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Saturday 13 November 2010

Spiral Roses

Hi all, just a quickie today I really wanted share with you again while surfing around the craft world on the internet I found this video on how to create spiral roses and fell in love with as always. These roses seem to be the new thing with digi scrap kits and that is basically how how found this video. I really wanted to make obne of these so I could photograph it to add into a kit I am making. I am kind of thinking this will be another freebie kit not sure when it will be ready though at the moment as I have been really tied up with trying to retrieve all my craft files aft a very stupid mistake on my own part really. It has taken me two whole weeks to get them all back onto my PC so a little advice make sure you have all your digi stash backed up in more than one place, I know that is what I will be doing now, really dont want to go through that again. Now I have a load of lessons to catch up on, anyway here is the video they look so easy to make and I will be having a go today hopefully, if I can get some good photos for you I will post them up maybe this weekend, one never knows what life will throw at you as a distraction from what we would really prefer to be doing I guess you know what I mean lol.

Monday 8 November 2010

Free Digi Scrap Kit

Digi Design Resort are offering a free digi scrap kit and all you need to do is sign up to the newsletter,



You can get Natural Breeze here

Thursday 4 November 2010

Colouring With A Digi Tablet

Today I want to share this video with you from Fred She Said, I just love all her products and I came across this tutorial yesterday. She makes it look soooooo easy but I have spent most of today practicing this technique and I it is wel just a tad fiddly, but I guess with more practice it will get easier.


I hope you enjoy this as much as I did, it certainly inspired me to have a go.


Thursday 21 October 2010

Apple Blossom Elements Freebie

Wow I so happy to see so many of you downloading my designs, it would be great to see what you make with them. But here is another gift for you to download as the response to the apple blossom papers has inspired me to make these elements to go with the papers. Hope you enjoy them.




Download here

Tuesday 19 October 2010

Two Days Early - Pearly Charisma Kit

Well I actually thought I would be another couple of days getting this post up but I am pleased to say its ready for download now so here it is my first designed digital scrapboook kit. The kit inlcudes 17 Papers and 30 elements. I would love to see any work that you may create using this kit, just email me your pictures at caruff@hotmail.co.uk and I can provide a link for you to your blog or webpage.



Download Elemets here

Download papers here


Fred, She Said - Digital Design & Papercrafting Goodness: OCT 19 - DIGI OF THE WEEK: Sunflowers & Thankfulne...

Some inspiration for using your digital images, love it

Fred, She Said - Digital Design & Papercrafting Goodness: OCT 19 - DIGI OF THE WEEK: Sunflowers & Thankfulne...: "This week's Digi of the Week was selected by the wonderful DT Tracey MacD! She chose Sunflowers & Thankfulness! Both the Digi AND Pre-Colo..."

New Blinkie - More Freebie News

Today I have been playing around in PSE and made myself a blinkie for my blog, it was actually one of the lessons that I am enrolled on. I have been having so much fun there and learnt tons of techniques from simple editing to actually designing my papers and embellishments for digital scrapbooking. But the great thing about the papers I have created is that they are in high res and are also suitable for printing and using for my vurtual craft work. I like so much that I can create something to my own taste and colour to suit exactly what I need. No more trawling the shops and internet for that must have stash.

My next project on the digital side of things will be a new header for my blog, my only problem is that I can be very indecisive and I spend more time choosing a theme colours etc lol. Well I hope you like the new blinkie, when I get really good at this designing lark maybe I could offer my services to others, now that will be a fabulous event to look forward to.  At the moment I am just finishing of my first whole kit, so keep a look out as there will be some fab paper freebies in the kit for you all to print off or even use in your own digi scrapbooks.

Hopefully it will be ready for download by the end of this week, but for now here is a preview for you.




Have a great week.....

Tuesday 21 September 2010

No Crafting Work

What a couple of weeks, done no crafting at all due to suffering with toothache and visiting the dreaded dentists chair. Well with teeth now sorted - I hope my Dyson decided to die on me and that was painful, I can I possibly live without my beloved Dyson so having spent all day searching for the best deal it would semm that Argos have it going at the moment. Although I am not to thrilled about having to part with the best of £200 its a great saving on prices else where. So my thanks to Argos


Argos
 
Onto something a little more crafty well storage more than crafty, I have been spending some time on sorting out my ribbon storage. After finding some fabulous draw files in Tescos for only £2.99 thats another bargain up my sleeve I guess. I mus say I am really pleased with the find and i now have some great lokking and tidy too ribbon storage.
 
This is how my ribbons looked before and after
 
 

AND AFTER


 
 
What a difference I absolutely love them and I can thing of many other ways to utelize thes draws so I will be collecting a couple more on my next visit to Tescos. There storage capacity is great I must have at least 50 strips of card which I made myself to wind the ribbons onto.
 
So if you fancy a ribbon makeover pop into to your local Tescos and treat yourself to some.
 

So thank you Tescos

Type your text here



But for now I am going to check out Itunes who knows I may even find some more bargains lol

Top 50 iTunes




Saturday 11 September 2010

Freebie Error

I have to relay my apologies to anyone who has downloaded the free lilac papers and found that one was missing. This morning I discovered that the download file was missing one of the papers, well what can I say I am soooo daft. I have now updated the file and if you would like the whole set you can get on the new link HERE or on the original link in the post below which has been updated.

Tuesday 31 August 2010

Monday 30 August 2010

Freebie Papers

Well I havent been able to blog these last few months as we have been having some not so nice family issues to deal with and I have not been up to blogging, but I am back now and hope to try and put the last months behind me now. I am sorry if anyone has missed me being around I sure have missed keeping up with all your blogs and my new year resolution certainly went a bit pear shaped.

So for my first post on my return is to offer you a freebie paper pack, these are some papers I have created in photoshop and have been made at 300dpi so the quality for printing should be good. They are part of a digital kit I am creating and I hope to have the whole kit available as a freebie in the next few weeks. You can download using the link below, I hope you like them.

Download Here



Thursday 29 April 2010

Cupcake Wrappers

But now I think they are calling it Cupcake Couture.

Today has been a fun day creating cupcake wrappers, after a visit to Hobbycraft yesterday and browsing in the baking section I happened to notice the price of those fancy cupcake wrappers woa how expensive are those then. So today I set to making my own template to print and cut out. I know thse are not the fancy lacey look ones but equally as pretty around those cupcakes at special occasions. Requests for different colours are welcome just let me know in comments.

To download just click on the picture and save as, or you can download here



Craft Groups

I am searching for craft groups in the West Midlands area without much success at the moment. I would love to hear from anyone who can point me in the right direction or put me in touch with craft groups or crops in the midlands.

Monday 26 April 2010

Punched Circle Border Card

More really cool video tutorials, this is fab technique using your corner punchies to create a circle border.

Friday 23 April 2010

Batiq Technique

Found this video today which I would like to share with you stampers, must try this out it looks real cool

Thursday 22 April 2010

Monkeys Mommy Designs

Has a freebie to celebrate the launch of her new blog and first digital scrap kit pop along to visit her here and grab yourself a freebie.

Monkeys Mommy Designs

Tuesday 20 April 2010

Dustin Pike: Happy Blog-Iversary

Dustin Pike: Happy Blog-Iversary

Awesome Craft Site - Find A Freebie

While blog hopping this morning I found this fab craft site, now we all at some point search the net for good quality freebies which can be time consuming and I dont know about you but I also get distracted from the job in hand when I come across some good sites, which in turn makes the process even longer lol.

At craft cave you can have all those freebies at hand just by the click of your mouse - great stuff. But on a serious note this site is a must for your favourite box. Here is a extract of what they are about:

The articles on this site should provide something for "free", such as a downloadable digital scrapbooking template or kit, a printable item for scrapbooking, a papercraft model, a tutorial or a challenge. The CraftCrave search engine also scans the web daily for new articles such as these and then posts them here. You can find articles found by the engine by looking through the craftcrave user profile or via the search engine group. However, it is much better to use the site categories to find what you want. For example, if I want to find the top digital scrapbooking items for today, then select the Digital Scrapbooking category (listed under the Paper-Based Crafts menu) and then select Top Today in the sorting area. Don't forget that everyone is on different timezones so make sure you check Yesterday too.

Visit them on the link below

Craft Crave

Saturday 17 April 2010

New Look

Well I am quite chuffed with myself today as some of you may know I have been learning how to use and design in Adobe Photo Shop Elements. Tonight I set to creating a header for my blog and viola here it is, actually it didnt take to long to create I probably spent more time trying to decide what elements to use. I hope you like it, I am thinking about offering my services, or better still I could create some headers for you to upload from my blog. If anyone would like me to design them a header just let me know and I will see what I can do.

Wednesday 14 April 2010

Make Your Own Stamp Cleaner

Make your own Stamp Cleaner, a copy cat of SU's.

2 Cups distilled water
2 Teaspoons Rose Water (purchased at health store)
1 Teaspoons Baby wash (I used a generic brand)

Rose water is a natural, non-alcoholic astringent.
This works, looks and smells just like what you buy from Stampin Up.
As with the SU stuff, should be diluted 4 or 5:1 with water as it's too soapy otherwise
(I learned about diluting it first hand at SU convention when I was a demo).

I think I have about $8 in supplies and I think it will make over 2 gallons of cleaner.

This post is pasted from the splitcoast stampers forum

Thursday 1 April 2010

Flowers To Print Freebie - Make Your Own Elements

A little freebie for you, print of the sheet and make some fabulous flower elements for your cards. Just right click on the image and save as, the file is in jpeg format.

Simply Flowers

Rain Rain Rain and more rain :-( I hope it doesnt go on for too long Im in desperate need of some warm sunny days.

So while we have been having all this rain I have been making a huge stash of my own flowers, hope you like it. I was inspired by Mels tutorial for making your own paper flowers if you would like to see her tut you can find a link in the post below.

I created a sheet of flowers in PSE and printed them out and then on the reverse side I printed a whole page of text using a flower poem, cut out the flowers and coloured in with promarkers on the text side. The picture doesnt show up the text very well, but the technique is very effective. Each flower is then shaped with a ball tool and seed beads are used for the centre, but you could use anything such as glitter or buttons and gems.



The leaves i just punched and the butterfly was embossed using the sticky stuff powder and the gold foil is then pressed onto the image, I love this technique as it gives such a lovely finish,  finally I coloured the butterfly with promarkers.

Using the same poem text in word I printed another sheet and made the ovals with my cuttlebug for the centre piece.



Click here for a flower freebie sheet

Mel Stampz: Caardvarks Photo Inspiration card (late late late out of date)

Mel Stampz: Caardvarks Photo Inspiration card (late late late out of date)

Wednesday 31 March 2010

Mel Stampz: Fun Foam shapes for Big Kids: make stamps with your Cuttlebug!

After spending the morning browsing Mels blog I found another great idea and tutorial for making your own stamps, cant stop now im off to the craft shop to buy some fun foam lol, catch up with you all later, thats if
I can drag myself away from the craft desk long enough to post my makings.

Mel Stampz: Fun Foam shapes for Big Kids: make stamps with your Cuttlebug!

Mel Stampz: Book-page Mod Podge blossoms--(3D cherry blossoms à la Fred She Said)

If you like and use Fred She Said flowers your going to love this tutorial by Mel using the FSS digi flowers. What an amazing idea, Mel does have some pretty unique techniques to be found in her tuts, why not pop along and see for yourself. I cant wait to have a go at this idea and who knows I may even come up withmy own idea along the way.

So if you need a bit of inspiration on this wet and miserable day pop along here to Mels.

Mel Stampz: Book-page Mod Podge blossoms--(3D cherry blossoms à la Fred She Said)

Friday 26 March 2010

Crafts U Print Discount Voucher Code

Simply type the word 'easteregg' into the REDEEM VOUCHER box on the basket page BEFORE


you check out then click UPDATE BASKET to save a whopping 20% off your total order value!
The discount code expires 29th March 2010 !!!

CRAFTS U PRINT




Craftsuprint - World's Largest Craft Download Site

Tuesday 23 March 2010

Help Me Top 10000

Well im almost at 10000 visitor's wow cant believe it, so I would like to say thank you to all my crafting friends and visitors who have taken time to visit my blog and leave me some wonderful comments and inspiration. I wanted to do some blog candy when i hit thgis mark but I cant at the moment due to some family issues and I asm not to well just now either. I started with a real bad cough about three weeks ago which is getting better but I am in so much pain in my chest with all the coughing, so I have decided to wait a while for when I can devote the time to get some real nice goodies together.

Well easter is nearly here now and spring is definately in the air and the clocks go forward this weekend which I am looking forward to, love the light nights like im sure you all do too, I am just not keen on getting my body clock back into gear as I am not the best at getting up early in the morning as it is lol.

Monday 22 March 2010

Sunday 21 March 2010

Fred She Said Challenge

Yep! this is my third post for today, thats a record for me I think. But just wanted to post my attempt for the Fred She Said Challenge blog. The image is from Traceys fall range and coloured in and blended with Sansador, I used papers from Stampin Up Bella Bleu Range.


Friend To Friend Treat Pouch

Dinners all done and dusted so Iv'e been playing with these gorgous treat pouches by Monica (see video below). What a great little idea to give these away with matching birthday cards etc.


They are so quick and simple to do, I guess it only took me about 30 mins and that was only because I didnt have the right punch for the tabs and the tags so I had to hand cut them, with the right punchies it would have taken less time. I love quick and easy.



For this one I used some stampin up designer papers which are from the Tea Party Range and the second one I used some patchwork papers which I downloaded from Cuddly Buddly's patchwork papers set.



Treat Pouch

, VideoI just had to share this with you, a great tutorial by Monica, Im of to have a play with this one so hopefully i will be posting my makes later today, once the dinner is done lol.

Thursday 18 March 2010

Stampin Up Set

I have just finished my first set of cards using my first stampin up set from the pocket silouhettes range. I recently joined Joanne's stamp 10 club and basically we have committed to make one order to the value of 15.00 per month for the next ten months, we all get a chance for 2 months worth of freebies, so that cant be bad. Really looking forward to getting my next order and i think the following month is my turn to get one of my freebies so roll on april.

Wednesday 17 March 2010

Freebie Background Swirly Papers

I have some more free background papers for you in a few different colours with a swirly design. If you would like me to create something for you in a specific design just let me know and I will do my very best, I just cant get enough of designing in PSE lol its so much fun.

You have a choice of Pink, Blue, Lilac or Green in these freebie papers. They are in 300dpi so the print quality should be very good. As usual to download them just right click and save. One of these days I will set a way to download them from file saving website, but right click works just as easily.

The only thing I ask is, it would be really nice if you would leave me a comment if you download the freebie, I would really appreciate the time you take to do this, as it takes quite some time to create these freebies.



Tuesday 16 March 2010

Fred She Said Fall Flower Card Gift Set

Wow what a gorgous mild spring day it has been today, I really hope this keeps up for a while yet, it feels like someone let me out of prison after such a cold winter. Hope you are all enjoying this lovely spring.

If you have been a follower of Fred She Said then you are probably a keen follower like me lol, if not and you havent seen any of her products then you are seriously missing out on a treat. Julie Stewart was featured on Traceys spotlight this week and I loved the gift set of cards she made so much I just had to make some of my own. Well actually I have been looking for some inspiration to create some really nice sets for a summer fete that i will be doing later this year in August. My idea is that is I start to make some stuff now and do a bit each week It wont be like a madhouse here come July. Well thats the plan anyway, weather it pans out well is another matter all together. So here is a peek at the gift card set using Fred She Said Fall flowers.

Friday 12 March 2010

Thursday 11 March 2010

Freebie Digital Tag

Ive been playing in photoshop again today, making tags. If you would like this tag you can click on the picture right click and save. Requests for different colours accepted, just leave your request in a comment.

Wednesday 10 March 2010

Gift Tote Bag

At the end of January I signed upto a photoshop elements course, which is the reason why I did not do any blog up dates in February. I have thoroughly enjoyed this course and the possibilities are endless for a crafter. Here is a little gift bag I have created in photoshop, it is a bit scraggy around the edges but I will be improving on that and hope to put this up as a freebie. But if you would like to download the coloured version and not just the template then right click on the image and save.


I have printed this out and I will post a picture later on with the assembled bag all filled with chocolate hearts ready to eat hhmmmm - well not for me I am on a diet again!!!!!!

Monday 8 March 2010

Gina Jayne Mothers Day Gift & Card

Its a lovely sunny day again today a sure sign spring is around the corner, I am almost tempted to go out and start sorting the garden out but I am not that well at the moment with a nasty chest infection and cold, so maybe not such a good idea just yet. I just hope the weather keeps up and I get outside at the wekend.

So in the meantime I have been busy with mothers day stuff. I have a box of chocolate hearts and I wanted to make a small gift bag of chocolates with matching card and here is what I came up with. The card itself was very fiddly to do but was well worth the effort.

The gift sack is a Gina Jayne Design which I downloaded from DAISIE just one of my favourite digital sites, I printed of a second sheet and used the rose to make the matching crad.

If you would like to see more of Gina Janes designs visit her site here

Saturday 6 March 2010

Nestabilities Storage Problem Solved

How do you store your nestabilities, if your anything like me I have tried all sorts of different ways to effectively store these. Ive tried folders, cd cases and other weird methods all of which have been only partly effective. But I think I have finally cracked it, so I wanted to share with you my idea and if you think its absolute rubbish just let me know lol.

I bought a plain and simple little black cd wallet from Office World for £3.00 - just a open and fold type no zip to fumble with and a packet of photo magnetic pockets. I cut piecies of card to fit inside each cd pocket. Cut two inch strips from the magnetic pockets and fixed to the card using double sided tape. Each nestability set now sits nicely in each cd sleeve without moving around or falling out - great stuff.

All I need to do now is pull out the card and select the size of frame i want to use.

Making Flowers

Where did Feburary go, the year seems to be flying by already. I have actually been working very hard in Feb but just never got around to posting so now I need to catch up with my posts and upload all my projects lol. The first one I am going to share with you is a mothers day card I made, it was a simple project to do but very effective. Here is a list of materials used.

Tim Holtz distressed inks peeled paint for the leaves and faded jeans for the blue flowers. I just rubbed some of  the ink onto my  craft mat and then spritzed it with some water. I dabbed up the ink onto some card and left to dry. Using a flower punch I punched out about 30 tiny flowers.

The matt layer is done with bazzil card and a blue background paper which was created in photoshop elements (which I hope to upload as a feebie) the verse is printed off in Edwardian script font, for the corners used a daisy corner punch. Icicle stickles just to finish off the flower centres. Hope you like it and have fun playing around.

I tried really hard to get the verse into focus and this was the best i could get!!

Sunday 24 January 2010

Cuttlebug Folder Storage

Im not sure if I like the end result of this project or not, I think I may need to work on this one. I cut out the box template from two pieces of card and fitted the front to the back matted layed the cottage rose papers from Gina Jaynes Collections. The folder will hold about 12 cuttlebug folders quite comfortably and so could do with being slightly wider so as not to run out of room to quickly lol. Maybe when i get the template more precise I will put up a proper tutorial for it, but it will have to wait a while I just have too many items on my to do list at the moment. I am sure you know what I mean and I am not alone :-)

Hope you all had a good weekend


 

Megans First Challenge Entry

Megan my grandaughter has made this card to enter into her first challenge on Little Hands Do Crafts, this is a great blog for little ones to take part in card challenges, take a look here. Megan would love you to visit her blog Megans Crafty Ladybird here.

I have been teaching Megan lots of craft techniques and she loves to craft with me at the weekends when she comes to stay with us, her blending and colouring is coming on relly well. I am hoping to help keep her blog up to date, time willing lol.



 

Wednesday 20 January 2010

Mel Stampz: Vintage Ledger Paper (freebie)

Mel Stampz: Vintage Ledger Paper (freebie)

Stampin' Up! Demonstrator Mary Beerman: Food Journal Tin Tutorial & Giveaway!

Stampin' Up! Demonstrator Mary Beerman: Food Journal Tin Tutorial & Giveaway!

Firenze Cards: Cuttlebug Colour embossing...

Firenze Cards: Cuttlebug Colour embossing...

Easel Card Video

I just had to share this with you, another new style to have a play with and the bonus is it looks really easy

Have fun

karensdoodles: 100 Follower Freebie!

karensdoodles: 100 Follower Freebie!

Check out Karens freebie its  really cute digi image

Fred, She Said - Digital Design & Papercrafting Goodness: CARD Smelling the Cherry Blossoms

fFred, She Said - Digital Design & Papercrafting Goodness: CARD Smelling the Cherry Blossoms

Another great freebie from Fred She Said

Tuesday 19 January 2010

Blue Fairy Card

Dont you just love blogging, it  is a great way for us all to showcase our work, but today I want to show off some work created by a friend who doesnt have her own blog.

Janet has made this card using the free background papers which i offered on here last year, she has kindly given me permission to show it to you all here. Now although Janet doesnt have a blog she does have her own project gallery on the trimcraft forum and you can find some beautiful cards and projects she has made, so please go and have a look here.



Saturday 16 January 2010

Bookatrix 30th Birthday Card

Just a quick post today as I am working on a template to make a storage box for my Cuttlebug Folders, when its finished tried and tested lol I am planning to put the template on here as a freebie.

OK this was the bookatric card I made for my daughters 30th birthday last week, so it is now safe to upload it here. She is not into old fashioned stuff as she puts it !!!!! so i tried to be as modern as I could coz I am more of a vintage girl myself and very into flowers...



Thursday 14 January 2010

Crafty Makes: Cupcake Craft Challenge Card

Crafty Makes: Cupcake Craft Challenge Card


Kim has made a fabulous colourful card for the cupcake challenge

Free Five Petal Crochet Flower Pattern

 Embelishments are the finishing touch to your projects and this can become quite expensive, here is a little crochet flower pattern that I use quite often.

 An effective and cheap way to embellish your work is making crochet flowers, not only will you use up all your old scraps of wool but you can save some pennies too, dont know about you but I am always looking for good ways to save some pennies.

They only take a few minutes to make and even if you are a novice at crochet they are simple to create. I will be adding a video for those who dont crochet but would like to have a go at making these versatile embellishments.

















ABREVIATIONS

ch - chain stitch
sl st -  slip stitch
sc -  single crochet
dc -  double crochet
3dc -  three double crochets in same stitch


INSTRUCTIONS

Step 1: Make 5 ch  and  join with sl st to form ring.
Step 2: 10 sc in centre of ring.
Step 3: sl st to top of first sc.
Step 4: create a petal in the first sc - sc, 3dc, sc
Step 5: continue creating small petals in every other sc using the same pattern - five petals in total.  sl st to join with first sc of first petal.
Step 6: turn to the back of the flower, sc down through base opening of small petal.
Step 7: ch 3, and sc through next petal base opening.
Step 8: repeat 4 more times in each opening. sl st through first sc, creating a series of 5 loops total.
Step 9: create a large petal in the first loop -  sc, 5dc, sc
step 10: continue creating a large petal in each of the remaining 4 loops. sl st to join with first sc of first petal.

I added some tiny pearls to the centre of mine but again you can use anything you might have suitable in your stash.