Botanical Butterfly, designer series papers ....

Finally had some time to work with these papers over the weekend, here is my first offering, a scrapbook layout with a hidden photo under the flap, some embellishments are from my stash, and I have used some old school Stampin Up punches, I absolutely love the gorgeous blue sheet of paper in this collection, but haven't actually used it yet!

Stacking Rings Class ....

Had a great evening at Hello Crafter in Saltaire last night. We had a three hour class to make silver stacking rings. Firstly we started by making a copper practice ring, and then we made three silver rings from silver wire. we curved it into a ring shape (although mine looked like a kidney bean) soldered it, put it on a ring mandrel and hammered it into a proper ring shape, and used the anvil to hammer it flat. Next we pickled all the bits off in a light acid, then we decorated them with a pattern and finally they were polished (and oxidized if you wanted to), such a brilliant class with fantastic results.

Free Butterflies ....

Beautiful papers and beautiful freebies ..... check out the sale a bration offer.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year (again) ....

yes it's Sale-a-Bration, Stampin Up's best promotion and equivalent of the January sales (to me) for every £45 you spend you can choose a free item from the Sale-A-Bration brochure, follow the links to the right to view the products available. Sale-a-Bration also coincides with the launch og the new Spring / Summer seasonal so there are also new products available to take your fancy :)

Twinkle Twinkle designer papers ....

Loving these papers, I've made this layout as  a baby page, but the backs of the papers are so different and i will be able to produce something completely different from them ....

Animal Expedition ....

Just time for a little bit of scrapping today and finally had time to use these gorgeous designer papers Animal Expedition. I've seen some gorgeous cards made from these papers, take a look on Pinterest if this is where you normally look for inspiration. Enjoy ....

Developing Our Skills ....

I've recently been updating the Scrapstars website, ready to announce next years retreat, but already a few ladies have beaten me to the punch and made their bookings. It was lovely to receive an email from a new delegate, what she said really rang true with me so i thought I would share it.

"I heard about your retreat from some of my co crafters at a local group I attend, the rest of the group were so impressed with the generosity of the kits and the exciting projects they came back with this year (and very jealous !) What struck me was the way they have been more adventurous with their projects and designs, breaking away from their usual style of working since attending. And still, even now, producing even more beautiful pages with the left overs from the kits they were given at your retreat".   

Its the last part that struck me as being so true (and it was nice to hear the rest) but we do have a tendency to stick to what we know, our own little comfort zone. That's one of the main reasons that i still attend classes and retreats, to further develop my skills and learn something new or just try something "outside the box" that otherwise I may not have. Happy crafting.