2 more classes now open for booking - and going fast!

The next two classes for the November crop went up this morning and are already going fast. The first is a 16" x 20" canvas class using the new BasicGrey Figgy Pudding papers and alphabet stickers together with some fab 9" MDF letters (I know my Dad will shudder at the thought of anyne using MDF - he's a real wood kinda guy!! LOL!). I was pleasantly surprised at the Figgy Pudding papers, they are double sided which is a first for BG and I like at least one side of all of them which is a first for me!! As its a Christmas canvas I'm not sure where mine will get to hang this year - I'm hoping it'll be the new house but who knows??

The second class is from 7gypsies and is a LO using the Hudson Valley line. I thought that these papers had more than a hint of Anna Griffin to them and would make a lovely change of pace. I'm going to have to dig through my heritage photos to find something that will do them justice!

I'm away for the next week as I have my examiner's hat on - I'm not sure if there's internet access where I'm staying but I'm taking the laptop anyway. I've stocked up on a couple of good books so at the very least I'll get some reading done but I'd rather be getting on with some work! If there's access I'll be back during the week - otherwise I'll catch up next weekend! Karen :o)

New class now booking!

The third class for our crop next month is now available to book through the shop - this one is a bit different, its a calendar book! I found this class when we were at Memory Trends and loved the sample that was at the show, its part diary, part year planner, part birthday book, part journal, part album - in fact its part-anything-you-want-to-use-it-for!! As the crop is a month before Christmas I thought it would make an ideal gift as well, but I don't want to let mine go!

For those of you who can't make it to the crop I have a class on the shop just for you - you can now order the Scribble Scrabble kit from our last crop and take the class at home (or wherever you want to!). With cardstock, 6 sheets of double-sided patterned paper, 12x12 sheet of die-cut alphabet and 6x12 sheet of die-cut shapes, this kit is great value plus you get the instructions for the class project as well.

You can find both these fab classes at www.totalpapercrafts.co.uk

New class up tomorrow

Things are hotting up here in preparation for the Total Papercrafts crop on 24th November - the first two classes I released last week have sold out! The third class will go on sale tomorrow evening at 7pm and its another fab one plus you'll be taught by Mandy Webb - ticks all the boxes as far as I'm concerned :o)

The class is a gorgeous calendar book that you can use as a diary, birthday book, journal or whatever you want (plus its perfect for a Christmas gift!). Every page is decorated so you'll come away with a stunning finished result. With patterned papers, cardstock, book and ribbons in the kit, you will have a blast creating this lovely project - and a laugh with the ever bubbly Mandy!!

I continue to be surprised at how quickly the classes sell out, so be sure to grab your place quickly! You'll find the classes at www.totalpapercrafts.co.uk

Karen :o)

Class for club tomorrow

With only a week between my two club meetings this month I've been a bit pushed for time to get everything done but I've managed to get the page together for tomorrow! The kit we are using is from Making Memories and is travel themed - perfect for any of those holiday snaps or the pics you take but never seem to get around to getting onto a scrapbook page.

There is so much in the kit you will definitely have enough to make a double page layout - you could just make a mirror image of this page for the second one if you get stuck. I have one each of the three patterned papers left after making this page so there really is masses to play with.

I added some ribbon, a flower, a metal rimmed tag, monogram letters and a glass map pebble to my page but the letters can be cut with a die-cutting system and most of us still have some of those metal rimmed tags knocking around in our stash from years ago! I want to encourage you to go through your stash and actually use some of it - I have stuff I haven't touched for years (mainly because I don't seem to get the time to design anything except class projects just lately!). So while we're on the subject of stuff you've had for ages - what scrapbook supplies have you had for the longest without using them? (Mine is a load of Making Memories metal plaques - and I mean a LOAD!! LOL!).

See you at club tomorrow if you're joining us!

Teaser for club next week

True to my usual ditzy form - I forgot to take next week's kit along to club last night so I thought the easiest thing to do was to just pop a pic of it on here. The kit is travel themed with products by Making Memories and includes cardstock, 6 sheets of patterned paper, 144 postage stamp alphabet stickers, 112 wordfetti stickers, 13 chipboard stickers and 10 ephemera stickers. Its a kit stuffed full of goodies so be sure to reserve yours asap with Pauline.

I'm getting stuck into a stock take at the moment so the shop site looks a bit naked but I'm going as fast as I can to get everything back up on there - and some of it is going into the sale at crazy prices! I just can't bear the thought of moving with it all so we need to trim back now and then I can buy some lovely new stuff to take its place!!

The new CK, Simple Scrapbooks and Papercrafts magazines arrived this morning and have gone straight onto the shop (they are about all that is on there right now!) so feel free to stop them feeling lonely and offer them a new home. LOL :o)

Club LO for this week

Apologies for the delay in getting this designed for club this week but I'm juggling a million things at the moment including driving over to Essex from Kent to go house hunting after accepting an offer on ours! Its exciting to go shopping for a new house but when its the other side of the river, everything takes so much longer. Keep your fingers crossed for me as we have put in an offer on a place today!

This week we use Hambly overlays and black & white patterned papers for a dramatic monochrome page. The kit includes 2 grey cardstock, 1 black and 1 white cardstock, 2 patterned papers, ribbon and a flower. I added a BasicGrey label holder and some brads to create this page with a masculine edge - no flower used on mine! I'll print off the template for the scroll border for everyone as it is so late in the day - I can't expect you to print it yourself in time for club. My photo is 7.5" x 5.5" but there are a number of different sizes of frames on the overlay sheet so you can use more than one photo or a different size as you prefer.

Take care, Karen :o)

What a crop!

Wow - what a day we had on Saturday! First of all I just want to thank you all for coming along because without you there wouldn't have been a crop. Despite being in the classroom all the time I at least I got to see everyone, next time we have the fabbo Mandy Webb back with us teaching so you'll get a break from me!! The energy and enthusiasm of everyone was what kept me going after only 2 hours sleep (plus a few cans of Red Bull!!) so thank you once again - we get such lovely people at our crops!

I also want to thank my parents, Dad for keeping everyone supplied with tea, coffee and cake and Mum for running errands and spending time with everyone in the cropping room. A HUGE thank you to Pauline for running the shop for me (because I couldn't be in two places at one time!) I've never run things as smoothly or as accurately as you did all day, consider yourself booked for next time if you're free! I also want to thank Dave for putting up with a house full of boxes for the past week and for then shipping them out to the crop and back again at the end of the day. And last of all thank you to our boys for being so incredibly well-behaved, I forgot they were even there!

Anyway - Oscar speech over!! Ready to do it all over again? Our next crop is November 24th and we have only one or two places left if you would like to join us, you can book online through the shop (link is on the right of here). I'm going to start releasing the first of the classes this week, probably Friday evening so be sure to get yourself booked on quickly so you can grab yourself some amazing classes.

As I didn't get to spend much time just chatting with everyone during the crop I thought I'd ask those of you who were there on Saturday for feedback - what did we do well and what could we improve on for next time? I've already thought of a couple of improvements, like having squash available for those who don't drink tea or coffee (or are sick of it after 12 hours!) and having a full hour set side for lunch so we can all stop and take a rest but I'd really like to know your thoughts. If you weren't with us at the weekend, I'm still really interested to know what do you look for in a good crop and what really irritates you?

Take care, Karen (with achey feet and sore back!! LOL!)

Timetable for Saturday

After a couple of calls this afternoon I thought it might help if I post a schedule for the classes on Saturday so you'll know what you're doing and when. So here goes.....

9am Crop is open

10am 7gypsies Beach Book class

11.30am Junkitz Fanciful class

1pm Daisy Ds album class

2.30pm Scribble Scrabble class

4pm Making Memories Funky Vintage class

5.30pm BasicGrey Mellow class

7pm Frances Meyer Egypt class

9pm Crop is over!

At some point you'll need to have lunch and dinner but when depends on your individual class schedule. You can bring along something to cook in the oven or microwave if you want something warm to eat - or we have the use of the fridge for sarnies etc. We have loads of cake (chocolate fudge and carrot cake) and endless teas and coffees to keep you going throughout the day.

Crop address

I know that quite a few people are travelling a distance to join us for the crop on Sturday so I thought it would be a good idea to post the full address of the venue for you.

Here goes.....

Meopham Village Hall, Wrotham Rd, Meopham, Kent, DA13 0AT

Its easy to drive straight past it as it is very close to the road but not that well signposted - its within 50m of Meopham Secondary school so if you can get yourself there you are in the right area. Just make sure you drive nice and slowly and you'll see us!!

Two peeks this time!

I realised today that I wouldn't have enough days to have peeks every day and still leave time for getting photos ready for those who are coming to the crop so I've put 2 up!! The first is the peek of the page for the 'Egypt' class - like I said, no pyramids and the like, just lovely watery blues and greens with some black and white. I've gone for a masculine page for this one as we've had a few girlie ones and the boys needed a bit of a look-in!

I used a 6" x 4" portrait photo and two small 3" x 2" portrait photos for this page but it would work just as well with a single large landscape pic if you prefer. You'll need some 3d foam pads and a little scrap of sandpaper for the class but not a lot else outside of your normal tools.

The second peek is of the Making Memories Funky Vintage class - this was a kit that everyone I showed thought would be very hard to use together but funnily enough I had a blast using it. I used pics of the fab hotel suite we had in Vegas but the page is really versatile and would work with loads of different themes - just grab one 7" x 5" landscape and two smaller portrait photos (not essential if you can't find any!) and you'll have a smashing page!

If you have a creamy brown inkpad then bring it along with you but you won't need much else.

Tomorrow I'll give you a peek at the Daisy Ds album class and that'll be your lot!

Junkitz Fanciful class peek

This is another of my favourites out of the classes for the crop this weekend - the Junkitz Fanciful class. The kit is stuffed full of goodies and I was hard pressed to fit in something of everything that is in there! You'll definately have enough over to make another page out of this one.

I used one 6" x 4" landscape photo and three 3" x 2" portrait ones which I printed in sepia as the papers are in creams/pinks/greens and blues and I couldn't find anything where we all had those colours on! You might want to pop a creamy brown chalk inkpad into your toolkit for this class but thats about all you'll need (don't panic to find one as I'll have them in the shop!).

Drop by tomorrow for a peek at the Funky Vintage page......

Scribble Scrabble class peek

Here's the next peek at what we'll be up to on Saturday - the Scribble Scrabble class. I love doing girlie pages and this class is definately one for the girls! The papers and embellishments are all shades of pinks, burgundies and a punch of complimentary green and I just had to use some photos of Melissa with them as she's such a girlie girl!

As far a photos go, you'll need a couple of 6x4 portrait pics - I chose a standard size this time as I know I sometimes go a bit 'off-piste' as far as the sort of photos I design with. Hopefully this should make it easier for you to find and choose a couple of photos to go with this class. You can alays opt for one larger photo, I just tried to get out of my comfort zone and use more because otherwise there's a danger that all my classes could end up looking the same! LOL!

If you have a pale pink chalk inkpad you might want to pop that into your toolbag together with some 3d foam pads but you won't need anything else special for this one (and even these aren't essential!).

I'm really looking forward to this weekend especially as Kathy, one of my oldest scrapbooking friends is coming down from Chester for the crop. One of the best parts of running a crop is the chance to make new friends and catch up with old ones - we immediately have something in common with this hobby and so the barriers are down right away. I spend most of the day laughing and go home with both my feet aching from standing all day and my cheeks aching from smiling :o)

Drop by tomorrow for a peek at the Junkitz Fanciful class.......

Mellow class sneak peek

Well here we go counting down the days to next Saturday and our crop! We mark each one of these countdowns with sneak peeks of the classes we'll be doing and we kick off with the BasicGrey 'Mellow' class.

I used an 8" x 8" square photo with a good strong focalpoint for this one so its definitely worth printing off a larger than normal pic before you come (or pop into the photo processing section at the supermarket and get them to do it for you!). There isn't any particular theme to this page and so it will go with a wide range of different types of photo - even a heritage one. The colours are browns, creams, greens and a dash of orange - really autumnal if you are stuck for inspiration!

You won't need any special tools for this class except perhaps a paper piercer for the brads and a brown inkpad if you have one - I used a creamy brown chalk inkpad but don't panic about getting one before you come as they will be in the shop.

Check in tomorrow for the next peek at the Scribble Scrabble class!