I'm back!!

Hi! I'm back from my honeymoon now, and plan on posting a few tutorials over the next week or so. I've got a few cards to do, so I just need to find the time! It was such a lovely holiday, I will have to post some photos.

My hubby is trying to get my new web cam working on my laptop - it works on his pc just fine, but it's no good if I can't get the camera to my card-making area. It just keeps crashing, but he's the computer genuis, so hopefully he will win and I can get some video tutorials up and running soon. I'm just glad I finally have a way of recording vids that doesn't involve using my time-consuming digicamera. That is assuming we can get the new one working!

Well bye for now, and I will post some cards soon, I promise!!

I'm sorry - I've been very very slack and haven't posted for nearly a month!!!! But I have been busy....I got married!! And the build up to the event was simply making wedding stationary, which I didn't want to put on here in case it was bad luck or something :-)

Here's me and my new Husband on the big day:

It was such a wonderful day! Perfect in every way...and it's so nice being married, not just BF & GF anymore. So many people just don't bother getting married these days, saying "it's just a piece of paper, why should it matter" but it does - it is different being married. Nicer, and more secure somehow. I smile everytime I look at my wedding ring and think of Scott and what it means for us to be married. The only problem now is that everyone keeps asking when we aare having children, as if marriage=children automatically. I for one am not quite ready. I might be 27, but I've still got a lot of things to do before I want to be tied down with children. Maybe in a few years, if it is meant to happen for us, and I will love every minute of it when it does I'm sure. Just not yet!! :-)

I plan on putting pictures of the wedding stationary up on here, but when I get back from honeymoon, not just yet - still no time!

When I'm back it will also be time to start making Xmas cards (dear God, that time already!!) so I will be sharing a few test run designs then. I have loads of cards to make this Xmas - since the wedding, the Xmas card list has grown somewhat!!

The Happy Couple and all our Best Friends - love ya loads guys!! xxxx

Blokey birthday card

I had some fun with this one - I risked breaking my poor little Cuttlebug by die cutting metal!! I was very dubious about doing this, but I do like the effect I got in the end. very masculine!

I simply enjoyed a nice tasty can of Pepsi (crafting is thirsty work), then washed it out, cut the top and bottom off so I was left with a sheet of metal and flattened it to take the curve of the can out. I then cut out small squares and fed them through my 'Bug on the appropriate letter. After some faffing (I had to pack out the sandwich so it would cut all the way through the metal) I managed to get these letters cut. Although I have severely warped my cutting plate in the process, despite turning and flipping it constantly! Oh well, you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs....

The accent is a Papermania stamp, stamped in white onto shrink plastic, and heated to size. This went from 50mm to about 25mm in diameter, so you really do need to use a large stamp to start with!

Happy Anniversary to my Folks!

My folks are an inspiration. They've been married for 35 years and still going strong. That is remarkable in this day and age, and gives me something to aspire to with my husband to be when we finally tie the knot next Friday!

I wanted this to be quite a modern card, but still traditional enough not to make light of the fact that they've been happily married for so long. So I've kept it fresh and simple, but used a very extravagant 'Happy Anniversary' script to posh it up.

The silver heart was hand-drawn and made with silver embossed clear shrink plastic. Note to self - emboss the shape AFTER shrinking, otherwise you end up with an ungodly mess of white hot dripping embossing liquid, which does hurt if it gets on your skin - I have the burn to prove it :-) oops!

The Happy Anniversary was traced onto the card, then black embossed using my glue pen for the powder to stick to. I wish I had such an ornate stamp, but I'm really poor at the moment, what with my naff job and my wedding next week, so I'm improvising!!!

The hole in the card feature was made with nestabilities dies. I did the same on the inside to hide the wire fixing to hold the heart in place.

Birthday Wishes with Cuttlebug Crayon Resist

Well it's here at last!! My first video tutorial! And what a pain it has been to get from my desk to here...my camera only records 10minute chunks of film & the batteries only last for 15minutes...then tranferring the files to my computer takes 10minutes per file - I think the whole card took like 2 hours or something ridiculous - and then there was the editing (let's not go there).

Credit where credit is due, the original idea for this technique was from the lovely Mel, so please visit her blog - you'll be hooked just like me! She has some seriously zany ideas, and they're great :-) The post I took the inspiration from is here.

Anyway, I'm pretty happy with the results, and I hope you get some enjoyment from watching it. Any (constructive!) comments would be appreciated. Thanks so much for watching!