So where did January go?

Its already the end of January, where did it go? I cant believe that the month has flown by so quickly.

Halfway through the weekend and I have a workshop to look forward to today. Everything all packed and ready to go. I have the ironing to do before I leave, yakky. Is there anyone who actually enjoys ironing?

Here are a couple of cards that I made, for loyalty cards.





I have scored the card diagonally and then used my daubers to colour in the background. The image on these is from Blooming with Beauty, one of my favourite sets.

My loyalty scheme is for every £15 spent you get a stamp. When you have 5 stamps you can get either a roll of grosgrain ribbon, an ink pad or a pack of A4 single coloured card. If you attend my workshops you get a stamp for each event and the 6th one is free.

Bring a friend along to a workshop and you get your next one at half price.

Details of workshops can be found on the right hand side of this blog.

Have a great day, whatever you are up to and please, do leave a comment if you have time.

Tracey

Team Meeting

We had a team meeting, YEAH. Last Friday myself, Jacquie, Pam and Lesley all got together for our monthly meeting. We started off the night with Pizza, wedges, dips and then got to work by making a couple of cards. Coffee time and chocolate cup cakes too. I dont know where the time went but it flew by and we all had a great evening.

If you would like to join our team and the Stampin' Up! team now is an ideal time to do it. Whilst Sale a Bration is on you not only get your kit valued at over £200 for £139 but you get a free stamp sets too.

For more details please get in touch tracey.rossos2@hotmail. com or give me a call on 01332 721877. You can come along to our next get together to find out more and ask the 101 questions that you may have.

Have a great day

Medallions

Medallions and large stamps are not usually in my hands cause they aren't cute and I like cute cards but I must say, I have seen some stunning cards made by the Stampin Up medallion stamp and have cased a few. This stamp can not only be used as a focal point but for backgrounds too.

At the last workshop we made a card by inking the stamp up in different colours with daubers. Because the stamp is in the middle of the wooden block, it was very easy to handle. I did find that the best way to get a lovely image was to lie the stamp, wood side down and to put the card down onto the stamp and rub over it gently.

These are the cards we made

And these are the samples that I did to show what else could be done with it

This was done with Whisper White Ink and white embossing powder

I couldnt make my mind up to which one I liked best, the image stamped onto coloured card and then layered onto whisper white or to have the coloured card with a white edging. What do you think?

Mondays Workshop

Last week was such a busy one but so enjoyable.

It started on Monday with the workshop which is proving to be really popular. Instead of doing these once a month I have taken the plunge to do two a month so if you are in the Derby area, free on a Monday night, enjoy crafting, up for a laugh and want to have a go at making a couple of cards, get in touch to book your place tracey.rossos2@hotmail.com

Deep concentration

We had a play with Trendy Trees and Medallion. Not only do we make a card from each set I do lots of other samples of what can be done with the stamp sets. So here are a few of the same style.


What do you think of the "buttons" we made? I have surprised myself and managed to crop the picture to give you a better look

I have seen so many cards made with the Trendy Tree set on my travels around blogs that I just had to case some of them. I would like to give everyone a big "thank you" for your inspiration with this tree set.




The other stamp set that was used was medallion, I shall save these photos for later in the week.

Have a great day whatever you are up to.

Tracey

SALE A BRATION BLOG HOP

Wayhay it's the bog hop today.
If you are here before 10a.m. then not all the links may work as it officially starts at 10.

The are 30 SU demonstrators taking part and we have split ourselves into two groups of 15. If my blog is your first port of call, then you have another 14 amazing blogs to go and look at so if I was you, I would grab yourself a drink, sit back and be inspired.
If you have just arrived from Clare's blog then welcome. What stunning projects Clare has.

Here are some cards that I have made using the Happy Moments set.

Another simple mat and layered card with real red. The sentiment has been punched out using the word window punch. I have put 3 score lines at the bottom of the card







I have used night of navy card for this,
one for the boys







Tempting Turquoise card, ribbon and watercolour pens. The thing that I love about SU is how all the colours match, it really does take all the hard work out of co-ordinating everything. It's all done for you.

These two cards have had the amazing crystal effects on them. I covered the whole
cake in the first card with crystal effects and the sentiment is from another SAB set Whimsical Words

This second card has the crystal effects just on the flowers around the cake and the candles.

You can get yourself one, or all, of the stamp sets in the Sale a Bration, details are at the top of my blog.

The next stop on this blog hop is JOANNE


A big thank you goes to Helen for organising this today, THANK YOU.
Hope to see you again soon
Tracey

Here we go again, another week has started. Tonight I have the workshop that was postponed from last week due to weather and I am really looking forward to it.



Here are my fishing pair. I am really pleased with the way these turned out and must make a few more. I am certainly keeping my NYR (New Year Resolutions) as these were started and not finished. I have been making Christmas cards as well but I think you have all seen enough of those for a while.

Have a great day, whatever you are up to


.

Sunday and a day at home planned, although nothing goes to plan these days. Can you believe that we are already half way through January, yikes.
I have been having a bit of a play with my pens and some stamps that haven't been out of their box for a while.




I havent put sentiments on these yet as I am not sure who they are for. They have been put away for a suitable ocassion.


I hope you have a lovely day, whatever you are up to.

Tracey

The white stuff has gone YEAH but I am not sure if it is coming back BOOO. Conflicting weather reports last night so I will just have to wait to see.
I have had an extremely busy week with my proper job so am a shattered today and thankful its the weekend. Not got too much planned except some time in the craft room.
Here are a couple of cards that I made earlier this week, sounds a bit like Blue Peter. The stamps are old ones from my stash that dont get to see a lot of ink.


Have a great day whatever you are up to.....what are you up to? It would be interesting to know

Tracey

Who has been playing truant?

that will be me, *hands up in the air*. I have had a few days away from the computer, emails, forums and cardmaking but I dont think that anyone minds.
Instead I have been to the cinema to see Avatar and wow, what an experience. You get your 3D glasses when you go in and the film itself is just fantastic. I couldnt believe how good it was and the detail you get. I did leave with a headache, or rather eye strain I think but well worth it.
I have also been sorting out (again I hear you sigh) and seeing lots of the family.

Do you remember the cards I shared from my first challange. Well our team won *yeah*. There will be another challange night in the near future so if you havent already signed up at In Love With Stamping go ahead and do it. You can join in the fun.

What about all that white stuff? Its about gone in Derby but I dont want to speak too soon as I am told we are due to get more. This picture is for my girls in Cyprus

We didnt get as much as other places but it was enough to cause havoc.

Have a great day, whatever you are doing and stay safe in the snow and ice.

Tuesdays Twitterings

well that isnt much twittering from the birds this morning, it is so quiet outside. I usually hear a lot of birds first thing in a morning but not today. And cold brrrr, everywhere is white outside but I am sure it is from frost and not from snow.

Me and my team had a get together between Christmas and the New Year and we managed to play with the Sale A Bration sets of stamps. These cards are from the Vintage Labels set I came up with this using the white ink pad on black card, with the inner circle being stamped on very vanilla card and put over the black.


Lesley, made these lovely card, along with lots of others. The inner circle of the stamp was punched out leaving the border on the outside of the card. The inner circle was then put inside the card. Both of them lovely. Lesley has also made other cards which can be seen on her blog, well worth a visit as she has come up with some stunners.



If you would like to make these cards and other similar cards send an email to tracey.rossos2@hotmail.com or telephone me on 01332 721877 and join me on a day of stamping at the end of January.

Thanks for having a read and hope you have a great day.

Monday Monday la la la la la la la

Can you believe that for the past two weeks I have been getting up at around 5.30 in the morning and today I woke up at 8.00. The alarm was set for 6.30 and even that didnt go off. It must have been because it was soooooo cold, -4.8 when I finally got downstairs. The mishaps have continued throughout the day, no telephones all morning at work, the computer system has been down for most of the day and then the printer packed up. Phew, am I glad to be home again although yet another light bulb has gone in the kitchen.

I have an evening of crafting tonight, a couple of birthday cards I would like to get done and dusted. The next two pictures are for Sophia, Katerina and Christiana. This is what you missed for lunch yesterday

Paul and his Shepards Pie, scrummy
And here he is with his present from Santa.

Have a good evening and if you do go out, please drive carefully with all the snow and ice.

Tracey

Normality resumes tomorrow

but today I shall enjoy the last day of my holiday. I guess I have to get everything ready for work today as I need to be there extremely early tomorrow morning, loaded up with milk, lunch, books etc. etc. If it continues being so cold I will have to de-ice the car too brrrr, I am getting cold just thinking about it, so I wont.

These cards are part of the "finishing projects" on my NYRL (New Years Resolution List). Have you noticed that my pictures have improved? I am now using a portable lighting studio that santa left for me. I am not an expert but I think the photos are nicer.


I have even managed to do a close up of this old favourite stamp of mine.


Yesterday I entered my first challenge. It took place at In Love With Stamping and you had to register by 7pm. The first challenge started at 7pm and you had an hour to complete it, upload your card and get ready for the next challenge at 8pm. Likewise for 9pm and 10pm. What a laugh we had, I was up until midnight, my craftroom looks like a bomb fell in it and my legs are so painful today as my craftroom is upstairs and the computer is downstairs.

I had no time for precision nor thinking about each card too much. It was just a case of slap, dash and stick. Here are the cards that I came up with for each challange.
No 1 was a sketch
No 2 was to choose JUST ONE stamp set, ink and card stock and NO EMBELLIES. No brads, no eyelets, no flowers, no ribbon, no buttons but you could use punches and piercing tools. I really struggled with this one.


No 3 was a colour combination of regal rose, cameo coral, pretty in pink, apricot appeal, old olive and bashful blue.


No 4 was in two parts.
The first part was masking, to make something that has some kind of masking element to it. And to give an extra bit of a kick - to try to "recycle" a regular household item into it somehow. This could be clothes peg, safety pin, band-aid plaster, yoghurt cup, pringles container lid, fabric

Having done these challenges I certainly liked the sketch one but struggled with the other 3. I am now looking to do another sketch challenge so if anyone can reccomend one to me, I would be greateful.

Have a great day whatever you are doing and thanks for taking the time to read my post. I do hope you will leave a comment.

Tracey

Fancy a challenge

I have never entered a challenge before so this is a bit scary for me. In Love With Stamping are holding a challenge tonight. All the detailas are on the right hand side in a "blinkie". Amazing that I could put this on my blog, I am learning. If you click on this blinkie you will get all the information about what to do.

Wish me luck and I hope you can join in the fun

Showing my drawers

maybe I should have titled this showing my drawer units cause I dont want anyone to think that I am showing you my knickers. Well its the second of the month and as I promised in an earlier post, here are my drawer units that I purchased from Ikea.
If you click on the picture it should enlarge and you can see that the drawers get deeper towards the bottom. I have managed to clear 3 shelves and get all my punches in them. I am really pleased with this purchase...even though I have already cluttered up the top.


Yesterday was bitterly cold and I am so pleased we spent the day at home, I even managed to grab some time in my craft room playing. I have also kept to a few of my New Years resolutions, I used up lots of bits of card, I finished off a couple of projects and put inserts in 12 finished cards....fingers crossed that I can keep it up.
My twin daughters have been in relationships with Andis and David for nearly a year and I have made them a card each. Not my usual style at all. Any comments/tips would be appreciated as I think that there is something missing.


Off into town this morning, then up to the crematorium to lay a wreath in memory of both mine and Paul's father and then its an afternoon catching up with a dear friend that I havent seen in a while.

Have a great day whatever you are doing and thank you for having a read.