Blogging Everyday in June - Day 8: My Craft Space...

Bit of a late post today, as I have been out for most of the day but before Day 8 is over in very warm London I thought I would squeeze in the eighth day post!

Day 8: Describe or Take a picture of your Craft Space

I have a ridiculously small room and as with a small room comes an even smaller space and area to craft in! So I've taken a few pictures of my craft space (well sometimes it ain't even a space - it's just mess!) which is located in the right hand corner of my room. So here's a bit more detail for each numbered picture I've taken:

1) I have two shelves - the first top shelf I store my 6 x 6 paper pads in the grey basket on the left hand side, then various other items including an 8 x 8 pad, my multipurpose platform & shims for my Big Shot, some Cath Kidston Sew & Make books, various A4 paper, folders, paperwork and in the far right in the magazine files I store my various border dies, box dies and taller shims for my Big Shot. 

The second shelf stores cards made for my past or present DT teams, my jewellery and beads storage box, containers with buttons, more beads or broken accessories and a clear box that has twine, ribbons etc and the Sizzix Texture Boutique on top.

2) This box contains craft material I am currently using or trying out (shorter explaination, or we'd be here all day!)

3) Pens, rulers, pencils, scissors, colouring pencils, felt tips and next to them (though not evident in this picture!) Promarkers

4) Printer with random papers, folders and a blank canvas

5) Storage drawers with dies and punches, embossing folders and the last drawer envelopes and card

6) This box (which is on my tiny desk) has got the stamps and inks I am currently using.

I don't craft at my desk, because there is no chair at my desk, so I normally craft 80% of the time on my bed (random but true) which is just opposite my craft area. I just work on a hardcover A4 book and then put a cutting mat on top and then place all my craft stuff around me, so it's easier to reach for. I do sometimes (the other 20%) craft in my living room, but I hate having to drag boxes around and move from room to room if I need something that's in the other room, so it's a lot easier to craft in my room as everything I need is in there and I get time to myself! :)

So that's my craft space. I'm looking forward to checking other crafters' 'creative spaces' too!

Until tomorrow!

Blogging Everyday in June - Day 7: Ten Things...

Day 7 is here - nearly a week into the Blogging Everyday Challenge and I've actually really enjoyed it. Start as we mean to go on!

Ten things that make you Happy :)

I actually think this is going to be a bit difficult - but let's give it a go! (and in no particular order)

Food

I love food, I don't like cooking as such, but I love food. My Dad's a great cook and as I still live at home, I just love the comfort of home cooking and home cooked meals. Knowing that my Dad could be cooking a family favourite makes me smile, plus on a Sunday I always love a good roast!

Favourites include: Chicken, Cake & Shepherd's Pie. Yummy!

Family

I consider some of my best friends to be included in this category. They always make me smile and make me happy in any instant and they're always there for me - that's always a reason to smile

Friends

Good friends, close friends, best friends - whoever. I love their company even if I don't see some of them all the time. I always enjoy time with them as a group and individually and that always makes me happy.

Shopping

Yeah, I had to include it because I do love me a good ol' shop. Whether it is craft shopping. clothes shopping or shoe shopping. I love me a window shop or the occasional splurge!

Long Summer Evenings

It's nearly festival season in the UK and possibly anywhere else vaguely warm and nice and I know me and some friends are going to a few one day or weekend festies so it'll be good to spend some long Summer evenings enjoying great company, great atmosphere and entertainment while it's still warm and light outside.

Great Company (and spending time with awesome people)

Spending time with people whom I adore and totally love to pieces and enjoying those moments - whatever the season, whatever the weather. Whether its doing something totally random like BBQs in the sunshine, going down to the beach for the day or even just going to the park around the corner to soak up the atmosphere is pretty cool and spending time with and being in great company is always a reason to be happy

Crafting

I do love me some paper, and some double sided tape and then some stamps! Highly recommended and highly therapeutic - Card making (specifically for me) or a bit of scrapbooking makes me happy - putting those memories together and making something special for someone is enough to make me smile

Space and Time for Me

There are times when I like being alone. And I say alone, I mean having time to reflect on the week or day, or having time to myself to relax. I love other people's company and I like the company of others, but there are times when I like space and time to chill out, relax, take it easy and just reflect and rest. 

Birthdays / Parties / Special Events

You have a boogie, you have a bit of a dance, you spend time with some good / great friends and it's someone's birthday - and they love their birthday. Or it's a wedding, or a special occasion in general and you love seeing people and yourself celebrating together. I love those moments.

Bad Jokes / Humour / Sarcasm

Enough said on this one. Hearing bad jokes is one thing, having to explain the bad joke in question is another. Laughing makes me happy, so if you got a good joke (or maybe a relatively bad one) - you know who you can tell it to! :)

So there are my 10 things that make me happy. It wasn't that bad actually. Trying to think though was a bit much (as always!) but I got there in the end. 

What makes you happy? I look forward to finding out :)

Anything Goes & DT Call at Aud Sentiments!

Hi everyone. Hope you're having a great week so far. It is nearly the weekend, so hang in there 'cos it's only 2 days to go! :)

At Aud Sentiments this fortnight we have a new challenge and it is the ever popular ANYTHING GOES! So we're asking you to submit your entries to our blog with a card / project - with a sentiment - to the tune of whatever you want and any theme you want - just make sure you have a sentiment! Couldn't be easier!

We also have DT Call so if you would like to become a member of our Design Team check out our post here that outlines all the details for you and a few terms and conditions to look over too, so check that out when your submitting your entries. If you're happy with all the details and fancy becoming a DT member please add the words 'DT' to your entry and you never know - you might get picked to be on our Design Team! :)

Now on to our challenge - make sure you check out our blog for the Team A's cards and inspired designs and check back again the following for Team B's designs

Our sponsor this fortnight is: Beccy's Place

Here is some info about her:

"I love spending time in my craft room designing and creating with paper, fabric, flowers, ribbons, paint... anything I can get my hands on really. I have tried many different arts and crafts and have a particular passion for papercrafts, decorative painting and ribbon embroidery. I love to share ideas and "how to's" with other keen crafters,"  Its well worth a little click over to Beccy's blog, she has some great tutorials as well as her gorgeous images.

Here's my card below:

Image (c) Kristy Dalman for SomeOddGirl.com

Supplies:

White cardstock

Pink Paislee London Market Paper Pad Collection

Dovecraft Tea Doilies

Lace from a London Thrift Market

Cheery Blossoms from Wild Orchid Crafts

15mm Red Roses from Wild Orchid Crafts

Spellbinders Scalloped Oval Die

Spellbinders Oval Die

Stem Roses fom Hobbycraft

Memento Ink - Angel Pink

Image is: Dressy Mae from Some Odd Girl

Pink Adhesive Gems - Poundland (UK)

Hope you guys like my card for the challenge this fortnight - please visit the blog to erner in our challenge and apply for DT if you wish too as well! :)

Happy Crafting!

Blogging Everyday in June - Day 6: Inspiration for Crafting...

We are on to sixth day - nearly a week in already! Time is whizzing by! Here's Day 6's challenge:

Tell us how you / where you get your inspiration

Easy one I think for me and it's YouTube!

Now as I am in my late 20's I love me some YouTube. I'm very fond of the all knowing online social media and one of the main inspirations I get for card marking and crafting in general is YouTube. This is only been a recent thing though online within the last 2 or 3 years and in the early days of crafting I used to buy tons and tons of cardmaking magazines - Simply Cards and Papercrafts, Scrapbook Magazine, Cards Magazine (a US craft magazine, I think - they stopped selling it in the UK), Do Crafts anything like that if I saw it in the shop, I'd buy it and if it came with a great freebie that I needed or wanted or liked It would definitely be in my basket and on its way to the checkout! Then from magazines (though I still buy the occasional magazine!) it moved on to TV - especially shopping channels like - QVC, Ideal World and now Create and Craft which I do watch most of the time when I am at home in the background if I am making cards during the day. They inspire me to some degree, but it's always great when they have a craft you know nothing about and you wanna learn more, or if they showcase crafts you know everything about and you want to extend your expertise!

With the rise and popularity of Pinterest - which I do like, Facebook, Twitter and especially YouTube. I get most of my inspiration from YouTube. I think for me, I love visuals and seeing card and paper crafters such as Jennifer McGuire (Simon Says Stamp and others), Kristina Werner (Simon Says Stamp), Angie Kennedy Juda (Stampin' Up) and independent crafters as well - putting a card together from virtually nothing is so cool and I'm like 'I could so do that!' And its great being able to see the beginning to the end process and then the finished result - it is awesome and I still feel amazed when they produce something out of nothing - and equally astounding when I can do that myself and think 'Wow! I just totally made that!' It's a great feeling!

So that's how I get inspired for crafting! Can't wait to check out everyone else's stories of how they get inspired too I'll be reading them!

Social media links to follow me are on the contact page, so please follow me!

Until tomorrow! :)

Blogging Everyday in June - Day 5: Favourite Quote(s)

So today is Day 5 and here's the challenge:

What’s your favourite quote and why you love it

 

Now, I don't actually have one quote, because it would be a very short post - ridiculously short, so I have a few quotes that I really, really like or some of my favourites from Pinterest or quotes I've heard from friends etc, so so without further ado - here's some quotes for you!

 

"Talk Less. Do More"

"Wake Up and Be Awesome"

"Believe In Yourself"

"Manners Cost Nothing"

"Go Out There and Do Amazing Things"

"Mistakes are Proof that you are Trying"

"Good Friends are like Stars. You don't always see them, but you they're always there"

"Stop waiting for things to happen. Go out and make them happen"

"Strive for Progress. Not Perfection"

 

So there we go there are some of my favourite quotes. I love them for all different reasons really, mainly personal, some of them motivational as I sometimes need a bit of encouragement, ones to inspire me everyday and others are ones I generally live by - because life is always a massive learning curve. You never know what tomorrow brings and everyday is different! 

 

I look forward to reading what your favourite quotes are too!

Looking forward to Day 6 tomorrow! Woohoo! :)

Blogging Everyday in June - Day 4: Main Craft & Flowers...

So it's the fourth day in the Blogging Everyday Challenge and Day 4 asks: 

What is your craft/s? What is it about this craft/s that floats your boat so much?

 

My main craft is Card making. As it was something that I technically started 12 years ago (time goes really quickly!) and it's something I do on a frequent basis for friends' birthdays and the rare special event or occasion - it's a craft for me that I really do like and discovering new papers, brands, embellishments, and especially more recently - stamps and embossing with stamps - I just can't help myself. I'm also learning to shade and blend with Promarkers at the moment (as I don't own any Copics) and that in itself is really cool and interesting - especially colouring large stamped or digital images from the Greeting Farm and Some Odd Girl - which I really like doing.

 

I have done Digital Scrapbooking, Scrapbooking layouts and Jewellery making and I do like to dabble in them a little bit, but not massively as sometimes it can be for me - time consuming! Card making for me is really simple, and even using the simplest of papers, embellishments and images can create a card for any card. Your imagination is your oyster! :) It's also a great way to relax as well and create something someone will ultimately love and keep forever and that for me - makes me ridiculously happy!

 

So that's my main craft.... And today it's another double for you:

 

Craft something that has a flower theme

 

So this my card below:

Images (c) Kristy Dalman for SomeOddGirl.com

Supplies used:
Image is Bride Mae from Some Odd Girl
 EK Success Carnation Dimensional Flower Punch
Various lace from a thrift market
Sizzix Sizzlits 3 Dies Heart Set #2
Sizzix Sizzlits Die Butterfly #12
Cherry Blossoms from Wild Orchid Crafts
Curly Roses from Wild Orchid Crafts
Dovecraft Tea Doilies
Tim Holtz Adage Tickets
Adhesive Pearls
White Satin Roses from Ebay

 Tim Holtz Distress Tool
Momento Rich Cocoa Ink
Various Papers used from Prima's Fairy Belle and Botanical Paper Pad Collections
Papers from Pink Paislee's London Market Paper Pad

Hope you all like the card and the post today... Day 5 awaits tomorrow! :)

Bloggin Everyday in June - Day 3: 5 Words & Crafting in Blue...

Day 3: Describe yourself in 5 words

 

I this is going to be a bit difficult to do seeing as I can only think of about two, so trying to put my 'great' memory to the test and seeing if I can remember anything my friends have said. Err.. right here goes:

1. Quirky 

(My friend said I was this after I said something completely random and he found it funny)

 

2. Funny 

(My mix of sarcastic humour, dry wit and quick comebacks might be key here!)

 

3. Clever 

(Probably more for remembering things, being creative with things and general knowledge!)

 

4. Resourceful 

(A friend said I was this after carrying safety pins for my jeans when we went on rides at Thorpe Park so that my things wouldnt fall out of my pockets)

 

5. Sweet 

(For being well... that. Aww...)

 

So those are my five words - and a double whammy today - the other half of this challenge is:

 

Craft something in the colour blue

 

So I made these sweet Rosettes using my Tim Holtz Rosette Die

 

The flair badges I used were from different collections from American Crafts these were adhere with different sentiments and pictures to match the main blue / white rosette colours. I'll be making more of these in the future with my own flair badges which will be featured in our shop soon, so look out for them online! :)

 

 Come back for Day 4 tomorrow...

Blogging Everyday in June - Day 2: Summer

 

Day 2: Craft something that has a summer theme

Continuing Kairen's Blogging challenge we're here with Day 2... So to mix it up a little bit, I've created a Summer themed card below:

 (Images (c) Kristy Dalman for SomeOddGirl.com)

For this Summer themed card, I used a digital image 'Summery Mae' from Some Odd Girl which I thought suited the theme for Day 2! I have used papers from Dear Lizzy's Neopolitan collection from American Crafts which has a lovely Summer theme to it and has great colourful papers perfect for this! I have used a Kraft cardstock from Papermania as the base, die cut a few sections of the same paper pad and also Amy Tangerine's Yes Please collection from American Crafts - with the Sizzix Tickets Sizzlits and the MFT Doily Dies. I fussy cut some banners at the top of the card from the Dear Lizzy collection and the 'Hello' sentiment is from the Greeting Farm's Hello Go Round sentiment stamps collection. I think it turned out pretty cute and Summery and with the weather in London brightening up, I think it's set to encourage me to enjoy the warmth a bit more! :)

And for a bit of a bonus, the other non-crafty challenge for Day 2:  

Tell us all about your favourite craft gadget and why it’s just the bees knees

It has to be for me, this baby below:

  It does everything I need it to do, it die cuts, it embosses... it's just everything I really need. I don't own a Slice or a Cameo so for it does the job perfectly for me without the need to plug anything anywhere and it's pretty handy for me to carry around from room to room, so I love it. It's a great crafting tool - I wouldn't say gadget as such because it's too big for a pocket, but it is one of my favourite tools to have in my craft space!

Come back tomorrow for Day 3...

Blogging Everyday in June - Day 1: How I Got Started...

I will be taking on Kairen's challenge of blogging everyday through June... so let's start off with...

Day 1: Tell us all about how you got into crafting

I first got into crafting quite a few years ago, when I saw a few I mean about... 12 years ago when I was 16 and was in College. I made a birthday card for a really good friend of mine - Adam (he's still a good friend of mine today!) for his birthday and I remember being really nervous about giving it to him at college the next day. Anyway nervousness aside, he loved it and he was really touched about how I made all the effort to make something for him. So from then on I started to sporadically make birthday cards for my friends and see what reactions I was getting whenever their birthday come around. It made me happy to see other people happy about receiving something handmade.

12 years on, and sporadically through those years - my card making has become more frequent and my social circle has extended and now with birthdays all year round my friends definitely expect birthday cards in the post from me - which happens often as my memory is pretty good and I always make a note of birthdays in my diary! I love making cards - though through work - it cane leave me with no time to make them, but I try to fit in card making as much as I can in my spare time.

My card making has also ridiculously improved through the years and the discovery of some great craft brands has made crafting more easier and also more simple with diverse designs and techniques. With social media such as blogging, YouTube and challenges online everyone can take part in - it encourages the procrastinator in me to create cards for everyone and for any occasion and I do love it. The feedback I get and the continuous reactions from friends and lots of sweet thank you messages are enough for me to keep going with craft making. I do enjoy it and I have a lot to thank to friends and family to continue something I love to pieces and takes a break from the normal everyday life of reality! :)


So that's the little-ish story of how I got started in crafting and card making, watch this space tomorrow for Day 2...

Could you blog something crafty everyday in June?

I normally browse through a few favourite craft bloggers I follow either through Blog Lovin' or just have bookmarked on my IPad or Netbook, so today was pretty much no exception!

I came across Kairen from Karoove via Lou Mac and she has decided to set up a little challenge for everyone to take part in - on your own craft blog - and that is to blog something crafty everyday (yep, EVERYDAY!) throughout June!

Now if you're like me and a bit of part-time crafter - it's gonna be difficult! But lately with a bit of a loss of mojo and a lack of inspiration, I thought that this might be a great way to encourage me to craft something or at least contribute something crafty (inspiration, favourite products, favourite tools etc) to the crafty bloggersphere with this very challenging (see what I did there?!) challenge! So I'm actually going to attempt this! Think this maybe a challenge and a half - but I think it'll be worth it! Karen has set up different topis for everyday, so if you're stuck one thing, then you have another option.

At the moment I'm running two sites - one is this creative blog - mainly for design team work, and various one off cards I create for friends and the other is my business craft site, which I am in the middle of setting up - Melusberry Crafts -  which you can visit. Thing is with Melusberry Crafts is that it has little content, so in order to fill this awesome crafty website space I have, I will be filling this website throughout June with content and card-making goodness and even when the challenge is over I will continue to craft and blog throughout the rest of the Summer, so pop back as much as you can to have a look at what's on the site at the moment! I'll be doubling up on posts and posting on this site, as well as on the Melusberry Crafts site - so please show some love on both sites - that would be brilliant & much appreciated! :)

So if you're up for the challenge of blogging something crafty everyday through June - GO FOR IT! It'll be awesome to see what inspires you all or alternatively what you guys are creating too! So take part if you can!

Kairen's Post is here: Blogging Everyday in June - which contains T's & C's, Rules and the opportunity to be entered into her Craft Bundle - all details of which are on the post. You'll also have option of putting a badge on your blog if you're craft-blogging everyday in June! Check out the post for more details! Take part and Spread the Craft-Blogging Word! :)