Everything Happens for a Reason

What a weekend it's been! ....Well, actually what a week!

3 days in the West Country at Craft4Crafters and we saw so many friends and regulars at the show, what a great time! Thank you all for coming to see us and buying your crafting goodies.

My back finally gave in and Steve, bless him, pushed me round in a wheelchair for most of the time but we managed and we had some lovely new products that I was demonstrating and we had a complete sell out of the Gansai Tambi Starry Colours and the Wink of Stella.  Don't worry though,  as soon as they are back in stock I will let you all know, along with some brand new items too.

No time to go home, we ploughed on up to the NEC in our van for the only UK trade show of the year. We had a very important connection to make and I'm so pleased we managed to get there.

You already know Barbara Gray (Clarity Stamps) has done such a marvelous job expanding the parchment world with her Groovi Plate System, and maybe you didn't know that she now also owns Pergamano.... what a match!  So, for us as leading parchment specialists it was really important that we made a connection so we can all work together and help bring the parchment world  even closer.

What a lovely, generous lady and a such great team too, we sat together and chatted over coffee and laughed just like old friends. We are so looking forward to this venture with Barbara and her team and they have made us feel so welcome......watch this space!

We are home now, there's nothing quite like your own bed is there!

All for now

Hilary x

Welcome to February!

Where does the time go?  We have started our new round of shows for this year and it's always so good to see all our friends and have a catch up with all things crafting!

Parchment Lace Magazine no 6 is being launched today and we have already got them in the shop, so all pre-orders have already gone out....thank you so much  to everyone who ordered one from us, it all helps to keep the 'wheels turning' :) we have a new batch already on their way and should be in the shop at Wightcat Crafts early next week.

I'm thrilled to be included in the magazine again and apart from being the Parchment Expert and having a "Q & A" page I also have a couple of cards in the magazine so that's really exciting

Here's a peak at what's in store

Plus a couple of the cards 

My own design, I hope you enjoy making this

This one I have designed using the Free Grid that comes with the magazine

If you have any questions you would like me to answer in the magazine, don't forget to email me and of course don't forget to get a copy of the latest magazine from Wightcat Crafts, there are some lovely designs in it

All for now,

Hilary x

Parchment Lace - Design Team

Hi,

In following Wightcat Crafts pursuits to encourage and promote Parchment Craft, my latest news is that I am thrilled to be on the Design Team for the Parchment Lace Magazine.

Not only that, I have been invited to be the Resident Parchment Expert and have a Question and Answer Page in the latest magazine, so if you have any questions that you would like answered in the magazine please let me know.

Have you seen the latest issue?  It has been completely re-vamped and is looking really good.  There are some fabulous designs in this issue.

    

You also get a free grid on the cover and the card below is the project I designed with the new grid (included with the magazine)

Along with other popular publications, Wightcat Crafts stocks Parchment Lace Magazine

Please add any comments below or questions you would like answered in the magazine

Thanks and have a great weekend

Hilary x

What do you use for your Colouring?

We have a selection of colouring markers for you to choose from, and they all work brilliantly on all your card making and parchment as well

Not only that, but we sell them most of them individually so you can try a few first and then add to your collection whenever you like.

Tim Holtz - DistressMarkers

These are water based and double ended, with a brush tip one end and a fine point the other end.

Kuretake Clean Colors

There's about 80 different colours of these lovely 'Real Brush' pens. They are water based and actually have a proper paintbrush so you can blend these colours beautifully. Again sold individually so you can try just a few of these wonderful colours.

FaberCastellPolychromos Pencils

Of course, I can't do an article about colouring without mentioning one of our favourites for colouring. These Polychromos pencils are the BEST, they are artist quality oil based pencils, they blend well together and you can blend them with oil to make fabulous backgrounds as well.  Again we sell them individually so you can try a few first. We also sell them in sets.

Pergamano PergaColours

These are water based and double ended, with a bullet tip one end and a fine point the other end. They come in a box of 30 lovely colours.

Happy Crafting

Hilary x

Parchment Craft Magazine

Really excited!

To see my latest Parchment design is on the Front Cover of the latest issue of the Parchment Craft Magazine... .eeeek, what a wonderful surprise to see it there!!

Of course, if you would like a copy you will find it on our website :)

Happy Crafting

Hilary x

Easy Emboss Stained Glass Templates

Thought I'd show you a few examples of the lovely Stained Glass EasyEmboss Templates from PCA. Like all the templates they are really versatile and you can infill them and just use parts of them, mixing and matching as you go.

What a great way to do your parchment!  You can find them all here on our website



So here's the Daisies template, the first picture is just how it looks when you have used the template to make your outline on your parchment paper, and the second picture is coloured using FaberCastell Polychromos pencils, some have been blended on the back with Dorso oil and then the colour has been enhanced on the front.

Here are some more examples of some of the other templates



So many different ways of using these templates

   

Here are 2 examples of the same template, completely different styles. These two butterfly cards were made by Karen from our design team. The card on the left had been infilled with traditional gridwork and the butterflies have been worked separately and layered as 3D

There are more templates available here if you make any cards from them, please send us a picture we would love to see it :)

Happy Crafting

Hilary x

A little Parchment Craft Video for you

Today we have something a little special for you
For anyone struggling to use a grid for their Parchment Craft or would just like to know how to use one, I have made a little video for you

Here is the link:  Parchment Bows using a Grid

Of course, you can purchase any of the supplies needed from Wightcat Crafts

If you have any questions, or just like the video please leave me some comments :)

Enjoy!

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!

All things Christmassy!

Are you ready for Christmas?

Everyone is so busy in our household, Steve put up most of the decorations in the shop a while ago and Amanda decorated the tree at home last night so its all beginning to look very festive :)

Most of the presents are wrapped but if anyone has tried looking to see what is theirs, then they will be disappointed because none of them are labelled yet. I just hope I remember which is which when I attach all the labels otherwise it will be like a lucky dip!

I've finally made the labels and here they are just in case you still need a little inspiration ..... you could use any stamp that you have in your stash.

Make a background of your choice, I love using distress inks for backgrounds and using the little ink blending tool makes it so easy

Then flick a few water drops over the ink, you can just about see the water on the next picture, I used my fingers to flick the water, but you could use a spritzer bottle or old toothbrush

Place a paper tissue over the whole piece and dab the excess water off and wait for it to dry or use a heat gun to help it dry if you are in a hurry. I love this effect!

Next, take any Christmassy stamp, I used a lovely Christmas Tree by IndigoBlu. Stamp the image with Versamark and using Wow! Embossing powder, Opaque Bright White and a heat gun, emboss the image.

Then I ran lines of glitter around the image with Stickles, I used Diamond but Fruit Punch looks nice on the red too. I hope you can see the glitter on the picture it looks so effective.

Finally, punch a hole if you haven't already and thread some ribbon........Ta Dah! .....all done! 

Have a lovely Christmas

Multigrids

Well it's high time we had an update. It's a bit early for New Year resolutions and being only a small team (mainly myself and Steve) it's quite difficult prioritising what needs to be done first but I really must make sure this is regular occurrence!

As you all know, you will find us on Facebook. But after all this time, I've suddenly realised that if I post here, I can always share it to our other pages so perhaps that's how we should continue.

Parchment Craft is one of my passions and a great way to start this craft is by 

using some of the metal grids that have been brought out in recent years, there is such a variety of themes and of course Christmas is included.  

We have a very special offer on Multigrid 21 for this weekend only and it is just £5.00! 

So if you've never tried using one of these grids, here is the ideal opportunity!  (This offer will be only available until Midnight Monday 1st December (GMT)

We used this particular grid in our 'make & takes' for beginners when we visited Westpoint, Exeter, this year, just making simple bookmarks.  Wow! they turned out great and they were really easy to make, these samples were made by Lesley from our design team (whose link I will add very soon)

These make simple gifts and look stunning when presented in the bookmark sleeves, which you can also find on our website. 

Of course, you can use these grids to make your design as simple or as challenging as you like!

Here is a decorated box made by one of the ladies from my Parchment class, 

again, she has used  Multigrid 21.  

Have a great weekend!  

~Hilary~

Competition Winner

We are pleased to announce the lucky winner of our December competition is Julie Smy, she will be receiving a whole load of parchment goodies worth over £50.  We will be doing more competitions in the new year so watch out for them and don't forget to like our Facebook page