My First Card Swap

I joined in my first craft swap this month. The theme was green and I received the most Beautiful card from my swap partner Chrissie. 

I thought I would post it here so you can all check out this fab card. I really love the 3D cards. As well as the card Chrissie sent some beautiful ATC's featuring some lovely art deco ladies. 

Jam Making

My mum is starting her own business where she is going to sell handmade cakes, biscuits jams all sorts really.

My mum is a great cook but not very creative so I got roped in to help with designing the labels and covers for all the products.

I also made a few craft items which I will blog about in a separate post. For my jam pot covers I die cut a scalloped square out of patterned paper I then affixed a smaller plainer square which I had die cut. I attached these to the jars using my new ATG gun (my new fave toy)

I ordered some beautiful fabric of of fabricrehab which has an amazing selection of beautiful and unusual fabrics. I used this fabric to make jam pot covers which I attached with elastic cut to size. It wasn't the most interesting craft ever but I am really happy with the result.

Sidmouth Donkey Sanctuary

A couple of weekends ago I went to visit my Nan who lives on the Somerset/Devon border in the middle of Exmoor, I love visiting her there it is such a beautiful part of the country so idyllic :) 

Whilst there we visited the Sidmouth Donkey Sanctuary where they look after sick and abandoned donkeys, you can visit there website here, and if you ever in the area I would highly recommend it as a day out. 

I thought I would share with you a few piccys of the donkeys they are soooo cute. 

Mosaic Mirror Part One

Just a quick post tonight as it's super late and I have to be up early for work. I have been making a seaside themed mirror to hang in a bathroom and tonight finished sticking the mosaic pieces to it. I still need to grout it and plan to add a few seashells but here is a sneaky peak of what it looks like so far.

Hopefully will be finishing the mirror of later this week so will post again to show the finished thing.

Decopatch Jug

I admit it I am a decopatch addict. It is such an enjoyable and easy craft. This is just a quick post to show you all my latest decopatch creation.

I got a little silver metal jug from a bootsale for 50 pence and used it here with a variety of pink papers to match the flower I put in it. Not a green fingered girl so no idea what the flower is but I think it looks pretty.

It was a gift for my aunty and she really liked it so I was pleased with the result.

Easter Cards

I had a few last minute easter cards to get finished before the bank holiday weekend and a lot of my crafty pals have told me how good craftsuprint.com is so I decided to give it a go.

There are a huge range of printable cardmaking products and kits on there and I found a huge selection of easter related bits so it was hard to make a choice. In the end I found these super cute pig decoupage and pyramid card sheets.

All you have to do is cut out the bits once you have printed them onto a good quality cardstock and then piece them together.

The website provides a huge range of different kits from simple ones like the two above to more complicated moving cards. I also made one of these and was super happy with it but I will be posting about that later in a separate post.

But yes if you are looking for a quick make card if you have left it a little too late or if your just looking for a fun and simple project I would advise checking out the craftsuprint website.

Big Shot

I was lucky enough to get an early Birthday Present of a Big Shot machine this week, I was so excited when I received it I have been wanting one for ages as I think it will help take my card making to the next level.

So far I have just been playing around with it using different dies, I have bought a variety including some nestabilities, some bigz dies and a few embossing folders. I have found it super easy to use and am loving the results.

I made a mass purchase of dies from the Sizzix website, they are having a clearance sale on and there are some unusual and interesting dies available some as cheap as a £1 I would definitely advise checking it out.

I will be posting some more details about projects I have made with the big shot later on once I have had a proper go with it. If anyone has some great tips or techniques with the bigshot then please do post below.

WOYWW 4th April

I have missed WOYWW for a couple of weeks, glad to be back this week though to have a snoop round other peoples craft spaces. If you would like to join in then head over to Julia's wonderful blog.

This week I have been finishing of my easter cards, it took me a while to get my card making mojo back as have been spending the last month or so experimenting with other crafts. I am quite happy with the card I made though as it only took a couple of hours to complete. The stamp is one I got in hobby craft a few weeks ago it's so cute!

 As you can see my desk this week is again the floor, my actual desk is in my spare room and I like to watch the TV whilst I craft so I never seem to use my actual desk, maybe I should move the desk into the living room...hmmm.

Decopatch Elephant

Today I headed off again to the bootsale, I wasn't on the hunt for anything in particular but had a brainwave when I spied some wooden elephants. I have been wanting to decopatch some small animals for a while but the cardboard shapes are so expensive its about £7 for the smallest ones. As soon as I spotted the wooden elephants I knew they would be perfect for decopatching. I bought three elephants for 50 pence each.

When I got them home I started to decopatch of them. I recently ordered about 20 different sheets of decopatch paper so I have lots of different patterns to choose from. I decided to do this elephant in the mosaic style paper as I thought it would give it an exotic feel.

I cut the paper into postage stamp sized pieces and then layered them on with the decopatch glue. Once this was dry I painted on some eyes and then varnished the whole thing.

Super happy with the result and will be on the look out for other wooden animals in future at bootsales. I am a decopatch addict it is such an easy craft and so much fun, if you haven't tried it I would advise giving it a go.