My First Ever Blog!!

Well this is my first ever blog!  I have seen lots of blogs over the past few months while researching for inspiration for crafts, looking for products, etc.  But I never thought to do one myself.  Infact I didn't even know how to set one up! So I thought there's no time like the present, I googled "blogs" and found Blogspot :-) I'm not very technically minded; I made my websites more through luck then judgement, so please bear with me as I'm still learning!

I think I will start by showing you some of my creations from the past few months...


My Gorjuss Girls...

These cards were the first ones I ever made using rubber stamps. I fell in love with Sugar Nellie's Gorjuss girls after seeing a decoupage pack in The Range.  I had to get some stamps! So I bought Bumble Bee and Party Princess from Funky Kits. I didn't have a die cut machine or anything at the time.  To obtain the lettering took me aaaages!  I stamped each letter onto paper stock and then cut out each one using scissors and a craft knife!  It took me about 5 hours for each card!

On the "Naomi" card I made a small mistake on the right hand side at the top.. I cut the card too short, so I made the tab with Happy Birthday on it.  I didn't think about how I would fit it in the envelope which proved impossible!  Luckily it was for my lovely friend and I gave it to her in person, so the envelope wasn't needed.  I was so excited about giving her it that I forgot to write in it!!  I put so much work into my cards that writing in them was really an after-thought!  That's the thing with handmade cards. They take so much time, and so much creativity goes into them, they are like a gift in itself.  They come from the heart and shows so much personality through them.

Beautiful Butterflies

After making cards for a while I started to get lots of orders from friends, family and neighbours.  I decided I could no longer make personalised cards the way I was, with the stamping for the letters.  It was taking far too long.  I had also started making memory boxes and had to buy die cut outs from people off the internet to use as decorations as I had no way of doing them myself. I decided it was time to buy myself a Die Cut machine.  There were so many on the market and I really didn't have a clue, so I drove the 30 miles to my nearest Hobbycraft store where I found the new Sizzix eclips being demonstrated.  After looking at many of the others I decided the eclips was more value for money, since you get so many designs on each cartridge.  I was sold!

This Beautiful Butterflies card was made using my eclips on an 8x8 card. For the border I used Martha Stewart's Punch around the page in Butterflies.  I used pink card stock with spotted vellum for the backing.  I finished it off with punched butterflies sitting atop of some papermania flowers.

I was also asked to make another one of these in Burnt orange, so I came up with this one...