Catch up!

Hi,
Long time no see! I have been very busy and not been on the computer for a while. I had my mum to stay for a couple of weeks. we had a great time but time went so quickly! There were not enough hours in a day to fit everything in and then all of a sudden it was time for her to go home. We managed to make a few cards whilst also rearranging my craft stuff. Twice! We started by rearranging all the stuff I had put away upstairs for the holidays and hadn't brought back out yet. Then we had a trip to Ikea and I now have a fantastic new shelf unit that is made up of 25 12 x 12 squares. I have used it as a room divider separating my craft area off from the rest of the room. It has made the room look smaller but I like it. I now need lots more nice boxes to neaten everything up but it has made a big difference and I now have plenty of storage space to keep my craft stuff much neater! and hopefully I will now have more time to craft! We are off for the Easter holidays for the next two weeks so I am hoping to get a few scrapbook pages done and plenty of cards done.

Here is a card I made for my friend to give to her mum. This was an A4 sized card. The champagne bottle was made using Arty Farty templates. Also used DCWV glitter stack, wet paint sizzlets alphabet, Paper flowers, sticky gems and peel offs. As this card was made in the middle of moving my whole room around in amongst boxes and furniture I was quite pleased with the result!

This is a card I did for my god daughter to give to her mum, my friend Sam. I had originally bought this new decoupage for her birthday card but as her birthday is not til next February I thought mother's day would be ideal. SAM is very into her horse riding and is always moaning about her weight so I thought this was a really funny card to make! It is using a new kind of decoupage called "Flippin' Women" they also do "Flippin' men" On the front of the card you see a funny scene but then on the inside you see the back of the scene also decoupaged with something funnier on the back. Check out http://www.lapashe.com/ to see all the designs and stockists.

Here is the card I made for my mum for Mother's day.

I used a stamp I got in a bargain bucket for 50p a couple of years ago, I really like it and will definitely use it again. The patterned paper is from a new set I got at a show two weeks ago and now I can't find it to tell you the name. It's very bright and funky. I will add the name of it later when I find it again! All this organisation and I can't find anything! I water coloured the flowers to tone in with the paper using my whisper brush pens. then added some gems and a ribbon. Very simple but I think quite pretty. Sorry the photo hasn't turned out very well.

This next card was made for a friend to give to her Brother in law. I was told that he was a black cab driver and a Tottenham supporter but not to make too much of the Tottenham bit. So I used my sizzix car front and made a black cab using Do craft gem brads for the headlights unfortunately I didn't have clear ones big enough! But the yellow ones are ok. Then I stamped a football kit onto shrink plastic, coloured it in Tottenham colours and shrunk it down and hung it from the rear view mirror like one of those air fresheners you can get. Drew in the road and I think this one is quite effective!

Last but not least here is the card I made for my nephews birthday. He plays for his local football team and my mum told me their strip is black and white stripes so I based the card on this and folded a shirt from a football shirt paper block and added football boot background paper and a peel off football.

I had a go at my first Digital scrapbook page using Paint shop pro (PSP) tonight. I have used other programmes but PSP definitely gives a more flexible finish. With my other programme I had to place things as they had been designed without being able to turn or alter them. With Paint shop pro I can re size, turn and flip and do all sorts of effects. I am only just learning how it works and for this page I followed a tutorial on Digital Scrapbook place (DSP)for creating your first layout with PSP. They also had tutorials for lots of other programmes too. The instructions were very clear and easy to follow. They even described how to re size the file for uploading onto the web etc. Once registered on the site there are loads of free kits you can download and the kits to buy are very reasonable too!

Here is my first attempt. I kept it very simple for my first practice but I am pleased with the result.

As I have only bought a couple of kits I think all these were from the Digital Scrapbook Place free downloads.

Back ground paper from Back to the 70's paper set by Suzanne C. Walker

Eyelets from The basics set by Valeri Brumfield

Buttons from Button Element set by Suzanne C. Walker

and Bottle cap alphabet by Lauren Bavin

Thanks to all these designers for their wonderful downloads and ideas!

This is the end of a very long post. Hope to be back soon with some more craft projects to show you.

Take care,

Ali