Thursday, 12 November 2015

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

Tuesday, 3 November 2015

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
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