Fabric & Ribbon Christmas Tree



Thought I'd share this cute fabric and ribbon Christmas Tree card with you. Simply collect all your favourite ribbons, fabrics, bling and get stickin'. Just make each stripe slightly shorter and graduate up till you reach the top of the tree. Add buttons, brads, any jewel bling for the very top. You can also use small stamps to decorate your tree. Once you've glued in place, try sewing a line down the middle to add some depth.  I've used a cool little topiary stamp (just hid the tree) to get the pot planter - you could also draw one or make a paper template and cut out little planters in pretty papers.

Have fun!
x

Fa La La

Here's another idea for your Christmas Card Design, simply make sweet bunting triangles from your favourite Christmas papers (or indeed green and red papers) and stick onto ribbon. You might want to try little stamps or rubons onto some of them. Make enough to go across your card size twice. Next stamp a simple tree or any other Christmas stamp you have, I've also added a little flourish to fill a little more white space. Stick on your bunting and yippee a nice modern twist to Christmas this year.

Have fun!
Why not make extra for a page layout?x

Christmas is Near!

So, let's get busy with Christmas! I've now got my ladies all geared up, designs in hand, and hopefully off to a good early start to making their own Christmas decorations and cards. If you are like me every year you plan to do everything handmade and gorgeous, but simply run out of time and then nip to M&S and buy their goodies..well remember my focus this year has all been about "production line" crafting? ie; make in advance, do lots of little lovely projects over and over so that you can then simply put all the elements together and have wonderful finished items to be proud of..now has never been the more perfect time to start this habit. I'll show you lots of ideas this week to get you inspired!.
xx


For this card, I've simply cut a triangle off the front of the card, and covered in paper as well as the inside. Take a frame shape (or diecut if you are lucky enough to have a clever machine) and mount on your favourite cardstock. Make a small parcel embellishment, add a tag and some ribbon and bling and stick onto your frame mounts. Then stick this half way across the triangle front cover. If you have really colourful paper, simply leave the inside front cover of the card to write your message.

Mini Scrappers Birthday

OMG she's really a gorgeous big girl now - my baby turned 8 today! We celebrated with a lazy morning of presents, and chillin' together, and then gathered all the essentials for a summer beach picnic. All our friends arrived with picnics and we enjoyed doing what people who live by the coast should do more often - relaxed on the beach all afternoon!

I had my usual thoughts of all gifts homemade, but managed to run out of time, rushing around town yesterday buying her surprises. I did however manage to make her a card - well can you imagine the stick I'd get in this house presented anything but. I found a template of a this cool monster, cut it out of plain cardstock, and then used 1' stripes of different papers which I inked and glued across butting up the edges. I then recut out the template, inked the edges, and decorated. It was quite a large template so I used a 8x8 card to display it well. She loved it so staying up till late last night was all worth it.

Off to our first session of our Mother & Daughter Sewing Class at The Eternal Maker, which we are both really excited about.

x

Wrapping Paper Cards

Continuing to have fun with wrapping paper. I also love the excuse that I have to find lots more lovely ones now I've worked out what to do with them other than wrapping! Not that us paper girls need an excuse, but I do love it when I can enjoy buying something cheap and making something wonderful from it.

I sometimes think that it's handy to have a formula when you want to achieve quick collage, so here, I've stamped a black image first, then I've used 2 to 3 cutouts from wrapping paper, (or indeed cut-outs from beautiful scrapbooking paper), followed by a trio of tiny flowers. This seems to work each time. You'll see I've also added some text...cut out from magazines (another useful reason to keep buying lovely housey mags!).

Off to Eternal Maker in Chichester tomorrow teaching all day at Scrap Club. I'll be showing my ladies this technique, along with 2 layouts in the afternoon which I'll post here when they done them.

Hope everyone's week is going well!
x

Life is Beautiful!

Yum, life is beautiful. After my weekend and OK Monday, I remember why I called my blog what I did. Gorgeous to have mini scrapper home, the boy brown and sandy after a full weekend of sailing, and me happy with my life a little bit back to normal.

On my trip to Brighton I picked up some amazing wrapping papers. Are you like me and can't resist paper of any size and shape...doesn't have to be 12x12 scrapbook paper, just any kind will do. I cut out the designs which looked scrapped anyhow, mixed up with some petals from vintage rose papers, a bit of glamour dust, black stamping and some paper roses. I also bought these amazing pale pink postcards and envelopes - french you know - just need to be scented! I normally work on white card, just because I love the artwork to not be distracted by the background colour, but am really enjoying playing with pink (well I would wouldn't I!).

Make sure you look at wrapping papers to scrap and create with - even the supermarkets have designs I can't resist.

Off to have a coffee and a bickie
xx

Brighton

Had a wonderful morning "moochin'" with my mate Sam cameras at the ready for capturing Brighton. Just played with our cameras, not really worrying about the subject which was lovely, and a must for you all! It's really fun to see what you capture through the lens. Here are a couple of my favourite shots of the day.


Got home to another card from mini scrapper, OMG we are so missing her, and I am starting to count down the hours now till midday tomorrow when I finally get to pick her up.

Here is her 4th card, lots of fairy houses, a word-search I made for her on-line, and a cutting from a Hello magazine pretending that I'd spotted her and Snowie at Brownie Camp....wonder what she has made of all her cards? will be interesting to see what she thinks.

Upstairs now whilst the house is still quiet to play with some new pale pink French cards and envelopes, along with some papers and old postcards I bought today as well.

Happy days!
x

yeah return post!!!

Yipppee, I got mail!
Mini scrapper has sent us a postcard and a homemade card. Her postcard reads;

Dear Mummy & Daddy, How you had a good day. I had a good day. I love you round the world and back. Love from Hols xxxxoooo

I heard from Grandma and her bff (best friend forever) that they also got postcards, so mini scrapper has obviously been busy.

Here is my day 3 card for her.


I know they will be hitting the beach, so I've stamped some woodware mermaids stamps onto white cardstock and cut them out, one for each brownie to colour in. I also thought Curly (her bear) might need a card today so made one for him too.

Yeah treating myself to a day off tomorrow, and going to Brighton with a friend to take some pictures - no real subjects, just playing with our cameras - can't wait!.

x

Day 2 without mini Scrapper

My wednesday dosn't seem quite as special as normal...its funny but when I wish for more time on my own, the thought seems so blissful, but in reality when I have the whole day with only a couple of phone calls and a small exchange of words with the bank teller, somehow the reality isn't so great. My working from home day on Wednesdays is always a packed day trying to be as creative as possible before the 3pm pick-up, but today whilst its wonderful not having to pack up just yet, I don't seem to have been any more creative! that said I've been busily sewing silk squares ready to make up the front page kits for the Retreat album - the rainbow colours of the silks and ribbons look amazing together.

So,...I wonder what Mini scrapper has been up to. Still no contact at all which I'm finding very hard. When she goes to a friends or family, I still phone or text her to catch up and see she's ok. Nothing since yesterday lunch is simply horrible. Hopefully they've had lots of sunshine fun today...wonder if she's got her 2nd letter yet? Here it is - this time I cut out a cute dog from a scrapbook paper, and highlighted his nose with a diamond. I stamped a flower and popped a 3d butterfly on for him to sniff!. Daddy wrote in this one, and I popped in a tiny card and envelope from me with a secret message saying I loved her...hope we get some post tomorrow!

Have great evenings! enjoy the sun!
x

Brownies Scrapped Post

Boo Hoo, mini scrapper has gone to Brownie Camp...it feels very odd stilling being in the office at 4.30 and not having to rush like a mad woman through traffic to pick her up...even more so as I see other children off at Half Term. Still on my "very proud Mummy" side, I was delighted that she waved me off all confident and ready to start her adventure. We settled her in, putting out her sleeping bag and brownie blanket (which I suddenly remembered whilst in bed last night, needed more badges sewn on, so did them with sleepy eyes and by bedside lamp), and of course Curly, and popped her things under her campbed.

One of the things they asked us to do was to prepare some letters for them for each day...hey now your cookin' just my kind of thing. So on Sunday night I stayed up late and prepared 4 handmade and personal cards for her. Quite tricky to come up with designs that are for children, (especially having the daughter I do)I'm much more used to designs for big people. Anyway 4 cards later I'm very happy and only wished that I got more scrapped post. I'll show you each day's here on the blog.

Today's features this gorgeous little owl. You know when you see a set of stamps that are quite cute, but you don't want them to look tooooo cute. This was the case with these ones. I've stamped him on pretty paper, and then stamped his wings on a contrasting one and stuck over the original wings. Then I've glittered his eyes and couldn't resist sticking a flower on his head. I also stamped the word love on his tummy with my cool typewriter font stamps. Next I stamped a spray of flowers for a branch, and a little bit of script stamp on the bottom. Yeah very happy. Inside there is also a quiz and one of those cool folded thingeys (can never remember there name!), pick a colour, pick a number, pick a number, lift up the flap and do the crazy task....hope they have fun swapping socks with each other !!!

Yucky weather here - hoping for a sunnier Wednesday.
xx

Wedding Tags

A whole day in the studio today which I always love! Today's task was to get some wedding designs done as I have a tight deadline of Friday to show them off - fingers crossed they will like my ideas!

It,s great to see how "vogue" it is becoming to hand make your own invitations, cards, tags and albums for your wedding (or maybe get someone else to do them)....the idea is that I come up with designs, create wedding kits and let the brides have fun being creative. This of course could expand into lots of other areas like birthdays, christenings, and other celebrations.

I have used the Delish Metal Frames as a key embellishment on these tags to tie around your wedding album as I just love their decadent look.

Weather not so great today here - but we did manage to eat our first strawberries from our own plants last night - very yum!

Hope you've had a good Wednesday!
x

Butterfly Card & Envelope

Loved teaching this tiny 4x4 Butterfly Post Card with matching envelope yesterday at the Eternal Maker in Chichester. I especially love the matching envelopes made from a 6x12 piece of paper. Simply find a smallish envelope, carefully undo all the seams and make yourself a template. Just be careful not to go too big, as it could then take a whole sheet of 12x12 paper which might make the envelope a bit expensive. If you are worried about the envelope going in the post, there's no reason why you can't simply write on a plain ol' white envelope and pop your beautiful one inside. They would also make great secret journalling pockets for your albums and layouts.

Have Fun!
Debs
x

Mrs Egg and Friends

Hope everyone had a lovely Easter, filled with lots of laughter and of course lots of chocolate! Following my new Easter Egg idea from last year, I invented Mrs Egg! a rather strange looking chick, ready to party all night, yet relax in front of the scrap table on occasion, Mrs Egg was greeted with cries of joy from Holly as usual, with the obvious and very "Holly" determination that of course Mrs Egg can't be eaten! Lucky I learnt this from last year, so simply filled up the pick and mix sweet pot and wrapped this up as well so she can at least eat these. I simply used a tube of icing to stick on the sweets for Mrs Egg's features, made a tutu out of material and of course used my new butterfly template that makes great wings!

On a more serious creative note I also made her a cute Fat Bird card from my new Fat Bird templates - I love all the colours and am having really great fun making these birds from lots of funky papers - watch out for my NEW Fat Bird Kit that I'm putting together which will give you the templates, include lots of funky papers, plus cute buttons ready for the eyes! The kit will let you make 12 cool birds. Let me know if you'd like me to put one aside for you by sending me a quick email debs@thescrapbookcompany.co.uk. They will retail at £4.95. I'm trying to put lots of new kits together, and will launch them on the website within the next 2 weeks. What kind of kits would you love to buy - lots of ideas at the moment, but would love to hear from you all!

Have fun!
debs
x

Mini Scrapper Strikes Again!

Awoke to tea in bed, and the busy noises of my mini scrapper next door in my studio making something - so wonderful to know she has a creative space to play in...and within a few busy minutes this wonderful Mothers Day card was brought in - I'm absolutely delighted with her own design. She had seen me fiddling around with this new butterfly template for classes this week, one made from some cool magnets a lovely lady gave me for Christmas...knew that they would develop from the fridge which is their permanent resting place to make templates for my template box! Spent the rest of the day walking along the seafront with friends, and the mini scrapper roller skating past us every few minutes....just awaiting my final treat of the day a yummy roast dinner cooked by the boy.
In the studio all day tomorrow - yippee! can't wait to play for a whole day.
Hope everyone had a wonderful Mothers Day too!
Love to you all!
x