Purrfect Combination

I was checking out one of the card mags I subscribe to recently and noticed a stamp and die set that was being sold by a company called Make The Day Special, who have since changed their name to Seven Hills Crafts I subsequently purchased the set I saw, but can't say what yet because I'm using it to make a card for a special someone who will see this post and I'll spoil the surprise!

Suffice to say I was so impressed with the service at Seven Hills Crafts that I've made several purchases since. The above cards are made using part of my latest purchase, the cats stamp and die are by Neat & Tangled and come with a selection of cat lover sentiments. I've made a couple of cards to send to some of my cat mad friends and I think there will be several variations being made for the Cats Protection box as well.

Tara at Seven Hills Crafts not only gets your orders to you at lightening speed, she is very helpful and encouraging. The beauty of Seven Hills is, if like me you're a fan of the American stampers like Jennifer McGuire and Kristina Werner you'll be familiar with the stamps they use from American companies like Simon Says Stamp, Lawn Fawn, AlteNew, Mama Elephant and the company I mentioned above Neat & Tangled? You'll also know how hard it is to get hold of them in the UK when they first get released, without buying them from America and with shipping and import tax the stamps ending up costing twice as much!

Seven Hills Crafts carry all the brands I've mentioned and more besides, great prices as well and NO import tax, they even do inks and re-inkers for a lot of the American brands as well! When I found them I was like a kid in a sweet shop, suddenly all those cards I'd watched Jennifer and Kristina making, I could attempt to make my own, based on their designs. Whoooo hooooo!

When I checked their website earlier this week I noticed that Neat & Tangled had released the Purrfect set I used above, so when it arrived I got stuck in, regular readers of my blog will know that I'm new to colouring so I'm learning and readily admit that my coloured images aren't perfect, but I do think I'm making a little progress, but to do this well you need to understand light and shadows and things I don't fully grasp yet, but I'm working on it.

This is the first of the cards I made using the Purrfect stamps and die, each card is done on a 6" x 4" card blank. I embossed the card using my Lea'bilities 'Hearts' embossing folder. After embossing I coloured in the hearts with a Spectrum Sparkle pen in shade 'Cosmos'.

I coloured the cats with my Inktense pencils and stamped the banner in Jet Black Staz-On ink. The hearts are in the die set and were coloured with an 'Electric Pink' Sharpie pen and then covered with Glossy Accents to give them some shine and dimension.

The next card I again used inktense pencils to colour the cat and a 'Red' Sharpie pen to colour the hearts. The background was stamped in Versamark using a JustRite 'Chevron Stripe' background stamp.

I used WOW 'Clear Gloss' superfine embossing powder and then used inktense pencils in shades of red, orange and yellow to colour the bits that weren't embossed. Finished off by lightly wiping a wet baby wipe over to clean the embossed image and blend the inks.

Card number 3 had the same glossy accented hearts this time coloured with a 'Turquoise' Sharpie. The cats I didn't colour for this project, I'd used distress inks in Hickory Smoke and Iced Spruce to create a background for another project and I had some scraps left over. So I stamped and die cut the cats out of a piece of that.

The background I used the same technique as card 2, this time using a JustRite 'Embroidered' stamp and colouring with inktense pencils in blue and greens and finished off with peacock feathers distress ink. I cut the background wonky I noticed when I added it to the card base, so I 'saved' the disaster my gluing strips of turquoise glitter foam to the edges. The sentiment was a free download I got ages ago and was in my 'Maybe Someday' box.

The last card (for the moment anyway) I did for what I thought was to enter the Monthly Craft Challenge over on the Seven Hills Crafts Blog. I put the card together reading the bit that said "This month we're playing with colours and we're feeling a little 'blue' so all of our schemes this month feature blue", off I went and made the card in shades of blue. When I came back to enter it, I read the whole thing and noticed that your were supposed to work with one of the three palettes provided picking a blue from them and using other colours from the palette, doh!

Oh well! It's a good card, I used the same background stamp as I did for card 2, this time using Blue Sketch and Tumbled Glass distress inks to colour the background. The cats were coloured using a mix of Tumbled Glass distress ink and blue and pink shades of Inktense pencils. The banner was made from an offcut from the edge of the background and the hearts are again coloured with a Sharpie this time in 'Blue' and glossy accented. I mounted the panel on some thin blue glitter foam to give some sparkle to the card. The sentiment was stamped using 'Majestic Blue' Versafine ink.

I can see this stamp set and dies getting used a lot, I have lots of cat friends and the Cats Protection will love them. I have another cat stamp and die set to play with this time by WPlus9 which I also got from Seven Hills in their sale, so watch this space :)

Getting Organised - Ink Swatches

I don't know about you, but now that I'm getting better at stamping and given that I've become addicted to using distress inks, I'm amassing lots and lots of ink pads, in a huge variety of colours and remembering which I have and remembering what the colours actually look like when they get stamped is getting harder.

This photo shows some of the ink pads I have, there are more to my side and I also have a box of Distress Inks, a box of Adirondack dye ink pads, a box of alcohol inks and an assortment of dye ink and distress sprays. All this and we're not yet even looking at the number of paints, waxes and embossing powders I have! All of which adds up to colour confusion.

On top of this, I've recently discovered the delights of over stamping to create images of things like flowers, using the different stamp pieces that form the flower or leaf, and a selection of dark, medium and light complimentary toned inks you can create some beautiful images. I recently got a free rose stamp and die set from Simply Cards & Papercraft, as I looked at my inks in order to begin playing with the stamp and die set, I realised things were everywhere and I didn't really have an idea of which colours went with which colours.

The above card was made using the free die and stamp set I mentioned above and was stamped using a combination of Versacolor Pigment Inks and Memento inks, for anyone interested - Main colour Versacolor pigment ink in 'Orchid', mid tone layer Memento in 'Rose Bud' and top layer Memento 'Lilac Posies'. Leaves main colour Memento 'New Sprout', mid layer colour Memento 'Bamboo Leaves' and top layer colour is Memento 'Cottage Ivy'.

I used a WOW De-Vine background stamp and stamped it with Docrafts Artiste Pearlescent pigment ink in 'Dusky Rose' on to a pink card base. The tone on tone idea I got from the lady I'm about to talk about below, a constant source of inspiration and brilliant ideas.

I'm a fan of Jennifer McGuire, she puts together some amazing cards and she also shares some fabby ideas and techniques on her blog and on YouTube, including ways of organising your crafting tools to ideas for using your stash in different ways to get the most out of it. It was whilst browsing her videos that I came across her idea for making ink swatches, so you could see the actual colours that you get on paper and you can use those swatches to mix and match your colours to get the best results, it also stops you buying an ink pad you already have!

On her blog Jennifer has a video showing her system, she cuts the pieces of card in to 2" x 2" squares that she then puts into small vinyl pockets - the kind that coin collectors use - she includes print off sheets for all the major US ink colours like Ranger, Mama Elephant, Lawn Fawn, Hero Arts etc on her blog. For those not included in her lists, Jennifer has provided a downloadable and editable sheet that you can add your own ink range to, I've done it for Adirondack Dye Pads, Memento and Artiste inks. 



I've gathered all my swatch sheets together in an A4 ring binder, I do plan to put them altogether grouped by colour in the future when I can find some coin holder pages, for now they are grouped by brand. I think its a brilliant idea, you can use the type of card you stamp on most to see what you will end up with, and organise them by colour, by tones etc. My next task on the organising front is to add stickers and labels to inks that stack on top of each other so you can see what colours they are.

Brands like Memento have a colour swatch on the side of the lid, which is pretty helpful, although the colour on the lid, isn't the actual colour you get when stamped, but at least you can identify shades and colours roughly. If you check Jennifer's blog there is a video and tips on doing this like the one above. When I've finished sorting out my ink pads, I'm going to do the same for my sprays, embossing powders and paints. When the jobs finished I'll be able to look at everything and gather together the colours I want for a project using the swatches, and then go retrieve the inks from their racks/boxes. Instead of like currently getting everything out and faffing until I've found the right ink for the job.

March 2016 Hobbycrafts Show and the TODO Experience

A couple of weeks ago, I went to the Hobbycrafts Show at the NEC, it was my first time there, at a craft show at least, and after I bought the tickets I heard that it was not as good as it used to be, and that not many companies were there these days, the negative comments almost, at one point, made me decide to sell my ticket and not bother going. As it turns out I'm thrilled that I decided to make my own mind up and just go along. I'd read some people complaining that there were lots of dies being sold off cheap, mostly Tonic and Sue Wilson, exactly why there is an influx of these dies cheap I'm not sure, but I took advantage of the some of the deals and got dies that were originally £22 for £8!

I bought a few Tonic dies, some I'd been looking at for a while but didn't want to pay upwards of £20 for, and a couple of the relatively new cat dies. I also found a fabulous 'cogs' die by Joy, a company I'd never encountered before, and also a bunch of different shaped balloons die and a teapot and cups die set. Plus I added the oval and rectangle Presscut nesting dies to the circle and square ones I'd been given for Christmas.

There were as some people pointed out lots of places selling dies, but I also got to visit Lavinia Stamps, Imagination Crafts and several other companies I've been wanting to buy from for a while. There were demos and offers and the bonus was I got to meet up with my sister-in-law who is a big fan of Lavinia Stamps like me, she's been playing with LS stamps for a while though, I was an LS virgin. My SIL Sally also loves sewing, I actually only did the paper craft section of the show, she did all the sections. I enjoyed it so much I'm going to go along to the Christmas one in November, my SIL says its a better show with more people there.

TODO or Not TODO

Whilst I was there I saw a demo of the TODO on the Craft & Create stand, based on the demo and asking lots of questions I parted with £200 to make my foiling dreams a reality. Before I made the purchase I ummed and ahhhed because I already have a Big Shot and a Big Shot Plus, so I knew that I didn't need another die cutting machine. And as I wasn't that impressed with the letterpress aspect of the TODO, the main and only reason I was attracted to the machine was the hot foiling aspect, something I want to do on cards and projects and not having a laser printer I can't use toner ink print outs. However, £200 is a lot to spend in 1 go for a machine, but I figured the cost of a laser printer and toner initially would be more and the TODO wouldn't require toner top ups, so it would be worthwhile and it would work as a back up die machine.

As My priority for buying the machine was to hot foil, I thought it would be a good idea prior to my purchase to ask the young girl demonstrating some questions to find out if the TODO would do what I wanted. First I asked if I could use all of my existing rubber and cling stamps to stamp an image with ink like Versamark on to card and then use the TODO to foil it, she said YES! When I got home I discovered that the answer is in actual fact NO! You can allegedly use your dies to cut out shapes and then foil on to them, but primarily you have to use the TODO hot foil plates that C&C sell, which are not cheap to buy.



Additionally in my eagerness to get foiling, I failed to make a mental note of the fact that the TODO hot foiling plate is only approximately 15cm x 11cm so if you wanted to foil a project bigger than that you're stuffed! The TODO came with a bundle of stuff, mostly embossing folders and some dies, as well some hot foil plates. The girl demoing was doing so using a rose blossom foiling plate, I asked if it was included in the bundle of stuff that came with the TODO, she said it WAS, it WASN'T. What was in the bundle was the die, I didn't want to cut dies of the roses, I wanted to hot foil them on the cards, so I needed the rose blossom foil plate. It would have been an additional cost, and I really didn't want to spend more than I already had done.

I also asked the girl if you could use any foil, she said you could, I came home, and discovered that you CANNOT! You can only use the TODO foils that can only be purchased from Create & Craft in packs of 6 at £14.99 plus postage, and as they come in packs were they dictate the colours I wasn't impressed. The bundle didn't even come with even a small sample of foil to try by the way, which I thought was a bit silly. They could have added one less embossing folder, and including some foil, card etc so that you could play straight out of the box, if you were a new card maker, you wouldn't have everything to hand, but hey ho.

When I tried the TODO, I really wasn't impressed with the way it handled, like the lady above I discovered that with the roller being on top of the machine, it had very little grip and things were sliding everywhere, I found I had to wrestle with things to get them to go through the machine smoothly. The settings they recommend for embossing etc look good on paper, but there was an awful lot of messing about, putting something through, discovering it hadn't worked and putting it through again at a higher or lower setting. One of the reasons I gave up using the Xcut Xpress machine and was happy when Sizzix brought out the Big Shot Plus.

I didn't get to try the hot foiling because I didn't have TODO foil, but I'd seen enough to know the machine wasn't for me, so I returned it. The best thing about the experience was how easy it was to return the machine, I had to wait for my refund, but it finally came through today, hurrah! I tried out a few alternative hot foiling methods and have had some degrees of success and failures depending on what I used and how I did it, but I can now hot foil with an old laminater, I plan writing a post on my findings with photos soon.

I'll be upfront and say that I'm not a big Create & Craft fan, their show bores me, its all about selling and less about creativity and inspiring people to craft, they just want to get people to buy the products they sell at hiked up prices. Their demo's I've found are rushed and they don't really explain techniques and they sell the same stuff by the same companies, there is no variety. I've only bought from them on two occasions before, when I first got in to paper crafting, thinking I was getting a bargain and discovered after my purchases that I could have found the same item cheaper elsewhere.

After the NEC purchase, I received 3 phone calls from C&C informing me that I could have saved £20 at the NEC on my TODO purchase if I was a C&C club member, and they'd fix that for me whilst on the phone if I paid them £20 to join the club. Would they give me the discount back dated on my purchase to make the membership worthwhile? Hell no, they wanted me to give them another £20 making a total of £220 to become a member of a club that I cannot justify being a member of. I wouldn't buy enough from them to make the £20 back in a year and I wasn't interested in their magazine or badge. Which is what I told them the first time they called, so why phone on 2 other occasions?!

As for the TODO, after trying it out I really am not impressed and scouting around the internet I see that there are a lot of people struggling with it, I think for what it does its vastly over priced and under whelming. A few people are getting on with it well, but the fact that lots of people are having problems and no two people get the machines to work on the same settings that the manufacturers give is alarming. At least with my big shot I don't nearly lose a finger trying to hold an embossing folder in place. In my opinion, if you have a die cutting machine already, save your money and invest in a dedicated hot foiling machine. I have one on my wishlist, but I'm waiting for one to come out that doesn't require toner printing first, although the likelihood of that is slim, so I'll muddle through with the laminater for now :)

Herbaholic By Name...

Crikey February already! Where does the time go? Since I last blogged lots has happened including taking a massive pay cut when work cut my hours from 60 hours a month to just 10, on the plus side I now have LOTS more time to do things like write my book and craft, on the downside there is less money to buy craft stash! But it doesn't mean I can't, thankfully my hubby still has a good job, so its not the end of the world. My wages just helped us do more of the fun things in life, we have each other, a roof over our head and a good sense of humour, we don't need much more :)

We've adjusted spending, started shopping at Aldi which is saving us a small fortune and the good news is I can still keep crafting, I just can't spend as much as I did before, at least until I find another job or my hours go back up. I used the last of my birthday money to buy a ticket to the Hobby Crafts show that takes place next month at the NEC, hopefully I'll bag some bargains, currently spending only a little of my monthly allowance which has shrunk considerably so that I can have some spending money for the event. I must admit I bought the ticket BEFORE work gave me the news, not sure I would have if I'd known, but hey ho, when life gives you lemons.... I can save my allowance and work on using up my stash, challenge accepted. Oooooo I've also been in the local paper! More on that later :)

Enough of the pity pot and on to what I came here for, I've been crafting :) On various sites such as DoCrafts I have the name Herbaholic, because my job and hobbies and what I love to write about involve herbs, I am a self confessed herbaholic, who is fast becoming a craftaholic, so when I get the chance to combine both of my passions its a double win! I love all things to do with herbs, so making cards with herbs on is so totally me, when I learnt last week that Crafters Companion were launching a set of stamps and making dies called Herb Garden I knew I had to have them, as luck would have it I had some books to sell, so I did that via ebay and used the proceeds to treat myself to the set.

My goodies arrived on Saturday morning and I on Saturday afternoon I camped out in my crafting space and set to colouring pieces of water colour paper with distress inks, Barn Door, Tea Dye and Frayed Burlap melded together to make a convincing terracotta colour, which when stamped and die cut and then edged with Vintage Photo distress ink make some pretty cute little pots. I used the same process on more water colour paper using an assortment of green distress inks including Mowed Lawn, Peeled Paint, Bundled Sage, Lucky Clover, Shabby Shutters and Forest Moss to create various shades of green papers. I stamped the herbs on the different coloured papers and die cut them out, the pink flowers on the thyme herb plants were coloured with a Pink Garnet Sparkle Pen.

I confess to getting a little carried away making the pots and herb leaves, I've made about 24 of them so far and have some spare pots and herb leaves still to cut out. I'm so impressed with the way these turned out, I'm going to get the Spellbinders Basil, Sage and Lavender dies out I bought last year and see what I can create with them, first dyeing water colour paper in suitable shades. If you haven't come across the dies before I did a post last year with some photos of the dies, along with photos of some herb cards I made using the Herb Garden images from the Jane Shasky "From the Heart of the Garden" CD, I've made lots of cards from that CD and recently printed off some herb notelet cards and matching envelopes to give as a gift to a friend.

To create the cards I used backing papers from the Jane Shasky CD and I printed off images of pages from the old herbals of Nicholas Culpeper, John Gerard and John Parkinson, which date back to the 16th and 17th centuries. I used distress inks to age the edges of the images and backed them on to Core'dinations card to make them stand out a little, the pots are stuck in place with 3D foam pads, when you die cut the little pots they have slits in so you can push the bases of the herbs in to the pots, I fixed mine behind the pot with some washy tape. I have a several other old herbal book 'pages' to try, I may even scan some of the pages from my copy of Culpeper's herbal, although its fairly fragile due to its age. I'm looking forward to making more of these type of cards though and sending them to my herby friends :)

Oooo yes before I forget, I mentioned I'd been in the local paper... Years ago my hubby, stepson and I appeared on BBC2's Robot Wars with our robot Chompalot a dragon robot, well a couple of weeks ago the BBC announced they were bringing the series back, and as we'd won a trophy and were in the local paper back then, they contacted us to see what we thought about the show coming back and whether we'd like the chance to appear again. The answer was we're VERY excited and HELL YES, we've applied, but so far we haven't heard anything back. Anyway if you're a Robot Wars fan or know somebody that is, you may be interested in reading the interview with the Derby Evening Telegraph, there's a photo of my better half with the tiny working version of Chompie that he's built using his 3D printer. :)

Art Journaling for Beginners

The title of this post refers to me :) I've been saying for a while that I would give journalling a try, after several years of suffering from anxiety and mild depression I was told that I needed to develop a more positive frame of mind. Having seen lots of examples of other peoples art journals over the past 6 months I realised that there are lots of positive messages stamps and stencils out there and also lots of lovely new crafting goodies to experiment with.

My main reason to start art journalling though is not just to try and give myself a more positive frame of mind, but to help put my feelings and thoughts into something that can show how I'm feeling when words don't always come easy. Must add I'm peri-menopausal at the moment and one of the delightful side effects is losing words and having 'dumb struck' moments, moments when you suddenly stop talking not because you can't remember what you want to say, you just can't remember what the damn word or words are that you want to use is.

I'd been thinking about keeping an art journal for a while now, but I kept chickening out because I can't draw for toffee, that's not true, I can draw a mean stick man lol! I've never classed myself as arty, I think I'm creative, I used to do a lot of cross stitch and I can do basic knitting and use a sewing machine. But to me, art is something that goes on walls in museums, its what talented people do who can paint, and shade and capture a likeness on a canvas, that's not me. Well that was how I thought until recently, now I'm firmly thinking that if it comes from the heART its ART whatever it looks like to others :)

So with that thought in mind I gathered together some of the new stash I got for my birthday last week, and opened my new art journal to the very first page, I first misted it with water then added some Crushed Grape and Calypso Teal Dylusions ink to the page in random squirts, then I used a paper towel to remove some of the ink. Next I took some stamps from Kaisercraft and stamped some text, I was a little wobbly these were training wheels and I was flying in the face of the fear that I shouldn't be playing with these things. I got a little bolder and used one of my new BoBunny stencils and some Wilted Violet distress ink to lay down the heART's, a message to myself.

Next I stamped and embossed the sentiment and used another of the BoBunny stencils and some Antique Rose Sparkle Texture paste to put some butterflies on the page. The butterflies are the symbol of my nervous thoughts, those "I'm crap at this", "This is a mess", "Stop doing it you obviously can't" type thoughts, but they also represent freedom to create and ART is in create as well. I had to stop playing for a little while so the texture paste could dry, when I got up from my seat and looked down at the page I said "WOW!" because I'd started something that looked good to me, and that's what matters, its my art journal, its not being judged by anyone and anything goes.

I've done a little on it each evening for a few nights, adding bits, like some stamped flowers, highlighting the butterflies, added some photos of me and some additional sentiments and its finished... Ta Da!

Well as finished as these things can ever be! The photos of me are rare moments when I stopped thinking what others might think, stopped worrying about potential negative consequences and let my inner child out, moments when I just did it, and do you know what, nothing happened other than I had fun! Putting this page together showed me a little something about myself, the whole point of the exercise, and yes I know its not up to the standards of some of the fabulous art journalers out there, but I'm pretty proud of my first page. Me using my hands, mind and heart to tell myself something that at 52 years of age I should already know, love yourself, adore your ideas and cherish every moment, every pen stroke and ink smoosh, it may not always look arty to others, but if it comes from the heART its never wrong :) Now my mind is full of ideas for the next page and the page after that...

Birthday Stash

Last week it was my birthday, and my hubby took me to Coleman's Craft Warehouse in Rushden, Northants. I spent a very happy couple of birthday hours browsing the shelves and availed myself of lots of crafting bargains. As it was January my craft basket reaped the sales rewards and I picked up some amazing bargains, and found almost all of the items on my wish list. They didn't have any art journals or posca pens, so an additional trip to hobby craft happened on the way home. I've got it in to my head that this year I'll try my hand at art journalling so I wanted to acquire some supplies for that, more on that in another post.

Back to Coleman's, if you live in the area and haven't been then you should visit STAT! I started out buying craft supplies at The Range and Hobbycraft because when I started crafting back in September 2014 they were the only places that sold crafting supplies that I knew of. I've since found lots of lovely craft shops online that I continue to use, but nothing beats seeing and touching the crafting goodies, it gives you a better idea of size, texture and you even see things that you may not have considered using before.

The staff at Coleman's are very friendly and helpful, they provide tea and coffee and biccies, if you remember to ask! Somebody (me) got so excited when she got through the doors that she started shopping immediately and forgot to tell them I'd arrived after emailing to say I'd visit and they said to tell them when I got there and they'd put the kettle on lol! There were so many wonderful things it was like Charlie's Chocolate Factory for the crafter. One a couple of the huge tables they have in the store there were lots of ladies sat crafting, it was almost like a social club atmosphere they chatted and crafted and looked to be having an amazing time.

I 'squeed' with joy when I discovered that lots of the Tim Holtz dies were in the sale, one of them, the Sizzix Bell Jar with Pedestal which I've been coveting for a while now was £7.50 the cheapest I've ever seen it brand new.  I found art journalling stencils in the sale, my favourites are the Bo Bunny 'Cascade' set which look to be silicon of some kind, they adhere to the paper as if you've stuck them down so you can work without the stencil slipping, bliss! I'll be acquiring more of these over the next few months.

There were stamps by companies that I'd never heard of before and I discovered new things to put on my wish list. I also picked up 5 of the Ken Oliver 'Color Burst' bottles of pigment colour, not tried them yet but it'll be interesting to see how they compare to Brusho's and he's just released some gorgeous new colours at CHA 2016 so if these work well I'll be availing myself of some of them :)

I also picked up a couple of the back issues of Craft Stamper magazine, I found it incredibly inspiring and interesting so I took out a subscription, as well as getting a good deal on the shop price I never miss an issue, it gets delivered to my door and the bonus was the bundle of IndigoBlu goodies that you got. Post on that coming soon.

Getting to Coleman's is a bit of a trek from Derby, that said its somewhere I'd be happy to travel to for supplies every couple of months. The one downside is they only have a tiny fraction of the stuff they sell in their online store, so you can't get everything you need from them online, like you can if you go to the warehouse.

The Craft Warehouse isn't open all week it's open Thursdays and Fridays 9am - 4pm, Saturdays 8.30am - 4pm and Sundays 10am - 4pm, there is free parking, and a room for “bored husbands” with sofas, television and newspaper and magazines. Although my hubby just sat at the craft table browsing the internet lol! If you get the chance to go, DO IT! I'll be posting some photos of some of the things I've been making with my birthday stash from Coleman's very soon. It really is an Aladdin's cave of crafty goodness and I can't wait to go back :)