Basket Tutorial...

Hello there!

Tonight, a while after being requested, I am sharing (finally!!!) the tutorial for making the little basket I made with the Tonic Kensington handbag die. This is the box that I was asked about.

It is very simple to recreate, and is just the Handbag die used upside down, and fastened up at the top, which becomes the base. Here's how... 

Firstly, take your elements from your die set - you will need the bag base, the side panels and the verso edge from the decorative lace panel (the outer edge). Cut out the sections below from Kraft cardstock. 

Next, you need to connect the pieces together. So, starting by putting tape on your side panels, or you can use wet glue (more ideal, but a little time needed for it to dry completely) along the tabs at the side. You can see the tape over at the right hand side of the picture.

Be careful you crease the side panel only at the outer edge tab and across the base.

Fasten your box together on the last side, ensuring that all edges are running evenly.

Fold all the flaps at the top and bottom in. To create the base and lid of your basket, you will need to cut some extra pieces of cards to a rectangular shape as shown.

The measurements for these are ........one piece at 13cm x 7.25cm, and one piece to 6.25cm x 12cm.
Score these two pieces at 1cm all the way around.

The last piece you will need to cut as shown is for the top embossed lid. Cut this layer to 10.5cm x 4.75cm.

In the scored sections, you will need to cut little snips into the corners as shown.



Use your glue, or a little red tape to stick the little snipped areas under the lid to create neat corners.

These are your two completed lids. Put them to one side for a few minutes until you complete the rest of your box. 

Use the verso edge from outside of the lace panel in your set to cut out two pieces of kraft card.

Once cut, choose an embossing folder and run each piece through your machine to emboss the design. Make sure the pieces go in the same way each time to keep the pattern uniform. You will also emboss the piece of cardstock you cut earlier for your lid top.  

Colour around the design using your Distress Inks, or chalks to get the effect you want. Repeat this on all three sections.

Stick the embossed panels onto the sides of the basket using wet glue. Take the lid section made to fit the smaller end of the box (which would have been the top of the Kensington Handbag). This will be glued onto the bottom of the basket to seal and finish it. It is now the base of the basket. 

**I hope that makes sense - basically, you are creating and fastening the Handbag upside down!**

Once the smaller end is securely fastened, you can attach the embossed panel to the lid of the basket, fold in the flaps and place your lid over the top. This way, you can fill the basket with your goodies and it will be sealed perfectly.

This is how your basket - (aka upside down bag) is going to look, now it's completely up to you if you want to attach a handle, and decorate up as you wish.

I hope you find this tutorial helpful. If you have any questions at all, please don't hesitate to leave me a message over on Facebook, or by emailing me, or leaving a comment. 

Until next time! xxxx

Manchester Event City Feb 2016

What a busy February we have had... 

Firstly, we had our first show at Sandown Park, doing workshops for Tonic and very busy they were too. We only had small classes all day, but it was lovely to catch up with some familiar faces and see some new ones too. 

And this past week, we have been up in Manchester with the show at Event City. We had workshops to run from the Thursday though to Saturday, and boy, it was busy all weekend. Every class was fully subscribed, and alot of fun and giggles were had!

The team working on the stand were myself, Jo, and two new teamies, Denise Carey and Pam McGlade. It was Denise's second show with me, and Pam's first. 

We were all very nervous going back - I don't know why, but they say it's good to be nervous!!!! 

Denise has worked on the shows before so is very familiar with how things go, and she is well acquainted with doing workshops and classes, after running her own shop for a while until recently. She loves all things crafty, from cardmaking to decorating MDF items and sewing. 

Pam has also worked on the shows doing demonstrations and workshops for a few years. She loves all things crafty from papercrafting to bookfolding, so a few lessons were had on an evening too! Pam loves fiddling with bits of paper to create stunning flowers too! 

Here are two of our class attendees to came along to make our projects. We were using the Flip Flop dies, two from the range, this one which says Forever my Friend, which we created in blue and yellow, and also the heart one 'Love is....' that we did with red, black and white. A little more romantic for Valentines day. 

Over the weekend we had above 300 attendees that came along and made a card. Quite a few had never made cards before, so die cutting was very new to them. But they found it quite easy and enjoyed it thoroughly. 

So.... if you see a craft show near you, check it to see if we are nearby. The next one we will be attending is Glasgow at the beginning of March and then the NEC and ExCel. 

We hope to see you soon!

Enjoy Today....

Good evening all..... 

Yes, don't be shocked, but I'm back again with a blog post for you. I have tried to get things uploaded for a while, but the phone went on the blink and I couldn't find the cord for my camera to download the images. *sigh*. 

I hope you have all been keeping okay whilst I've been absent. We have been better here with a few problems this last few weeks, but we've shaken ourselves off and had to carry on... and are feeling less battered and bruised than before. 

However... I now have time to share with you a card I made for the shows from Sandown Park, the Weekender which featured the card layering dies - Bowscale and Harrop - by Tonic Studios. 

The card I wanted to share with you today, uses the Bowscale die to cut the layers into the stamped image  - so using the smaller parts of the dies - and you can then layer them up into a more dimensional card.

I started by stamping the image, which is from Dreamees, and I embossed in the Tonic Nuvo Gold embossing powder before colouring in with Tonic pens. There's a little technique I used, which I will come back to after Friday!!

You can see that I used a couple of the Bowscale dies to fit onto the image, which I had trimmed to fit onto the card front and layered onto gold mirror card. These were then stuck back onto the card with foam pads on the outer and inner sections to give dimension. You can see this more clearly on the bottom picture.

The die cut was our sentiment dies - Enjoy Today - and I love that wording. Cut once from white card and once from mirror card and simply layered together to create the drop shadow.

I finished off the card with the Tonic Nuvo Glitter drops. I hope you like the card today - I'm going to go and upload another one now... take advantage of finding the right cable me thinks...!

Bella-issimo.....

Oh Bella.... sweet little Bella... such a cutiepie isn't she? 

Hi all... Today I'm sharing another stampy-coloury-image from the Reflections collection by Tonic and this time it's little Bella that is making her appearance. I love everything about this fairy, from her little feather, to the haircut which reminds me of my daughter's when she was this age, to the oversized shoes that she's happily poddling about in... just wonderful. 

When I started the card, I chose to colour the image with Nuvo pens that matched in with the colours within the topper I chose. So, I used the lighter yellow, 401, and the greens. 

I wanted to place the sentiment underneath the frame and have the fairy Bella sneaking a little look into it, which is why I chose one of our frame dies to pop on the frontage of the card. I used foam pads to lift the frame away from the sentiment, and again on the fairy to give her a little more depth on the card too. 

As you can see, I added some glitter glue to her wings to add a little bit of sparkle, and also to the feather and headband in her hair. Once all the flowers were stuck in place and the card was more or less finished, I chosed some of our fantastic Tonic Nuvo drops in Crushed Grape colour, and placed some dots into the centres of the flowers on the frame. 

I must admit, I'm not one for a busy card, but I love how this one turned out... and as usual, it had to pass the 'sitting on the craft desk for 24 hours to see if I still like it the following day' test. And it did. So here you are. 

You can be the judges to see if you like it too. I hope you do, as I thoroughly enjoyed colouring little Bella and giving her a little Character. I imagined all the little things that she would get upto.... but then that's another blog post for another day!

Until next time....

Happy Crafting everyone xxxx

Upon reflection.....

Hi everyone... 

This week has been a bit of a 'blurgh' for me... I've not been very well, and had  shows in Peterborough with these fantastic sets of  Reflections dies and stamps. How cute are they?! I have thoroughly enjoyed playing working with them. 

I'm getting better now, but think I had a bit of the ol' flu bug - very achy, sore all over, eyes were squinty, and I was grumpy. Ok... grumpy isn't part of the flu, but me + ill = grumpy Jojo!

But you know what they say - "When Life gives you a hundred reasons to cry, give life a thousand reasons to smile." So, feeling ill, grumpy, and everything else besides, I am giving myself lots of reasons to smile - beginning with this gorgeous little thing below. 

Let me introduce you to Cerys. She is one of our little Reflections set. This is the stamped image that comes with the collection, in which you will get seven design dies, seven verso edges, seven character stamps and the book of toppers (30 in all, 3 of each seven fairies and 3 of three different verses). 

On this card, I opted to do a half easel card, using the stamped image and one of the toppers from the book.  The side where the verse is placed was left flat, and the fairy image created the easel. 

I took great delight in colouring little Cerys. She is so sweet and the teddy is super cutesy! I used a mixture of blues and browns for the colouring, to match in with the verse topper. The pens I used were the Tonic Nuvo pens. If anyone wants to know colours I have used, please ask and I will list them below for you. 

I blended the wings of the fairy into the colours of the dress, then I added some silver dotty highlights to give her a little bit of shine. This was from the metallics set. 

I just love this image, it's supercute and really suits my style. The stamps are so simple to colour - no very small areas to get stuck with, they are very open designs and not too intricate which is perfect for new crafters. 

Did you buy the Reflections collection? Have you received it and had a play? 

Show me what you came up with - I would love to see. 

I will be back tomorrow with another little card to share. So until then, 

Happy Crafting everyone! 

xxxx

From Glam to ......

This.... 

Hello again. 

I told you I would come back and share another glamorous Kensington bag with you today if I could.... although this one is slightly less glamorous, as it started life out as a fishing box. That's what I wanted to make with it. But I couldn't find my fishy-wishy that came in my Tonic Rococo Pets set, so I had to turn it into something a little bit different. That's why the basket has brown ink on it. 

So how are you today? Have you dried out? It was a rubbish old day here in London yesterday - very wet, and cold, and I just couldn't get warm all day. The heating in the room was set to 24 degrees to see if I could warm up, and I was still freezing. I think I will bring my hot water bottle next time!!!!

I have three shows left to do today down here in the Studios, then I am making my way back up north to finish off samples on Saturday, ready for shows on Sunday for the CHA launch. But of course you will be able to catch Jodie up on the shows on Saturday. Exciting times. And something I am hoping you will love - cute and sweet comes to mind. 

Onto the basket, and you will see that it's a slightly different version of the handbag. It has been turned upside down and a base created for the 'top' section. And a top has been made to slide over the 'base' section. As I say, it was meant to be a fishing basket, but had to decorated up differently... so I bought on the bling. 

I hope you like it... you can fill with choccies or whatever you decide... 

Until next time. xxx

Kensington Glamour....

Good Evening all.... and can I just say before I start - Happy New Year from a very wet and cold London. I am down near Heathrow (actually on the flight path into it - VERY EXCITING!!!!!) doing some shows for Create and Craft USA over the last few days. The planes that are arriving, come straight over the front of the hotel - I swear I could see people supping their last bits of coffee! It's great to see the planes so close. I think it's the Gemini in me - the nosiness - that wonders where they have been, where they're going, what they're doing and why!!

Besides my airplane spotting adventures, I know I've been a bit lousy on the keeping-up-the-blogging front, but things have been a bit bonkers, what with Christmas coming around so quickly and work commitments etc. You know how it is.... blogging was the last thing I needed to get round to doing. I know I should.......... really, I should! It is actually very therapeutic to sit and waffle to myself on here. Haha. 

Anyway. What goodies do I have for you today? Well, as you may guess, I want to share a few little makes from the Kensington Handbag Pick of the Week. 

I say Pick of the Week, with a slight tongue in cheek as we had tons of stock, only for it to last a couple of hours and 31 minutes! And then it was gone. That quick. So, until it returns sometime in the future, I thought I would tease you with some of my completed little bags...!

This little cutie patootie is an image from Linnie Pink, one of my friends from Facebook, and she does the most wonderful CD roms. All the girls are so sweet, and this one was just perfect for the type of bag I wanted to create. I printed off the image onto white cardstock, then cut around it with the dies so I knew exactly where she was sitting on the page. 

A slightly different version of the handbag with this one, as I created a valentine's theme bag. So perfect for Wedding favours or just for giving a few little chocolates (or diamonds!) for your loved one. The top has been left up for this one, and the clasp attached to the top edge on both sides. This makes the little fastener. Very clever... and all the hard work is done for you. 

The sides on this box have been creased along the score lines so that you can shape it more to a triangular box, rather than the one above which is left more square. 

This box is also more of a triangular, and created in much the same way as the one above. But I kept it a little simpler coloured, quite elegant and added a little bit of lace and a butterfly to finish. 

So..... how about elongating the bag? You can indeed do this, and when I get a minute, I will do a little tutorial on how to do it. It's very simple and takes hardly any time at all. 

The embellishments on the front are cut from the die set and the glitter border was created simply by adding some double sided tape along a piece of Tonic Mirror card and then sprinkled along the sticky bit. Easy peasy. You can see the texture of our fantastic Tonic Essentials cardstock too... that beautiful weight and woven texture is a dream to work with and makes your projects look so elegant. 

I will post a few more of my makes hopefully tomorrow - but at the moment I am in London and the Wifi in the room is a little hit and miss..... !

My Nuvo reference book

Evening all..... just a very simple and quick post for you all today .. 

I have been asked many times about my little reference book I made for my Nuvo collection. So here it is. 

I always like to try to sort my pens / embellishments etc into sets, and especially as with the Nuvo, they coordinate so beautifully. So, I decided to make my usual alcohol marker chart, but to incorporate a few other bits and bobs. 

As you can see, the little book is made from board and then I bound it all with my Bind it All. I have these books for my copics, my promarkers and also my kuretake markers, so I obviously needed one for my Nuvo now didn't I?!

As you can see looking down the pages of the book, I don't really like to go off the colour names, numbers and such like... I like to colour myself a swatch of colour onto the cardstock I generally use in my cardmaking. 

Now, here insert a LIGHTBULB - because you may or maynot know that all cardstock is different. If you colour on one and colour on another, the colours may not be the same. I have my favourite cardstock I would always turn to, and you may have another, but use this reference book as just that. A reference. Please PLEASE try your colours on a scrap of paper you are colouring on first. 

You can clearly see next to the pen colours, I have tried to match up the Nuvo drops too. These have the numbers of the bottle and also the colour reference on too. Just for easiness with write ups. 

Here are a few blank pages at the back of the book. Now, these are mainly for when you have a great colour combo you don't want to forget... like for skin, or hair, or anything else that you would have a problem with in the future. 

The little book measures around 6 inches by 3 inches, and the boards were covered with paper on both sides. 

I hope you like today's little make, and I hope it inspires you to come up with something similar. xxx

Me turtle...

Hello all.... a bit of a long post from me tonight..... have you got your tea?

Yes.. it's a funny ol' title for a blog post, but yes, I often feel like a turtle. And I would be happy if I was half as cute as this little guy... 

So why do I feel like a turtle?

Well, not for many reasons really, other than anxiety and panic attacks, and low vitamin B12 are usually to blame! Something I've come to realise over the past however-many-years that worrying about things you can't change does you no good at all. 

For a long time, like many out there, I feel I'm not good enough, I can't do it, have little self confidence and how sometimes you feel like you could just walk away from it all. 

There was a quote on Pinterest once, that sort of summed it up .... "Noone knows how many times I've lost hope. How many times I've been let down. Nobody knows how many times I've felt like I'm about to snap. But I don't. For the sake of others. Nobody knows the thoughts that go through my head when I'm sad, how horrible they truly are. Nobody. Knows. Me"

It's a horrible feeling... you can't make people understand, can't make anyone understand what is happening inside of you, especially when you can't explain it to yourself sometimes.. I often feel like my anxiety has anxiety!!!

However.. this last couple of weeks has given me an awakening of some sorts. I've actually managed to take my tablets regularly - upped the dose when I felt necesssary - and am feeling in control of things that went beyond my control. I've been talking to the hubby about how I feel and he's put me right on a few things. He's shown me the way, and although I'm not saying it's easy - it's definately helped to start opening up about things. 

I know there are many people out there who see me doing my job, and think I'm full of confidence, like other crafters out there, but we are not all confident. We are not all in control of what we think we should be thinking... it's difficult when you're in the anxiety phase to just 'get over it' or 'just get on with it' or 'just talk about it'. It's hard to even 'stop thinking like that' because 'it's stupid'.. because to us it is rational. 

So.. that's why I'm a turtle. I've grown up. I used to be an ostrich... I stuck my head in the sand and pretended things weren't happening... but now, I can retract into my shell and watch and learn and come out when it's safe. I'm happy being a turtle. 

Anyways... onto my little make for today... and yes. My little turtle fella... Isn't he cute. He's a woodware stamp and I thought it was just perfect to go with this little border from Be Creative. The 3d borders have always been a favourite but you can't often get them these days - there are a few from Be Creative at the moment, but others are in the pipeline I have been told.... !

He was coloured in with their alcohol markers and as I didn't have a blender pen to add the mottling on his skin, I just opted for a very pale grey to dot and dab, which sort of did the same thing. 

Of course he had to have little sparkly eyes and rosy cheeks, all finished off with a little dab of a white gel pen to add highlights - I don't know where I would be without my white gel pen!

As you can see, I made this a central stepper card. The papers were from the Nature pack of the Be Creative papers and so were the buttons. The border I added some extra adhesive to the base of the strip and took my anti static bag to 'un-sticky' the top section so it didn't catch when the card was closed.

I thoroughly enjoyed making this little card. It's around A5 in size, maybe a little smaller, but a great size for the stamp.

I hope it inspires you a little.... and just one last thing - as some people have asked - NO.. I haven't left Tonic, I am merely satisfying my thirst for colouring. Something I let go when I had my bad anxiety problems a while ago.

I have found it helps to sit, colour, and relax and do something just for ME. I'm sure you understand.

Until next time... xxx

Guess what I've been doing....

Morning crafty peeps.... 

I thought I would spend a little bit of time catching up on my blogging as I haven't really had the time to do any for a while and I've got lots of things to share!

As you know, I do the workshops at the Craft shows for Tonic, and we have been a bit busy running up and down the country doing 'our thing'... so time has been a bit limited! Add into that some decorating, building work, painting, sorting and general house-y stuff and time has just disappeared!!

Anyway... I did find time to have a dabble with my Silhouette Cameo. This damn thing haunts me!! 

I have had it for a few years now, and it has cut all but the smallest amount of cardstock - trying to find what I could do with it was a nightmare. Trying to find the perfect cut - was a nightmare. Setting it up - was a nightmare.. The whole thing was - yes you guessed it - a total nightmare. 

But - BUT - I have found one thing I can do with it after all this time!! I can cut vinyl!

This is what I have managed to achieve on my little bits of vinyl I had left over from doing my glass block lamps. (I didn't use the vinyl - I cheated and used dies to cut out the designs!!)

The one above is on the side of the laundry wall... and was the first thing I managed to sort out to cut properly. I found the text on Pinterest and loved the wording, so changed the fonts, added a few swirls and off we went....

These two little coasters are made from small four inch tiles... and I cut the wordings again from the vinyl and just added it to the tiles. This was scaled down to fit so was very fiddly to try and do.. but I think they worked well in the end.

Now... this one below is my favourite.

I have made two of these... one of them is alot smaller - a grand old size of around three inches across, to fit in a dedicated space in my kitchen.

I love the wording, and this was a download from the Silhouette store. All I needed to do was scale it down to the size I needed and that was that.

I hope you like today's diverse little projects... I know they're a bit different from cardmaking but hey - that's what craft is all about eh?

Until next time. xxxx