Wow! It has been some time…

What can I say? I’ve been away for quite some time. Pretty much completely incommunicado during that time, and I totally apologise for that. I really hope there’s still some of you guys left sticking around to read this – and for your dedication I thank and salute you!

I’ve had some pretty major changes in my life over the last 18 months. I was made redundant from my job in June 2011, then my marriage broke down soon after, and I ended up taking the difficult decision to move back in with my folks in October 2011, just feeling like my whole life had collapsed around me. These life changes totally blew my buzz for crafting – I just completely lost the inspiration to think up new designs and share them with you lovely folks. Life was on a big downer to be honest.

Anyhow, I put on a falsely brave face and put myself out there to get a job, and luckily, with a lot of hard work, I was accepted in a new position in November 2011. Life finally started back on the up!

And then later that year, I met up with an old friend who was also going through some similar tough patch, and we were a much-needed shoulder to cry on for each other during a very difficult time, and actually, ended up getting together as a couple shortly afterwards.

Our relationship quickly went from strength to strength, and I knew this was the man I could finally trust my heart to <3

A couple of wonderful months went by, where I slowly began to get back the crafting bug, but then I became very ill. I was so sick, I was signed off work and put on drugs to help control my sickness.

Doctors quickly got to the route of my illness – morning sickness – I was pregnant with our miracle baby I never thought I could have!! Unfortunately, my sickness never really abated throughout the entire pregnancy, but on 27th December 2012, I went into labour and was safely delivered of our beautiful baby girl,  Hollie Joan, at 07:40 on 29th December, born a healthy 7lb 10oz, and with a lusty cry!

I can honestly say I have never felt so blessed in all my life, and all the late nights, early mornings and complete lack of sleep are all worth it. I love her to bits!

Hollie is now 3 months old. Life is still a huge learning curve – learning to be a mom, a step-mom and still trying to take some time out to remember to be me - is hard, but I wouldn’t swap it for the world! I’m hopefully getting to the stage with Hollie where she is getting into a loose routine, so I can hopefully begin to get back to my craft desk again soon, when she naps. Even better would be to do some more videos, which I am itching to do. I really feel like the crafting bug is finally coming back, hurrah!

But I’d just like to thank you all for your messages of support and your unstinting loyalty to me whilst I’ve not been on the craft scene. I really do appreciate it. Your comments and messages have cheered me up no end through some very tough times, and I thought you all deserved some sort of explanation as to where I’d been and what my plans for the future are.

Here’s my beautiful ginger princess and her happy mommy signing off for today…take care xx

 

Thinking of you…sympathy card

It’s been too long since I’ve been at my craft desk. And as this was a request for a bereavement card, I wanted to break myself back in gently. So, no video, and I’ve totally copied an earlier design of mine to make this a super quick card to get myself back into crafting.

There is a video on the earlier post that shows you how to create this design though, so if any of you want to check that out, it’s right here.

This card is not totally the same of course – I’ve changed the colour scheme and the sentiment, plus I’ve added some colouring to the stamping to bring out the design to be a richer effect.

I also created this on Kraft cardstock, which is my go-to c.s. if I’ve been away from my craft desk for ages, as it’s so forgiving, whatever design you choose to apply to it.

Hope you like it! I liked it so much I made two… one to give away and one to keep, lol!

Love you!

Well I splashed out about bought myself some more MFT dies. I love that company – their dies are awesome quality and they ship same/next day – important when they’re shipping overseas as it means I get it as soon as I possibly can this end!

This card is quite a good one for the man in your life. It’s very much “no frills” and to the point. I like the simplicity of it – but don’t be fooled, it did take quite a while to complete.

I like the colour scheme – the grey on ivory is subtle but is balanced well with the pillar-box red hearts and handwriting.

I have done a video – it’s quite a long one, as I’m a bit out of practice ;-$ but I hope you enjoy it anyway and find it useful and inspiring.

Enjoy!

Christmas 2011 – Merry & Bright

What a busy few months I’ve had! I’ve not even started my Christmas shopping, let alone handmade all my Christmas cards this year :-( But I knew you all deserved to get at least one Christmas card video before Christmas, so here you are!

[I’ve made this card using the above software. Please feel free to click on the image to take you straight to the download page of their website. If you have a Silhouette or a CraftRobo machine, you should be able to download and use this software as they are both the same machines, that (for some strange reason) are sold under different names in different countries.]

I made this card to be bright and cheerful. That’s what Christmas should be all about, so I chose some non-traditional pinks and greens, and hand coloured the trees on the inside of the card.

At the moment, I’m all about the weird and wonderful shaped cards, and this one is no exception as I’ve cut three frames into the front of the card and stamped the Christmas tree images straight onto the inside of the card.

I loved making this card. I hope you love watching me create it – all from the comfort of my new home, and new craft area(!). My life has been in such upheaval and I’ve been packed up in boxes for so long now, I’m so pleased to be crafting again. It’s a shame I missed out on the big run up to Christmas, and doing lots of Christmas videos for you all, but sometimes life doesn’t work out so neatly for you, does it?

There’s two video’s below; one is the designing of the card in Silhouette Studio, the second puts the card together at my craft desk. Enjoy!

Kindness comes in many forms…but always from the heart

I wanted to make a card using masking techniques with this Blossom Art stamp set by Hero Arts.

This is a really simple technique that gives some beautiful effects. It can really stretch your stamp sets to make them even more versatile, by effectively creating larger ‘background’ stamps out of several smaller ones.

The sentiment stamp is called Heard from the Heart by Stampin’ Up! and I just love all the sentiments in this set.  I use a technique of white embossing on vellum cardstock to give the sentiment added interest without covering up all of the stamping underneath. Kristina Werner uses this technique a lot and it inspired me to try it myself.

As usual, please don’t forget to rate and subscribe to my YT Channel. Also, if you ‘follow’ my Facebook and Twitter pages, then you’ll always know when my next video/blog post is up. Hope you like the video. See you next time!