Caturday - Felix

Felix is a very loving, affectionate cat who loves to sit on your knee. Unfortunately, it’s not a comfortable experience as he is so overweight. In common with many rescue animals, he overeats because he is never convinced that he'll eat again. And, living in a free range cat shelter, he has access to food 24/7, which isn’t ideal.

You can read more about Felix and his journey from Cretan street cat to pampered prince at the Woodland Nook blog here.

Today is my much-anticipated All-Day Craftathon! The cakes are baked, the bags are packed, the car is loaded with boxes and I’m ready to go.

Anyone want to guess which items I will have forgotten? There’s bound to be something...

Little butterfly thank you cards

I may not be here much but I’m busy squirrelling away in the background, planning like mad for my All-Day Craftathon tomorrow!

I’ve started packing boxes and you would not belieeeve how many ink pads I am taking with me! It’s very much an inky event, and I’m sure there are going to be some very inky fingers by the end of each session. 

But I’ll be telling you more about that next week, as I know most of my customers like the projects to be a surprise. 

Meanwhile, here are the little thank you cards I made for this month’s club order. They are half sized, so you get four from a sheet of A4 cardstock, and they’re pretty much CASEd from this project, which is a non-Stampin’ Up!® card but was so easy to adapt. 

I made half in Calypso Coral and half in Coastal Cabana, simply flipping over the DSP accordingly. The buttons are really sweet and come from the SAB Accessory Pack, with three rolls of ribbon, too. I cut the ribbon up to share as a little treat for the club members, to give them a little taste of what they could earn with their next SAB order. 

Anyway, must press on. Boxes to pack, cakes to bake… house to run round in manner of headless chicken...

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Four brand new Sale-a-Bration products for March

Did you think Sale-a-Bration couldn’t get any more exciting? Well you couldn’t be more wrong... be still your beating heart as we have four new SAB freebies to add to the collection!

Throughout March, you can choose from these fab new products when you place a £45 order, or join Stampin’ Up!® as a demonstrator. There are two new stamp sets, and two great new accessory packs! 

These are in addition to the existing Sale-a-Bration offering, so don’t panic if you have your eye on something from the current brochure. All will still be available until the end of March, these are just an unexpected bonus!

Take a look and what’s coming...

For Being You stamp set (4 stamps, wood or clear-mount)

In Color Accessory Pack (5 x 4.6m of Thick Baker's Twine, 30 x small designer buttons)

Nature's Perfection stamp set (5 stamps, wood or clear-mount)

Sheer Perfection Designer Vellum stack (24 sheets, 6"x6", printed in Basic Gray)

Which one is your favourite? Want some project ideas before you choose? Check out the flyer, here!

Little chocolate boxes with Petite Petals

One of my customers, Tracey, makes beautiful little boxes for all occasions. It’s always exciting to receive a beautifully crafted little box from Tracey, at Christmas, Hallowe’en etc… not least because they usually contain some of my favourite chocolate!

These are Tracey’s latest creations. The occasion? She simply wanted to thank everyone in my Virtual Hostess Club for their orders. Wasn’t that nice of her? 

And, once again, they contained my favourite chocolate: Green & Black’s… and I confess that I did search for (and find!) my ultra-fave, the milk. Although Tracey did recently introduce me to a new one which is now my ultra-ultra-fave, and that’s the milk with seasalt. I’ve never seen it anywhere though. :(

I can’t give you the measurements but I can give you the recipe…

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Repeat Blendabilities Workshop opened

Blendabilities Workshop 2

Unfortunately, due to quality issues with the pens, this event is cancelled until further notice

Due to unprecedented demand for places on my Blendabilities Workshop, I will be repeating this event the following morning, to allow more people to participate. Again, places are limited as I don’t have much space. 

The emphasis of this workshop will be on learning the technique, although you will produce one completed project. You can, of course, use any other images you colour at the event to create further projects at home. 

Saturday, 21st March, 9.30am-noon

My house in Derbyshire

£23 per person - includes Old Olive* and Daffodil Delight Blendabilities (RRP £10.95 each)

Substitute colours can be provided, if you already have these

*In the event of Old Olive markers remaining on backorder, I will substitute Wild Wasabi for the class

Only a few places available!

Please click HERE to book but, again, be quick! The first event was fully booked within two hours of appearing on my blog, and I don’t think I can stretch to a third event. 

Caturday - Benson in a box

Cats do love boxes, don’t they? Even if it’s actually a wooden planter, a cat will sit in it. And this is how we found Benson, when we visited the cat shelter last week. 

Benson belongs to the shelter owner, Jane, after he turned up one day and decided to stay. And why wouldn’t he? He really landed on his feet, discovering a hew home with loads of lovely beds (and boxes), a continuous supply of food and a seemingly endless stream of cat-loving visitors. 

Die-cut butterfly on watercoloured texture paste background

First things first: when using these fabulously intricate butterfly dies, always sandwich a piece of wax paper (or greaseproof if you can't find it) between your die and cardstock. It will make a world of difference when it comes to popping out the shape! You may or may not be able to see that I inked the edges of the butterfly slightly with the Silver Encore ink pad, to pick up the vague hint of silver on the background. 

For this project I was having a play with texture paste, in readiness for my upcoming All-Day Craftathon (now fully booked). We’re not taking on anything this complicated but it was fun having a go. I used the stencil from the Build a Banner Simply Created Kit (p2013 of the main catty). Here’s how to get the same effect:

• Create your own texture paste using 1 part cheap white glue, 1 part cheap white paint, 2 parts cornflour.
• Make a spreader from a piece of thick cardstock or chipboard and stencil the paste onto your cardstock (watercolour paper would have been better than Whisper White but it worked ok)
• Allow to dry thoroughly.
• Using a lot of water and the ink from the lids of your ink pads, paint a graduated background, allowing the colours to spread into each other. I went slightly darker around the edges but didn't worry too much about a pattern. 
• Allow to dry thoroughly and then lightly brush with Silver Encore ink pad
• Finally, it's ready to use as your card background. 

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Blendabilities Workshop - places going fast!

Blendabilities Workshop

Unfortunately, due to quality issues with the pens, this event is cancelled until further notice

Friday, 20th March, 7pm-9.30pm

My house in Derbyshire

£23 per person – includes Old Olive and Daffodil Delight Blendabilities (RRP £10.95 each)

(Substitute colours can be provided, if you already have these)

The emphasis will be on learning the technique rather than creating lots of projects. 

Places strictly limited due to space restrictions

Please click HERE to book but be quick! I sent a newsletter out about this class last night and had bookings within five minutes! 

9.30am update: NOW FULL!
If you would like to register your interest for a repeat of this class, please click HERE

AW35 Around the World colour combo challenge

The team at Around the World Challenge Blog have set you a colour challenge this time – to create a project using Blushing Bride, Chocolate Chip and Very Vanilla. The colours of Neapolitan ice cream!

I’ve been playing with texture paste a lot lately so had fun creating this card. I used the stencils from the Build a Banner kit to create the “hi” and my texture paste had added sparkle. To make it, I used cheap white glue, cheap white paint, cornflour and a whole lot of glitter. I discovered that you need a LOT of glitter when I slipped and accidentally tipped a good teaspoon into my little ramekin of paste.

There’s another texture paste card and (very simple) recipe in this blog post, here.

Now it’s your turn to have a go at this challenge. The colours go beautifully together so you should have lots of fun! All the details are here.

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