Jenny - Inspired By Winter

In the last part of our "Inspired By Winter" series I'd like you to get to know our 4th design team member, Jenny!

In case you missed the other posts here's the links to the other DT members: 

Jennifer

Louise

Lisa-Jane

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Hi I'm Jenny and I live in Bournemouth with my husband and three children. I work mornings in a shop doing admin work and spend my spare time crafting, mainly making cards.

 

 

I've always been crafty and have dabbled at many different crafts including cross stitch, sewing (I made my own wedding dress and the bridesmaids dresses), and candle making. I started card making in November 2008 and haven't looked back since. I have been on several Design teams over the years and really enjoy the challenge they give me and allow me out of my comfort zone with some of the challenges.

  

 S J Crafts owner, Sarah asked us all a few craft related questions and these are my answers:

• What was your last crafty purchase? Gosh I can't think I have been really good this year and not really bought any christmas stash and I was determined to use up the box full I had here. I think the last thing I bought was the Sizzix Stamp & die set I've used in my cards below.

• Who is your favourite Craft Manufacturer? and why? I love MME paper pads as the colours really seem to suit my crafting at the moment and Lili of the Valley and Wee Stamps for images for my cards as they are just so cute.

• What is your favourite technique? This ones easy for me. It's just got to be colouring with my promarkers. I could spend hours colouring. I find it so relaxing.

I'm going to finish up by showing you a couple of quick Winter inspired Christmas cards I made

Both designs are fairly simple with some white embossed card, a piece of torn card to look like a snowy hill, stickles glitter along the torn edge and then I added a die cut tree or snowman from this set.

 

 

 Have you finshed all your Christmas cards? 

If my cards have inspired you to make some last minute quick cards, don't forget to leave a comment. We would love to see them.

Thank you for taking the time to stop by and have a read. 

Jenny x

You can check out Jenny's blog at: Dragonllew's Spot

Lisa-Jane - Inspired By Winter

Thanks for joining us for the next post in our "Inspired By Winter" series.

If you missed the previous ones you can catch up on those here and here. This week I'd like you to "meet" Design Team member Lisa-Jane.

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Hello, I'm Lisa-Jane and I'm really pleased to be spending another term on the S J Crafts Design Team!  I have a wonderful husband and I'm a full time Mum to Bella and Louis.  As well as being a total paper-craft addict, I'm also studying Creative Writing part time with the Open University.   

I've always loved cutting and sticking and collecting and telling stories so scrapbooking is the perfect creative outlet for me.  My sister-in-law first introduced me to scrapbooking about 6 years ago but after seeing magazine layouts and the price of basic cardstock, I was too intimated to do any thing more than collect bits and pieces.  A couple of years later, I met someone by chance who was an avid scrapbooker and she tipped my husband off about a local retreat as a Christmas present.  I was exhausted after some rather intensive classes but absolutely hooked!  In the last 3 years I have taken over the house with my papers and embellishments and adhesives!  I think my husband rues the day he surprised me with that ticket!

• What was your last crafty purchase?  Back last week I bought the new Echo Park Photo Freedom kit for a friend who was wanting to start scrapping.  I'm trying to get lots more friends into it so we can get together more often!  I also treated myself to this gorgeous Glitz washi tape - washi tape is my new love!

• Who is your favourite Craft Manufacturer?  - and why? My top three are definitely October Afternoon, My Mind's Eye and Echo Park.  October Afternoon have such great interesting designs in really funky colours which are great for children.  I love the versatility of My Mind's Eye with their classic designs and the ability to mix their collections together and they have such beautiful coordinating embellishments.  The winner for me though has to be Echo Park.  Their collections in the last couple of years have been fabulous with stunning papers at a cost effective price in some gorgeous colourways - what's not to love!

• What is your favourite technique? At the moment I'm really working on my layering technique.  I always ink my edges and sometimes I distress them a bit too.  I love the look of heavily laden pages with lots of little bits and pieces peeking out.  I'll let you into a secret though... using lots of stash on my pages means I can shop for more, right?!

For my "Inspired by Winter" project I created this layout with lots of layers and little sneaks just peeking out.

When I think of Winter I think of cold mornings with pretty patterns of sparkly frosts.  I used doilies to recreate the delicate patterns that the frost leaves on the windows and I used winter colours of white, grey and ice blue, with a hint of sunny yellow.  I sprayed through a doiley with Mister Huey mist and added more Winter sparkle with some white gems and some snowflake patterned vellum to make a little envelope to hide my journalling.
  
My supplies also included: MME Lost and Found 2 6" x 6" pad, stickers from Lost and Found 3 (these two MME collections work so well together), Studio Calico wonderland stickers and Glitz Cashmere Dame washi tape.   

 The Open University year traditionally runs from October to April so the Winter months for me are often spent studying.  Although this photo was taken at my graduation many summers ago, it represents years of being tucked up in the warm with a text book and a highlighter pen. 

With that in mind, I'd better get back to some studying.  

Bye for now

Lisa-Jane xx

Don't forget to stop by Lisa-Jane's blog at Inside My Head

Carta Bella Traditions Scrapbook Layouts

Hi and happy December to you all!

A few days ago we showed you Lisa-Jane's gorgeous cards made with Carta Bella's Traditions collection. Today LJ is back to share with you some scrapbook layouts made with the same collection.

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One of the things I love about this collection is the mix of traditional and modern and I have used both alongside each other for this scrapbook page.  It was the perfect colour scheme for photos of my friend's little boy at Wisley Gardens a couple of years ago. I think the rich Autumnal colours work so  well with the blue and cream.

The superb quality of these papers meant that it was a breeze to distress the edges with my scissors.  I used plain card stock for my background and a leaf punch to add some scattered details and I raised up some of the stickers on This to That foam dots.

Traditions was also the perfect collection for me to use for our visit to Powderham Castle in Devon.  I have literally packets of photos from our week away leading up to the Jubilee so there will be a fair bit of red, white and blue in my Devon album.   Here I was able to use a lot of red, cream and blue but in a more subtle colour scheme with the hints of green and yellow and cream.

The traditional patterns and muted tones matched well with the historic building and gardens.  Because this particular double layout focuses on the wider extensive grounds, I used floral dies and punches for the embellishments.

I also used garden twine to add texture and a natural border on one side of each page.  A punched border on the other page brings in another of the gorgeous patterns which is then followed through on the flowers.

I fussy cut around the large flowers on one of the papers and added dimension by curling up some of the larger flowers.  There is a lovely sheet of tags included in the kit so I used 3 of them for my journalling area, raising the central one with my writing on.

Traditions is such a versatile collection which lends itself to feminine or masculine, traditional or modern. I can see Carta Bella becoming a firm favourite of mine!

Enjoy your weekend!

Lisa-Jane x

To see more of Lisa-Jane's work please visit her blog: Inside My Head 

Carta Bella Traditions Cards - By Lisa- Jane

Hi Everyone .... Lisa-Jane here today!

I really enjoyed using the Carta Bella Traditions collection kit.  True to their word, the quality of the papers is amazing.  Carta Bella papers have a lovely subtle texture and are slightly thicker than normal patterned papers.  This collection is ideal if you are after something general to use for everyday, Christmas and Autumn rather than buying a specific themed collection. At first sight it might seem rather vintage but the mix of designs and gorgeous, rich colours enables you to get quite a different feel just by being selective with the patterns.

I had a couple of "Thank You" cards to make and I used this home decor project as inspiration for my butterfly card.  I inked the edges on this one with Rusty Hinge distress ink to echo the Autumnal feel.

For my Dad's birthday card, I made a more traditional card in the true feel of the collection.  I love the blue patterned paper - it is so hard to find "proper" blue scrapbook papers. The vintage car image is stamped and embossed and I some script ribbon finishes it off, complimenting the more traditional style.

There are some wonderful stickers on the sheet that comes in the collection pack and I loved this peacock sticker but I knew it wouldn't work on a scrapbook page for me.  It was the perfect focal point for this card which has a completely different colour-way than the previous two cards.  I used a border punch and some ribbon for texture and layered up the stickers on 3D foam dots. I inked the edges of the paper with Faded Jeans distress ink. 

I'll be back soon to show you some scrapbook layouts with the same collection kit!

Lisa-Jane x

You can see more of Lisa-Jane's work on her blog: Inside My Head