Snow White

Hello!

It's been a couple of weeks since I made a card with a coloured image, and even loooooonger since I had a play with a Saturated Canary image, what's more I had NEVER inked this stamp Snow White up. So I thought it was high time I rectified all that and coloured her up with my distress ink markers to match these bright and happy papers from Kaiserkraft.

The ribbon, lace, apples, rose and blossoms are from The Ribbon Girl and all the rest is from my stash.

I'm afraid I didn't note all the colours I used but the skin and hair were Vintage Photo, Hickory Smoke and Black Soot and the clothing was Candied Apple and Cracked Pistachio, Pumice Stone and Crushed Olive.

Thanks for dropping by and I'll see you soon.

Thanks for Everything

Hello! 

I'm popping in today with a little Whimsy Stamps inspiration for you. I've used a stencil and my yummy, yumy Clarity stencil brushes to make a stenciled background with my distress inks using Mowed Lawn, Miled Lavender and Seedless Preserves. Love how soft this came out. The stencil is a Tim Holtz one, and I had to make the panel a little smaller than I normally would because the stencil is one of those tag ones, but I just loved the design. So I mounted it on some lovely purple paper cut with the largest of Whimsy Stamps Hand Stitched Nested Rectangles dies.

I used an older Whimsy die, the Thanks Large Word die and die cut this 3 times from white cardstock and then once more from the purple paper I used for the base and glued them all together to make a more dimensional word.

I cut 2 banners, 1 in the purple paper and 1 in vellum and then stamped my sentiment from the new Happy Sayings Clear Stamp set on the vellum with Versamark ink, adding white detail powder and heating until set and shiny. I layered the vellum over the purple paper so that the sentiment was easier to see, I think I should have used a bit less glue though as you can still see where it's seeped out a little under the words, but using vellum is still quite new to me so this is still a bit of a learning process.I attached the banners to my stenciled card and then adhered my die cut word slightly over lapping my vellum.

Then I adhered the whole thing to my base and added that to my card base. Finally I added one of Kay Fatula's gorgeous butterflies to finish the whole thing off.

I hope you enjoyed my make for today, thanks so much for popping by.

Technique Tuesday #8 Emboss Resist

Hello everyone!

I'm a bit late in with my Technique Tuesday post today, because I decided to combine it with my post for 

Deep Ocean Challenge's 

new challenge 

Winter Wonderland.

Now, to be honest with you, the last thing I wanted to make this early in the year was another blooming Christmas/Winter card. But that's what the theme called for, so I decided to make something a little different. I've seen quite a few emboss resist technique cards around recently so I decided to try my hand at it. It's really not too difficult, the hardest part for me was getting all the stamping done trying to see where I'd stamped before lol.

Anyway, I found some very old snowflake stamps in my stash, (no idea who they are by as I've had them for a few years now and they were not in the original packet), and stamped around a piece of watercolour card with Versamark ink. Then I added white embossing powder and heated. I kept doing this, adding snowflakes, until I was happy with the result.

Once it was fully dry, I chose a few colours of distress inks, and blended them around the edges, overlapping and fading out towards the centre.

Once I had the effect I wanted I gave the whole thing a light rub over with a kitchen towel to clean up the embossing and make it pop more, then I flicked some gold watercolour paint off of the end of a paint brush to make the gold speckles. 

I stamped the Christmas sentiment from the 

Whimsy Stamps Happy Sayings Set, 

in Versamark ink on some vellum and then heat embossed with some gold embossing powder. I cut my strip to size and wrapped it around my piece of card, securing it at the back with some glue.

I then cut the love word 4 times from some white card with the 

Whimsy Stamps Scripted Love Word Die

I then coated one die cut with Versamark ink and heat embossed with gold embossing powder, before gluing all the layers together to create what looks like a chipboard word and secured that onto my card, slightly overlapping the vellum strip. I glued the whole piece onto my card base with slightly smaller piece of craft foam for dimension and then added a few sequins to finish.

I really think it turned out very pretty and I do hope you like it.

Don't forget to check out the rest of the teams wonderful makes and I hope you can join in with us, as always there is a lovely prize to be won.

Thanks for visiting!

Celebrate Something

So apparently I'm getting old....must be as I made this card back at the end of autumn and completely missed posting it! 

The papers are off cuts of Maja Design ones that I had sitting in a drawer and I thought I would use them up. I used a little embossing paste through a stencil then I coloured the  chipboard doily to match a bit of colour in the paper and chose my flowers and seam binding to match those colours also.
I added a stamped sentiment from the Big Balloon Celebrations clear stamp set and cut it out with the matching die from the Big Balloon Celebrations die set, both from Whimsy Stamps and available in the UK from Dies to Die for. I added some die cut leaves cut from the same papers and finished with a little twine and some flat back pearls.

From The Ribbon Girl
Cheesecloth
Peach Seam Binding
Burgundy Cherry Blossoms
11 mm Ivory FB Pearls
8 mm Ivory FB Pearls
6 mm Ivory FB Pearls

Everything else is from my stash.

Have a great Friday and thanks for visiting.

Technique Tuesday #7 Distress Ink Blended Sunset

Hello! I hope you had a great start to your week.

I'm back today with another Technique Tuesday and this time I used some Distress Ink blending to create a sunset effect on 2 cards.

Isn't that effect awesome? Those of you who have followed me for a while will know that I love Kay Fatula's beautiful butterfly embellishments, I have lots in a box but I can't always manage to find the right space on my cards for them. Well I knew that would just be perfect for this, so I happily dug them out of storage to use here.

I used 3 colours of Distress Ink here and I'll admit that I got so excited at how well this turned out that I forget to note the colours. There was a yellow that may have been Fossilized Amber and an Orange that was Carved Pumpkin, but I can't remember exactly the pink colour, I'm actually thinking that it may have been Candied Apple, which is a red but if used lightly it is more of a reddish pink, pinkish orange tone, or it may have been worn lipstick, but really you just need a pink/red, a yellow and an orange colour that work together.

I built the colour up gradually with my ink blending tools, on some cold pressed watercolour paper. This will give you a textured effect so you may prefer to use smooth paper, I quite like the added texture and I personally find that you can use a much lighter touch when using the cold pressed watercolour paper as the ink transfers very easily and lightly without leaving harsh lines which makes it super easy to blend dry. I blended the pink into the orange into the yellow for a natural blend. I then flicked some drops of water over the page and let it sit for a few moments before blotting with a piece of kitchen roll. Then I lightly flicked some white acrylic paint over.

Once fully dry I then stamped the Flight of the Butterflies stamp with Vesrafine ink in Onyx Black. I masked some of the stamping and restamped to get a bigger flight of butterflies. I used my MISTI stamping tool to help me do this more easily. I stamped one of the single butterfly stamps from the set into one of the spaces.

Then I gave everything a liberal spritz of Glimmer Mist, I do this over a sink so I create minimal mess.

Once dry I cut the finished piece into 2 strips (2 cards for the price of one, who doesn't love a bargain?), and trimmed the top and bottom so they would fit on my card bases, and then mounted them on some thin black cardstock so that you see a narrow strip of black on either side, this really helps it stand out on my white card base and pulls in the black from the stamping, both on the blended strip and the white card base.

For this card I stamped the Life is like a Butterfly sentiment directly onto my card using my MISTI to get just the right position, then I adhered the strip to my card and glued on this gorgeous butterfly from Kay with some Multi Medium Matte from Ranger. Finally I used some orange enamel dots from the Whimsy Summer Breeze set and some black enamel dots I had in my stash for ages. I think it looks really striking.

For my second card I decided to use the panel on the other side of the card,  I stamped the Thinking of You sentiment from the set with Black Versafine ink and then adhered my panel. I used this beautiful 'glass' butterfly embellishment from Kay and then I cut a few tiny butterflies from a scrap of the blended cardstock and the thin back card using a die from Memory Box. For the inked butterflies I used a little Wink of Stella to give them some added sparkle but I left the black ones matte. I glued all the butterflies down with some Multi Medium Matte.

Items Used:

Mini Distress Ink Pads
Blending Tools
Plain White Cardstock
Plain Black Cardstock
Cold Pressed Watercolour Paper
White Acrylic Paint

Whimsy Stamps Flight of the Butterflies Clear Stamp Set
Versafine Ink Onyx Black
Whimsy Summer Breeze Enamel Dots

Memory Box Dancing Butterflies Die
Butterfly Embellishments

I hope you liked today's Technique Tuesday and that it gave you some inspiration. I really enjoyed creating these and am thrilled with how they turned out.

Thanks for visiting and I'll see you soon!

Mistletoe Fairy with a Twist

Hello!!

It's Sunday again already, (and halfway through January too, eeek!), I thought I'd petition Old Father Time to slow things down a bit... maybe just for the weekends....perhaps the evenings too. Hey if he wants he can speed up work days a bit to make up the difference! I have the best ideas don't I? 

Of course he hasn't relied to my email as yet....maybe he's still sleeping off the New Year celebrations.

Anyhoooooooo...

Since it's the 3rd Sunday in the month, that means it's time for a new challenge at 

The Ribbon Girls

As usual we want to see any projects you make, as long as they use an image on them.

For my contribution this week I used the lovely Mistletoe Fairy from Whimsy Stamps.

I fell in love with this as soon as I saw her and coloured her up straight away in Winter Mode. But I thought to myself, why limit her to Christmas and Winter cards? It seems such a shame to leave her in the drawer after Christmas.

So I had a little play and coloured her up with some summer colours where her Mistletoe became pretty pink berries.

What do you think?

I actually used some of my Precious Maja Design Vintage Summer Basics 1933 for this. I only have one sheet left now and I will be so sad to see it finished as I can't get it anywhere now and I love the mix of aqua and pink.

She's coloured in Distress Ink markers to match the papers and I used the following colours:

Tea Dye, Vintage Photo, Spun Sugar, Victorian Velvet, Broken China, Tumbled Glass, Bundled Sage and Picked Raspberry.

Products Used:

Cheesecloth
15 mm Pale Pink Satin Ribbon
20 mm Sylvia Pale Aqua Lace
6 mm Ivory Pearl Trim
Ivory Magnolia Flower
Beaded Cherries Pink
20 mm Ivory Open Rose
10 mm Ivory Open Roses
Miniature Pale Mint Blossoms
Hip Rose Bud Cream
Rose Leaves - Green
11 mm Ivory FB Pearls
8 mm Ivroy FB Pearls
6 mm Ivory FB Pearls

I do hope you can join in, you can win some lovely prizes from our sponsors

First prize:  £10 voucher for LOTV

Second prize:  £10 voucher for The Ribbon Girl

Third prize:  from Marianne Designs

and don't forget to ogle the rest of the team's gorgeous makes!

Thanks for visiting

Whimsy Stamps January Release Day 3 - Poppy

Oh my goodness I'm running late. I've really felt like I was playing catch up this week as although all my cards were already made, photographed, uploaded and edited, work has been a bit mental and I forgot to schedule this one.

Still better late than never right? 

So it's day 3 of Whimsy Stamps new release and for my final card I'm sharing a little something made with Poppy from Wee Stamps. 

Isn't she gorgeous, just love that toadstool. 

I made a card in my usual softly shabby style and chose some more vibrant colours

The papers are from Lemoncraft Neverending Summer collection and I coloured her to match them with distress ink markers.

I used Vintage Photo, Antique Linen, Walnut Stain, Hickory Smoke, Pumice Stone, Black Soot, Candied Apple, Worn Lipstick, Picked Raspberry,  Broken China, Tumbled Glass, Frayed Burlap and Mowed Lawn

I also used the new Butterflies Stencil with some embossing paste

The sweet little Toadstools,  Ribbon, Lace and Rose Leaves are from The Ribbon Girl.

Don't forget that if you're in the UK or Europe you can buy your Whimsy Stamps products at 

Dies to Die for.

That's it from me today, but I'll be back on Sunday with a new make, thanks so much for visiting!

Whimsy Stamps January Release - Flight of the Butterflies

Hello! I hope you're having a great week. 

I'm back today with some more goodness from the Whimsy Stamps Jan release.

Today I've used both the clear stamp Flight of the Butterflies and the new Butterflies Stencil.

These products work great together.

To make my card I first blended some Shaded Lilac distress ink over some smooth white cardstock with one of my new Clarity Brushes, I love these...and they're made in the UK, lucky us for once!

Once that was dry I cut it out with the Whimsy Hand Stitched Nested Rectangles and then applied some Wilted Violet Distress Ink through the Butterfly Stencil, you can use the stencil on either side and I flipped mine over so that the butterflies went in the opposite direction to the stamp. 

I let that dry fully and then gave it a good rub over with my anti static tool before stamping the Flight of the Butterfly stamp with some Versamark ink and then heat embossing with some detail white embossing power.

I used my Misti tool to perfectly position one of the sentiments from the set, and stamped that with Versafine Ink in Black Onyx.

I gave the whole think a light spritz with some glimmer spray and then when it was fully dry I went over the stenciled butterflies with my Wink of Stella pen for some extra sparkle, you can just about see some in the photo.

I cut a piece of black cardstock slightly bigger than my die cut piece and adhered that to the back. I glued the whole thing to my prepared card base using a piece of craft foam in between to pop it up slightly.

Finally I added a few clear gems, I would have like to add some clear sequins instead but I didn't have any in a mix of sizes and the same size just didn't look right (something to add to my wish list), but I think the gems look fine also.

That's all from me today, but I'll be back tomorrow with a super cute card using a new stamp from the Wee Collection, I know how we all love these.

Happy Crafting!

Whimsy Stamps January Release - Lee Holland - Hedgehog Couple

Hello!

My goodness time just keeps turning doesn't it? It's already time for Whimsy Stamps new release and since there was no new release in December. I know you have been looking forward to this one.

There are so many gorgeous rubber and clear stamps, fab dies and even a stencil...yup you heard it...a stencil! in this release that I was hard pressed to decide what I wanted to play with first. But this little hedgehog couple was just so darned cute that I just couldn't resist colouring it up with my distress ink markers. It's called Hedgehog Love from the Lee Holland Collection.  I think it's so perfect for any couple and would make a lovely card for Valentines, an anniversary, an engagement or even a novel wedding card, particularly if the couple love hedgies!

I coloured the 2 hedgies slightly different shades, because I didn't want them to look identical, I used Antique Linen for both for the lighter colour, but for their coats I used Walnut Stain for the one on the left and Ground Espresso for the one on the right hand side. I added a little blush to their cheeks and the inside of their ears with Worn Lipstick. I used Antique Linen and Brushed Corduroy for the earth bank and a combination of Mowed Lawn, Peeled Paint, Shabby Shutters and Forest Moss for the grass banks, the trees and the foliage. The flowers are coloured with Worn Lipstick and 

Picked Raspberry.

Originally I was going to cut them out with a heart shape die, but after playing around with that I decided I couldn't really make it work how I wanted to and went with a circle die to cut them out instead. The light wasn't great when I took my photos, so I've added an angled shot so that you get a better idea of the true colours.

I used some lovely papers from the Heart Painted 6 x 6 paper pad from Lemoncraft and made a card in my favourite softly shabby style, inking and distressing my papers with Walnut Stain DI,  I double layered the new Honeycomb Pattern Die (this cuts like a DREAM btw), cut it in half and popped the halves under the middle layer of my card. Once everything was layered up and stuck down I cut the Love Word Die - Scripted from last years release, 5 times and glued them all together with a quickie glue pen to make a chipboard style sentiment, adding that along the bottom of my image before finally adding some lovely embellishments from the Ribbon Girl.

Below I've listed all the items I used with some links to suppliers in the UK.

Hot pressed watercolour paper.

Vesrafine Ink - Black Onyx

Misti Stamping Tool

Whimsy Stamps Hedgehog Love

Tim Holtz Distress Ink Markers

Size 000 Round Sable Watercolour Brush

Circle Dies

Whimsy Honeycomb Pattern Die

Whimsy Scripted Love Word Die

LemonCraft Heart Painted 6 x 6 Pad

Cheesecloth

Pink Seam Binding

Exotic Ivory Blossom Flower

Pink Daisies

Ivory 20 mm Open Roses

Pink 10 mm Open Roses

Hip Rose Buds

Rose Leaves

11 mm Ivory Pearl Flatbacks

8 mm Ivory Pearl Flatbacks

6 mm Ivory Pearl Flatbacks

That's all from me today, I'll be back tomorrow to share something made with a stamp from the clear stamps release plus that stencil that I mentioned, until then you can check out the makes from the rest of the design team.

Have fun!

Deep Ocean Challenge - Something New

Hello and happy Tuesday. No Technique Tuesday from me today as I have rather a full week going on, with the new release from Whimsy stamps and a couple of challenges going live.  But I have a lovely one lined up for next week and something for you almost every day on my blog this week, so you won't be missing out too much.

So the first challenge of the New Year over at Deep Ocean is 

Anything New

Now I could have used some of my new stash but the timing was a little awkward, however I thought, 'What's newer than a new born baby?' and so I made this sweet and simple little baby card in soft aquas and mints that make it suitable for either a girl or a boy.

Oh and I did use my new Clarity stencil brushes to do the ink blending too!

After blending my inks I cut it out with a postage stamp die and then stamped a sentiment from Whimsy Stamps Scripty Occasions Set , adding a few little stars in the corners from the Big Ballons Celebrations Set, and mounted the base layer on a top folding 5.75 x 4.25 inch card base. Then I cut and embossed the Baby Clothes die from Memory Box. I inked the the apertures when the die cut was still in the die to accentuate the little stars and heart.
You can buy these dies and stamps in the UK from Dies to Die for
.
Finally to finish off I  added a few sequins. in aqua and white.

I do hope you can join in with the challenge, we are being sponsored by the lovely and generous ladies over at The Ribbon Girl 
and you can win this lovely prize!


That's all for now but I'll be back tomorrow with some goodness from Whimsy Stamps' January release!

Bye for now

Heart Painted Birthday

Hello and happy Sunday to you all.

I'm here with some Ribbon Girl inspiration for you today.

If you haven't picked up one of the Hearted Painted paper pads  yet you don't know what you're missing. Truly the papers are so beautiful so I didn't use a stamped image as I wanted to let the papers do the talking and just complimented them with some beautiful embellishments.

 I made a softly shabby floral card.

I softly distressed the edges of most of my papers but didn't ink them this time as I wanted a cleaner look with this one. The decorative edges are cut with a Spellbinders border die.
I used the following products from The Ribbon Girl on my card today

Lemoncraft Heart Painted 6 x 6 Paper Pad
Pale Lime Green 15 mm Satin Ribbon
35 mm Medium Pink Trellis Rose
10 mm Pale Pink Open Roses
20 mm Pale Pink Open Roses
Hip Rose Buds
Rose Leaves
6 mm Ivory Flat Back Pearls
11 mm Ivory Flat Back Pearls

The little sentiment is from Mama Elephant as is the little tag die, you can buy both of these at Dies to Die for in the UK.

For the perfect finishing touch to my card I used one of the beautiful butterflies from Kay Fatula's shop.

That's all from me today, enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Bye Bye Christmas

Well this is it, honest to goodness my last Christmas card of 2016. What's that? It's 2017 you say? Shhhhhh now, move along....nothing to see here......

But, this will be my last Christmas card for a little while. I love them, but really, I'm ready for something else now lol!

Today's card features an older Whimsy Stamp and die set, Penguins Winter Adventure's Clear Stamp Set and Penguins Winter Adventure die set I do love a penguin so I had to have these. I got them a little late in the year, so I only managed this card, but I will make some more with this set later in the year for sure.

I stamped the little penguin with Versafine Onyx Black, and then coloured with my distress ink markers.

The background was made by painting with distress inks on some cold pressed watercolour paper in Wilted Violet, Spun Sugar and Picked Raspberry and then once dry stamping some of the little snowflakes from the set in Versamark and heat embossing with white embossing powder.

Then I trimmed into a square and cut into 3 strips.

I stamped one of the sentiments from the set onto my card base and then mounted my strips on some foam tape. I glued a little die cut circle on the top after die cutting my penguin with the matching die I popped that up on the circle with some more foam tape.

Finally I added some tiny gems to the centres of my snowflakes and the dot on the i.

You can find both the stamp and die set over at Dies to Die for in the UK.

That's it, Christmas is officially over in the Levoir household, onto Valentines and Spring creations!

That's all for today, but I'll be back on Sunday with something different

Thanks for visiting!

Technique Tuesday #6 Watercolour Night Skies

Hello!

Welcome to my first Technique Tuesday of 2017! Unfortunately I'm afraid you'll have to suffer a couple of Christmas cards again for this, but the next one will be non Christmasy I promise!

Today's cards are showcasing some backgrounds where I played around with making a night sky with distress inks.

For the first card I blended some Blueprint Sketch and some Wilted Violet straight onto some smooth watercolour paper with my markers and then added water with a large brush and blended them together where they met for a subtle ombre effect. I added a little Chipped Sapphire towards the top to darken it a bit more.

Once dry I added some drops of water left for a while and then blotted to lift the colour in some spots. Then I gave it a liberal spray of glimmer mist.

Once fully dry again I added some dots of white acrylic paint and added some small 'stars' with a Sakura Silver Star Gelly Roll pen.

I cut a curved shape from white cardstock and then stamped coloured and cut out the 2 snowmen from the Mama Elephant Polar Pals set along with the star garland from the same set and popped them all up with a little foam tape.

Then I stamped and heat embossed a sentiment from the Mama Elephant Polar Pals set, which I bent a little to follow the shape of the aperture I'd cut from white cardstock to frame the scene. I glued the whole scene onto my base card.

Finally I added my 'frame' with some foam tape for a little dimension and finished with a few glittery enamel dots.

For my second card I played around with a kind of galaxy sky. I used Chipped Sapphire and Faded Jeans distress inks applying fairly randomly and blending but keeping the middle a little lighter.

Then I added some drops of water as before, but this time I went back and added some more and moved it around a bit for a more splotchy look.

I then flicked on some white acrylic paint and finished with some small dots with a glitter pen. Then I cut it to size and glued it on my card base.

I coloured the penguins from the Polar Pals set with my distress ink markers to look a bit like robins and cut them out with the matching dies. Then I cut a small circle of white cardstock and embossed with some glitter embossing powder. I cut a strip of white cardstock and cut an angle at one end and stamped on a sentiment from the same set. I glued on the 'moon' and them arranged my robins and sentiment strip on some foam tape for dimension.

Finally I added a few clear gems to the sky and a couple of glitter enamel dots to the sentiment strip.

Items Used

Plain white cardstock

Hot pressed watercolour paper.

Versafne Ink Black Onyx

Versamark ink

Silver Embossing Powder

Mama Elephant Polar Pals Clear Stamp Set

Mama Elephant Polar Pals Creative Cuts

Distress Ink Markers

Clear Gems 

Whimsy Stamps Winter Wishes Enamel Dots

Sakura Gelly Roll Pen Silver Star

White Acrylic Paint

That's all from me today, but I hope you've enjoyed my post today and feel inspired to try some night skies, I may try my hand at some Northern Lights or Fireworks next time I try them!

Diary of a Busy Crafter

Happy New Year! 

I hope everyone enjoyed their new year's eve and New Year's Day  festivities, however you decided to celebrate the start of 2017.

So last year I started a series of posts called 'A Year in Crafting'. I had the idea at the beginning of the year but started late because well I got busy and forgot about it for a while. I didn't quite finish the series as you know, due to my Dad's ill health and subsequent passing, but I thought it was something I'd like to try my hand at again.

I've changed the name from 'A Year in Crafting' to 'Diary of a Busy Crafter', so that I can make posts as an when I can. I will try to do these on a monthly basis, but it may be that if I have a lot going on crafting wise, I'll post twice in a month and if I have a lot going on in real life and not so much new in my crafting I'll miss a month. Anyway we'll see how it goes.

So this is just going to be a post about what things I discovered/rediscovered or got interested in in 2016, and what I think I'll be doing or would like to do in 2017.

Cards without Images

This is something I really picked up and ran with in 2016. I will never lose my love of stamped and coloured images, but sometimes you just don't have the right image for the occasion, or the recipient isn't into that or you just want to get creative with embellishments, inks, embossing pastes etc. without having to worry about how to fit that around a stamped image. This is something I want to carry on doing in 2017, not least to try and use up some of my vast collection of design paper!

CAS

So one thing I really got my head around (finally!) in 2016 was CAS cards. While this will never be my true love in quite the way my embellished cards are, I discovered that I actually could make decent looking ones. Some images just lend themselves a little more to the CAS style, sometimes you just need a card in a hurry, and sometimes you want to be able to post a card to get there quickly and safely without costing you a second mortgage lol!  I'll continue to work on my CAS skills in 2017.

I still sometimes feel my cards are missing something when I go CAS which is why I try and use die cuts or techniques or something on a lot of my CAS cards, which makes them clean but maybe not always so simple....and that brings us smoothly along to ....

Techniques

Now all of us use some kind of techniques on our cards. This could be stamping, colouring (Copic or other alcohol markers, distress inks or other watercolours, pencil work or whatever you use to colour your images, that's a colouring technique), die-cutting, fussing cutting, paper piecing, masking etc.
I have used all of the above previously, but towards the end of 2016 I discovered some new ones, and I'm really loving trying things out.
As you will know if you follow my blog, I have started a series of posts called Technique Tuesday where I share a card using one or two particular techniques. Currently I've just been sharing the card and talking about the techniques I used, but if time permits I would like to add a few tutorials and possibly even a video or two.....which take us neatly to ....

Tutorials and YouTube

So in 2016 I finally made my first YouTube tutorial video. This is something I wanted to do for a long time and something I would very much like to pick up again in 2017. Unfortunately there are several things that make this very difficult for me. First of all I have no craft room. This means that I have nowhere to set up a permanent video rig, which means that making videos is very time consuming, because I have to clear a space and set up everything before I can even start to film. Secondly I work full time, this means that not only do I have limited time, but that in the winter/autumn I am totally limited to filming at a weekend, as it's just too dark to film when I get in from work. We also live a long way from the exchange so sadly my internet speed it slow. While this doesn't affect my posts too much, uploading a video to YouTube can hours and hours. My partner tends to get cross if he can't use the internet properly because I'm uploading, so mostly I can only upload overnight, which isn't always convenient and sometimes clashes with my partner wanting to download a patch for a game or something. So yeah, time....BIG issue.  But I will try and pick up my videos where and when I can, continuing my distress colouring tutorials and also teaching some techniques.  Speaking of teaching.....

Teaching Classes and Retreats

Last year, apart from my video tutorials, I also dipped my toe into the world of teaching and classes by attending and teaching at the first Whimsy Stamps Annual Craft Retreat. This was a total blast, I enjoyed it so much and had so much fun. I was intending on doing a write up of the retreat when I came back to England, but of course I came back to my Dad being in hospital again and having to rush down south to be with him in his final hours, and afterwards I just really couldn't get my head around it. But I have been invited back to teach again this year...YAY!!......so I will make sure I take plenty or photos and do a big post for you when I return.  Apart from teaching there I would really like to start teaching some classes in the UK. I am happy to teach classes and workshops in distress ink colouring, creative card techniques, and distressed, vintage and shabby chic cards. I'll be doing some research and hopefully if there's enough interest I can make it happen. I'm also thinking of perhaps putting on a little craft retreat for stampers in the UK, if I can work it out, I just need to brainstorm some ideas and see if I can get some others to collaborate with me. Exciting stuff if I can make it work.

So that's 2016 wrapped up and some of my plans for 2017, I hope I didn't bore you too much and that you will continue to join me on my journey in 2017.
Have a great year everyone!