Heavenly Crafts

I've been browsing the internet and came across some videos by Kathy Orta of Paper Phenomenon and of boy, she comes up with the most amazing projects.  She is one talented lady!


I saw last week that she had made a video showing how she made a gift card holder from an envelope, so I thought !I can do that!"  I didn't however, have any of the same size envelopes in stock (typical) nor any white ones that had the flap at the side.  I did have, however, a rather large stash of old payroll envelopes (C5 size) that I decided could be easily (famous last words...!!!!) adapted to make a gift card.


I started with papers from the February mega kit at The Studio:

I just love the colours used in the kit, and the papers are gorgeous.  


I sort of followed Kathy's video instructions to arrive at this gift card holder:


Considering this was the first time I had done anything like this, I was really pleased with the result.  Hubbie was not impressed (but the nothing short of the Mona Lisa would probably impress him ;) ) but my fifteen year old thought it was brilliant (he is such a smooth talker!).  


It was really easy to do and whilst Kathy says in her video it should take about 40 minutes, it took me a while longer as I was adapting a different shaped envelope.  I reckon the next one will be much quicker and believe me, there will b e a next one!


Why not have a go yourself?  It is straightforward to make, and is a really unique gift card.  In case you are interested, the video can be found here.


Happy Scrapping!

I thought I'd share with you these cute little gift boxes I made for Valentine's day even though I know we are well past Valentine's day.   Well, you can always use these to make a start on next year's, right?


I used Truly, Madly, Deeply by Darlene H:

Couldn't you just eat those chocolates, lol?! !


Anyhow, I made two gift boxes, the first of which was a heart topped box:







I found the template for this at http://www.homemade-gifts-made-easy.com/free-gift-box-templates.html and it is so quick and easy to use. 


I actually converted the template into a png and got rid of the white background so all I had to do was place the template on the kit paper, print and cut out, then score along the dotted lines and fold.  The flower on the front side of the box was made using petals from the kit which I cut out and stuck together to create a flower.  I added a leaf from my stash to finish it off.


The only difficulty with this box was the actual heart on the top, as you need to make sure you cut far enough down so the two halves fit together.


The second box was also made from a template I found (see http://tethered2home.com/?p=8300), but was just a little bit trickier to put together (hence the crease on one side of the lid which shouldn't be there!).  





Again, it was a case of cutting out and scoring, and then folding the box up (it worked the second time ;) ) .  I added extra hearts (using heart shapes included with the box template) and created a 3d flower using two copies of one of the kit flowers.  I reduced the flower in size so it would fit the box before printing it out, and then cut down the side of each petal, placed one copy of the flower on top of the other and attached them to the lid of the box using a Papermania brad.  I also added a lace ruffle to the underside of the lid as a finishing touch.  


All in all, both boxes were fairly straightforward to make and I will definitely be using these templates again.  But for now, I need to get back to sorting out a client's VAT return.  Oh, I lead such an exciting life ;)


Happy scrapping.

I love my Tim Holtz dies, oh. how I love them!  And the distress inks?  The papers?  I want them all, every last one of them!  


Whilst I like making crisp, clean and minimal cards, I also really like getting grungey, messing with the distress inks and getting out my dies.  So when it was our youngest son's birthday last month, it was the perfect time to dig out my Big Shot and Tim Holtz dies:

I used some ideology papers as a background, the tag was inked with several distress inks and then stamped, and then I had the chance to use my baker's twine which I bought before Christmas (from a butcher's website as I could get far more twine for my money than buying form a craft shop!).

Oh, the relief now that I have all clients' tax returns in and can finally catch up on my sleep and get the office organised!  January is always a hectic month with me working all hours (literally) and it is not unusual for me to be working until 3,am, 4 am or even 5 am most mornings.  So, as you can well imagine, the first couple of weeks in February are really slow work wise.  It is not that I don't have any work, far from it, it is just that I am too tired to even think about it!


So far this week, I have had a couple of client meetings but the main highlight of the week has been a trip to Ikea to buy a new shelving unit and a matching desk.   Hubbie very kindly built them both up for me and so I am now sitting here thinking about tidying and organising the office....only thinking, mind, because actually dong any of that would involve me:


a) thinking about what to put where; and
b) actually moving and doing something other than just sitting at my computer!


So, instead of actually clearing the decks ready for work, I have instead being playing, and this is what I have made:

These are so easy and straightforward to make.  All you need is a sheet of A6 cardstock scored at 3", 6", 6.75" and 7.5". Stamp on one side, add a calendar tag and voila, one desktop calendar ready to go!


Of course, I couldn't leave it there.  Stamping an image is all very well, and it does look good, but I thought that a flower would look even better..... so naturally, I had to experiment!   This is the first one I made, black card and a bright orange flower:




Isn't that flower gorgeous?  It looks so effective on the black card too :).  






So of course, I then had to have a go with different cardstock, and different flowers:






 The green gingham flower was made using a Woodware punch, and the orangey flower is actually a Tim Holtz/Sizzix tattered florals die.  I used plain white paper and then sprayed the die cut petals with Cosmic shimmer Mist (ancient copper).  


I am so pleased with the results (talk about modest, eh?!!!)!


Whilst January tends to be a very profitable month for me as clients call in to collect their accounts and tax returns (and pay me!), I just don't get chance to do any crafting at all, so as well as the calendars, I have also been playing around with loads of other things.


One kit I have been working with is All Wrapped Up by Snickerdoodle Designs






Well, I had originally intended to use the printables from this kit to make gift tags and jar wraps, but due to work commitments (why, oh why, is the tax return filing deadline in January?  It means most accountants barely have time to think about Christmas, let alone celebrate it) never had the chance to do this.  So then I thought I would use it for my son's birthday (which is in January) but yet again,. work got in the way of that idea.  So, whilst I know this is more of a Christmas kit, I am a great one for making the most use out of all supplies, digital and paper, so decided to use this kit to label the storage jars in the office:

Just a quick update to let you know I will be posting in the next week as I am still in the middle of tax return filing here.  January is always chaotic for me as I struggle to get all my clients' tax returns in by the filing deadline and let me tell you, when HMRC extended the deadline to 2 February, I knew it was the answer to prayer!

Anyhow, I only have one more return to do which, surprise, surprise, is mine!  I'll be tied up all day doing that and will spend Friday sleeping as I am so tired after all the 3/4/5 am finishes I have had this month.  Friday evening sees me off to a conference with friends so I won't be back until late Saturday and then I have plans early next week to post here as I have managed to squeeze in making some gift boxes and cards between all those tax returns.  I just haven't had time to post them.  I also want to add to the "My Life" kit as well as catch up on all my blog reading!  but then I may also have to fit in a bit of work too....

So, watch this space as I will be giving away some freebies too but in the meantime....

......Happy Scrapping!

This month is my absolute busiest month of the year as far as work is concerned.  I end up spending all hours at my computer preparing accounts and tax returns, and the only free time I have is spent sleeping! So if comes as somewhat of a shock to find that I have gone and signed myself up for the design contest at Hummie's world!  Sleep is definitely overrated and I am sure I can squeeze some designing time in, despite having 30 tax returns to do...plus the associated accounts......

I like to make my own Calendars each year to give as gifts and usually, I buy the latest celebrate from Shabby Princess as the templates are really easy to use.  Basically each calendar is pre-formatted, like quick pages, and all you have to do is get each month;s page, add the dates and photographs and you are done. I say that like it is easy (which is it) and doesn't take long.  However, I found that it can take me two or three days (not all day everyday!) to put the calendar together.  I was looking forward to seeing what Shabby Princess came up with this year, as I love her designs, but to my disappointment she just produced calendar dates!


That left me with a real quandary, whether to use an old SO calendar template, and just change the dates, or to create my own calendar form scratch.  Well, since I have been giving the calendars to the same people each year, I didn't want to risk them checking back on earlier year's calendars to find out I re-used it, so decided to create my own calendars from scratch.  Naive as I am, I never realised just how much time it would take to do this!


Anyhow, since I am on the hybrid CT at The Studio, I was able to use loads of their kits and I started with the 2012 calendar dates from Nibbles Skribbles (I had already used these to make my desktop calendar), coupled with the 2011 8x8 calendar and templates form Julie C Designs:

Now I know these were 2011 templates from Julie, but I loved the idea of being able to put notes on the calendar, plus it came with 8x8 templates for the layout as well. How good was that?!!!  I had to squash each page template as my calendar was A4 size and took some poetic licence with each month's layout.


I used a different kit for each month and this is my final calendar.  Please excuse the quality here as I was printing on plain cardstock (I had run out of the heavy weight photo paper) so the colours aren't quite right.  I was really only printing to see how they looked and have actually tweaked several of them since then.



After spending what feels like months making the calendar, I really didn't have the energy to photograph all 12 pages, so this is the digital copy of each month:





I am really pleased with how it has turned out but the only problem now is finding the time to print another 15 of them out and then bind them!  I always have trouble with the binding as this time of year is one of the few occasions when I get my Zutter binding machine out.  Every year without fail I have to check the instruction manual to make sure I am binding everything the right way!


The kits I used were as follows:



All of these can be found at The Studio.


Let me know what you think of the calendar and if you make your own, I'd love to see your calendars.


Happy scrapping!