Friday 30 October 2009

Pastures new!

Firstly, I would like to say how lucky I feel to have met so many lovely people since I started demonstrating for Particraft. It always amazes me how kind and generous fellow crafters can be!!! I feel privelaged to have made so many good friends and collegues.
I have had a very eventful few days! It all started last Thursday. I was late getting home from work so was pannicking about being late for Bobby and still had the car to pack for the party I was doing in the evening! Got indoors and after speaking to Maria, checked my e-mails to find I had been offered a job working for Creative Expressions!!! I was so excited - How lucky am I to be able to be paid for doing something I absolutely adore? Maria will also be doing the same roll in a different area so it will be great that we can start together and will even be doing our training at the same time.

Well, I had to gather my thoughts and get in gear for the party. So I dropped Bobby round my Mum's (What would I do without her?), and set off to Harlow in plenty of time to arrive there for 6pm. I eventually got there at 8.30ish!!!!! M25 had been closed all day and all surrounding roads were gridlocked! Still, after making a frantic trip to the loo, we managed to get some demo's done and the party I think was a great success.

Home at midnight, not a lot of sleep, then off to work to hand my notice in (after working there for almost 14 years)

So once we go back after half term (I work in a school) I will only have 3 weeks at this job!!! How exciting!!!

I promised some friends that I would post a picture of the card I designed for a Make and Take party I did this week. 8 people made this and it's amazing how they all turned out a little different. We had a few blizzards and a couple of hurricanes!!! But other than that they were all great. No honestly, they were all lovely. Thank you Natalie for making me so welcome.



The background was created with Distress inks: Dusty Concord, Faded Jeans and Worn Lipstick. All blended together with Cut and Dry foam. The hill effect was done by laying a piece of torn paper across the background and sponging with D Ink - lighter colours to the background and darker to the front.The whole background was then spritzed with Mica pigments: midnight blue and gold pearl, before stamping with a selection of stamps from the Stylish 3 Christmas set. All can be found atParticraft

Hope you like!
Bye for now

Monday 26 October 2009

Birthdays and more birthdays!!!

It is my Daughter in law's birthday tomorrow and my son asked me to make him a card for her. He sent a picture of the shoes he bought her!!! The card actually turned out ok. Plain but effective! The top shoe has been decoupaged and layered using Glue gel. Doesn't really show up on the photo.



The following is the card we sent. I just love this stamp from Dimension fourth. The Swirl stamps can be found at Particraft
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This last card was an order. My friend wanted a card for her Mum with a gardening theme and she wanted 'Cute'. This is what I came up with. I was quite pleased.The flower pot stamp is from Dimension Fourth. I stamped it once on white and watercoloured the pots and little molie! Then again on yellow and green and used these to layer up the image. Boo the bear is a Go Kreate die and I used some bits from the gardening set to decorate.



Hope you like them.
Back soon

Tuesday 20 October 2009

Weddings and Anniversarys!





Here are some of my latest cards made using two new stamps. The circle stamp was purchased from The Card Studio when myself and Darrell went there for a craft weekend. The Cake is a Whiff of Joy stamp. The Swirls are on the new Mini Swirl stamp plate available from Particraft
Off to boil the kettle! Bobby is due home from college any minute.

Bye for now

Wednesday 14 October 2009

Particraft News

We have reached our goal of 100 followers on the Particraft blog
If you want to be in with the chance of winning the fantastic candy then go there right now because Sue will be drawing the winner very soon!!!
Great news for everyone. All orders placed on the Particraft
website have free postage and packaging. So not only do you get wonderful products at very competitive prices, you can now sit in the comfort of your own home and just wait for the postman to arrive!!! Don't forget, you can always contact your local demonstrator and arrange a party. That way you will be given a free stamp plate worth £20 and also be able to choose free products to the value of 10% of your party sales. So what are you waiting for!!!???

We had a Demonstator workshop at our head office in Kettering at the weekend. What a great time we had playing with the stunning new Nature stamp plates. Sue Wilson showed us some brilliant new techniques which we can now pass on to all you hostesses out there! She is great fun and a fantastic cook! She fills us up with wonderful cookies. Not good for the diet but absolutely scrummy! Pop to the Particraft blog to catch up with Sue. She is on Create and Craft tomorrow at 11 am. Don't miss it because she will be demonstating some of those new techniques I told you about. Here are some of the samples we made:






I've also been busy with card orders and birthday cards for friends. My dear friend Darrells birthday today-well not much of today left!!! Here's the card I made for her. She loves dance and teaches little girls ballet! Thought this lovely stamp was appropriate. She is available from Particraft as wood mounted, or better value for money, on an unmounted stamp plate which has 2 other lovely images on it.




Bye for now.

Friday 2 October 2009

What can I say!!!?

Time has just flown past since my last post. I have been absolutely snowed under with making samples and getting prepared for Ally Pally. So much has taken place since I was last here, that I really don't know where to start!
To cut a long story short - to start with I had a stand at a local charity event. Prepared loads of samples showcasing the three stamp plates which I had for sale on the night. But unfortunately, most of the guests were not crafters and would have preferred to buy my cards rather than make them themselves! As you can imagine, very little was sold , but I had an enjoyable evening.
The weeekend following this event took Darrell and myself to Maidstone, Kent, to a craft weekend at 'The card studio'. Great fun but hard work!
Then came the big event - Ally Pally. Michelle, Maria, Lynsay and myself ran the stand with Pam helping out the whole weekend. We had demo's and make and takes (grunge board bracelets and alcohol ink tins)running the whole weekend, along with a selection of stock for sale. This was the first time we have been selling products and it was very successful. The weekend sped past and was great fun. I was fit for nothing at work on Monday, and I think I'm still recovering now!Here are just a few piccies showing the fab team!!! and a few samples I made for the charity event. I will post others of the Ally Pally samples soon.






Off to bed now because we have our lovely grand children coming tomorrow and I shall need all my strenth to run around after them! We havn't seen them since the start of the school holidays and I've really missed them. Can't wait to see them!

Catch up soon. Promise I won't leave it as long next time. Thank you for stopping by and have a nice weekend.