Faux Leather handbag

My craft club's full day meeting includes a small project. This month, I decided to demo how to create your own faux leather mini handbag! We used WS Design's handbag template & SU's Chocolate Chip cardstock.

The faux leather look is achieved quite easily - simply cover your cardstock (once cut) with VersaMark, then cover the whole surface with clear embossing powder. Before heating, using a scoring tool, draw lines randomly over the surface, taking care to only remove the unheated powder from where you're drawing. Once you're happy with your pattern, heat with a heat tool until all the powder has melted & voila - faux leather! Embellish to suit!

RSW Demo Team Meeting

I met with some of my team of Stampin' Up! demonstrators today, for a full day meeting in my craft studio. Of those attending, all of us have been promoted since we last met, so I thought a fun day of crafting would be a good celebration! Debbi came up with the fantastic idea of having a shoe box swap! If you've never been to a shoebox swap, then you don't know what you're missing! You simply design a project and prepare enough supplies for everyone in attendance to re-create it! You put everything you need to make your project in a shoebox or similar container, plus any necessary instructions, then rotate around the room completing each others' projects. And what a fab time we had!

This is my project:

I wanted to highlight a slightly different use of punches - sometimes just using something in a different way can help your sales when demo-ing at a workshop. I used the scallop circle & scallop square punches to punch a central window on 2 3x3 cards. I used the Very Versatile Stampin' Up! set & finished with ribbon, punched flowers, brads, silver hodgepodge & Stampin' Glitter. Here's an inside view of the cards:

Here's a close up of the inside of the card where I used the Stampin' Glitter on the tree blossom:

Cute, but simple!

Debbi's gorgeous card used the Carte Postale Stampin' Up! stamp set & the delicate Certainly Celery & Pretty in Pink colours:

And of course, it included ribbon! Debbi just loves her ribbon!! The one used here is white taffeta.

Helen's card was made using the Sense of Time Stampin' Up! stamp set:

This is the 1st time I've used this set since I bought it. The colours here are Very Vanilla & Not Quite Navy. The background was stamped with Versamark. A nice, simple card to make & effective for those men we jut love to make cards for!

Lastly, Margaret's card had the WOW factor:

This gorgeous chappie was made using various Stampin' Up! punches - isn't he lovely??!! A fun Christmas card - the 1st I've made this year!

Thankyou, ladies for coming along & making the day fabby!

Shirley

Milestone Birthdays!

Don't you just love these photo stamps??!! I have several now, but this is my latest & I thought it would be great for a couple of milestone birthday cards I made for 2 of the ladies who come to my club, who were having special birthdays. Jane's celebrating 60 years & Aviva's celebrating 50 years!

I thought the wording (I won't tell if you won't) was pretty apt for these birthdays & it gave me the idea of hiding something - so I came up with this:

The front flap lifts up to reveal the age! To create the blank background, I simply masked the area with a cut-down post-it note when I rollered the rest of the card. I stamped inside the card using the Happy Everything Stampin' Up! stamp set:

I made the 2 cards at the same time, which really speeded things up & the only difference was the age stamped under the flap.

If you're interested in joining the craft club, or finding out more about it, you can follow this link.

Shirley

1st Holy Communion Card

This is the card I made for a friend's daughter's 1st Holy Communion. There is no stamping on this card, as I felt I didn't have anything appropriate, but the card stock is SU (Certainly Celery & Pretty in Pink). I thought the colours matched well with the colours in the picture. The picture of the girl is actually a rub-on - I was really pleased with the quality! I can't remember who makes these rub-ons, but I got them from the QVC shop in Warrington!

Honest Scrap Award

Today I received my 1st blog award - hooray!!! The award has been passed onto me by Helen at Visual Diary of a Virgin Blogger. Thankyou Helen, for giving me this award!

The conditions of this award are:

• I must thank the person who gave me the award, list their blog and link to it
• I must list ten (10) honest things about myself
• I must put a copy of The Honest Scrap Logo on my blog
• I must select at least seven (7) other worthy bloggers & list their links
• I must notify the bloggers of the award

Sooo.......10 honest things about me:

1. I'm addicted to buying craft stuff!!
2. I'm the world's worst procrastinator......so I'll finish the list tomorrow!! LOL!
3. I get loads of ideas but never seem to get enough time to get them all off the ground (maybe partly down to no.2??!!)
4. I believe in ghosts
5. I spend far too much time trying to get things just right - like the amount of time I've spent thinking about the things to go on this list - & I'm still only at number 5!!
6. I hate spiders, beetles & all creepy crawlies!
7. I can do the splits - yes really!
8. I've got all the Friends dvds & have watched every episode countless times - & I still change channels to watch it on E4 when it's on!
9. I like karaoke & do it at every opportunity!
10. I once wrote a play in one evening

Here are the people I've chosen to pass this award onto:

1. Teri
2. Jenna
3. Godelieve
4. Jenny
5. Maria
6. Leslie
7. Amanda
8. Stamping Caz

Thanks again, Helen & I'm looking forward to reading the lists of the people I've passed the award on to!

Shirley

Port Sunlight

Just got back from the HSNW Spring Stamp Festival at Port Sunlight on the Wirral - what a great afternoon!! It was a crafter's paradise - lots of stalls, lots of demos & lots of goodies to buy!!

I bought a gorgeous pink bag at the Glitter Girls stall (I know - yet another bag for my collection!!), a funky pink storage box, quite a few stamps & some other bits & bobs.

The next one's in October - can't wait!!

Shirley

Golden Oldies!

Some more cards using items from the new Mini Stampin' Up! Catalogue - this time using the Golden Oldies set. All images were watercoloured using SU's Watercolour Wonder crayons & have been mounted on the new Washington Apple DSP.

I've used the faux stitching technique on the 1st card, plus some of the new designer buttons. The 2nd card is very simple, just mounting the image & creating a scalloped border using the Scallop Edge punch. I created the playing cards on the 3rd card using Sizzix Sizzlits - not sure of the name of the set, but it's the one with the playing cards & gaming chips.

It's nice to be able to add a touch of humour to cards!

Fresh Cut Notes

I love the new Fresh-Cut Notes from Stampin' Up! I made this card using the Fresh Cuts stamp set, which I think is gorgeous. I used the card as a stencil on the back of the envelope & sponge-daubed the flower with inks - this made the envelope match the card & also added some soft definition to the flower in the front of the card.

Loads of Love Card

Here's a card I made a while ago using Stampin' Up!s Loads of Love stamp set & the Tailgaiting wheel. I chose a colour scheme that would suit a man's card.

Cards With Movement

Here's 2 of the cards we made on my Cards With Movement workshop. There are 2 others, but I don''t have photos of those yet!

The 1st card (Cheers) is a fairly simple spinner card, where the discs spin round. The 2nd card (So Very Sweet) is my favourite - the flower rolls across the aperture - it says sweet on the other side too!