February meeting - 12th

Hi everyone, Hope you're all looking forward to next week's meeting - they soon come round. Well I said I was going to stick to square cards in future after my mishaps with measurements so here it is - a 6x6 card

with a difference, it has a pop up insert

Here's Wendy's sample

You can either use two 6 x 6" card blanks or one with a patterned piece of 6 x 12" for the insert (it's needs to be quite thick), patterned papers for decorating, images and/or sentiments any embellishments, pencil, ruler, tape, craft knife, scoring board and tool - if you have a 12 x 12 board these save so much messing about. I will bring my Big Shot if anyone wants to use it. We have four birthdays this month! Wendy, Sue, Lin and Ron so you better get busy gluing and sticking. Before I go, just want to share a picture of my gorgeous baby girl and the others, can't believe she's nearly 8 months old already. These were taken just before Christmas.

See you all next week Sarah

January meeting - 8th

Happy New Year to you all. Thank you to those that came to the Christmas meal it was a lovely night and the food was fabulous as always. I hope you had a lovely Christmas and managed to avoid all the nasty bugs going round. I'm so glad to get back to normal, craft club appears to be upon us rather quick thanks to the 1st falling on a Tuesday. A friend sent me this little project I thought we could do as I haven't had chance to trawl the internet for ideas and am only just findin my craft mojo. If anybody has any suggestions or there is anything specific you fancy doing let me know. What with all the coughs and sneezes about these tissue holders should be handy and would make a nice little Get Well, along with some chocolates of course.

(These aren't mine - pic taken from a blog) You will need an A4 sheet of card, papers to decorate, an image (the one I've used is approx 9x9cm), embellishments and for the aperture you can either cut it freehand or use a nestie. Needs to be no wider than 4.5cm. I will bring some tissues. It's Val's birthday this month, so don't forget your card. Look forward to seeing you all on Tuesday. Sarah x

November meeting - 13th

Hi everyone,

Apologies for being last minute, I don't seem to find the time to get online as much as I used to and certainly haven't been crafting.  I have to admit to buying Husband's birthday cards for the first time in years!

Next week we will be making a lovely little tag book which would make a nice present or keepsake, as you could put little notes or photo's in it - how you decorate it is up to you.

Here's one I made, I went a bit OTT with embellishments and it's a bit thick really, it doesn't fold very flat, the second picture is a the basic book.

You will need one piece of double sided 12x12 paper for the book itself, and co-ordinating pieces of card/paper for the pockets and tags. I've used sentiment stamps on my tags or any small images will work.  A hole punch, a small circle punch (1") and a border and corner punch - I have these if you don't,  a piece of ribbon and a few embellishments, gems/pearls, brads, flat flowers.  You will also need scoring board and some strong quick drying glue or narrow double sided tape.

It's Tina's birthday this month so don't forget your cards, can I please also ask that any outstanding subs (£20) are paid please.

December is fast approaching, we can go for the usual meal at the Hesketh.  I will pick up a menu, it's £14.95 each, of which club can pay the £5 deposit if you are happy to pay the rest.  Or if you have an alternative suggestion put it forward next week.

Before I go and try to remember how to make the book here's a recent pic of Izzy.  She's still a role model baby, sleeping through and as happy as she looks all the time.

See you all next week

Sarah

October Meeting - 9th

Hi everyone, First of all another year is upon us so subs are due. As I mentioned last month I propose increasing them to £20 each plus £2 per month. This is purely to cover the cost of hiring the room when we have quiet months and only a few turning up. Hope you understand. If you cannot make this months meeting but still wish to come please let me know and as always if you know any other crafters, drag them along! This month you need to root out your Christmas stuff, we're starting early(not as early some though!) We will be doing a card with a maching gift bag which is really quick and easy, we'll start with the bag so you can finnish the card at home if we run out of time. You don't need anything special, scoreboard with meaurements is easier if you have one. The bag itself is made from one sheet of 12" x 12" it needs to be quite sturdy card but foldable. Everything else you need is just your usual stuff.

So that's all for now, we have no bithdays this month. See you on Tuesday

September meeting - 11th

Hi everyone hope you are all well,

Today I breathed a huge sigh of relief as the children went back to school, looking forward to some peace and quiet and getting back into a routine and may be finally doing some crafting.

I can't believe craft club is upon us once more, I've not had chance to come up with a project so thought we could make some cards decoupaging stamped images. It's not something I think of doing, but I know Wendy does and they always look lovely.

The best sort of stamps are ones with larger areas and not too detailed as you need to cut the sections out. Character stamps such as Tilda, Penny Blacks and flower stamps work particularly well.

You will need all your general cardmaking stuff, stamps, colouring pens/pencils, small sharp scissors and 3d foam / silicone glue.

Margaret J suggested that we could have some "general" crafting evenings rather than doing a project where you can bring whatever you are working on or just have a natter and share ideas, so we will have a few of those in the future.

Unfortunately last month there was only 5 of us again and I was debating giving up the room and running the group from home as we are not covering the rent. To be honest I don't think this is going to be practical so, as the subs are due next month I propose to increase them to £20 for the year plus the usual £2 per month. This way the rent is covered for the year before we start no matter how many attend each month. I hope you understand.

I will organise some advertising to try and increase numbers.

Finally it is Marie's birthday so don't forget your card.

See you on Tuesday

Sarah x

August Meeting - Clean and Simple

Hello everyone,

Hope you are all well and that I can find some craft mojo from somewhere, I haven't managed to make anything since having Izzy.

I thought we could have a go at some Clean and Simple cards, these are the main requirements for a CAS card:

Clean & Simple (CAS)

A design of card with clean lines, minimal elements, areas of white space and few or no embellishments.

White Space

An area of the card which has no image, layer or embellishment.This can be any colour dependent upon the colour of the card blank.

One Layer Card (OLC)

One piece of card folded in half with no additional layers and minimal embellishments, where the image is stamped or printed directly onto the cardstock.

So for all you paper fearing people and those that aren't great at colouring in or simply need a quick card these are ideal.There are a few blogs that are dedicated to cards like this, if you want to take a look the links are below.

I will bring some sketches with me as a starting point - the rest is up to you.

Less is More
Clean and Simple Stamping
A Load of Old Pickle

You will need basic card making materials, sentiment stamps and smaller images work well as do coloured inks such as Distress inks, scraps of papers, gems and ribbons are useful too.

It's Margaret Brown's birthday this month.

See you on the 14th

Introducing Isobel Amber Swire

Well my beautiful little girl is finally here, she arrived at 3.34am on the 12th June weighing 8lb 13.5oz and we've called her Isobel Amber or Izzy for short.After not wanting to come out she made her entrance into the world very quickly, so quickly Daddy missed her arrival.

We are both home and doing well, albeit a little tired!



Hope you all enjoyed craft club and just to show willing I even had a go at making some myself before I went into hospital!



If Wendy doesn't mind planning next month's meeting again, I will bring Izzy to see you all.