Oooh, I've taken the plunge...

...and finally bought myself a Silhouette Portrait! It's so good and I really love that you can design your own stuff and cut that as well as buying files from the Silhouette studio, also it cuts any fonts you have already on your computer! She's more my thing than the Cricut, but that's not to say that the Cricut is rubbish. Just horses for courses and all that...
  Here's a new 12x12 with my first ever cuts from her —

 

Cute paper bows!

   So, I downloaded the lovely frame for the photo plus a template to make up the paper bows. The bows are a really handy one to have in my library as I seem to be using these quite a bit of late but I designed the balloon with wording and the main Cookies title too. It was quite easy once I worked out how to format the files for importing into the Silhouette Studio programme. The software is definitely a bit more in depth than the Cricut but that suits me as I like to do my own design thing!
There's actually quite a bit going on with this LO. It took a while to put together as I was getting to know my new gadget and swithered with various elements, but then it suddenly came together. There's a bit of border punching going on with the pink at the top and bottom with sections of paper doily tucked in behind. The teeny bunting at the top right corner is made from twine and washi tape. Cute!
  On a different topic — today was Coffee Morning day up at the girl's school and Millie managed a sell out with her Fimo jewellery! Well done babe! You worked really hard! I believe the headmistress has already asked if she could kindly do some more for the Christmas Fayre and the wee rascal, excitedly wants to start on them NOW! Eeek! Mummy needs a bit of time out from Fimo though, and is experiencing mild paper stroking withdrawal! Besides I really have to get on with some of my own Xmas projects. I've seen an interesting technique though for baking soda dough which I'm sure we can utilise for the school Christmas Fayre projects and my own ideas for tags and decorations. Hmmm...
Anyways, thanks for checking in. Have a creative weekend!
Jak
xxx

Fimo jewellery...

...as made by Millie! (with a wee help from Mum!) I'm really hoping that she gets them sold as she's worked really hard - they've turned out lovely, if I do say so myself, plus it's for a very good cause (Macmillan Coffee Morning)! There's hotdogs, cupcakes, doughnuts, fondant fancies, dolly mixtures and liquorice allsorts to choose from in an array of different forms be it earrings, rings, badges or fridge magnets so all tastes are catered for.

 Yummy doughnuts!

 Hot dogs! Get yer hot dogs!

Honestly, making these took me back 25 years to when I used to make/sell them for xmas. It was a great way of supplementing my income back in the day which really came in handy for doing the Christmas shopping. I used to sit for hours each night rolling and modelling  -  Fimo Soft is a much easier clay for this which wasn't around then, but hey, it kept me out of mischief! There's a lot more Fimo jewellery out there nowadays just look at etsy and these kind of places - some of it so detailed too. All sorts of moulds are available also which must make life a bit easier when putting them together but Millie's ones are properly handmade! Fingers crossed she gets them sold!

Packaging them all up, ready for taking to school later.

Thanks again for coming by and looking!

Jak

xxx

Hello! Remember me?

...well, it has kinda been a while since I posted anything. Anyway, how are you all doing out there in Craftland. Me, well, I've just been busy doing other stuff, lots of miscellaneous stuff,  mostly on the domestic homefront, what with the summer holidays etc. There's not been an awful lot of papercrafting going on but I have been helping my Other Half decorate a bedroom and the kitchen amongst other housey type things. We are all well Chez Strachan and getting back in to the old routine now that the girls have settled back in at school. That has got to be the quickest summer ever (do I say that every year?) and I'm wondering if all the good weather had anything to do with that perception. The girls played out a lot and time just seemed to tick by in a flash (instead of us all moping about getting on each others nerves because it rained and we had to stay indoors)... aahh summer sunshine bliss - all but a fading memory now. So, autumn is definitely just round the corner, don't know about you but I can smell it in the air and lo and behold it was almost dark by 8pm last night, so I think it's about time we had a nice little crafty catch-up. This here piccie is my latest 12x12 that I did just last weekend. The papers are from a K&Co Bloomscape pad which I've had for ages but only just got round to using them (my bad!). They have to be the most floral, colourful ones I have tried so far and I think they are beautiful but quite tricky to work with as so many have very busy bold prints. But you know me - I do like a challenge and I was quite happy with how it turned out as it's quite dimensional too. I tried incorporating a bit of stamping just using a black inkpad and it seems to balance/quieten the full on colourful craziness a bit...

Here are a couple of close ups of the details

Those butterflies are from an Anna Griffin kit I bought last year and compliment the big roses of the print. I made/printed some red and white paper for the border and a paper bow. (I love making these!) And of course those are Tim Holtz diecut rosettes there as well. As usual there's quite a bit going on but sometimes you have to indulge yourself I think! I hope you like it.
Stay tuned! Millie has a Macmillan coffee morning/craft/bake sale coming up at school and we have been beavering away together making some goodies for that so the next post will be showing off some attempts at Fimo jewellery!
Thanks for stopping by,
Jak
xxx