Wednesday, 23 January 2013

Shaped Steampunk Card

Inspiration from our Shaped Steampunk card Workshop...

The original design:

One I've added a few more bits to:

That's Mica Flakes around the edge of the tag, a few feathers from the Art Deco range and some buttons and eyelets from Capsule Collection.

And here's one I really went nuts with! Loving these new Tags. The little gold elements are made using Papermania's Brad Making starter kit, more on that coming soon.


And here are a couple of cards made using Tags and Toppers:


These are the lovely new Vintage Tags themselves! They're in packs of 10 for £1. Just gorgeous, and perfect for Tim Holtz Distress Ink:






My Bookmark:








And our lovely open sign! The colour on the edges is Old Paper, which is my new favourite colour of Distress Ink!


And here is "Bridget" the widow mannequin modelling my nice new Steampunk necklace! The necklace is made using the new Chronology Cogs Nesting Die and triple embossed with ultra-thick embossing powder and an urban stamp.


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Download the Instruction Sheet for this workshop here: Shaped Steampunk Card

Download the Quick Guide to Distressed Embossing here: Distressed Embossing

Sunday, 20 January 2013

Just for Fun!

Does everyone else make as much mess as I do when crafting?

I'd just finished up making some cards for the website, and this is the carnage I left behind!


Although I prefer to call it "Creative Chaos!"

Honestly, mess is inspirational! At least that's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it!


Friday, 18 January 2013

Vintage Notes Filigree Cards

Following on from the Vintage Notes Decoupage Medleys:


I've made a little something with the leftovers, and with the gorgeous new Vintage Notes card blanks. These are so delicately pretty. They come in packs of 6, and each pack has two of each of three designs.
Here's a close up picture of the top of a packet so you can see the other two designs on the left there:


And this is the one I'm using. I've opened the card blank out onto my cutting mat so you can see what they're like:


I've used leftover bits of Vintage Notes paper, and gold mirri card behind the "love" and the filigree borders.
I've also used one of these:


Isn't that just the cutest! It's a little crochet flower. Much as I'd love to claim I made it, I didn't. They're also from the Vintage Notes range and they come in packs of 6. Although if you buy yourself some, I think it would be great fun to pretend that you did make it if anyone asks!

Here's the finished card:


Isn't that lovely?

I think January is the perfect time to get making pretty pink and lacy cards, makes us all forget the rubbish weather!


Tuesday, 15 January 2013

A step-by-step guide to Decoupage and Decoupage Medleys

I love decoupage, so I think these Decoupage Medleys are just a brilliant idea! They're so different. They're a lot like normal decoupage, but there's no right or wrong order, you just stick them together however you like the look of them!

So, to start with let's look at Normal Decoupage, which comes in sheets like this:


(By the way, this one is a die-cut decoupage, so everything is cut out and already glittered and embossed for you! It's by Lucy Cromwell and we have it in stock.)

The sheet is numbered B1, B2 and B3 to tell you which order to stick everything together in:


So, you push it all out and lay it out in order:


And then stick it all together with double sided adhesive foam pads:



And this is what you end up with:


Decoupage Medleys on the other hand, have no numbers!

(This is a new one from the Vintage Notes range)


This is great because it means it's up to you how you layer them up. If you wanted to, you could get 13 cards out of this one sheet by using them separately as toppers! They come in packs of two, so that's a lot of cards for £2.

Here's what I did with my sample sheet:

First off, I chose an A5 white card blank. I chopped down some of the new Vintage Notes paper to just under A5 size using the guillotine:


Here's a closer look at that paper because it really is lovely. I don't think the photo quite captures it, but it is linen textured the same as the decoupage medley itself.


Next, I've used the stick it roller to adhere the paper to the card blank. This has got to be my can't-live-without crafting gadget! Double sided tape in a roller, super quick to use!


I've used double sided tape itself to stick the ribbon on, purely because I find it easier to stick down in a straight line! Anyone who's been in the shop recently might have had a roll of this stuff waved at them already, but if you haven't, trust me, it's brilliant! It's called finger-lift tape. It's £2.49 a roll, so it's the same price as normal double sided tape. But what's special about it is that the backing paper is larger than the tape itself, so its a million times easier to get hold of and peel than normal tape is.


Now that is a genius invention in my opinion!

Next, I've stuck on some ribbon. This is one of the ones you can buy by the metre in the shop, but I didn't quite have enough left in my box...so I snipped it in the middle, and I'll hide the gap with the decoupage.


Next up is the first layer of the decoupage medley. These are die-cut, so they easily push out from the backing:


I'm using the same foam pads between each layer that I used in the normal decoupage:



Although in some places, I've stacked the foam pads up on top of each other so I could play around with different heights:



And here's the finished medley:


This is what's left on the sheet by the time I'd finished:


Still plenty to do another medley. Although I chose to get mine to go a bit further and used them on several other cards later on.

Next up, the finishing touches. Gotta have a bit of bling! I glittered some parts using the glitz it glitter glues:


I also added some small pearls from the Anita's Gemstone Pearl Wheel:


I've actually stuck the pearls on using glitter glue, which is quite a cool tip. You put a largeish blob of glitter glue onto the card and set the pearl into it, which leaves you with a little "halo" of glitter around the pearl once it's dried.

To finish off, I picked up some larger self-adhesive pearls with my pokey tool and stuck them in the corners:



And here is my finished card:


Gorgeous!

I used up some leftovers to create another card using the Lucy Cromwell decoupage. In the Vintage Notes paper pack you get a sheet of greetings. This is a close up of the 12x12 sheet of greetings:


I chopped out the greeting I wanted with scissors, but because my cutting out is a bit wobbly I used the guillotine to straighten it up:


And here's the card I made with it:


I've used a little bit of Victorian Velvet Distress Ink to highlight the edges of the Lucy Cromwell decoupage and added some of the hearts from the Vintage Notes decoupage medley.

I'm definitely loving these decoupage medleys! I really like that multi-layered look you can get with them, and I love the endless possibilities. There are so many different designs you can come up with just using one sheet of these.

Hope you all like them too!


Friday, 11 January 2013

Gucci the Fish! Scrapbooking Inspiration...

Over the Christmas Break I had a couple of lovely evenings all to myself to hole up at the craft desk and get creating!

I had a lovely photo of one of my fishies called Gucci. (Yes...my fish have names!!) Perfect opportunity to do myself a scrapbook page using the Art Deco stamps! Since her name is Gucci, I wanted to do a "glamourous" page for her, and here it is:


Really pleased with how it came out! The art deco image is stamped in black Tim Holtz ink, which is one of the few inks which won't smudge or run with promarkers. I've now got myself some of the clip-on fine nibs for my promarkers, which if you don't have them, I highly recommend! We have them in stock for 99p each.


Just a couple of tips on the nibs, you'll probably find you only need one since they can swap between colours easily. The only colour you might want a separate nib for is red, since red does tend to stain the nibs a bit. I have only found that with the colour "Cardinal" though, so it might just be my pen! When you clip the nib to a new colour, just scribble on a scrap of paper first. For example when I swapped from silver to gold colouring this image, I put the nib onto the gold pen second. When you scribble, you get a silver line, then a dirty browny goldy one, then it goes gold.
The other thing I found is the lids aren't interchangeable! The fine nib lid will damage a normal promarker nib if you get them mixed up. I've got a white marker pen in the shop which I used to put a little white X on my fine nib lid, so if you're buying one, feel free to ask us to put a white X on yours too!

Here's a closer look at the Art Deco Lady:


The little feather is from a larger feather, I just snipped it to size and glued it in place with a gluepen. The glitter is glitz it glitter glue and the gems are from the smaller of the Anita's gemstone wheels.

And this is the other Art Deco stamp I was playing with...

Gorgeous, aren't they? I can't get over how clear the images come out. They're such good quality stamps, beautifully defined when you see them done. Is now a good time to admit that I really couldn't choose...so I gave in and got all 3...



 Managed to get a few other scrapbook pages done over christmas too! Here's Sam the fish:


The fish bowl is done on the shop's Cricut (shh! Don't tell anyone I borrowed it!) and the border around the image is Mica Flakes. The big fish sticker up the top there hasn't come out too well in the photo I'm afraid, but take my word for it, it looks lovely in real life! It's all coloured with a gluepen and then filled in using Mica Powders. But the bit I'm most proud of is the tag:


The pocketwatch is one of the freebies on the current issue of the docrafts magazine. I've stamped it in distress ink, squirted it with water, then glossed it with the Anita's 3D gloss. (Rummage through the Distress Ink Tutorial for how to do this technique) The little brown dots are DIY Card Candies which have also been glossed.
The other freebie on the magazine is a fabulous old fashioned globe stamp...which is gorgeous! That's a homemade tag stuck onto a cream A6 card blank:


And to finish off, some embarrassing baby photos!


All those flowers are cut out on the bigshot using the XCut Petal Posy nesting die:


And here's a genuine Polaroid photo from the 80s!


So proud of those little flowers! They're cut out from mulberry paper (that really fine handmade stuff you can buy) and then curled up. The green DMC embroidery thread is then wrapped around them and the whole thing glued down. I stitched the stems and the leaves by drawing lines with a pencil, then poking holes with a pokey tool and stitching through the card in backstitch.



So what did everyone else make over Christmas? Hope you all found some time to sit down and enjoy a good crafting session!

Tuesday, 8 January 2013

Cardmaking Workshops Jan 22nd - Feb 12th 2013

Our new Cardmaking Workshops are about to start! There are sooo many lovely new goodies to play with its been really hard to choose what to try out first! So we're going to try out a little bit of everything...

Hope to see you all soon!


Cardmaking Workshops


“Whether you’re new to card-making or you want to add to your skills, there will be something for you!”

£13 per session

Tuesday Evenings from 6.30pm - 9.00pm

At:
Anne & Paul’s Sew Simple, 94 Church Road
Ashford, Middlesex, TW15 2PL

01784 255 742

All tools and materials provided to make 2-4 cards per session!

Please call to reserve your place – only 10 spaces available per session
Or you’re welcome to pop into the shop to book!

DISCOUNT ON ALL PRODUCTS PURCHASED ON THE NIGHT


Tuesday 22nd January: Shaped Steampunk Card
A fabulous top-hat shaped card ideal for men’s cards. Have a go at “distressed embossing” a surprisingly simple technique using normal embossing powders. And of course try out some bits from the new Chronology range too!

Tuesday 29th January: Vintage can be “girly”!
Distress without the drab colours! Have a play with the fabulous new Vintage Notes range from docrafts and create some stunning delicate cards.
(This workshop is ideal for beginners)

Tuesday 5th February:  DIY Butterfly Tags
Create a brilliant DIY tag-shaped card with a fabulous butterfly-collector theme. Have a play with distress inks, die cutting and more!

Tuesday 12th February: Tatty Teddy Valentines
He’s cute and he’s gorgeous! Create an adorable valentines card using some unique new Tatty Teddy goodies. Simple, but very effective.
(This workshop is ideal for beginners)


Workshops run every Tuesday for 4 weeks, then 1 week off, and then begin again.
Sign up at www.anneandpauls.co.uk to receive email
 updates as new workshops are announced!



Monday, 7 January 2013

Workshops from last year!

Hi everyone,

Apologies to anyone who had to suffer an email with totally wrong dates on it! I think our website got slightly confused. The problem should be fixed now.

The new dates for this year (2013) will be following shortly.