Hello again!

Hello everyone,

It has been quite some time since I have last blogged. I am afraid I have been extremely busy in the weeks leading up to my holiday, then had a great time on holiday and now need to get back in the swing of things and try to get everything up to date again. I will try to do better from now on.

Lovely to be back.

Love,

Jo.

GDT for Karen's Doodles, I feel sooo lucky!

Evening all,

I thought I would just quickly let you know that I have the great good fortune to be guest designer on the Dutch Karen's Doodles challenge blog for the 18th (tomorrow) and the 25th of May 2010. I absolutely love Karen's Doodles and have been lucky enough to have been allowed to choose 3 of her gorgeous doodles for free. 2 to use on the challenges and one to use on a different challenge. Will try and put it to use really soon, I have already coloured all 3 stamps and 2 are still waiting to be used. I do realise you may well be rather looking forward to looking at the card, but sorry, you will have to wait till tomorrow to see it. All I can tell you, is that it's my son's birthday card. He had his 11th birthday today. Happy Birthday no 2 son! We love you loads!
Hope you've had a great day and many happy returns of course.

See you all tomorrow!

Love,

Jo.

Some great news to share!

Evening all,

I have today received confirmation that I have been accepted as Creative Team Member for Toucan Scraps. Angela is one of our friends on Trimcraft and a brilliant designer of digital kits, who has had a call for Creative Team Members over the last week. This means I get to play with one of her great kits every month and all I need to do is do some crafting with it and upload the projects I've made to a few galleries. What could be more fun? Can't wait to get started and thought I would share the good news with you all.

Have a great night everyone and hope you will join us again at CRAFT Challenge from tomorrow. The new challenge will be up bright and early again. Do keep a look out for that!

Love,

Jo.

Have you seen my sisterblog 'Trimgym's digistamps and images' yet?

Hello everyone,

I have a sisterblog now as well, where I am slowly downloading all my own digistamps, 3D decoupage sheets and backgrounds to. As I don't have a lot of them, this is a slow progress, about one every week or so. Most of them have already been seen on this blog, but, they are now being transferred to my sisterblog Trimgym's digistamps and images. They are there free (for the foreseeable future) to download (please leave a comment, so I know you have done and like them), use for personal use only, leave my signature on, do not claim as your own and if you would like to share them, then please direct people to my blog.

Feel free to have a look at my new blog and become a follower. I would love to see you there. If you do decide to make anything using my stamps and images, I would love to see your creations, please link them to my blog, so I can pop by yours and see them.

Have a good weekend everyone!

Love,

Jo.

Chance to win lovely images at Tales from Pollycraft

Just noticed they have some lovely images coming out on the 4th of February, every day one lucky person will be chosen to win one of the gorgeous images. I know what I will be checking every day.

Only just under 2 hours left to enter current CRAFT Challenge and Guest DT call.

Hello everyone,

Our current challenge at CRAFT Challenge using a sketch provided by our very own Eileen, aka Eiglas, ends at 8pm UK time. Our Guest DT call for February also ends at that time. So if you want to be in with a chance of winning 6 promarkers (randomly chosen) or a guest DT spot for the month of February, you need to act quickly and get your project uploaded before 8pm.

Looking forward to seeing you there.


Love,

Jo.

Have a great weekend!

Hello everyone on this Saturday afternoon.

Hope you are all well, I'm just quickly stopping by to see how everyone is. Today is our 11th wedding anniversary and I thought I would just show you a little preview of the card I've done. As it is also due to be a card used as my next DT entry for CRAFT Challenge, I can't reveal it totally today, or for that matter the brief for that one. I can tell you however that it is a card for which I have used one of my own digistamps, which will become available on my other blog on Thursday.

So here is the little preview:

Do stop by then to see the full card, the brief of the challenge and what will be up for grabs as well as the digistamp.

Love,

Jo.

Resist Technique Challenge and Tutorial on CRAFT Challenge this week.

Hello everyone,

Just wanted to let you all know, and remind those who had nearly forgotten, that at CRAFT Challenge this week we have a lovely challenge to use the resist technique. It comes with its very own tutorial by our very own Eileen, aka Eiglas, which is very easy to follow. This time of year seems to be the right kind of time to try something new and if you haven't tried this technique yet, it is real fun to do and gives a really lovely effect. So please come and join us at CRAFT Challenge this week, there are some lovely digistamps up for grabs for the randomly chosen winner as well from Your Special Delivery.

Looking forward to seeing your creations this week.

Love,

Jo.

Some more digistamps and images loaded onto my sister blog.

Good evening everyone,

I have just uploaded another digistamp with 3D decoupagesheet and background I have created earlier on my sister blog Trimgym's digistamps and images. From this new blog you are able to download my digital stamps, images and backgrounds for free. The images I have uploaded to this blog and the ones to follow are my own creations, sometimes using images found elsewhere as an example for my own drawings.

I hope you like them and please use them for your personal use only, do not claim them as your own, leave my signature on and if you want to share these images with friends, please direct them to my blog.

Have a good weekend everyone, I will be uploading some more images again at a later date.

Love,

Jo.

I've created a new blog for my digistamps and images.

Evening everyone,

I have just created a separate blog for my digistamps and images, Trimgym's digistamps and images, where I will be posting these whenever I've created some new ones. I have so far uploaded one of my digistamps there, which is free to download for personal use. I thought it might be easier for any of my friends and followers who like my images to find them in a central place.

Do feel free to have a look, all comments are very welcome and much appreciated. Special thanks should go to Angela of Toucan Scraps, who advised me on some copyright issues. This has led to me deciding to try and create my own images and without her advice on this I would probably never have tried to create them as I've always felt I'm no good at drawing. I'm now quite proud of what I have created.

Thank you all for looking, all comments very welcome and much appreciated. You can also find a link in my sidebanner.

Blog candy at Primitive Paper.

Morning all,

Just a quickie to let you all know about candy up at Primitive Paper. The candy is some new spellbinder's dies and I know I would love to win them.



She has asked for the following to be entered in the draw:

1. Please become a follower of Inktegrity Designs. (I already was anyway)

2. Please also become one of her followers on her blog - done that.

3. Please spread the word either on your sidebar or in a post, done now.

4. Leave a comment on her post telling me you have done all of the above, still to be done with a link to this post..

You have until December 24th to enter. Drawing will be held that night.

Candy at Crafty Pad Stamp Designs

Evening all,

Finally made a little bit of time to let you all know about the lovely candy Debbie has on offer to celebrate her new blog The Crafty Pad Stampdesigns. This is where she is selling her gorgeous stamps from nowadays. The orginal blog The Crafty Pad will still remain but as a challenge site only.

Here is what you could win :-



It consists of :-

5 Crafty Pad Stamps
5 lengths of ribbon
1 length of Christmas ribbon
2 Double-sided 'Pretty Colours' ink daubers
1 packet of scrabooking stickers
30 sheets of 6 x 6 selection of backing papers
Selection of charms

The closing date is Friday 4th December and the winner will be drawn randomly and announced Sunday 6th December.

Rules - all very simple really
Leave a comment on her blog.
Post a pic of the candy on your blog with a link back to The Crafty Pad Stampdesigns
Post the closing date also.

That's it. So, it's obvious what I will be doing LOL.

Love,

Jo.

Do you like copics?

Hi, just found some blog candy involving copics. If you like them, it's well worth having a look.

The first one is at Northern Papercrafts to celebrate the launch of their 1st Northern Papercraft Retreat and the prize is 36 copic markers. I certainly am interested in winning them. You do need to answer a question though to be in with a chance to win and put a link on your blog. And you can see what can be won underneath.

The other candy involving copics (72 of them!) can be found at Crafty Goings On and you need to link your entry to this to a card you have made using a download or stamped image. Obviously you also need to link to the challenge. All I now need to do is find or make a card to use.

The card I have used for this is this one which uses the lovely Belinda's garden stamp from The Crafty Pad.

You can see the involved candy down below.

Love,

Jo.

Drying flowers in the microwave.

Hello everyone, on my latest card (http://trimgym.blogspot.com/2009/06/challenge-4-at-craft-challenge-shopping.html) I used some flowers that had been dried in the microwave. I wanted some flowers quick and thought this might be the way as I had heard it was possible. So, I just googled it and found this really helpful link http://www.hintsandthings.co.uk/workshop/flowers.htm.

What it is basically is saying is this: (but it gives links to more advice on this as well)

These days, however, many blooms can be dried using a microwave oven.

Roses, geraniums, marigolds and zinnias are said to be very successful, however, that is not the case with petunias and impatiens. I suppose it is really a case of experimenting. Here a few pointers -

The final blooms will appear several shades darker than the original flowers.

It is best to gather the flowers in the late morning after the dew has dried off.

Obtain some silica gel crystals which are available from craft shops.

Line a microwave safe container with these crystals and heat on High for 3 minutes; this ensures the crystals are as dry as possible.

Place 1in/25mm of warm crystals into a heavy glass container making sure it is wide enough for the flowers you are drying.

Cut each flower stem to within 1"/25mm from the flower head.

Push each flower stem gently into the warm crystals so that they stand upright.

Gradually pour the remaining warm crystals down the side of the glass to completely cover the blossoms.

Microwave on High. Rosebuds will need about 1 minute 45 seconds but large, fleshy blooms will need 4 to 5 minutes. Once again it is really a case of trial and error in order to find out the optimum time for each species.

Cool for 20 minutes, then gently pour off the crystals. Clean the flower petals carefully ( a fine make-up or paintbrush is ideal for this purpose). Mist lightly with an acrylic spray.

The finished blooms can be taped to florists' wire to provide a stem for flower arrangements.

Click here for more information on drying flowers with silica gel

Go on, have a try - what have you got to lose - you may even surprise yourself

I did not really have any silica gel and didn't really want to go out and get some. I therefore experimented a little more. I thought, if it works with that it may well also work withwith dry, uncooked rice.

And it does!

So what I did was to put some rice in 2 separate all purpose cloths folded around it to make sure it would not spill out.

Then heated it in the microwave as suggested.

I found that the suggested time was too long for most small flowers, but it is possible to do it with those as well. The small and thin leaved flowers only need to be in for about 35 seconds. Then leave to cool as suggested, lift the top packet of rice (you put the flowers in between the 2 parcels) and remove the flowers carefully (they sometimes stick to them a little).

Voila! You have some freshly pressed/dried flowers that still are not fully flat and therefore give a, what I think, even nicer 3D effect. They also quite often still smell nice as well.

Hope this helps and I would love to see what you all do with the pressed flowers. Be careful though as they can be quite fragile.

Love,

Jo.

Another new challenge blog.

There appears to be more than one epidemic going on at the moment. Of course we have the swine flu that seems to be on the news near to continuously these days. There also appears to be an epidemic of new challenge blogs sprouting up. This is the new one that I found on another blog, first challenge goes live on the 15th of June and they have some lovely candy up. Why not pop over to Die cut dreams Challenge blog yourself to have a look.

It also appears to be a repeat of last year's flooding (the year before it seems), is this going to be a regular thing from now on? The news is just telling of some flooding in Sheffield while I'm typing this up, hope it doesn't get as bad as then. The only good thing then was not being able to go to work due to the flooding, my colleagues would not have agreed and we do have a work outing planned tomorrow night.

Have a great evening all!

Love,

Jo.

Another award, I'm speechless.

Hello and good afternoon, it's rather stormy over here, chucking it down at the moment outside, dark and grey, although only 4.30 pm, and a 'lovely' thunderstorm as well.

One thing at the moment to cheer me up though. The lovely Suzi aka Sugar n Spice, has given me another award. Thank you so very much, it's very much appreciated. I'm really speechless (so to speak).

Just one bit of a problem, as with all awards they need to be passed on. I have to pass it on to another five deserving bloggers who show great attitude and gratitude. I'm afraid I will have to get back to you on that one, at a time when I have some more time.

By the way, don't forget the new challenge, 5, will start at C.R.A.F.T. Challenge tomorrow, so only very little time to enter into the current one! Hope to see you there soon.

Love,

Jo.

DT call at Double Dutch Challenge.

Hi everyone,

Just found a new DT call on Double Dutch challenge blog yesterday. You can find them at http://doubledutchchallenges.blogspot.com/ . When I saw this I wanted to get in touch with them immediately, but unfortunately there were some other things that needed doing first. You know, the dreaded housework. Now in between all of the ironing I have finally found a little bit of time and sent the e-mail off. Now all we can do is wait and see if they are interested.

By the way, it would be great if you came to visit us at C.R.A.F.T. Challenge this week as well. You can find us at http://trimmiescraftchallenge.blogspot.com/. This week's challenge is a double one, father's day and/or brown/blue colour combo male card. Hope to see you all there!

Have a great crafting weekend!

Love,

Jo.

Todays giveaway at The Crafty Pad

Hi everyone,

I thought I would just let you all know what today's giveaway is at The Crafty Pad. This one is also definitely worth looking at. Debbie has some gorgeous stamps on sale there as well. Do check them out.

Today's giveaway is 'Just Teddy-Hugs', a really cute stamp, I'm sure you will agree. If you want to be in with a chance of winning this stamp, please go and visit her blog. You will also find some lovely weekly challenges there.

Love,

Jo.

The first of several awards to pass on.

Hello everyone,

It's time to finally start passing on some of the lovely awards I have received. Somehow I have never managed to find time to pass them on. So, let's start with this award. It was given to me by the lovely Cheryl and I'm supposed to pass it on to 5 other blogs. So, I will grab the cuppa and have a bit of a think.

I will pass it on to:

1. Tracy

2. Cathy

3. Gisela

4. Sam

5. Julie

They all have lovely blogs, that definitely are worth having a look at. Hope you will all find it easier to pass it on to 5 blogs than I did.

Love,

Jo.

Back from holiday again!

Hello everyone,

Just got back from holiday in Somerset with the family late yesterday afternoon. Trying to catch up with everthing I missed over the last week and there has been a lot.

First I noticed that Debbie has a lovely giveaway going at

The Crafty Pad that is just too good to miss. She is giving away one of her lovely stamps daily for a week. Today is day 4, so I have already missed 3 great chances! Today she is giving away her Belinda Garden stamp.

The next thing I noticed was that I have been missing some major problems with Mr Linky at our new challenge blog C.R.A.F.T. Challenge. Otherwise the challenge blog seems to be doing well. So, it's time for me to get my skates on to come up with a DT entry for the next challenge that starts on Thursday again. It has been partially done, but you'll have to wait till Thursday for it to be revealed.

I also found I have been given another lovely award. This time it was the lovely Cathy who gave me this lovely award. Thank you very much! It does as usual have some rules attached to it.

The rules are that I thank the person for the award and pass it on to at least 7 people who deserve it and then list 10 honest things about myself.

The difficult bit will be to come up with 7 more people to pass it on to. I still have to come up with some people to pass some other awards on to as well as I have not really had much time to think these over yet.

As for the 10 honest things about myself, here it goes:

1. I am addicted to crafting, even managed to bring some crafty things with me on holiday.

2. I have 4 lovely kids, 3 boys and 1 girl.

3. I am married to a lovely man and have been for the last 10 years.

4. I am quite a busy person with lots of housework to do as well as a job.

5. I have just been on holiday to Somerset with the family for 1 week.

6. I have not done a lot of work today yet, although I have managed to do some of the laundry.

7. Today I have helped my daughter with her DT entry for C.R.A.F.T. Challenge for this week, although I have not yet had a chance to work on mine much yet. Oops!

8. I will soon need to get something sorted for tea as the family will return after swimming lessons at 6.30pm.

9. Tomorrow the kids will go back to school, hubby back to work and I will need to do some housework as well as getting some cards done.

10. I'll be back at work again on Tuesday, not something I'm looking forward to as it is likely to be very busy again indeed.

So, that is the 10 things sorted. Now I will need to think about who to pass it on to as well as getting my DT card sorted. Also need to get some birthday cards organised soon as well.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday everyone, I'm going to try to get my DT card done now before the troups are back.