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I am sorry for my absence for a while... my eldest broke his arm the week before half term, the next day I was ill along with my middle son and when we had to take our eldest back in to hospital it was my husband who stayed with him overnight. Thankfully the next day I felt fine again and was able to stay with my son for 2 more days and another night in hospital. Then I passed the illness to... wait for it... my husband, my mother and father in law, my brother and sister in law and three of their 4 children... oops! Then it was half term so I was busy with the kids.

It was funny, when I started this blog I was worried that I wouldn't have enough to share but actually I have loads of projects to upload... it's just finding the time. So here are a couple of cards I have made recently and a pen pot made for a gift. If you drink Asda Hot Chocolate save the pot and I'll do a tutorial on how to make these pen pots... they make great gifts. I am sure other brands will be fine too but the Asda one fits 12" paper perfectly so it's even easier!

If Opportunity Doesn't Knock...

Build a door!

I saw this quote on another blog and thought it was great. It speaks to me about being pro-active and making your own opportunities. It also speaks to me about getting off my backside and taking action! What opportunities will you make today?

Reuse, Recycle!

Zoe's bag containing al her crochet goodies caught my eye at the Isle of Wight crop. I was seriously impressed when I found out that she had not only made the bag herself but she had made it from a jumper that she had felted!

 Here is a close up of the flower!

All you have to do to make your own felted bag (or other goodies!) is find wool jumpers that are 100% wool. Why not pay a visit to your local charity shop or raid the Christmas jumper pile! Once you have found your jumper you need to boil wash it between 3 and 5 times!! Once you have felted your jumper you just follow these instructions to make your own bag... it really does look very straightforward! I'll add it to my to try list!! They would make great Christmas presents so who knows I might get my butt into gear this side of Noel!

http://sweetgrace.typepad.com/the_inadvertent_farmer/2010/03/make-alpaca-wool-sweater-into-felted-handmade-bag-tutorial.html

Feeling Christmassy

How do you spell Christmassy anyway? Not how I have! I have just loaded some new ribbons onto the site including a lovely Christmas red and an Olive green which will be perfect for all those Christmas cards. Really looking forward to setting too and making some more cards (yes I have done some already!). Would anyone be interested in a card class? I was thinking of a couple of hours in the day and then repeated in the evening for those who aren't available in the day, perhaps once a fortnight. I am thinking of including a technique, a colour inspiration and a card sketch for each class... I've got loads of ideas so let me know if you would be interested (just at the planning stages at the moment... need to sort venues and costs out). Here are pics of the Christmas ribbons... you can buy them here. (last one on the page and first on the next page!)

Crop Number 4!

I had a great time at the Littlegreen Crop on Saturday and it was lovely to see some new faces (including one lady I had met 5 years ago!) as well as the usual suspects! Had a lovely, if not manic day. I had expected 6 for my class and ended up with 9 which was great but meant I had a quick scrabble to make up the extra kits. It was lovely as 4 of the ladies in the class completed their first layout ever. They were all very pleased with themselves and pleased with the finished page. We did laugh as the experienced scrappers stuck to the instructions exactly and the beginners all tinkered and played with their pages! Here are the photos of the pages I managed to get... sorry LuLu, Lindsey, Vivien and Melly for not getting yours.

This was Karen's first page ever. What a great start!

 

This was Franchesca's page. She is only 12! What an amazing page. She came up with the changes to the original idea all by herself.

 Kay's page, another first ever layout.

 Linda is scrapping an album of the homes they have lived in. This is her hubby in one of them.

 Sara had some amazing photos of her cat, my photo of her layout doesn't do it justice at all.

And finally I didn't manage to get photos of everyone else's work Sue ran a little layout competition which she won with this layout!

Just a few pictures!!

Well the ladies were so prolific with their layouts over the weekend. Paige did 13 layouts and others weren't far behind. Unfortunately I photographed a lot of the layouts late at night so the photos aren't at all good but hopefully you will be able to get some inspiration anyway. Here are just a few of the pages and cards...

Debbie made over 40 Christmas cards over the weekend. This was my favourate design with the massive snowflake in the middle.

 

A great picture of Anna and I LOVE the big punch used on the right border. I have it on order if anyone is interested :)

 The crochet doily on this page is so scrummy.

Love the hand stitching around the edge and the hand stitched swirl on this page.

Julia made cards all weekend too. I love the snowman stamp on this card... stamped with Faded Jeans Distress Ink.

Julia also did some great brayering using the Big and Juicy pads and the Adirondack Dye Pads. A definite for my to try list.

 I love the simplicity of this layout.

Julia Dunnit did this layout. See the close up of the punched out circles to match the patterned paper. Cute but very messy! Again another punch on order, it's just under an inch so would look great in 1" punched out circles.

 Love the corrugated alphabet used on the title for this page. This is one of my fave pages of the weekend... not sure who did it though!

One of my favourite pages of the weekend by Julia Dunnit.

 I love the colours on this Lost and Found page by Sam.

 Lynda did this stunning page using the brand new Prima papers (note to self load them on the website as soon as you have done blog post!) They look so cool on the black background and she has used the rub-ons too for an added touch of elegance.

 Another of Lynda's pages.

 And another!

 Paige's 10 things you are page. Love the colour combo!

 Christmas Stars by Paige... great collection.

 10 things by Sam

 Another page by Sam

 Paige's superhero husband!

 Teresa's Granny doing what she does best.

 10 things by Teresa... see a common theme here!

 Teresa's new granddaughter

 Love the lacing on this page and the hanging baby frame.

 The title of this page says it all... Remission.

 Another of Debbie's cards... aren't the fake brads cool!

Locked out...

I have some great photos of the ladies work from the weekend which I will post tomorrow. Today just a quick photo of the car loaded to the gunnels! If you run a crop and would like the Cre8tive shop to attend get in touch. I intended to post yesterday but the lock went on the office / stock room door. I spend most of the day ringing round locksmiths trying to work out if I could get the part needed to fix it. £55 later and the door is all fixed and I can lock up all the goodies again. Phew!

Crop number 3

I am currently sitting on the ferry on the way to the Isle of Wight. The ferry left at 7am so you can imagine the unearthly hour I had to get up. The roads were lovely and clear as all 'normal' people were still snuggled up in their beds. I am going to a weekend retreat which actually started yesterday but I am just staying tonight. I have just brought some Basic Grey kits to do so am travelling extremely light (the car is stuffed full of shop stuff so not much room for my own goodies!) As always I will try and get some shots of the ladies pages so you can get some inspiration. Have a great weekend whatever you are doing.

Make & Takes and my layouts

Val did a lovely Make & Take at Runways End. Everyone always admires her lovely cards so she showed us all how she does it. She had prepared a brilliant little pack for everyone with all the bits needed and everything pre-cut to size so it was just a case of assembling and voila! Apparently the secret is lots of layering.

I also did a make and take during the weekend teaching how to make cute accordion flowers. We incorporated ours into this card but they look great on layouts too (see Jackie's layout posted yesterday).

There was a layout class during the weekend. There were 4 examples to inspire us. This was my take on the class. Thanks to Caz for the chipboard Beaver and Hayley for the tissue paper ribbon stuff!

I was really pleased to win the stamping challenge (there was only one other entry so I had good odds!) The page turned out just how I wanted it to. I took inspiration from a paper in a stack. I used a paper with an edge as a template to make my photo mat, stamped around it with a border stamp set (like this one). Stamped different colours of Distress inks to match the photo at the bottom starting with the lightest colours first and working up to the darkest. The heart was acetate stamped with brown Stazon (left over from the class page) and then cut into a heart shape and layered over card to match the photo mat.

This was the page I took the inspiration from...

I did a simple a page of one of our holiday snaps!This was our windscreen after it went caravan in tow on the M25 on the way to the ferry and France!

A close up of the windscreen... would you believe Autoglass said we should still go on holiday with it like this!!

 My final page was a double page of Alex's 7th birthday. I had soooooo many photos of him blowing  out his candles because he had trouble doing it. In the end Dave blew them out which made Alex cry so we lit them again and he had another go!