOL! I hope you've left comments on the last 2 days posts to be in with a chance of winning my blog candy this week...who knows, there might be some more to come yet so keep tuning in!...
x

Kitch Fail

2011-11-21T09:00:00.001Z

I always considered myself a pretty decent cook but just lately I seem to be more Cant Cook Wont Cook than I have ever been in my life! I've had a string of kitch disasters lately, including sticky chicken which was so sticky it ruined by un-ruinable v expensive Woll pan and literally stuck our teef together so bad we couldnt eat it and ended up rolling about laughing at each other's sudden pearly whites turning into a shade of bonfire toffee brown! This was just one of the recent escapades until just tonight when I opened a lemon meringue pie to remember I'd dropped it as I put it in the fridge.

This is how it went in the oven, still in the dish and how it came out of the box , and how it came out again LOL - simply classic! Tastes yum, looks like shit!!

It actually looks like something my OH would make. He is not a cook, in fact today I discovered he's never even "opened" an egg before. "Opened". Do I have to say any more? This is the man who told me he used to boil eggs in his kettle when he first left home, then wondered why they exploded and the kettle broke. Seriously. This is the man who, when I was seriously ill with bad gastroentiritis and laryngitis at same time came back from the shop with food (having been sent) armed with a chicken & mushroom pot noodle, 2 raspberry yoghurts and hobnobs. None of which I like when I am well, let alone when i'm sick and haven't eaten for 4 days. I rest my case.

Anyway, I could go on but I won't, I don't want to shock you any further!

I've been prepping for my Create and Craft shows on Wednesday today, after making so many projects this week I'm flagging a bit I must admit. I managed to finish my magazine projects yesterday but forgot I had all the step by step bits to do and it's like making part of the proj 4 times over again - twice! AND trying to get all the colouring exactly the same each time! I tell you, those who wish they could do magazine commissions sometimes have no idea how much work is involved! But I've just made a lush project for Wednesday which I love, I think it will turn out pretty cute so long as I don't cock it all up when I glue it together like I usually do.

Anyway, onto today's little offering for Belles n Whistles using a stamp called Teatime. This is a relatively simple card using papers from Pretty Sweet CD (again - sorry but I heart these papers, the colour palette is one of my fave ever, especially that strawberry pink on the polka dot, swoon!) Again, I let the stamp do the work here and I've reverted back to my retro days of when I first started cardmaking lately doing the matting at jaunty angles look. I used to do this all the time and I loved it then and still love it now to be honest. I've just embellished this one with a die cut, ribbon flower from the website and some Viva Decor glass 3D paint. This image was coloured with a combo of Flexmarkers and Prisma's.

I've also decided to offer some more Blog Candy - if this post gets more than 20 comments I will choose one random person to receive a really cute special edition exclusive stamp. This stamp was produced ONLY for my Class project yesterday and is an Amelia image from the Pretty Sweet collection but she has been specially drawn as an angel with wings specially for this project class and is limited to only 8 stamps in the whole entire world! She is waiting for Santa and leaving his mince pie for him on his travels...

I really had a lovely time at yesterday's class, there's always something lovely about the last one of the year and it was made especially nice with 5 new people all who'd travelled a fair old distance to join us (namely, Felixstowe, Chester and Durham!). I tried to make the project a special one so the people who'd travelled far wouldn't be disappointed and they all loved it as much as I did I think...

This is a lovely box card - the box being inside and 1.5" deep x 7x7". I think I must've seen this somewhere else as I woke up with it in my head and knew exactly what I was going to do with it, I am in love with these huge poinsettia flowers at the mo, I think they're really stunning. They're just plain old flowers on stems but once they're cut down they're perfect for putting on Christmas projects I think. I wanted it to be half in and half out of the aperture, which was of course cut with my favourite Nestie grand oval die.

We embellished the box with Marianne's die cuts again and some holly which we coloured with Promarkers. The Angel is the one which is up for today's blog candy - isn't she cute!

So make sure you leave a comment under this post to be in with a chance of winning her and don't forget there is blog candy up for grabs on yesterday's post too! x

Giveaway Blog Candy

2011-11-20T09:00:00.001Z

Woohooo! Today I have some blog candy for one lucky person who leaves me a comment! I will be picking whoever makes me laugh the most so leave me your wittiest comments please (not jokes, that's cheating!).

So it's Sunday and ordinarily that should mean a lie-in but anyone who has cats in the house knows full well that can't happen. Plus I am busy mid-prep on magazine commissions and TV demo's for this week so the OH will be gutted there's no Sunday lunch this week! Hah!

So today's Belles n Whistles lovely is this one, this stamp is called Star of Bethlehem. I adore this image! It barely needs anything doing to it but I had to get a glow from the star onto the girls the best I could whilst still keeping the simlicity of the image. This is coloured with Flexmarkers which enabled me to get the softest possible blending I could achieve. If you've not used Flexmarkers before - HELLO!- where have you been?? They are basically like a Copic marker but personally I find they blend better because they're slightly wetter.

This pic doesnt really do this justice, not sure what happened to my photography this week, it's a bit pants and out of focus for some reason. The dresses are coloured in Antique white and Linen. Papers, poinsettia's and gems are all from the website, papers from Magical Winter CD. The sentiment is also from the CD and has just been set into a Spellbinders Ironwork die-cut. I love how dramatic the poinsettia's are on this card. They could be overpowering but because the colouring is so clean looking it offsets the drama I think.

So make sure you leave me a comment (seriously, it doesnt have to be funny really) and I will choose someone to receive a copy of our Pretty Tuff CD, which is brand brand new and worth £14.99! The winner will be announced in the next few days!

See you tomorrow, hope you're having a relaxing day! x

2011-11-19T09:00:00.000Z

So how many days in a row is this blogger, I hear you say?? It is definitely a record on my part! Although I did almost get caught out as I almost forgot to schedule this one - eeek!

So what a busy week it's been, couldn't believe it was Friday already this morning. My life seems to be one long constant deadline and I don't know why this amazes me because quite honestly ever since I left school at 16 I've always had a job with big deadlines. You'd think I was used to it by now. In fact, I think I am kinda conditioned to be honest, I do find if I don't have a pressing deadline I kind of falter on the work front until I get behind and then have the pressure again! Must be a pyscho thing ; )

I did however, fail to check my diary properly since NEC and almost missed an important deadline this week which I really could have done without but hey ho. The VAT man will have to wait - again! I'm on Create and Craft next Wed at 8am and 10am and it will be Elfie Tracie's screen debut so please watch and email in to give her your support. I have no idea what she's doing, she's been extremely quiet so I hope she has been busy and hasn't just been sat quivering in a corner :D

I will also be back on air at 9am and 12noon on the following Sunday (27th) with Letraset shows if you're not bored to death of my colouring already. I'll also be showing you some great tricks with Safmat if you've not seen it before, an awesome product that basically lets you print off your own rub-ons! This should be in every crafter's wardrobe, full stop!

Anyway, before all that I have my last class of 2011 tomorrow and it's a full one this time which is good. There will be cake-a-plenty and we're making a lovely project which I have really enjoyed making this week using an exclusive stamp I've designed just for the class. I hope they like it, I think I will have achey breaky arms tomorrow after all the die-cutting I've had to do for the bloody thing!

So onto today's Belles n Whistles project of the day...have you fallen in love with this range of stamps yet? I know I have!...I chose this lovely stamp because online it's so hard to see the design clearly from the description and I think it's just lovely. Such a gentle image, this one and although it's really a Christmas one called Two Turtle Doves, I think you could use it for anniversaries and weddings and all sorts of other things too...

A simple easel card using a scalloped card, lush ribbons and a Marianne's die-cut which is one of my fave dies ever. The papers and sentiment are from the Magical Winter CD. Coloured with Flexmarkers and Promarkers.

So that's my Saturday one. Tune in tomorrow when I'll be doing a blog candy giveaway! x

Alpaca's, bags, halloween and Birdhouses...

2011-11-18T09:00:00.000Z

What a productive couple of days I've had! Woohoo! Nothing better than feeling like you've achieved something I think. Polkadoodles has some exciting things in the pipeline for the New Year and I can't wait to share them but for the moment I have to keep it under my bobble hat. Actually that should be my Button hat. This one.

Adorable isn't it? A proper big wooden button that is humungous! The eagle eyed who were at NEC may have seen this beaut there and after 4 whole days of walking past said loveliness it had to be mine. It's made from Alpaca and is sooo soft. However I did nearly keel over when I had to part with my hard-earned moolah, those furry goat-deer-thingies must live on champagne and oysters the price they're charging! It seems I foiled a lovely secret gesture by the OH tho - as he'd already been and bought me this bag about an hour before:
And he wasn't impressed that he bought brown and I bought grey! Only there was confusion as to what I bought and he got kerfuddled and went and swapped it for the wrong colour. Bless him! I was quite mortified acsh as I had already decided not to part with too much cash for the bag hence making do with the hat! He didn't tell me till we got home from NEC on the Sunday night, he's such a sweetheart really. I don't know why he didnt keep it for crimbo really, I think he just can't keep the secret long enough LOL!
Anyway, enough of bag and hat swoonage.
So I'm behind posting, as always. And it was halloween a few weeks ago which I adore!! Even though I was stacked I had to participate and made dairy free treats for Elfie Tracie's kiddywinks to enjoy...bless them they turned up full costume...

Little Jake had a particularly creepy face mask which freaked us all out A LOT! The dairy free treats are at the top and were rather nice I thought, they didnt last long, and the full on calorific full of crap packet mix worst cupcakes in the world ever are below. Thank goodness it was dark when I handed them out!

Each year we seem to get more trick or treaters and I think we're starting to get a rep for the pumpkin carving altho I was in a bit of a ruch this time and I didn't think they were a patch on last years...

We did have 3 but the other pics didn't come out great. I like the little hangman on this one tee hee...

Kuretake also had a Create and Craft show Halloween week and this picture is from one of the samples I made for the show, using Kurecolors, which are an alcohol based marker with really lush, rich pigments perfect for a strong scene like this one.
This is our Neighbours range of stamps again (of course, what else!) and I've freehand done the bats and cobwebs. Bit out of my normal colour realm this one but it fits the occasion, isn't that sky cool? Sadly I forgot to take a pic of the main card sample but it was fairly simples anyway as the pic did the talking.

So, onto the Card of the Day in my mini marathon.
As you know I am mad on Belles n Whistles and day 2 is this gorgeous stunner of a stamp...

This is called Birdhouse Friends and is one of my favourites I must confess, you know me, hate

birds in real life but can't resist a birdhouse on a craft project! The card shape is created from Spellbinders Grand Nestabilities scallop dies - this die set is my fave of all time I think. I never quite "got" why you would want such a huge die but since I got my Calibur I totally get it now! Shaped cards for sure and this one is beyond versatile! I so hope they bring out more of these by Donna Salazar, they're awesome!

All I did was cut out the big scallop and fold it in half, cover with the polka dot paper which is from Pretty Sweet. I then took some of our gingham ruffle ribbon and glued it round the edge. In hindsight I wish I hadn't but hey, we all make mistakes! The rest is simples, bit of glitz and that was it really. I coloured this image with my Flexmarkers and prisma's but mainly the new Flex colours...

Those cute little flowers are one of our new lines on the website and are cheaper than chips so make sure you check them out, they're flying out the door right now.
See you tomorrow! xx

Christmas Angel

2011-11-17T09:00:00.000Z

Third post in a row, woohoo! Here is my next Belles n Whistles card for you. I do rather like this, it's my fave shape again I'm afraid, you might get a little bored of seeing this one soon! I've taken strips of papers and looped them at the top spine of the card so they're sitting proud. I know you would need a box to place this into but I do love making wacky shaped projects and hate the idea of being restricted creatively just because it might cost an extra £1 to send through the post. I can never really understand people who moan about how much it costs to send handmade cards - I know postage can be expensive but in the general scheme of how much we spend on our stash and the time we take to make things, an extra £1 in stamps is kind of a drop in the ocean really LOL!!
Anyway, I coloured the delightful Angel with my prisma pencils this time round, used a nestie die to cut her out and some snowflake dies. The ribbon is again from the website and is my all time favourite ribbon EVER! Lush quality velvet attached to ivory cotton lace underneath, it costs a bomb per metre but it goes a long way because it can only really be used as trim, it's too thick to tie in a bow. The papers are all from the Pretty Sweet CD.

See ya on the next post! x

NEC and other stuff...

2011-11-16T09:00:00.001Z

I love how people can think of really exciting titles for their posts, I am null and void of such things.
So get me, scheduling posts, what's THAT all about ay!

So firstly, NEC news - oh my, HOW busy were we?? We will have to get a bigger stand next time, apologies if you were amongst the people who couldn't see our lovely wares because of space issues, it seems on the Saturday it was particularly manic! Maybe we should get one of those red ropes and issue a ticket to take your turn like at the deli counter in Tesco LOL! But seriously, HUGE thanks to everyone for your support, it was lovely to see so many of you and put tweet and facebook names to faces at last, and also just to have a gossip and get your feedback and suggestions, we always try to listen to what you think and what you want. The show organisers said we won prize for the best stocked stand which was pretty cool and we did add LOADS of new products specially for the show, the remains of which are now online too - no less than 150 new lines I have to add, 150!!!

Don't you just love these cute little button jars in proper glass jars - a bargain, I have them all lined up on my desk! There are loads more embellies and ribbons which are just to die for on the website.

Those of you who were there will know that we showcased the brand new Flexmarker colours and were and for some reason still are the only retailer who seems to be stocking the single pens so go and fill your boots on the website! We brought TONS of stock with us and sold out by noon on Friday so had to get a special order shipped to the show for 9am Saturday ready for the busiest 2 days. Yep, you guessed it, we sold out again! There are now an additional 28 colours which are currently only available as single pens, not in packs, and this takes the colour collection to 52 of the original 76 promised. I have it on good authority that the remaining 24 will probably be released after Christmas. We have these on a truly amazing price deal so make sure you snap them up, I defy you, defy you I say! to find them at a better price! :D (I may live to regret that statement!). The new colours are completely lush and again are not Promarker colours, these include loads of browns and blues perfect for hair and jeans! buy buy buy! You neeeeeeed them!!
Talking of Letraset, I will be on Create & Craft on 23rd Nov at 8 and 10am with the lovely Tracie who will be making her TV debut alongside me - woohooo, go Elfie! She will be fab! All those of you who have the Pretty Sweet and the latest Pretty Tuff CD's need to tune in and those of you who don't also need to tune in LOL! Obvs, I will be using the lovely Letraset products and then on Sun 27th Nov I will be back for 3 hours of Letraset dedicated shows at 9am and then 12-2pm on the Toolshed where I will be showing all the Letraset wares and goodies.
You may have seen on a couple of posts ago that I am organising a Colour Studio Workshop weekend in York in January - places are getting booked up fast and it's a great opportunity to really try and improve your colouring skills or just have a fab chillout day crafting and colouring. There will be a fab goodie bag to take home, plenty to do and a yummy hot/cold 3 course lunch. It's a great excuse to ask for a Christmas pressie u actually WANT and will be useful instead of all those fattening chocs and fluffy slippers and as York is so lovely to visit, drag the OH along and they can go sightseeing for a romantic weekend away (see, this is how I would sell it to my OH!). Anyway, please don't delay as places are going quickly, details are here.
So, here is today's peek of my card...

This adorable image is one of the fab Belles n Whistles stamps coloured with the lovely new Flexmarker colours. Papers and sentiment are from the Magical Winter collection and finished with Spellbinders ironwork die, a Mariannes die and a fab ribbon. Love the colours on this, it gives a real vintagey feel which reminds me of my childhood.

Ta-da!

2011-11-15T20:47:00.000Z

Wowser where do I start? The last month has been manic! I have an absolute stack of lovely cards to share with you all that I made this week with the fabulous Belles n Whistles stamp range which we now stock online. I totally <3 this range of images from Elisabeth Bell and I was eager beaver to stock it as it's quite hard to get hold of here in the UK. So now we have it and I'm committed to keeping as much of the range as we can, getting it shipped all the way from the good ol' US of A as the new realeases happen. Talking of which we have just taken delivery this week of Elisabeth's new Christmas range, together with some of the favourites from last year, all adorable. I've gotten to know Elisabeth over the past couple of months by email and she is a total sweetheart, although she is far too beaut for her own good, I didn't know Australian's could be so good looking!
So anyway, trying not to make this too much of a mammoth post by droning on like I usually do. I found some lost piccies of my Craft Stamper projects which I made months and months ago to go with the freebie stamp I designed for the cover issue (better late than never). I was sent some gorge papers to use and for the life of me I can't remember what they were now but I was in love with them. The little flower was the free stamp, from what I heard it seemed to be a really popular image...

Really simple to do, I just masked the image and stamped in a line straight onto the paper, then used glossy accents onto the actual flower head for some dimension...

This next card I totally adore, I must admit. I took an 8x8 card blank, cut it in half down the spine and then folded it in half again. I love this shape and it's one I'm using loads at the moment, I think it's really striking.
I folded different widths of paper over and tucked them under the stamped image to make loops. A bit of lace, paper twine, a felt button and a button made with my Epiphany button makes and some pins and bobs your uncle for this one, simples really but I think it's rather beaut...

This next one was rather complicated really. Or rather I made really hard work of it, you know when you just wish you'd never started, mainly because I cut all the paper down without measuring and then it didnt fit properly LOL!...

First I stamped a row of flowers and coloured them then cut them out in a long strip. These sit inside the frame at the back, with a sentiment stamp behind it. I made lots of frames using strips of paper, making them fit one inside the other, tearing all the edges for some interest. I then made 2 concertina ends for the sides to make a sort of *tunnel* card, but with my take on it. I didn't like the top being uncovered so I made a roof type thing for it with the bits I had left. Finally I made some bunting and made it all criss cross to add a sense of depth and dimension. This really didn't photograph well, it's been skelling around on my desk for a month or so getting squished so it all looks out of kilter now LOL. It's not really a card, it's more a *thing* to sit on the mantelpiece LOL!
So that's it for today, I'm going to be posting all my other cards over the next 2 weeks! I think I have 15 to share so that's 15 days worth LOL!
ttfn! x

Colour Studio Workshop Days

2011-11-08T20:36:00.000Z

Busy Busy Busy

2011-11-08T17:43:00.000Z

I'm so sorry I havent blogged for ages - I WILL be back this week with a mammoth post and loads of piccies to show you all (if I can find the SD card, where DO they go, I have 4 and can't find a single one!!). ttfn x

DESIGN TEAM CALL!!...

2011-10-02T15:38:00.000+01:00

Hi everyone - we have a brand new Design Team call out over on the Polkadoodles Blog!
deadline to enter is 13th October so check out the requirements, we need to see your talent!! xxx

Polkadoodles Challenge - Distress it.

2011-09-23T11:23:00.000+01:00

No card from me this week, I'm not feeling too well and have a busy week coming up but make sure you checkout the PD challenge blog as there are some fabulous projects from the DT this week. Also - make sure all your entries are in for last week's challenge to be in with a chance of winning the new Pretty Sweet CD! You will love it!
This week we also have a super giveaway from Letraset and some useful tips for using your Flexmarkers with a freebie download so make sure you go check it out HERE.

Pretty Sweet...

2011-09-20T15:40:00.000+01:00

So I am in love with our latest CD of scrummy cuteness. For ages I've wanted to make a really pretty, unashamedly girlie collection and one night a few weeks ago I was totally inspired. I have to say ALL 12 of these lovely characters were penned in one single evening, in about 4 hours! Rather like those muso's that manage to write a whole album in a week! I finished about 1am, trundled off to bed and the next morning awoke and skipped off to my 45minute checkup at the hospital. The rest, as they say, goes down in history as the worst 45min appt ever - it lasted 6 whole days! So whilst incarcerated I kept on working (not much can keep me down LOL) and designed all the backing papers to co-ordinate, which was most amusing - should've got the OH to take a pic of me trapped in my corner of the ward with iphone, netbook, macbook, graphics tablet and drawing pads all around me squirrying away lol! After the first day of me setting up my desk the Docs and Nurses just shook their heads at me. I like to think it was in admiration but I suspect it was more despair :D
Well that's what happens if I get locked up and feel as fit as a butcher's dog!! Anyway, I'm so glad I did because it meant that it kept me from climbing the walls some days and also meant that we were able to launch this beaut mini collection at Harrogate GNPE last week, where you all loved it. So here are some of the samples I managed to make for the show (in about 4 hrs I kid you not)...deadlines schmedlines and all that...
(oo before I forget - at GNPE we did a show special on Pretty Sweet - however this week I decided that I needed to give you more sentiment sheets for the CD so if you want to grab these then you can get it as a titchy download here to just give you a few more options - if your CD already has 5 sheets of sentiments please do not buy the download, you don't need it).

You can't really see it here but the roses are coloured with the fabulous Kuretake Zig Wink of Stella pens - if you haven't tried these yet they are delicious!! Not at all like Sakura glitter pens, these have a fibre tip and the glitter is really intense but as it's not suspended in a gel you actually get a more vivid truer colour. I love glitter but not all over everything and these give more of a glittery shimmer which is really beautiful, rather than a full on bling it up child-like glitter if that makes sense. They're stunning, and the clear really is absolutely transparent, again I find the Sakura glitter still shows the gel beneath it whereas WOS don't present that problem at all and they last for ages. (and yes, waterbased so you can watercolour with them too, BUT make sure you store horizontally!).

You can see the sparkle a little more on the t-shirt on this image - that clear does not change the colour beneath it whatsoever...All of these images were coloured with Flexmarkers, with Promarkers for the hair...

I adore how it's so easy to get those peachy sweet skintones now with the Flexmarker brush...

and then finally, we couldn't do a consumer show without these beauties, although you did all go rather mental for the hair techniques at this show which was a surprise to me...

I decided to colour this one in a slightly more traditional way to how I'd normally do these scenes but I must say I absolutely adore the colours on this scene...

The photography on some of these isn't the best but you'll be able to see this sample in real-life on Kuretake's Create and Craft shows on Sunday 25th September. If you don't know much about Kuretake products - where on earth have you been?? You seriously need to check out the whole range, and if you love your alcohol based markers then watch this space for some reviews on the Kurecolor range coming up soon and lots of Kuretake news and snippets.

A Saturday off...

2011-09-17T18:39:00.002+01:00

Well, sort of...just nothing pressing rather than "off". But I decided I would spend a few hours with my Cuttlebug, Nesties and Marianne's dies just cutting shedloads in prep for when I need them. I get really annoyed with myself just cutting one thing at a time and can't be faffed so I have all these dies and never end up using them, so wasteful (2011 has really seen me try and USE my stash instead of it sitting looking pretty and all loney)!...
So to make the die-cuts work for me whenever I need them I decided to just cut from white card. This means you can have a massivo stack and then just ink and pretty them up to suit whatever you're making, whenever you need them, rather than cutting from loads of patterned papers and then never having the right shape to use in the right pattern - sods law this will never work in a month of Sundays.
...and yes, I still have my Cricut Expression and no doubt I could've cut all these in half the time and it would've been much easier but I really don't have room for it at home so I'm sad to say I havent used it since last Christmas! Shocking I know, but I will use it any day now ; )
haha!
So here is the mountainous stack...

Excuse the naff pic - as I was cutting some really intricate flourishes I've learned my lesson before - they all get tangled up and it takes you as long to untangle them as it does to cut new ones! So I placed them in little piles on acetate to keep them together and fairly tidy and then layered up the stack trying to have some semblance of organisation.
...So I hear you say, big deal! So what? Nothing remarkable there!...well yes I agree, but...am I the only person on earth who gets really annoyed that the paper wont pop out of the dies easily? I was thinking about this a lot and after about an hour of being thoroughly annoyed with it I realised there was an easy peasy fix...I got a tealight and gently rubbed it across the die.
Guess what - BINGO!! Super doopy easy release!! It was instantaneous - AND it meant the ones which I was struggling to get to cut properly (note, Spellbinders new Doily) - suddenly cut much much more easily! AND I could also cut 2, sometimes 3 sheets of 160gsm at the same time! Now that is what I call a good day's work. Ok, so there are downsides - obviously the paper WILL get wax on it so if you're going to ink any of the edges you might find its messy because you'll get a resist from the wax, but to be honest I really like having a nice crisp white frame so for me it's not an issue. I tend to use white flourishes and accents because it sometimes just gives your project a lift when it's all looking a bit overdone with patterned papers and coloured images etc.
So, if you find you struggle - give it a whirl! I'm sure someone else has done this before but I've never seen anyone else have as much of an issue as I seem to and it works for me so I'm happy.
Ta-ta!
xx
edited: Just occurred to me it might be a cleaner option to use something like Mr Sheen wipes - this'll give you a waxy finish without getting it everywhere. Must buy some next time I do a shop! x
and edited again (sigh): yes, yes, tumble dryer sheets. Probs the best option overall. Will do it and report backski. (i am not editing again) x

Thankyou...

2011-09-06T18:09:00.000+01:00

Just a quick post to say a huge thankyou to everyone for all the get well wishes and cards you've been sending, I'm overwhelmed! I actually haven't been "ill" as unwell but a routine hospital appointment turned into a 5 day stay for some major observation. Needless to say I never do anything by halves and I've had half the specialist teams in Yorkshire scratching their heads trying to find out what the heck is going on because I was wandering around happy as Larry when they all thought I should be 6ft under! I've always said I'm built like a brick shithouse and they don't often fall down do they haha!(our shed is built around an old one in our yard LOL).
So I am home and fine although I will be taking a bit of time out of my schedule under instruction to take it a little easier, this past year certainly has been very demanding indeed, but I do know when I need to ease up. Sorry if you were looking forward to the Letraset shows last weekend which were cancelled, but there will be more. I'm so so happy that I will be able to go to the GNPE event at Harrogate this weekend 10/11th September and my trusty elf Tracie, the pink haired elf will be there to keep an eye on me, as will the lovely Clare Curd who will be giving me a hand with the old demo schedule. I do hope she brings cake! :D
Thanks again to everyone who has messaged on twitter, facebook, the forums and email, I really do appreciate all your support, you lovely kind peeps. mwaaah xxx

Excited.com

2011-08-29T11:12:00.000+01:00

I have been waiting soooo long to reveal this beauty and now at last I can let the cat out of the bag! It has been months and months in the making but the wait has definitely been worth it! This fabulous magazine kit is available in WHSmiths, Hobbycrafts and Craft stores from Sept 1st. Practical Publishing have put this together and I have to thank Louisa and the team over there for all their hard work, we absolutely love the way this turned out but it took a long time to get all the colour matches and co-ordinating pieces right.

The kit is boxed and includes an exclusive papercraft kit with 16 papers, a clear stamp set, ribbons, buttons, die-cuts, stickers and gems, plus a lovely mylar house template - all these lovely elements go an unbelievably long way, I made 10 projects and still has loads of bits left over to make a few more.
BUT, I have to say, that's not the best bit about it...also included in the kit (which is a bargacious £7.99) is a fandabbydozy magazine! Not just any magazine either - this 68page mag is completely dedicated to the kit, where myself and 8 of my lovely design team buddies have put together an absolute treasure trove of projects for you to follow and keep for inspiration. There are no adverts taking up all the spaces in the mag, it is completely chock-a-block of projects and instructions giving you amazing ideas, techniques and how-to's...now, what are you waiting for?? get moving and go find a copy NOW, I know from my twitter and facebook there are at least 100 people already waiting eagerly for it to be released so I think it will be sold out in a snap!

(I don't even have a copy myself yet at the time of sharing this, I'm hoping to procure some stock for the Polkadoodles website but as I forgot to pre-order (duh!) I don't have high hopes of this so if you see it elsewhere please get it as I may not be able to stock it!). Sob.
x

Polkadoodles Challenge - Stashbox stamp, spots and dots, week

2011-08-26T07:00:00.002+01:00

Wowser, get me!! I am actually writing this post 2 weeks ahead of the challenge, woohooooo!! Clearly I am very ill and not of sound mind as this person is way too organised to be me.

Anyway, onto the card...
I am in luuuurve with Gorjuss, have been ever since the range was launched and we recently added the stamps to our website - I figure if I have to have 'em everyone else probs needs 'em too.
I actually had a day at home today - the first Sunday in months and I chose not to do any work. Didnt quite work out as I did do some but as soon as I got up I decided I wanted to make a card. A me card. Just for me.
Just lately I've been a little fed up and feeling like my cards are a bit stale and stuck in a rut. All I ever get to do these days is make samples and demo and very often as a pro maker that means you kinda compromise a bit on what you would maybe make if you were just doing cards for family and friends. When you make in this way you're always restricted in the materials you can use, especially with TV samples as we are not allowed by the TV commission to use lots of products which aren't available to actually buy on the shows. So if you sit there wondering why we never use pretty ribbons and gems etc etc that's the reason. The biggest restriction is time though...the days of being able to spend an hour colouring in and assembling a card are long gone for me. So today I just played...

I used the Gorguss stamps as my Stashbox treat and then the blue polka dot paper in the background is from the new Magical Winter CD, I just punched around the edge with my Martha Stewart punch. I had a nestie shape already cut on my desk and then used this to cut around the shape on some felt and glued together as the background.

Excuse the slightly blurry piccie here. I made a little canopy on the top of the card here just by folding a strip of paper in half lengthways and again punching the edge with my scallop punch and glueing to the top edge of the card. I've been using Pinflair glue gel lately and if this is something you've never tried - WHAT are you thinking of, peeps?? EVERY crafter needs this glue, it's completely awesome and allows you to get loads of dimension, but completely manipulatable (is that a word?) so if you make a boo boo you're not nackered, to coin a phrase. In fact I've decided I love it so much we are going to be stocking it permanently on the website as soon as I can get in. Make sure you get it with the syringe!...why? well, lookeee ye here below what I did...

...I made this pic giant so you can see...look at the icicles! Squeeeeeeal!!!!! I've used it in a similar way before to make ice which is really effective if you're making an acetate card because it is a completely crystal clear gel which most others aren't. Also it doesnt stink to high heaven either because it's not a silicon. So using the syringe that comes with the glue I just ran it along the edge of the canopy and then went back and made the icicles. Little tip - squeeze gently then just pull the syringe away really slowly to get the daintiest little spikes you can. It takes about an hour to start going off so make sure you put it to dry without the icicles touching anything else, as long as they're not too heavy at the bottom they will just hang - it's MAGIC!
(another tip: even once it's cured it has a tendency to cling, especially to itself so make sure if you're giving the card you protect those little stelactites with something first before placing in an envelope or a box.

Anyway, I used a couple of ribbons, flowers, some twinkley bits etc to decorate the rest of the card. The sentiment I just did by hand because I was too lazy to get my fatass out the chair to go find a stamp that was suitable. Here are the coloured images, which were done with Promarkers. Must admit I do think these are lush...x

Polkadoodles Challenge - a single layer

2011-08-19T08:00:00.003+01:00

So my teamies over on the Polkadoodles challenge blog set a toughie this week! We could only use a single layer on our cards...eek!!
But, lucky for me I've been doing loads of single layer cards for a while on my various demo's so I think I probably found it a little easier than some of the others but it really showed us all how much we love to embellish our projects I think! Go on, try it, it's harder than you think!

Well, I musto confess now. I had this card up my sleeve from a while back but it fits the challenge really well. If you don't count the red mat under the piccy that is, but my neat little trick counteracts that I think. I used my favest stamps (I really do think these are some of my all time fave ever) and just did loads of masking and layering. The colouring is ALL Promarkers, just using a mix of greys and adding a black right at the very top of the sky. Then I ran over it with a white inkssentials pen to create all the little snowflakes. I think this card was the very first scene I made like this and to be honest I still adore it, I want to go inside, it looks like they have a big tree and a cosy fire to sit round doesnt it!?

So did you see the neat little trick that fits the challenge perfickly? See the scallop sentiment? That is also a stamp - well, two actually. The scallop was stamped and then the message inside it (stamps are here, this is SUCH a great sentiment set, you will use it forever). Then I took a craft knife and just cut slightly around the scallop so I could weave the ribbon through. So you see, it looks like it's mat and layered onto the card but in fact is part of the card itself. So as it's a 0 layer it cancels out the cheaty red layer in my world! But neat huh? I love it, even in real life I still want to touch the edge of that scallop, it looks so 3D.
So there we go, my take on this week's challenge - if you haven't checked the rest of my teamies work yet make sure you do, there are some amazing projects on there! squeeeeeeeeel!

DT project

2011-08-12T04:00:00.000+01:00

I'm determined to join the Polkadoodles challenge blog more! I am ashamed how little I manage to join in these days, I must get more organised and plan ahead a bit more.
Anyway I managed to join in this week's challenge which has a "Good Luck" theme by adapting a card I'd made as a sample for the Pick of the Day shows last week.
With this challenge I made a very simple 6 x 6" easel card using one of the Fairy images from Magic Winter. I really wanted to show with a little thought you can often make images which seem really specific more versatile if you think a bit laterally.

I coloured the Fairy with my brand new Flexmarkers (lush! eek! check out those gorge pale colours!!) and decorated the edge with my MS snowflake punch but they look like flowers. I am also in love with Kuretake's products and am lucky enough to be working with them on a few things right now - every time I see Steph demo on Create and Craft she inspires me to pick up pens and markers and start doodling and doing Calligraphy! In reality I'm practicing for when I have to stand in and demo on the shows, I am a long long way from being as good as she is with the mighty pen, I'm rather intimidated! This is a freehand calligraphy so I just doodled "Good Luck" and made it a bit swirly and embellished with some flowers. I've used the metallic calligraphy pens here and they are completely lush, you can mix colours to get fantastic looks right across the whole Kuretake range - I used the red and silver together to give a much softer look than just using one or the other as I wanted to keep away from a Christmas feel, considering this card was originally made as a Crimbo card!
I know a lot of people look at Calligraphy and are completely phased by it because it does look really complex but if you would like to have a go, look on the Kuretake website as they have some great practice sheets or just google - you will see an absolute array of different styles, there really are no rules and anyone can achieve a great look easily, no matter how poor your handwriting. I think we still think of "Olde English" when we think Calligraphy and old school calligraphers were always very strict on how letters were formed but there's no reason why you can't do your own take on it too. I have a very short attention span for rules (!) so I just go with the flow but you do need to have a bit of a practice and personally I do think you will get a much better result if you're using proper calligraphy products because you do need the angle of the tip to base it around. Go on, give it a try, it's so addictive! x

FLEXmarkers...the review.Get a cuppa and a biccie...

2011-08-06T14:12:00.011+01:00

Just in case you haven't read Pen-gate, last week I was asked to demonstrate a brand new product from Letraset on Ideal World's Pick of the Day shows - the brand new FLEXmarker.

So when I agreed to do the shows I had no real idea what this product was other than a marker with a brush tip and to be honest with it being a brand new product and exclusive to the channel for a month and, to boot, a WORLD launch of the product I felt a bit of pressure and started to stress a little at only having 2 days to prep before going live before the world with it. Yes, that IS how much notice I got!

So they arrived on Friday afternoon and I RIPPED the package open I can tell you! As soon as I saw it I thought ooohhh just like a Copic! So I got on the phone to Letraset and asked for the full product info and couldn't wait to read through it. I have to say I was a little underwhelmed at first, it takes a LOT to get me excited about a craft product these days, nothing seems to be brand new or unseen before and nothing seems to stand out much from the crowd these days, we seem to be in a craft hiatus as far as "new" is concerned. Anyway I scribbled on a bit of paper just to look but didnt have time for anything else as I was demoing in Leeds all day Saturday.

So Sunday, feeling really tired from a heavy week and not very inspired I retrieved all 24 of the Flexies (as I will call them here) and made a swatch board for the shows. By the time I'd got to the 3rd colour in Set One I was "ooohing" and "aaahing" and my excitement levels were kicking in a bit as I realised how lush the colours were and how smooth they went on the paper. So here are my findings:

I'm not in love with the packaging and the whole look of the barrel in it's grey, I think these markers could look a lot more exciting than they do, but let's be honest what it looks like on the outside is irrelevant if it does a great job on the inside. BUT I was absolutely over the moon to see that Letraset have taken heed and finally colour coded the ends of the markers. And not just one end, people, BOTH ends, both coloured and numbered! And also, not just a printed colour and number which will rub off over time, it's encapsulated into both ends in a way that I think it will be there forever. A fantastic start if you're a geek like me who likes to have them all colour coded and filed into number order etc. Also, I found that the colour indicators did actually reflect the colour of the pen really well - nothing more annoying than getting a different colour to what you think you picked! Now, one more thing I'll say about the caps before I go onto the pen itself is that you MUST make sure you really click the caps on when you use them, they are a bit firmer than Promarker caps with a definite click. I must admit when I was on TV demoing with my hot and sweaty hands I did find the caps a little bit harder to remove, they have a band around them rather than the little nodule you find on a Promarker so if someone does have dexterity issues and not much strength in their hands they may find them a little more tricky to remove sometimes. And as we were rushing and the presenters were also using them we kept leaving the lids off which made mine dry out a bit in the studio heat (it was el scorchio that day). Also, I do wish they'd kept that nodule on there so the pen doesn't roll around so much - missed a trick there Letraset I'm afraid, no idea why you decided to take it off but I do wish you'd put it back please!

So, the pen...double ended, alcohol marker. Non refillable. Onto the big thing first, let's get it out of the way - the price. I asked Letraset what the RRP would be for a single pen and was told around £3 each. Wowser! Much steeper than the £2 for a Promarker but PLEASE don't dismiss them for just this reason, please read on and if you only buy ONE to try you will realise why they are the additional money. When a marker has a brush tip added, the brush (I am told from a reliable source, and to add credence to this, Kuretake told me this so it wasn't part of any sales pitch, people) the brush has to be inserted into the barrel by hand rather than machine filled, and clearly this additional labour cost will really increase the price. But I also personally think that if something is hand finished it will also be much better quality than anything made by a machine. I also have to say that in MY opinion I much prefer this brush to the Copic brush which is clearly it's biggest competitor...

The Flex brush is, well, flexible! But not in an out of control, too much movement kind of way. Copic users adore their brush tip and I do too, I originally began with Copics but found that I always went outside the lines when I was doing fine detail. So I tried Promarkers and then moved over because I just found it so much easier to be neat with the hard nib of the PM. But I've always missed that softness of the brush and I think that's why I end up using the chisel so often so I can get those big sweeps of colour and work much faster too.

Anyway, the brush tip on the Flexies is made up of fibres and you will find that after even just a few minutes of using it, the brush just gets softer and softer and after a few hours it is just baby soft, which can only do one thing as far as I'm concerned - help you. I can actually see the tip of the brush fibres parting slightly as I move it which means it gives superb blending because it's manipulating the colour onto the paper of it's own accord. Very clever. The reason I prefer it to the Copics is that the brush is shorter. And that means more control as far as I'm concerned.

Now, we have exactly the same dye based ink formulations that are in the Promarkers and Tria's and that also means we can mix into our other markers too. There will be 72 colours in the range to begin with but they won't be available to retail stores until the end of August as C&C had 4 weeks exclusivity for the launch. There are 4 sets of 6 pens, and I have also seen 4 sets of 12 although I don't have these yet, and presumably the remaining 24 will be launched at the end of August but Letraset haven't confirmed this with me yet either. There will also be a Flexmarker blender, but you can also use your Promarker blender too. Sets 1 and 2 are completely brand new colours in the alchohol family at Letraset, so never ever seen before. All 4 sets (6 packs), 1,2,3,4 (24 colours in total) will NOT be available in Promarkers, but Sets 3 and 4 are currently available as Triamarker colours - again these other 12 colours will not be available within Promarkers. Phew! Took some getting my head around that one.

One really important thing to note - you really need to prime these on the brush, especially on the light colours in Set One and Two, so don't think they're not working if no colour is on the brush! So just take the brush end and scribble onto some scrap paper or card for a minute until the colour flushes through into the brush - then you're off! You should only ever need to do it once.

So, I decided to colour exactly the same image as I did for Pengate as it was only fair and I wanted to be able to make a direct comparison, and this is the result.

(sorry I forgot to take a pic of the reverse before I glued it down to compare the bleedthrough).

When I first started to use them I kept veering towards my blender pen simply because of late I've been liking the really subtle shading this gives me but to be honest, after about 20mins of using the Flexies I never really gave the blender another thought, the brush is so smooth it kinda removes some of the necessity of it.

The brush is so, so soft. I know I'm banging on about it but it really is and at the end of the day this is what makes these markers so special, otherwise they're just a Promarker and 99% of us crafters know what they can do.

I have to say, the colours in Sets 1,2,3,4 are not the best colours for Christmas! I'd geared myself up to do Christmas colouring and printed loads of images off and couldn't use them, but because the colours are so pale and translucent you can layer them to make new colours.
I don't know if technically the formulation has made the colours extra translucent compared to a normal Promarker or Tria, I suspect it may be the case to enable an even flow through the brush (ie it may have to be slightly thinner to flow better through the longer fibres) or it could probably just be that because there is less colour we have more alcohol which lets it flow better, but the colours certainly seem to layer better which means you can make loads of new colours. I did this in PM's anyway but sometimes a lighter colour on top of a pale one seems to sit on top and look dappled rather than blending in and you seem to get less of this here.
The brush just sweeps the colour on in even brushstrokes BUT Promarker users - you need to work more slowly! Well, I do anyway, or I find I work too fast for the inkflow in the brush and it gets a bit dry on me until it's replenished. But that's no biggie and might be just me when I'm used to using the giant chisel! If it does happen all I do is hold it vertically for a few seconds until it's back again.

You can see here on the tree how seemless the blending is and I really didn't have to work too hard to achieve this - the blending is definitely easier than with Promarkers, the brush spreads the colour around for you. I found working the Copic way, ie in small circles rather than pushing back and forth is the best technique and that also helped to soften the brush anyway, not that it was ever hard in the first place. EXACTLY THE SAME as on the Speccies image, I used 4 colours here to get the tree green - in fact, no, sorry I lie, I had to use 5 colours as I had to mix Surf Blue into the Chartreuse to get the darker green because my colour palette was limited. If you directly compare this to the brushstrokes you can see on the Speccies image you will see how much smoother and softer it is and that is primarily because of that brush.
I also have to say, that although I had to go a bit slower than I would normally with the chisel tip, I could still work really fast and on Sunday I coloured 30, yes, 30! images in with the Flexes, all for the show samples (not just simple stuff either, I will post those samples at some point so you can see). On Monday all I did was assemble the 30 cards - I don't think I'd have done that many if I'd been using anything else to be honest, I was amazed how quickly I got them done.

Now for the jeans, this is where I found I really had to lay a lot of colour down for the Speccies so I wanted to ensure I used a really pale and a dark blue again in the same way. I used the celestial blue and then glacier blue, just pushing the colour around in circles again and I was so pleased with this result. There is more of a hard edge on his inside leg (ooer) but I could've got rid of that if I'd really wanted to. Obviously when you lay a lot of colour down and keep blending and blending then you will get bleed over your lines and I won't lie and say I didn't but it wasn't anything out of the ordinary compared to what I'd expect from using a Copic or Promarker. Although I didn't take a pic, the bleedthrough on the back (again same 160gsm Ultimate Graphic paper) was a little more than with a Promarker but I did work the pen more to get that subtle soft shading so I wasn't really surprised.

Face: I completely adored the colours in Set One for skintones. This set completely fits into those skin shades of Promarker and the Antique white will replace my ivory Promarker almost. The colours are SO very pale they now compare to those wonderful Copic shades which enable the Copic users to achieve all the fantastic shading on faces and cheeks that we see on Tilda stamps and the like. Quite simply, Copic have more pale tones to work with which means the blending becomes easier. If you can use 4 or 5 colours which are very similar and blend them in a circle, you're going to get a very smooth blend compared to something you would achieve with 2 or 3 similar colours. Add the brush and that blend becomes even better.

(Now I have to say, this is something I didn't really say enough about on my Speccies review and I should have, so I'll say it now. As I said before, Leann Chivers has put a lot of work into the sets of colours and the Speccies do have some great colour choices and lots of pale and pastels to choose from. The difference is that to achieve that blending you will need to pick more colours and you will need to work that bit harder to get them smooth. But hey, you're not paying £3 a pen so you need to expect that in my opinion.)

Coming back to the Flexies vs Copics vs Promarker debate, I really do prefer the Flexmarker brush to the Copic one. It's softer, shorter so I can control it better and it also is more pointy I think. As I said right at the start, I find the Copic one makes me go over the lines on detail and this one is much better for that. Also, because I changed over from Copics early on I only have about 50 Copics and I've never been able to achieve those Tilda faces, I've always just blended a bit around the edge but found it always bled so much I didn't want to overwork it. With Promarkers I generally only use 3 colours and leave more of that harder edge. Not any more! Now I have those extra shades I am going mental with faces and I was really surprised at how easy it was to get that nice flushed face feel I see all over blogland. I do find the Copic brush is a bit drier than the Flex one and generally I would say that a brush tip is drier to use than the Promarker nibs, it's just down to the fibres and how the ink flows I think. I don't care, I can sweep, feather, push and do what I like with this brush and I adore it.

Recently I've been demoing a bit at Hunkydory's Inspirations shop and they only sell Copics and each time I've had to use them I've decided I'm taking them up again, not that I've really stopped, I just don't use them as often because professionally I have to use PM's more. And I think I shall now, along with the Flexies. Now, I have to admit I haven't used them alongside each other, although I have used Copic and Promarker together and because the ink formulations are different they sometimes are a bit difficult to work together and I'm assuming it will be the same again with Flexmarkers as they are the same as a PM but there are loads of uber talented people who won't have a problem with making it work better than me.

So, time for Pro's and Cons again, or in other words, throw me to the dogs time :D
Pro's...
Brush tip gives a superior blend and is easy to work, gets softer with use
New, pale colours are must have's
Seem more translucent, easier to build and layer colours to create new one
Packs give good colour collections if you're not good at choosing your own
Work with Promarkers and Tria's so they complement your collections, you don't have to replace them
Colour and number coded ends at last for easy identification

Cons...
Price. At £3 rrp for a single pen they ain't cheap and they are more than the entry level Copics. BUT the brush compensates for that and I think most of us will collect these in value packs which will bring that price down anyway.
Non refillable. Bit disappointed Letraset chose this path but also I'm lazy and more inclined to buy a new one on a whim rather than refill I think so for me personally, it's not a huge negative, but I know it will be for some.
Caps can be a tad tight to get on and off - make sure you get them back on properly!
Roll - PLEASE Letraset, put the little cap nodule back on so they don't roll off the desk!
Prime - remember you have to prime right at the start. Not really a "con" but as I'm struggling to find anything much negative I feel I have to put the picky things in!

So overall, you may be able to tell that I love my new Flexmarkers! Definitely a step up in terms of quality from the Promarker and yes, I will have to have them all as having used them extensively this week I can see me preferring these to that hard nib. In fact, Letraset, if you don't bring out loads more colours pronto sharpish you may find you drive me back to Copics again because once you get used to using a brush properly you find it hard to go back again I think. And with the Flexmarkers you really do feel like you're using a paintbrush to colour in but in a very controlled way.

For me, when I was demoing these live I knew I was right to rave about them when I got the non-craft presenters Sean Ryan, Martyn Parker and Andy Love using them live on air. Each and every one of them picked them up for the first time and coloured in a fantastic image. Ok, I told them what colours to use and what to do, but they did it themselves having never even used Promarkers before. Actually, Andy told me after that he had used a Promarker a couple of times. But even so. I was really anxious that all I was going to demo was skintones and clothing blends and it would be boring but I also figured that was what would blow you away because I know it did me at first. So, as I said at the first Pengate review: this is my opinion, Letraset haven't asked me to do this review, I only have 24 Flexmarkers, they haven't paid me to say this, although obviously they did pay me to demo them on C&C (my OH had a pop and said I was "selling" them on the shows but believe me this was really just because I think they're amazing). All the opinions above are my own and relate to my own findings. Choose to like it, choose to loathe it but they're my words, from my experience.

At the end of the day, my philosophy is this - if I can buy a marker for 50p and it does what a £3 marker will do I will buy it and I will rave about it and recommend it. But in life, I do find that you get what you pay for - Flexmarkers are firmly pointed at a particular market and that market will adore them. I am impressed that Letraset chose to launch a new product with Crafters first rather than the professional art market, it shows their commitment to providing us with better products which will work for us. Professionals are going to snap these up too and not even give a hoot about the price compared to the really high end Tria's and Kurecolors and whatever others are out there. But as a crafter and a self-taught designer (no, contrary to what people say I am NOT really a graphic designer, never have been and haven't been to Art School or got a degree, all I have is an O Level Art) I WANT the best because they will make me better. Simples. I don't see why, just because we're "crafters and not artists" we do have to settle for something inferior. Why shouldn't I have the same pen as David Hockney uses, or use the same paint as Rolf Harris? And I want to embalm my cow in the same resin that Damien Hurst uses thankyou very much. If they use it, I want it because I know if I'm not compromising on my materials, what I make is the best I can do. And if it's not, then that's down to me and my ability, not just that I was using something not very good. And in craft it's so important - we all know the importance of good cardstock and what a difference that makes - hells bells we have mountains of the bloody stuff at home! So yeah, I unashamedly LOVE these Flexmarkers - and everyone else will adore them too but may not feel they need them or indeed, feel they need to pay a higher price for what they think they get elsewhere. We are ALL different and we all have different choices to make for whatever reason, that doesn't make anyone better than anyone else. So, go forth, make your own decision, use this as impartial information that you're forearmed with, the choice is yours. I think loads of you who got them are going to leave some reviews under this post and by golly, please feel free, I can take it, believe me! xx

The Great Pen-Gate saga...

2011-08-05T18:15:00.010+01:00

I'd like to just put a few things into perspective on my previous review of the Spectrum Noir pens after reading a couple of forum threads and seeing some backlash - interesting reading and I always love to read your comments, good or bad as long as they're constructive and not just bitching for the sake of it! Don't worry, I don't take these things to heart (my poor ice cold, stone cold heart is shrivelled from torment) there are always those who have to jump in when someone dares to have an opinion about something, I just wish they would really make informed, constructive comments rather than just negative ones. Hey ho.

Firstly, I do not work for Letraset or Kuretake, I am self-employed and only officially work for Polkadoodles, my own business. Any demonstrations you see me do for any other company are on a freelance basis and yes, usually I will get paid a nominal sum for doing such demonstrations as anyone would expect to do. I am not paid by Create and Craft and I do not work for Create and Craft, although sometimes they also ask me to demo some shows where they pay me a fee for doing so. All of these demonstrations are undertaken with consideration because I will only endorse products which I believe in and enjoy - quite simply, I can't rave about a product if I don't like it and wouldn't use it myself. Hence why on our Polkadoodles website we don't stock every single craft product out there - I choose the stock for the website myself and therefore I choose the products I like. Indeed, I have turned down offers to demo other brands in the past because I do not use them and never will use them and no doubt I will do the same again in the future. Anyone who knows me well knows that I'm pretty honest, in fact my honesty can be my downfall sometimes, I am prone to speak my mind and not everyone likes this although it's rarely done with malice, usually more a case of speaking before brain engages. Personally I would rather be disliked than compromise my integrity, I was brought up that way and I will not apologise to anyone for it, we live in a free world and I've never felt a desperation to be liked or had to strive for anyone's approval, nice as that may be in an ideal world.

I am also not "on the Letraset team" (as someone put on a forum). Letraset uses many designers to endorse their products and I have to say they support many other designers much more than they do me or my design team. They will occasionally give me some free product to give as blog candy in giveaways etc but I have to usually ask for it and it is very much a professional relationship between myself and Letraset. I purchased the bulk of my Promarker collection from Joanna Sheen a long, long time ago long before I stocked Promarkers in my shop or did a demo for Letraset or Create and Craft and the only additional ones I have that are freebies were supplied for demo purposes or are ones I've bought myself.

If anything, I probably have closer connections to Kuretake, a direct competitor to Letraset in the UK although again this is purely on a professional level, but I have at least met the people at Kuretake and they are more proactive in their approach to marketing and networking Kuretake at the moment. Both Companies know I work for the other from time to time and neither Letraset or Kuretake have issues with me working for each other because they know I will be professional in my conduct and in maintaining both my integrity and theirs. In fact, you will see me demonstrating on Create and Craft for Kuretake in the not so distant future and I can't wait. The reason I demo for both companies is so that I can give you an informed and honest opinion about the product and I have gone to great lengths to explain that to both companies as I think it benefits everyone concerned. If I was at all biased in my opinions and actions I'm sure Create and Craft would not allow me to represent both companies on TV and nor would Letraset or Kuretake want me to represent them either. I feel I can fairly and honestly represent both sides because, as both a professional crafter and personally in my crafting I use products from both brands alongside each other. I think it's testament to my own integrity that both Kuretake and Letraset do allow me to demo their products in the first place.

So, seeing a couple of comments about my Speccies review since I posted, it seems some people don't or can't understand that it IS possible to be unbiased and honest about a product whilst you also represent a competitive product at the same time. Well, I'm sorry, but from the majority of the comments I have seen either on the forums, twitter, email and facebook you are in a minority and most people agree with me that you can be independent and truthful about such things. So big thanks to all those who have put their faith in me, it means a lot. Without integrity you're not worth much in my opinion, so this is why I have decided to put this straight. Having my own business and appearing on TV and in public sets me up for a great fall if I was to ever compromise my own honesty and clearly this is not something I would risk for the sake of a bloody alcohol based marker pen, whoever manufactures it!! It could be made by Johnny Depp for all I care but if it doesnt work as well as 20p crayon in Tesco then I'm sorry but I will tell you that!

SO the issue seems to be that I posted this review BEFORE I presented the Letraset Flexmarker Pick of the Day on Tuesday night.
To be fair, I can kind of understand this gripe, maybe it wasn't great timing on my part but I did weigh this up beforehand and decided it would actually be more inappropriate AFTER the Flexmarkers were launched as I would have used them much more than the speccies and having been on TV raving about the Flex's all day it would have seemed completely biased if I disliked the speccies (incidentally, Leann knew I was doing a Letraset POD and was still happy for me to review) but anyway, there was a whole sequence of events that made me post the review when I did - mainly time constraints...but in the end I decided I would still review the Speccies because, quite honestly I wouldnt even compare them to a Flexmarker in the first place. Promarkers yes, Flexmarkers and Copics - definitely not. Having a brush tip makes a HUGE difference, as any Copic user will tell you, and as anyone who uses Copics knows, Letraset are probably aiming the Flexmarkers directly at the Copic users. Letraset have been developing this product for months and months and I had a long-forgotten conversation way back at the end of last year about new products in development, not that I was privileged to any more information than that.

Two weeks ago I PURCHASED two packs of Speccies direct from Crafters Companion to try out and review. Last week on Twitter I told Leann I'd ordered the pens and if she wanted me to review them I was more than happy to do so (if Leann had said she didnt feel it was appropriate then I would have respected her wishes), in fact Leann was slightly concerned that it would compromise my position with Letraset but as this was my own personal review of a product this would not compromise anything as far as I was and still am concerned and I told Leann this - believe it or not, Letraset do not hang on every single word I say, they have a marketing department and they have their own way of doing things. I am very much left out of the loop and on a need to know basis. I do not run their blog, I do not do their Twitter or Facebook feed, Letraset is a company, I am merely a person. They did not send me the Flexmarkers to test during development (much to my chagrin I have to say) although I do know they DID send them to Copic users for testing. I didn't even receive my set until Friday last week and couldn't even use them until Sunday because I was away demonstrating in Preston and Leeds last week.

In my own stupid, simpleton mind all I really wanted to do was post my findings so that when everyone started asking me what the Speccies were like I could just say "go look at my blog" because, quite honestly, it sometimes gets boring repeating the same things over and over during the course of a demo day or show! But seriously, the main reason I decided to do it was because I KNEW you would ask me when you see me in person and if I've been asked to demonstrate a particular brand of pen by a shop it is really innappropriate that I start to tell you about an entirely different product, especially when that store doesn't stock that product. It's like going up to Customer Services in Tesco and asking what the Asda Cauliflower Cheese is like, you just wouldn't do it, but sometimes people put me in a really difficult position with such things. And personally I feel that if I'm going to demonstrate a product to you that has competitors in its field I OWE it to YOU to know as much as I can about those other products, so I can be honest when you ask.

At no time during my Speccies review have I said they are rubbish. In fact, if you read it properly you will find there are many positives about them. I don't think they are rubbish or sub-standard in any way. They're just different.
I used them the same way I would use my Copics, Promarkers and Kurecolors, all of which have to be used slightly differently, so I knew they would need to be used differently too.
To be quite frank, they are not even in the same ball-park as Flexmarkers or Kurecolors or Triamarkers. The latter are all much higher-end products very much for the professional market and are priced at such, ie a much higher price.
Speccies are, to my knowledge, the cheapest alcohol marker on the market.
I know LOADS of you love them, have bought them on the deals Crafters Companion launched last weekend and have totally bought into the entire system. Good for you, clearly they work for you.
Me? Well they don't do what I want them to, or what I thought they'd do, quite simply. And if there's a different product or products out there that does, well it doesn't take Einstein to figure out I will be using those instead.
So maybe it's me that's rubbish? Or maybe I expected too much. Whichever, it's fine by me.
But don't slate me for daring to express my opinion and turn this into a big negative ugly snowball just for the sake of it, as I said on the original post, GO MAKE YOUR OWN CHOICE.
All I ask is that you're as honest in your own opinion as I have been with mine.

And that is the last I will say on the Speccies review.
THE END.

Now, on a more positive front, my next review will be on the new Flexmarkers from Letraset, if you can bear to read it. There'll probably be a bit of good and a bit of bad in that too. Dare you read it or are you too scared that I may brainwash you into opening your purse and emptying it....can you feel me burying into your brain....?
; )
laters 'gaters, Pen-Gate will continue soon.
x

2011-07-31T15:13:00.000+01:00

Thanks SO much to everyone who applied for the DT call, I really appreciate your efforts & it was lovely to see the talent out there. The call is now closed & unfortunately I cant reply to everyone individually as there are way too many. I needed someone with very specific techniques this time round & have made my decision today so if you were successful you have been emailed by now. So sorry if you weren't successful this time but please don't give up and be too disappointed, I simply can't have everyone, much as I'd love to. Thanks again for your interest, keep up the good work you talented people! xx

a little review...

2011-07-29T23:07:00.002+01:00

Crikester, the world of craft has gone flip-pen mental! (see what I did there, get it? no, ok, moving swiftly on...)

So, we are all colouring like the clappers, well I am anyway thanks to you lot, you haven't let me barely make a card since December 2010, nooo all you want is to see me colour in, what a great way to make a living! So, anyway, in my colouring travels I'm currently very privileged to work with some of the best companies in the UK right now, Letraset and Kuretake. Now both of these companies have fantastic, professional grade products which us crafters have taken to our hearts and know and love only too well, and as we all know there are other brands around too, in fact at present there is so much choice sometimes it's hard to know the best choice for YOU.

But this week sees a new contender to the throne - Spectrum Noir. Now I knew these were coming having had a natter to the lovely Leanne from Crafters Companion about them a little while back so when I saw they were released this week I had to procure a set or two to test for myself. I asked Leanne if it was ok if I did an official review as I knew dozens and dozens of you would start asking me what they were like. So this is a completely honest, unbiased opinion, by me, using them at home, not paid for in any way shape or form other than I will declare Leanne then sent me the rest of the set of Speccies so I could have a proper play with a good choice of colours to try.

So I have to admit that when I first heard that Crafters Companion were bringing out an alcohol based marker I wasn't expecting much to be quite honest. CC are synonymous with bringing good value crafts and I just thought "cheaper version" initially. Initially. When I opened the packs on Wednesday I was really short on time, had a quick scribble for 2 or 3 mins to get an initial impression, was a bit underwhelmed and went on my merry way, over to Hunkydory to play with Copics all day. And I have to say it preyed on my mind throughout the day that I hadn't done them proper justice and hadn't been fair in my opinions when I hadn't really used them properly.
Tonight, I decided to colour in a proper image as I normally would with a Promarker or Kurecolor or Copic and give the Speccies a good old road test. And road test I did.

Firstly, let's get it out of the way - alcohol based, acid-free and 168 colours and £6.99 RRP for the 6 packs. I like that the larger packs come in a storage wallet you can stack - brilliant, storage is such a major issue for us crafters and some of the other brands are badly lacking storage. And with 168 colours in the range we need to have some storage.

Secondly - the barrel is square. I'm not sure if I am enamoured with this or not, it takes a little getting used to but at least they don't roll off the table all the time!
3. Refillable! This has to be a BIG bonus as it makes them so much more affordable. Obviously I can't comment on this aspect having not needed to yet and CC don't currently have the refills listed on the website so I have no idea how much wonga this will cost etc. but no doubt it will be revealed very soon.

I do like that the colour coding on the ends is big enough that you can see it, although I did find some of the printed numbers weren't great and I think these will wear off pretty quick so you might find yourself with colours and not know what they are when you've had them a while.
You get a fine nib and a chisel nib which is very similar to the Promarker nibs but the chisel is larger which I found a little tricky but then I'm the freako who uses the chisel all the time, I know most of you don't so you will probably never even open that end, shame on you. The fine nib is about the same size as the Promarker one and they're both felt nibs. They do feel slightly "scratchy" on the paper I use (which is our Ultimate Graphic ultimate smooth that I use for all my colour work) but this didnt have any effect on the paper itself or the technique so it's more about getting used to the different handling than anything else I think.
At this stage for me I think the worst thing about the construction of the marker itself is that it's a bit on the smelly side! I do frequently get a headache when I've been using alcohol markers anyway but these are a bit heavy on the old solvent smell so make sure you're well ventilated :D It's probably something that will wear off once you've used them a couple of times to be fair.

So I set about colouring in an image:

I'm not going to list the colours I used, that's not what this is about, but because there are 168 colours there is certainly plenty of choice. It also means the colours are grouped closely together in the colour spectrum which helps with blending similar colours together.

I did find that the inks "pooled" a little on the surface of the paper when I was using them but I was really quite surprised at how rich the pigments were in the colours themselves and they are certainly juicy. I know Leanne has put a lot of thought into the colour selections and you can tell that from the sets that are available. Crafters Companion are pitching these as "products for Crafters" and they very much are that, rather than trying to emulate a professional top grade marker that a graphic artist or illustrator would use, sometimes crafters need something a little different.

Of course, they're a good price as I previously mentioned, compared to others on the market and because of that you expect a compromise.
I did find that I needed to work harder to get the blending I wanted unless the colours were similar, which meant that I had to load more ink onto the paper itself to move it around. If you use colours which are really subtle in shades you probably won't see this as an issue though, but I personally like to get a bit of contrast between light and dark in all my colours.

As I normally use a blender pen a lot to achieve soft blending I tried using the cross colour nib technique and it did work but the colour flushed through really quickly which meant I had to keep reloading the colour onto the nib really quick. (I can't see a blender pen, must check if there is one). This made the colour bleed outside the image a lot.

Because I had to work harder to blend in both techniques, they did bleed considerably more on the image and you can see that especially around the jeans where I wanted to get a soft faded look to the denim. On the tree itself I actually used 4 greens and was hoping to get a really nice soft blend but I didnt succeed very well and ended up more with a layered edge look as you can see in the photo, and I didnt want to keep going or it would have started to bleed quite a bit into the face.

A positive thing I noticed - this image is a printed digi image off the Magical Winter CD and whether it's luck or not I don't know, but there does seem to be considerably less smudging of the printer ink, especially on the face which is where I find it seems to happen all the time when you're using the palest shades.

One other thing that was noticable was the bleed-through of the paper. I used exactly the same paper as I always do and there is considerably more ink soaking through to the reverse of the paper, especially on the lighter colours as I find I don't normally get much at all on this stock (160gsm).

So, to wrap it up, pro's and cons I think:

Pro's:
Price
Storage for larger sets
168 colours
Easily identifiable colours on the marker ends
Square barrel so they don't roll
Fine and large chisel nibs
Good pigments
Refillable

Cons:
Harder to work dark and light colours to a soft blend
Quite wet, colour can pool if heavyhanded
Bleeds over edge of image easily (colour inside the linework)
Bleedthrough on paper quite high
Because of the bleeding will probably use more ink
Smelly
No blender pen?

Crafters Companion aren't trying to convince anyone that these are a professional marker that will compete with Promarker or Kurecolor or Copics. But what they are saying is that these are great for crafters. Personally I'm always open-minded and there's a place in this world for everything - my philosophy is always try it, compare it like for like, think about it, buy it. That way you don't buy twice because you made the wrong decision and always make sure you compare like for like. The choice is yours.

I would just like to point out that I demonstrate professionally for both Letraset and Kuretake on a freelance basis. I have no connections with Crafters Companion. All opinions expressed above are my personal opinions and do not reflect on any of the companies or brands mentioned in any way and nor have any of the brands seen this post before it is published on my blog. I only endorse products I would use myself and simply offer an honest and unbiased opinion on the products I've used through my time as an amateur and professional crafter.

(In the interests of a level playing field, I will also review other alcohol based markers in the next few weeks)

Marianne's DT call

2011-07-23T14:00:00.000+01:00

Marianne's have a new DT call out - hop on over here if you want to find out more http://mariannedesigndivas.blogspot.com/2011/07/new-challenge-blog-comming-soon.html

Design Team Call...

2011-07-19T11:41:00.000+01:00

Hi everyone! We are looking for a new member for our lovely talented team who can show us their awesome colouring techniques. So, if you LOVE colouring and you're great with your Promarkers, Copics and Watercolours and it's your speciality then please email us with a link to your blog and NO MORE than 50 words about yourself and why you want to be on the Polkadoodles team.

You MUST be able to commit to participating in the challenge blog 3 times per month, making TV samples when required AND commenting on challenge entries each week, so please ensure you can do all this before you apply. In addition, you can only be on one other digital design team. We will consider entries from around the world but as we need people who can make samples, because of time constraints, entries from the UK will be priority on this occasion. But don't let that put you off, we all know Nikky can never say no if she sees someone awesome! We will be choosing someone over the next two weeks and results will be posted here. Please do not leave comments etc, all bloglinks must be sent by email.

I'm late...

2011-07-12T21:56:00.002+01:00

...and I'm such a rubbish blogger.
I know.
I promise to return after Doncaster with some piccies.
Serious.
x

Blog Hop Winner...

2011-06-13T07:56:00.000+01:00

Veeeeery quick post to thank you all for joining in our last blog hop - if only Blogger hadn't decided to wreck it by stopping people from adding comments and joining all the fun properly : ( but thanks to all those who persevered and left comments below the post!

So, drum roll please, the winner of my candy is....ta dahhhhhhh.....

Mandy!

Well done Mandy, please contact me to get your candy!

Latest Blog Hop news

2011-06-02T21:19:00.001+01:00

Hey everyone! Thanks to lovely blogger messing our hop plans up last week, we have decided to extend the entry deadline to the blog hop to 12th June at noon instead of 5th June! wahey! We had lots of emails from you all because blogger was having problems with comments and also uploading pics so because of this we are allowing extra time for you all to get your entries in. And of course, what's stopping you from entering twice!! So see the post below for all the details!! xx

Blog Hop - whoop whoop!

2011-05-27T09:00:00.003+01:00

Hi everyone! Yes yes I know it's ages since I posted but this 'ere girl is mighty mighty busy at the moment and the train's not stopping for a good while yet!

So without further ado onto this week's Polkadoodle challenge and the fab blog hop!

If you’ve come to this blog from Josie, then you are in the right place! My word is WEEK.

Congratulations, you've now completed the hop - work out what you need to do from the sentence you've collected and you will also need THIS to join in the challenge!

Make sure you add your entries to the main Polkadoodles challenge before 5th June but if you would like to be in with a chance of winning my blog candy which includes a Sugar Birdies CD you MUST leave me a comment under this post!!

Here is my card for the challenge this week. I used the Fathers Day/Family download but rather than make it specifically for a man I chose the family sentiment. I made the flower by cutting out hearts for petals and then layering them up. I coloured two Pretty Pins with my Promarkers and inserted through the middle of the flower then tied with string. The little family is just layered up to give some dimension and then a few gems for some bling - a nice quick and easy card usable for lots of different occasions.

exciting news!

2011-05-08T23:12:00.000+01:00

After the huge success of our last blog hope over on the Polkadoodles Challenge blog make sure you join us for another on 27th May - LOADS of exciting candy!!

Thru blurry eyes...

2011-04-24T23:33:00.000+01:00

So, you're wandering through life, albeit more of a fat crafter's chubby legged sprint than a wander - you have all your well-laid plans set out for the next 2 months, deadlines schmedlines, to do lists that just keep getting longer and longer and you decide to book a couple of days off somewhere nice. First time in 6 years. Just 2 days, mind, can't spare any more hours than 48 and the ginger ninja's won't allow being left home alone any longer (we know they're ok on 2 nights because they only move off the bed for a wee and to eat). So you book it. And then the week before you're due to go all hell breaks loose and it's postpone, postpone, postpone! Meh.

GNPE at Harrogate in March was completely mental this time round. We thought it was mental last time but this time we had a stand twice the size and you still couldnt have fit one more person on it or in it at several times during both days. Kris and I are always really humbled at how the popularity of Polkadoodles is really growing and going to shows is just awesome for us to meet you all and really get feedback from everyone on what you want, what you like, what you don't like, it's so so important for us as a small company and we only wish we had the resources to do more shows right around the UK, but we just can't manage it until we have a much bigger team behind us. Unforch there's only one of me and until some Stephen Hawkins geek-type brings in human cloning I just cannot do any more than we do at the moment. Unless you don't want any new products for months on end and somehow I think that wouldn't sit well! After all, it's not about me, it's about the stash and I think some pro-crafters would do well to heed that message at times! I seem to be encountering lots of ego's at the moment and I just can't quite figure that bit out...personally I still find the whole public recognition thing all a bit embarassing - don't get me wrong, it's exremely flattering but with my potty-mouth I do find the whole "not swearing" in public thing a real difficulty LOL! Especially on TV where you can't even say the most trivial "crap" words either! I think the OH is secretly really pleased about this, I know he hates it when I sound like a Navvy but I really can't help my tourettes-tendencies, I lay the blame firmly at the newspaper industries door as a young and impressionable 18 year old. I just can't help it and I think it's because I'm always of the mind "why use 10 words when you can use one quite nicely!" LOL. Oh well, it is slowly being beaten out of me I think, until I start to go off on one. I dont think I have ever or shall ever be described as a lady :D

So we've had the usual manic few weeks here, oh for the times when we had nothing to do or think about other than the next scooter rally, but when I do try to free up some spare time I end up bored silly! Think I'm one of those peeps who were just born to be working all their lives, so whoever buries me can you please chuck a couple of promarkers and that last half-finished card in the box with me please!! I was recently asked at short notice to demonstrate a Pick of the Week on Create and Craft which was Aquamarkers and Promarkers from Letraset, which I couldn't really fit in but I had to rejig things because I wanted to do it - if only I'd known what I was letting myself in for! 16 shows in 5 days was a complete killer and if I'm honest it's taken me about a week to recover! Think I'm about there now, amazing how when you sit down designing all day that your feet can't take being stood up all day instead! Anyway here are some of the things I made on the shows...

Flowerpot from *Sprinkles of Kraft* CD -

background is made with Aquamarkers and the image is coloured with Aquas too...

Winnie and Walter on a swing from Sprinkles of Kraft...

coloured with Aquamarkers, butterfly and backing papers are also from the CD...

This is my favourite image from the Sprinkles CD, I totally adore daisies and I designed this girl so she was hugging a giant flower she's found...secretly this is what I would feel like if I found a giant daisy I would never want to let go...really pleased I managed to capture that huggy feeling in her face...again, coloured with Aquamarkers, really soft colouring on this one...

Love these birdhouses, Aquamarkers again, I have to say having used them so much over the week I am in love with them and they have actually sent my Promarkers to the back shelf if I'm honest...

...I still love my Promarkers but sometimes I struggle to see if it's an image I coloured or printed off the PC and I love how the watercolours of Aquamarkers show me every single brushstroke and give so much more depth and interest to the subject...and that they are so translucent you can still get the colour coming through from underneath rather than just blending into a new colour...

I also love that you can get a supremely soft look like here with the faces, it's just literally a light wash of colour swept across the faces...but then by hardly using any water at all you can achieve these bright red raspberry pink boots and all the highlights in between....

...and another one of the girls from the CD...I really tried to give this a vintagey feel and I'm really happy with how it turned out...look at the awesome kraft paper background - they are digital papers with texture that makes them look like real kraft paper - even when you layer with the real thing, they're just awesome! Love the soft colouring on this one, give a real summery feel (those flowers took bloody ages to cut out!)...

...on the swing again, love the softness of this...

...and finally, a Promarker card. Note how the colours are so much stronger and even though the blending is still there - it's so smooth. I really do prefer the depth of the brushstrokes in the earlier work. But then I do have phases and crazes and no doubt this one will pass very soon LOL!! Don't forget you CAN use your promarkers and aqua's together, don't worry about the inkpad unless you put Promarkers on top of your watercolours as the inkpads will bleed but I find I like it better the other way round anyway. As the Promarkers act like a sealer on top of the Memento inkpad it doesn't bleed!

I just remembered that I also did this beauty late last night, my 10.30pm creative urge came over me and I just had 5 promarkers close to hand, love this image, again from the Sprinkles CD...

Quicksticks!

2011-04-20T09:30:00.000+01:00

Hi everyone! A very very quick post from me - I know so many of you bought the Aquamarkers last week on the POTW so I thought I would do an online class - if ur interested can u please let me know below. It will be a LIVE class & u will be able to comment as we go along so I can respond live to questions. So let me know if ur up for it, depending on demand I might do a daytime and an evening one so everyone has chance to join in even if they have other commitments that day. : )

Woohooo!

2011-03-24T09:53:00.000Z

I have currently been abducted by evil aliens from the planet *Worktilludie* and am unable to post but I managed to sneak onto blogger to let you know about this cunning escape plan we hatched...

You can see more here:

Quick catchy uppy!

2011-03-01T22:32:00.000Z

Where do I start? Been too long since I last posted I know I know, please don't hate! >: (

Promise I will try harder, honestly!

It's been the usual crazy world of Pokeydoodahs as some of my loveliest Tweety friends call it, culminating in a major road trip this week and I can't actually believe I'm writing this as my eyes are currently atop stalks which protude 12" from their sockets as I type! Literally!

Way back when, sometime last year I booked a workshop day with the lovely peeps at Paper Artsy and no other than King Tim of Holtzville. I have SO been looking forward to it for months and months and it seemed a million miles away until the last month and then all of a sudden it was here. And I was totally looking forward to the break! Or, so I thought. I kinda forgot the workshop I'd promised to perform in Milton Keynes the day after and the 3 Create & Craft shows over 3 days on top! So I left home Thursday lunchtime all packed up and kitted out and the car full of stuff for demo's and shows, complete with several pairs of spare nickers to account for unhappy accidents (hell, you never KNOW do ya!! and those She-wee things strike the fear of god into me, the look of 'em is enough to make me run to the nearest slash harry palace 2p in hand!!) and a pair of scissors and headed down the M1 to Newport Pagnell to meet up with some fellow tweeters, the lovely Dee and Janet and her friend Bethan. Of course, you know how things kinda happen to me, well it was not without it's little series of humorous events, mainly involving showers and ants and half a bottle of nail varnish catapulting in an extraordinarily creative fashion across a stripey carpet. I tell you, Mark Rothko has nothing, and I mean NOTHING on me. And mucho scrubbing ensued with half a bottle of acetone remover (thanks for that Dee!) and me nearly wetting myself laughing cos we had such a sweat on - hot flushes and scrubbing carpets do not mix well! We then wiped our sweaty brows and met up with two lovely gals called Siobhan and Jackie whilst getting wrecked on diet cokes in the bar (wahey, we know how to LIVE!) and all had dinner together in the hotel. Janet and I nearly wet ourselves again when I prodded half a teeniest baby tomato with my fork and it exploded like a neutron bomb all over her dinner. It was even funnier an hour later when she took a drink of coke and got a mouthful of tomato pips. More pant wettage on our part, so childish, but hey. But I wasn't the only one who was doomed, a poor lady who sat on our table was nicely covered in soup by the waiter and I found out earlier this evening that someone else who was in the same restaurant at the same time (spooky) also had her dinner dropped on her by a waiter, presumably the self-same muppet. Wonder if he was called Manuel? Must confess at the risk of being called a spain-o-phile I dont know how I held back my tourette-stylee urges to keep clicking my fingers at him and call Manuel, Manuel you idiot! But as I was in company I didnt, and managed to stay on my best behaviour for at least an hour or two without showing myself up.

Anyways, onto the important stuff. I must've been really excited cos I was wide awake at 5am like a complete saddo - except I think the entire event delegates were also all awake at the same time I found out afterwards - if only we'd known we could have had a craftathon! Anyway we packed ourselves off excitedly to the "Timmy" room and oh my...we weren't disappointed!!...

King Tim is just, just... awesome. Very funny and endearing, I love him even more now for sure. He taught us a one-off project using lots of his new stuff and I was amazed at just HOW MUCH we got as part of the project! What I loved was we decorated it basic grunge stylee but then it was entirely up to us what we did with it and there were some brilliant ideas!...here's mine...I am enthralled by all the little ephemera and I can't stop looking at it!...We started off with his brand new shadow-boxes (A4ish in size) and a couple of these fell into my hands at the shop I must confess...

I tried to be uber-cool but had a secret swoon when he said he loved the skirt I made for the spooky doll (ripped up dictionary paper which I concertina'd and glued with tissue tape) - but then when he came back and took a photo I very nearly wee'd myself with total delight (thank god for Tena, I reckon there was a lot of usage in that room that day!)....I made the little books last night at home just to add the final finishes - basically just grungeboard pieces covered with offcuts of papers I had left but I j'adore!...have to say this pic doesn't do the skirt justice at all, it's all ripped and distressed and rather couture-looking...

...and then as if that wasn't great enough I had to make do and mend with the tiny little battery light because I lost a transparency amongst all my sh.. I mean mess and ended up making my own little *lumiere* (his word, not mine, swoooon again!) ...glued some mesh around the tealight and then used glossy accents to stick tissue paper around the mesh and hung this fabby little coathanger on top which was holding some paper, sandpaper and transparencies...

and some close ups of the rest...

the letters are made up of grungeboard and distressed and inked/painted - must admit I ADORE this *A*, I hung it in front of the corner piece so there are still little things hidden behind...

Tim (my new bezzie - yeah right, like he even knows who I am) wanted to know what I'd put in the birdcage but I had just rolled up a ticket and tied it with string but in fact all along I had this little plan in my head but didnt have the time on the day...basically I made a little eensy weency "book of Tim" and there is a tiny message inside which I won't reveal...(no, sorry it's not a love note!)...

love this flower with the clock centre, had to replenish my supplies of cogs and clocks in the shop, I'm sure the OH keep stealing them from me...

and here's the man himself - well almost, I did take a pic but it was so blurry I can't post it here...of course I managed to speak to his holiness for a few secondo's and begged him to sign my project which he kindly did...

Only one phrase will suffice...OH. EMMMM. GEEEEE. awesome awesome couple of days.

And then from there it was into Milton Keynes to Jays Crafts for a fab demo day - got to meet some lovely ladies there and was well chuffed that Dee, Janet and Bethan joined me for a bit of support, then the lovely Tracie from my DT and Cazz also came along too - all us girls all together, it was totally fab!! So after a tiring but great day (man, you guys sure do love your Promarkers for sure, my pens have almost run out in protest after Saturday!!) I then had to hot-foot or spin the wheels back up to Peterborough for my TV show on Sunday morning. A quick one hour show and then it was back home for one night and then back down again Monday night for 2 more shows today!
And here you all are thinking the life of someone who does TV is so so glamorous....omg if only u knew!
So I am now nicely ensconced at home again in my little hermit room, legs left on the A1 somewhere, all I have left is withered stumps I think. And tomorrow it's back to work again with a vengeance getting ready for more shows next week then Harrogate, my head is in a total spin.
Not surprisingly I dreamed of King Tim last night. We were using Cuttlebug embossing folders for some reason, like you do !!!
Right and so to bed for some shuteye so I may be able to function tomorrow, bet I'm awake at the crack of doom again, been up before 6 every day this week so far so I just know i'm in the zone now! ttfn - can you wipe the Timmy drool off my screen please now! xxx

February blues...

2011-02-06T18:00:00.003Z

I don't think I like February. Dunno why, it's kinda like the equivalent of a Tuesday though - just after Christmas but long enough you forgot about it and a loooooong long way till the end of the year again. Hmpphh.

So before I get into loads of pics, a quick reminder - I will be demo'ing at Embsay Crafts, Skipton on Saturday 12th Feb this week and I can't wait! It's been so long since I demo'd in store and shockingly, this is my first in-store demo for a Polka Doodles retailer can you believe! I just never have the time these days and as a small company it can be really hard for me to manage my time so I can do this more often (by the way if your local store doesnt stock PD then nag them LOL) so I am ultra excited to be visiting Embsay and will try my best to give all Katy's customers an interesting and inspiring day! Come join us!

I will also be demoing at Jays Crafts in Milton Keynes on Sat 26th Feb for the first time so if you're around the area please come say hello, it's always great to see a friendly face! I'm in Milton Keynes for 3 days that week as I am attending the fabulous ArtsyCrafts Tim Holtz Workshops and I am beyond thrilled!! Whoop whooop, a few hours with Sir Tim, what more could a crafty girl need!! I think I will make a fool of myself swooning and no doubt I will be reduced to a girly squeakish whimper if I get to speak to him but I just don't care! I love altered art and steampunk but I rarely get chance to dirty up these days, I'm secretly worried I might need some practice before throwing myself at Timmy's feet, but hey ho!

And then the day after, Sunday 27th I will be at Create and Craft for a 10am show, so that's me away from home for 4 whole days, all alone! The OH will be beside himself, we rarely spend time apart so it's always kinda strange when we do - god knows what the house will be like when I get back, can you imagine!? Well, actually I'm really trying not to or I might not go home, the place is akin to Mr Trebus' house as it is...

Anyway, February is a bit manic and it's already been another busy old couple of weeks and I need to show some pics of the latest bits and pieces so here we go, this will be pic heavy...

We launched the follow-up set of Neighbours stamps on Create & Craft last week - needless to say these awesome little stamps sold out yet again, man I just can't get enough of these in stock our manufacturer can't keep up with us at the moment! So if you're still waiting for yours on waitlist then I'm sorry but we are trying as hard as we can to get them out to you!
Here's a few samples from the show...

This was one of my main demonstrations, using only Promarkers and obviously stamping with Memento black inkpad...everything on this card is flat, the only thing that is layered is actually main image which was just cut out and glued flat and the "special wishes" sentiment which is stamped onto kraft paper and then cut out, but the scallop frame around it is still flat on the card...

from memory I think the colours I used were (using Sky as a reference, from top to bottom):

Burnt Umber, Henna, Cinnamon, Caramel, Tan, Sandstone, Blush, Satin, Ivory and Ice Grey 3 or 4.

You can achieve the dimension just by using highlights and shadows - Promarkers/Copics are fab for this technique. If you're going to go for this select 6 or 7 colours which are all similar tones and then scribble them onto some scrap card next to each other to try and simulate what your sky will look like - it'll work with any colour family but the important thing is to ensure you have the correct tones, ie dont use a "bluey"pink with a "red" pink etc, but if you do a mini sky swatch first and blend them top to bottom you will make sure you get the right colour choices before you ruin your stamp work.
Once I'd glued the image onto the card flat I stamped the scallop over the top corner, again in black, then stamped the message onto kraft paper and cut it out then glued it over the top so it leaves the stamped scallop edge.

I then took an grey marker and shadowed round the edge of the scallops so it actually looks like shadow from matting and layering and then extended this right around the main image, drawing round the edge of the image to give it a framed look. Funnily enough one of the other C&C guests on after me was watching this in the green room and he totally thought I'd actually framed the stamping with a proper mount. He doesnt do crafts and was totally blown away with the fact it was all a flat image - he said he'd gone and picked the card up off the counter in the studio after I left for a break, just to make sure! hee hee...

I absolutely love love love this little scene, I think it's the colouring that's floating my boat, I love aqua and there's lots of it on here, but this is such a pretty, cheerful image I love it...this time I used watercolours. I've been very lucky lately that Kuretake UK have been asking me to test lots of their products for them and although I had used some of their Zig products in the past I'd totally forgotten how awesome their Art & Graphic twin markers are...these are a brush pen (dual ended with a brush and a super fine nib) but they are just fantastic to work with and for me, personally, they blow other watercolour pens out of the water. 'Scuse the pun! I'm going to stock these as soon as I get chance to sort it out, the pigment in the pens is totally lush and if you're a rubber stamper the brush means you can just directly colour onto the stamp itself. Now, I've done this many many times before with other pens and I always found I didnt get great results and the pigment usually "pools" when you stamp because it's not the right consistency but the A&G pigment is so rich it doesnt do this...if you look closely you can see the little green bushes and trees have been done this way - a great image and no pooling!...

And the same stamps virtually just masked differently and coloured in more subtle tones, again with the Zig Art & Graphic twins, I really can't praise these enough, and they have a really great selection of colours...

...and the final one of these little beauts, this was before I made it into a card and uses the A&G's again but with the fabulous brand new "Wink of Stella" glitter pens from Zig (watch out these are released later this month and they're a must have!)...these ultra-fine tipped glitter pens are all sparkly and lush - again, very rich and bright pigments, perfect for calligraphy, just normal colouring in, layering on top of calligraphy pens, markers etc, but here I actually added a little water and watercoloured with them for a more subtle sparkle. You can't really see it on this pic, glitter is hard to photograph, but I love these...man, I need ALL the colours in ALL the Zig range now!...

Yesterday was my first class of 2011 and the first one since November, the girls were chomping at the bit to get underway but sadly we spent so much time gossiping we didnt finish a thing LOL - those girls can't half chinwag! It's a real struggle for me to fit this class in my schedule these days and now we don't have a shop taking stock along is a real PITA from a stocktaking point of view, it took us 3hrs just to put it all back again yesterday and we didn't even pack much. I've been thinking of stopping the class because of the time and I always feel like I end up rushing the projects and feel bad I'm not doing my lovely ladies justice - most of them on my class have been with me for 2 or 3 years at least now and I know they really look forward to the monthly get-together so I've been really wrestling with my conscience what to do. I would like to move it to a bi-monthly full day event so we get more quality but they're worried that if they can't come it will be a whole 4 months that they miss LOL - so I can't really win! But, yesterday we finally all agreed on a change - we're doubling up! So now instead of 2.5hrs we're going to go to 4 hours instead so we can have a packed lunch and get into some nice meaty projects without having to rush all the time! I have no idea why we didnt do this ages ago but I can't wait for next month now, I'm so pleased we finally made a decision and did it! Wahey!
So because we didn't finish the projects we started yesterday I promised to load them here so they can finish off at home, so here ya go girls!....

First up, the cheeky Hippo from Paper Boutique III...

I showed the girls how to add dimension with pop-ups rather than just using 3D foam or silicon glue in the traditional way...I love dimension and depth on my projects and this way gives me so much more movement...

...and as well as the bubbles on the template I also added some of our Doodle Dewdrops to get the water droplets - they look fab in real life, all watery and bubbly! (LOVE dewdrops!)...

...and then our 2nd project, using the lovely Fairy stamps and Sundae of Seasons CD...I picked this card because I wanted to show them how you can use your stamps with CD's perfectly...

I think sometimes because we get so into CD crafting we forget to use other stuff with them as well and this little card is a perfct example...here I just printed off the table and chairs from SOS and then used the Fairy stamp, she was sitting on a toadstool here so I just cut it away and she sits on the chair perfectly! So cute! I used a combo of coloured stamps from the CD and then used Promarkers to colour the other images such as the cherries and the pie, adding some Glossy Accents for the glazed look. Just a nice, quick (supposedly!) sweet card.

Right, I think that's quite enough for today I think! Ooo tune in later this week though, I hope to have some very exciting news to reveal, I am bursting my big girl nickers with excitement, dying to reveal...you know when you do a girly little jiggy half jump up and down...well that's me right now, every time I think about it!!
xx

world record...

2011-01-18T16:34:00.002Z

3 posts in less than a week, must be a world record for me.

If you've come here for En's blog hop and don't want to read through my drivel for today CLICK HERE to go straight to the blog hop post instead! I understand, I'm not offended, sniff!

Feeling kinda crapola today, been fighting off the darned flu bug thingy that's doing the rounds so have been suffering a bit with hot sweats and not sleeping well during the night...and lack of sleep makes for a grumpy girl as my OH will tell you. So as I am totally unmotivated to work this afty and have been p*ssing in the wind as the saying goes, I decided to share some of my all time favo things with you. Not crafty things, but bootiful fings.

Numero uno...
...this is my all time favo material posesh (at the momento)...although I don't wear loads of jewellery and accessories I do love them soo much and over the past 10 years I have started to collect more "precious" jewellery as and when I've been able to afford the moolah. Not mega expensive pieces, jeez I am no rockerfeller, but maybe £100ish when I've had birthday money to spend etc. I have to say this is all QVC's fault - man does that channel suck me in. But pieces I know I will love forever and treasure and keep as heirlooms. I just like to think that when I keel over and croak there will be something of mine that can be passed on to someone and as I have no kids and never will, I decided it should be jewellery. I want someone to go on Antiques Roadshow in the year 2060 and go - oh she had good taste, she bought it from Woolies in 2006 but it's worth at least £10.50 now. You know what I mean! I have to say I don't buy much from QVC really, there is an awesome designer gallery in York called Pyramid Gallery and that's one of my fave haunts. I always look for up and coming designers as you can usually get amazing pieces for a snippet that way.
For my birthday last year Kris bought me this...sigh...

...I had to contribute a little bit of cash towards it myself as we're not big on birthdays and don't generally splash the cash much but hey, I don't drink and I don't smoke and I don't even buy much stash these days so I deserved it and it is my most favouritest posesh....the little house has a full on working lock on it, look how tiny the whole thing is...('scuse mingy yellow nails, closeups are a killer)....

...so the little door opens...and inside is tucked away a little surprise...

but that's not all, look on the other side...

So you see, it's " A Love Story" of me and Kris in our house and we're "Happy Ever After"...

only one word fits....adorable.

I had to stop wearing it on TV though as I have a habit of fiddling with it and one show I looked like I had a humoungous big growth on my neck where it had slid round the side!

Now you can see why it's my favest thing ever right?

And why I let my gorge hubby pick our wedding rings way back when, he knows my taste so well. (except in watches and shoes, funny that!)...

Anyway, so we just had Crimbo and guess what turned up...

I kinda had a suspicion this would be it this year, he made me do the Amazon wishlist - which incidentally is FABBO! you must do it! You add the wishlist button onto your web toolbar then as you go round the web at the click of a button you can add things to it - from ANY website, not just Amazon! So I'm using it as an ongoing shopping list, it's great to remind you where you saw things, I've got next, this year's shopping list for friends etc on the go already!

So you knew it wouldn't be just a little round thing with a window, right...

Hard to photograph this one as it's so tiny, but it hinges out into 3 pieces with Starry Starry night and a cute owl sitting on a branch (yes, me, owl, owl mad!) and then the back piece has a gold moon and stars in it. SO cute! I love it!

But I'm not just an expensivo kinda gal, I do the cheap tat too and now and then you know how you just come across a total "find"...well I found this in some shop or other a couple of years back now and I totally love it, I probably wear this more than any other, I don't know if it's because it's on a real long chain or what but it cost me all of about a fiver I think...

A much bigger piece, total costume metal, but was gutted that I lost a piece off it, I think it was a bead if my memory serves me right. I keep saying I'm going to make my own replacement and keep adding bits to it but you know how it is, manana, manana! Would be cool though and maybe one day I will!

So it's my birthday in a few days, who knows what the postie will bring this time??!! I think I need to get my ears repierced again so I can start the earring collection off! My mum really makes me laugh so much - she does this every year, I don't think she trusts me not to open it beforehand! If only she knew, I never am tempted to open things early (not v often anyway) so she really doesnt need to do this haha...

Almost over! I just had to share this amazebob new woven ribbon which came in this week, all the way from Germany and the range is just adorable...this of course, had to be my fave I think but there are some other strong contenders for the crown, make sure you check them all out, they really are AMAZING!

And finally (hoorahh I hear you cry) I just had to share a dork moment with you.

Last night the OH reached across my desk "Ooo chocolate, just fancy a piece" he said, grabbing at a chunk.

THIS chunk...

The deckle blade off my WRMK trimmer...

Laugh? My t*ts nearly fell off.

Blog Hop - whoop whoop!

2011-01-17T09:00:00.003Z

My lovely friend and fellow talented teamie Enfys is celebrating a huge 500,000 hits on her blog this week, whoop whoop En! Truly a milestone!! So to mark the occasion En is hosting a fantastic BLOG HOP with squillions of blog candy to give away (ok, slight exaggeration maybe, but like, LOADS)...

So, if you arrived here from Capadia's blog all the way over in the USA, you are on the right trail.

Nearly the end of the hop, you need to click to follow me and leave me a comment under this post. Your letter is

Now all you need to do is go back to see Enfys and leave her a comment with the answer to the anagram.

Have fun hopping around and good luck with the candy!!!! xxx

pheweee what a week, what a week!

2011-01-14T07:00:00.084Z

Cor blimey Guv'nor, it's manic round these here parts lately! I decided to give myself an overhaul, here I am, a blummin designer and there I was with someone else's blog clothing on!! Hope you like the new look.

I just don't know where the days, week's, hell month's go to, do you think ageing speeds up disproportionately as we get older? Well I think it does anyway. And that quizzy thing I took about 7 years ago says I'm a borderline genius so that means I must always be right. Right! ; D

This week it's my turn to host the challenge over on the Polka Doodles blog and I set a theme of Red, White and Blue with a little sketcheroo to follow. My lovely friend En is on the PD team and I've known her for a long time now in the crafting world, she travels back and forth between the UK and US lucky girl, so this theme was really inspired by her. She is a super-talented lady and extremely well known in craft circles and has just achieved a massive 500,000 blog hits so we decided to celebrate it with her. If you check in here or on En's blog on Monday there will be news of a totally smashing blog hop which she is hosting - LOADS of candy on offer, goodies galore!!

....Here is the sketch we have to follow.

I set the challenge to the girls weeks ago but I only got round to making my own effort today, not unfraught I have to say. Firstly, I had so many windows open on my mac and pc that I couldnt even run a CD so I decided to design something specially instead (yes u wldnt believe it would you!!), and then because I realised the OH had my box of basics stash in the back of the car with him, so I only had a pair of nail scissors to my name!

You can get the freebie kit download here, there are 3 papers and a white and spotty version of the words which I've used in this card...

I managed to find my We R Memory Keepers rotary trimmer which I havent had long and havent used much but I do like it - nice and quick to slide the blades off and I've removed one end so I don't have to faff about with the locks, you really don't need it on there at all.
So I cut the red spotty paper with a scallop blade, then used a reel of sellotape to tear the stripey paper round and it ended up an oval! This was due to the idleness of not being bothered to move my lardass out of the chair to get nesties or anything else LOL!

I cut a strip of the harlequin with the nail scissors following the pattern to try and get some semblance of straight with a weeny pair of scissors and then the ribbon arrived. THE RIBBON ARRIVED. I've managed to source this most orgasmo ribbon which, quite honestly, could have been made by Polka Doodles. It's so up our street it lives here now. This particular one is the Stars and Stripes Liberty pattern which I got just for our lovely US customers! So I had to use it on this card of course!! This ribbon is heavily embroidered so it's totally gorge, no crapola prints or any of that cheapo rubbish here thankyou very much. So I tied a little bit round the cupcake (from Sundae of Seasons CD). I then cut out the Happy word and stamped "Happy Everything" repeatedly up the right hand side (stamps from the Sensational Sentiments stamp set) and added the Scallop from Martha Stewart punch behind the text. I found the buttons in my button box.

...So my NY resolution of blogging more often has already been brocked but who cares, life's too short to get your nickers in a pickle over such fancies. The only fancies my nickers get in a twist over is Mr Kipling's French Fancies and I havent had one of those for about 2 years having eaten so many I can face them no longer. So, I digress, as usual. As always we have loads going on here and we're about at 100% full throttle I can tell you, keeping Create & Craft viewers happy, keeping our own customers happy, shipping orders, shipping to retailers (if you want your local retailer to stock PD products then get nagging them!) and all the rest of it. New products, shows coming up, designing designing designing blah blah blahhh zzzz.

Last week I launched our brand new CD on Create & Craft, Paper Boutique 3, Projects Galore. My oh my was it busy and we had 2 shows on the same day which will happen more often now I think, as the channel is now live till 5pm every day. I do have it on good authoritahhh that they are desperately trying to sort out the old Freeview issue but the good news is you can watch all the shows on Catchup TV now, which is online. Hurrahh! If you want to see what's occurring with the new CD you can check it out here.
Yet again, we are virtually out of stock of our lovely Neighbour Stamp range, think there may be a couple of sets left somewhere but new stock is due in again in the next week or so. These stamps have been mental, we've had to restock them 4 times now and we only launched in December, cwazy cwazy! I have promised to do a colouring tutorial with these as I have Promarkers to give away but I just haven't had the time so as soon as I get a spare afternoon I WILL do it I promiso!

This week is a busy one just trying to catch up with everything, finally on Saturday I will be going to my mum's to exchange the Christmas presents...yes, I DID say Christmas presents!! She only lives 40 miles away but as we had a proper working Crimbo this year and with all the snow we just didnt get to see my family and I'm miffed really as it kinda spoiled crimbo for me if I'm honest. Not that we really noticed, nose to grindstone and all that...I did stop to tweet at midnight on New Years but that was about it other than Christmas dinner. I keep looking at this huge pile of pressies and thinking some of them are just plain stupid now, loads of booze and choccies are fitting for the festivities but now it's all over it all seems a bit out of place! Still, it's my birthday next week so no doubt we will roll it all into one on Saturday and it will be nice to see everyone.

Right, enough waffling from me, I have loads of lush ribbons to load on the website and other "stuff" to get on with! Remember to check out the blog hop on Monday!! 9am!!
ttfn!
xx

Happy Phew Year!

2011-01-06T09:29:00.000Z

Eek, can't believe how long it's been since the last post, so sorry! Truth is I had a deadline turned upside down and thrown forward by a whole month would you believe so Christmas shmishmas round herre, it hasn't existed, I havent even given my poor family their pressies yet shamefully, just havent had time to do a thing since the last post! Thing is I feel well papster now too, some of these pressies just don't seem fitting a month after the event iykwim!! But my mum reckons she will cook another Christmas lunch whenever we get the chance to go see them which hopefully might be in about 10 days! I know people must think she should just MAKE time but sometimes when you work for yourself and run a business you just CAN'T have time off no matter how much you'd like to take a break. For us, we always seem to have a manic Dec right through to April which is when a lot of other businesses are really struggling so you just have to make the most of it unforcheroo.
Anyway, I really don't have time for a big post so this was just to say watch out for the 2 shows, yes 2, on Sat 8th Jan at 12 and 3pm...it seems there are some very eagle-eyed peeps out there already who have seen the pre-order I loaded late last night, no flies on you hey! So see you all Sat, promise to do a better blog this year and I have a couple of video tuts I need to make still with Promarkers to give away so please bear with me! ttfn x

negative and positive...

2010-12-14T15:11:00.000Z

I always try to look on the bright side of things. At least, I try. As we all know, it doesnt always work. Maybe it's to do with getting older, the fact the crapola sticks a little stickier, I don't know, but we all have 'stuff' to deal with. I'm no angel, I know that for sure, as do the people who know me, but I rarely do anything out of malice, it's usually just plain stupidity and lack of thought. Apparently this is a big Aquarian trait according to my starsign. Aquarians are supposedly always thinking ahead to the next thing annd not thinking about the here and now and this makes us seem thoughtless and blase. But we're not. And I know I do that because I do it to myself too :D - I constantly have to reign myself back from what I want to do next week to here and now! Anyway, I had a really difficult decision to make yesterday and it kinda started my day off in the negative.

And then I had a phone call with someone a couple of hours later and in 30mins that person, without knowing, had turned my day from negative to positive. I hope you know who you are ; )

Anyway, I wanted to share some pics that the lovely Caitlin sent me of her craft room. Have to say, I wish I had a craft room, I'm most jealous!! I think these pictures have been strategically placed not to show the mess maybe, I can't believe any crafter is that tidy! Wonder if her mum tidied up just before she did the pics tee hee, bet she did!

Apparently 14 year old Caitlin is a big PD fan - I don't know what gave it away haha, but I'm pretty amazed at how great her cards are, loving these!! She cuts out loads of images at once and then bags them up for when she needs them later so she can craft whenever and wherever the mood takes her - SO organised! Maybe she can give me some lessons in organisation huh....and here she is with her best friend in the whole wide world...aww, can tell they get up to some mischief together I reckon...

...so when you're feeling a bit blue, always try to keep your chipper up (think that may be wrong but who cares!)...you never know what's around the corner or who you'll meet today...who knows, life is short, let's make the most of it and craft till your eyes go squiffy and your hands won't cut any more!!

over and out...xxx

been nawty...

2010-12-10T19:51:00.000Z

Quickie post to say sorry for not posting for a couple of weeks, it's all gone a little bit mental here with one things and another...loads of snow...loads of missing parcels (mostly my presents I've bought, you know the ones, one for you, one for me!)...upcoming shows, short deadlines, missing stamps...as they would say in Phoenix Nights "it's all kickin off 'ere, it's all kickin off!"
So I havent forgotten my promise to do the Promarker demo but I just simply do not have the time at the moment but if Royal Mail pull their finger out and deliver the stamps I should be able to demo them on the next show which is 16th Dec at 9am!
So please don't desert me, watch out because I have some lovely candy coming up soon...
...so it's over and out from me, Crimbo is cancelled, as is today's wedding anniversary which I forgot, as usual...oops! (my excuse is I am now thinking about March 2011, not December 2010!)...ttfn campers x