Craft Room at last

This week crafting has been put on hold to try and organise my craft room. The best thing about moving house is that I have the whole dining room to dominate with crafting stuff.

However, it was only when I moved that I realised just how much crafting stuff I possess. Finding homes for it all has been somewhat... challenging. However, it is finally starting to take shape. At some point I hope to paint the whole room white so that I can hang up some bits and bobs and they will be a focus point in the room. Til then, I am content to just keep tidying my shelves.

DVD case labels

As diversionary tactic to avoid doing preparations for my Open House event tomorrow, I decided to make some labels for our extensive DVD collection. To keep storage to a minimum we've removed every DVD from its plastic box and put it into a neat little DVD case. The only problem is that we now have 4 cases on the go. This has meant that it's potluck which case you'll get when you pick one, although we had kept them in strict order, strict rules are not something I am good a keeping to!
So the labels... I used more chipboard and covered them with leftover pieces of coordinating paper. The labels were printed haphazardly with individual letter stamps and then mounted on contrasting paper. Ribbons and buttons were added for texture. The ribbon attaching the labels to the cases was wire ribbon so it's extra sturdy and then labels don't flap about too much. Hey presto! A simple but effective bit of organisation.

Candle gift

I made this gift last night for friends who have just had a new fireplace installed. I simply took a plain inexpensive candle and added transfers (from Stampin' Up! of course!!) and then tied a ribbon bow. To make it more of a gift I made a little base for it to stand on from chipboard and leftover orange patterned papers. The cellophane and ribbon toppers finished it off. I was really pleased with the final result. A nice, completely personal but inexpensive gift.

Confetti craftings

Yesterday I had a craft fest. I got out all those odds and ends that get put to one side for a rainy day and did something with them. Among the pile I found my Confetti scrapbooking kit from Stampin' Up! that had been sorely neglected since April when I got it. So it was put to good use. I only have half the kit but I still made 10 cards with plenty leftover. A really good value pack, you have to agree.
Here are a couple of my finished items. I even made a start on my Christmas cards but I will save them for a future post.

Things are looking good for my Open House on this Sunday so please let me know if you can attend.

Summer Challenge

This summer you can a project and submit it to Stampin' Up! and you could win a fantastic prize! First prize is a huge £150 worth of stamp sets, and second and third prize is £50 worth of stamp sets.

The rules are simple:

• Projects must be created only from products in the current UK Stampin' Up! Catalogue 2008-2009
• Only one project per person will be accepted
• Projects can be cards, home decor, scrapbook pages or 3D items
• The project must be summer themed
• Projects must be unique and created for the competition only
• You must include a list of products used in your project
• You must submit your full details when submitting your project (name, address, email and phone number)
• Projects will not be returned as they may be displayed on the Stampin' Up! website or at Stampin' Up! events.

The deadline for submissions is 31 August 2009.

If you need any more information or have any questions let me know. Have fun crafting this summer and good luck!!!!!

Sad news

I have just heard that one of my favourite magazines is to stop being published. I have read Memory Makers for years. I rang to say I'd moved house and they said it didn't matter at Aug/Sept is scheduled to be that last edition printed.

It's just so sad. What has happened to it?

More Christmas in July

More Christmas goodies from last weekend. The obligatory poo-jokes will now come out, as you can see there is some snowman poo!!! Rather like my magic reindeer poo that I made last Christmas.

The other photo shows a card I am proud of. It's an acetate card. I had never made an acetate card and was not sure about it, but I am really pleased with the result. I also enjoyed making the ribbon on it all glittery. Extremely festive!!!

Now I really must start my own Christmas cards. i went into my craftroom yesterday with that intention, but then I saw some boxes of 'stuff' that I had not unpacked yet from moving house and started unpacking that. 2 hours later I was shattered (but more tidy) and no cards had been made! Hey ho, maybe today will fare better.

Christmas in July

One of the major themes of the weekend was Christmas. We had a great laugh pretending it's Christmas and it felt very surreal to wake up the next morning and realise it's not even NEARLY Christmas! Here are some Christmas cards that we made using one of the Simply Scrappin' kits from Stampin Up! The kits are fantastic value as I made these cards with less than a quarter of the pack and so I have lots more ready to go when I get Christmas cards going properly.

NB. Apologies for the weirdness of the photos - I don't know why the computer keeps turning them the wrong angle when they're uploaded because they are the right way around on My Pictures!

Gifts

Here are some more pictures from the last weekend. The package with the butterfly on it was a gift from the 'pillow fairy'. Although I didn't stay over for the retreat I was presented with this the next morning. It looks so sweet! It's a candle on a tile. The tile has been stamped with a Fresh Cuts stamp in brown Staz On ink.

The other photo shows a project we made on Sunday. It's a box set of hand scrub and foot scrub. We even had a demo of how to make the scrubs before we constructed our boxes. I can't wait to make some more of these as gifts this winter.

Retreat

It has been a long while since I went on a craft retreat... since October 2008 in fact. So I was really excited about this one. It was run by Natalie O'Shea, Mrs Wonka & Monica.

We all had a great time. This the the first class that Monica ran on Saturday. We used some lovely colours and the crayons, which was a nice gentle start!

I was really proud of the 3D flowers as I had never made mine look good before. The secret is... water.

Birthday Cards

It's that time of year when everyone seems to have something to celebrate. Today I've focused on birthday cards. I enjoyed playing with my new stamp set and using pens, pastels and aquapainters to colour the images. Nothing like a bit of glitter too!