My Creative Spirit (Blog Archive)

Morning my crafty friends. hope I find you well.  I thought I'd share an album I made when this fabulous paper collection was out first time round.  I love all things Steampunk and mechanical and loved putting this album together.  And now we're going to get a chance to get crafty with these fabulous papers all over again.  The album was made for a blog hop with Art Glitter a couple of years ago....ish, and I think that's when I got totally addicted to the pee wee post of art glitter.  I used loads on this album.  Boy what a mess we were in when I"d finished, everyone was wearing glitter lol!!!  Children not impressed but Andy the elf looked kin of cute :-) I loved how the green gold and brown shades of glitter worked with the papers to make the images pop, especially the amazing lady below: Here's a few more pics of the mini album. Lots of die cut cogs and layering going on......... We're taking pre-orders for this Deluxe Collectors edition ove

A card for Lyn  Hi everyone, what a miserable cold day its turning out to be here.  Hope its warmer where you are.  Not good for July...........!  I've been looking at the Spectrum Noir pencils for a while and dithering over whether I should buy them.  In the end they just happened to fall into my basket.     I used three reds, three greens and the black pencils, a paper stump and blending fluid to colour the poppies, leaves and seed heads on the Heartfelt Creations Poppy Stamp and then set about cutting them all out.  Boy did that take an age. I added a little glossy accents to the seed heads and Ranger black enamel accents to the centre of the poppy heads to give some texture.  A lovely stamp to work with, was really impressed with how easy it is to blend and work with the pencils and really enjoyed making the card. Poppies are my dear friend Lyns favourites and the card for her.  www.mycreativepsirit.co .uk

from left to right Lisa, Clare, Jane, Lyn & Karen Feb 2014 Hello everyone, hope you're enjoying your Sunday.  I"m sharing some really sad news with you today.   Our lovely friend Lyn, pictured above has been suffering with a very aggressive form of cancer for the past year or so and, after many years of illness is sadly now very ill and loosing the very brave battle she's been fighting.  It's so so sad.   Lyn is a fabulous crafter, and an avid Create and Craft watcher and shopper and we became great friends shortly after I started crafting when Lyn came along to one of my early workshops.  She's followed me since my early days, joined me for many workshops, come to most of my retreats and has made many Graphic 45 samples for the Create and Craft TV shows I do and been a great support as well as a true friend.   Jane & I visited her and her lovely daughter Sarah in hospital on Thursday. Such a sad visit but despite all she is coping with Lin was stil

I hope I find you well on this Sunday morning.  Ours is a wet one again and my plan to sand down and paint the front door the new colour we've chosen and change the brass fittings for silver ones has gone out of the window lol! so it looks like I'm going to have some crafty time on my hands around cooking Sunday lunch.  Today's box card was made for a mix of 8 x 8, 6 x 6 and 12 x 12 papers from the Gilded Lily collection ... another gorgeous release from G45.  The card is 6 1/2" x 6 1/2" and the front is raised on concertina sides to give the relief effect I was after. The front is decorated with the reverse side of Gilded Lily 12 x 12 and the pink arch cut from patterns and solids. The cut aparts are great for adding characters and making a scene and this collectors full of them.  I got carried away with flower cutting, love the lilies and dog roses.  For the sentiment I used an one of the phrases from the Her Majesty 12 x 12 paper and the Paris stamp to a

Whop Whop its the weekend, the first day of the school holidays and no rain........ so far.    I've been rooting through all my left over papers that have been sitting in the cupboard for ages and decided to use some of them to make some notebook holders for my stall at the craft fair.  It didn't take long to transform two sheets of paper and some chipboard into a gorgeous gorgeous little gift that would be great for stocking fillers, table top sales, charity fund raising events and birthday gifts too.  A great little make to do with the children too. I used the Once Upon a Springtime papers for the three above, decorating the front with the cut out fairy frames and a little bit of glitter........ If you fancy making some here's all you need to know to get started:  What you need: Two x 12 x 12 papers  Two chipboard pieces 7 1/4" x 5" and one 7 1/4" x 1/2"  Notepad 4" x 5 3/4" (four for a £ from the Range)  Double sided tape 

Hello my lovelies, boy did we have a storm last night.  It was building up all afternoon, getting blacker and blacker and then boom off we went in the middle of the night lol!!!   Love to watch a good storm and have been know to sleep though them when we used to go camping.  Not these days though.    Todays card is another for my tabletop collection and coloured with watercolour pencils - no water added though!!  I used of my blue and green Derwent watercolour pencils and varied the pressure slightly to vary the shading.  I love the soft effect you get from the pencils on paper.    The stamps come form the following sets   and pencils from the set of 36 by Derwent If you're planning a visit to the Lake District, the Derwent Pencil Museum in Keswick is well worth a visit. We spent many a happy hour in there when the boys were small, did lots of colouring trying out the range of pencils they make and shopped too. Did you know the  Derwent pencils were used to produce t

  Afternoon my crafty friends, hope this post finds you well.  Still on a card making spree I thought I'd share this clean and simple birthday card with you.  I started off with a 6" x 6" card blank and cut a 4 1/2" white card square to work on for the centre detail. Using stamps from the sets below and archival ink I base stamped the detail onto the card square and then re stamped the daisy head and crazy bird onto some spare card. I cut these out and inked both using Dusty Concord and Wild Honey distress inks and a white Sharpie pen to add the dotty detail on the daisy head.    I used purple and green Caran D'Ache watercolour pencils to colour the base daisy and the grass detail and then added the fussy cut daisy and the bird over the original stamped image. Rangers black and white enamel accents are great to add bobbly that pop.  The border detail was drawn with 04 Micron Archival ink pen and the words are mounted on foam tape so they stamp out a litt

It's turning out to be a right wash out of a week here.  It rained all day yesterday and its still raining here this morning.  I've still got a few of my Parks and Gardens bargain plants to dig in but don t want to do it in the rain really :-)  Harry baby got his 1st year results fro college yesterday and bowled us all over by getting the highest marks possible and distinctions in all subjects.  He's one happy bean, and looking forward to another creative year of 3D design. Well done H, I know you worked your socks off. As rain stopped play, or did it start it lol!  Which ever I had a day of making samples yesterday to send of to Create and Craft and thought I"d share a few of them with you before they get parcelled up and posted.  The pillow boxes were made from Gilded Lily 12 x 12 papers, die cut from the Alterations Pillow Box die and the little tags are stamped with the stamps from the collection too.  Great gifts for summer fetes and weddings too.   

Helllllooooooo my crafty friends and a very happy Tuesday to you.  For the first time ever I've booked my self a table at a local craft fair and have been busy creating some altered art and cards.  I went for a simple clean design for todays makes and used different colours to vary the theme. Made from a mix of Lin Brown and JOFY stamps, copic ciao pens, a mask and distress ink they have a simple fresh feel to them.  Hope you like :-)    Monthly Giveaway Will share more with you later in the week but until then don't forget to enter this months giveaway if you haven t already.  A Craft Maid kit could be yours if you leave a comment and are selected as our monthly winner.  Here's the link. July Giveaway  www.mycreativespirit.co .uk

It's a wet old morning here in England, quite a blessing after an uber hot one on Saturday.  I was down  with the lovely Janet and ladies at Birds in the Barn, for a Graphic 45 workshop.  We snipped, stuck and crafted albums and pencil cases using the beautiful Gilded Lily papers by Graphic 45 and laughed all day.  We started off making our albums  and the ladies got quite competitive about who was going to finish theirs first.  With lots of laughs along the way it was Wendy who stuck the last piece of paper into hers just before the 2 o clock deadline.  Then it was onto pencil cases.  More hilarity as Janet showed us how well her lid slid into her case.  Thank you ladies for such a fun day.  Enjoy using your projects. Loved the matching crockery Janet had picked up for the shop from a local Charity shop and Karens cake was just amazing.  She really is the Mary Berry of Marks Tey.   Here s a few pics form our lovely day.  Wendy left with a couple more of my product