Christmas Celebrations

I hope that everyone had a fantastic Christmas, I know that I certainly have. After a pretty rubbish year I have had an amazing Christmas and boxing day with family which made it all worth it.

Just before the festivities I received a new free gift from the wonderful magazine people. It arrived in one piece this time and was a very nice surprise. I am aiming to at least of opened the box within the next 3 months as I'm afraid it is one of those messier time consuming products which look fantastic but that you have to put the time in for but to be honest I'm more a cut and stick girl. I did however see a gorgeous flower soft me to you bear which looked and felt amazing as it gave the illusion of fur. I will try to have a play soon. 

I was lucky enough to receive Samuel Taylor vouchers for both my birthday and Christmas so the day after boxing day I went down to have a look. It was the start of their sale so it turned into quite a massive spending spree. I purchased a new guillotine as mine is getting abit blunt and with it only being a small travel one I thought I would splurge and get a 12 x 12 cutter. This should save on paper as at the minute I have to waste some of the pattern by cutting the card the way it will fit in the machine and not necessarily the way that looks best or is most efficient. I also got a craft tote in the hopes it will encourage me to craft away from home as I can stash all my goodies in it. They were my sensible spends. The rest of the money went on anything that took my fancy or that I had seen during the year and liked but for whatever reason hadn't bought. I was pleased that I was able to get a mix of card making and scrapbooking goodies. Yet again I have ended up with alot of stamps which seems to be a reoccurring habit at the moment even though I'm not really a stamper. This is something that will have to change in the new year as I now have quite a collection of stamps and so I will be having a play with stamping techniques and colouring in in the new year. Strangely I did not come home with any die cuts which is what I have tended to go for before and that I had actually gone to get. I am wanting a corner die cut, some sort of flourish, but just can't seem to find the perfect one so am going to leave it until the right one comes along. Any ideas on this please let me know.

Published Humphrey Card

Previously I mentioned that I had sent in some card samples to Simply Cards and Papercraft in the hopes that they would publish one of them. well guess what, they have! I had to pay to purchase the magazine but as I was dying to find out which card they had published and to see it in colour print it was worth it. Luckily the lady from the magazine had told me exactly which issue it was in, which is the current one issue 105. Ive been going round showing everyone whether they are interested or not.


Aswell as getting put in the magazine I was sent a free gift. I seem to be having a lucky streak for these at the minute. Unfortunately the postman decided to bend the product and so has damaged part of it. This is why I can never get my magazines with free gifts or papers delivered as he tends to destroy them. I had won a sheet of die cut snowflake chipboard by Woodware. I emailed Simply Cards to thank them for the gift but to explain what the postman had done and the wonderful lady is going to send me out another gift, a more robust one she has stated so hopefully the postman wont mess if this one. Yeah more gifts.

I won!

I can't believe it but I won the crafty hamper!

I couldnt believe my eyes when I got the email. The news totally topped off what was already an amazing craft bargain day. I collected the hamper yesterday morning from Lili Of The Valley and was amazed by the size of it, its huge. I hadn't looked at it properly when I signed up for the raffle but its massive. Unfortunately I didnt have time to open it as I had some cards to make, house to clean and then a birthday meal to attend to so had to wait until night time to have a look. There is such a wonderful range of goodies in there from stamps to paper packs, ribbon to glue, charms to glitter. I did a little count and worked out that theres just under £200 worth of stock in there. I am so grateful and thankful for this prize it is amazing and has really made my year especially with it been so close to my birthday and christmas. As alot of the stock is christmas I will hopefully have some fantastic christmas cards to make next year with it. Although I would love to dive in and play with it all now I still have plenty of christmas stash to finish off the cards I still need to make this year. I still get to play with alot of stamps, inks and flowers in the new year though. Brilliant.  

Crafty Weekend

I cant believe its been so long since I've been on here. I've just had so much going on that Ive not had a chance. The free time that I have had has been spent in the craft room desperately trying to make as many christmas cards as humanly possible as because my card sales went so well I've been left in the strange situation of having not enough christmas cards to send out my self. I've managed to sell a massive 30 cards and get orders for 3 commissioned cards as well.

On saturday I went to spend my hard earned cash and treat myself to some crafting goodies. My first stop was the Craftwork Cards Warehouse Wipeout where I managed to pick up some amazing bargains with everything being around half price. I was able to get some paper packs that I had seen and liked previously but that I found was a little pricy. The warehouse sale was the perfect chance to treat myself to products that I wouldn't normally get as well as stock up on loads of pearlised card and paper.

My next stop was a little detour from the original plan and I went to Samuel Taylors as it was on the way to our next crafty outlet. I managed to get some fantastic savings on 12 x 12 scrapbook pages. not that I need any more I know but this was just too good to miss. The deal was 5 for £1.00, one of which I had paid £3.99 for just the one piece only a couple of months before and that sadly I have not used yet. Because I find there's too much faffing around changing projects I either card make or scrapbook. With it being christmas my only focus at the minute is cards but in the new year there will be plenty of scrapping going on.

My final port of call was Lili Of The Valley for one of their open days and launch of their new stamps. It was very busy so I just grabbed what I needed/ wanted and joined the queue. The queue was a 40 minute wait but I managed to have a chat with some of the other crafters and got my 10% off at the till. I also was surprised to find out that there was a free gift waiting for me, a choice of 1 of 5 stamps. This was excellent as they retail at £4.50 each. I've also been put down for a raffle prize draw so fingers crossed.

October Cards Update

Hi everyone

I've started updating some of the cards I made last month onto the docrafts page under 'lexon5'. Theres a mix of birthday, commissioned and christmas on there. Some have been posted on here in the last few weeks but there are some new ones too. Please take a look at my gallery and let me know what you think. 

Not been crafting this week but hopefully might get abit of a chance next week assuming that I can actually find my craft table under all my stuff, oh and health permitting. Fingers crossed. 
 

Carers Leeds October Demo

This wednesday I managed to sneak out of work to go to the Carers Leeds afternoon cafe. This months project was christmas using Craftwork Cards Christmas Warren collection. The cafe was very busy this time with lots of people ready and raring to get some crafting done. As it wasn't myself that had brought the project I had to spend a bit of time setting up some demos to show which gave me a chance to have a chat with some of the carers there. I then showed 3 different demos using the kits. I was a bit of a challenge as I could only use what was in the kit where as at home I've got lots of little bits and bobs to use to finish the cards off and a lot more time! They seemed pleased with the inspiration and a lot of cards got made which was wonderful. Its amazing what you can cram into an hour and a half when its something your passionate about it. One of the volunteers has taken some photographs of the events so hopefully they will be in the newsletter and on their Facebook page soon. After having a discussion with one of the staff there they have asked me to become an official Carers Leeds volunteer which is brilliant. It means that I will be involved in the cafes for the whole of 2013, work depending, which is great. 

Busy Weekend Crafting

Ive spent most of the weekend up in the craft room making christmas cards this weekend after having no time at all during the week to even bob my head round the door. I don't normally put my cards on until the end of the month when I also update onto Docrafts but I thought I would share one or two of this weeks creations with you. There seems to be a reindeer theme going on here hmmmm...

Humphreys Corner

This week I've been using the free gift from Simply Cards and Papercraft to make some much needed christmas cards. The gift was a Humphreys Corner decoupage and paper pad with clear gemstones. Its not very often that I buy kits, or that I have time to sit down with them for long enough to make more than a couple of cards, but I decided that I would use the whole kit. It came with 2 copies of  2 designs. As I don't like making cards that are very bulky if I can I only use half of the decoupage layers when I make cards. Usually layer 1,3 and 5 will go on one card and 2,4 and 6 on another. This doesnt work with all images as I have found out in the past due to how they have printed each layer but its a good rule of thumb especially if you dont use expanding envelopes. I now have 8 lovely elephant christmas cards to go towards my card a day challenge and towards the christmas card stash that I have in my cupboard. I have entered the cards into the magazine in the hopes they will print some of the cards and maybe even get a free crafty gift out of it. See what you think.

21st Birthday Card

Well my sore throat has become full blow cold so Ive not been in the craft room much this week. I did however get a chance to make my sister in laws 21st birthday card, mainly because I had to. She had requested that the card had shoes on it for some unknown reason and I knew that I definitely wanted it to say 'Happy 21st'. I used my new shiny pearlised cards that I got from last weekends craft show and used some Louis Vuitton style embellishments to make a very posh looking card. I was worried it maybe a little too grown up and that she might of wanted something abit more fun but she seemed to love it when she opened it up and liked the colours so all was good. I told her she now needs to get her boyfriend to buy the handbag, purse and shoes to match the card which made her laugh. 

Great Northern Papercrafts Extravaganza

Julie Hickey at the Craftwork Cards stand

Today I have been to The Great Yorkshire Showground at Harrogate for the GNPE organised by Craftwork Cards. I've been looking forward to this event since I walked out the doors of the last one. There are two held a year, usually in March and September/ October, and they really are the highlight of the year. The hall is filled with stalls upon stalls of crafting goodies some of which are at reduced or 'show' prices. As you wander around mesmerised by all the colour, glitter and wonder of it all you will often see familiar faces. Some are faces of demonstrators you have met previously, or seen on television or in the craft magazines, where some are just people who you recognise their face as they attend similar events to yourself. Often I am left scratching my head thinking 'where do I know that person from?' but often it's just that they was at a demo I went to or was perusing the same craft shop. It would be great if I could meet up with some of these people to discuss what is obviously a shared hobby. I've been going for around 4 years now and love it. This time in particular some of the stalls had new companies that I had not seen before so it was nice to have some fresh ideas and some great bargains. Most stalls don't mind you taking photos of their samples but I usually ask first just to be polite. Unfortunately I didn't take as many pictures as I was planning to because as soon as I got in there I just wanted to shop. Well my first stop actually was straight to the loo as its a running joke with my best friend that I always need the loo when we are queuing to get in. I think it must be all the excitement. This morning at about 1.30am I turned to my boyfriend and said 'I cants sleep...it's like christmas'. It really is. I struggle to find what I want and need for my crafting at local shops and have travelled quite some distance to visit shops which have different stock to my locals. I am not an online shopper so I have to visit the bricks and mortar stores which is why the shows so great as they are all in one place. For those that know me... no I didn't buy any candi... but yes I did buy promarkers. I also bit the bullet and bought some Tim Holtz Distress inks and a brayer. I have had a try before and it went ok but not as good as I had hoped. Now I have the right tools I'm hoping with a little practice I can get the results I want. I will put some pictures on when I get to have a play with these. All good fun. xxx

Happy World Cardmaking Day

Today is World Cardmaking Day. It is an event which occurs every 1st saturday in october and has been going on for 7 years now. This is a day for card makers all over the world to celebrate the creativity of handmade cards and to share with others this fantastic hobby. My intention was to enjoy a full day of crafting and surfing the net for inspiration as I knew there would be alot of events on through out the crafting community to celebrate the day. What happened instead is this......

My craft room was completely emptied and the carpet stripped out of it for a different one. I say different as its new to the room but not brand new. The reason being that my chair has been damaging the carpet underneath and had started to come away so I needed a better surface as it is where I craft.

This in turn created this in my bedroom .....

Complete chaos. You can tell your self time and time again 'I dont have that much craft stuff' but trust me when you have to empty the entire contents of your craft room into your sleeping quarters its alittle hard to deny that there really is alot of stuff there. I was alittle worried what my partner might think as he would get a clearer picture of exactly what stuff I do have so I did as much loading and unloading as I could to keep the true picture of my obsession under wraps.

The end result has been that I have not managed to make any cards today :-(. However....tomorrow is GNPE; Great Northern Papercrafts Extravaganza so I am super excited for that. I cant wait to see all the stands, take pictures of the amazing inspiration, chat with fellow crafters, stroke the gorgeous papers and buy copious amounts of card candi which I dont need. I do however after todays experience wonder exactly where any of these new purchases may go as the room is full to bursting now I have put everything back in but hey ho thats half the fun.