Open Day and Happy Birthday to us....

Just a quick note to say that tomorrow (Saturday 21st November) our little shop will have been open exactly one year. So, to celebrate, we are having an open day (to follow the great success of our first open evening, in September). There'll be free tea and cake, some demos and new products, including some new products from Prima Marketing Inc, a brand new to our little shop. Oh and there'll be 10% off all product purchases. A nice community gathering :) So feel free everybody to come see! I shall be back soon to do some proper blogging ;)
x x x

P.S We haven't sorted out our Class dates in cardmaking and altered art and craft gatherings for January-February yet - both of us and teachers are buried in Christmassyness still. But for anybody that would like a class list the moment we sort one out, just email your details or ring the shop and I can email a list, or pop one in the post no probs.
Shop number is 01772 739563
Email: craftyhearts.shop@btinternet.com

Merci beaucoup X

Prompt #21 Negative Space

A tad last minute, but here is my entry for Creative Type's current prompt, Number 21: Negative Space. Mine is entitled 'Time to Detox', and is within my little 7 and half inch square journal. How it got to be 7 and half and not 8 inches, I'm still not so sure. Anyways, the photos (one main one, one on a tag which you pull out from under the main one) are of me, falling asleep on arty, crafty work. At the moment my health isn't quite up to normal levels, I keep feeling drowsy and tired in the day. So this week I decided twas 'Time to Detox', and so am eating more rabbity (green veg and berries) and doing lots of stuff so I can actually get to sleep early. It's slowly working, and I've not fallen asleep at work, yay!

Normally the negative space is filled with writing on my layouts, then I get annoyed that my writing doesn't look pretty and match the pretty paper. So this time, I left the outside blank and hid the writing on the tag that pulls out :) Thanks for reading! Now, off to attempt to knit....

I think let's tinker with ink!

Wow what a busy day! The Graphic 45 Mini Journal class was today, and thank you to all the ladies who attended. Twas fab, and every one went out with inky fingers, so they must have done plenty of work! I didn't get to see everyone's work, but the ones I did see were all different, all lovely - all this creativeness is inspiring me to get out some ink and make something! But first, pizza and relaxxxx.

First Birthday Party ;D

On Saturday 21st November 2009 we're having a birthday party here at Crafty Hearts, because we will have been open for one year :) The party will be all day, in the shop, from 10am till 4.30pm. There'll be tea and plenty of cake,and demonstrations (free of course), and details of upcoming classes, and 10% off all product purchases. And the theme around the shop will be cake, and sweet treats, so there'll be new samples to give ideas and inspiration. Come join us!

P.S Next class (after tomorrow's Graphic 45 mini journal class) is
Christmas Tree Advent Calendar Workshop. Saturday 28th November 2009
£25 all materials included, plus tea/coffee/biscuits, just need to bring lunch.

x x x

Fifth of November part deux

Also today I made a Blonde Moments card sample in the shop :) A Christmassy one, which feels odd, seeing as it's Bonfire Night, but haven't found an excuse yet to make Bonfire Night cards!

I have used quite a few items to make it, but they're the sort of items you could experiment with and make lots of other different items out of, as well as a card like this. We have just got Blonde Moments Ultra Thick Embossing powders in, nine types to be precise, plus some extra pearl pigments that are a bit Christmassy. I don't normally do pink Christmas cards (a red and green fan I am), but the shade of Ultra Thick in my stash is Plum, so I decided to be a 'rebel' and try pink.

So take three rectangles of card, one large and two small. With each one, ink the card with Versamark, slap on some Plum Ultra Thick

Embossing Powder, and melt it with a heat tool. While powder's still hot, add another powder layer, heat and melt again, add another layer (triple's the plan), and while this is still hot, press a pre-inked (with Versamark) stamp into the melted layers. Hold the stamp into it for a little while. Release, and you should have a debossed image. If your layers are a bit bubbly and not so smooth, reheat, and add more powder, and melt it. The stamp I've used on all three rectangles is the tree from Papermania Floral & Fauna stamp duo. Now that you have three funky pink rectangles, take a Blonde Moments Spring Grass Lustre Pearl Pigment. It's like powder eye shadow (only, don't put it on your eyelids!). Take a thin brush and brush a little bit of powder onto the stamped images. Then you get a green tree :)

On an A6 card, add a rectangle of patterned paper from the Blonde Moments 6x6 Sugar Dumpling paper pad. Stick your large debossed rectangle onto this, with the smaller rectangles at the side. Take a little rectangle of Sugar Dumpling Paper, stamp onto it 'Season's Greetings' (this stamp is from Papermania Home For Christmas stamp set) using a black ink pad, and then make snips around this rectangle using scissors. So it looks frilly. Stick on, job done, pink Christmas!

Fifth of November

It's such a shame that over the last few days there's been virtually no fireworks to be heard! Maybe it's because of the naff weather, maybe there's going to be loads of displays at the weekend. I hope so. All week I have spent journeys to and from work splashing in big puddles (or being splashed, o car-drivers aren't you lovely?!). But today was the icing on the cake: the clouds just couldn't keep themselves to themselves and they let rip on the way to work. Enter shop, a drowned rat. And so many people have visited our shop this week despite the weather - I admire you all, as it feels like the sort of weather you'd rather avoid and stay by the fire!

Anyway, thank you for braving the weather, and here's some more piccies of pumpkins - thank you cousin Ryan, and Jordan, for sending them,they're fab! The first two are their masterpieces from this year's Halloween and the two after are last year's pieces de resistances. I know that pumpkins aren't crafty, and this is a crafty blog, but, well, they're creative, and that's what crafters are :)

Treat :)

You can't have Halloween without some Pumpkin innovation...























And this is the Hero Arts Big Owl stamp, once it's had a bit of jujjing up. You can layer up the eyes, and stamp his feathers up a few times, and he comes out a treat :)

Trick or Treat!

Ok, so it was Halloween two days ago, and I really should have added this post several days before that, but my excuse is my little laptop has been with our website designer all week. And all my photos are on it, so no blogging without laptop. Can't believe how lost I've been without laptop, how sad is that?! Just shows how much of daily life can easily be spent on checking emails (junk emails are realllllly starting to drive me maddd), sorting website, sorting photographs, blogging, f-booking....
So now I have little laptop back, and I can add piccies of Halloween projects that have been completed recently....
These little kraft gift bags have been in the shop a little while now, and I've been itching to make samples with them, but haven't had any ideas. Then a Halloween idea came along. Its wording is taken from 'THe Owl and the Pussycat' poem - hence I've added an Owl and a Pussycat! The Cat is chipboard, they live in one of the jars in our shop's pick-and-mix section. Versafine black ink on it, then triple-embossed with clear powder, and stamped in while still hot. The Owl is from a Papermania stamp set called Secret Garden. The 'moons' are cut from Pink Paislee Moon Pie paper (I'm addicted to cutting moons outta that paper and sticking them on everything lol). The tree- I drew it, cut it out, and got carried away with Distress-inking it. Weathered Wood then Peeled Paint ink, I think.

This is one of my Halloween cards - it is made using the reverse side of My Mind's Eye Frightful Friends paper. The star is embossed chipboard (stamped in, whilst still hot), and the poem is an Ian McMillan poem: Ten Things Found in a Wizard's Pocket.

Another card, this time made from the front side of the My Mind's Eye Frightful Friends paper.Such cute paper :) Oh, and the background was created with the help of some Cut-and-Dry foam, used to rub on Kaleidacolor Orange ink, Red Brick Distress ink and Weathered Wood Distress ink. All on top of each other, makes a dirty orange.

I Love Halloween!