Meet...

One of the other reasons for setting up my blog was to allow me to introduce all you lovely crafters out there who I meet to the individuals in the crafting world that inspire me and to be able to share with you their inspirations and talent....

When I'm out there demonstrating I often say that the thing I find about crafting people is we love to share and that makes it an incredibly social activity... Well it certainly seems like it to me when you are all chatting away, sharing your experiences and showing each other your designs!!!! My job is to provide you with inspiration and ideas but one you all pass so much back to me which I am able to learn from and share with others I have the pleasure of meeting.

So this time I would love you to meet a fabulously talented scrapbooker...

KATY GODBEER

Katy is a lovely young lady and at Docrafts she provides many of the "Scrapbook Projects of the Week", inspiring people to dig out their photographs and turn them into beautiful and artistic treasured memories. She has also had her layouts published in national craft magazines.

Recently she has been using the gorgeous NEW Basic Grey papers to produce some stunning layouts such as the one below:

I love the simplicity of this layout and the muted tones provide a calm and tranquil scene... and being a cat person I think Bruce is rather beautiful too - though I think looking at these pictures he knows that himself!!!! Take a peak at Katy's gallery to see even more of her projects.

Katy's own inspirations often comes in the shape of her two newfoundland dogs (which are frequently the subjects of her own layouts!) and she frequently publishes stunning pictures of them aswell as other gorgeous creatures on her own blog... I really wish I could take pictures like this...

So please meet Katy Godbeer and click here visit her own blog at for loads of inspiration, lovely photography and to find out what makes her tick...

With love until next time

Becky xxxx

Its taken a little time....

but atlast I have a few minutes just to say to everyone I met at Clarke's Stationers in Crawley - how lovely it was to meet you all!!! I hope you went away with lots of inspiration to go and try out all those fabulous products you kept disappearing off to purchase!!!

As you can see I have (atlast) figured out how to put my piccies onto the blog - it really was very easy in the end - though taking the piccies themselves was another matter - I am most certainly not a photographer and I wish I was. I have pledged to myself to learn more about photography this summer!!! My dad is a superb photographer but I don't seem to have inherited his talent - mind you he has been doing it for thirty years more than me so he does have a bit of a head start!!!!.... Anyway now I have mastered that I will be able to put even more of my projects up on line so you can come back and refresh your memories of what we were doing on the day!

Big thanks also go out to the staff at Clarke's for keeping me stocked up on cups of tea and the offers of collecting me a little lunch... It was an absolute pleasure to meet you all and to share with you all my ideas and to chat to you about your enthusiasm and passion for crafting. I'm always easily bribed with cake and chocolate and it took real will power not to take up the offer of cake... but my hubby is so organised in the mornings when I am demonstrating (which I most certainly am not!!! I'm not a morning person... now that I DID inherit from my dad...) that he has my flask and lunch ready for me to take.

Finally it was lovely to meet Kay from Sakura pens - what a bright and bubbly lady who really knows her stuff!!! And I find it wonderful to gain inspiration from other people - be they other demonstrators or crafters.

Well, today is a little busy so I will close now with the promise that I am going to be loading up a couple more projects this week and I also want to introduce you to someone who I think is very talented... so do return over the next few days to find out what is in store for you...

Until then love to you all
Becky
xxx

Butterfly Love

I just can't help it!!! I'm in love with the new Papermania Special Vellum 12x12 Butterfly sheets!!!!

Visit http://www.docrafts.co.uk/asp/products/product.asp?id=70860 to see the sheets in more detail!!! When I saw these beautiful and delicate flutterbies i just knew they had to be cut out and decorated in vivid jewel like colours and used to adorn those extra special projects...

I really enjoyed playing around with my Whispers Strokes pens on these vellums because they will accept the inks as they are quite matt in finish... but those intricate butterflies are printed on so that they resist the inks when they are applied. There is nothing at all technical involved in getting this effect - as so many of you know already I am certainly no artist- all you need to do is scribble the pens over the vellum - I have done this on the front of the vellum and wiped back the ink that resists the printed pattern.



You can add layers of co-ordinating or contrasting colours on top of the base colour - the choice is yours and of course you will just choose the colours to work with your own project.... just scribble away and then blend the colours together using a brush and a little water. If you need your embellishment to dry off quickly just give it a quick blast with your heat gun - it will only need a couple of seconds.

Those of you who know me will know how much I love my sparkle and glitter and i just wanted to add a little to finish off my butterflies...

I love the whispers strokes embossing pen for a number of reasons but one of these is that it allows you to emboss freehand onto your projects - so you can add your own doodles, swirls and sentiments... here I have just drawn a few freehand lines and swirls on the vellum and embossed with the Heat It Up! silver or gold "tinsel" embossing powders. The powders are just that little bit extra special because they incorporate glitter which sparkles when it catches the light!!!!


Finally complete your gorgeous butterfly by adhering Papermania adhesive gems or pearls to the centre of his body, graduating the size down the length of the body.

I hope you have enjoyed all the pictures I have put into this post - I've tried to show how you can vary the colours and designs so you can see the different effects you can achieve with the same techniques!!! It would be great to hear how you get on with it yourself and what this has inspired you to try.

Well here it is my first post with pictures!!!! I am starting to learn this blogging lark quite quickly so I will be adding more over the next week or so!!!

Until the next time, happy crafting and do drop in again soon!

With Love

Becky xxx

Lots of Thank You's!!!

Well I can't believe I haven't found any time to get on here since I first set up the blog a couple of weeks ago and now it is the first day of April.... where is time going this year????

Easter has come and gone - I ate far too much chocolate (hubby and I were given an Easter egg each by my parents and they left this mortal coil in a very disciplined fashion - one for breakfast on Easter Sunday and the next for breakfast the following day!!) but we also made progress on the house - our kitchen still comprises an old worksurface between two workbenches, but my lovely new work room and studio is starting to take shape.

My studio is the place I intend to pursue my design and crafting career in papercrafting and jewellery and whatever craft comes along and takes my fancy. There is the work surface set up for me so I can stand whilst I work (which is very important to me as I find sitting can be uncomfortable) and so many cupboards that I hope I don't fill. However, I suspect I will have to be ruthless and throw out that stuff that as crafters we hoard just in case ... because you never know just what you might need when do you???? That should be fun... perhaps I'll have to have some sort of crafting sale.... anyway one of my next tasks is to figure out how I add piccies to this blog so as soon as I've done it I'll upload some pictures so you can track progress too...

Now before I went off on a tangent as is my want -if you've been to one of my demo's you'll know what I mean :o) - the purpose of this post was to say thank you's to all you lovely people I met at my last two demonstrations at Emerald Crafts in Lyndhurst (22nd March) and Crafting Around in Wootton Bridge on IoW (29th March). It was wonderful to meet new people and newbie crafters as well as all you familiar faces and to share my inspirations, tips and designs with you. I hope you enjoyed yourselves as much as I did, went away with loads of inspiration and I promise those piccies of designs will be going up on here just as soon as I figure out how to do it!!! This blogging thing is still so new to me but I know I will have lots of fun!!! And of course I have to thank Oliver, Louise and Sarah in Lyndhurst and Brenda and her mom in Wootton Bridge for looking after me so well. I really do love coming along to you all at your shops.. and I just can't help spending some of my hard earned money with you aswell... I love seeing all the different things that you have for sale which inspire me to try new products and techniques....

Well, I must close now with the promise that I will develop this site as time allows and get plenty of those piccies, tips and techniques up for you to see as I master this blogging lark!!!

Take care and thanks for dropping in - I'll be in touch again soon
Becky
xx