Goodbye 2020

 As it is New Years Eve, I thought I would quickly reflect on the year that we are leaving behind. I know it has been a really difficult one for many, and in lots of ways we have been quite lucky. Some of our closest friends have had it very tough and we have tried to help wherever we can. Although we haven't been able to see Meg and Grant much, we can still have regular skype sessions, which I am very thankful for. I don't want to dwell on the negatives, but celebrate some of the positives to carry forwards. 

Crafting has certainly kept me busy and I am loving every minute of being on the Crafty Individuals and Bee Crafty Design teams. Each month brings new inspiration and goodies which I thoroughly enjoy working with. As well as stamping, I've loved learning to crochet and although I am not very skilled, I am happy with the progress I have made. Something new that I am trying in 2021 is bullet journalling. There will be a post here on Monday with my progress so far. With all the uncertainty of the coming year, it was a much better option than a diary, and it is something I can adapt to suit myself.

We have just heard that Karate is continuing on Zoom, so after a fortnight break I will be working on my karate in the living room for 3 or 4 hours a week. Seeing and training with my Karate family has really kept me going, even when it has been reallly tough. We will also continue to explore the local area on foot (we are teir 4), finding more footpaths and keeping up our step count. 

My lovely friends Lynne, Sandma, Viv and Joan have been wonderful and have cheered me up no end. Our messenger chat often involves a good laugh as well as crafting know how and recipes. Thanks so much my friends.

Finally, Thank you to my followers. Your lovely positive comments make my day. I hope I can organise my visits to blog land to be more frequent rather than just trying to catch up once a week!  

Here is a whistle stop tour of some projects I enjoyed from the past year. I'm not saying my favourites, because choosing those would be much harder, lol. Hope you like them!

January had to be a crafty Individuals stag which was one of my Christmas presents

 For February I chose this Bee Crafty doodle Art flower

For March, here is the mixed media vintage collage with embroidery, stamping, painting and collage I made at a workshop at PDA at Langley Mill

April's had to be a Crafty Individuals kingfisher scene

For May I've chosen the Hobby Art Greenhouse I made for my nephew.

For June I chose the Crafty Individuals pincushion.

 For July this mini journal made with Bee Crafty goodies as I joined their DT was one of my favourites

August was very colourful with Jane Royston's Bee Crafty stamp designs. This one really reminds me of marbles, andI love that sentiment!

September featured lots of seahorses...so hard to choose a favourite!

October was when Sandma's gorgeous scene stamps were launched at Crafty Individuals and I became addicted to Kingfishers!

For November, I am choosing this Bee Crafty make featuring the winter journalling girls collection, and the perfect way to spend an evening!

and finally, December, where I just couldn't choose between that lovely boat...

and this Bee Crafty sample in my new favourite colour palette!

I do hope your New Year is an improvement on 2020 and that you have much to be thankful for and to enjoy.

Thanks for looking and All the best for 2021

                Sally x

A step by step Birthday Tag book for Bee Crafty

 

Hello there! Hope you had a good Christmas despite all the Covid restrictions. It was extremely quiet here, but we enjoyed the food and seeing our loved ones very briefly. 

Do you remember the Birthday tag book from my Hochanda samples last week? Well, I promised a couple of people that I would do a step by step to make one and here it is. You might want to get yourself a cuppa first though, as it is a long one!

You will need:

Tags and Banners #1 cutting dies

3 A4 sheets of white/ pale card approximately 180-200gsm for the pages

1 A5 piece of heavier weight card for the cover

paper

PVA glue

Typewriter Alpha stamp set

masking tape

Queen Bee Months, Days, Dates stamps

Queen Bee Botanical Sprigs A6 stamps

inks to coordinate with your cover (I used versafine Clair, Brilliance and Distress oxide inks)

First I cut 14 white tags using the next to largest die (the largest tag with a hole in it), then 2 of the largest die (without a hole in it) from the coloured card.

I also cut the white paper into 12 2cm x 6.25cm wide strips, and a piece of the cover card measuring 5cm x 7.2 cm. I creased the paper strips in half lengthways, and scored and creased the cover card at 2cm and 3cm along the 5cm long edge to make a spine. Just incase that doesn't make sense, here is a picture!

 Now all the cutting was done I could start to piece it together. First I set aside one of the white tags for the cover. The remaining 13 tags I stuck together using the strips of folded paper. I applied the glue then layed the next tag on top, making sure they were straight each time.

here is another photo from the side. You can trim off any paper at the sides of the tags as you go along to make it neat.

When all 13 tags were stuck together I set them aside to complete the cover.

I glued the two larger tags to the spine making sure they didn't stop the folds from moving freely. The overlap is on the inside of the cover.

Then I stuck the back page of the white tags into the cover, again with the PVA.

Now for the fun part and you can decorate it however you want to. I started by placing a strip of masking tape across the remaining tag, brushed a little ink then stamped the botanical sprigs on either side.

Once I was happy I peeled off the masking tape and stamped Birthdays along the white strip. (NB make sure your tag has the hole at the bottom when you do this - You will notice this isn't the tag I ended up with, and I am not sure I am happy with the spacing of those letters either lol)

I stamped each page with the month names then stamped around the edge with different stamps from the set, colouring in a few as I went. Finally I drew lines on each page using the templates. I left the backs blank for now, as they might be needed for any particularly busy birthday months. Here are a few examples of the pages:

Hope that is clear and please ask if there is anything that doesn't make sense! 

Hope you like it and let me know if you have a go yourself.I'd love to see them over in the Bee Crafty Stamps Facebook group.

Thanks for looking!

A journey into Bullet Journaling for me

 Did you see Bev from Bee Crafty on Hochanda last Tuesday? The show had some fabulous stamps, templates, pens and journals, and creating my samples was my first real venture into bullet journaling.

I made quite a few samples, both journal spreads and cards, and I really enjoyed it, but have to admit I did a bit of a search for ideas on Pinterest first. I will definitely be having a journal rather than a diary from now on! 

Here are a few more ideas for journal pages...

Here are a few cards too...

I also used the stamps and tag dies to make a little birthday book.

here are a few of the pages...

 I will be back in the next couple of weeks with a little step by step to make one of these.

You can find the Queen Bee Journalling stamps and templates here.

The large numbers are here

Small words are here

Typewriter Alpha is here

Tag dies are here

I think you can probably see how much fun I've had and I've not really stopped since! 😁 I will share my 2021 journal progress with you in the new year.  

Thanks for looking!

An altered journal for Bee Crafty

 

As Bev from Bee Crafty is on Hochanda tomorrow with some really gorgeous Queen Bee Journaling stamps, I thought I would share this journal cover. I had bought a couple of small sketch books/ journals a while ago from a high street store, but they had the most ridiculous sticky labels on the front and by the time I had got them off, I had managed to damage the cover. This is what it looked like

Today I decided it was time to do something about it! I got the Bakewell Inkable big one and attached to the damaged cover with a pice of masking tape.

Next I applied some texture paste through the stencil with a palette knife. I washed my stencil and palette knife and left the paste to dry.

Once fully dry I painted over with black gesso and again left to dry thoroughly.

Next I rubbed a little gilding wax in 2 different colours over the textured surface.

I added a line with gold pen down the edge of where the stencil came to.

I used the larger of the banner dies from the Tag and Banner die set and cut one from some thick white card.

I used the Typewriter Alpha to stamp the word Journal across the die cut

A little black ink was sponged around the edge before attaching to the front of the journal with foam pads.

A couple of drops of liquid pearls finished it off.

Here is the finished journal. I am rather pleased with that rescue! I am going to do something similar with an A5 pad of mixed media paper for my bullet journal for next year. I am looking forward to improving my journaling skills using the templates and stamps on tomorrow's shows rather than buying a diary (My 2020 diary was a bit of a waste, lol).

I do hope you can join Bev (and Sam) on Hochanda at 1pm Tomorrow (Tuesday 15th December) 

Thanks for looking!