Winter Wonderland

We have a lovely new seasonal kit in store for you, 'Winter Wonderland' which uses the papers and some embellishments from the My Mind's Eye range of the same name.  I love the cheerful, bright colours and all the fun image - such fun to work with.  And for one week we have the kit on special offer with 10% off if you order before Christmas so even more reason to treat yourself - go on, you know you deserve it :).

I have created a couple of layouts so far; this first one, 'Establishing Priorities' has lots of layers - perfect for making use of both sides of the papers.

And this second one, a double-page layout, I have kept quite simple in design because there were so many photos and I didn't want it to look too cluttered.  Sorry the images are such poor quality, they were taken in artificial light!

It is always difficult seeing the papers properly in the kit photo so here they are in all their glory!

Arn't they gorgeous?!  The perfect way to scrap your Christmas photos this year or create a beautiful mini book. 

Have fun.

Kate xxx

White Rabbit Card

I always find mens cards tricky but I absolutely love the White Rabbit Image from the Alice II Stamp Set by IndigoBlu and thought that is was suitable for a man.

I stamped the image onto white card using Jet Black Archival Ink and cut out.  I inked the edges lightly with Fired Brick Distress Ink and set to one side.  The background is created using Fired Brick, Aged Mahogany and Black Soot Distress Inks and then I stamped on the background using the swirl from the same Alice II set and the Harlequin Stamp also by IndigoBlu.  A quick bit of water flicking over the background added a little more interest and I also used an old credit card with Adirondack Acrylic Paint Dabber 'Snow Cap' to give a 'ground' for the rabbit. 

I kept the inside very simple and just stamped the swirl designs onto white card and used the words from the 'Aloysius' stamp set because I love the font.

The card took me only an hour to make which is a record for me but I am pleased with the result and think it is suitable for a man... hopefully!

Have a great weekend.

Kate xx

Enoying Seeing the Sunshine!

Hi Everyone

I am sorry I have been so hopeless about blogging lately and in fact crafting in general seems to have gone right out the window.  It is a long story but started with deciding to redecorate our sitting room, not a big deal you would think, but somehow or other it seems to have taken us six weeks.  Admittedly all that time hasn't been in the actual decorating itself but we also decided to change all the furniture which involved three trips to Ikea - three trips I am trying hard to forget! - a lot of cursing, mainly from my husband as he endeavoured to put said furniture together and times when our marriage seemed in jeopardy!  However we have come out the other side (well almost) and have a beautiful new carpet, lovely clean walls and lots of bright new furniture so we are happy. 

The reason that this affected my crafting, other than the obvious in that I was tied up decorating or queuing in Ikea, was that the contents of our lounge had to go somewhere whilst all this was going on and that somewhere was my son's bedroom aka my craftroom whilst he is away at university!  It was chaos in there and although in theory there was a pathway to my craftroom it was hardly condusive to creativity.  And then, just as I spotted a little light at the end of the tunnel my son came home for several days; a really lovely thing as we hadn't seen him since September but once again my craftroom became 'unavailable'.

Anyway having wittered and moaned on quite enough and, lets face it, you didn't click on here to hear about my woes so without further ado I want to show you a beautiful layout created by a very talented lady who attends the Bellaboo crops regularly, Mandi Wanblad.  Mandi creates stunning double page, in the main, layouts and manages that really tricky balance of including lots of photographs whilst still being creative.

Isn't it gorgeous?  Mandi has used the papers from the Rock Pool range by Kaisercraft and all the little strips below the photos are the title strips from the bottom of the papers.  The two quote tags are from the 'Ripple' paper in the range.  I am sure you will agree that this is a stunning layout that really enhances Mandi's beautiful photographs and isn't it lovely to be reminded of what summer looks like when it is cold and dreary here in the UK?!  Do reply so that I can pass on your comments to Mandi.

With promises to craft and blog more I look forward to being back soon :).

Have a great day

Kate xx