A Peary Merry Christmas!!!

Oh gawd.........that title is soooooo scraping the bottom of the barrel......LOL!!!

Here is one of the cards I have made for the Bondaweb class tomorrow.
At last I have my bird Cuttlebug folder and I have used this on some Coredinations cardstock which I sanded lightly and then dabbed over with a gold Brilliance ink pad.
The pear is a Cricut shape from the Joys Of The Season cartridge which I used as a template to draw around onto chipboard.
Once cut out of the chipboard I added a couple of coats of gesso and then used Adirondack inks in butterscotch, caramel and ginger to add colour to the pear.
Once dry I overstamped with a music image using the caramel ink pad which isn't showing too well in the photo. I may change that to ginger in the class tomorrow.
Next thing was to cut a piece of Bondaweb to the shape of the pear.....omitting the leaf and melt it onto the shape. This was then brushed with bronze and gold Perfect Pearls and reheated.
I stamped the card blank with the music image and gold Brilliance and smudged some ginger ink around the edges before layering the card and finishing with a stamped and layered sentiment.
The music stamp is from one of my Prima sets and the greeting is just a small cheapo stamp I picked up from somewhere.

I often get asked where I buy my Bondaweb so here are the details.
I use Therm O'Web Heat and Bond Ultra which is available from Hobbycraft....usually in the sewing department. It comes in either a one metre pack or a roll. If you buy the lightweight one it doesn't work quite so well as it tends to heat away to nothing if you are not careful.

I will try at some point to do a step by step tutorial with pictures for this technique in the daylight as the light in my room at night is not brilliant until hubby gets around to doing something about it for me.

Thanks for dropping by.
Sheila-x-

Sorry-Christmas Again!!!

Sorry for the lack of blog posts the last couple of days. The heat is making me cranky and all out of whack with myself. I just can't concentrate on anything much at all except trying to cool down.........even resorting to wearing wet t shirts........Ooooo'er Mrs!!!...............LOL.
Despite the heat the ladies in my two classes today have been elbow deep in Christmas cards and the card above is one we made with the Holly Doodles stamp set I designed for TandaStamps last year.
The card design is new and I have used the Swiss Dots Cuttlebug folder to emboss onto Poinsettia Coredinations cardstock which has then been lightly sanded.
The holly image has been stamped and embossed onto a piece of the same card and then again onto a piece of designer paper from Making Memories. We cut out those leaves and added them over the other image on foam pads. A bit of matting and layering with a squeeze or two of stickles and the job was done.
Just want to say a huge THANK YOU to the lovely Judith who had read about my struggle with the heat and came to the class armed with a Sheila Cooling package of a face spritz, a 4711 Ice cooling stick and a pulse point lavender gel. I was really touched. Judith you are a star!!!

Well I have to get back to work now. I need to design a couple of new cards with the Bondaweb technique ready for a class on Thursday. Once that is done I have three days off and hopefully will spend the weekend stamping and getting messy now that I am getting more comfortable in my workroom. I am still a very untidy crafter and I don't suppose that will ever change so most days I have to clear my work table before I can even think about doing anything........lol!!! Trying to train myself to be better but you know what they say about teaching old dogs new tricks....ha ha ha!!!

Thanks for dropping by.
Sheila-x-

Such A Lucky Mum!!!

I don't know what I did to deserve her but every day with my daughter is like Mother's Day. Not that she buys me stuff every day you understand but today she went out and got me something I have had my eye on for a little while. I badly wanted the Klimt Bauble UM stamp set by Elusive Images last Christmas but had bought so many stamps already that I couldn't justify getting them. So my angel saw them in town today and bought them for me...........she is just so fab......fancy her remembering that I wanted them.
It's looking like the space I have freed up by sorting out stamps for the car boot is going to be filled up again quite quickly......LOL!!!
Not had much time for cardmaking today and I really wanted to finish off the things I started yesterday but hubby wanted a barbecue so I have been making marinades and salads for that. Then I finished packing and loaded up the car for tomorrow as we will have to leave home at about 6:15am.........arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!!!
Going to put my feet for a bit now.
Bye for now
Sheila-x-

Roll On Winter!!!

Coo this heat is killing me. I am thinking the move upstairs may not have been such a good idea......it is soooooo hot up there and I have spent today trying to work through a banging headache as I am packing up lots of goodies for the car boot sale on Sunday.
Sorry I have no cards to post. I have made quite a few but they are not quite finished as I got a bit excited yesterday playing with my new Scor Pal. Takes a bit of getting used to but so far I think it's fab.

So any crafters in the Leicestershire, Staffordshire, Derbyshire areas looking for bargains this weekend....get yourselves down to the Car Boot Sale at Moira Miners Welfare. It is advertised as opening at 9am but I think they let people in before then as far as I remember. DD and I will be there [unless the weather is going to be really bad] and we have lots of bargains. DD has given up jewellery making and has mountains of beads for sale.
I have loads of papercrafting items including grab bags of unmounted stamps.

Bye for now.
Sheila-x-

Ooooop's...I Did It Again!!!

These stamps arrived at the shop today and were obviously orphans looking for a new Mummy to love and cherish them.........how lucky was I that they chose me........lol!!!

Aren't they just gorgeous? You can click on the pics for a closer look.

All I need now is some time to have a play with them.

The Artemio sets are about A5 size and are £8.99 a set.....what fantastic value eh?

No cards to post tonight as unfortunately the heat today just about slaughtered me and all I was fit for when I got home was a lie down on the bed near an open window......and guess who fell asleep and didn't wake up until nearly 10pm.
Hubby has gone to bed now as he is on an early shift so I don't want to start with the heat gun and stuff. I am just going to creep quietly upstairs and maybe design some templates for new cards or sort out some files on my computer......I'll see what I feel like when I get back up there.
I hope it's a bit cooler tomorrow as I just don't cope very well with hot weather and I have a class with eight ladies in the afternoon.

Thanks for dropping by.
Sheila-x-

Snowing Again!!!

Who could ever get tired of making Christmas cards when you have this beautiful Basic Grey Figgy Pudding range of papers. Aren't they just yummy?
The card I have made today is a DL card but on it's side for a change and I used a compass to round off the end of the front flap for a slightly different look.
The snowman is the from one of the new clear stamp sets from Kars. I stamped and embossed him onto Ice Diamond card using Versamark and Winter Wonderland EP then gave him a pale wash of Adirondack Stream and painted the holly leaves a little darker. His nose is Sakura Glaze pen so it looks nice and shiny in real life.
Finished off with a snowflake brad, some hand drawn stitching and inking around the edge for definition.
The greeting is also from a Kars set which is all Christmas greetings.

Thanks for dropping by.
Sheila-x-

And So It Begins!!!

The 'C' word is starting to get mentioned an awful lot in conversations now at the shop so I thought I had best knuckle down and get some cards designed seeing as we have our first totally Christmas workshop on Thursday.
This one just sort of fell together all by itself really.......lucky for me........lol!!! I had this piece of Basic Grey paper on my desk which inspired the design.

Swirl is Bazzill cardstock cut with a Sizzix die. Tag is Sizzix too and has been covered with the reverse side of the paper used on the card. Stitching is hand drawn and then a pale wash of Adirondack Stream has been added around the edges and finished off with Stickles.
The snowflakes are stamped using an image from a new clear stamp set by Kars......a lovely little set which has the cutest snowman on it. They are stamped onto Overhead Projection Film for inkjet printers using Brilliance Moonlight White and embossed with Crystal powder. They have been cut out and attached to the tag with foam pads hidden behind the crystal centres.
Wording has been added with a tiny peg alphabet by Hampton Art which was 99p.

So........one down......gawd knows how many more to go........lol!!! Perhaps I shall feel a bit more in the mood for them once I have had my week's holiday in August.

Bye for now
Sheila-x-

Manic Does Housework!!!

Yep...........that's the shock/horror headlines on this blog today..............lol!!!
Now that my workroom is finished I thought I had best get to grips with all the jobs that have been put aside so I have spent a couple of days catching up with those......despite still having unplayed with stash. Still I have managed to get on top of the dust and had a bit of a play this afternoon using a new Cuttlebug die and embossing folder set. I had an order in for a wedding card so it was a good excuse to play with it.
The scallop circle and plain circle are Sizzix dies and the heart is the new CB die which you cut and then put into a small folder........and hey presto it embosses detail in just the right places. I added a few tiny punched flowers with crystals for the centres and that was that job done.
This will be a useful die for me as you know how much I hate making wedding cards.

We had such a performance with a lost order/delivery at work last week. We seemed to have been waiting a long time for the delivery so Deb phoned the company to see what had happened to it and to cut a long story short we were told that the delivery company had said that they had phoned us for a delivery time and that we had refused delivery...........I think not......we wanted that stash. So the company sent us a replacement delivery as our original order was stuck in Belgium. The order arrived overnight by last Saturday but there was so much stuff out of stock since our original order..........but then guess what..........Wednesday the original parcels arrived...much battered and some repacked.....even so we got all the stuff that was now out of stock and were able to take out some of the things that we had sold out of.
Unfortunately this means that I am now virtually destitute as I bought sooooo much stuff you wouldn't believe how much. Loads of new Cuttlebug stuff, about nine or ten sets of stamps, jars of gorgeous poinsettia flowers and tubes of paper flower, papers, packs of encaustic card (love this for inky backgrounds)..........and I can't remember what else.
Three of the new sets of stamps were from Prima and they are just yumptious but I didn't get to play with them yet......hopefully will sometime this week.

Well I am totally worn out with all the domestic activity so I am going to have a quick browse on some blogs and then I am off to bed.
Night night.
Sheila-x-

Pearly Celtic!!!

Here is the card I should have posted last night......sorry I was just too weary to come down two flights of stairs to the computer as I don't have internet access upstairs at the moment.
Anyway the technique for the celtic images is one of my favourites. The stamps are from Dovecraft and I have stamped and embossed them onto some smooth card using Versamark and clear embossing powder. Then I brushed colours from the Perfect Pearls patina set over the embossing and reheated it....gently so that the powder is absorbed into the embossing. The colours went perfectly with this paper from K & Co.

Right well DD is cooking my tea so I had best go and book an ambulance.......lol!!!
Might be back later as I am off to play with my new stamps from Prima after tea.
Bye for now.
Sheila-x-

Oh Yay!!!.......I Made Cards!!!

The new layout in my room is working.......thank goodness. I had visions of me having to move my table out onto the roof after trying it in three different places but I feel really comfortable with the way it is now and I have made a total of two cards...lol!!!
This card is for a basic stamping class and shows how to use three different types of ink in one piece of work. This class is mainly taken by ladies who are a bit confused by all of the different types of ink pad available so I spend half of the class demonstrating and explaining about various types of ink and their applications before we make a card.
So on this card I have used a little stamp set by Plaid which has some lovely images suitable for collage but this florentine background and pear image are my favourite stamps from the set.
The florentine image has been stamped onto some green paper from K & Co's Ancestry.com range using StazOn Olive Green and then stamped onto cream card using Versamark and gold EP.
I coloured a small piece of cream card with chalk inks and than stamped and embossed the pear adding a little more chalk ink to give depth to the colour.
Before mounting the green paper onto the car blank I stamped and embossed the sentiment from a set by Hampton Art.

I don't know if I will get much chance to do anything tomorrow as I am off to visit DS in his new house so I will save the other card to post tomorrow night. I didn't get in until 7pm tonight as DD and I go and do the grocery shop every other Monday after I finish work so roll on Wednesday when my evening will be mine to do with as I like..........I have new stash I am desperate to play with....lol!!!

Anyway......thanks for dropping by. I'm off to bed now.
Sheila-x-

I Wanna Make Cards!!!

The 'few tweaks' needed turned into a weekend long job. I sat down to make cards in the set up as shown in the photo and it just didn't work for me. So after a rethink I sent DD off to Argos for a bookcase to tidy up the computer area and a small desk to set up as a packaging area. I have turned the table side on to the window and it feels much better now. Maybe now I will be able to get on with some flippin' crafting.....lol!!!
I will have to make something tonight as I have a class in basic stamping in the morning and I want to make something different to what I usually do.
Hopefully will have some cards to post tomorrow......fingers crossed.
Bye for now.
Sheila-x-

I Think It's Nearly Finished!!!

Well I think I have just about got my room as I want it although I am sure there will be a few tweaks needed as I start to work in it.

I thought I would take a few pics to show you what it is like so far. This is the wonderful view I have while I am working.

The computer area....and you can just see where the ceiling starts to slope which is where I keep banging my head......ouch!!!

Moving left from the computer area. This is the alcove which was going to be for paper storage but has ended being used for stamps on the top bookcase with baskets holding glues, paints, painting mediums, spray inks etc in the unit below. The stack of twelve drawers holds ink pads and embossing powders and in the corner I have hanging storage for tools and things I don't need all the time.

Next to the alcove is basically a bit of a mess....one of the tweaks methinks. The chest of drawers holds all my ribbons in two drawers and DST, foam pads etc in the bottom one.

On top are storage units containing more ink pads, pens, chalks and other various stuff.

This is the dining table I pinched to work on. The drawer units hold frequently used tools and all my packaging. There is also my housekeepers box which you can just see where I keep odd things in the top tray including Bertha Big Bite.

To the side of the desk is a bookcase which holds all my dies and diecutting equipment.

This is Cricut corner. The worktop is protecting the top of the sideboard I nicked off the landing.

I removed the doors and stashed them away to enable me to keep my paper trimmers, scoring boards and various machines underneath with easy access.

On top of the worktop is this Ikea shelf unit where I keep most of my embellishments such as flowers, brads and eyelets, chipboard shapes etc.

Card and paper storage unit and storage boxes holding finished cards and much to my shame and embarrassment............a whole box of unfinished cards.

There are another couple of areas which wouldn't bear scrutiny at the moment. One has boxes of stuff I am taking to a car boot and the the other is a TV area if I want to take a break and watch a DVD. At the moment I sit on a pile of sleeping bags but I will be getting a chair at some point.

I have worked like a demon today so I am off to treat myself to a nice hot bath and a good read for half an hour and then I think I shall go and try to make some cards to see if my layout works.

Thanks for dropping by

Sheila-x-

Shattered Or What?!!!

Well I have spent the whole weekend moving all of the stuff out of my old workroom and boy am I shattered. I've certainly had my excercise for the next twelve months....lol!!!
Anyway it is all looking pretty smart up there now....not tidy enough to take photos just yet but I will as soon as it is totally finished.
I decided to go with red for accessories with the fabulous green on the walls so DD spoilt me rotten at the weekend and bought me a lovely big red bin, a clock, canisters for the tea and coffee and then she went to Dunelm for me yesterday to see if she could get me some red gingham curtains......no curtains but she came back with the most gorgeous red housekeepers box.......which I thought at first was a mop bucket...lol!!! It has a big space in the bottom where I am going to store my brayers and then a tray which sits inside where I am going to keep things that I would normally have on the desktop.......in the hope that it will keep me tidy......yeah right....lol!!!
I'm off to do more stashing away of stash then.
Bye for now.
Sheila-x-

Ahoy There!!!

Just popped in to say a quick hello.
I am still working on my new room so no cardmaking going on here at the moment.
Got half done with the painting and decided I hated the colour so I have changed it tonight and gone for a soft sage green in a matt finish which I just love so am very happy. It is going on so much better than the silk finish so DD says she will paint tomorrow and get it finished before I come home from work so that we can start getting everything straight. So hopefully by the weekend I should be able to start working up there.........YAY!!!
Must get some sleep now as I have two classes tomorrow and I am completely whacked.
Hope everyone in Blogland is OK.
Nighty Night.
Sheila-x-