Total Papercrafts April kit 2 sample layout

The single page kit for April features 7gypsies papers together with a brown inkpad and a palette knife. Why a palette knife I hear you ask?? Well the reason is we're including a recipe to make your own texture paste!
Just lately it seems like everyone is adding texture pastes, gesso or other art mediums to their layouts. We took the hint and decided to create a layout with a touch of texture. The great thing is you'll never have to buy texture mediums, after you've tried this recipe you'll be set for life! If you're not into messy stuff on your layouts then the design will work just as well without it - you could use the ink pad and a stencil instead!
The kit includes; Cardstock, 4 sheets of double sided patterned paper, ink pad, palette knife and full step by step instructions.
The sample uses a 7" x 5" landscape photo and a 3" x 4" portrait photo. I added a few cream paper flowers and some leaves but you can very easily punch or cut these from the card in the kit.
This is a great kit for every day photos, you could add more smaller pictures or opt for a single larger shot. It's a very adaptable kit in shades of off-white, blue and red.

Bonus design by Pat

Our club organisers are such a talented group of individuals and I love seeing what they produce with their kits. Even if they decide to use the sample design, they usually rustle up something extra from the leftovers. I think the ideas for leftovers are great so I really want to share them with you!!
Pat Couder runs the Bromley club and has a fab eye for design. She posted these two layouts into her blog today using the March double page kit I hope the layout from the scraps gives you a few ideas!!

Win free stuff!!

Fancy winning a pair of earrings by House of Wonderland? Tess has very kindly sent me a pair of 'Love Heart' earrings to give away to one of my customers and so I thought we'd have a bit of fun.
To be in with a chance of winning these (which could make great embellishments too!) all you need to do is post a picture of one of your Total Papercrafts kit layouts or projects on our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/totalpapercraft

You can post any kit layout you have created or even a project you've completed using one of our kits. The closing date for posting your layouts is midnight on 30/4/13 and the more layouts you post, the more entries you will have!!

Good luck!!

Bonus designs by Jackie

Our Essex club organiser, Jackie da Silva, has created two great layouts using our kit 1 for April. If you want to create both of these designs you'll need to add an additional sheet of cardstock. It's great to see some alternative options using our kit!

Just for your info, following our move the only Internet access we have right now is via our phones. This means that accessing emails, orders and most other things are proving almost impossible. We have our installation booked for next week but in the meantime please bear with us!

Total Papercrafts kit 1 for April

Our double page kit for April features papers and wooden flourishes from Kaisercraft. I love the gorgeous soft minty green and black colour combo of these papers and the vintage style prints are absolutely up my street!
The sample design uses two 6" x 4" portrait photos - for some reason my photos were bleached out when I took a photo of the finished page. I have no idea why because in real life they are strong images but I think you get the idea from this picture. I added some white paper flowers and leaves to the kit but they aren't essential as you could make flowers from the leftover paper from the kit. I also used a scallop edge punch but don't worry if you don't have one, any punch would do.

The kit includes; Cardstock, 4 sheets of double sided patterned paper, a pack of wooden leaf flourishes, piece of plastic mesh.

We have a fun technique in this kit using mesh as a stencil to create a great patterned background.

Keep an eye out tomorrow for a fab alternate design using exactly the same kit!

Bonus idea from scraps!

Tracey from the Sawbridgeworth club is very creative and always comes up with fab ideas. After making up her sample page with the March kit 2, she started playing with the leftovers and came up with this gorgeous project....
She used one of the new Prima doll stamps and the Prima Lyric papers in our kit to create a gorgeous tag. How stunning would this look added to a card or attached to a special gift?
I love seeing the great stuff created with the leftovers from our kits and sharing the ideas here. If you would like your ideas featured on our blog then please get in touch with a pic and we will share it with the world!!

On the move!

Things have been quiet here in the blog because we are dealing with one of life's big challenges - moving house! This time last year moving was the last thing on our mind, this house was supposed to be our 'forever house' and like many people we said "never again!" as soon as we'd recovered from moving in! Oh how things have changed!!
So we now find ourselves packing our lives and the shop stock into dozens of boxes in advance of a move to Cornwall. We are down sizing so there have been lots of difficult decisions to make regarding our 'stuff' but we are just about there I think. It's been mentally and physically exhausting but there's now a strange echo in the house which means we're nearly done!
So what impact will this have on Total Papercrafts and the kits? In the immediate short term it means that general shop orders won't be shipped for 3-4 weeks. Kits were a bit delayed recently but that has been down to shipping issues from our suppliers to us (more stress I could do without but hey ho!!). The kit subscription will continue as normal, the only difference you may notice is the postmark on your package! Obviously I will not longer be able to teach classes in Kent and Essex but there are things in the pipeline for both clubs. The Essex club is now being run by Jackie da Silva and things are in motion for the Kent group. Evening Masterclasses have now finished but I am still able to teach at weekends. The plan will be to start clubs in and around Cornwall, I love teaching and am already missing it badly!
In the meantime I'm planning something new and exciting which will mean I can still teach but won't need to physically be there. This class will have a kit to go with it which will be available to purchase ahead of time so you can create along with me in real time. You'll need to keep an eye out here for the announcement of when the kits are up on the website to purchase and the date & time of the class. I'm thinking an afternoon at a weekend would be nice, what do you think?
I think that's all my news for now, keep your fingers crossed for us that the move goes ok and I'll catch up with you again when I'm in Pastyland!!!

My Prima Place

Do you know that Prima, the gurus of all things flowery and gorgeous, publish a regular online magazine? This fabulous mag is available to read on your computer or you could choose to print it off if you prefer the feel of paper. I am always blown away by the stunning designs they include and many come with step by step instructions so that you can create something similar at home. What's even better is that this is completely free of charge!! If you'd like to see what I'm talking about you can check it out by clicking on this link -

http://issuu.com/prima-flowers/docs/mppv7?mode=mobile

Total Papercrafts kit 2 for March

Here we go with our second kit for March (after a little wait for the supplies to arrive!) using the Prima Lyric paper line. These papers are crammed full with amazing designs to cut out and layer over one another! Those of you who have known me for a while will know just how much I love fussy cutting out images from paper!!
This kit comes with a gorgeous bottle of spray colour which we use simply to add colour to the base paper. My original idea was to create some paper flowers and spray those too but by the time I'd finished my design I didn't feel this page needed them. If you are a fan of flowers then you have the option to create them , spray them and layer them onto your page!
These papers are full of images of tickets, flowers, lace, chandeliers and much more! The designs work really well with vintage photos and equally well with modern snapshots. The sample design uses a single 6" x 4" landscape photo.
The kit contains; Cardstock, 4 sheets of double sided patterned paper, bottle of colour spray, length of cotton tape.
I have the feeling that this will be a very popular kit so be sure to let your club organiser know that you want this one if you're not a subscriber!