Cards and Promoting Craft Business

These past few days have been great, I have been busy creating and feeling inspired.  It always helps when the weather cools off a little or we have a little rain, I am the opposite of most people I know and these types of days become my most productive.  Perhaps it is because I live in a fairly warm climate all year round and never have to deal with the extreme cold temperatures or constant rainy days - but we do get humidity and a lot of it and that is the worst thing for depleting energy levels.  So I do find myself loving days when the humidity is minimal, the weather is a tad cooler and my creative juices start flowing!

 

Here are a few of the cards I have been making in the last few days:

This is a cute patchwork style with a little owl

This was just a fun design which I really enjoyed making

This card was interesting to do, attempting to do the inking of the words in different colours

This was made using a new set of stamps called Dreamer and was a favourite with all the girls in our family.

 

If you are looking for a great set of stamps to make cards, particularly for the pre-teen/teen age group, I highly recommend this set.   

The big news in my last few days of being productive is that I have finally taken the time to set up a Facebook Page to promote my business:  Karen's Facebook Page

 

Facebook is a great way to connect with people and I know I should have done this a long time ago.  I will be posting things I make on my Facebook page too, so please be sure to take a look and Like my page so that you don't miss out on any updates in my little crafty world.  Between my Blog and Facebook page I will hopefully keep things updated regularly. 

Close To My Heart - I am Loving It!!

Well as the title of my blog post says - I am loving Close To My Heart!  This month there is a new Ideas Book & Catalogue available which is full of the most gorgeous crafting supplies.  You really must stop and take a look here and go through the pages of this beautiful catalogue.  You simply cannot help but be tempted!

I am guilty of having ordered quite a few new items to play with myself.  One I have been having a lot of fun with is the new Picture My Life Scrapbooking Programme.  It comes with everything you need to make up your scrapbook pages, you just need  to provide your photos and you are set to go. 

Each Picture My Life Scrapbooking Programme comes with 10 Memory Protector sleeves, with a variety of different sized pockets, perfectly sized for you to slip your photos and these decorative cards into, plus one 12"x 12" Designed cover sheet which is double sided.  You also get 44 double sided cards (2 of each design) in 4"x 6" and 78 double sided cards (3 of each design) in 3"x 4".  These slip straight into the pockets to help form your page layout.  You can add various embellishments to them, eg. flowers, brads, buttons, ribbons, lace, washi tape, etc.  Decorate as little or as much as suits your style.  Within an hour I had half an album full of pages completed.  What can I say . . . . I am loving it! 

This first set I bought is called "Avonlea" and it is especially great for family related photos - which is exactly what I have been scrapping.  I've also done a few pages of photos from our recent Anniversary trip and this set had the perfect designs to go with that.

The other set I bought is called "Chantilly" and every single card design in this pack is so pretty.  It suits me just fine because we have 4 girls in our family and we all love pretty styles.

 

What a fast and easy way to make up scrapbook pages which look great.  If you are time challenged, like me and just about every other person out there these days, then this is the perfect item for you to look at.  There are 8 gorgeous packs to choose from and best of all, it is so inexpensive compared to other forms of scrapbooking!

 

Let me also show you some of the great new hostess collections available.

 This set is from the Lollydoodle Range . . . so, so cute!!

This set is from the Ariana Range . . . the themes with this are a big favourite in our home.

This set is from the Timberline Range . . . perfect for vacations or the great outdoors.

Over the last week I have had two separate card making workshops which have been so much fun.  We worked on cards using the new Lollydoodle Paper Pack as a base. All the ladies have been loving the bright colours and fun designs of this range.  These are some of the cards we have been making.  What I love most in these workshops is that even though I have a sample and everyone starts with the same kit pieces in their card packs, all the cards end up looking slightly different at the end depending on how differently people have put the cards together, where they have placed items, what embellishments they have used etc.  It's great to compare at the end and gather new ideas from one another for future use.

Close To My Heart has been a company I have loved for many, many years and I'm so glad they are finally in Australia.  It is like a dream come true to now have the perfect excuse to play with all my craft products and be creative . . . and earn money from it all.  Hardly seems fair to call it work when it is so enjoyable.  For me it is the perfect match and I get to spend my days doing what I love most.  The rewards from this company are awesome.  If you are looking for a fun way to earn an income, while working your own hours - just click on this page to learn more or contact me.

Look at the fun craft kit you get to start you off!

Come join me today, you won't look back . . . it truly is that good!

Pretty Stores, Flower Gardens & Shabby Chic Crafts

Wow! I didn't realize it had been so long since I had updated my blog.  In my defence, life has been a little crazy!!  Right now we have absolutely no bathroom in our house.  The entire room has been completely stripped of everything, walls and all.  This room has needed renovating since we first bought our house quite a few years ago, but as we all know, these types of things take both time and money.  Finally it is happening though and although very inconvenient, it is very exciting too.  The new walls, floors & roof are in, waterproofing done and hopefully within the next day or so tiling will commence then the essentials fitted.  I won't know myself.  I will be so, so happy to say goodbye to the camping shower we have set up in our backyard :)

 

During January I spent a week away with my husband.  We had fun exploring a city we really didn't know very well.  On our travels I found this store which was my all time favourite store on the whole trip!

 

 

Take a look inside.  There were so many pretty things - I honestly didn't know where to look next.  A bit like a child in a candy store!  I spent ages inside just wanting to absorb it all.  Definitely my style of shop.

 

I also found a store which sold Russian Babushka Dolls.  I've never seen so many varieties of Babushka Dolls nor a store devoted to selling them exclusively.  It was fun to visit.

We tried the most amazing icecream - the creaminess and texture was, quite simply, divine.  It was fun to try some of the interesting flavours, you could sample before you bought.  The Pear & Cinnamon was certainly a flavour I had never come across before.

 

 

Something I really miss, because I now live in a place where the climate is more tropical, is the colourful flower gardens - particularly the rose gardens.  Here was my favourite coloured rose and the scent was beautiful.  I wish I knew the variety of rose, it was just gorgeous!  These all grew on standard rose trees - it was quite spectacular to see a garden full of rose trees. 

 

 

I am really not much of a gardener, I just don't have the time, but I do appreciate beautiful gardens and love flowers.  My other favourite flowers are hydrangeas, blue ones in particular.  These grow so well in the cooler climates and we even drove through some mountain areas where they just grew wild.  I have tried numerous times over the years to grow hydrangeas here, unsuccessfully I might add, so I really appreciated the beauty in what I saw.

 

Sorry if I have bored you with the flowers, but their beauty and colours are the sorts of things which inspire the creative side of me.

 

Talking about being creative, this past weekend was my first Market Stall for the year.  One of my daughters came along to help me on the day.  She loves crafts as much as I do, we are definitely kindred spirits when it comes to being creative.

For this market I made up a new item to sell - Shabby Chic style peg magnets.  I always have something stuck on my fridge so that I won't lose it, so it's nice to at least have something pretty yet practical to hold that much needed information safely. These magnet sets were very popular and sold well.  I will have to make some more for the next time.

Well that is enough of a catch up for now . . . thanks for stopping by and sharing this little part of my world with me.