CRAFTY INDIVIDUALS OCTOBER CHALLENGE STARTS TODAY

It is already October, although you wouldn't think so here in England - it is hot, hot, hot!  We had a lovely early Spring - no Summer to speak of - and now an 'Indian' Summer.  Well that is England for you - always unpredictable!

Being the first day of October it is time to give you all the subject matter for this month's challenge.  This has been carefully chosen for us by Ginger, and is 'Winged Things', which should give you plenty of scope for your designs.  Ginger will also be judging the entries at closing time, and picking the five 'winners', who will be asked to pick a rubber stamp of their choice as a prize.

Please note:  As this is a 'Crafty Individuals' Challenge you must include at least one CI product in your project.

You can submit your challenge entries up until midnight on 25th October - so please join in if you possibly can, and help make our challenges a great inspirational success.

The usual info and details you need are pasted below:

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CHALLENGE GUIDELINES

To enter this month’s Crafty Individuals Challenge please put together your project, following the subject material outlined below (your project should include at least one Crafty Individuals product please), then:

Post your challenge project on your blog, by the 25^th of the month, and include a link back to this blog,

Leave a link in the URL box to take us directly to your challenge project, etc. – which will then appear here on this blog as a thumbnail image – so we can all see your wonderful work.

At the end of the month the CI team and/or guests will set about choosing five lucky participants, each of whom will win a CI rubber stamp of their choice.

Go for it and enjoy the challenge x

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And now I am delighted to be able to show you some of the 'team's' lovely creations on the theme of 'Winged Things' to get you started in the creative process......

First of all here is a lovely little bird box from Ginger herself - beautifully stamped and very yummy!

From myself a little heart hanging using some of our newest products - more on those in a blog posting tomorrow I am hoping (fingers crossed) -

With a couple of close-ups -

Now we have a hanging made by lovely Lynne (Adorn) who I am absolutely delighted to say is joining the CI 'Team'.  Lynne has been working with our products for a long time now, and with her super feminine touch makes some adorable projects.  Here is her first 'official' 'team' piece .....

Again Lynne has used some of our latest items.

I am also delighted to show you some crafting tonight by Sue.  Sue has been completely tied up with family stuff and moving house recently, but has managed to find some quality crafting time to help out with this month's challenge inspiration.  Here are a couple of her gorgeous projects, with another to follow later:

And ...

Thanks Sue!

And Helen has come up trumps again with a stunning, colourful bracelet on the 'Winged Things' theme:

Do check out her blog for futher info.

Finally for this evening I will give you the clever 'spooky' winged things creation from Lucy  which of course is very appropriate for this month as Halloween is almost upon us!! 

Hope you enjoyed tonight's display.  We look forward to seeing what you can do with the 'Winged Things' theme.

Bath time now for me - goodnight all.

Jean x

FIVE FABULOUS WINNING PROJECTS ......

I'm delighted to say that Lucy has been kind enough to pick five fabulous winners of the Crafty Individuals September Challenge.  There were 25 lovely entries, and she has had a hard choice to make, and you will see why if you check out the Challenge page.  In her own words -  'It was such a joy to look at all the beautiful eye candy you submitted for this month’s challenge. Thank you so much!  It was a hard decision to choose five winners as I loved them all, so I decided to pick the ones which I felt were a little bit different in the way they used Crafty Individuals’ products to embrace the Hanging Around theme.'

So without further ado the winning entries are:

This amazing and beautifully made bracelet by ALISON - an absolute delight by a lovely lady -

A very pretty in pink pearly canvas (plus mini canvas) by SUE - so very feminine don't you think?

A cleverly put together trio of altered beermats by a favourite lady of ours SIOBHAN

A beautifully heart shaped hanging by the very talented PAULA

And to finish off the five a unique ice skate shaped hanging made from recycled materials by clever FLORENCE

A lovely display of work everyone, and as usual if your project has been picked as a winner please email us at info@craftyindividuals.co.uk to claim your prize rubber stamp.

Thanks to all who entered this month, and it is only a couple of days until the start of the new challenge for October, and it would be just great if you would join in and help make the display of work so inspiring and delicious again.

Jean x

A BUSY WEEK IN SEPTEMBER.....

I've been wanting to blog all week, but it just hasn't happened.  My sons have safely returned from a 10 day holiday with my brother in Los Angeles (as previously mentioned), and then its been a mad dash to get them ready for beginning of a new year at Uni.  Well (thank goodness) tonight I'm in on my own and can put a little quality blogging time in (funny how you get hooked on blogging - I would have never believed it possible just last year).

So this evening I have several beautiful projects to show you as follows:

I recently spotted some great stuff on Ephemera's Attic blog, using a variety of Crafty Individuals' products as the main images.

All quite different to each other and very yummy!

Then I fell in love with this card that Joanne Wardle made with our sewing elements stamp CI-328 plus words from CI-277 - so simple and so inventive:

Also lovely Isabelle has sent over a couple of images that I can show you.  The first one is a canvas, which is just gorgeous ...

And the second is a calendar made with one of our Portrait Style Tags:

And I liked this idea soooo much I just had to make one myself:

A little bit OTT perhaps?!, but that is how I am feeling at the moment - being in a very pretty, girly, flowery, kind of a crafting mood, and using coloured sprays to dye everything in sight too.  I am also in the mood for making little gifts, with Christmas in mind, and this idea fitted the bill perfectly (with more ideas to come).  So why don't you join me in preparing for a 'home made' Christmas this year - and let me know how you get on with your present making plans.

And here is a close-up:

Thanks for the fabby idea Isabelle!

Finally do check out the lovely entries so far in our September 'Hanging About' Challenge.  If you haven't got too much on this weekend you might just have time to get an entry together, with the chance of winning a CI stamp of your choice.  There are just over 2 days to go from now to link in your entry, so why not give it a go, we would love to see your project up there!

Bye for now,

Jean x

CLOSELY FOLLOWED BY ANOTHER 'FOCUS ON'....

So pleased that you are enjoying seeing some of the fabulous crafting work done by some of the amazing crafters out there who like to work with our products, and tonight I would like to show you a little more!  I have long admired the beautiful creations of lovely Lynne (ADORN), and with her kind permission I am going to show you just a few of them here (well quite a lot actually!):

Enjoy!

(Incorporating stamp CI-306 as the main image)

(making great use of our seaside stamp CI-272 and our seaside background book)

(oblong pendant and an image from our domino sheet)

(utilizing the back of a canvas Lynne has used stamps CI-324, CI-325, CI-278, CI-239, and CI-307 to create this little beauty)

(with stamp CI-065 featured, amongst others)

(again making great use of our seaside background book)

And finally 5 pretty little beauties:

(a combination of images from our Nostalgia 2 Glossy, and our Tag Glossy, plus several stamps)

I love them all - what say you?  Do check out Lynne's blog - ADORN

Jean x

p.s.  By the way folks the birdcage charms are now back in stock and you will find them HERE - we had a charm 'meltdown' when we released these, and sold out straight away - so get them whilst they are still HOT! 

BONNIE SCOTLAND PHOTO CHALLENGE WINNER, AND A 'FOCUS ON ....'

Thanks to all who rose to the 'where was this photograph taken' challenge in my last post, and many thanks too for all the lovely comments left - what nice people you are!  Malcolm is sooo pleased you are liking his piccie too.

We are giving two little packages of CI goodies away to the first two correct answers, that came in very quickly (if I didn't know already I wouldn't have had a clue where the scene was taken - so well done all!).  The first came in as a comment from a lady called Elizabeth, and the second quickly followed from Freda in an email. Please email us with your address Elizabeth so that we can post off your goodies asap!

Also tonight I want to do a little 'Focus On' feature on the craft work of a lovely lady in Scotland -  Siobhan, who I met a couple of years ago, and who is a fabulous stamper.  Thanks for sharing Siobhan.

Firstly couldn't resist this (part of her current CI CHALLENGE entry - beer mat hanging):

Siobhan used CI-225 to decorate this section of her hanging.

Followed by another five of her fab projects......

Lovely!  Check out more of Siobhan's great craftwork HERE, and the CRAFTY INDIVIDUALS website for the stamps used in her projects.

Now I had better get on with designing some more stuff for us all -
Bye for now,

Jean x

JUST A COUPLE OF THINGS, A SNEAKY PEAK, AND A FEW LITTLE GIVEAWAYS ....

Tonight I have a couple of little projects of mine to share with you, a sneaky tease peak, some giveaways, and a little challenge.  Things have been very busy for us at Crafty Individuals this year -  we usually have a bit of a slow down in the middle of summer - but not this year, which is fantastic of course, but it also means I don't get as much time to craft and design.  Most designing gets done in the middle of the night, or the early hours of the morning these days, and my boys (aged 18 & 20) even say to me 'isn't it about time you went to bed?!', as they pass me still on the computer on their way to bed after coming in from a nightclub.  Anyway this tends to mean that my crafting projects at the moment are often quickies.

The first item is a tag I made using distress stains and stamp CI-271 from the Elements Collection.  I added some vintage lace I picked up in a 'collectables' shop, some flowers and scrim, an earring, bits of ribbon and topped it all off with an image from our Secret Garden 2 glossy sheet.  I did a little machine sewing around the image, which I really like, when I can be bothered to get out the machine that is.

The second item is a little round frame (and you know how much I like these!) from Tando, that I started decorating at The Craft Barn demo day a few weeks ago using stamp CI-325 and some of our background papers, plus to follow - a piccie of some of the lovely ladies who joined us on the day!

Now I want to give you a sneaky peak at a few of the pages of a new CI background book, that is currently at our printer's being made up.  I just can't wait to see this finished as it was a long time in the making (partly due to that lack of time I have to design these days) and its our favourite book so far.  Called 'Shades of Summer' it features vintage inspired flowers, birds and birdcages, in pretty pastel colours, and also has the bonus of a few more pages inside than the existing background books do too.  Hopefully it will be ready to launch along with the next batch of new stamps in a few weeks time, so watch this space!

At this point I would like to present a few giveaways (we do like to give things away, here at Crafty Individuals!), and I thought it would be nice to give a little something occasionally to some of my lovely followers, as I don't get a chance to thank you all personally.  So tonight I thought I would give a little surprise gift to my very first follower - apwilkinson2001, my most recent follower to date - Carol, and a follower from somewhere in the middle - Butterflies.  So if you are mentioned here please email us at info@craftyindividuals.co.uk to claim your little prize package of CI products.  I will be doing this again on a different basis from time to time so do keep an eye out if you are a follower, just in case your name is mentioned in the future.

To finish off tonight I have a little challenge for you set by Malcolm.  If you read this blog regularly you may have noticed that Malcolm had a week's visit up in the far reaches of Scotland recently, when he attended a photography workshop with Bruce Percy.  One of the photographs he took is displayed below, and Malcolm would like you to take a guess as to where this photo might have been taken.  To give you a clue - it was on an island, so get those maps out!

If you would like to take a guess please send your answer in an email to us, again at info@craftyindividuals.co.uk, and the first correct answer will received a package of CI goodies.  So go on, give it a go, it is open to all and really you have nothing to loose do you?!

I do like that image - very restful and serene!

Jean x