Have Your Cake and Eat It!

Here's one of my latest whimsical creations, handmade for a special friend using the pastel Doodlebug collection of papers and embellishments. I love the graphic style of Doodlebug design!
Happy Birthday for today Misha!

*Please note, as always, these projects are designed by myself. They should not be copied, similar submitted to magazines or entered into competitions. The photos are also copyright to me and should not be taken from my blog without permission. Thanks for your understanding and abiding by the copyright laws.

Full of Creative Beans

Have you seen the new posting by Cathe Holden on her blog 'Just Something I Made.' You'll never look at beans in the same way again! Not only are they tasty (and create wind!!!) but you can be creative with them too! I love Cathe's ideas and style! Check it out here.

It's all about me!

I'm not usually very good at talking about myself, but I thought you might be interested to know a little more about me and my creative passions, so here goes:

1. I have always been a creative person and some of my earliest memories were drawing Mr. Men characters as a toddler. I used to sit for hours drawing, colouring in, being crafty following the Blue Peter makes.
2. My artistic flair probably originated from my Mum who always used to make her own clothes in the swinging sixties. She would knit and crochet too, oh and make here own greetings cards – usually oversized!
3. I have had my illustration reproduced on an advertising billboard poster.
4. Ambition - to write a book – children’s or craft – watch this space!
5. The craft tool that I couldn’t live without is my handy guillotine.
6. I have been featured as 'guest designer' over double page spreads in well known national crafting magazines. The articles were all about my life as a designer.
7. Favourite patterns – spots, stripes and swirls.
8. Artistic Heroes – Roy Lichtenstein, Bridget Riley, Tony Hart, Mark Speight, Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen.

Drip.Dot.Swirl. - Pattern Crazy

I had a lovely surprise this morning when the postman arrived with a beautiful shiny new hard backed book from established illustrative designer Von Glitschka. His gorgeous 106 page book comes with an accompanying DVD containing 94 brilliant royalty-free patterns for design, illustration and your craftworking needs. The editable vector files can be used as individual pattern swatches in Illustrator (CS2, CS3 or above) or used as an all-over tiled pattern. Use it as a resource for card making, scrapbooking or altered art projects.

Drip. Dot. Swirl is available to purchase read more about it here or buy from Amazon.
In the UK you can also purchase from David and Charles here.

To see more of Von's work visit his website at www.glitschka.com or his illustrative blog Art Backwash. I find his work so inspiring!

I can't wait to have a 'play' with many of the gorgeous designs. Look out for future projects here on Creative Crafter UK.

Collection of Handmade Cards

Here's the complete set using the papers from the September 2007 issue of Crafts Beautiful magazine.

*Please note, as always, these projects are designed by myself. They should not be copied, similar submitted to magazines or entered into competitions. The photos are also copyright to me and should not be taken from my blog without permission. Thanks for your understanding and abiding by the copyright laws.

Feeling Blue? Time to Party!

Here's another in my series of cards made using the Crafts Beautiful background papers (featured in the September 2007 issue). I love all the tags and by adding the extra flowers, rub on lettering and gem stones I think this came together quite well. What do you think?

*Please note, as always, these projects are designed by myself. They should not be copied, similar submitted to magazines or entered into competitions. The photos are also copyright to me and should not be taken from my blog without permission. Thanks for your understanding and abiding by the copyright laws.

Best Wishes Card

This card has been created using the free papers as given away in a September 2007 issue of Crafts Beautiful magazine. I thought they were so gorgeous I tried to make as many cards as possible from them. Three has been the limit from the small quantity of product, but I'm loving the designs and colours! This is my Best Wishes card...another to follow shortly.

*Please note, as always, these projects are designed by myself. They should not be copied, similar submitted to magazines or entered into competitions. The photos are also copyright to me and should not be taken from my blog without permission. Thanks for your understanding and abiding by the copyright laws.

Fashionable Girlie Birthday Card

Had fun making this card for a friend today. It's her birthday this week (hope she doesn't see this posting first!) She's a shop-a-holic, loves fashion and is always wearing something different everytime I see her, usually it's pink!

The dress is a rubber stamp design and I have layered it decoupage style, adding sparkly gemstones, beautiful doodlebug patterned papers and co-ordinating satin ribbon.
Hope she likes it!

*Please note, as always, these projects are designed by myself. They should not be copied, similar submitted to magazines or entered into competitions. The photos are also copyright to me and should not be taken from my blog without permission. Thanks for your understanding and abiding by the copyright laws.

Inspiring Blog Recommendation

Just found a very inspiring and creative craft blog called 'Just Something I Made' by Californian graphic artist Cathe Holden. I love her vintage style and fabulous ornate headers and logos. It's also worth checking out her Flickr photos of her amazing craft studio - I wish mine were as tidy as that! I love the retro feel.

I've also used one of her 'Please leave a comment' and 'Twitter' graphics (on my sidebar) - thanks Cathe! Visit 'Just Something I Made' by clicking here. Her work is beautiful and I may have to check out the 'printing your own blog' link she mentions. A delightful read.

In The Pink Birthday Card

Thought you would be interested to see my creation using the background papers designed by Nancy Watt in the latest issue of Making Cards magazine. These papers are very pretty and worked perfectly for a decoupage style card.

Incidently, I had some other projects published in this particular issue - hope you liked them!

Published again - Fete - Craftzine

Open publication - Free publishing - More art

As published in Fete - a new Craftzine by fellow crafter Momtaz. This had a very small print run and was sold at a local craft fair. Future issues are planned.