Recycle

Hi everyone, thanks ever so much for dropping by. I know it's been a while but I have lots to show for my absence, I haven't just been sat in the garden sunning myself although I do have an outdoor studio now :)

It's my turn today to host the post(!) over on the Get Funky & Craft blog so I decided that I would make a gift bag. Now read on to see how I did it.

"I have mentioned previously my mission to reduce my wallets of paper off cuts so I should really have concentrated on that in this post. However, our lovely leader, Anice, keeps feasting us with lots of lovely paper collections and digi downloads and it's such a shame not to use them.....so on my project today I have used one of each :)

If you have ever needed a gift bag at the 12th hour and can't find one, well this is the post for you. It takes about 15 minutes to make and anyone (even non crafters) eill be able to find materials to use around the house. Oh, and when I mention a 'bone folder', a spoon handle does just as well.

This is my make for the month

                                               

and here is how I made it

                                         

You will need an old (or a new) envelope of any size.....and this tutorial works for top opening envelopes too.

Tape down the flap making sure that you don't tape the back of the envelope to the front!

Trim approximately 1/2 cm from one of the short sides.

Next you need to score each of the other three sides at 2.5cm from each edge and fold making sure each fold is crisp using your bone folder or spoon.

Now is the time to decorate your envelope with whatever you have to hand. I used the paper #7 from the new Spring Wedding Collection on the Funky Hand web site.

Pop one hand inside the envelope and use the other hand to pinch along all of the creases and watch your envelope turn into a gift bag :)

Fold the pointed end and glue to the bottom of the bag. I weight mine down with a punch while it sticks. Fold and tuck in about 2.5 cm from the top. Not only does this make the bag look professional, it makes the top sturdier to take the ribbon handles, see the next picture.

Now finish decorating your bag.

I used a selection of die cut flowers and printed off a smaller version of the mug from the I'm a mug for you' download to use as a gift tag.....Job Done!

These are great fun to make, I must have shown loads of people how to make them. They are great to make with the kiddies too now that the summer holidays are upon us, especially if they have a birthday party to go to. So start saving your envelopes in different shapes and sizes and it doesn't matter what colour they are (mine was from a bought birthday card, I didn't buy it ;)) You can even use the ones with the see through window on the front, just stick some pretty paper over it.

We would love you to have a go at my tutorial and add it to the linky thingy so we can come back and take a look.

In a swirl

We have two more fabulous sketches again this month on the Kathy's Waffle Sketch File blog and we would really love it if you could join in with us.

 

 

I bought this Kanban stamp in a sale last week and it cost me 90p! I decided to have a play with it and see what it looked like without colour, actually I did add a little colour - I gave her lipstick :) When I saw Kathy's new sketch for this month I couldn't believe how well this image fitted the sketch so all I did was to add a couple of pieces of left over card and heart paper by Pink Petticoat, ribbon from Craft All Day and a brad and some diamantes from my stash and it was finished.

Thanks for dropping by and don't forget to take a peep at the inspiration over on the Waffle
blog :)

Crafting Muskateers

Firstly I would like to say a big well done to Lisa Sparkle & Stamps for winning the June challenge on the Crafting Muskateers blog and a big 'well done and thank you' to the top 3 and everyone else who took part.

We had out third challenge go live yesterday lunch time and it's another good one! The  theme this time is to use RIBBON & PEARLS on your project and it is sponsored by our very own  DT member, Sarah and here is what she has offered as her prize

We have three guest designers joining us this month and if you enter then next month it could be you :)
Here is my card

KB 190

White 8 x8 pre folded card blank (a cheat I know but it does save time)

A4MRGO Gold Mirri card

PCT1904 Bella Fiori - Aster Memories

CRD1466 Bella Fiori - Lauretta Pink b/g card

Sentimental Labels - Verses 

Thanks for stopping by and good luck with the challenge, I can't wait to see what fantastic projects we have entered this month....we are all (the DT) bowled over with your support, thank you.

Have a lovely evening. x

Funky Hand

Have you seen the new digi stamps from Funky Hand? They are available from 99p each and as they are downloads they can be used straight away :) I used another download to make my card and I have to say that it is one of my favourites and is very versatile.

 That's right, it's the Rainbow Polkadots download

I printed the 'Thank You' message on top of the spotty paper and coloured some of the elements within the letters in green leaf Promarker just to pop it a bit and the daisy was made with  a new Sizzix die from an off cut of a piece of card from Pressie Time on the Happy Happy Birthday cd from the Papercraft Factory series of cds.

I hope you like my card and thank you for dropping by.

Clearly Besotted.....

and judging by the way the stamps and dies fly out of the door there are a lot of people out there who are Clearly Besotted! If you are one of an army of crafters who are besotted with Stephanie's designs you will know what I'm talking about......if you don't know what I'm waffling about then where have you been? I am one of the 'CB addicts' who needs all of the stamps and matching dies and am slowly building up my collection so I thought it was about time I used some of them :)
This first card was commissioned on Friday evening and wanted for Saturday morning!

 The materials used were: Sizzix camera die (a very old yellow one), spotty grograin ribbon, silver mirri card and balloon and sentiment stamps from the Full of Surprise set by Clearly Besotted.

 This card is made using the Building Blocks stamp set, flower stamps and dies from the new You Are set and the sentiment and butterfly are from the Happy Everything set

and finally for this post as well as silver mirri card I used the stamps from the Building Blocks set, the Ahoy Matey set and the sentiment from the Make A Wish set.

I also made some retirement party invitations for a lovely friend and ex collegue who is retiring from teaching after about 40 years! but these were made a few weeks ago and I never got round to blogging them.

These were made using the It's Your Birthday stamp set. I think this was the first set I bought.

That has brought my CB makes for the last week up to date, (with the exception of the last pic). 

I hope you have enjoyed browsing and like what you see :)
Thanks for dropping by.

Waffle, waffle, waffle

Welcome to the update post for Kathy's Waffle Sketch File challenge. Kathy's 'draws' the most amazing sketches every month and as part of the design team we hope that you can find inspiration in our work. I know when my mojo has left me at over 100 mph I've gone in search of sketches and they really do help especially when there projects to inspire too.

Kathy has post two variations of the sketch this month and it never ceases to amaze me how different a project can look just by rotating the sketch slightly.

 
and onto my card

Paper and topper are from the Love & Marriage paper pad from Kanban, silver mirri card is from Joanna Sheen and the pearls and crystals are from my stock.

Right I'm off for now as I'm about to start sticking 240 2mm crystals onto embossed favour boxes!
Have a lovely weekend and thanks for stopping by. x

Wedding Wednesday

I've had loads of work on this last couple of weeks so I apologise for not blogging on a regular basis again, it's a good job that I really love my work :) Before I post my wedding work for this month I'm going to have a moan about some of the stationery companies around at the moment.

I would like to say that if you start a wedding stationery business and you build yourself a web site, please, please, please get someone to proof read it for you or if you don't have anyone to do it then for goodness sake use a spell checker! The amount of 'companies' who, when advertising what they do write 'wedding stationAry' instead of 'stationerEry' is amazing. Hopefully you will be part of a young (or not so young) couple's wedding day which is probably the biggest task they have ever undertaken. The last thing they want is to open their stationery order to find that it's all spelt wrongly. Another big, big mistake I have seen on the front of so many hand crafted greeting cards the abbreviated spelling of YOU ARE. It is not (for example) 'YOUR having a baby', you are joining the two words together and in order to do that you need to use the apostrophe to replace the letter which you are removing so therefore the word would be  YOU'RE as you are taking out the 'A'.

Another thing which 'bugs'me is presenting shoddy work at live events such as wedding fayres. Every now and again I visit a wedding fayre just to see what the 'opposition' is up to and I've found that by talking to the people who own bridal boutiques they will tell you what colours are in fashion and what people are ordering for the next year even. It was at a small wedding fayre a couple of years ago that I was handed a little organza bag with a single sugared almond in it, it also contained a business card and a badly folded leaflet outlining their business and this....

Not a very good business advert in my opinion, but there you go, rant over :)!

So what have I been up to....

 

Further seating plans can be seen on my web site at Party Nights Creations .co.uk (all in lower case) or on my Facebook page

 

 This is such a pretty wallet. The camera hasn't picked up the glitter on it but you might be able to see it better on the next picture, I just changed the ribbon from white to navy blue to suit the couple's wedding colours. They are getting married in January next year and this pocket fits in with their snowy theme perfectly. It really is so pretty.

another hotel wedding.

Right, I'm making 83 place cards so I'm off now till tomorrow, thanks for dropping by, I would love for you to leave me a comment  :)
Thank you. x

New Wedding Downloads

We have no less than  FOUR new backing paper collections for you to download from the Funky Hand web site. This time it's a wedding collection. As usual the papers are very versatile so they can be used for anything, not just weddings. You will find the backing papers and png alphabet collections in delicious seasonal colours. Take a look at them on the web site, you could be crafting with them shortly.


Next up are the new digital stamps.

This new stamp collections are called Doodlewords and that's just what they are. Sentiments that you can colour and paper piece. They make great toppers on cards or sentiments on scrapbook pages, make them as muted or as zingy as you like. They are available to buy now on the web site......go on, you know you need them :)

Don't forget to let us know either via the blog or via the Funky Hand Facebook page what you have been crafting with the Funky Hand goodies.

Thanks for dropping by.

Funky Friday

I have a mammoth post for today's Funky Hand post as I've used quite a lot of my scraps up (I still haven't made a dent in the mountain though) so without further ado here we go.

These cards have all been made using the new wedding downloads from Funky Hand which have yet to be released.

What a muppet! I've just come to my blog to write a post for today and the one I wrote last night for yesterday's Funky Friday was just sitting there staring at me, I completely forgot to publish it!!! :))

I'll be back later with Saturday's post, I promise :)
Take care and thanks for dropping by.

Kanban Thursday

Hi everyone, I'm late again with my blog post but this time it's only by 24 hours :) I have so much to do at the mo it's unbelievable with trying to get on top of the garden after this diabolical spring (I wish I could afford a gardener but the last time I got one to help me he pinched half of my bulbs :() My greenhouse needs cleaning too as one of us left the wick up too high and it's all covered in soot! The mop and bucket and Jeyes fluid is at the ready.

So my card is one for my box (I will add the 'ingredients' list later, I don't have my notebook with me at the mo as I'm sat watching The Voice (go Leah!!!)

This card was made for my best friend and her hubby on the birth of their first granddaughter.

 Thanks for dropping in.

Bfn xx

PS Don't forget the challenges over on Kathy's Waffle Sketch File and The Crafting Muskateers, they are both month long challenges so there is still plenty of time for you to enter. xx

Wedding Wednesday

I'm using the post today to add the latest batch of wedding cards I made for hubby for work, and there are a few :) As always, they are all made with left overs, I think I might be on that mission for a while as my folder doesn't seem to be getting any lighter!

 Silver mirri card from Joanna Sheen, paper and image by Funky Hand

 The image on this card is a pre-coloured one from Lili Of The Valley and everything else is from my left over stash.

Papers from Funky Hand, image from The Digistamp Boutique and the lace is from Sarah Wright on Facebook

 A Lili OF The Valley image as on a previous card and my mum got me the backing card ages ado from a little craft shop who has since closed down!

 The image this time is from a set called Happily Ever After by Clearly Besotted, which is owned by the lovely Stephanie Wincott.

 This one is made with Funky Hand paper and a die cut bell

Kathy's Waffle

Good morning everybody, are you enjoying the sunshine here in Britain? It seems to have disappeared this morning but I'm hoping it will make an appearance at some point today, I'm getting used to my little 'forays' into the garden on an afternoon :) I've just had a lovely little wheelbarrow planter made so I'd like to get that painted today if possible as I've got Busy Lizzies waiting to go into it.

As it's the beginning of the month it's the start of the new Sketch Challenge and as always Kathy has come up with a brilliant one. She has also rotated the sketch so you can see how to use it in a different way.

My blogging is so erratic at the moment that I am building up a nice little back log of projects to show on here. As it's a Kathy's Waffle new sketch post I thought it would be ok to post the last couple of cards I mad for last month's sketch.

 The beautiful stamps are from Clearly Besotted (which I am), Full of Surprise. I've also used some narrow pink gingham ribbon and an off cut of lace, both of which were in my scrap box.

The absolutely gorgeous papers used on this card are from the new Autumn papers which haven't been released yet.

I hope you will use it and pop back and show us what you've made :) 

Thanks for dropping by.

A stamped image

Before we go onto the second challenge from the newly formed Crafting Muskateers Challenge team I would like to thank everyone one of you who took part in the first challenge....all 235 of you! The DT are so pleased with how it went and there were some fantastic entries. It was Sharon's turn to choose the winner using Random.org and that lucky person is Kellylou, congratulations!

So now onto Challenge #2 which is to use a stamped image. I chose to use a gorgeous image (Super Striker - stamped with black Memento and coloured with Promarkers) from Lili Of The Valley as I was making a card for my nephew who's birthday it is tomorrow.

The backing paper is a freebie from Papercraft Essentials I think and the sentiment was found in a box ready printed!

We would love you to join in with us again this week and who knows, you may just be the winner of a fantastic prize  

which has been donated by (click on the picture below to take you to Chloe's web site)

Good luck. Take care and enjoy your day. x