Crafty Essentials

I know on quite a lot of the blogs I follow people have done posts on their top crafting products.I thought I would do a number of posts on my favorite products. One of the best things I have purchased is the ATG tape gun I have two of them actually. A pink one which dispenses a  narrower tape and yellow one which has a thicker tape.

The guns make applying double sided tape so easy and the adhesive ATG use is so strong. Its brill for all types of projects. Its one of those products I now couldn't live without I would advise people to purchase it :) quite often. I got mine here http://www.3mselect.co.uk/p-2422-scotch-advanced-tape-glider-kit.aspx and its on sale at the moment for 11.99.

I will be doing some more posts in the next few weeks on some of my other top products so keep an eye out for them.

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.

Mosaic

I love how amazing mosaics look and have always wanted to have a go at them so recently decided to buy some supplies of ebay.

I bought a starter set which included all the tools and a range of tiles for about £50. Although this is quite a lot to pay the tools are all top quality and can be used time and time again. It took a little bit of time to get the hang of using the tile cutters and nippers but the great thing about mosaic is you cant really make a mistake just change the design to fit the tiles that you have cut.

I copied a vegetable design out of a book onto a old bit of wood that I found lying around the house. It took me a few weeks to complete the mosaic and today I got to work on applying the grout. This picture shows the mosaic after the first stage of the grouting, I need to leave it for 24hrs before properly scrubbing the grout off.

Overall I am pretty happy with my first attempt although I think perhaps the design is a little bit too complicated for the size of the wood and its a little bit difficult to see the design clearly. Can't wait to get started on my next mosaic I am planning a seaside scene perhaps on a bit of driftwood if I can find some next time I am in Devon.

WOYWW 25th January

Last week I managed to get around to about 80 of the other desks, and loved looking at the huge range of stuff on them so many ideas flowing for things I want to make and things I want to buy. It's really great that so many people visited my blog too, as someone fairly new to craft its brilliant to get so many lovely comments, tips and advice from other crafters.

Inspiration from Making Magazine

Felt! 

My desk this week has been filled with a whole array of needle-craft materials as you can see. I was inspired by a project in Making magazines January issue and decided to give it my own twist. I have been making a felt flower decoration but decided to make them into flower people as a fun desk decoration.

1930s book on needlecraft

This involved cutting out a range of different sized circles from felt and then sewing them together before attatching a pipe cleaner and placing them into a piece of floral foam in an old candle pot which I decorated with some fake grass I made. I managed to master blanket stitch for the first time which I was reallly impressed with. As you can see I have a very old needlework book which I think was actually published in the 1930s I got it from an antiques fair a few months ago, as well as being beautiful to look at it also has some really easy to follow instructions for all the various stitches.

googley eyes! 

I have a huge collection of googley eyes and managed to use some on this project, I think they add a great element of fun to most designs and am really happy with the way they have turned out here. I can't wait to put this fun flower pot ontp my desk at work and brighten up the otherwise mundane office.

This week I am going to attempt to make it round to all the desks over at Julia's wonderful blog, cant wait to see what you have all been up to.

Competed project :) 

Sewing Box

I have been working on a little needlecraft project, I am only part way finished so going to do a separate post on it in the next few days, keep your eyes peeled.

So today's post is just a a quick one showing off my fab sewing box. It was a present for xmas and its great all my sewing stuff is super organized in it and its really pretty.

The first section of the box is filled with tools, needles, a few buttons and sewing machine accessories. The second layer as you can see is a bit of an Aladdin's cave filled with cross stitch kits, embroidery thread, basic thread, wool, knitting needles a bit of everything really.

Although I am not the neatest needleworker I really enjoy making different sewing projects and trying to master different things. I prefer to sew on my sewing machine then hand sew but I think some of the effects you can get with hand sewing are definitely worth the extra effort. So keep your eyes peeled for my exciting new needlework project that should be finished in the next couple of days.

Origami

I was flicking through my Martha Stewart Craft Encyclopedia earlier looking for a quick project/technique to try whilst sitting in front of the TV. There are so many amazing projects in the book that I want to try but quite a lot of them will need extra stash so I decided to give Origami a go.

There were a number of different Origami projects in the book varying from beginner level to frankly hardcore paper folding genius level. I decided to give some beginner projects a go and went with the fortune teller and chinese lantern makes.

I started with the fortune teller, I remember we used to make these at school and have great fun playing with them on the playground. Martha's book suggests using them at dinner parties as table decorations one for each guest which I think is a great idea.

I then made a chinese lantern which can be hung over fairy lights to give a great effect. Both of these were fairly easy to make I think they would look slightly better if I had used a bone folder to get more accurate folding. As you can see I used some left over xmas papers I had and I think when folded they look less xmasy and can be used for any occasion so great for using up and left over festive stash.

Poundland Storage Solutions

Lots of lovely crafters have given me advice on the best way to store all my new found craft stash and quite a few people have suggested popping to Poundland for some super inexpensive craft storage solutions.

I went in earlier and found these amazing baskets for a £1 which I think are great for storing my promarkers in for the time being. I have seen some very elaborate storage solutions which I really love but for the time being I want to be spending money on more stash and not storage.

I got a great suggestion earlier which was to put elastic bands around the different colour families so that the colours which blend together are all stored together and easy to locate so thats my job for tomorrow.

Teddy Bear Card

Today I spent my day reorganizing and tidying most of my flat, yes it is as boring as it sounds. The flat is super tidy and organized now though so I rewarded myself with some chill out craft time this evening.

I have been colouring in a few of my digi stamps so I have a supply of ready coloured images to use when wanting to make a card quickly. I made one card tonight using a cute teddy bear stamp.

I coloured and shaded the bear using my pro markers and then cut him out using my scissors and craft knife, Im thinking of investing in some of those special decoupage scissors as it so fiddly doing it with the big scissors and knife. I also cut out the heart shaped balloons separately. I used some of the airmail style paper from the Portobello Road collection and cut this to form a large strip down the centre of my cardstock.  I stuck the bear on and then used 3D foam pads to attach the balloons so they had a sort of floating effect. I then found some old elastic that I had laying around in my sewing box and stuck this on with pva glue to make the balloon strings. Overall I am happy with this card I really feel like I am getting better at this whole crafting thing :) Not sure if this card needs something else though, it just feels like something is missing from it not sure what though, any suggestions?

I am going to be entering this card into the I love Promarkers challenge which this week is an anything goes theme.

WOYWW 18th Jan

Last week I managed to visit pretty much all the WOYWW links over at Julia's brilliant blog I really enjoyed looking at the work everyone was getting started with in 2012.

I still have no proper crafting desk and this week for some reason I have been working on the floor its actually really comfortable and gives me plenty of space to make a mess in! So here's a look at what's going on on my desk/floor this week.

As you can see the floor has sort of been taken over with crafting. In the top left I have one of my storage boxes which I use to keep all my various adhesives and scissors and craft knives in. In the middle is one of my smaller storage boxes which contains my alphabet stamps and quilling papers.  I also have two excellent craft books out one is Martha Stewart's craft encyclopedia and the other is Craft Wisdom and Know How. Both these books are perfect for newbie crafters lots of hints, tips, tutorials and fun projects to get started with. I also have my dinner in the top right I love to craft whilst chilling out over dinner hence the pizza in this photo.

As you can see I had been reading about the art of quilling. It was a technique I had never tried before so decided that I would practice a few of the shapes that were shown in various books to see if I could get the hang of it before using it on a card, this way if I wasn't any good at it I wouldn't mess up a card. Both books offer step by step instructions for various shapes so I got my quilling papers out along with the quilling tool and started practicing.

The technique is a little fiddely but very fun to see how easy it is to make a whole range of shapes some more complicated than others. The 3D effect looks great too and I have tons of ideas of how I can use quilling on cards and other crafty makes now I have got the hang of it.

I made a wide range of different shapes including a flower, teardrop, scroll, heart and various circles. I think the effect is ace and cant wait to try different shapes and papers. So yes this week my desk is filled with quilling and for anyone that hasn't tried this technique yet give it a go it really is great fun. This is what I love so much about crafting such a huge array of new skills to learn and master, I look forward to getting round all your desks this week and finding new techniques, crafts and projects that your all doing and giving them a go myself.

Which Craft Magazine to Choose?

Since getting interested in craft, I have become a regular reader of various craft magazines. I have tried a whole range of magazines varying from quick cards to simply homemade.

I have read on a number of blogs that people haven’t always found craft magazines useful and that often they feel it is the same material and projects being re written in various different ways. I however feel that as a newbie to a craft world reading a variety of magazines has been invariably useful its fun to look at what other people are doing and is interesting to read reviews of new products.

I have got inspiration on various card designs from different paper craft magazines and learnt how to use different techniques such as quiling and decoupage. I also have marked a number of knitting and needle craft projects to try in the coming months.

The most useful magazines I have found are the more general ones which cover a huge variety of crafts ranging from gardening to crochet. Although I am not particularly interested in the gardening or baking sections I like the breadth of projects included in these types of magazines I also like the more varied articles on things such as setting up a craft business and upcycling. Of these more general magazines I have been a big fan of simply homemade and making magazine. They are both priced at 4.99 and are published monthly.

I also have enjoyed the more specific magazines such as cross stitch crazy and lets knit although they are filled with information about only one craft they are very informative and give a huge variety of articles within them.

Ever growing collection of craft magazines 

As it is January it is the time to be thinking about getting a subscription to my favourite magazines lots of them seems to be offering deals if you become a subscriber the only problem is deciding which ones to subscribe to. If any one has any suggestions on their favourite craft magazines please leave a comment and let me know.