Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone, thank you for your friendship and custom, and for making this the best year ever! We look forward to seeing you in 2016, Hilary & Steve, Wightcat Crafts x

My Favourite Things.....

I'm humming the tune as I'm typing (yes, I really do love my work)

Raindrops on Roses

Whiskers on Kittens

Brown paper packages tied up with strings

These are a few of my favourite things......

With that in mind I thought I'd write about some of my favourite crafting 'things', I'm sure we all have them and I'd be really interested to know what you love using the most and what you can't do without when it comes to our crafting

As you all know, Parchment Craft is one of my all time favourites, it's something I can sit down to and just forget about everything else that's happening around me, mostly for the good but sometimes not so good because I really should be doing something else......that's what happens when you own a craft shop

Of course, I can't do anything without our lovely Wightcat own brand Parchment paper so I guess I should mention that first, at 140gsm it is great to work with, I use it in all my classes as well and at half the price of well known brands, I'm sure you will like it too.

.....another one of my really can't do 'withouts' (is that a word?) is my Parchment Protector, of course you could just use a piece of kitchen paper but apart from keeping any marks off my parchment as I work, it also keeps it nice and flat and stops it getting any dents, it also has a nice semi circle taken out of it and when I'm perforating I keep it over where I'm working and it holds my work beautifully so I can get the tools 'in and out' easily. You can just about see it in the picture.

Whilst I'm talking about my Parchment Protector, have you seen the new templates from PCA. Some Wedding ones and some for men's cards, they are lovely and so easy to use.

Oh gosh, now I've started I can think of a whole host of things I love using, and I shall mention just one more before I get carried away

.....my one needle tool (that's in the picture too).....this gets used for so many things including the placing of sticky gems, even unbunging bottles, apart from perforating my parchment and grid work, although I do keep a separate one especially for this :)

More next time......

until then, Happy Crafting and please add a comment with some of the things you love using or couldn't do without

Stamping Resist Techniques

I love being able to do so many different crafts, and really enjoy stamping.  This week we were playing with resist techniques and came up with a few different cards......this is one of them.  So I thought I would jot down a step by step for you to follow if you have never done this technique before.

 

You will need:

A butterfly stamp - I used IndigoBlu

A mask/stencil of your choice......we have lots of different ones in the shop and on the website

Versamark ink pad

Stazon Ink pad

WOW clear gloss embossing powder

Quickie Glue pen

UltraFine Glitter

Distress Ink Pads

Also, IndigoBlu Stamp Cleaner, which I think is brilliant and used to clean my stamps and stencils

Start by taping the mask/stencil onto a piece of white card

Cover the card with Versamark through the mask.  Keep the ink pad flat and press hard to make sure you get a nice coverage, if you miss some areas it won't matter.  Remove the mask.

Cover the area with WOW clear gloss embossing powder, and melt it using the heat gun. 

 Trim off the outer edges.

Colour the card with the Distress Ink Pads, using the mini ink blending tool, these are great little tools and the little ink blending foam fits into the bottom of the mini distress inks so you can have one for each colour.

Run the Quickie Glue pen around the lines and circles and add some UltraFine Glitter

Next, you will need another piece of white card, approx 10.5cm x 15m .  Trim your resist piece of card to fit over half of it.  Colour half of the white piece with the mustard seed distress ink.

Attach the resist piece of card to the coloured white card, stamp the butterflies with the Stazon Ink pad (Rusty Brown) and then cover the join with some ribbon.  Mount this onto a slightly larger piece of green card 

Take your folded base card and colour around the edges with your distress inks, fold the card and colour the folded edge as well.

Mount the cards together, add a bow and a sentiment

I like to stamp the insert to match the  design on the front

Finally, don't forget to add your name on the back.....your artwork should always be signed :)

I hope you enjoy this mini tutorial, let me know how you get on

Happy Crafting

Creative Stamping Issue 24 April 2015

How thrilling to see my Window Box card published on the front page of the latest Creative Stamping Magazine.

If you haven't bought this magazine before, it comes with a wonderful set of stamps and lots of ideas on how to use the stamps

We hold regular craft workshops at the shop, please pop in and see us or give us a call if you would like to join us.

Happy Crafting!