Silhouette UK blog - weekly challenge

Hello friends,

As a lover of all things Silhouette, I thought I'd join the new challenge over on their new blog.

The challenge was to use this weeks free design from the Silhouette store, it's a cute little mail box - perfect for Valentines day!

To make this a challenge, as it were, I decided to try and copy the decorative parts.  I've never used the 'draw freehand' feature, apart from showing the feature when ladies come for a one-to-one class here with me.  I normally glide over it quickly saying something like "if you can draw, this might be useful, but I can't so can't ever imagine ever using it"!  Well I tried it today to make the the coloured boxes and you'll notice that I really can't even draw a nice line!

I personalised my letterbox with my husbands initials on the back ;)!

I hope you like mine, here it is....

NOTE:  when I started putting this together I noticed that the card naturally bends on the weakest part, the part where the opening is, to overcome that a little, I made an extra bit to protect it, as you will notice in the picture.  I also thought it was hard to put together and feel there should be a score line under the curved section on the side bits, I think there is one on their sample which you can see above!  So if I were to make this again, I'd definitely add an extra score line and curve the main part with my bone folder to avoid the creasing at the weak point!

Now all I need is to make and post a tiny card to go in it!

I hope you join in with the challenge.

Happy Silhouetting.

Carole x

Silhouette Lessons - one to one

Hello friends,

I can't tell you how much fun I've been having recently, I've been busy teaching the Silhouette Studio software to some lovely ladies on a one to one basis and I've been teaching Parchment craft, as a stand-in tutor, after many years of not doing Parchment, so had to practice!

I'll share some of the projects we made for the Parchment class over the next few days.

Today I've been working on some Christmas projects.  I know it seems odd but I've been booked to teach a 'Christmas paper crafting projects' workshop early December and needed to do a write-up and they needed a picture of an example of what we might make.

One of my favourite things to do is to adapt my Silhouette files to make them fit my needs.  I adapted an envelope file to make the cutlery holder and the treat box file was adapted to fit my Stampin' Up rubber stamp!  Hope you like them.

Happy Silhouetting to you all.

Carole x

Silhouette Cameo cards with Minc foiling

Hello Crafty friends,

I had lots of fun making these cards using my Silhouette Cameo and my Minc foiling machine.

To be quite honest, I've had my Minc for almost a year and haven't used it much, it was away in a cupboard.....you know how it is!  Most of my cards and projects these days are Silhouette based because I still love Silhouette crafting more than any other type of crafting.  To mix things up a bit and to start as I mean to go on this year (use what the crafty supplies I have!), I took my Minc out of it's hiding place and put it to work.

I made a few of these cards.  It took me a while to come up with a plan and to make the Silhouette file so whilst the Minc was out, it seemed a good idea to make more than two!

Here are a couple of pics of the ones that I posted for January birthdays.....

I was rather pleased with how they turned out!

The next picture shows you the two pieces that I used, which I printed on our laser printer and cut out using my Silhouette Cameo.....

The birds on the branch image is from the Silhouette store and I used fonts on my computer for the words.

Wishing you all lots of Silhouette crafting time, using what you have!

Carole x

Planner stamp - Silhouette Mint

Hello Crafty Friends,

I'm back today to share with you all another stamp that I've made using my Silhouette Mint, for my 2016 planner.

Just like the last stamp I shared with you, I'm hoping to be using this one quite a bit too!

Sometimes I get carried away with crafting, designing and making pretty stuff and forget the other important stuff I have to do!  I thought I'd use this little stamp in my planner at least two or three times a week.  I could have added a border around the words, arrows and the little frog, but I guessed that would restrict the space I could use to write, so I decided to leave it without a border.  You will see from the picture above what I mean about space to write.  The stamp is a 45mm x 45mm one, which is just about the right size for my planner.

I hope this gives you a little inspiration, a different idea for stamp that is great "custom made" by me for me!

Hope you find some time to use your Silhouette machines soon.

Happy crafting.

Carole x

Silhouette Mint & Planning for a "dry" January!

Hello crafty friends,

Happy 2016!

I hope my blog finds you well and rested after the festivities of the season.

I've had an Arc planner for a couple of years now, I use it as my day to day diary and so far haven't used it to set goals etc.  It's a large one, its A4 in size and normally resides somewhere in my kitchen, open at the current week.

This year I will try and use it more wisely and decorate it like those "crafty planning/organised/goal setting kinda ladies" do!  I've always wondered how they have time to make, organise and decorate their beautiful planners and get the jobs done, we'll see if I can work it out!

Not wanting to rush in with lots of time consuming bits and bobs, like stickers and charts and various lists that I could download from the internet, I thought I'd start with a couple of Silhouette Mint stamps, easily made for myself to stamp into my planner.

Here is my first stamp, it's a special one for a little goal that I've set myself.....

.....kinda funny, isn't it!  

Here in the UK the government regularly try and scare us half to death about how many units of alcohol we should and shouldn't consume in a week.  They have a campaign running in January each year where they encourage us to have the whole month alcohol free!

One of my goals for 2016 is to try this out so I made myself a little stamp.  At the end of each day, I can give myself a little stamped reward in my planner - lets see if that works!

It's a little early yet but I couldn't resist stamping it in on todays date...

...afterall, I'm well settled with my glass of soda water with a dash of ginger & lemongrass cordial, it's refreshing, warming and perfect for this time of year.

I've got another great idea for my planner, which I will share with you when I've got a moment!

Until then, I hope you get some time to craft, plan, set some goals and get organised for a fantastic 2016!

Carole x