Oblong layers

It's time for an update over on Kathy's Waffle Sketch File challenge and boy do Kathy's sketches challenge you :) Take a look at these.....

The second sketch works perfectly with the C6 card I used for my sample. All the papers and image on this card are available on the Funky Hand web site. Why not have a go yourself and show us what you have done?

Take care, back soon xx

Challenge cards and DT call

I know I've been absent for a while so without going into too much detail, I'm back. My story involves bad backs and crappy lap tops but I won't bore you with the details, I just hope I can get some posts done and get caught up with challenges etc before the lap top packs in again! :)

I have loads to catch up with so I will start at the beginning of this month with any news, challenges etc and once I'm up to speed with April I will start on March (assuming I don't get stuck again!)

So the new challenge for April from the Crafting Muskateers is a good one. The theme is "Monochrome" and the sponsor is Anice McNamee from Funky Hand who has very kindly donated a £10 download voucher which can be spent on the Funky Hand web site. Here is an overview about FH..... 

"Funky Hand started with the launch of our first backing paper CD 'The Funky One'. Things have certainly moved on since then and I would like to thank all of our wonderful customers for making our time in the craft business such fun!

There are a lot of exciting things ahead for Funky Hand so keep popping back to see what we are up to. Anything that I want to let you know about will be added to my blog Funky Hand Thoughts as soon as it happens. I update it regularly with new card designs to inspire you, exciting news that I want to share and just general day to day chat. I look forward to you visiting me there! Don’t forget to leave me a comment so I can drop by your blog if you have one.
If this is the first time you have visited Funky Hand or if you are a Funky Hand customer and friend I am sure you will find something to inspire your paper crafting projects amongst our CD-Roms, downloads, stamps and stash. Don’t forget to take a look at the examples of cards, scrapbook pages and word-books for each CD or Download collection, new ones are added regularly. My thanks to my design team members Kathy, Jackie, Amanda, Jenny, Lou, Allison, Debs, Ni, Belinda, Debbie, Samantha and Ruth for all their hard work creating fab new card designs to add to the ones I pull together when I have a spare moment! As well as making cards for this website and my TV appearances, the Funkettes also run a monthly challenge blog - Get Funky! where there are Funky Hand goodies to be won. Why not have a go yourself?"

Here is my challenge card

 Anice very kindly gave the CM design team a download of their choice to work with and I chose the limited edition "Mother of Mine" download kit. I used shades of pink (apart from the bits of green on the flowers ;)) from the kit.

Why not pop over to the Crafting Muskateers challenge blog and take a look at the fabulous DT cards and entries? You have plenty of time to join in as the challenge runs for a month! We are also looking for a new member to join our wonderful Design Team as Sheena has decided to step down from the team due to other commitments. 

Look forward to seeing you, good luck xx

Witty titles!

Do you ever wish you could not only write fantastic content in a blog post and then come up with a witty title? Yep, me too. But where do we start? Do we begin with a witty title and hope that

1. it is going to be read by hundreds of thousands, ok, maybe thousands, hundreds, well a few anyway and
2. is picked up by major search engines

or 

Do we write the content first and then sit on it for days trying to come up with a witty title?

I would love to find out what everyone thinks.

So now as I am unable to come up with either, I shall add a couple of cards made for my brother's birthday earlier this month. The first card was made using the Kathy's Waffle Sketch File sketch (what a mouthful that was lol)

 The papers on this card were left overs from old Funky Hand projects, the ribbon was from my stock and the boat is a wonderful stamp set from the very talented Stephanie Wincott at Clearly Besotted stamps. There is still time to use the sketch over on KWSF and we would love to see what you've done with it.

This card features a pre-coloured teddy topper from Lili of the Valley and he is just so cute. The sentiment is a Kanban one and the button and twine are from my stock box.

Thanks for dropping by and I'll see you again soon :)

Funky Hand

Delicious Doodles

Have you been over to the Crafting Muskateer's Blog for the new challenge yet? Yes, we are already on challenge number 4!! It doesn't seem so long ago since we were all getting giddy about it starting up lol Anyway, the challenge this month is sponsored by Teri over at Delicious Doodles who will be giving the winner four of her "delicious doodles" :)

Click on the header to be taken over to Teri's shop, there are some lovely images over there. We were given a selection of images to choose from and then had to follow the sketch below

and here is the card I made.

I coloured the image with Promarkers and the papers are from The Just Happy collection on the Dreams Come True cd by Funky Hand. This has to be one of my favourite cds as there are some really yummy papers and colour ways to be had...this lilac pattered paper is a particular favour although this is another left over piece from my mountain :)

Also this month we are having a DT call as we have lost our lovely lace lady Sarah Wright so we are having a DT call. We don't want you to send us copies of your best work, we want you to enter our challenge then when you upload your project add DT next to your name. We will then choose from those of you who have added the DT.

Good luck to you all and thanks for dropping by and showing us all your support, we are very grateful. Don't forget that the challenge runs until the end of the month so there is plenty of time yet. :)

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.

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.

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.

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

Star Card, Star Album

I'm not exactly sure what these little books/albums are called as everyone seems to call them differently, I call them an album as I put photos in mine :)

It's my to host the Get Funky & Craft blog post for this week and as I had a commissioned album to make I decided I would use that as my project.

Cover 2 pieces of thick card with patterned paper and decorate the front. Make sure the paper is cut large enough to overlap on the inside by about an inch but don't decorate it as the first card will be stuck to it to form the first two pages.

Place tape onto the outer edges of all of 5" and 51/2" cards and to all four edges of the 6" cards..

 The cards which will form the album pages  

Some of the 6" cards will need tape on all four edges these form the 'star' and will be stuck onto the front and back covers

Decorate as you wish, I used off cuts of Funky Hand papers from a vast selection of papers, off cuts of lace and ribbon and bits which always seem to 'lurk' on my desk :)

 and start adding a collection of your favourite photos,

 journalling,

 and verses.

 These little albums make wonderful gifts

 and keepsakes

  and are appreciated by all who receive them.

 Happy crafting and thanks for dropping by :)