hings have been really quiet here as I have been busy with work.  Why do people always leave it until the last minute before giving you the paperwork for company accounts that need to be in by the end of October????  I get the details last Thursday, and then the client is going on holiday the following Wednesday (i.e. yesterday!) which meant that Monday night, I didn't get to bed until nearly 4 am.  I still have to finalise the accounts (just check formatting and so on) so it shouldn't take that long to finish them off but the good news is that he did pay me immediately :).  


So, once I had got the accounts out of the way, that meant I could play, and this is what I got up to:










It's a set of recipe cards and a box I made to go with them.








This is made using the printable kit from Susan Godfrey Designs & Aimee Harrison Design Studios which can be found to The Studio here:




This is actually on sale at the moment so you can pick it up for just $2.09, a bargain!



It was so easy to use, all you have to do is type the recipes (or cut and paste them as I did!) onto each recipe card and print. I then distressed each card to hide the white edges of the cut card.

The box was made from a 12x12 sheet of Tim Holtz Ideology Kraft Resist cardstock (love, love, love Tim Holtz stuff!). I scored and folded it up, distressed all the edges then decorated it using papers from Afternoon Delight by JW Digiscraps which you can find here:





I also distressed the edges of the papers and then made the apples on the box from a small punch I had forgotten I had, adding gingham ribbon to finish it off.

The dividers for the box were made using a paper from Orchard Days by Snips and Snails:




I made a 6"x4" rectangle in Photoshop, added a 1" circle at the top for the tag, merged the circle and rectangle and then clipped the paper to the divider. The dividers were printed out on white cardstock, cut out and the edges distressed (I do love my distressing inks ).



All in all, a very easy project to make and I am thinking of giving one to my daughter for Christmas.  Now that she is at University, I am always getting phone calls from her asking for my cheese sauce recipe, how to make pastry and so on.  I still want to get the phone calls from her, but it would save time if she had her own recipes!


Well, I have spent so long now making the previews of the recipes cards, I really need to get some work done.  The trouble is, I spent the morning tidying my office (a job I hate) and managed to get rid of loads of old papers and stuff, and our youngest has a sleepover tonight at a friend's house which means that the first time in I don't know how long, hubbie and I will be completely ALONE tonight!!!!  It's been so long since this has happened!  So we are making the most of this and are off to the carvery after we drop our son at his friend's and then we are going to see The  Three Musketeers in 3D.  I am so looking forward to this and really can't be bothered working now ;).  Still, I had better show willing and do some work.......


Have fun whatever you are doing tonight!






This week has been so busy with my mum being in hospital and work, but the good news is that she apparently has no infection.  But then again, she might....After being told she could lose her leg, she was informed the next day that there was no infection.  However, they are still, some 5 days later, giving her antibiotics on an IV drip and she will stay in hospital until at least Tuesday.  Well, whatever it is that is wrong, the redness and swelling on her leg has gone down somewhat, so if it is an infection, it looks like they have caught it in time.


Whilst I have been busy with work, I have managed to find time to make another gift bag, this time using a template from Boop Designs,  It actually made up into quite a large gift bag, which was lovely.  normally, most templates tend to give you a bag that is only 3 or 4 inches high, but this one is much bigger and wider, mainly because you have to use two sheets of A4 to print it. I can see it being much more useful than the smaller gift bags, as I often struggle to find anything other than mini bags of chocolates (Cadbury's, of course ;) ), small soaps and the like to fill  them! Mind you, that probably says more about my lack of imagination and forethought when giving gifts than anything else....

Anyhow, this is what I ended up with:



The farmer is actually the back view, and the gift tag and flowers are the front view.  The flowers were printed on card and the petals partly cut out so I could curl them slightly.  I ended up using two layers for each flower, mainly because I forgot to put card into the printer and ended up printing one set of flowers on paper instead!  the paper flower is at the bottom and the cardboard one on top.

Do you ever make gift bags and if so, do you use a template or just "do it yourself"?  I'm always on the lookout for new gift ideas so would love to hear any ideas you might have.  

We've just been given some new kits to work with at The Studio, so I'm off now to see what I can play with - if only I didn't have to work as well, I would have so much fun!!!!

Happy scrapping :)




Things are all topsy turvy here as my mum has been kept in hospital after a visit to her consultant.  She fell and broke her leg in July and had to have a complete knee replacement (to replace the knee replacement she already had!) which had metal rods extending from the knee joint up into her femur and, I think, down into the other bones too.   She now has an infection and two weeks of antibiotics have done nothing, so the consultant has kept her in and she is having injections of antibiotics.  She'll be in at least seven days and we are all praying this works, because if the infection is in the joint and they cannot get rid of it, then she will have to have her leg amputated.  I'll be seeing her tonight so will find out more then.

In the meantime, I have been at the paper and glue again, this time using Angel Hartline Designs ATC maker 1.0:


I fell in love with these when I saw them.  Aren't they gorgeous?!!!!  Anyhow, never having made an ATC card before, this is what I came up with:


I used:

  • Distress inks
  • Stampin' Up stamp "best friends listen to what you don;t say"
  • Leaf - to stamp on the base card
  • Leaf stamp (free with Craft Stamper magazine in September!)
  • Dovecraft fibres
  • Clear embossing powder (for the leaf stamp on the small tag)
  • Sizzix tag die
  • Perfect Pearls Mist
I have already printed out a load of ATC's from the kit (well, all I did was put them onto a sheet of A4 and print) so will be making more when I have the time :).

I then took one of the ATC papers and transformed it to fit an A6 card as seen below:



I added extra glitter glue around the edges, and punched out the flower and butterfly from two Woodware punches.  Both the butterfly and the flower were inked with distress inks then I added glitter glue to the butterfly and sprayed the flower with Perfect Pearls Mist.  I added a brad to the flower but don't ask me where I got it from as the label from the bag has long since disappeared!

The flower was actually made from paper from "Afternoon Delight" by JW-DigiScraps which you can find here.  Of course, since I used distress inks and then Perfect Pearls Mist, you can't really tell what the paper was originally like.  Take it from me, it was a large spotted paper in pale yellows and looked lovely!

The "Happy Birthday" was printed on photo paper, and then adhered onto plain card which had been distressed.  I used a corner punch on two of the corners.  The ribbon is from fantasticribbons.co.uk.  all in all, it was a really easy card to make and I can see me making several more of these to keep as standby's for unexpected/forgotten birthdays ;).

I reckon this just shows the adaptability of the ATC maker and the quality of the kit.  Not only can you make ATC's with it (which is, naturally, what it is designed for), the files are 300 dpi so it means you can enlarge them and still keep all the detail.  As an added bonus, you can use the glitter styles that come with the ATC Maker on other digital items too, brilliant! 

I actually have other plans for these ATC cards as well, so watch this space!!  I don't know when I will get chance to finish what I have started with them, with hospital visiting, work, doing quality check reports plus I also have another hybrid kit for The Studio to work with too, but hey, who needs sleep?!!!!

If you make ATC cards, I would love to see what you do.  I really don't have much of a clue when it comes to ATC cards (I mean, what are they for?  What do you put on them? Are they just mini layouts or what?) so seeing what other people have made would be so useful :).  

Happy scrapping! 

This is my son's school this morning:


Thieves tried to remove metal from the roof over the weekend and then the high winds did the rest of the damage.  I don't think anyone was hurt but it could have been so much more serious.  The school is closed today and will, apparently, be open tomorrow.  So I have one happy son, who now has an unexpected day off school. He is, of course, putting this day to good use and is on his computer.  not, needless to say, studying, but playing Counter Strike or Dawn of War or some such bloodthirsty and brutal game..........


As for me, well I have to spend the day working although I did get chance for some crafting last week and over the weekend.  This is what I made:







This is another calendar I made using Nibbles Skribbles 2012 Calendar Templates and Early Morning Light by Piggy Scraps (which I absolutely love!).

The calendar templates and kit can be found in the shop here:

http://www.digitalscrapbookingstudio...oducts_id=8564

http://www.digitalscrapbookingstudio...oducts_id=5662

Fonts used: Traveling Typewriter and LD Remington Portable


This time, I put all the months on one A4 file, added the "month" headings and the year. The "2012" was created using the LD Remington Portable font and then one of the kit papers was clipped to this and embossed slightly. The background scene was created using the kit and then printed it off. The only trouble I had was in trying to get the printer to print the right colours as it kept making everything yellow!

I reckon this just shows how adaptable the calendar templates are, as you can use them to make a variety of calendars, and they are a definite must have item as far as I am concerned! 

Anyhow, why not give it a go yourself?  These are so easy to make, although it does take time getting the dates and everything aligned correctly and making the background layout.  I always have a one page calender stuck on the side of my desk for easy reference, and I also give them as Christmas gifts.  Much better than the ones you buy in the shops!


Well, I'm off to tweak a set of accounts and do a tax return, so have fun whatever you are doing!


Happy scrapping!






I have completed my first project for The Studio Hybrid CT and here it is:










I used Nibbles Skribbles 2012 Calendar Templates which are so easy to use!

All I did was create a 6x4 portrait file and put a guideline half way down the page. I then used the calendar templates in the bottom half (resizing them slightly) , and inserted my photos in the top half. I didn't use any of the backgrounds, or anything else from the templates, just the dates and days.  I had to add the months myself, and the description for the photos.

The back cover was made from two pieces of card (A6 size) trimmed to 4 inches wide. I then scored each piece of card at 6 inches for the base. 

I used my Bind it All machine to bind it together, and stick the the bottom of the back cover together using foam pads.

Font used: Traveling Typewriter
Supplies used: 6x4 photo paper, card, binder wires



I plan on printing out several more of these for Christmas gifts as they are so easy to make - it just takes time to sort out the photos really.  So why not give it a go yourself?  You don't have to do anything fancy, just copy and paste with maybe some resizing!


I'm also planning on making a more detailed/fancier calendar using scrap kits.  Have you seen the calendars by Shabby Princess and The Shabby Girl?   Well i want to make some like that.  I reckon I may have just about enough time between now and Christmas to get them all done as it effectively means 13 different layouts (one for each month plus the cover page).


Let me know if you make one yourself - I'd love to see what you do ;).


Happy Scrapping!









Well, whilst I didn't make it through the Design contest, have no expectations of being a winner in the Layout Artist Contest (although I did actually make it through to the finals!!!!), I did become one of the winners in the  Hybrid CT contest and am now officially one of the first three member of the Hybrid CT team!!!!  Woohoo!  I found out on Sunday and have had a big grin on my face every time I thought of it :).

The first challenge was to create a layout using a digital kit but to add other elements to it:


For the second challenge, we were given a gift bag template (basically to use as is, with no changes, although we could have changed the design on it if we wished).  Of course, we all added little extras!



Then we had to create gifts or goodies (party favours and so on):


And finally, an item of home decor or a decoration of some sort:


We're just finding out what being on the team involves but I have to say that everyone at The Studio are just so lovely.  It is such a friendly place and I am really looking forward to getting to know everyone there and to get down to work.  I love getting messy with glue, papers, scissors and so on.  I actually think, though, that the Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die is becoming my best friend - I seem to use it on just about everything at the moment as you can see form all of the above!

Overall, I reckon being on the Hybrid CT will make me more creative (no bad thing!) and inspire me to do more as the kits that will be available are so adaptable.  I have started work on my first one, so just watch this space.  I am hoping to get it finished in the next day or so and will post photos here as well as at The Studio.

Happy Scrapping!