Calendar

I've seen lots of sticky note holders lately on Pinterest, and I think they're a great idea and make nice little gifts. I wanted to make some with calendars for Christmas presents. This is my own design.

The calendar, photo and sticky note pad are all removable so that they can be replaced. (The little girl's face is obscured in the photo as I didn't have permission from her parents to show it online.) Printed papers are by Provocraft (they must be about 10 years old!) and the butterflies are cut with Cheery Lynn dies. Here's a side view so you can see how it stands up.

Here you can see how the sticky note pad sits in a tray, so that it is easy to remove if required. A loop of tape, glued under the tray, holds the pencil in place.

 And here it is folded up.

This was my prototype, and I want to make a few more. On the others I may change the photo for a stamped or other type of picture, or the butterflies for different embellishments, but the style will remain essentially the same. Am also still in the middle of making Christmas cards. At the moment my desk looks like an explosion in a paper factory......... 

Allsorts Challenge Week 34

The Allsorts challenge for this week is a sketch, by Emma. Since I still had the Hero Arts flourish stamp out on my desk, I thought I'd use it on this card too. This time I stamped it on glossy card with Versamark ink, which then resisted the Distress Inks I sponged over it. The four printed paper panels are old stash (very old! - from Provocraft pre-Cuttlebug!) and the butterfly, which I thought echoed the leaves in the flourish rather well, is Elusive Images from Graphicus. The sentiment is computer generated and cut out with Nestabilities frames. I coloured the punched flowers and leaves with Promarkers.

Well, that's two challenges in two days I've completed! It's unlikely I'll be able to keep going at such a rate, but I mean to do as many as I can.

Best laid plans....

Well, at my last post there were still three weeks left of the school hols. Now we've been back at school nearly a week, and I don't know where the last month has gone. Not to plan, that's for sure. Various things conspired to keep me from doing all that I wanted to, and the only crafting I did was to help my four year old grandson make birthday cards for his mum & dad. And a good job he made of them too!

A major problem was that my old laptop began to malfunction so much that it is not really safe to use now, and I had to get a new one. Not that I'm complaining about that! The new one is great, but of course I have had to spend a lot of time getting to know it & transferring everything from the old one.

However, it is now up and running, and I have managed to make two cards this week. Just as well, seeing as I will be restarting my card class tomorrow, after the summer break!

The first card was a belated one for a friend & I didn't have time to stop & photograph it. For the class I decided to have a go at a tri-shutter card, as illustrated on the Splitcoast Stampers website. It's one of those things which looks very impressive but is in fact quite easy to make (fortunately!). I am still trying to use up stuff from my stash, ahead of a trip to the Great Northern Papercrafts Extravaganza in Harrogate this coming weekend, and mostly succeeded on this card. The background paper I've had for years. It's by Provo Craft, from long before the Cuttlebug came on the scene! Sally & I have been very good, & haven't been to any other shows this year. (Well, ok, I went to a teeny tiny one in Nottingham several months back & hardly bought anything much, so I'm not really counting that.) We've been saving ourselves for Harrogate. The thing is, having just bought the laptop, I'm going to have to be very careful about how much I spend there....