My Creative Spirit (Blog Archive)

By the Sea Easel Card - Graphic 45 A great day had by all at Pink Tulip, lovely to see you all ladies and I hope you enjoy using your ATC gift box and making more too.  Heres a few pics of everyone making todays project. Thanks Sheila, Angela & Tracy for all your help again.  The day just couldn't run as smoothly as it did without you.  My by the Sea card above was one of the samples made for the G45 show on Create and Craft TV on Friday. I love the By the Sea papers (well I love anything G45 as you know) and had great fun cutting up the signature sheet to decorate the Easel card above decoupage style. The shells have been shaped  slightly to give them a little more dimension.  I've found they keep their shape for longer if you spritz the back of the paper with a little water, shape them and let them dry before mounting them.  I'm off down to Wantage in the morning to run a workshop with Wendy at the Stamp Attic.  This was the firs...

Botanical Tea Stamped Eggs - Graphic 45   Happy Friday to you, hope your weeks been a good one.  I'd like to send a huge thank you to Lyn Jones and Karen Richards for making some gorgeous samples for the Graphic 45 show this morning on Create and Craft. When I unpack the show boxes I'll take some pictures of them all and share them with you. Thank you so much both.  Graphic 45 are sharing  some out of the box Botanical Tea ideas by Denise and myself over on their blog today.  If you fancy making some altered eggs yourself there's also a short step by step guide on how to make them.  To visit the blog click here.   I'm off to Pink Tulip tomorrow for our monthly workshop and then down to see Wendy and her ladies on Sunday at the Stamp Attic , so a busy weekend ahead for me.  Have a relaxing time yourself and loo forward to catching up again soon :-) C

By The Sea Bon Voyage Card - Graphic 45  Afternoon there, hope your Tuesdays going well.  I've been making cards this week, and decided to challenge myself to make a card using all of the By the Sea stamps from Set 1 that go with the By the Sea paper collection.  I love the colours in this collection. I used Sea Salt paper for the main structure of the card and stamped the images onto cream card using Nautical Blue Memento ink and then pondered over what sort of card to make.  Having never made one before I decided on a Bendy Bon Voyage Card.   As always the cutting out took a while, but once that was done the card went together really quickly.  Hope you like :-) Here's a few close ups; These are the bits and pieces I used to make the card if you fancy making one yourself; 12 x 12 By the Sea Papers Sea Salt  Splash  By the Sea Stamp Set 1 By the Sea Sticker Sheet - A Skilled Sailor sticker strip Cream Card  Meme...

Happy Friday to you and hope you're week's gone well. I'm back in the swing of things and getting ready for my workshop this weekend at Colemans, Rushden and two shows on Creat and Craft TV next Friday. Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow ladies :-)  I've been looking at the Easter Eggs in the stores but haven't bought any yet for the boys.  I'm thinking of making some.  Its quite a few years since I made chocolate eggs but I've made a start and found the moulds from the back of the cupboard.  Just need to decide what chocolate to use.  Are you buying eggs this year or thinking of making some too?  If your going to get crafty there are two great gift ideas by Denise and me over on the Graphic 45 blog today .   On another note I've reached a bit of a milestone this week.  It's a little over three years since I opened my You Tube account, found and joined the crafting community and picked up tips and ideas from the many videos crafte...

Card by Clare Charvill  Morning and a Happy April Fools day to you all.  Spring should really be with us good and proper nw. It was on Sunday but definitely not today down here by the sea.  The ships fog horns have been blasting out in the bay and its looking a bit grim across the water.  Seagulls are happy though making a racket.  Heres a couple of pics I took in Sundays sunshine. I thought I'd share a spring themed card with you from my IndigoBlu belle days this morn. I found it when I was sorting through my archives the other day and had completely forgotten I'd done it.  Love the Anemones , and the versatility of the stamp too.  You can't really tell from the photo but there are three layers of flowers that curl out to give the card dimension.  I haven't made too many cards recently so think I'll rifle through my boxes of stamps when I get home and see what jumps out at me :-) Am travelling back home today to sunshine in the Mid...

By the Sea Shadow Box - featuring Harry bean :-)  Had a song or two from the seagulls early doors again today…. the little darlings.  I don't mind them really, it's all part and parcel of being by the sea which I love.  We had a great day yesterday ending up at Tehidy Country Park . I'd not been there before and really enjoyed wandering through the woods by the lake in the sunshine.   Random.org  generated no 60 as the winner of this months giveaway, kindly donated by  Darren at Jones Crafts.  Comment No 60 was left by Mari Hop.  Congratulations Mari.  If you could mail your address to me at mycreativespirituk@gmail.com , I'll get your goodies in the post to you.  Huge thanks to everyone who left comments this month.  Loved reading them all.   Our April Giveaway will be announced on Thursday 3rd April so do call back and leave a comment.  If you're not in it you can't win it :-). It's the last day...

Just a quick post this morning before we head off down to Porthlevan for a wander across the beach and a hot chocolate afterwards to warm us up.  I thought I'd share the finished project for the workshop I'm running on June 1st.  Roy (Mr Candy Box Crafts) has designed the MDF blank to hold up to five mini albums, and drawers to hold keepsakes and 6 x 4 photos in.  If you're not able to make the workshop, but are interested in the kit for the project, please mail me at mycreativepspirituk@gmail.com .  For more info on the workshop and booking details   click here . This was Porthlevan last month during the storms that hit the UK coastline.  The town took such a battering.      Happy Mothers Day to you all, I hope you're pampered today and look forward to catching up with you again tomorrow :-) 

OMG what an amazing thunder and lightning storm we had last night. It was right overhead hand made the whole house shake.  I thought it was going to fall down at one point.  The weather was so bad I was in two minds whether to drive down to Falmouth as I'd planned   but I bit the bullet jumped in the car and set off just after 7 and arrived at 12. We stayed up chatting for a while so by the time I hit the sack I was shattered.  I'd forgotten what time the seagulls get up - they woke me at 5 with their pesky squawking and when they'd made sure I was wide awake, they flew off to make a racket somewhere else.  I love being by the sea lol!!!  A circus came to town this week with it's Big Top, clowns, acrobats and colourful caravans.  It's arrival inspired me to make just one last pop up card with the Le Cirque papers for my sis (She loves that collection) before I travelled down to stay with her.  She loved it :-) We're off to T...

I didn't think I'd be blogging today but I managed to get a wiggle on late yesterday afternoon and did this quick video on how I made my pop up card ahead of the weekend, so if you fancy making one for a mothers day gift just follow along with your paper trimmer. score board, papers and glue. I used Secret Garden papers, flowers and banners and some leaves cut out from a Marianne Creatables die LR0150. We're off out today to take in some local history at Coughton Court .  I drive past it every time I go over to Pink Tulip and haven't been in for years.  I'm sure it will involve a lovely lunch too.   New One Day Workshop  Oh I nearly forgot to mention I've managed to find a date for a new one day workshop running on Sunday 1st June. I've been working with Roy and Steve (Candy Box Crafts) on a mini album and drawer combo to decorate in the bright and cheery Mother Goose papers.  They've come up with an amazing little double drawer design I'm...

Thank you all for asking me to show you how I made the mini bow on the altered chocolate box I shared last week.  I've put together a short video on how to make two bows in different widths and am now working on one for the pop up card shared on Mondays post. Fingers crossed it will be ready for Mondays post so do call back.  There's excitement in Graphic 45 land today as they announce the top 30 finalists for this years Design Team Call over on their blog, so if you want to take a peek at who's made it through the tough first round click here.  They're also sharing Karen's amazing Mother Goose layout and my By the Sea layout from CHA back in January.  Can you guess where the picture was taken lol!!! As my friend Richard would say - God's Country …….. (that would be Cornwall then)  Enjoy your day what ever your up to, congratulations to all who got through to the final round of the DT call and look forward to catching up with you again on Monday...

Pop up cards seem to be all the rage in the shops at the moment, so I thought I'd have a go at making one myself.  Love how it came out.  I used Kaisercraft cardstoock for the bottom section and then Botanical Tea flowers and Banners pop outs, a couple of paper butterflies and the Botanical Tea stamp set for the embellishments.   the great thing about this little card is that it folds flat and can be posted in a little envelope made to fit perfectly with the envelope punch board which I'm loving.  We used it on saturday to make the file tab on the side of our Junque Journal.  there are so many ways to use it, its definitely a great thing to invest in if you don't have one already.  I'll post instructions on how to make one of these cards next week along with how to make bows using the envelope punch board too.  Before I hop off  I just wanted to mention that there's still time to leave a comment on our March Giveaway post i...

I'm a little late posting some pics from Saturdays workshop at Pink Tulip.  Thanks Shelia, Tracy and Angela for all your hard work that went into making the day run without a hitch, and of course thank you ladies for coming along and cutting into those beautiful papers and having a great day. Our project this month was my Botanical Tea Junque Journal.  We're all loving these papers and all the pretty things you can make with them. Here's a few pics taken during the day. Next months workshop is on Saturday 12th April .  It was great to see Roy and Steve (AKA Candy Box Crafts) too. They called in with some fabby new blanks we've conjured up to get crafty with.  Happy Birthday Steve for Saturday and belated birthday wishes Roy for earlier in the month.  Well thats all for today so enjoy the rest of your day and thanks for calling by :-) C

Happy Friday everyone, hope you've had a good week.  I thought the sunshine was too good to last.  We're back to rain again here! Oli and a friend headed off on a last  minute .com holiday in Tenerife earlier this week and has called a couple of times to let me know how great the weather is.  Come back sunshine, missing you already.    I've been running up some new samples and a couple of gifts this week with the latest G45 papers.  I've used the Botanical Tea papers this time to alter this notelet box I've made as a gift, and have started to fill it up with notelets and envelopes made from the patterns and solids papers that compliment the collection   I'm loving my envelope punch board the girls at SirStampalot persuaded me to buy.  Envelopes are so easy to make with it to fit any sized card you want.  I had to add one of the easy to make ribbons inside the box too.  I love them :-)  I'm at P...

After a great day on Saturday with Isobel and her lovely ladies at Scotch Lodge Farm we took ourselves over to Stratford-upon-Avon on Sunday to enjoy the sunshine, do a bit of shopping and have lunch alfresco at Carluccios. I was on the look out for some hand made chocs to finish of my gift box for Mothers Day and finally found them in about the fourth chocolate shop we went in.  The box is one of the new ATC boxes from G45.  I used a brown copic marker to colour  the edges and then covered it in pink and brown papers from the Botaniclal Tea patterns and solids pad.  the ribbon decoration on the lid was made with my new Envelope Punch Board.  It would make a lovely Mothers Day gift if your stuck for ideas and there's still time before 30th.  Here's a few more pics: I had to share our little italian lunch with you too.  It was simple, beautifully cooked and absolutely delicious :-)  While I was choosing chocs Andy found...