July Calendar page by Jaine

It's that time again, with Summer well and truly here, for school to finish. Well, almost anyway.

I keep hearing "School's out for summer" in my head!

Of course I'm a month ahead with my calendar as usual but it'll creep up before I know it. We're already making plans for trips, visits and holidays.

This time I've gone for a more scrapbooky (is that a word?) feel for July using some of the journaling cards and washi tape from the latest A Few Of My Favourite Things kit and layered them onto my background which I've painted and randomly stamped with a couple of my background stamps, Fireworks and Pebbles.  I've also used the 'Yay' from the Everyday Sayings stamp set.

I hope you're keeping up with us here.

What are you planning for summer?

Jaine x

All at sea.

I thought today I'd show you a quick card made using two of my stamp sets, Beside the Seaside and Don't be Crabby.

When I was young, my parents nearly always took their holiday at the same place in North Wales, which as a child, I found very tedious and longed to go on exciting holidays like I thought a lot of my friends did. It's funny though how you see things and now looking back on those times it wasn't boring at all. In fact I remember lots of fun times there.

These memories sparked the ideas to design these two stamp sets and it seemed rather appropriate to create this card to send to my Dad for his birthday coming up so he can remember  the good times we had.

The background is a simple watercolour wash and each element was fussy cut out and stuck down on top. It seems a fiddly thing to do but with a small pair of sharp scissors it's not too difficult.

I hope it brings back some memories for you too.

Jaine x

Geat ahead for Fathers Day

Fathers Day is not far away and it pays to get ahead of yourself and start making beautiful and meaningful things so you're not caught out.

I've made a couple of little presents and a matching card all from the same preprepared background sheet and they're very easy to do too.

All you need is a sheet of watercolour paper, (I use 300gsm all the time). Spray it with two or three similar colours first then let it dry and spray a contrasting colour through a stencil.  To add a bit more to the background I stamped randomly with my Pebbles background stamp and you'll see I'm not using a block either. This adds to the randomness of the stamping.

 I was able to cut up enough to make these three projects with a bit left over for another day.

To finish the card I've stamped the seat from my In the Garden stamp set 
onto a piece of Kraft card, punched a hole and added a grommet. A bit of twine wrapped around the card was enough to make it look finished off but not too femine I thought.

For my second project, I turned a strip of background paper into a little notebook. The inside sheets are just cut from plain copy paper and held in place with the brad so they can be pulled out easily.

Again, I've used stamps from In The Garden  to decorate it as it could be used for Dad's garden notes.

My third project is another simple matchbook design but inside I've added a few glassine bags with a staple to add tags with little promises typed on them.

In the past my children have been very proud of the little promise tickets they've given as gifts. It means so much more than a shop bought present. Get them to write their own promises on the tags they'll be so happy to think up little things.

Have fun creating background sheets and see how many projects you can get out of it.

Jaine x

May Calendar page

I'm finding it hard to come to terms with the fact that the first quarter of the year is over already. Before I know it Summer will be here. I'm working a month ahead of course on my Calendar so I'm prepared and that might have something to do with it.

I built everything up on a pre-sprayed background and decided as it's the birthday month of my middle daughter, she would be my focus.

I've used some journal cards from previous monthly kits and added a little detail into the top one by cutting out an arrow to show the card below.  I also used one of my own stamps to stamp directly onto the photo.  Don't be afraid to stamp or add details to photo's, it adds to the fun of the image.  I hand drew and cut the arrow and stars for a fun touch.

Happy crafting to you.

Jaine x

Organiser Box.

Hello, it's Carol here today and I am going to share something I made using a range of Sarah's products.

As some of you have seen, I am in the process of jazzing up the inside of my boring old brown leather Filofax and thought it would be great if I had a wee weekly organiser on my desk so I could easily see what was on that week.  I decided to have a browse of the files available from Sarah's Silhouette Store and see what I could come up with. This project has LOTS of different files, so I will link them all at the end, go and grab a cuppa and a biccie and get comfy lol.

I had a couple of spare plastic storage boxes from Ikea and decided that one of these would be perfect for what I had in mind. I used the Days Of The Week Tabbed Journaling Cards as my base, as these were a perfect size for the box, and added some extras as I went. I made some cute Number Paperclips so I could highlight days I needed to plan ahead for. I made some Love Heart Paperclips,  Star Paperclips and Moustache Paperclips. I have some glassline envelopes from previous kits from Sarah so popped all my spare paperclips in there.

We all have calls that we need to make and forget about, so I made a Mobile Phone card so I can pop it in to whichever day I need to make my calls.  I had lots of speech bubbles leftover from a LO I made from the Speech Bubble Background and glued them onto pieces of card to be used for anything from ideas to reminders.

I used a few different stamps sets to add some details to the cards, and of course some pretty Washi Tape. Here are a few pictures to illustrate my finished make.

Ingredients

Days Of The Week Tabbed Journaling Cards

Number Paperclips

Love Heart Paperclips

Star Paperclips

Moustache Paperclips

Cellphone/Mobile Phone

Speech Bubble Background/Template/Mask

Block Alpha Stamps

Special Edition Stamps, Traditional Christmas Ornaments by Jaine Drake

Washi Tape

Papers & Stamps from A Few Of My Favourite Things Kits

Adhesives from Stix2

Thanks for sticking with the post to the end, I hope you like the organiser box and it is something you would try. If you do, please comment below or send us a picture as we would love to see your makes.

Remember and pop by again soon and see what my talented teamies come up with.

Carol xx