Midweek Papercraft Party (15)

It's time for another papercraft challenge!  Are you ready?

Last week's winners are:

Nadja and Teresa

Well done both!  Please email me with your choice of 3 digital stamps from the Handmade Harbour store.  Also, feel free to add the winner's badge to your blog - you'll find it in the left hand sidebar <---

This week's challenge is:

Winter Fun...

and the design team as usual have come up with some gorgeous projects for you - they've all used Christmas-themed digistamps from Handmade Harbour this week.  Don't forget if you use a Handmade Harbour digistamp too, you'll double your chance of winning.

It's definitely feeling like winter here in the UK and I'm getting used to wrapping up warm, so our theme this week feels very appropriate.  Kel kicks off with a penguin in his winter hat and scarf.  She also coloured some of her white snowflakes blue for this lovely card...

Valerie used Snowman Family and added little spots of Stickles Glitter Glue to make it look like the happy snowman family is enjoying a nice snowfall.  I love Mrs Snowman's pink hat and scarf!

Laura used  Christmas Tags and had fun with her white gel pen making stitches.  The top striped layer is vellum, which she had never worked with before but says she found it surprisingly easy to work with.  These make great gift tags!

Connie made a gorgeous 6x6 card - I love the doily background and the understated colours!

Mary's card is a simple but stylish and effective card, using one of the Christmas digital tags and sentiments 

 Anita used the penguins in two gorgeous cards (and one of the tags snuck in there too!) 

I love all these cards - what about you?  Have you been making something that fits our winter fun theme?  We'd love to pop along and have a look, so you know what to do...

Handmade Monday 144

Welcome to another Handmade Monday!  How do these weeks roll round so fast?

It seems only a week or two ago I was making cards, candles and polymer tree decorations for this week's Craftseller.  But it can't be, because here they are, all published and on the shelves in the shops.

It's always a complete pleasure to be asked to make cards - I love taking the time out to kind of relax into paper cutting and layering!  The papers I used are free in this month's issue

and they are gorgeous papers, I have to say.  They include a few sentiments, too, as always.

I was less sure about the candles I was asked to make, as this was a pretty new craft to me!  Also, the idea of making them using cookie cutters seemed a little bit risky - all that leakage of hot wax!  Cookie cutters aren't meant to be candle moulds!  However, it all worked out OK in the end and they do make pretty candles!

The polymer tree decorations were fun to make, but they use up a fair bit of clay (although the candy canes are super-easy to make, and use a lot less clay).

The robins have googly eyes, and the holly leaves were made using cake/biscuit cutters.

And what have I made this week?  Well, there's been a lot of painting of personalised gifts going on, and there's been some making of digital stamps for a bookazine project which will be published in February - I can't say more than that yet!  

Midweek Papercraft Party (14)

It's time for another papercraft challenge!  This week's theme is:

Friends and/or Family

But first, let me announce the winners of last week's challenge:

Judith and Henriette

Congrats ladies!  Please email wendy@handmadeharbour.co.uk with your choice of three Handmade Harbour digital stamps and I'll email your images back to you.

You can also grab the winner's badge from the left hand sidebar <----

Meanwhile, let's get down to looking at what the design team have come up with this week...

This robin family digital stamp definitely lends itself to the family theme - and it's definitely seasonal too!  It's proving to be a popular stamp, this one!  Rachel designed this card for us.  Click on her name to find out more.

This next card reminds me that I think I should be living somewhere much warmer than the UK.  I always love summer themes at this time of year, so I love that Lynne has used the beach bar digistamp for this week's challenge!

She's given it lots of depth using some fussy cutting and layering and the wording inside says Wish you were here.  Yup, I certainly do!

This image was inspired by a holiday in Lefkas, a Greek island.  I remember having an iced coffee in a similar beach bar in the village of Vasiliki and we drove up that hill (in the background) afterwards in our rental jeep.
The winding Greek mountain roads absolutely terrify me, although the views and destinations were fabulous enough to (kind of) make up for my terror (having said that, if I visit those locations again it will be by boat and not mountain roads - if only for the sake of my fellow passengers who I'm sure were tempted to either gag me or chuck me over the side!!)

But a big thank you to Lynne for bringing back some lovely warm summer memories on a grey winter's day!

Last but not least, Zoe made this lovely card from the humorous digital stamps range - this sarcastic comment humour digi is one for the men maybe?

Have you been inspired by this week's challenge, or by the design team's cards?  If so, please do join in this week!

As usual, you can enter with any papercraft project, but if you use a Handmade Harbour digital stamp you will double your chance of winning.  Two winners will each get three free stamps of their choice from the Handmade Harbour digistamps store.

The design team and I are looking forward to seeing what you make this week!

Handmade Monday 143

Welcome to another Handmade Monday.

This week, one of my commissions for Craftseller magazine made me realise that Christmas is already over - at least in the magazine world!

I made a Happy New Year card for Craftseller, using the papers that will be given away free with issue 32, alongside a Thank You card.

The card making was a welcome diversion from all the painting I've been doing - my handmade gifts have been keeping me very busy recently!  Christmas might well be over as far as magazine commissions go, but it's only just starting for the rest of us (although I do know there are ultra-organised people out there who have already got ALL their presents sorted - which sort of gift-buyer are you?  I am pretty much a Last Minute Lil, I must admit).

What have you been making this week?  Let us know...

Midweek Papercraft Party (13)

Welcome to this week's papercraft challenge!

Last week's winners are:  Jo and Helen

Congrats to you both, you win three digis of your choice - please email at wendy@handmadeharbour.co.uk with your choice of three digital stamps from the Handmade Harbour digistamps store.  You also get the right to display the winner's badge on your blog - feel free to grab it from the left-hand sidebar...
<---- it's over there somewhere! <----

This week's challenge is: Christmas is Coming!

Would you like a peek at what the design team have been doing with this theme?  They all used images from the Christmas digital stamps selection -and I just love what they did with them.

Valerie used Reindeer with Santa Hat.  Valerie said: "I chose to keep my card simple this time, so the focus would be on this really adorable reindeer image".  I love what she did here, don't you?

Laura used the Cute Christmas Robin digi and said "I think this little Robin is so sweet, even though I colored him more like a canary color. :-) "

Actually, I think he looks like a gorgeous robin and not at all like a canary!!  He may be slightly pale, but he's instantly recognisable!!

Connie made a gorgeous scrapbook layout, and showed us that the Christmas digistamps are perfect for Christmas-themed layouts.  I love the mix of bright Christmassy colours with the subdued naturals here..

Mary made a super sweet gift tag using one of the Christmas tags and sentiments that come all as one digital stamp

Back to cards with Anita, who made quite a few, all of which are very lovely indeed!  Christmas is definitely the time for multiple card making!

Last (but definitely not least) kel  made some super-sweet blue Christmas robins - I love them in this colour!

 

If you fancy taking part in our challenge, all you need to do is link up your latest blog post with your Christmas-themed papercraft project - we'd love to see what you've been making!  

If you use a Handmade Harbour image, you double your chances of winning, so do pop over and see the Christmas digital stamps - they are instant downloads so you could get making right now!

If you are playing along with us this week, you know what to do...

Handmade Monday 142

Welcome to Handmade Monday - click the link for more info.

This weekend, I was surprised to see a massive jump in "sales" of my free pattern on Craftsy (the one for the sewing kit that appeared first on here then in Sewing world magazine).   It took me a while to work out the reason for the huge increase - then I discovered I'd got a mention on the Craftsy blog!  What was even more surprising was that my little pattern was trending as number 1 on the free sewing patterns page!  Wow!!  That was just amazing  (although it's entirely possible it's dropped from the number 1 spot by the time you read this).

sewing kit tutorial

It's made me realise that I need to get some more patterns out there!  It's one of the things I've really neglected recently.  There seems to be so many things I want to do and I need to get better at making time for them all.  Any ideas to help me organise my time would be welcomed - although I am pretty well-read on the subject and aware of the theory... it's the practical I struggle with!!  Maybe I'm just trying to fit too much in.

I am about to add something else into the mix which might make time management even harder - something that has absolutely nothing to do with handmade but might be a welcome diversion at times...

I'm getting a puppy - but not just any puppy.  I've volunteered with the Guide Dogs Association to be a puppy walker, which means a puppy will come and live with me, distract me from my work, piddle on my floor, chew anything I leave lying around and in return I'll take him or her for walks and socialisation practice - a very cute companion, I think!

guide dog puppy looking guilty

(image courtesy of Guide Dogs)

I'll keep the puppy for about a year (when they'll want it back for its next stage training!) but I will have the option to take on another little fluffy bundle when the first one moves on.

I'm really quite excited but managed to rein in my excitement a little when they asked could I start mid-December - there is a litter of puppies ready to be homed then.  The busiest time of the year for me is the run-up to Christmas, when I'm furiously painting, lettering, packing and posting for my gifts website.  I am hoping it won't be much afterwards though when "my" puppy arrives!

I've now got patterns and tutorials for dog chew toys and dog beds going around in my mind!!  Inspiration is everywhere but time is as short as ever!

There's more good news, in that I got a mention in Homecrafts Top 50 craft bloggers awards.  I recognise quite a few of the bloggers on there, but some are new to me - so I'm going to be trying to make time to look at the blogs of some of my fellow awardees (is that even a word?).

If you'd like to share what's been going on in your handmade world this week, you know what to do...

Midweek Papercraft Party (12)

Welcome to another Papercraft Challenge!

Last week's winners are:

Maya and Chris

Well done you two - please email wendy@handmadeharbour.co.uk with your choice of three digital stamps from the Handmade Harbour store.

<---- You can also grab the winner's badge from the left sidebar!

OK, so let's move onto this week.  Our theme this week is...

Thank You or Thanksgiving.

This is what the design team have been up to with the theme...

Lynne turned the girl with bunting digital stamp into a gorgeous thank you card.  Check out Lynne's blog for how she made this card...

And they say great minds think alike, don't they?  Zoe came up with exactly the same idea!  Another gorgeous card!

But now for something completely different!

This funky chicken digital stamp made a perfect Thanksgiving card, I think!  It's by Rachel - you can see more on her blog.

I love what they did this week - I think saying thank you can be really important and there's no better way to do that than with a handmade Thank You card.

This sewing machine image has the thank you message integrated into the design - close followers of this blog may recognise this card from a while back!  I used Promarkers for the colour and fabric, stitching and buttons around the edges.

There's chance to win digital stamps ever week - and you double your chances if you use a Handmade Harbour image in your project.  Don't forget there are free digital stamps you can use too.  For a chance of winning, just take part in the linky party...

What have you been making?  I'd love to pop along and have a look!

Handmade Monday 141

Hello and welcome to Handmade Monday.

My granddaughter Keira tells me we have to start making something else soon, as we've made too many cushions!

Her bedroom is now apparently full to bursting with cushions.  I think we made so many as they are a perfect project to help a beginner to get used to a sewing machine - with quick and happy results!  The gorgeous fabric on this one was from Wholeport.  I used it for my sketchpad pouch, and Keira pounced on the leftovers for her latest cushion!!

But what next?

Any ideas?  I think we still need to keep it fairly quick and simple, but perhaps she's ready to step it up a gear!

In the meantime, it's getting busy here with orders over at my 1st Unique Gifts site.  Is it getting busy for you too?  If you have time...