Free Stampin' Up! gift this August

As if you needed an excuse to buy more Stampin' Up! goodies, this month you could get a fantastic free gift with your order or workshop!

When you place a £75 order, or host a £250 workshop, you’ll also receive a free gift from Stampin’ Up!

It includes a beautiful, exclusively-designed cosmetic bag, along with Rich Razzleberry 1-1/4" Striped Grosgrain Ribbon, and a 24-piece Clip Assortment.

This offer is only available this month, so get your wish lists sorted and credit cards at the ready and get in touch to place your order!

And don't forget, if you host a workshop you can earn freebies from the catalogue today, so why not get your friends round for a crafty gathering this month?

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Bag lady

Hello! Just a quickie to prove that I am still alive!

I've been working on all sorts of different bits and pieces recently, mostly little things to keep me occupied of an evening without too much thought or stress!

The patchwork bug has well and truly bitten me so I have been playing about with shapes and different fabrics.

Here are three bags for life that I decorated.



The hexagon flower is my favourite. The fabric was a bargain from Samuel Taylors in Leeds.

I had a few issues making the diamond one and it's not exactly perfect, but with the button and a few beads I think I pulled it off!

And the hexagon border one is pretty successful too I think.

These will be on sale at our next Buns & Roses craft stalls - we have two coming up and have sold quite a lot of goodies on the market stall so we're trying to restock!

I am also working on a quilt. A bit ambitious but I am using a Japanese folded patchwork technique and each piece is finished and quilted as you make it then stitched together at the end, so it's not too bad.

Other works in progress include something for my dad and step-mum for their new house and to celebrate their wedding and pieces for my embroidery certificate.

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What's this? ... A card!

YES! I have a card to show you. It's from a little while ago, and is only a quick and simple one that I CASEd from the amazingly talented Vicky at Crafting Clare's Paper Moments.



For this one, I ran with the idea of inking on to a clear acyrlic block and using that to create a spot of colour direct on the card blank. It's easy - just rub the ink pad on to the block then stamp it down!

I then drew on a stalk and added some yellow flowers, punched with the Boho Blossoms Punch out of Greenhouse Gala DSP. I secured them with Rhinestone Brads and finished with a sentiment from Sincere Salutations.

Now that I finally have all my craft stuff set up properly in my new room I really must make some new cards. Problem at the moment is I keep getting distracted too easily and want to try out lots of new things!

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I'm OK

Just becoming even more rubbish at updating my blog! Yikes!

It's been over a week, so what has been happening?

Well, I have been doing a lot of work for starters! It's now more than a year since I became self-employed and *touch-wood, fingers-crossed etc* all is well.

I have also been busy with the WI, as ever. Buns & Roses needed a new venue, so I'm pleased to say we found a fab new home, and I have put together my first issue of the West Yorkshire News monthly newsletter as Editor.

There has been crafting time too, and even a day trip to York! Myself, Hayley and Helen had a day out to visit the Quilt Museum and York Minster, both of which were amazing and full of inspiration.

I even had a go at a little bit of quilting myself. I got into my head an idea to do a series of pieces, entitled "I'm OK". It came from an exhibiton I saw a long time ago, where the artist had written home to friends and family during his travels, simply saying "I am still alive". My goal is to do these little bits regularly, in whatever craft form I feel inspired by at the time, as a reminder to myself that I'm OK.

So this is the first, using some fabrics I bought at the Quilt Museum. It's a rather rough-and-ready attempt at quilting (I did it all by hand, in bed, while watching nature programmes on iPlayer!).





Oh, I have also bought myself a Filofax, as my little WI diary just did not have enough room for everything that's going on!

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Going crazy ... for patchwork!

Last night was our Buns & Roses workshop on crazy patchwork. We all made purses using lots of bits of different fabrics.

I made this one in advance as an example to people.







I must admit this was my second attempt, as when I was making it I was a little worse for wear and tried to use small pieces of fabric that were too fiddly to turn and stitch. I got annoyed and started over, but this one turned out pretty good!

Last night I made this one ...



So now I need to finish it off!

They're the perfect size for business cards, and very handy for a few bits like hair grips and bobbles too.

I've some crafting time pencilled in for the weekend, so hopefully I will have more to show next week.

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