Hello all my crafty friends,long time no see.

Sorry I have not posted for some time ,but as you know time flies by especially when so much is going on in your life.

Family life just seems so busy at the moment ,and there never seems enough hours in the day.

I have finally set myself some goals today, and one was to catch up on my blogging,so here I am .

As you may or may not know I am part of a craft group in Lowton ,Warrington in the UK.

We meet up every other Wednesday, and we have a small demo/craft along with all the members.

We have been concentrating on papercrafts and have been making a range of boxes,bags and various embellishments.

We have also had Rachel, another member, show us how to make fabric embellishments, this was a great session ,but up to now I do not have any photies to show you all.

Time ran short at this session so I never managed to take the photographs as I usually do

 Hopefully I will get some at the next meeting and I will post them for you .

I know a couple of the ladies complted cards with these ,so I will try and get some photographs off them all.

Once again THANK YOU Rachel, the session was brilliant.

The pictures below are from the previous session,so please accept my appologies for not posting them sooner.

This was the style of boxes and bags that I had done at the prevoius session, and two ladies brought the ones in that they had made at home.

Jackie W made the ones below ,I do not know how she never managed to eat the choccies she had put inside them.

The little flat bag would you believe was a plain old envelope, and I showed the members how to make them into little decorated bags.

I am sure you will agree that Jackies bag is gorgeous and has a lovely country style feel to it.

.

 Michelle another member brought her baskets in ,which she had also made at home.

They too where gorgeous,and it was fantastic to see that the ideas from the group have been used at home .

I love the way in both the members had adapted the original baskets,boxes and bags which I had demonstrated to them.

It shows that everyone has their own crafting style and I just love this.

I have also been doing a little crafting,unfortunatley not too much this week.I have been having problems with my joints so have had to cut down on my crafting as they where causing me so much pain.

Here are the cards that I have made ,do hope you like them?

These are the large 8 x 8" cards which I have used a variety of stamping tecniques on.

Well everyone I will try to make sure that I keep up with my blogging ,and now I am off to watch the film Hoodwinked with my son.So goodnight, and will catch up with you all hopefully at the end of the week.
Nighty,Night and take care Xxxxxxxx

Beautiful Butterflies-Stampin Up Style

Hi All

Sorry I have not been in blog land for a while,but hopefully you will love what I have to show you today.

Well we have to start with the wheather,thats what us Brits are known for.
It wouldn't be a conversation if the wheather wasn't mentioned.
This morning was lovely and bright, and it really stopped me feeling down in the dumps,but alas this did not continue.This afternoon we saw grey clouds appear ,and it has now started raining.
My little Westy dog has just poked his nose out of the patio doors ,felt the rain reversed,sighed and went to his bed.He does look rather sad now.......Poor Westy dog.......

You may well be wondering why I am mentioning butterflies in the title,well I thought with spring close by, we may well be seeing butterflies in the next couple of weeks.With this being a couple of weeks away my next best thing was to show you the not quite so real butterfly stamps which come from STAMPIN UP.

Although these are not real,they look truly amazing  and are perfect for all your crafty needs The styles are perfect for all sorts of papercrafting ,and with the with the stunning collections of the Stampin Up inks they look amazing in whatever colour they are stamped in.

Below are a number of stamps that are from the main STAMPIN UP  Catalogue page 115,this set has 7 stamps,excellent value for money,great versatlity.
I have used various STAMPIN UP ink colours to give you an idea what they look like when stamped.

A BIG BONUS is that the stamps also have a matching punch which are so easy to use, and they cut out the butterflies perfectly.I personally struggle cutting out perfectly ,but the punches save me having messy edges.

Stampin Ups Swallowtail super large stamp  has the WOW factor,you literally only need this stamp and it fills a card.Decorate with all sorts of mediums from chalks ,water paints ,glitters this stamp gives you great value for money.

If you like the look of these stamps and are close to Warrington why not pop into our crafty friends Craft group this coming Wednesday.The stamps will be out for you to have a look at and for you to have  give them a go.You can see the full address at the top of this page including times.

BELOW is the large Stampin Up SWALLOWTAIL STAMP which is stunning and is a favourite order of many people.I used the Stampin Up ink pad as my water colour palette and I was so pleased with how it turned out.
This stamp is on page 18 of the mini summer STAMPIN UP catalogue and well worth every penny at only £12.95.

Do hope you have enjoyed looking at these beautiful butterflies,they may not be real,but they are gorgeous little beauties and well worth adding to your crafty stash.Butterflies are a crafters dream and I know they are part of many peoples crafty stashes.

Hope you are all having a lovely weekend ,and hopefully I will be back mid week to show your the makes from the CRAFTY FRIENDS group this coming Wednesday.

Take care and speak soon.
TTFN

Making an Origami Box In Craft group Warrington

Hi Everyone

 Just a quick post to say thank you to all the lovely ladies who came along to the crafty friends craft meetup in Lowton, Warrington today.
We all had a lovely morning ,chatting,crafting and swapping ideas.
Our group is for all sorts of crafts from papercafts to knitting,quilting,jewellery making and so much more.

This morning I did a CRAFT ALONG showing how to make origami paper boxes which I just love making. You can do so much with a box, dress it, and decorate it in 1001 ways.

The ladies who joined in where really pleased with their end result, and no doubt there home will have many boxes in different rooms.
Come on ladies let me have some phtographs of all the boxes you will now be making..................

Below are the boxes I made as samples for this mornings session ,and do hope you like them.They are perfect for all sorts of storage, from favours, to keeping you earings or small crafty bits and pieces in.

 Below are the boxes in close up ,the white box has beem embossed using embossing folders, and the top has been decorated with faux pearls and paper spiral roses, and edged in irridescent glitter.
The sides have been finished off with sheer oranza ribbon, and a co ordinating green faux mini buckle.

 The next 3 boxes I have decorated using the STAMPIN UP SECRET GARDEN STAMP SET which I usesd in a variation of ways from stamping with my stampin up ink pads in a selction of the most up to date colours.I have heat embossed the silver and pink box ,but it is the same flower that is in the set.

This stamp set is such a useful set, and you can do so much with it.
You can even get the matching dies  which cut out the stamped images for you which is fantastic if you stuggle with cutting out small bits.

If you come along to the group and would like to see these stamps please just ask and of course you can have a try out with them.I know you will be so impressed withese stamps.

Hope to put another post up within the next couple of days so don't forget visit us again in the near future.
Take care and speak soon.

Anyone For Tea And Paper Roses

Hi All (Jackie Here)

Have you ever typed your little heart out, and then all your writing diasappears ,well that has just happened to me ARGHHH ....... so frustrating.

Think I will definately need a cup of tea, and a bit of relaxing music to destress me now,take a deep breath Jackie and count to ten ...uhmmmmm.

Well our second CRAFTY FRIENDS MEETUP is nearly upon us ,yes, it is this WEDNESDAY 27 TH FEB 2013 .How the last ten days have flown, where have they gone to?
If you know, would you please let me know.

I have had so many new enquiries about our group so it looks like we will have an expanding group this Wednesday.Both Sue and myself  are so happy that there are so many people out there who would like to join us, and we are really looking forward to putting faces to emails and phone calls.

May I say a big thank to Sue for the lovely parchment card she made for myself and family on becoming a grandma to Evie-Grace my first grand child.It was beautiful and I may frame it as it is too lovely to put away in a box somewhere.Below is the card she made and you can see it is beautiful,it was graciously recieved.

This week I will ge giving a mini demo on how to make floral embellishments which do not cost the earth,but at the same time can be so effective, and can be used on so many projetcs.

I will bring along SAMPLES on how I have used them, and this perhaps will give some ideas on how to use them yourselves.
Below is a GENUINE VINTAGE TEACUP SET which I have made into a sweet pincushion, and have embellished with the paper roses which I will be making for you at our next meetup.

In the coming weeks I will be making this TEACUP(see below) as a "CRAFT A LONG SESSION" which I will tell you all about at the meeting and in the blog in the week.

If anyone is interested in making this just let me know, or remind at the group so I can let you have all the information about it.

Our newsletter will hopefully be put together for the 13th March Session,so if anyone knows of any good crafting type shops including wool,materials etc just let us know.
This could also be any good websites, as so many people shop on line these days.
If you could email them over ,or jot them down on a piece of paper for our next meetup we will make sure they are added to the newsletter.

Off to have my lunch now so will speak again soon,but please come back and visit us.
Why not add a comment at the end of this post just so we know we are not talking to ourselves.
 If you would like to add a comment, but are struggling just drop us a line and of course we will always help you.

Take Care

Jackie x

First Week Of Jan 1013 ,Some Of My Craft Projects

Hi Everyone (Jackie here)

Can you believe it ,we have nearly got through the first week January 2013.Doesn't time fly by,especially when you are having fun hee hee .......
Hope the new year has got off to a good start for all my blogg friends, and of course my real life friends.

Has anybody made a new years resolution ?
Perhaps you have, and you have alreay broken it.

I gave up many years ago having new years resolution as it put so much pressure on me ,especially as I had such high expectations of myself.I suppose I am a bit of a perfectionist at things, and if I never achieve the high standards I put on myself it gets me very frustrated, and I think I am a failure.
However since not having set myself such resolutions I seem to be able to get through Christmas and new year a little easier as I know I will not be making high expections every new year.

If you have made one, and you are sticking to it well done to you  all,I admire you all greatly.

Isn't it so dull and grey at the moment(in the uk) it really dampens my mood.Even when you are out shopping no one seems to be smiling ,they all look so glum and down in the dumps.You can probably tell ,I am not a winter person at all, and suffer from SAD .I am looking forward to spring as the days are lighter and maybe a little less grey and miserable.

Rain, Rain go away, was what I was thinking this morning.My little westy dog just doesn't seemed bothered by the rain ,he loves sitting in the garden watching all the birds and cats go by,only when I rattle the fridge door does he bolt in as he thinks it is a treat for him.Below is westy on the prowl when we had to have the drains sorted out in our garden last year.It had been raining non stop ,but he thought it was great fun and even tried to do a bit a digging himself.
HONESTLY does he think he is a dog or something mmmmmm..........?

 

 Well I have been crafting over Christmas and new year, and have been teaching myself new tecniques for paper crafting as well as little bits for many of my other crafty addictions.

I am trying to organise myself for the start of our NEW CRAFT GROUP which we will be starting very shortly.My friend Sue is still helping out her daughter who has just had a new baby baby on Christmas day so it will be good to chat to her again as I have missed our crafty meetups.We had been meeting up in her house for a number of months ,but now we hopefully have out new crafty venue sorted out. which we can all enjoy at the end of January 2013 .

(We now have a new venue sorted out for our meetups in Warrington /Wigan please see full details on top right hand corner of the home page)

Here are a couple of my handcrafted projects ,I did have a lot of photies,but we bought a new computer and I thought I had backed them all up.Alas I have not seemed to have done it correctly and cannot find them anywhere so will have to start all over once again.

I made this cake stand myself, drilled the holes into vintage plates and saucers and attached vintage style supports and handle in a gold colour.

Below is the same cake stand with various handcrafted decorations displayed on it.

The TOP TIER of the cakestand has handcrafted flowers which I made from a magazine that had some free papers with it.I used various colours and some have fancy edges and others have centre beads.They do look really cute on the top of the stand and everyone who comes to my house always has to pick them up as they are wondering how they are made.

The SECOND TIER are gorgeous cup cakes, but not the eating sort.They are scented bathbombs in the shapes of cakes ,they do look so life like you just have to pick them up to have a smell.They where bought for me as a Christmas present and where from a lady who makes handcrafted soaps.

The BOTTOM TIER  has four boxes made by myself in true origami style with no gluing just just folding and creasing.The toppers are little rosettes made on my hougie board and finished of with various embellishements from ribbon bows,stamping and glazing to sprinkled centre beads.

BELOW are pictures of the boxes and flowers in close up .

 

Do hope you have enjoyed a little glimpse of my handcrafted items that I make,they are not hard to make and using up scraps of crad and paper is the perfect way to make great embellishments like these.

I would Love To Hear Your COMMENTS about my blog so why not leave me a message so I don't feel as though I am the only one in blog world .

I will be DEMONSTRATING these type of items at our craft group so if you fancy seeing how they are made why not join us for an afternoon of crafty fun.

If you live in the WIGAN/WARRINGTON or surrounding areas why not join us on a Wednesday morning for a couple of hopurs crafting and socialising.(see where we meet on the top tight hand side of the home page)

If you need any further info just contact us at jackeanne@yahoo.co.uk or missdefied17@yahoo.co.uk and we will always get back to you.

Will chat again soon so nighty night everyone.

Nearly Vintage Craft Magazine (2004 Practical Crafts Mag)

Hello Friends new and old   (Jackie here)

Thought I would give you all a bit of a chuckle ,especially as it is nearly a new year.As you may have read I have been crafting for many years now, and have been seriously papercrafting from abput 2004.

This was the year that I thought I would have a go at stamping and heat embossing.Well how things have moved on since then,I used to heat set my powders over the gas ring as I had never heard of heat guns at that point.Where they around then ,I would love to know?

I suppose I am a bit of a hoarder,and have kept the very first craft magazine that I bought in 2004 ,all in tact even with the FREEBIE still attached to the front. I know I am a bit sad ,but I always keep anything to do with crafting.
Below is the magazine itself ,not too sure when it stopped being printed will have to do some research on that one in the next couple of days.

It was the November edition so I suppose I must have bought it for ideas,I am always on the look out for new ideas.How styles have changed from the decorations themselves to the style and the layout of the magazine.

I love the paper cut trees ,I know paper cuts are very much back in at the moment for all special occasions and are very popular for wedding invites.This would have been all done by hand,now all the new cutting cutting machines could do this in a minute or two.How times have moved on in eight years.

Hope you have enjoyed a little bit of nostalgia from the crafting world.I thought this was appropriate with the new year not many hours away.I wonder what the new year holds for the crafting year of 2013.
What do you think will be trendy ,I would love to hear your ideas so why not leave them in the comments box for us to have a look at.

TTFN
And all the very best for 2013 and look forward to chatting soon.

Off to have a go at one of my new cricut cartridges that I got for Christmas ,will post my makes once they are completed.

Sues New Baby(So Baby Crafts Are Needed.)

Hi All  (Jackie Here)

Where you all a bit curious about Sues news? Well the wonderful news is that Sue has a new baby in her family, and NO it is not Sue who has had the baby (I know Sue will be chuckling at this  thought heeee.......)

DAA DAA Sue is now a proud Nannie ,hope that it is what she said she was going to be called ,I am sure Sue will correct me If I am wrong.Sues daughter had a baby girl on Christmas day and weighed in just over 7 lbs sorry to too sure of the metric weight.I hope that Sue will send me over a photograph in the next week or so.
Sue is helping her daughter for a couple of weeeks, and I am sure her daughter will be most grateful for this as new  babies can be hard work.Sues daughter will appreciate mum taking care of new babe for a couple of hours so she can catch up on sleep.Everything always seems a little better when you are not sleep deprived doesn't it?

I have a relative whos birthday is on Christmas day and he has always hated it as he says he gets a raw deal when it comes to pressies ,as his are always the 2 in 1 presents,Christmas and birthday combined.
Mind you ,you just cannot choose when you are going to be born ,can you?

With our Wigan and Warrington craft group starting in the new year, we can now apply ourselves to learning new tecniques for personalised baby gifts.I will have to get my thinking head on for some of the demos which we could link into baby /children gift crafts.

Before I go may I just take this opportunity to congratulate both Sues daughter and partner on the birth of their new baby daughter, and to say congratulations to Sue in becoming a Nannie(check that one for you for next post)

The phone is ringing ,my little Westy is barking his head off at the phone ringing so will say good bye until tomorrow and I am off to answer the phone now.
I know its early,but night night to you all.

JUST A QUICK ONE....
Where you born on Christmas day or know somebody who was ,why not tell us how they feel about it as it would be so interesting to know their feelings about pressies etc..Tell us in the comment box below we would love to hear from you..

Now I am gone..........