Topboots easle card

This past week has flown by for me & I can't believe we're at the end of January already.
 Inbetween all my usual running around here there & everywhere, I've managed to get all the packs ready for our workshop tomorrow evening & I've actually made a few cards aswell!
We had a new delivery in the shop from Docrafts & when I spotted the Spots & Stripes Pastels paper packs I had to bring one home to have a play.

A few of my friends have recently bought or been given Hunter Wellies & they were rather excited by the recent bad weather & the opportunity to wear them. With them in mind I decided to make a few cards with this Woodware Wellie Boot stamp that I've had a little while & the paper piecing technique we used before Christmas at our workshop.

 

I stamped the Wellie boot with black ink on 6 different spots & stripes papers & then repeated it for the 2nd boot. Then I stamped it twice again on white card. I cut a different section out of each patterned paper for each part of the boots & stuck them down onto the white boots & cut each finished boot out.

 I covered the top & inside base of the easle card with more patterned paper, punched a strip with the Martha Stewart punch & made the flowers using Alterations Tattered Florals Bigz Die.
The thanks sentiment is from a Craftwork Cards pack & the buttons, bakers twine & ribbon are from my stash. I then assembled it all using cosmic shimmer glue & 3d foam pads.

Thanks for taking a look
Come back soon!

Amy x

Warm Welcome

Hello, I'm back again after a great 1st week in the land of Blog!
Thank you to all who have taken the time to have a look at my blog, & to leave such lovely comments. I can't tell you how excited I was to find that I had actually gained a few followers too!!
After a week filled with cold & snow it's been so nice to receive such a warm welcome.

In my first post I mentioned my shop in Chipping Sodbury called Out Of The Blue & some of you said you'd like to see some pictures of the shop. So here we go!

 

This is one of our window displays from last year. We try to change our window displays every 2 to 3 weeks to keep it looking fresh. I never really know what I'm going to do until I'm in there doing it but I normally have a colour scheme or theme in mind before I start. I loved the combination of the lime & berry colours for this one & had lots of lovely comments from customers too.

 

This is our current dresser display in the shop & I was aiming for a 'love your garden' theme for this one so lots of green & natural wood & distressed metal & slate. Don't think many of us will be spending too much time in our gardens at the moment apart from to build snowmen or clearing paths of snow & ice!. Bring on the Spring!

 

The front of our shop is all gifts & greetings cards, but the rear of the shop is a room dedicated to craft supplies, mostly for card making & scrapbooking but over the past year or two we've been adding bits of haberdashery & wool, so here's a peek at a small section of our craft room.

 

That's it about the shop for now. If you are ever passing please make sure you pop in & say hello.

You can find us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Out-Of-The-Blue-Gift-Shop/297132544625

 

My next post will be back to some of my crafty projects.

 

Amy x

 

 

Vintage Rose

In my 1st post ever, I talked about how my shop runs regular card making workshops with the help of my crafty friend Carole. 

When the local library held a free event a year or 2 ago to encourage people to take up a new hobby, Carole had a stand there demonstrating & getting everyone to have a go at stamping & card making. She had some of her beautiful Crafty Creations on display & I knew straight away that she would be great to get on board to help me with my ambition to get some workshops up & running for the shop.
I'm sure you are familiar with Carole's Crafty Creations http://8thwonderart.blogspot.co.uk/  if not you should be!

We began our workshops towards the beginning of last year & since then our group has grown with great enthusiasm. We are about to restart our workshops for 2013 after our Christmas break.

So as promised here is a picture of the card my half of our group will be making on 31st January.

I began by stamping the Kanban vintage rose design 3 times with Aged Mahogany distress ink onto cream card. I then used a wet paintbrush & roughly washed over the images of the roses for a water coloured effect & added Bundled sage distress ink with the wet brush to the leafy areas. I then used my heat tool to dry it all. I cut one design out completely, & then layered parts of the remaining 2 designs with pinflair glue to create a 3d decoupaged effect

 

The card blank was an A4 piece of cream card folded in half & covered by the Paper Company Studio 'Cranberry Shimmer' card cut from 12 x 12 sheet.

 

 

I matted & layered a piece of torn 'Tank' green Coredinations & added some cream card embossed through my Cuttlebug with the Provocraft Victoria embossing folder which was then inked with Aged Mahogany. The shimmery May Arts ribbon was also added at this stage.

 

 

I used the Dreamweaver Happy Valentine's Day stencil & pearlescent embossing paste on cream card to make the sentiment.  I then heated the stencilled paste with my heat tool until it bubbled & crackled to give a more raised, embossed effect. I trimmed it to size & distress inked over the whole piece with the aged mahogany. I then gave it a final blast with my heat tool to make the embossing paste more shimmery & to heat set the ink.

This was then fixed with 3D foam pads to the card.

 

Although the sentiment is for Valentine's Day, I think by changing the stencil design this card would be also be lovely for a Birthday, Mother's Day or Anniversary card.

Sorry if the photos aren't great, they weren't taken in natural light but I was eager to get adding some pictures once I'd worked out how to do it!

This is going to be fun!!

 

Thanks for checking out my blog

Amy x

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First Blog!

Well, I've finally taken the plunge into the world of blogging!.
It's been my intention for a long time to start a blog but I knew I'd have to reserve a good few hours to get it up & running. As a busy Wife, Mum & business owner, other things always seemed to come first.  A New Year's resolution to just get on & do it, & inspiration from following my friend Carole's blog finally spurred me on, & so here we are!.

I'm not really too sure how to begin & I hope I get better as I go along. My hope is to share with you my crafting projects & inspirations.
I've enjoyed making things since I was very young, & my creativity was always encouraged by both my parents so I was very lucky. At school I made things & sold them to friends & teachers. I held stalls at craft fairs & found local shops to sell what I made. I knew I wanted to make jewellery & chose mostly art based subjects at school so that I would be able to study it further.
My Mum & I set up our business together doing glass painting. When I came home from Uni I dropped off a finished batch for delivery & went back with another batch to get on with. By the time I finished studying, our business had become more & more successful & so we decided to do it full time.
Delivering to lots of lovely gift shops & visiting gift trade fairs made us want a shop of our own & so in 2000 we opened 'Out Of The Blue' on the Dorset coast & lived by the sea until the owner of the property decided to sell up after we'd only been trading for a few months. We then relocated to Chipping Sodbury (near our home) & that's where we still are.
The shop is a gift shop with a room dedicated to craft supplies & we now hold cardmaking workshops on a regular basis. My friend Carole teaches the workshops with me & Mum & we've got a lovely group of ladies who are eager to be shown lots of new crafting techniques & ideas.
After a break over Christmas we are about to restart our workshops, so I will be sharing some of the projects we will be creating & also some of our past projects too.

In the next few days I will post a picture & details of the project we will be doing at our next workshop. Please feel free to leave comments, I'd love to get your feedback.

Thanks for stopping by
Amy x