Summer workshops

So, the summer workshops are over for another year.  A good time was had by all, with an plentiful supply of cakes and tea and coffee to keep us going!

How time flies... Summer school is nearly here!!!

There will be no class in July, but instead there will be a whole day on 11th August 2012.  Sorry, for this event it will be attendance by pre booking only and anyone who hasn't already got their name down will need to contact Ann by Saturday 28th July 2012 at the latest.

We will be sharing the hall with the beaders for the day, so it will be very busy, very full on and very crowded!

Hot drinks will be provided, but you will need to bring your own mug.  You will need to bring cold drinks and a packed lunch with you, though.  In the past, someone has usually made a run to the local fish and chip shop - so that is always an option too!!

For the cardmakers, we have two excellent projects for you to do.  The day will be split into two separate workshops - morning and afternoon.  The plan is for you to do both projects, so those who do Brenda's workshop in the morning will do Jackie's in the afternoon, and vice versa.

Brenda will be leading a workshop where you will be making this lovely acetate fronted card which comes with its own box.

 

Jackie's workshop will offer the opportunity to make a memory book (or maze fold small scrapbook).  There will be a variety of papers available, so you can make the book to suit whatever theme you would like using your own photographs, but the project that will be available for those with no inspiration (!) will be a memento of the Jubilee year, with patriotic papers and some photos of jubilee events.  

If you want to do your own thing, you will need to bring along 8 photographs, and they should at the most be no bigger than 2 inches (or around 5cm if you are metric) square so they will fit on the page.   Some sayings or sentiments will be provided, or you can write out your own to personalise it even more. 

This is (an example only) the sort of thing that will be made.  The book has been made using the Docrafts portobello road and best of british cds.

and this is an example from a book I made earlier...

Update - May Class

Owing to a family bereavement, Jackie is unable to lead the class in May, which will now be taken by Debbie.

3 cards in May...

The class in May will be led by Jackie, and we will be doing three cards, utilising computer generated sheets for the decoration.  Using the computer to make cards can be a quick select and print job using dedicated software, or any of the various CD roms that are available.  But it need not be a quick fix - the key thing is that it is possible to utilise the potential of a larger amount of choice for papers and toppers than most crafters have room to store. And the card can then be elaborated upon, and embellished further with items from your stash.  It's still crafting!!

The first is a very simple tri fold card, that features daisies and utilises a downloaded sheet from Craftsuprint.

The second is a plain square card, topped with topper,  embellishments and complementary backing paper from the Debbi Moore Shabby Chic Victorian Botanical cd.

The third card is a square easel card, utilising a scalloped edge card base and a further downloaded sheet from Craftsuprint.

April sneaky peek...

Brenda is providing the project this month, and this time we will be making a sumptuous boxed beauty...

The card will feature organza ribbon, and die cut embellishments.

March preview - 3 cards from Debbie

This month we will be doing up to three cards and this class will be led by Debbie.

February preview - Easel card

Final card

Card front lying flat

The card we will be making in February will be a double easel card, featuring images from the Joanna Sheen Diary of a Country Lady cd.

Joanna does a large range of cds, to suit all tastes, and can be bought online from Joanna's famous wobbly shelves.

There's free postage for purchases over £5, so go ahead and have a look!  (It's not my fault if you spend too much money there though - the site is seriously addictive!)

Card from the side

January preview - boxed flower card or framed cameo

Brenda will be running the class in January and there is a choice - the first is this boxed card with elaborate ribbon flower.

The second choice will be two cards - one monochrome card of an intricate die cut frame with a cameo centre

and a second where the main feature will be a cutout (disregard the red background - I only used that to make the cutout stand out in the photograph!)

Tealight card template

Just in case anyone didn't copy the template for the tealight box before using it, I have uploaded it here. 

To download it, click on the image on the left to get it to full size, and then right click and "save as".  It will save as a jpg file on your computer and you should be able to print it out at the full size.  Fingers crossed...!!

My Memories Suite - digital scrapbooking software

I've just been given a free copy of the My Memories digital scrapbooking software in return for publicising it. As an incentive, I've been given another free code to give away as a prize. All people have to do to be in with a chance of winning is to pop on over to my personal craft blog and read this post - which explains what to do. This is digital scrapbooking software that is rated #1 by Amazon and which has a value of $40... and they do have quite a few freebies on offer that you can adapt and use. It''s an American site - but I downloaded everything with no trouble at all.

I'm giving everyone two weeks to enter (my craft blog isn't exactly teeming with visitors, but I did warn them of that!) and at the end of the time I am going to pick a number at random from the comments. Hopefully there will be one or two there by then!! Anyhow, I thought I'd give busy bee visitors a chance too - but you would have to leave a comment on my blog so it can be seen as being all above board.

I've only had it a few days and have played with it a bit - the first page I had a go at was for Remembrance Sunday and it was really very simple. I think you can use it for card layouts too, but I haven't tried that yet.

You can find out more about the My Memories Suite at

Blog- http://blog.mymemories.com/

Facebook- http://www.facebook.com/pages/MyMemories/140359372717593

Twitter- http://twitter.com/#!/mymemoriessuite