Friday, April 28, 2006

What A Week!


It's always a problem planning a holiday when you run your own business. There's never really a good time but also you seem to spend the whole week before doing double the amount of work to allow for it!
And on top of that, I decide to organise a Loyal Customer Event to finish the week off - talk about glutton for punishment.
Well one of the good things to come out of this mad week was a 'Play Day' in my studio on Wednesday. I say play, but really it's planning for future workshops and trying out new ideas but there again I guess the truth is...it's playing!
These Play Days are why I started my own craft-based business but believe me, they are few and far between.
So what did I play with...
Well it involved quite a lot of UTEE (one of my faves), another lot of alcohol inks (another fave) plus quite a lot of mess (surprise, surprise!).
Here is the result... a lovely Faux Dichroic Glass Pendant! Unfortunately, it has proved harder to get a decent photo of it than to make it though...

Friday, April 21, 2006

Well, A Girl Can Dream!

I stumbled across this fantastic characture of me the other day while I was routing through some old papers.

I can't remember where exactly I had it done, but I do recall asking the bloke who drew it to make me look slim and gorgeous in it! It was in the early 90s as far as I can remember hence the fabulous perm.

All in all, I think he did a good job at making me look slim though and I can't think why I've hidden it away!

I think it's going to be resurrected onto a wall in my office to cheer me up on down days and bad hair days!

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Happy Days!

Today was a lovely happy day,'cos I received a load of new Tim Holtz Distress Inks for my shop. The colours are absolutely gorgeous and I am desparate to try them all out.Particularly love the Worn Lipstick, Dried Marigold and BrokenChina. Lush!!!
I've really got in to the Tim way of creativity this year - it appeals to that mucky streak in me. Here's something I made earlier and I'll post some of my new tryouts soon as I can! Time to go...Desperate Housewives!

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Messy Nessie: The Mucky Fiddler!

I love fiddling with little bits and bobs for my scrapbooking. Trying to make things from nothing and it's even better when I get all messy. I have earned the nickname Messy Nessie with my cropping buddies but on the most part, they approve of the results!

My motto is: you can't be organised and creative!

My current favourite mucky fiddling products are:
UTEE - you can do so much with it
Hearty Clay: I discovered this recently and it's absolutely brilliant! It's clay but it feels flexible when it's hardened. It's air drying too, so no stinky ovens!
Fantasy Film: This is also a new one and it involves an iron (although nothing too taxing).
Mica, Mica flakes and Perfect FX: To yummy for words!
Microscope Slides: My absolute faves!

Monday, April 17, 2006

Chuffed To Bits!

I received this gorgeous microscope slide holder from my friend, and fellow messy scrapper, Fiona Griffiths this weekend. She had made another one last weekend which I admired so much, she made one for me to keep!

I have known Fiona for just over a year now. We met through the South Wales Crop and are creatively into the same things and both teach at Scrappers Unlimited Retreats. We both love experiementing with messy stuff and she has attended many of my workshops in the past but I equally admire her work. That's why the words written inside the slide holder meant so much to me.

Thanks Fi...you inspire me too!

My Latest Thing

My latest thing is creating life-like looking flowers for my scrapbook pages from paper scraps.

I discovered Floral Punch Art recently and I'm totally hooked! It's a great way to use up all your paper and card offcuts, as well as punches like Christmas trees that get packed away for most of the year.

Some of the flowers are so lifelike it's uncanny and I'm especially proud of my fuschias. I'm working on bluebells at the moment, so watch this space for my progress.

I have also been running some workshops for my customers so that they can also discover how to make these pretty paper creations and they've been going mad for them and asking for more and more classes... which means I have to keep trying out new flowers!!!

Scrapbooking Changed My Life: A 3 Year Reflection


Three years ago, in the Spring of 2003, I was in between contracts in the duck and dive world of broadcasting when I decided to open my own cardmaking and scrapbooking shop in Caerphilly, South Wales. Life hasn't been the same since.

It's unbelievable to think that scrapbooking had hardly been heard of in the UK at the time, even cardmaking was less popular. As I was so passionate about paper, I made it my mission to convert South Wales into paper loving crafters through my new business but at first it was really hard work!

I ran the first scrapbooking workshop in the whole of South Wales in September 2003. It was a whole day workshop where we made our own album and then completed our first page. Six brave crafters took the challenge that day and I am proud to say that all but one (who I have lost touch with, so I can't say for sure) have kept scrapbooking in their lives to this day.

I then spent the next six months trying to coax, cajole and bribe cardmaking customers into trying out scrapbooking, while the orginal small group continued to create their first and second albums. It was really hard work trying to get people to even try it and I would do demonstrations, try special incentives...all sorts of things to get them to give it a go!

I started writing for Scrapbook Craft Magazine (the first home-grown magazine to launch in the UK) in an attempt to raise the profile of scrapbooking locally. I had been a news editor in my former life, so it was lovely to write again except this time on my favourite subject! It started to work slowly but surely and each month we would get a few more brave souls sign up for a Beginners Scrapbooking workshop until in 2005, we had turned the corner and were taking workshop bookings for two or three months in advance.

My business developed further in 2005 to include a webshop www.crafty-ness.co.uk. I also started teaching and taking a mobile shop to regular crops in Newport and Bristol and to the Scrappers Unlimited Weekend Retreats around the country where I started to make a niche for myself do more artistic scrapbooking with an emphasis on creating page elements from raw materials. I also became a regular contributor for Creative Scrapbooking Magazine and even did a few stints of demonstrating on Ideal World's Create & Craft TV for one of my suppliers - now that was an experience!

So in three years, scrapbooking has changed my life. With my own shop and studio, teaching and spreading the word, writing and designing for the magazines and when I get a chance, doing the odd layout for my own album!

And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Sunday, April 16, 2006

A One Page Day

Now I've been feeling under the weather for a while following a silly virus thing I had. It had resulted in a bunged up ear which gave me limited hearing ability and was very tiring. And that meant that my scrapbooking ability improved - less dipping and diving out of it, less ability to deal with distractions etc...
Then yesterday, I was feeling much better. How could I tell? I had a whole day of scrapbook indulgence time ahead of me as I attended the South Wales Crop in Newport and what did I achieve in that whole day? One layout. One measly layout! And it wasn't even a complicated layout!
You see the distractions were back... good conversation, lots of Easter treats being handed around...
So it was a one page day.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Scrappy Ness - The Early Years

I have always loved making things and my Mum is an artist and art teacher so I was brought up in a very creative environment. In fact I scrapbooked before I could really write. Not scrapbooking as we now know it but in sugar-paper albums and mostly on holidays in the UK. I think it was Mum and Dad's couple of hours of peace and quite from me each night while I stuck down everything that I had collected throughout the day. In my earlier albums, Mum has actually done some of the writing for me as I was obviously too young to write in them.

I have cupboards full of these albums, which I couldn't bear to throw away. Most of them are full of old car park tickets (priced at 10p for the day!), mouldy looking flowers that I had picked and 'pressed' and of course the odd souvenir brochure from some day trip or another.

They are little time capsules from a life that I can't really remember and I suppose they are scrapbooking in its rawest state. They offer memories of places I visited and things I did that my own memory cannot recall. Maybe they are not the most gorgeous albums to look through and while I hope my presentation skills have improved since I was four they are so much fun to look through.

Now scrapbooking has taken off as a bonefide craft in the UK, I wonder if this innocent way of scrapbooking will get lost along the way....
I hope not.

This layout was created by me at the age of 4 years in 1971.

Welcome To My Blog!

Today I decided to create a blog. I've started a journey that is one of the most alien to me yet! And I think it could be a bit of a battle to make my way through the techie-speak world of blogs to create my own little Blog-oasis.
Still, you can only get anywhere in this world by facing challenges head on!