Heavenly Crafts

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!

Life has been hectic here recently, even more so than usual!  Our daughter came back from University last night, and it was so nice to see her again, not having seen her for three whole months.  The longest she had ever been away form home before was for weekends away, so I really missed her.  We do everything together, shopping, walking, going to the pictures, the theatre, you name it, we go together, so she left a bog whole in my life.  It meant I had to drag hubbie along to the pictures to see the Three Musketeers and he was not impressed!


However, because I have been so busy with work (the 31 January tax filing deadline really does have a habit of interfering with Christmas ;), this meant I hadn't got around to finishing my daughter's advent calendar - and don't even mention the calendars for my elder two boys and my eldest's girlfriend.  they are still waiting to be cut out and stuck together......  So yesterday was spent in a combination of making the sleigh (which you will see below), preparing the church notices for today and finishing off our daughter's advent calendar.  I ended up putting the last chocolate into the calendar as hubbie and daughter got back form the station!  Talk about timing!!!!


I have also been playing around with various kits from The Studio recently in an attempt to make more Christmas cards.  After all, there are so many gorgeous Christmas kits around, why not use some of them to make unique personal cards this year?


So, I used the following kits:


Christmas cards - set 1 by Darlene H

Decadent Season kit by Julie C Designs and Paper Capers ~Designs (I fell in love with this kit when I first saw it, it is absolutely gorgeous!)






and one I have previously used, Winter's Delight kit by Lara's Digi World.  This is another gorgeous kit:








I only used a few element from each kit and this is what I came up with:

Well, I get millions of emails in my inbox each day, or at least that is how it often seems, but I had one yesterday offering a free Santa's sleigh template: 

You can get this free "Santa's Magical Sleigh" card making template from Card Carousel.  Just visit www.cardcarousel.co.uk/free/sleigh.html.  How awesome is that?  And just in time for Christmas, too!!!!


I don't know about you, but I definitely want to have a go at making one of these :).

I though I'd better make a start with my Christmas cards so I used the Winter's Delight bundle by Lara's Digi World:

I just love the clusters in this kit and. since I saw elsewhere on the internet some very minimalistic cards, I thought I'd be able to copy the idea to make something similar. 

I have been busy making Christmas goodies these past couple of weeks using the Snow in Love collection by Snickerdoodle Designs:

The collection (which can also be bought separately) can be found here:


http://www.digitalscrapbookingstudio.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=13_372&products_id=9047


The first thing I made was a gift bag:




The kit comes with the gift tags and money gift cards all ready for printing, so all I had to do was print the bag (I just used a sheet of A4 white card and printed the paper onto it).  I just scored the sheet of A4 at 2", 5", 7" and 10" on the long side, and then at 2" and 7" on the short side, trimmed some of the end bits off and stuck the bag together.  It's based on a Split Coast Stampers tutorial which can be found:


http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/tutorials/2_5_7_10_box/

The tutorial is very easy to follow and comes with photos and a video too.


I embellished the bag with glitter glue for the snowflakes, used scalloped edge scissors to trim the top of the bag and added a wire ribbon and tag (also from the Snow in Love collection).  I just need the gift to go in it now!

The gift tags I have printed ready for Christmas, and I plan on using the gift card holders either for (surprise, surprise!) gift cards or maybe some folded up money as I know our older children want money this year instead of presents.  As already mentioned, since the gift cards and tags come ready made in the kit, all you have to do is print them out.  I just placed the tags/cards on a sheet of A4 so I could print out more than one at a time.







These were really quick and easy to make and look really effective.


I also thought I would make a start of my advent calendars.  It is a tradition now in our house that I make each of my children an advent calendar.  Last year, I didn't make one for our second son as he was at University and he was so upset at being missed out, we had to go and buy him one from the shops!  Well, I daren't make that mistake again, so am having to make five calendars (one for each child plus a spare one for myself, as there is no way I am missing out on the chocolates!).


I used the Snow in Love kit again for this, printing off one of the papers on A4 cardstock and then made 25 separate tags like this:






I always have trouble with the tags, as it is difficult to judge the size of the part used to stick the tag onto the card.  In previous years, I stuck them onto the face of the card (and ended up having them fall off during December with the weight of the chocolate inside), but this year, I cut lines in the card to insert the tag bit through and after some trial and error, ended up using strong red double sided tape to adhere them to the back of the tag.  I found Selotape wasn't strong enough to hold the little tag bits in place, Pritt was next to useless and I know from last year that the standard double sided tape just isn't strong enough.  It remains to be seen whether the strong double sided tape will work as I haven't put the chocolates in yet.  


This is what the final calendar looked like (minus chocolates):







I'm quite pleased with it but, like I say, the proof of the pudding (or the strength of the double sided tape) lies in what happens once I put the chocolates in.  Actually, finding the chocolates will be another story in itself as I always have problems with that.  I like to use Cadbury miniatures as they are just the right size to fit the tags but I always seem to have trouble finding any in the shops.  You can buy the chunky Cadbury ones, but the small ones?  Well, you have to hunt high and low, or at least in Shropshire you do!  Generally, the only places I tend to find these are either at the local town market or at B & M if I am lucky, otherwise, I have to find some other chocolate (and really, it does need to be Cadbury's as nothing else tastes quite the same!).  So, I shall have to see what I can get this year, once I have printed off the other 4 calendars.  I suppose I could always resort to a tin of Cadbury Heroes or Roses, which would then leave me with the problem of what to do with the left over chocolates.......hmmm, tricky!!!


I'm also in the process of making an A4 calendar.  This year, I am trying to persuade my husband to let me get them printed professionally.  In previous years, I have printed about 15 calendars myself and bound them with my Bind it All, but to be honest, I end up using at least one set of cartridges, if not two.  Since I can get 50 calendars printed for just over £100, the cost of 2 complete sets of cartridges, it makes sense to get someone else to do the printing and binding!  I could then maybe sell the spare calendars and maybe make enough to cover the costs!


I have also got plans for a recipe book and need to get that sorted soon too.  I'm going to use the Black Label Classics Country Cookbook but so far, just have the idea in my head! 




I guess I am going to be busy, what with the calendar, the recipe book, more gift tags and trying to fit in some work as well.  Why, oh why does the tax return filing deadline have to fall at the end of January?  It always means I have to work like crazy all the way through November, December and January......

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.

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

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!

Well, we went away to the Lake District last weekend.  As might have been expected, we didn't get there until late on Friday evening and then it rained most of Saturday, which meant that the walk in Grizedale forest never actually took place! Of course, we might well have braved the rain if hubbie had brought a coat along, but he actually listened to the weather forecast (you know, that forecast which he is always telling me they never get right!) which said it was going to be lovely and sunny.  Well is was lovely and sunny - but back home, not the Lake District!!!!

This weekend should be fun though.  I am off to Carnarfon for a line dancing weekend.  I've never been on one of these weekends, although I am, sad to say, a keen line dancer, so I am really looking forward to it.  Of course, I will have to take my camera with me, for all those photos of the castle, the sea, and maybe the line dancing, plus my laptop for all the photoshopping I could be doing in the free afternoons!

You may recall that I mentioned a while ago The Studio were having a design contest.  Well, I never got through many rounds, but the final round has just been completed.  If you fancy picking up some free kits, why not go and take a look:

http://www.digitalscrapbookingstudio.com/gallery/g1322-ndc-2011-3a-round-4.html

The kits in the final round are really something and well worth downloading :).

As for there Layout Artist contest I entered, I actually made it by the skin of my teeth into the fourth round!  Wonders will never cease!  We were given a really spooky kit to work with, Midnight from Deli Scraps by Min which can be found HERE.  This is what the kit looks like:

and this is what I came up with:



Whilst the kit has some lovely papers and amazing elements, it was totally not my style at all as I never, ever do anything spooky, or Halloween, no ghosts, goblins, witches and stuff  So the dry bones in Ezekiel came to mind and so that's what I went with.  Please take a look at the layout gallery and see what everyone else came up with and it would be really good if you would vote for me ;).

The gallery can be found here and the voting poll is here.  You do have to register in the forum to vote and voting is only until midnight EST tonight.

I;m in the process of designing a kit for The Studio Megakit challenge and so far, I have six papers finished.  I still need to get some elements done and also come up with a name for the kit (which I find the hardest thing to do!) but watch this space as it will be offered as a freebie in the next week or so.

In the meantime, happy scrapping!