Addicted to Digital???

I've almost forgotten what it feels like to craft with actual paper and glue. All my craft creativity  right now is digital, working on this project - the scary thing is that I'm getting quite addicted. When I started out creating the CD Rom I thought I would be creating something for other people to use. Now, I've come to enjoy the images and style so much that I'm desperate to start using it as a real product.















I just love this Sumo wrestler, how about him on a card that says "Big Hugs" !

I just wanted you all to have another sneaky peak. I'm so excited about this project and can't wait to share it with the world. Remember, you saw it here first - LOL!

I'm still alive!

Just a really quick note to all to let you know I am still alive and well! So much is going in around here right now so I must apologise for abandoning Blogland so much lately. I'm still working, (but not for too much longer, hopefully, and have also started University full yime too. We are working really hard on the CD rom and it's staring to look really cool, I'm so pleased with some of the work, but that also means that all my time is used up. I've only ventured into my craft room to view the mess with horror over the last month and can't wait for a free day or two to play, just for the fun of it. I'll post some peeks later this week - promise. take care all x

coming along nicely...

I've really missed Blogland lately but there are only so many hours in a day, and so many of mine have been taken up with working on the CD rom. It's really coming along nicely and starting to take shape. I'm so pleased with how everything is looking and can't wait to share it with the world, I hope you all love it as much as we do. The main problem I'm having is we keep coming up with more "must haves" to include.
 Ofcourse there are lots of gorgeous girlie images but I know how hard it can be to come up with interesting cards for men and teen boys, so with that in mind I've included lots of Sumo wrestlers, Koi carp fish, birds and so much more. I thought I'd give you another little sneek peak.
 I'd love to know what you think so far. There's still a couple of days left to sign up, follow and leave a comment for a chance of the great goodie bag. x

My first scrap canvas

Have you ever tried using your craft skills for home decor? I love to do this. Why not have a try at some scrap canvas.
Simply take any box canvas, you can pick them up at so many places really cheaply. Then paint your background colour in acrylic paint, I used a lighter colour, then the blue and painted a crackle medium over the top.
The photo was mounted on navy cardstock and ripped and chalked the edges. You decorate however you like, ribbons, flowers, brads, accents - you choose. The wording was cut from a Cricut cartridge, I think it was Joys of the Season!
Soon, I'll post the gorgeous "secret" canvas I made with Lindsay Mason - keep tuned in.
Remember to sign up as a follower here on the blog, (you probably need to open a google account - some people have struggled a little to leave comments) and leave a comment telling us your name and the area where you live. There's a bumper blog candy up for grabs.
Any problems and you can email me at...notquitemarthastewart@hotmail.com
Good luck x

sign up, sign up

Wow, have things been crazy, crazy around here! The fun stuff that has been keeping me out of mischief is my new secrect project. It's a secret, but I'll tell you about it!!!  In my last post you were treated to a sneaky peaky at Kimoni, just one of the cute images on the CDrom I'm working on. Both me and my trusty techkie have been working almost non stop to get this together, and we love it. I hope you will too. We hope it will be ready in the Autumn.
As I'm sooo excited about this, I'm feeling particularly generous and decided to give one lucky person a huge bag of blog candy.  All I can tell you is it will be a host of  paper craft goodies. So, all you have to do is enter the draw by leaving a comment with your name and home town and then sign up as a follower on the blog.
A winner will be drawn at random at the end of August. So sign up and good luck x

what'cha think?

Hey everyone, it's been a while since I contributed to Blog Land. Things here have been crazy busy, after my small operation it took for ever to get rid of all the after effects, pain, tiredness and feeling completely doped up all day!! I'm fine now though, it's wonderful to now walk faster than the very elderly ladies that over took me a couple of weeks ago!?!
I did manage to get some serious scrapbook time behind me whilst in recovery mode and completed 2 ( yes I did say 2) albums of our 25th wedding anniversary cruise of last year.
Lots of stuff is going on at home too which has occupied most of my time, seriously, I would much rather be crafting than dealing with most of it.

Anyways,...onto the good stuff. I'm taking the plunge and venturing into the strange wild world of CDrom production. I know the card isn't anything too fancy, (it took all of 2 mins to put together) but take a look at the image, do you think she is as cute as we do? I had a whole load of digi stamps that I produced and with a massive amount of help from my baby son have started work on a cdrom full of them, complete with backing papers, sentiments and lots more.
So, we created the cute image and both the background papers. Now, this is just a little glimpse of what we have but I'd really like your feed back. What'cha think?

ooh lala

When my Beginners French class ended last week, I wanted to say a special thank you to our great teacher, Muriel. I knew months ago what kind I wanted to make and ofcourse, it had to have a French theme! I love pop up cards but had never made one before, so with a little help from Google I did it. Hope you like it.

The card itself, is a double sided A4 from Kanban which I scored and folded in half, making an A5 size card. Using a sheet of Papermania  Signature Chatsworth Vintage A5 pad, I wrapped it over the spine when the pop up part was complete, that way it covers all the holes! This paper is gorgeous and has a linen feel.

I adore this Martha Stewart lace punch, simple black card stock transformed!
The sentiment (Merci) is hand written inside a stamped label and then cut around and set with foam pads.

Check out on your search engine for tips on pop up cards, it's basically done by just making a couple of slits from the spine of the card inward to the length of where you want your object to pop up! By folding them inwards it creates a sort of step/stand for you to adhere your image to. Just make sure that before you cut or glue anything, fold it all flat and make sure all parts are concealed when the card is closed.
                                                

maybe you can see better in this picture?





The Eiffle tower is cut from Cricut Destinations cartridge. When doing a scene like this it's important to remember perspective, so the tower is cut at about the same height as the tree and the lampost which are in the middle ground. The railing and bike are in the foregound and are also large in comparison but it helps with the illusion of distance and depth of field - wow, doesn't that sound scientific!!!

The bike, railing, lampost and tree are all from the Cricut Heritage cartridge.











 I used some Glossy Accents to highlight and a little Stickles in green on the railings to give a more metallic impression. I was rather pleased with how it turned out, I almost didn't want to give it to her!!!

BYU Womens conference

You may remember a while ago I went to the states for a womens conferance. I had the most wonderful time and had the best girlie time ever.

 First I flew to L.A. to spend a couple of nights with my good friends then us girls, ( 5in total as we gave this cute lady a lift all the way to her son's house in Spanish Fork) drove to Provo, Utah. We all shared a room and laughed our socks off almost continuously. Two of the girls I'd known for over 20yrs, (mum Paula & daughter Mary) but I met their good friend Kitty just the day before we set off on our road trip. We hit it off straight away and bonded in our own little craft world, she has a black Cricut Expression which she won, I adored it!

The womens conferance is a 2 day event aimed, as you might guess, totally at women and our lives, issues and needs. There were literally dozens of sessions to choose from each morning and afternoon, each based on a scripture but applied in a realistic way to our time. Over 15,000 women attended. The Thursday night we were treated to a fab concert of great artists including Hillary Weeks (a beautiful voice and hillarious), Alex Boye (he is a storm),.......

In most of the sessions you could choose to complete a service project at the back of the session room. Here we decorated papier mache boxes, 500 were completed in just one day. They will be distributed around hospitals in the area to parents of still born babies as keepsakes. The hospitals put a photo and plaster cast hand/foot print in the box.

This was such a lovely service project, we made 5 between 3 of us. It was an experience I'll always treasure and hope to do again someday. Of course, I had to make a Thankyou card in advance and a birthday card for Mary. Here they are.

I used corrugated craft card, Kanban card and a downloadable image & sentiment that was then coloured with Promarkers. I blinged it up a little with some pearls and organza ribbon.

Again, Kanban card, Kanban topper, organza ribbon and acrylic stamped sentiments. I hand wrote..." sorry I missed your birthday - I was too busy shopping!"
I thought it was cute even though it was a real quickie card, hope you like it.
see you all soon x

Great Britain quilt

Now, I've heard it said you shouldn't rush a good thing and so I didn't. This little baby took me over a year to complete, but in my defence, I had a lot of "put it down till later" time.
Work demands and illness meant my project was put aside for weeks, sometimes months at a time.

This was my first patchwork quilt but I never like to do things the easy way. As I couldn't find a pattern for a Union Jack I had to make my own.

It was quite tricky to get all the "on point" work - (the corners or mitres) to line up but I was pleased with my efforts.

I made a big mistake in planning this quilt. I wanted a really comfy quilt and thought bigger was best so I chose the thickest batting (the wadding that goes in the middle of you quilt sandwiche) that I could buy. The problem was that it made it too thick to go through my sewing machine meaning I had to do all the quilting by hand, apart from the very edges.    

                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

This is how the quilting looks underneath - don't look too closely though, ok!

Acrylics

Wow, it's been an eventful time of late, not to mention having been on two holidays. I know that sounds extravigant, but really it wasn't - one was a mini break in Scotland and the other a well needed girlie week at Womens' Conferance. Consequently, my craft room is collecting a layer of dust, ( just to match the rest of the house), but to make up I'm going to show you 3 more paintings. There, I feel better already :)

This one is called "Walk to school" and features pupils of the Jolorabi school in Mombasa, Kenya.

sorry but the photos don't do the paintings justice. But it will give you the general idea.

This one is entitled, "Mzee" which is Kiswahili for old man or Grandfather.


All my paintings are acrylic on canvas

Have a great weekend x

Women don't fish...

Well, I haven't posted a sunday inspirational for a few weeks with being away in the states and then get the head cold from hell. I'll be busy this Sunday night too so here's a Wednesday night giggle instead. Have a great rest of the week.

Never Argue with a Woman

One morning, the husband returns the boat to their lakeside

cottage after several hours of fishing and decides to take a nap.

Although not familiar with the lake, the wife decides to take the boat out.

She motors out a short distance, anchors, puts her feet up,

and begins to read her book.

The peace and solitude are magnificent.

Along comes a Fish and Game Warden in his boat..

He pulls up alongside the woman and says, 'Good morning, Ma'am. What are you doing?'

'Reading a book,' she replies, (thinking, 'Isn't that obvious?')

'You're in a Restricted Fishing Area,' he informs her.

'I'm sorry, officer, but I'm not fishing. I'm reading.'

'Yes, but I see you have all the equipment.

For all I know you could start at any moment.

I'll have to take you in and write you up.'

'If you do that, I'll have to charge you with sexual assault,' says the woman.

'But I haven't even touched you,' says the Game Warden.

'That's true, but you have all the equipment.

For all I know you could start at any moment.'

'Have a nice day ma'am,' and he left.

 

MORAL:

Never argue with a woman who reads.

It's likely she can also think.

Sneak preview

Ok, you know I told you that I was gonna be designing for http://www.thepapertrailco.co.uk/. Well, I thought I'd let you in on a very sneaky preview of some of the digistamp designs I'm working on. Right now they are just my art work but pretty soon we will have them as a complete range with backing papers and sentiments to match. Keep checking at The Paper Trail co. as we are releasing new stuff regularly. Hope you like these images, and do let me know if there is a range you'd like to see us do.

Mother's pride

A couple of years ago I decided to have a go at painting on canvas. All the paintings I did were based on actual photos I took on trips to Kenya. This painting is on an 8x8 canvas. Sorry about the sheen on the photo, hope you like it - thought it would make  a change!

What a journey...

Wow, what a trip! I just got back from a real whistle stop visit to America. I flew into Los Angeles last Monday and after sleeping 2 nights in my trailer, (I felt like a movie star - just needed my name on the door, LOL), we (5 ladies) drove in the most enormous truck all the way to Provo, Utah.

Some of our conversations were indeed surreal. I'll never look at a soup terreen or a cookie jar the same way, might not sound much but we were talking about cremations, so I'll speak no more on the subject!?! Suffice to say we laughed till we actually hurt, my friend Paula thought she'd pulled a muscle in her side.
Four nights in Utah and we drove all the way back, 1 night in my trailer and back to the airport I went. FYI, if I never have to run across Atlanta airport in heels again as long as I live it will still be too soon! I almost missed my connection, TWICE! About 20hrs later I arrive home.

We had gone to Provo for the BYU Womens Conference...if you ever have the chance to go then you really should. We had the most amazing time, we were uplifted, counseled, laughed and bonded in a way that just wouldn't other wise have happened. We also experience almost every known weather in the western world - sometimes on the same day, sun, sleet, snow, wind!

I made this card before I went on my amazing trip but I guess this suits my mood tonight.

The background paper, digi stamp and sentiment are all from the Cheeky Monkey CD from the Papertrail Company.
The link is just below the picture. The frame is on mirricard and cut out using Cricut's Heritage cartridge. I used my Promarkers to colour the image.

A great card for anyone either going on a trip, starting a new adventure in their lives or to someone who justs need some encouragement to be brave.
When I get my trip pictures uploaded I'll be sure to let you all have a peek. Have a great week and as Tim Holtz always says...Enjoy the journey!
http://www.thepapertrailco.co.uk/

Have a blast

I wanted to quickly show you this card I made before (hopefully) jetting off to the States. I'm so thankful my prayers have been answered and the cloud has lifted (or been reclassified or whatever?).

The spotty card and space effect card are both Kanban. The rocket and sentiment are both from the Cheeky monkey CD from http://www.thepapertrailco.co.uk/ who I have started designing for. Hope you like it and I'll be back to Blogland in about a week or so.

No straight lines

Last year we celebrated our silver wedding...wow, I said that outloud, didn't I. It makes me feel really old to have been married 25 years. All I will say further on the matter is that I was obviously a child bride! We cruised the Med and had a blast, and we had the opportunity to spend a couple of days in Barcelona, Spain. I finally got around to scrapbooking some of the photos, here are some of the pages showing our trip to Park Guell which was designed by Antoni Gaudi, (the park -  not the scrapbook pages!!!)

I tried to choose the colours on the cardstock and paper to give the feel of the weird architecture of the place. The roof of the building to the right was designed to look like a dragon's back. That's why I chose to use a dragon as an embellishment. My dragon is from the Cricut Happily Ever After cartridge and I jazzed him up with Stickles.

The lettering is from Cricut's Zooballoo cartridge.

The little Iguana is also from Zooballoo  - I love him! He reminds be of the creature I'm seen canoodling up to.

One thing is for sure.....Goudi definately didn't do straight lines!

Happy Birthday bunting

Nothing shouts party more than bunting, don't you think? I love bunting, I even have it in both the babies bedrooms. Every summer we know it's time for the village fair when the yards and yards of bunting  is strung up lining the main road. Well, I've been threatening to make some for ages and when I saw these fab Monogram letters on http://www.thepapertrailco.co.uk/  I know I had my chance.

The scallops were cut using Accent Essentials Cricut cart and embossed with a Sizzix Swiss Dots folder. All the backing papers were also from the Papertrail Company too.