Did You See Where It Went, Because I Missed it!

Last week that is.........  

It started late Sunday night and by Monday of last week when I was scheduled to be in the store so Linda and family could have an extended weekend, I wasn't sure if I would make it through the day!  

It's been a long time since I felt like I did last week, but in saying that, I had two ministering angels taking great care of me.

One came in the form of Janet who works next door at the restaurant, and whom I've known from being a small child. She was in the store as a customer Monday morning, saw I wasn't up to par and all day ministered to me. Bringing me hot lemon and honey tea, medication, minestrone soup for lunch and checking again before she headed home for the day to make sure I was still functioning.  

She didn't stop there though..........

When I did finally make it back into the store for a prolonged period of time, (more than an hour), she brought me a lovely bunch of flowers...now how nice a person is that? She says she's got me fooled when I tell her how nice she is, but she's fooling herself if she doesn't believe it.

My other ministering angel....well of course Linda who kept sending me home when I tried to be at work, but she saw I was low functioning with the headaches and fever.   Yes and of course the third one in the body of my husband who made sure that I was eating and drinking when I just didn't feel up to it.  

So how was your week?

Did you check out the specials that we've been posting on Facebook?  A number of customers have taken advantage of them already.  We will be offering different items through the month of March for National Crafting Month, so keep an eye open for them.  

Who knows, we may hit on exactly the right product for you!

I also take advantage of posting extra things on Facebook instead of sending out an extra newsletter or posting another blog, so make sure you "friend" us to be able to see what's going on through the week at the store.  

There's a list of supplies there for this week's card makers at the Spring All Day Card Class.  Did you see it if you're a participant?  I'll list it here as well, but that's a great place to catch other postings so keep an eye out.  Linda did explain recently in a newsletter how Facebook have changed some things for businesses so that you must make sure you "friend" us in order not to miss a feed.

Here's what she found out about that and mentioned in a newsletter.......

You may not be aware that recently Facebook made some changes to your newsfeed.  Now you will receive fewer updates from businesses - which means our Facebook page!   To make sure you are seeing all of our posts, Click HERE to go to our Facebook Page.  Next, login then hover your cursor over the word 'Liked' and click on the 'Get Notifications' text.

So speaking of the Spring All Day Card Class, did you call the store to register for the new date?  

If you missed out on the first class and still want to participate, we've opened a second class on Saturday, April 5th.  

Don't be slow out of the starting gate and miss that date too.

Here's the list of supplies for the All Day Card Class on Saturday.

Black water based Ink: 

Cats Eye Chalk Inks in the following colours....

Dark Moss or Green, Chestnut Roan, Dark Peony, Prussian Blue: 

White Signo Pen: 

Fine Black MarkerPen(Micron): 

Black Identipen: 

Black Permapaque Pen: 

Distressing Tool: 

Tim Holtz Piercing Ruler and Piercing Tool: 

Sandpaper.

We have another Technique class coming up on Thursday of this week and now I realise I didn't show you what we did in the last class.  

Linda always posts the cards in the newsletter and gives you a glossary of what we have done, but I like to post them here too in case you want to reference back to the samples.

The Technique class is an opportunity for just that, to learn a new, or expand on an old technique.  We are naturally able to teach more effectively in smaller groups at a class setting such as this, rather than at a class where we are hosting 20 people as we do on an All Day Card Class.

At times the techniques may be simply building on what you already know, or using a particular tool or ink differently, but whatever we show the ladies someone always goes away from the evening saying "I didn't know that".  

Why don't you treat yourself to a night out of creative learning every other week.  It's only $20.00 for a class and you go away with three cards and envelopes and guaranteed laughter throughout.  

All the techniques that we show you can be used on your scrapbook pages as easily as on a card. Remember a card is simply a small version of a scrapbook page.

 In these cards, we played with our ever favourite distress inks.  

Changing white cardstock to be pink and white, by inking the inside of an embossing folder.  Or with the help of a large background stamp, to be two shades of yellow and white as a tag or butterfly on a card.  

We so often prettily colour in the stamped image on a card.  Perhaps using pencil crayons, markers, distress inks as paint.  This time it was fun to simply brush some random strokes of distress ink in the approximate placement of the leaves and flowers of this image, creating a more abstract art look.

Stretching a Spellbinders folder was another technique used on the yellow card, to give the look of a large scalloped mat behind the image, when it was simply a small piece of cardstock top and bottom.  The same technique was used on the bracket stamp giving it a much wider look than the stamp actually was.

Have you ever wondered what we do at a Friday Night Crop and Craft Night from 7 p.m until midnight? 

Well Jane mentioned on Facebook how much she learned last Friday night as both Linda and I took turns sitting with her and helping her to learn a Photo Editing Program.  No we didn't take turns because she's hard to get along with, or because she was slow to learn!!!  We took turns because we both know different ways of making this program do what we want from it and therefore were more likely to pass more on to Jane in this manner.  

By learning this program Jane learned the potential it has to help her plan and be more productive at the Mega Crop Weekend she is registered for in April. She chose the map that she wants to follow and therefore knows already what sizes to print her photos.  

She's formatted the photos to fit her plan ready to send for printing and even discovered it was easy to see how a large photo could be shrunk down to keep all the content, though printed smaller.  However if she did want to crop a photo, she could easily choose where to place the cutting tool to maximize the look she wanted.  

Along with printing the photos she wants to scrapbook, she is also printing a photo of her plan with her photos embedded into the plan so that she can easily follow it on the weekend.  

Jane was a tired but happy camper by the end of the evening.

Here's a layout I had saved on my PC that you may find interesting.  It was a Basic Grey layout at some point in time. A very simple and quick layout to complete, with some strip journaling on the right side.  Don't forget when you see flower embellishments, if you're not a flowery person then put in an embellishment of your choice instead.

I found some great embroidery patterns this week, despite the fact that I wasn't on my PC much.  I hardly contacted anyone in fact, so unlike me only answering those who emailed me, but I did find some lucid times to browse a bit. 

With Spring beginning in a few short days I thought these quick little cross stitch patterns would help to herald it in.
       





 This artist has generously shared both the stitching and colour chart on her blog for your personal use here and here.


Don't forget also that we carry not only the Aida cloth to work these on, but a full range of DMC embroidery floss, including their newest colours.

If you already have a selection of Embroidery floss, do you need to organise it onto bobbin winders?
We have both plastic and cardboard in the store and it makes for a much easier and tidier way of storing your floss.

If you are one of the lucky owners of a Silhouette Cutting Machine, be it a Cameo or Portrait, have you taken advantage of any of the "Dingbat Fonts" that are free to use on the web?

There are so many of them available and by typing a letter that your machine will recognise as a letter, but the dingbat font will translate to a shape, you have a vast number of "free" cutting files available to you.

Here's one that I've downloaded in the past for my personal use. It offers you all kinds of shapes and swirls that you can cut easily.  Just make sure that you print out the Key so that you know which letter prints out which shape when you go to use it. This is from Dafont.com and there's a whole section of dingbat fonts to choose from, so take a few minutes to browse and see if there's anything else there that interest you.


And now the words for the week. One of the things Linda and I hear often is that ...no I don't have time to scrapbook/craft/jewelry make.  I work full time and have children and a home to run, etc.etc.
We think that's so sad, as to us creativity is part of our everyday life and no matter what, we find a little time for it.
Yes I know, I'm at one end of life's spectrum and Linda's at another and yet, both of us make sure to fit it into our daily lives.

In saying that, so does Linda's husband Randy. He's a keen photographer, attending a photography club to help him grow his skills.  Last night when they were here for dinner, he looked out of our dining room window at what to us was a garden full of snow, but he saw the shadows of the tree trunks lying on the top of that snow.

What time is it, was his question.  It was 5:35 p.m.  Okay he said, I'll be here tomorrow night at this time to take some photos of those shadows, they're kind of neat.  Yes he was here, in the bush, up to his knees in snow with his camera on his tripod taking photos.   He's thinking these photos will suit the topic for this month at his photo club.





We all lead such busy lives, so why is it that we don't find time more often to do things that please us?   I think these words are very appropriate because of that.






Until Later....Happy Crafting,

Lilian