Kanban Crafts DT call

Good morning all.....if you love Kanban, you will love this :)

Fancy having a go? x

We are looking talented UK Card Makers, Stampers and Scrapbookers to join our team.

This call is for a six month term from March 2014 (This call is for UK designers only).

Here's how to be part of the team...

How to Apply:

Please email the following information to karen.smith@aspirecrafts.co.uk

1. Contact information, including name, address, email and phone number.

2. Link to your blog and/or online gallery. We'd also love to know if you are on Facebook and/or Twitter.

3. Photograph and email us at least 5 samples of your best work, including cards, layouts and other craft projects (Kanban Crafts products to be the main focus where possible).

4. Have you been published? What other Design Teams are you part of and when does their term(s) end?

5. Tell us about YOU....what you love about crafting? Why do you want to become a Kanban Crafts UK design team member?

All Design Team applications must be received by 1st March 2014 to be considered. If selected you will be notified by email.

Monthly requirements:

1. Design Team members will be required to submit projects using the latest products on a weekly basis.

2. Promoting Kanban products on your personal blog and other sites.

3. Submission of projects to magazines for publication.

4. Submission of high quality photo images of finished projects with a products used list or instructions if required.

5. Providing physical samples if requested for tradeshows and/or sales meetings.

What you will get in return:

1. A big box of Kanban Crafts goodies to work with, including new releases.

2. You will have your own album on the Kanban Crafts Facebook page where your work will be posted.

Good luck everyone and we look forward to seeing your work!

Good luck from me too :) xx

Silver and gold

This is the final part of yesterday's order for my friend. She is giving a dinner party next week for her birthday and asked me to supply her with place cards and favour bags for her guests, I did the same at Christmas in hot pink and turquoise and they looked great together. This time though she has gone for a more subdued silver and gold!

The stunning acetate butterflies on the place cards are from Kanban. I'm not sure if they are still available any more but I shall have a word in the ear of the Kanban powers that be and let you know. I would like to see them return as I love them and use them very sparingly at the moment.

Thanks for dropping by xx 

Be my love

These are the last  of the Valentine cards I made this year for a very good customer and lovely friend.

 

 The following two cards were made for another good customer. The next card was made for a lady's husband ........

(using a clear stamp from Kanban) and this one was to her and her husband from their grand children :) 

On this one I used the Love Quotes stamp set from Clearly Besotted Stamps and my first ever hand made rose (well the first one that worked any way!) using an ordinary Woodware five petal flower punch, one of the blue ones.

Thanks for dropping by, I'll be back soon :) xx

Be my valentine

I've had to keep these two cards under wraps till today as one is for my DH and one is for DD2's boyfriend. My blog is linked to my Facebook and Twitter accounts and they are both friends with me on Facebook!! :)

I recently bought two new Bebunny cds and stamp sets and the images and papers used for both cards are taken from the Bebunny Love cd.

 The image on this card is a decoupage set of illustrations. There are six layers to the image but I only used three.....imo six are too many (plus it would cost a fortune to post!)

All other bits and bobs are from my stash.

Thanks for dropping by. xx

Special Valentine

I made the following card from a couple of different Kanban A4 paper pads, Sugar Buttons and Birth & Celebration 901558

I added silver mirri card with a punched border, Kanban myself and that is it.....so easy but so effective (imo). As my card has hearts on I'm going to add it to the Papertake Weekly challenge which this week is....you've guessed it....hearts :) Don't forget that there is a sketch challenge for you to take part in over on the  Kathy's Waffle sketch file and a challenge for an item which uses hearts on the Crafting Muskateers blog. 

Thanks for looking and I'll see you soon. xx                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

With Love

Another fab, fun card using a Kanban topper....they really do get me out of a hole when I'm busy and need an urgent card which is a good job because I still have a couple of hundred sheets left! :)

I used: Friendship Lollipops & Mats 901567,  Love & Marriage paper pad 901539, silver mirri card, red organza/satin ribbon. 

This next card was made using an Aspire Crafts 12 x 12" paper pad and sentiments

So I used the 12 x 12" Thoughts of Spring paper pad, a sentiment topper and sentiment tag and a red Dekromount heart.

Thanks for visiting my blog x

Sketch File

Well we are into the second week of the challenge over on Kathy's Waffle Sketch File using the three fabulous sketches, all the same but using different shapes in the circle in the hope that it helps you see beyond the hearts which we have all been using frantically just lately!

This is the sketch I used on my card

and this is my card

This was a really quick card using left over pieces of card so I think I might pop over and play with Di and the others over in the Di's Snippet Challenge playground as I haven't seen them all for such a long time!

See you soon. x 

Clearly Besotted

I had some new stamps and dies arrive on Saturday from Clearly Besotted but I was gutted that I didn't get the chance to play with them until today and then it was just a really quick card! I absolutely adore Stephanie's stamps and dies and haven't got one set yet that I've not been sure of. The service is absolutely fantastic and I just love receiving the parcels all wrapped up in pink tissue paper, it almost seems a shame to open them. Lol

Here is what I came up with....isn't this little stork just so cute :)

I used yellow papers from a Stampin Up set that I have had for years ribbon and pearls from my stash and coloured the dinky little stork with yellow and ivory Promarkers.

I have to disappear now but I will be back shortly :) Take care. x 

Owl always love you!

This poor little card has been sat in my draft folder for over a week now, without me noticing him there, poor owl! So I thought it was about time he was made public :)

I wanted to test out my new set of Grande Oval Spellbinders with a seven inch card, (I really love this size card, they are so easy to work with)  :) So, the little owl is from the You're A Hoot stamps and dies and the branch is from the Happy Everything collection of stamps and dies both sets are by Clearly Besotted Designs. Stephanie comes produces the most delicious stamps and dies and I might have quite a few of them now ;)

Thanks for dropping by and I will be back soon x

Memory bracelet

A commissioned bracelet from a friend of my daughter. She supplied the largest dyed Turquoise Blue Howlite gem stone beads and I had the other sizes and the crystals in stock. Once I had made the bracelet I had enough beads left over to make the earrings too.

I made the bracelet using a standard size memory bracelet and had to remake it using a child size bracelet, as she has really tiny wrists, and it fits her perfectly!

Mystical and healing Properties

Howlite is known for it's strong associations with self-awareness, creativity and improving ones emotional attitudes. It enhances character building, and a sense of decency; in encourages desirable personal attributes. Howlite aids in dispelling anger, resentfulness, selfishness and allows one to look inside for answers, aid in communicating the negative emotions with a clearer emotional expression, which will result in calmer confrontations. It decreases the over critical mind, rudeness and offensive behavior, increasing subtly, decency and tact. It is also quite helpful for those who tend to procrastinate.

Meditating on a piece of howlite can assist one in journeying outside the body and gaining insight from ones past lives. Place upon the third eye, it opens memories of previous times and lifetimes. Howlite is predominantly a calming stone, it will aid in sleeping, calming the overactive mind, eases insomnia, dreaming, dream retention and stress relief.

Physically it calms the whole body and releases muscle tension. It eliminate pain brought about by stress, and is said to aid in healing stress related injuries such as ulcers, heart problems and rashes.

It is helpful in balancing the calcium levels in the body as well as strengthening teeth and bones.astrological sign Gemini. 

Turquoise wedding

I am really pleased with the way these favours etc turned out so I'm going to build a full stationery set around them. The favours were made to dress the Holiday Inn, Warmsworth, Doncaster a couple of weeks ago when we attended a wedding open evening. This gives the wedding couples a chance to see the venue dressed as it would be for a wedding.

The favours laid out on my table before they were packed into boxes to be transported to the hotel. 

Love & Marriage....

love & marriage, go together like a horse & carriage!! I won't do any more, my singing is dire lol.

Another selection of cards for hubby to take to work when he is djing at a wedding. I used an assortment of digi stamps from Pink Petticoat and Digistamp Boutique, some paper offcuts and lace, ribbon, gems and flowers which were in a pot on my desk. 

See you soon

Kathy's Waffle

We are back from our rather long Christmas break over on the Kathy's Waffle Sketch File blog and Kathy has welcomed 2014 in with a bang with not one sketch but 3!

Here's what Kathy has to say:

"Our new, February Sketch is simple in format but we think it offers lots of opportunities for many different projects and themes so we hope you'll give it a try. You can share any sort of crafting project that you've used our sketch for - it can be the whole project, or perhaps form just an element of a card, layout...whatever - it's up to you."

I hope you can pop over to the blog for a little bit of inspiration using these sketches and we look forward to seeing what you make!

Bfn xx

Thinking of you

This is a card made a few days ago for my youngest daughter to give to one of the clients in the salon she works in as she had lost her husband. Kanban rose to the challenge again. If 
I'm not quite sure what to do or am in a hurry to make a card I always reach for my Kanban stash (and boy do I need to use some...I still have loads!)

I added an acetate cover to the card and the acetate butterfly was attached with ultra sticky red ds tape. The butterflies and image were both supplied by Kanban. Just in case you haven't heard the news, Kanban has been taken over by Aspire Crafts and there are lots of old favourite as well as a brand new kit available from the web site.

Thanks for looking. x

Kanban Crafts

If you love Kanban products I hope that you are aware that they are available now from Aspire Crafts. The good news is that Aspire Crafts have obtained the licence to be able to reprint all of the previous kits etc as well as producing new ones. If you pop over to Aspire you will see that they are offering a Kanban Taster kit for just £3.99

The Kanban Design Team have set up a a Facebook group called For The Love Of Kanban. This is the Official Kanban group and you have to apply to join. There are over 200 members now and we have just launched our own challenge, you can see my card on the Crafting Muskateers challenge post as I cheated and used my one card for both challenges :) 

The Aspire DT have a Facebook group too, called the Aspiring Crafters and it is THE place to be seen if you love the new offerings by Aspire Crafts. The Aspiring Crafters group have also just launched their own challenge so if you would like to join in then this is the place to be and before I forget, there is the Aspire Crafts blog to keep an eye on for all things newsworthy :) This is my card for the Aspire challenge

Made using the 

20813 Thoughts Of Spring A6 Papercrafting Pad

20811 Thoughts Of Spring 12 x 12" pad

Navy card

from Aspire and

Ivory beading cord

Green ribbon

Dark Green Pearls

all from my stash

Thanks for dropping by, see you tomorrow x

Butterflies Flutterby

A pinch and a punch on the 1st of the month! Right that's got that out of the way so that we can move on with things!! I realise that this is the 2nd of Feb but I actually started rewriting this post yesterday morning as I wasn't happy with the one I wrote last week....I got a bit side tracked though which is why I'm just finishing it now lol (I've been weather watching on the Watering Hole  web cam in Perranporth. It's quite frightening as a huge chunk of sand was removed from the beach in the last storm last month which left the Watering Hole, the pub on the beach, very exposed and not far from the edge. I just hope that it's still standing in the morning after more terrible tides have hit on yesterday morning as predicted.

So yes, let's now get the ramblings in check so that you understand what I'm talking about :) It is new challenge day on the Crafting Muskateers blog and the theme this month is

"Butterflies"

and this month we are sponsored by Dreemees and here is a bit about them

"Dreamees is run by mother and daughter team Carol and Hayley Bignall."Founded in 2010, Dreamees has grown from strength to strength over the past months. We've managed to secure stands at shows around the country (venturing from Worcester up to Sunderland and across as far as Manchester & Hull!) and have recently decided to aim for larger shows including Whichcraft and the NEC (Nov 2012). With over 15 CD Roms and a range of polymer stamps that grows weekly, Dreamees has successfully featured in many leading papercraft magazines such as 'Complete Cardmaking with your PC', 'Papercraft Essentials', 'The Complete Guide to Digital Crafting' and soon to be 'Creative Cardmaking'.
Dreamees became manufacturers of Polymer plates in January 2012 and have since supplied growing and established businesses, along with providing custom stamps for paper crafters.
As of November 2013, Dreamees have appeared on Create & Craft TV multiple times and continue to do so."

My card

Made using 

 Kanban Ruby Anniversary Toppers #901537

Gold mirri card

Acetate Butterflies

Lace & Gems were from my stash

I love this card and I hope you do too.

Thanks for looking.