BUTTERFLY AND SNIPPETS

Hi Everyone

Happy Monday!

I hope you all enjoyed your weekend.  

The butterfly I stamped, using the chalks I posted about on Friday, has been put to good use alongside lots of snippets from my very large snippet mountain .. .. all ready for taking over to Pixie's Snippets Playground where we are encouraged to use up our leftovers rather than cutting into full sheets!  

So here is my little creation for taking over:

This used:

Image:  Funstamps "FQ14" Butterfly - a very old stamp that came from Hobbycraft originally I think

Sentiment and all the papers:  Pink Petticoat leftovers (sadly the boutique has now closed)

Josy Rose:  Nail Heads

Joy Craft Dies:  Flowers 2

My Trusty Sewing Machine

Diamond Stickles

Button and Gems from my crafty stash box

and sketch number Twenty Three from my little sketch library (tab at the top of my blog - feel free to use any of them if you would like to).

Nearly time for me to add some more sketches!!

Enjoy your evening everyone and I'll catch you again soon .. .. hopefully.

Love

HAPPY FRIDAY

Hi Everyone

Happy Friday, ahead of what I hope is going to be a happy weekend for you.

Thank you so much to everyone who very kindly left comments and sent emails on my previous post, each and every one means such a lot.

A different sort of blog post from me today in the form of a product review.

I was asked by the lovely Anuj from ChalkOla  if I would do a review on their chalk markers and was sent a pack of Chalk Markers and a pack of 80 shaped  Chalkboard Labels to try out.

Well we all like playing with something new don't we????

The product has been targeted towards teachers for classroom projects, parents/children and crafters for DIY projects - but I personally think that everyone could find a use for them somewhere.

I really enjoyed trying them out.  Starting them off was simple, it was just a case of priming them by giving them a good shake and then depressing the bullet tip until the liquid chalk flowed into the tip.  The markers are waterbased, have no smell to them at all and were great to use.  Such vibrant colours …. even on black!  So armed with a full set of primed pens where would I start?

Well, with organisation being the name of the game this year here in the House of Hearts the first place was the crafty do list which was transferred to a whiteboard so all those tasks were under my nose .. .. ..  the big bonus here being that unlike the dry markers that normally come with a white board, these chalk markers stay in place until you wipe them away with a damp cloth or baby wipe. Of course I won’t show you my list .. .. it will wear you out just looking at it!  LOL!!

You can use the pens on mirrors, chalkboards, windows and anything you write will stay in place until you wipe it away  -  but they suggest that if you are unsure of the surface you are going to write or draw on then do a little test first, just to be on the safe side.  I never had a problem with anything I wrote on.

I used the shaped labels on the drawers that I store my ProMarkers in.  No more opening all the drawers to find the colour I want – right drawer first time!! (providing I put my pens in the right drawer to start with).  Shame about my rubbish handwriting though!! LOL!!

But the thing I am most excited about is the white marker in the pack. I couldn’t wait to play with that and wanted to see whether I could stamp using it.

Well .. .. .. 

The top image was stamped by simply colouring the rubber stamp with the marker and stamping onto black card .. .. the problem being that I couldn’t colour the image and stamp it quickly enough.  So I coloured the stamp again and this time spritz the stamp with a very fine mist of water before stamping and that gave me a much better image.  Great for a blackboard effect card card don't you think?   I didn’t have much luck stamping fine detailed sentiments but hopefully chunkier senitments will work as well as the butterfly did.   Acrylic and rubber stamps gave equally good results and cleaned up perfectly afterwards.

I am going to use the butterfly on a card soon so you will have to come back and see how that turned out .. .. but for now I think this blog post is long enough.

If you want to have a closer look at the pens, you can find them here and there is a discount code of CHALK20A available to get 20% off the price.  Woo  hoo!!

Please note I am not on commission or connected to this company in any way whatsoever .. .. I just had great fun playing with their products and thought it would be nice to share what I did with them.

Have a great rest of the day and a great weekend, and I will catch you again soon.

Love

HAPPY NEWS AND THANK YOU!

Hi Everyone

Happy Monday!!!  I hope you all had a good weekend and the week has started off well for you.

I wanted to pop by and share some super happy news from this end!!

Mr Heart and I went to the CHSI Stitches Exhibition at the NEC on Sunday to source some suppliers for goodies for my little wedding stationery business. I found quite a few people who were more than happy to work with me .. .. ..  despite me not needing to purchase hundreds and hundreds of everything .. .. .. and one that has even offered to open up their warehouse out of hours so I can have a rummage through their Aladdin's Cave of goodies!!  I will definitely be taking them up on that wonderful offer on the back of their fabulous supplies at the exhibition!   How lovely to find so many company owners that are as excited about their ventures as I am.

My brain is buzzing even more than ever.. .... who would have thought that was possible??

Then after the exhibition had closed for the day we went along to the craft awards, which anyone at the exhibition was allowed to attend .. .. .. and surprise of all surprises, look what I gained .. .. ..

FAVOURITE CARD DESIGNER CATEGORY

To say that I was totally amazed and dumbfounded is the understatement of the year .. .. . especially when you take into consideration that I was in the presence of some of my crafting heroes.  To be honest it felt like a dream.

But I woke up in the hotel this morning to find it really was true (and the champagne bottle still full) .. .. proceeded to eat a huge breakfast .. .. and then headed back to the exhibition as we had only touched the surface of all the amazing stands yesterday.

On Sunday we also went into one of the many seminars that were on offer to listen to the amazing Sara Naumann lecturing on "Filming DIY Craft Videos".. .. OMG there is a lot more to that than meets the eye so that is on a very low back burner .. .. perhaps never to reach a front burner .. .. but having instilled in me huge respect for all those that do it so professionally. 

But we are home again now and I have mountains of leaflets and booklets to read and a lovely stash of business cards to wade through and websites to investigate, as a lot of suppliers had been unable to take their complete ranges with them.

Tomorrow it is going to be a case of falling back to earth with a bang as I lift down from the notice board that huge "must do" crafty "do list" but until then I am trying to put it out of my mind.

But I want to leave you by saying a huge

THANK YOU

to anyone who kindly voted for me in the awards

and also share a very rare picture of the lovely Mr Heart and myself in the awards suite .. .. .. where the lighting was VERY PINK .. .. but at least it makes us look like we might have a bit of a tan (we wish!!). LOL!!

Hopefully there will be some official photographs to share or link to later .. .. but for now this is a wonderful reminder of a very special moment in my life.

Thanks again to anyone who backed me and made this happen.

Edited to say:  Sheila in Cyprus .. .. I have sent you a message on an old email address I had for you .. .. but just in case that doesn't work, and in the hope that you call by here again, the exhibition we attended was a trade one .. .. not the Hobbycraft and Sewing for Pleasure one that will be taking place in March.  I would hate you to miss out on some crafty retail therapy .. .. the details are linked here for you. 

Thanks everyone for your lovely comments .. .. Mr Heart is enjoying his claim to fame in the blogging world LOL!!!

Love and hugs

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY

Hi Everyone

Happy Thursday!

I hope you are all well and keeping those crafty fingers working!

All systems go here with my feet hardly touching the ground .. .. but as always lots of it is self inflicted!  I am trying to get super, uber organised .. .. and it's taking quite a bit of time to get where I want to be.  Lots of other things that "have" to be done are stopping progress being as quick as I would like .. .. but hey ho .. .. I'll get there eventually.

I had a lovely little delivery arrive yesterday from Stampin' Up and a rule in the House of Hearts is that if you are lucky enough to have something new then you can't put it away until you have used it.

Well today's share lets me put two things away now because I bought a scrummy new paper stack too.

So here we go:

This used:

Stampin' Up:  Bird Builder Punch

Sentiment:  Elzybells (sadly no longer trading)

Backing Papers:  First Edition Papers "Love Story"

Spellbinders Nestabilities:  Classic Ovals Large and Scalloped Ovals Large
Woodware Heart Punch
Diamond Stickles
Bundled age Distress Ink for tickling the birds and the leaves 
Pearls from my crafty stash box

and that is it.

Hopefully catch you again soon with my magazine makes for this month.

Love

TEENY, TINY TUESDAY

Hi Everyone

Happy teeny, tiny Tuesday everyone!

Sorry it has been so long since I last posted.  Life has been super busy since the wedding fayre .. .. but all good and exciting. 

I had a bit of a creative thought as I was nodding off last night (sad I know) and decided I would try it out to see how it looks.  Well I was happy with the results and decided it would work well on one of my teeny tiny 3.5" square creations. So here we go:

This used:

Image:  Kaisercraft Botanica Clear Stamps

Sentiment: Stampin' Up! Banner Banter stamp set and punch

Backing Paper:  Not sure.. .. just a leftover that has been lurking around for far too long!!

Embossing Powder:  Silver, Platinum, Gold and Copper

Ribbon and Button from my crafty stash box

We R Memory Keepers Evelope Punch Board for the matching envelope

Quite pleased that a little "try out" ended up as being something I can actually post on my blog .. .. .. and because I have used up just a few tiny snippets of card and ribbon I will take a quick dash and share it with the playmates over in Pixies Snippets Playground

The technique simply involved stamping the image in VersaMark Ink .. adding a stripe of silver embossing powder, tipping the excess powder off, adding a stripe platinum and repeating the tipping off and adding another colour until I had added four.  Then I heat embossed it.  I think the bottom picture shows it off best.

Definitely one to try again when I have a little more time to play properly.

But for now it is back to the ever growing "crafty must do" list!!

Enjoy your day .. .. and your pancakes if you are  indulging.

Love