About Me

My photo
Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom
I have been crafting since May 2008, when in desperation to find an unusual birthday card for my Mum, I gave up looking in the shops and decided to have a go at making my own. I soon realised that crafting is addictive and I haven't brought a card since. In 2011 I completed my certificate in papercrafting as a result of the work I did as part of the course I started entering challenges on line and in magazines. I applied for design teams and also started making samples for Ooh La La Creations for their shows on Create and Craft. I have now completed my Diploma in professional crafting and most recently been runner up in the Papercrafter of the Year 2013 a competition run by Papercraft essentials magazine, I don't have a particular style I like to use elements from lots of styles and techniques, although I do love all things vintage. In 2014 I started to move more towards scrapbooking to take care of the huge family archive of photographs that were stored in my attic. I have continued cardmaking and Scrapbooking through 2015 and 2016 but have also become interested in off the page projects. I hope to be able focus on these in the future.

Monday 27 October 2014

Join us for the Witching Hour over at Ooh La La Creations

Hello everyone, firstly huge thanks to everyone who entered the Inspired by Nature Challenge at Ooh La La Creations over the last fortnight. There were some really stunning creations posted to the blog and great to see what different aspects of nature provide you with inspiration. You can see who the winners are at Ooh La La Creations Challenge blog 

It is my turn to choose the challenge and given the time of year I have gone for


The Witching Hour.

It isn't restricted to witches, but to all the ghosties and ghoulies and long legged beasties and things that go bump in the night. So put on that pointy hat get out your magic wands and lets see what Halloween inspired magic you can come up with.

For my DT project I took inspiration from some old photos from my student days, It was a Halloween Party hosted by my best friends Mum and her friend at the Nurses home where they lived in the middle of woods miles from any where so the location got us in the mood immediately.


I started off by spraying a thin layer of Cosmic shimmer Mists onto plain Black card the intention was to cover most of the card with papers and design elements so as to leave just a hint of the misted card showing. Whilst that was drying I cut the photographs using nestabilities plain hexagon dies as some of them had lots of redundant background. That done I set to work going through the various Ooh La La CDs in my collection to find suitable papers and embellishments.

The veined orange paper and the peach polka dot paper (used for the letters) was from the 'Say it With Words' CD from the folder called 'Witching Hour'

The white paper which I made into spider webs using a Martha Stewart Circle Edge Punch is from the 'Faithful Friends' CD from the folder called 'Brewing up Trouble'

The witches are toppers from the 'Femme Fatale' CD in the 'Silhouette' folder.
The bats are also from the 'Femme Fatal' CD in the 'ATC' Folder.

You can Purchase the CD's from the Ooh La La Creations Shop

I added a few bits and pieces from my stash:
The border strip and journalling cards are from Graphic 45's Once Upon a Time collection.
The 'Spells' and 'black cat' toppers are from Graphic 45's Steampunk Spells collection.

The little Pumpkins round the title the tiny bat and the small spider are from a pack of Halloween table confetti and the large spider in teh top left hand corner has been liberated from a decorattve spiders web - all picked up from my local supermarket last year in teh post Halloween sale for a few pence.

Once I had all the bits and pieces together it was just a case of playing around with layour on teh black card until I was happy then sticking everything down.

I have entered this project into the following challenges
http://cdsundaychallenge.blogspot.co.uk - Silhouettes

http://crazy4challenges.blogspot.co.uk - Photo Inspiration 

Monday 13 October 2014

Inspired by Nature at Ooh La La Creations

Thank you so much for all your lovely entries using bows and ribbons last time to check to see if you have made the top 3 please visit the Ooh La La Creations Challenge Blog 

This time we want to see your creations

Inspired by Nature 

As soon as I saw this challenge theme I knew what I was going to do as my DT project. The last holiday myself and hubby took with my parents before Mum passed away was to Cornwall in 2007 and we took the chance to visit the Eden Project whilst there. I took lots of photographs and go a bit arty lying on the floor to snap pictures looking up through the canopies of the trees in the rain forest zone. I also took the picture of the large bee sculpture outside the bio domes and it was just waiting to be scrapbooked using the Bee Happy folder from the Everyday Occasions CD.



I chose two background papers from the CD the one with the bee hives from the Bee Happy folder and the one with the swirls from the Humming Bird with Trumpet flower.

I used a quick card in the Bee Happy design to use for my journalling and added a Humming bird which I cut from the topper for the Hummingbird with trumpet flower design I cut 4 of these and decoupaged 2 humming birds the other is on the page next to the title which I die cut.











I finished the layout off with the addition of the flowers which I picked at random from a bag of these flowers I have in my stash, after all nature is fairly random and i wanted to try and recreate the different colours in the wild flower meadow that is the centre photograph in the group of three. I picked up a bag of buttons and flat backs from hobby craft that included the bee hive which I stuck to the front of the card and the bees and pink heart which I placed in amongst the flowers. I added the ribbon banner pieces because at Eden they have the most amazing banners on flag poles around the site and although the ones at Eden are deep crimson and purple I wanted the yellow and green to reflect the Bee in the Photograph and the Green of the leaves in in the smaller pictures.