Well, I am making an early start (for once!) on my 2013 calendars.  I give these as Christmas gifts, making an A4 size calendars for ladies, and a 4x6 desktop calendar for men.  So far, I have made the desktop calendars as I was able to use these calendar grids from Nibbles Skribbles:


These are really so easy to use.  They come as a png file and all you have to do is drag them onto your calendar page for the relevant month and resize as necessary - it took longer to sort out which photos to use than it did to create each page!  If you make your own calendars, then these are ideal.  You can find them at The Studio and the preview above is linked to the store.

This is what I ended up with (you'll have to excuse the poor quality of the photo as the lighting in my office is terrible.):




The cover page was just a photo with the title added, and you can see how the calendar is put together from the side shot.  I cut two pieces of card stock 4" by 8", scoring each piece at 6".  After binding using my Bind-it-All, the short ends were folded over and stuck together to form the base of the calendar so it would stand up firmly.

These are the individual pages - I've just used the jpegs here as I was feeling lazy and didn't want to photograph each page and then make the preview (in my defence, it has taken me nearly 7 hours to make this calendar!):  








I used Scriptina and Calibri fonts.

These calendar grids are so easy to use and it will definitely make my life easier when it comes to making the A4 calendars!  

Well, it's now 10:45 pm here, so I'm off to get a well deserved glass of red wine!  Happy scrapping!

Yet again time has been running away with me and since I am in the middle of amending a set of accounts, this is just a quick post to let you know I have a freebie mini kit at The Studio:



This was part of my entry for the design contest and was cobbled together at the last minute as everything seemed to hit at once here.  Why is it then whenever you think you are going to have some free time, things come up or unexpected deadlines appear and you find yourself running here, there and everywhere and trying to juggle umpteen balls in the air to try and get everything sorted?  I guess that's just life, eh?!!

The kit contains:


3 patterned papers
2 solid papers
1 frame
2 flowers
1 star scatter
1 overlay
1 brad
1 tag
1 journaling tag
1 leaf
1 photo and
1 cluster


Anyhow, the download links are in the gallery at The Studio, and can be found HERE or by clicking on the preview above.  Have a look around at the gallery as there are lots more freebies on offer there too!

Oh, well, I'd better get back to those accounts....

Happy Scrapping!


Later today we are off to see our eldest son and his girlfriend as they have just moved into a new home after several weeks (it probably seemed liked years to my son!) of living with her parents.  So, in honour of their new home, this is the card I have made them both:


The background is a Hero Arts digital stamp and the little green house is an Anita's  stamp.  The house was coloured in using some of the new Stampin' Up! In Colours for 2012-14.


The "new home" stamp is actually the bottom portion of the Anita's new home stamp as I fussy cut out the house and then stamped the text separately, punched it out and added the black background.


In actual fact, this card is slightly different form how I envisaged it, as originally, there was going to be no black matting around the city image.  However, when I stamped a message on the inside of the card, I ended up messing it up (I know, how embarrassing is that?!!!) so decided to just use the top half of the card on a new A6 card and layer it!

It probably looks better layered anyway, so it all turned out all right, and since our son does not as yet have internet connection, there is no chance of him seeing this card before we get there later today......unless he checks on his phone, of course, although I am sure he has better things to do than check what his mum is getting up to!

I have also had the pleasure of working with another new kit from one of the designers at The Studio.  this time is is with Alive Again by jusme digital, and oh, it is lovely:


I love those greens and greys together, really effective and there are some gorgeous papers in the kit too :).  Well, this kit just called out for a card box with matching cards and envelopes.  I saw a pizza box tutorial (which you can find HERE) a while ago and have been longing to use this.  I used a sheet of A4 cardstock and printed 4 different cards on this using elements from the kit (I actually included 7 of the cards in the box) and made matching envelopes using a printed kit paper.  This is the finished box:




And here it is with the cards and envelopes:


I duplex printed two different papers on card stock and then punched out the flowers using to create the flower on the top of the box.  The envelops were basically cut out to fit the card (just rectangles scores on both long sides at 0.5" and then in the middle to fit the card, and 1.5" from the scalloped edge.I used a scallop edge punch on one side of the paper before I cut and scored it.  I left the cards blank inside so they can be used for anything (apart, obviously, from the one that has "happy birthday" on the front!)

I love this kit and Christine's other kits are just as gorgeous so why not pop over to The Studio to take a look?  The Studio are also having Designer and Layout contests, both of which I am entering, although where I am going to find the time I really don't know....still, you have to do something other than number crunching all day, don't you?!!!!

Well, I'm off to take a look at the Designer contest now and the pack for our trip up north so have fun whatever you are doing this weekend!

Happy Scrapping!