New Page, New Toys!

I've had a busy week, but today I had some fun and have made a new Scrap Page.  It was inspired by Shimelle's Challenge, to scrap with Aqua, Red and White:

I embellished it with hand-stencilled designs, using white Conte crayon.  I also made some embellishments with hand-cut lino stamps.  They all came out pretty well. 

I'm pleased with this one - another for my "Me" album, which has about 4 pages now... Time I actually put them in an album together, I think!

It was a good afternoon to be in my studio.  This was the weather outside (after a morning of bright sunshine, when I was stuck indoors!) -

Yes, that is a small flood you can see on the road!

Luckily it cleared up after a couple of hours and the sun came out again before bed-time!

While I was in my studio, watching the rain, I played with my new toys!! EEEEE.... I am excited to announce the arrival of....

A die-cutting/ embossing machine!

I got this today at a local scrapping shop called, Stamp Addicts.  They are a great shop and stock their own ranges of rubber stamps and crafting materials, along with a good selection of other stamps, papers, embellishments, inks, paints, tools etc, etc... They have an online shop where you can get a lot of their stuff. 

Anyway, they have had a special promotion during August and I got this today.  I'm really happy about it, as I already had this - 

- and needed a die-cutter/embossing machine to make it work.

I spent an hour or so experimenting.

The Cuttlebug included this little set of embossing dies, which I had fun trying out.  As you can see, they produce a really nice, crisp imprint.  I did another on a thinner paper though, which didn't come out well; so obviously a good quality paper is best. 

I also had this Sizzix embossing folder, which I got free with a magazine about 100 years ago.  The brass stencil is good for hand-embossing, but I wanted to see how it came out on the embossing machine.  After a bit of experimenting, and making my own packing sheet from a piece of medium-weight card, I got a really nice impression - as you can see.

Encouraged by the success of the Sizzix die, I tried out a rubber mat I had bought along with the Cuttlebug, which is designed to allow you to use the brass stencils you get for embossing by hand. 

I tried a couple of brass stencils and was really pleased with the results.  I think I ought to buy some Christmas stencils, for this year's cards!

Then I started to experiment a bit with the Letterpress kit.

There were nine plates provided with the kit, so I thought I'd try some embossing with this one.

A piece of grey paper on top and close the lid...

Not a very good result.  The paper is a bit thin.

This was the result with a piece of cardstock.  It's a "debossed" image, which means it goes in, rather than being raised out from the surface.  It doesn't produce an embossed image on the reverse though, so I can't emboss with these plates, only deboss.  Still, it looks nice (better in real life!).

The kit came with a tube of sticky black printing ink, a roller etc, but I didn't want to get all gooey today!  I tried inking up the plate with an ordinary little craft ink pad in a soft aqua colour.

This is the result.  I'm really pleased with it.  It's printed onto some soft sketch paper.  The hand-dabbed ink has given it a soft, blended effect and it really looks lovely.  I could do good stuff with this!

A closer view of the de-bossed and inked effect. 

So, that was today's experimenting.  I have lots to learn about these two bits of equipment, but it does mean I have my own teeny mini printing press!  I still need to find out what other kinds of stuff I can use as plates to print with.  The rollers do not adjust and I can't use anything that's too thick, or it will break the machine; but I hope I might be able to try some prints with the soft lino I have bought.  If the Letterpress won't allow it, I think the Cuttlebug plates are varied enough to accept some lino plates.  I'll report back when I have tried it out!

Digi Delights!

Good evening, all Bloggy-type friends!

After all the excitement with Bunnies and Giveaways, it's time I came back to earth.  I posted the Bunny today and hope the excited winner will get her tomorrow (or else Monday).

Now for some other lovely stuff, which I did not make.

For ages and ages, I have been following the blog of Kirsty Wiseman. You may know her yourself, as she's a very active and busy lady in the crafting world.  Recently she published a cd rom of print-at-home papers, embellishments and cute little ladies, which she called "Patti Picklicious".  There were zillions of things on this fabby cd and I even used some of Kirsty's papers to make covers for some of my books (with her permission).

She has now produced a second CD.  This one is even bigger and more luscious than the last. It's called "Kirsty Wiseman's Colour Burst of Fanciful Things" and is currently only available from Kirsty's own online shop.  That's until next week. On Wednesday, Kirsty has to go on telly, to sell her CD on Create and Craft (midday, March 3rd). 

This new CD has 1300 images, including papers, templates, greetings and embellishments.  They can be printed off at home for cards and scrapping. I am sure they will be as lovely as the first CD and I'm waiting with some anticipation, to get my sticky paws on my own copy.

So, I strongly suggest you whizz over to Kirsty's Shop right now and take advantage of the fact that it's not generally available yet, as the CDs will fly out of the Create and Craft shop faster than you can say "Kirsty Wiseman"!

Kirsty also has some digi images available in her shop (jpeg format). These can be printed off, either ready-coloured, or plain outlines for you to colour by hand, then used for cards or scrapping; they could also be used in your digi scrap pages.

If you go to Kirsty's shop here, there are two freebies available to download and use for your own personal scrapping or crafty projects.  She also has some lovely dollies and yummy cake designs.

The shop site is still being constructed and new items are being added all the time.  There are plans for Digi Stamps and stuff aimed specifically at digi scrappers. 

There is also a Video Tutorial, to show how to get started with digi scrapping, for the bargain price of £5.

The tutorial is in the form of a downloadable video file, which will take some time to download.  You will be sent a link to the download, then have 2 days in which to access the link and download the file to your pc. The video itself is then yours to watch as often as you like.  You need Quicktime running on your computer, in order to run the video - there's a link to get quicktime in the Tutorial listing at Kirsty's shop.

I am a definite Kirsty Fan! Kirsty has been so generous, over the years, with her talent and skill.  She has been producing digi stuff for ages (before most people had even heard of digital scrapbooking!) and has often posted free downloads for her blog followers.  It's great to see she now has a shop and that her CDs are doing so well.  She has worked amazingly hard and really deserves to do well - I wish her ooodles of success!

Oooh! Treasure!

Having a busy Monday, as always.  But when I came home for lunch, there was a parcel by the back door. 

I bought these from DotComGiftShop, just for me! The stickers will be for some scrapping I have planned.  The Passport cover was just because I like it and so I don't keep muddling my passport up with J's ... the cake cases are for some time soon, when I plan to make something yummy (probably once I've recovered from too much Christmas food!).

I bought these three for my baby niece.  Keri-Anne & her husband have been decorating her bedroom at the new house.  It looks lovely, with a stained pine floor, white furniture and walls, a lovely old (original) Victorian fireplace and some pink accessories, animal stickers etc.  I know they have plans to buy some of those vinyl wall art stickers, with woodland animals, so when I saw these, I thought they'd go so well with those stickers.  Couldn't resist the mobile. It's just lovely!  The wall stickers are a tall, thin height chart, with seperate animal and plant stickers, to put anywhere.  I bought two of the fabric bags, so they can be hung up and used for storage.

I'm excited about these! I love spoiling that baby... and there's another baby on the way soon too, as my other niece, Caroline, is expecting in seven weeks' time. Then I'll be a Great Auntie twice over!

Scrappy Deals?

Well, if anyone is a digi-scrapper, or fancies a go, this could be for you... I got an e-mail from Amazon about special offers. Wasn't interested in the expensive stuff, but you might like to know that they have Serif Digital Scrapbook Artist for £11.99 (instead of £29.99 - a 60% reduction) and Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 Ultimate for £32.97 (instead of £79 - 58% off). 

I thought those were pretty good deals myself!  The offers end at 23:59 on 6th December.

Just thought I'd tell you!

Oh, and don't forget to go to my post here and enter my Giveaway! Comment on the post by Monday to be in with a chance of winning the lovely book!  I may not remind you again!

And a quick add-on... take a little look at today's Tummy Mountain post (it wont take a minute!) so cute!

A Day of Deliveries

The doorbell rang 4 times today.  The last ring was J returning from school, which was lovely, but the first three rings were ...

First: A courier delivering a box of books for Christmas presents - yeah!

Second: The postman with a parcel from DoCrafts. It had some great papers (more paper!), some fab bargain-priced metal embellishments (sets of gromlets and such) and one of those quiet eyelet setting things, which I've had my eye on for a while and they were selling cheap online.  If you haven't tried DoCrafts' website, it's well worth a look. They have an online clearance shop. I've bought several lots of stuff from them at super-bargain prices.

Third: Another courier, delivering 3 copies of THIS!

This is a new book, published  by my talented niece, Keri-Anne Pink.

She is only 23 years old and has taught herself photography over the past 5 years or so, but her work has a wonderful quality to it, which is story-like and dreamy.  She started showing her pictures on Flickr, then selling her work on Etsy and did very well. 

Now she has produced a small book, with a series of her photos, including a shoot that was done specifically for the book.  It also has a few of her whimsical little stories in it, which compliment the photos beautifully.  I am so proud of her ( find the book here).

So, as you can see, I was excited to get this today!

However, I waited in all day (and worked too!), for another ring at the bell, which never came.  It was supposed to happen between 8am and 1pm. By 3pm, I was on the phone, saying "Where is it?".  At 4.15pm, I was on the phone again, saying "You said they would call me and be here by 4.30pm. I have to go out at 4.30!). 

At 4.40pm, J and I put on our shoes and coats and opened the door to go to his friend's house.  There was a large white delivery van pulling into our driveway.  Yes! The driver asked me to sign for a box, which he then gave me.  Yes!

I had no time to look at it then and had to put it in the boot and drive off.  I had to wait til 7pm, before I had time to open This:

Which contained:

A Thing Of Beauty!

My wonderful husband (heavy emphasis on "wonderful") bought me a new pc, to help me develop my business, my writing and scrapping skills etc.  My old laptop is steam-powered and so sloooooow that I hardly ever use it.  It is also very heavy and gets really hot during use, which also causes me problems (a laptop that can't be used on the lap isn't much good). Also the battery lasts approx 3 minutes before it dies.  He had a bonus from work and gave me the money to buy the lovely object pictured above. 

I am such a lucky person!

While I waited for my new laptop, I was working on a commission. Here are a couple of sneaks, though I can't show too much - it's not fair if others get to see it before its new owner.

The blue book is the diary (back view, as the front is decorated specially and it's a secret!). I am making a case for it, with a notebook, pocket for receipts and stamps and a place for a photo. The whole thing will have a wrap-over flap, with a magnetic closure. It's all covered in the same deep blue art paper. I hope she will love it!

So, overall I've had a busy day!  And now I'm off to play with my nice, shiny New Toy (sorry, Business Equipment)!

Signing off... hee hee

Busy Day...

Somehow I don't feel like blogging today. It has been so busy and I can't think of anything much to say.

I read Shimelle's prompt for today and thought "Great, that's just what I did with yesterday's post!"... now I can't face doing it all again!

Good News though - I have made some good progress today, with the commission book. I have been planning, measuring and sewing pieces of the pocket linings for the inside of the case.

I also had a sneaky hour off and went to the local scrapbooking shop, to buy a roll of magnetic tape for the book closure. Of course, it turned into a sneaky 1 & 1/2 hours and I came home with way more than a roll of tape! But I have some lovely new Christmas paper, some great Bazzill cardstocks, some fab ultra-narrow masking tapes that will be great for this book project and for other things too, pastel buttons for my stash, a 12" layout display frame, some tags to label my stuff in my new workroom, some inks (needed bright orange and found some lovely purple and wisteria-mauve for my next l/o proj.), snowflake brads... oh, and my absolute super-star-hero buy of the day - a super-large circle punch, which will save me sooo much time when making my little circular scrap albums - like this one:

Front View

Back View

I spent hours carefully cutting out the circles from card, then from decorative papers. Now I can just punch them! All I will need to cut by hand is the chipboard covers (unless I want to break my lovely new punch!). 

I've got my eye on the scalloped one for next time...

Then J. was out of school early, as they had a 2-o'clock finish for Parents' Evening.  Rant Alert!  The only thing I don't like about his school, is the way they do this several times a year.  There are a number of parent's evenings and other events, where they decide to close early.  This causes lots of problems for working parents, who have to organise time off work, or extra child-care. No fair.  They hold Parents' "Evenings" from 2:30-6pm. Hardly an evening. My husband can't be the only parent who has a struggle to get there. He really wants to attend these things, yet they make it really hard for working parents. Sometimes he has had to book a half or even a whole day off work, just to make sure he can be there for a 10 minute appointment at some point between 2:30 and 5:50pm!  There are a maximum of 6 per year for any one teacher and I know of no other school where they do this.  Why can't they just have it from 4-8pm, like everyone else, then parents won't have all this trouble?  I appreciate my son's teachers, realise they work very hard and know they have busy lives too, but it is part of the teacher's remit, they expect it and it doesn't happen often.  End of Rant.

The good side of this though, was that J. was home 1 & 1/2 hours early today.  I like having him around and didn't mind re-organising myself today (it's not usually me that has a problem on early closure days, but I know lots of people who do). 

So, we went to see his new form teacher and have our regulation 10 minute how-he's-settled-in-this-year chat.  The news is that he's doing great.  She says he and his group from his old class have really begun to find their confidence and are happy, chatty and fun.  He got  "A" for effort (so far) in most subjects and "B" for any others, so we're very pleased with him.  She had lots of nice stuff to say about J himself and commended him on his wonderful writing skills.  He is writing a book and took the first 7 chapters into class to show her - she asked for it again so she could read it aloud in form-time. Apparently the whole form (yr 7 & 8 mixed half-&-half) think it's great.  Of course we're proud of him!

Well, for someone that "didn't feel like blogging", I've managed a fair few sentences... and a Start and Finish, with no "In this Post I am going to tell you about _______,________ & _______". 

Will it do, Teacher?