Heavenly Crafts: 2010

Update and freebie

0 comments Posted by Lynn at 10/12/2010 02:52:00 pm

Well, September has been a busy month! I'm managed to scrape through to the finals of the Digiscrapaddicts designer contest (by the skin of my teeth) and the experience has been amazing. I always find when I enter things like this that it stretches me and I learn new techniques which is no bad thing. I mean, I learnt how to make vellum paper for this contest as well as how to make staples, although to be honest, my attempts are not exactly the best. I do have a little freebie for you but more on that in a bit ;).

The big news is that my son has almost got my website up and running! He needs to finish the shop part of it, and I have to give him info for the home page and so on, but it is looking like it could be active next month! It seems to have taken eons to get this far, so I am really excited and will definitely let you know when everything is live. Of course, you will undoubtedly find out as the blog will be transferring over too ;).

So, what has been happening here since I last posted? Well, our middle son has now gone back to University in St Andrews, and of course, I took my camera along for the trip (have you ever known me not to do this?!!!) and just look at what we saw.

This is walking up from the harbour towards South Street:

A view of South Street:

The harbour, taken from the pier:

And another shot of the harbour!

The pier:

By tradition, the students walk down the pier every Sunday after chapel. There are various explanations for this tradition, but my favourite is that the students used to accompany the visiting preacher back to the harbour where he would get in his boat at the end of the pier. The students, in the main, wear their red gowns (or at least we used to when I was at St Andrews ;) ), walk down the pier on the right hand side, climb up the ladders at the end of the pier and walk back along the top of the pier. I'd never do that now as it seems an awfully narrow path and such a long way down to the rocks and the sea beneath!

Then there is, of course, the castle, where if you wear your red gown (students in St Andrews wear red undergraduate gowns) you can get in free!

And finally, my son's room!

He reckons it'll be a good room to have a party in!

So, I believe I mentioned a freebie, and here it is. It's a very rough and ready grab bag containing:

Vellum notepaper;
Rose overlay;
Rose paper (pink);
Chick;
Ribbon wrapper; and
Rust effect paper

Like I said, it is very rough and ready and is just odds and ends I have lying around on my hard drive! There are no TOU's in there or anything other than the six items. There isn't even a preview! So feel free to grab it by licking HERE. Hopefully you will find it useful.

I do intend to start blogging more frequently from now on, but don't hold your breath!

Happy scrapping!

Catch up

0 comments Posted by Lynn at 9/06/2010 07:15:00 am

I have been so remiss in neglecting this blog but oh, boy, does real life have a habit of messing up the best laid plans!

So what has been happening recently then? Well, we have been away to the Wales on holiday, then spend a long weekend in the Lake District. A group of us went to London to hear an African minister preach (he'd come over for a special event). Work has been busy, to say the least, but clients are being slow in paying me, which is always a real trial, and I am now in the throes of the start of the annual tax season, with the January filing deadline looming ever closer. Plus, my son has (drum roll here please!) almost completed my Heavenly Crafts website!!!!

He has put in so many hours of work, and it is really taking shape now and looking good. Soon, hopefully sometime this month, it will be up and running and my blog will be transferred over to the website, so watch this space ;)!!! The shop part of the website may take a little more time as I actually need to get some serious designing done so I will have some items to sell. This designing is kind of complicated by my day job (after all, I do have to earn some money to pay the bills, put food on the table and so on!) and by the fact that I have actually entered two designer contests!

The first one of these is at The Studio, and the first challenge was due in on Saturday. This year, the contest is being run on an anonymous basis (in theory) and we all have alias ID's so when people vote for our designs, they won't know who we are and will be voting on the design rather than for the person. The first challenge kits have all been posted now and here is a slideshow of all the entries:

Why not go to The Studio and take a look yourself? there are some really lovely kits there and they are all available as free downloads, although you may have to register in the forum first. Then while you're there, you can vote for your favourite three designers!

The second contest I've entered is the Funky Playground Designs 2010 Designer contest, which is being hosted at DigiscrapAddicts.com. There are two categories, new designers and established designers. I have entered the new designers category and here is the preview of my entry:

There is no public voting in this contest, which I actually prefer, and there are no eliminations until challenge 2, so I already know I have made it through to the next round! You can find the news designers kits here and the established designers kits here. All the kits are available as free downloads, so why not go along and snag some gorgeous creations, lol?

It is actually really good experience entering these contests (although totally nerve wracking and stressful too ;) ), as you then see what everyone else has come up with, find out what styles are popular, etc and you always learn something new with every kit you make. I have no expectations of getting through to round three in this contest, although obviously I would love to get even further than that ;).

Anyhow, that's most of my news so far so 'll leave you now and go get ready for work!

Happy scrapping!

ADSDesigners: Quick pages

1 comments Posted by Lynn at 8/01/2010 10:23:00 pm

Have you ever had one of those months when just about everything went wrong that could go wrong? Well, if so, you will know the sort of month I have just had :(. There seemed to be just one deadline after another, stress over clients not giving me their books and records until two weeks before accounts had to be filed at Companies House, other clients pressing for accounts by return of post (and then not paying me!), and I am still trying to get my craft website up and running.

Well, I am expecting great things from next week as I am taking a week off and we are all going to Wales for a much needed break. Naturally, I am taking my laptop - there is no way I could withstand the withdrawal symptoms for that length of time ;) and I also want to take my Wacom tablet to get some serious designing in! Plus, our eldest son will be joining us too, and will bring what he has done so far on the website. The idea is that we can move this blog over in a few days time, and then concentrate on getting the rest of the website up and running. So, I'm really looking forward to this as it is all really exciting. And yes, the family does think I need to get a life!

I'm also hoping the weather will be dry this week so that we can get some walking in. We'll be stopping in the middle of nowhere and have plans to walk up Snowdon, go to Lake Vyrnwy, visit Powys Castle and generally just relax and unwind. So watch this space for all those photos I intend taking!!!

Sorry, I'm a bit late posting these but here are my quickpages from the Freedom kit:

I hope you like them and can make use of them. You can download them here.

The other designers taking part in the quickpage blog train are:

Mags Graphics

Digi Cyber Scraps

Cindi

Heavenly Crafts (You are here!)

Mariscrap

Do go along and see what they have come up ;).

Happy scrapping!

ADSDesigners Blog Train: Freedom

1 comments Posted by Lynn at 7/01/2010 10:46:00 am

Well, today sees the release of the July ADSDesigners blog train and here is my contribution:

It contains:

6 papers;
3 types of fireworks; and
2 wordart.

There will be more elements to follow in a few days time ;). In the meantime, here is the download link. I've already seen some of the other contributions and this promises to be a wonderful megakit, so go grab the other parts! The other designers can be found:

Heavenly Crafts (You are here!)

My Sweet Tater

Fairydustprincess

BitsnBobs

The links will be up all month, which gives you plenty of time to grab the freebies!

Happy Scrapping!

Card and freebie

5 comments Posted by Lynn at 6/17/2010 07:03:00 pm

It seems an age since I was last here (nothing new in that, I hear you say....) but things have been, as usual, busy here. My youngest is recovering nicely from his op, and I can't get over how small his scar is. My appendix scar is a huge monstrous thing, but then after four children, most things in my abdominal region are pretty huge and monstrous ;). However, his scar s a really neat 1.5" and looks like a partially healed scratch! All I can say to that is his surgeon must be far neater at stitching than I am! I am dead impressed!

He's still not back at school, and is getting tired really easily, but hopefully, he will be able to go back sometime next week, just in time to get some revision in for the science exams they are making year 8 take. I can't tell you how much he is looking forward to those, not!

Anyhow, despite being really busy with work, I have still managed to find time to make some cards (I don't know how, other than the fact that work is probably suffering as a result), and this is what I have been up to:

It's only a very basic card, made with cardstock and ribbon from my stash but the toadstool house is actually made using a photoshop action from Dreamcatcher Designs. The action makes a fairy house, bow, flower and wings, and you can find it here. It's not free, I'm afraid, but then so few photoshop actions like this are :(.

I'm actually entering the card in the Craftalicious Challenges as I reckon since I'm now making all these cards, I might as well do something with them! One of the design team on the Craftalicious blog is Jan, who just happens to run the craft class I go to ;).

I've also been designing too, trying my hand at creating vellum. I do have some notepaper for you but haven't had chance to upload it yet. However, I have also been playing around with brushes, and came up with this:

It's a png file and you can download it here. If you do use it, I'd love to see what you do with it :).

Happy scrapping!

ADSDesigners Quickpages freebie

3 comments Posted by Lynn at 6/01/2010 11:53:00 am

Well, it is that time of the month again when the ADSDesigners release the quickpages based on the last blog collab. Mine is slightly late, mainly because I was in Scotland from Thursday to Saturday last week collecting our middle son from University. Then when we did get back on Saturday evening, it was to find our youngest son had had severe stomach ache all day, so this necessitated a trip to Shropdoc at the nearest community hospital, then a quick trip to paediatrics at a different hospital where he was diagnosed with appendicitis. I finally left him at midnight Saturday night, but had to dash back early Sunday morning to sign the consent forms and spent most of the day there with him. He had his op about 11 am on Sunday, and has done so well, that they discharged him early yesterday (Monday) afternoon!

Anyhow, as a result of me spending most of the last week either in Scotland or at the hospital (and then when I was home, having to wash the large suitcase full of dirty clothes that my student son brought back from St Andrews!), this is first chance I have had to post (ie make!) the quickpages. Of course, if I were anywhere near as organised as I should be, I would have actually made these at the same time I did my share of the collab kit, but hey, what's life without rapidly looming deadlines and unforeseen circumstances thrown in, eh?!!

The preview is:

As you can see, I ended up with four quickpages, two of them are 12x12, and the other two are 11x8.5. You can find the downloads here and here.

The other designers taking part in this are:

so don't forget to check out their blogs and collect more quickpages!

I'm off to make lunch now for one poorly 13 year old, who is now feeling much better than he was on Saturday night!

Happy scrapping!

Butterfly overlay

5 comments Posted by Lynn at 5/08/2010 06:54:00 am

Well, I recall sometime ago promising to let you have a butterfly overlay and I have actually (surprise, surprise!) managed to get around to sorting this out. Here is the preview:

And the previews of the coloured butterflies are as follows:

But, before I give you the download link, you are going to have to suffer through my photographs of our trip to Liverpool last month! Cruel and heartless, aren't I?!!! Still, you could always scroll straight to the bottom so there are ways of avoiding the photos......

Firstly, here is the view from our hotel window overlooking Albert Dock. You'll have to excuse the smudges as I took the photo from behind the window.

Here is the view from outside the hotel:

And Liverpool's version of the London Eye, somewhat smaller, but still very impressive. We actually didn't go on it because, to be honest, it seemed an expensive way to spend five minutes but I bet the views were glorious.

This was taken down on the ground more or less below our hotel room!

And these are more shots of Albert Dock.

Then we came across Queen Victoria:

There are some really beatuiful buildings in Liverpool. I just love this architecture.

I thought these were bird dogs - they look like a dog at the front (Labrador) and a bird at the back, but I have since found out that these are lambananas, a cross between a lamb and a banana. Don't ask me why anyone would want to cross a lamb and a banana, I guess that is artistic licence! Anyway, they are definitely eye catching.

But of course, Liverpool wouldn't be complete without a shot of the Liver Building....

....and a somewhat blurred photo of one of the Liver birds!

I also ended up taking some shots on the way back to the hotel at night. No mean feat considering I had never done this before and did not have a tripod! Of course, that makes me sound as if I know what I am doing, when in reality, it was a case of holding the camera as still as possible and taking the shot. Loads of the pictures I took are blurred - it is impossible to hold a camera still for the length of time it takes for the photo to be taken, especially when you are a novice like me. Still, here are a couple of the better ones:.

I had to lean against walls, fences and trees to get those unblurred shots! And then one taken from our hotel room:

But the real reason we were in London was to go to the OneRepublic gig at the O2 academy. The support act was Alex Gardner, a Scottish singer who has the reputation of being a Robert Pattinson lookalike (for those of you who are Twilight fans ;) ). Here he is in action:

He was actually very good, so if you get the chance to go hear him, it would be well worth it. But of course, the main act were even better. It was actually very pleasing to find out I wasn't the oldest person in the audience. I think my daughter was worried that I would be - she certainly seemed relieved when we saw a rather more elderly (and definitely more smartly dressed!) couple waiting in the queue behind us!

It was quite funny when we got in, because, as you probably know, there is very little seating at the O2 Academy, and everyone has to stand. DD and I rushed to the front, and ended up on the second row, whereas the Radio 2 listeners (as my daughter called the older ones, and there were quite a number of them too) stayed at the side leaning up against the wall.

Anyway, this was the first time I had used my new camera at a gig, and since were were near the front, I managed to get some really good shots (or at least I think they are!). Here is Ryan Tedder, the lead singer:

As you can see, he ended up very close to where we were standing. He is probably wondering here who that old woman is with the camera! Not that I am, of course, old, because in reality, I am only about 21 (or at least, that is as old as I feel), I just look somewhat older;).

I love this shot. You can really tell that the lead guitarist, Zach Filkins (at least, I think this is him ;)), is enjoying himself. It makes all the difference when you go to a gig or concert and you can tell they are having fun on stage!

And back to Ryan, this time with (I think) Brent Kutzle and Drew Brown in the background.

All in all, we had a whale of a time in Liverpool and OneRepublic were brilliant!

But now, if you have managed to struggle through all those photos (or just scroll her to the bottom) back to the butterfly overlays which you can find here. The zipped file contains the original overlay plus two coloured versions. I'm off to do our church notices now, and then have to work, so have fun and happy scrapping!

ADSDesigners Blog Train: Sunflower Patch now available!

9 comments Posted by Lynn at 5/01/2010 11:40:00 am

Well, as promised yesterday, the latest ADSDesigners kit, Sunflower Patch, has been released. There are some gorgeous papers and elements created by the designers and what better way to spend a Bank Holiday weekend than in downloading lots of freebies?!!!!

The weather forecast here is for thundery showers this afternoon. Well, that really has scuppered our plans to go to Church Stretton and go walking up the Long Mynd :(. Instead, we are going to go visit a National Trust property, Wightwick Manor, in salubrious Wolverhampton, and since none of us has been there before, it should be really interesting. Of course, I will be taking my camera with me, and after taking night shots in Ironbridge as part of the digital photography course I'm attending, I now know how to put my camera into manual mode, and use a tripod!!!! I also have an inkling, just an inkling, mind, of how to change the shutter speed and aperture too. I haven't got a clue what I should be changing them to, I just press or twiddle the buttons and see what happens when I take a photo.....you never know, one day, I may actually know what I am doing ;).

I will let you see the photos of Ironbridge later as we have to do a pdf slideshow ready for the next lesson anyway. I bet you can't wait, eh? But in the meantime, what you really want to see is the Sunflower Patch kit, right? So here is my part:

And here are some close ups so you can get an idea of what it is like: