A thank you card

It's been a beautiful day here in Malvern, so my plans to craft today were put on hold as we popped out to buy a new swing seat! I'm sitting on it right now, laptop on my knee in the evening sun - bliss!

I did manage to make a quick card this morning though; it's a thank you for two very special people. The stamps are new from Crafty Individuals and they are so pretty. I kept the card simple - I inked up some card very lightly using a babywipe and Distress Inks which I then stamped with the ladies and greeting. The papers are yummy BasicGrey Bittersweet. I just added a bit of lace and that's about it.

I'm off on leave for a week from today so I may or may not be about. Enjoy your weekends all. Don't forget the next mag is on sale 5th June.

Katy x

Challenge card

I don't usually get time to do challenges, but I need to make quite a few cards this month and I thought challenges would be a quick and easy way to get a few made! Here's one I made yesterday following the sketch at The Sugar Bowl.

The papers are BasicGrey Urban Prairie and the focal stamp is one of the scrummy new Leanne Ellis stamps.

See you soon,

Katy x

Mmmmmmmmm, sugary.............

As you may know, I love Leanne Ellis, a Welsh artist who designs for Sugar Nellie stamps. I've now seen the new designs she has done (due for release any day) and they are lush! Her artwork is quite unusual and the stamps a little more 'arty' than some of the other Sugar Nellies. I love them and I'm sure you'll be seeing the odd creation popping up here in due course (I have tons of birthdays pending so lots of cards to make).

The stamps are not in the shop (Funky Kits) yet but due in very soon. Sneaky peeks over at the Sugar Nellie blog.

And talking of sugary things, Kay Carley is giving away some fab candy on her blog. Check it out here: kaycarley.blogspot.com. Her new flower stamps (part of the giveaway) are just lovely.

Have a fab weekend,
Katy

ATC Swap

I just thought I'd show you a little picture of the lovely card and fabulous (if a little unseasonal!) ATC that Anesha sent to me. I love them Anesha - thank you.

Katy x

Thanks Helen!

Look at this beautiful Stampbord charm Helen Chilton sent to me! She knows I love birds, so it's just perfect for me (the stamp is a rather yummy new Elusive Images one). As my creativity seems to have deserted me lately, she stamped a quote on the back which reads 'Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes; art is knowing which ones to keep.'

Anyway, seems to have worked like the charm that it is as my mojo had a little bit of a comeback over the bank holiday weekend :).

Thank you for your kindness Helen. I love my team! They are such a gorgeous bunch of people.

Katy x

Finally! My ArtsyCrafts project finished!

Woo hoo - at last, my ArtsyCrafts cabinet is finished! This is the project I started back in March at the fabulous ArtsyCrafts weekend hosted by Leandra Franich (PaperArtsy) and Linda Brown (LB Crafts) - both very talented ladies and great teachers too. Write up on the event in this month's issue if you want to know more.

It's taken me a while but I've finally completed it. I didn't get as much done as I would have liked over the weekend (I wasn't too well) so I took the opportunity to change things a bit and went with a Love theme in the end. I used a fabulous set of stamps from PaperArtsy - I think the image of the couple smiling at one another is just a gorgeous image. I also had to include moustache man in there - people who attended the event will know why ;-). There was lots of discussion about the presumed morals of said character!

The heart on the top is made using Ten Seconds Studio metal, which was used a lot on the course. Here, I've embossed the heart with a Cuttlebug folder (Textile Texture) and then sanded and inked the raised areas with brown StazOn. The wings are painted Grungeboard with Distress Stickles for a subtle shine.

We made this cute little message in a bottle at the weekend. I added German Scrap wings to mine; not sure why, just seemed to fill the niche better that way!

Finally, a little more metalwork. This time, images (pen nibs from the new PaperArtsy Crowns and Castles) stamped onto metal and then embossed for a 3D look. The background is stamped with a PaperArtsy script stamp (one of my favs, I use it all the time).

I had fun making this and bought another box like it to use for a different project in the future. Here's a view of it opened up to finish off.

I'd really recommend the event if you get the chance :).

Take care,

Katy

New Contributor blogs

Hi all,

Many of you will have seen the June issue by now, and know that we have some new contributors joining us this month.


I hope you like their work. Here are their blogs if you'd like to see more!

Kate Crane (Just add Salt)

Kim Costello (Black & White colouring tutorial)

We also welcomed Kate Bentley; sorry but I don't have her blog details (not sure if she has one).

K x

May Sketch Challenge winner

Congratulations - ANGELA! Here is her artwork based on the May sketch - I've shown you a peek but do take a look at the whole thing on her blog.

Send me an email (cs@traplet.com) and I'll pop your prize along to you.



We only had two entries for the May challenge - so please do take part in the challenge. If there isn't enough interest we will have to stop running it. And we do give a prize every month!


Katy x

Design a Stamp Competition

A while ago we ran a competition in the magazine for a reader to design our cover mount stamp. It's been a while, so I just wanted to give you an update on what's happening.

We had a fabulous response and a ton of entries, so it's taken us a while to get through them all.


We've now selected a winner and their stamp will be on the October 09 issue of the magazine. I'm not telling you who the lucky winner is though, we will announce that in the September issue, as well as showing some of the runners-up.

A big thank you to all the people who entered - we had a really tough time choosing and that's testament to the quality of the artwork we recieved.

Katy x