Oh I have been a very, very, naughty blogger! I can't believe my last post was in April, where has the year gone. In my defence, I've been a trifle busy, Christmas designs, magazine projects, a whole new range of premium card toppers, not to mention the website and a hectic schedule of papercraft shows.

Now the show season has finished and I can say a fond farewell to the A1, (most of our shows were at the other end of the country), I have plans, dangerous I know, to tell the devil too many of your plans but I'm getting used to life on the edge. In the coming weeks I'm hoping to post some projects on the blog, cards I've created for class and magazines. I've go our flickr account up and running with lots of card samples to give you inspiration, just click on the tab in the top horizontal menu bar of the website.

All the new products are now online including our brand new range of Toppers. Printed on uncoated bright white 325gsm card there are 12 designs in all, some old favourites and some brand new Characters to make you smile, available at the special introductory price of £1.00 until Christmas.

We have also added some Acid Drop gifts to the website, Fridge magnets and Key rings. They make a great stocking filler for your friends and family, or as a little something for yourself,. Just £2.25 for the fridge magnet and £1.99 for the keyring. I should, at this point, say a big thank you to Bekki for pointing out that one of the key rings was missing a decimal point on the website and was listed for the ambitious price of £199.00, just a tad overpriced I think you'll agree.


So please visit the website, check out the changes and our brand new sample tab and I'll start beavering away on the projects.

Have a good weekend,
Karen

New Designs No Available Online

In True last minute style the new sets arrived just in time to code and price them before we set off for Alexandra Palace. 4 of the 5 new sets are now available on the website and the 5th new set should be with us very soon.

I'd like to say a big thank you to every one who stopped by our stand at the show it was great to meet and talk to you all and your enthusiasm makes sitting welded to my computer a lot easier. Any one who knows me, knows I hate technology, computers and anything electronic and escaping to the shows makes it all worthwhile. I also have to give a big thank you to Elaine who bravely volunteered to help me on the Saturday, (which turned out to be our busiest day ever), as Niki had only flown back from the Peruvian Jungle the day before. Elaine jumped in with both feet and took to it like a natural, hopefully we will be able to persuade her to come to more shows in the future.

Niki made it in on Sunday, jet lagged and tired but ready for action, I'm hopefully going to persuade her to write a piece about her jungle adventures and the very good work she is involved with there setting up school and medical facilities for village children in the rainforest.

Our next show will be in Bury St Edmunds, details can be found at the top of the page or on our events page. We should have the 5th new design with us in time for that. We also have new stocks of the Ornamental Frames set ADFB1 and AD38 Dressed to kill.

Class Project Wednesday April 10th Box Book With Secret Drawer

I got a little carried away this week with the box, book and bag class I promised, even though I missed out the bag! I saw the basis for this project in a magazine, a box book with a soft cover and a secret drawer for sweets inside and my mind started working. The end result is a Book style box with a hard chipboard cover and a windowed drawer that contains another hard cover accordion book inside and a photo frame on the opposite flap.

This is a very simple project although the finished result doesn't reflect that, the kit comes, as always, with a set of full colour instructions and all the templates needed. The covers of the book are made with pre covered chipboard which takes a lot of the donkey work out of it. In the class there should be time enough to finish the book box including cover, box, drawer and frame.

 There will be enough materials to complete the book at home if you don't finish in the class, or you may want to leave the drawer empty and use it a gift box for a very special present. There is also a choice of boards available  to choose from and a very good value kit. I really enjoyed making this project and after class it will be a gift to my mother as a memento of the day we went and flew owls and hawks.

As always the class is held at; The Old Fire Station in Hockley, Essex, it starts at 7pm and finishes around 9.30pm. The cost is still £10 and includes all materials need to make the box, full colour instructions, templates, use of our tools and of course refreshments. I will also bring some craft goodies for you to purchase. This class is an easy class and is suitable for all skill levels. If you fancy having coming along and meeting other like minded people in a fun and friendly environment just drop me an email at karenosborne99@gmail.com   we still have a few places left.

Wednesday's Class Projects

 I promised the girls an inky stampy class with an antique distressed feel, and I've had fun playing around with my stamp collection and my distress pads. The purple butterfly card is using a Crafty individuals stamp and a very old stamp wording stamp by Laura Ashley. The butterflies are spot embossed with Holographic embossing powder.

 This second card is also using a Crafty Individuals stamp as well as a Sandy lion Kelly Pannaci set and a very old Stampington bottles stamp. I never throw anything away, which is good when it comes to having a wide variety of stamps and papers but not so good when it's taken over the entire house!

The last card is made with one of my favourite images, the PSX postcard stamp. See, I told you I never throw anything, I don't know if it's just me, but PSX stamps are so timeless. The images are so delicate and well drawn and the construction always makes me want to stroke them. I had a customer once who bought loads and loads of PSX stamps, she never stamped with them, they all lived in display cases that her husband made and she got a lot of enjoyment just looking at them. I still have and still use, my first ever PSX stamp, the large Pansy botanical that I bought well over 15 years ago. It's battered and blackened, but to me that doesn't matter as it shows the Stirling service it has given me over the years of classes and cardmaking and demo's. It's seen changing styles and techniques in stamping and colouring, it's been plumped, decoupaged, stamped into ultra thick embossing powder, you name it and it's done it. What's your favourite stamp of all and why?

My favourite way to spend the day

OOOOH I've been having fun today. I've been hard at work designing some new sets. 2 new sets and new batches of our ever popular ornamental frames and Alegenon are all ready at the factory and I've worked up 3 new sets which will hopefully follow them shortly. They are currently burning a hole in Niki's inbox. Keep your fingers crossed!

Harrogate, Hail and Soggy Soggy Lemurs

Well we're back from Harrogate and we seem to have brought the weather with us. It was a really great show and it was lovely to meet so many nice enthusiastic crafters. The journey home was another matter, mist, snow and heavy rain all the way home, (4 1/2 hours), unloading the car was a very soggy business. Monday dawned bright and clear and although I felt I could sleep for a week, I had to drag my sorry carcass out of bed early as my sister was taking us to the zoo, (for anyone old enough, I know it sounds like a song), to have a lecture on the monkey collection and hand feed the lemurs. It was sunny to start with but as soon as we got to the zoo, down came the rain in lashing torrents. When the rain had given us it's best shot the hailstones took over. Thankfully the lemurs where more concerned with their furry little stomachs than getting wet and came out to crawl all over us, brilliant!

Just a quick update

Yaaaaaaa! I've just got my laptop back, shame it's a bit late to post anything exciting. I'm just getting ready to set off tomorrow for Harrogate, so If you're going to GNPS please stop by and say Hi. I've just confirmed some more bookings for the coming months, here's a quick run down, I'll post more details shortly. We are going to Stamp Magic in Doncaster in June, Happy stampers Northwest in Port Sunlight in May and Newbury in July. Not forgetting Alley Palley and Bury St Edmunds.