General Chat

I am sure it is almost worse than being ll yourself Jo. Hope the time goes quickly for him.. Does he not have any hobbies? Mine doesn't read but he flies aeroplanes on the PC.

Good morning to you all.
Sylvia, hope you are feeling better and Jo, your husband is on the mend.
Weather not been too good over here this past week so set about sorting all my lever arch files that contain my paper, card, acetate, vellum, toppers and vellum then went on to tidy two containers of ribbons and found lots I had forgotten about :)
If any of you have acetate and any acrylic paints, try stamping on acetate in stazon so it dries fast then turnover and mix colours of acrylics over the back then cover with white card. Makes lovely toppers as very reflective if silvers and golds mixed with the colours plus when all dry it can be run through the Cuttle Bug with a die and looks so pretty. I use a script stamped piece to use with the CB and the die cut flowers work well.

x Jill

sounds an interesting idea Jill. I meant to say besides a lovely card you sent, I love the book corner, it is very pretty.

I am hoping I am wrong but had one of the dreaded post office cards yesterday to go and pay just over a pound for something under stamped. Must be a card I reckon. Hope it is none of the BG. Hope we always check the weight etc.

Glad you liked it Ann :)
It must be a pain with the new postal sizes, I received a card and sender phoned to say she had put a first class on by mistake. It took three weeks to get here with a note on saying it had gone by longer route, to France??? but stamp was left unfranked so post office lost out as it will be used again :)

xx Jill

Oh dear Ann, I took mine to the post office and she said she 'thought' it was alright but it didn't drop through the slot it needed slight encouragement so I really hope it wasn't mine, if it is let me know so I can go and tell her!! Always take mine to the post office now to check before I post them. Wish it was based on size rather than depth.

Jill that sounds a very interesting way of doing acetate, as I am no good at stamping really don't think it is for me. Will have to have some lessons.

Hope you have received the email I sent out earlier today.

Weather here sun/heavy rain not sure what it wants to do.

Take care all of you
Joxx

Jo it was not you I have yours thank you. It might not even be from someone of the group, I will find out tomorrow.

Jill I sent a letter to Cyprus just before christmas, as I dropped it in the box I realised that I had stamped it with the Christmas cards and put a second class stamp on it. It actually got there in July via all sorts of European countries.

It's OK, it was a hand made card but not one from the birthday group. It should have had a large letter stamp on it. feeling it it didn't feel thick but when put to the slot it definitely wouldn't go through.

Evening ladies. Sitting in bed at the moment at my daughters house as I am looking after her 2 youngest for 3 days whilst daughter and granddaughter are at a pony show. This was arranged months before I knew OH would be having surgery. As he still cannot drive have arrange for younger daughter to pop in and make sure he is OK in the mornings. He will be fine but thought he might want some company as he cannot go out, and only go for little walks so the dog will need walking. Roll on next week when he can start driving again. Hopefully be home on Saturday.
Have left my sons half made birthday card on the dinning room table, was bringing it with me to finish off and put in the post tomorrow, looks like it will either be late, or I will have to go in the morning and buy one to send to him, cannot believe that I have left it till the last minute, but I am sure he will understand.

Hope your weather is not being too awful at the moment, the rain here when it comes is torrential with even more forecast for tomorrow, so keep safe and dry all of you.

Joxx

Will be sending out an email later regarding a member leaving the group.

Have a lovely weekend, hope it is dry where you are, was very sunny here this morning, but now is very overcast and looks like rain. Off to pick up youngest granddaughter as she is coming to stay for a few day.



Joxx

Hallo all,
Well thought it time for me to write a few lines. I still have some of the rash left on my body and it is still a bit painful, but nothing compared to what it was.
It is so cold here that we are having the central heating on in the evenings. I cannot sit in the cold.
Have been able to make some more cards today. Jill you are adventurous with your card making. I am afraid I only do the things I like doing now, perhaps when I am 100% fit I might try something new.
What a pity that we are losing another member. Let's hope that we may get a couple of new ones soon.
Our flats are going to be quite empty next week as two couples are off to Spain for a few weeks and my good neighbour is off to Hungary tomorrow for 6 weeks to her house.
Johan and I will be away from 7th-15th September.
Now I miust get down to some letter writing, have a nice weekend.
Syl xxx

Thank you for the email Jo, sorry to hear another member is leaving though x

Haven't we had some wierd weather? absolutely beautiful today, though that 'nip' is in the air, and perhaps the heating will go on again this evening too :)

I am slowly catching up with my crafting.Summertime makes it really difficult for me to sit down and get on, I'm sure we're all the same. But 'puts hand over mouth', I have made a start on my Christmas cards :)
I am only making for my crafty friends again this year and everyone else will have bought ones (though the crafty friends list is getting longer lol)

Anyway I hope you've all had a great Bank holiday & are all keeping well.

Heather x

Hi Heather, good to see you. I think we are all the same in the summer, there is so much to do outdoors that we don't have time to sit and enjoy crafting. I just manage to keep up with all the cards due in the summer months. Now we will be away for a month so can't do anything. I have sent out cards for all those due in the next four weeks, sorry they will arrive so early but better than not at all. (Jo could you copy tht bit of info to those in other places please?)

I am taking some card and a few bits to make some Christmas card toppers while I am away. I am determined I wont post anything that is raised. Sent one this week with a large stamp and was appalled that it was 51p postage. can't afford that with christmas cards.

Hi Ann,

Hope you have a great time away, a month, lovely.

I'm trying very hard not to put too much on xmas cards & keep them small, to keep postage down :(

Have a great weekend everyone xx

Evening ladies hope you all had a lovely weekend. Weather here a little mixed sun, rain, wind still at least we don't have the floods they have in Victoria Aus. Autumn really feels like it has arrived already.

Ann will post for you on the other side. Have a lovely month away.


I see that quite a few of you have already started your Christmas cards, I will sort out the Christmas groups in the next week. I agree about not making cards too thick , very expensive if you have to put large stamps on them all. Will have to have a rethink on what I am going to make as the ones I started are too thick for a small stamp.



Tomorrow I have my granddaughters new curtains to make so will be busy but yet again not card making..


Take care everyone

Jo xx.

Morning all,

Hope everyone is keeping well & warm.Seems to be getting quite chilly now, the heating is on a couple of times a day, to take the chill off brrr.
Although it was very warm on the east coast last weekend (popped to Skegness for the day), I was very surprised, because usually if we go there it's raining & cold :(
I'm going to Hinckley on Friday, with a cousin, who is just as naughty as me when it comes to craft stuff :) but I've promised to be good and only buy bits for christmas lol

Catch up with you all soon, take care

Heather x

Hi Jean, if you buy a card making magzine like Quick cards made easy they usually have a page for people new to the craft. And if you look in hobbycraft they often have a rack of free eaflets on different procedures. Other than that we will be happy to advise I am sure. Do you have any idea at all of the kind of cards you want to make? (decoupage are lovely but cost more to post as does anything that is a bit thicker than normal.) You can make lovely cards using different papers for background and sticky peel offs. But it depends what you like, there are so many different procedures and we all have our preferences.

It is cheaper to buy A5 card (or A4 if you can cut it with no problem to the size you want.) You then need a bone folder (sold quite cheaply in Hobbycraft) to make sure the crease is crisp, although I have improvised with that.
Having said that, if you have a shop called the works near you you can buy quite cheap packs of cards to start on.

Ask as many questions as you like Jean. One of the simplest ways is with 'toppers'. The pieces you can buy to attach to maybe contrasting card and then added as a topper on your card.

Well, I couldn't bring all the stuff out here to make Christmas cards so I brought some bits, a free pack of christmassy things from a card magazine and some scraps of card and I have made 16 toppers for making cards when I get home. I am really pleased as they will be a great help. surprising what you can make out of nothing, that lot didn't cost anything except my time.

Jean, join in and ask as many questions as you need to , we are all more than willing to help. I started card making by buying a kit and making up the cards as they said, then went from there. As Ann says we all have our specialist area that we like using, and one area I am no good at is stamping, but we have lots of experts on here who would help. Basic equipment I think is always useful would be scissors, double sided tape, 1mm foam pads or 1mm foam tape and as you get more into it I would buy a basic cutting machine/guillotine. But once you start it is very, very addictive!!
Joxx

Jean, there is a crafting channel on Sky and freeview/freesat that runs 24 hours a day it is Create & Craft that is if you are based in the UK, if not they run the live shows on the internet www.createandcraft.tv they have lots of advice by lots of different crafters and do so many different types of card making they also sell lots of complete kits. Another one is QVC they have 2 hours of card making on Tuesday afternoon. They both have a huge selection of crafting goodies on their websites and I do recommend having a look around as you can see so much before you go out shopping to buy. I have bought from both companies and never had a problem. AND do not be too critical of your first attempts we all have to start somewhere, also if you take photos and would like some honest comments I will happily give you my email addy. The most important thing is that you enjoy your new hobby.

Joxx