C'mon England!

In celebration of all things English, I made these cup cakes this afternoon. We are having all the family round for the England world cup match tonight, so I decided a nice unhealthy pizza and cakes tea would go down a treat. It was theraputic, and though it took me a couple of hours it was a lovely way to spend a wet afternoon. I love cooking for the family. My granddaughters love 'birthday cake' (as they call any iced cake) and I am really looking forward to seeing thier faces when they spot these! I am decorating our little reading room next week, then back to some crafting after that. I can't wait.

Cannock crop and demo's

I'm excited about the crop this Saturday! It's a double demo day! We have Caroline and Ann from Skrapz coming with their shop and they will be giving us a 30 min demo on glimmer mists. How exciting! They have made up a little 'tag techniques' kit at a cost of £2.50 for anyone who would like to buy it, but you don't have to buy it to watch the demo. Karen and Carol are also doing a demo of their lovely board book using foam board. Here's what you need to bring if you want to do that:

3-5 sheets of co-ordinating thick scrapbook paper

Ribbon for ties and extra for embellishing

3-5 small photos

Buttons, flowers etc

PVA glue or double sided tape

Ink for edges

Craft Knife

Basic tool kit.

Pencillines

I was enjoying browsing the Pencillines website and found myself wondering if you know about it. It has a guest designer who sketches a scrapbook page design. Then others use her design and make their own versions which are posted on the site. There are some really beautiful pages on there, so sit back, relax, and be inspired. Here's the link: http://www.pencillines.com/

Yummy scrummy Stampington!

I adore the Stampington mags, so much to inspire there! They have some lovely vintage tickets in the free download section, see above. Although these mags are hard to get hold of here, you can pay to digitally download some of the mags from their web site for $9.99. Here's the link:
http://www.stampington.com/html/sew_somerset_winter10.html
That should take you to an interesting page.
Tip: if you just want a sneak peek, you can see some of the articles from each mag by clicking on the 'see what's inside' button under each issue. Enjoy browsing :)

My creations

Well, this is what I've been making recently. The pattern for the bags is from a Kath Kidstone book which is an excellent intro to sewing. The blue bag came free with the book. All the fabric pieces were ready cut out, you just have to sew it all together. I'm loving it! I'm learning new skills :) My daughter liked mine so much I bought some pretty red fabric and made one for her too. I had to make the pattern for that one, and it worked out OK. With the left over fabric I made a cover for a little book. My inspiration for the water colour stitched picture was direct from a book called 'Page after Page' by Frances Pickering, so many ideas in there!

tree

I am just loving the blossom this year! This tree is right outside our house. I think it must be the best yet, maybe because we had such a hard winter. Something beautiful often comes our of something difficult.

Grungy Inspirations

I had a great creative excursion with Trish- we went to some fabric/arty shops in Eccleshall and Newport which were a joy! Oliver Twists in Newport and Pollyanna Patchwork in Eccleshall. Such amazing fabrics, I wanted to take the whole lot home! I noticed there are some new demos on Tim Holtz's web site, inspiring as ever, ENJOY!
www.timholtz.com/demos.html