October Calendar Printable - Halloween

Hey everyone,
Well it's been a long time.... I have been so poorly and had no will to write but this morning I just printed off my Calendar Design for October and just had to share it and where better to do this than my Blog :D
I am so excited to be back. I have so much to share as although I have been poorly and unable to write I have managed this time to do a bit of Crafting :D
So here is my Calendar that I will be using myself for October

I really wanted a Halloween theme as I just love everything about Halloween but I didn't want it too in my face. So if you look closely you will see in the background there are faint little bats flying around. I love how this paper captures Halloween but it is not bright and garish.
I do hope to show you a lot of bright Garish Halloween makes and designs but for my Calendar I wanted it more subtle. I think I achieved just that!!
Now if you would like to be able to print this off for yourself, I have already listed it in my ETSY store and the link is here
OCTOBER HALLOWEEN PRINTABLE CALENDAR
It is just $1.20 which is about 79p :) BUT..... hold on there. If you would like to be in with a chance of getting one free, Just leave me a message here or on my Facebook post about this HERE and I will pop everyones name who comment into a cup and draw someone to send this file to :) :)
And don't forget if you would like something different designed, I can do that for you. Just send me a message and we can discuss what you would like, I will make a mock up for you and if you like you buy and if you don't, there is no obligation to buy from me.
Well that's it for now, I hope to be back soon.
Don't forget to leave me a comment here or on my Facebook post :)
Bye bye. xx

Knitting for Charity

Well it has been a little while since I have updated again but I have so much to tell you all, I am almost bursting. Let's start with Knitting!! I haven't picked up a pair of knitting needles for years and years. I was never any good at it and always very slow. So as soon as I discovered Crochet that was it done and dusted forever. Or so I thought. A few months ago I joined my local spinning guild and have been trying to learn to spin. It has been an amazing learning journey and I have been very lucky in the fact that in only four months I own 5 drop spindles and 3 spinning wheels!! Yes I know it is overly excessive but what can a spoilt girl/woman do???

I will write more catch up posts on what I have been doing at guild but for now I am eager to share this Knitting I have been doing. 

 

 

It is for a fantastic cause and also just a little project that I thought I may be able to join in with ... and I did. I am so excited to see my square join others. The organisation is Knit for peace and if you click on that link it will take you to their page, which explains everything. They are asking for any donations and there are a lot of patterns on the page to use, I may even have a go at another pattern. Please let me know if you do anything for them as I would love to see :)

So, we were asked at Guild last month if we wanted to join in with making a knitted Dressing Gown. We had to knit 12cm squares and then someone would sew them all together into a kimono style dressing gown. I so wanted to join in but when I got home I was just not sure I understood the instructions I had wrote down and with my illness and limited time to craft. I really cant afford to waste time making the wrong thing. So I took my Needles and Wool along to guild today determined to get it right and I did. The amazing thing is that the guild got together and over the month have produced enough squares to make the whole Dressing gown and here it is all spread out with just two spaces at the top.

 

If you look close you can see I have marked where my square will go. I am so excited about being a part of this project. I don't think I have ever done anything like this and although it is just a little knitted square. I have so much pride that it is mine and will be used to help someone out. 

 I had planned to bring it home and work on it over the next month but as the guild is so amazing and there were only two squares left to fill I spent my day finishing my square and yes my little square did take me all day. (I told you I was slow) I did also manage a huge amount of chatting, a little bit of fruit tea drinking, listening to a talk on weaving and a smidgen of spinning!!

 It is absolutely the best way to fill my day. Here, just because I think it is the first thing I have started and finished in along time is my lovely little square.

 

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Mothers Day

Happy Mothers day to everyone :)
I can now show the Card I designed on my Silhouette Studio. Once I had learnt the basic Box Card  Shape,(post here)  I just new I wanted to make the flaps butterfly shape but the first time I tried I was over tired and just couldn't make it work. So was so pleased when I finally found a day I could have a good go with designing. It didn't take me long as I had the fabulous Video's from Nikki in Stitches Craft Academy to follow if I forgot things and I did forget a lot. Here is;

Eeeek  I feel so professional saying that I designed this and even more so when I "Release the compound path" Ha ha Most Silhouette users will know what I mean when I say that but it sounds so designery :) and so great to know what it means. Again a huge thanks to Nikki :)
So here is the Card made up for my Super Special Mum.

I hope everyone has a fabulous day :)

My Robo and my new friend Nikki

I've had a really long break from my Blog. This is for many reasons but mainly because I have been having a lot more good days in the week and have been able to be up and about Crafting :) Yay :)  It feels amazing actually getting things done and made. So hopefully this will continue and I will be able to get a bit more organised and get Blogging again :)
I have been working a lot with the Silhouette Studio as my Mum gave me her old Robo to play with. When I decided to get an electric cutting machine many years ago I thought long and hard and did lots of research and finally chose the Cricut. This was because I thought it was an easy to use machine and although you had to buy Cartridges once you had a few you could just pop them in and cut. It wasn't quite as easy as this but was I still think the easiest machine to use and the best choice for me at the time. Very much less technical than the Robo which was also on the list to choose from. I have absolutely loved my Cricut and made some fab things with it. I have however become a little more advanced in my Crafting and felt I needed to make a change. It was quite a big change and one I was really not looking forward to but as I had a free Robo on offer I felt the chance was too good to miss and so I have been playing around with the Silhouette studio since December 2014 and WOW.

I can print and Cut :D

When I first downloaded and opened it, (link at the bottom if you want to have a go)  It looked so scary. I was lucky I had my Mum to help guide me but even with that help when you are used to something like the Cricut Craft Room and go to something like the silhouette studio it is a huge jump but I must say it wasn't too bad. It has at last come to me slowly and I do now understand what a few of the buttons do :)
 I am one for searching and finding free tutorials and spending hours finding info out myself for free but this really takes so much of my time what with not knowing how my day is going to go illness wise this time I have decided to go get some paid help :)  and that help came from Nikki in Stitches. I have been following her for years. So long now, I am not even sure how I found her. Her emails and posts struck me straight away. She sews and paints and Crafts, has a go at anything. Just like me :) About the time I got the Robo I received an email about some free classes to do with the Silhouette Studio. I never got to watch them as it all looked way to confusing and I was just not ready to delve into it all. When I did actually get round to looking into her Crafting Academy I was so glad I did. It actually looked like just what I needed and Nikki had just put out a discount code!! ..... yippeeee. I signed up straight away and have not looked back.
I have learnt so much already. We don't only do design work on the studio. Nikki talks us through making up actual projects and then has a live lesson where we get to ask her questions and she shows us how to do everything LIVE :) I managed to even remember this last month and got to "talk" to her. When she said my name I felt so special :) Eeek it is so exciting and really like a personal class rather than web based. The best you can get without actually being with her. I cannot praise this Academy and Nikki high enough. She seems to be around all the time even though she is in America and I am in the UK. It honestly doesn't take her any time at all to answer anything you post whether on her Facebook page or the Forum and she keeps you informed on other "every day" things she is doing. Like Sewing herself a blouse haha Yes she did that!! and her family life. So amazing :)
I  am currently working on last Months lesson, Drafting. I so enjoyed this as just recently really I got into these folding box cards. I managed to make a template on my Cricut using different shapes. This was quite hard, so was really not looking forward to designing it for my Robo and there it was... My first lesson.... Drafting and showing us how to make folding box cards!!  It seemed like fate :D
Here is my first go and the card I made :)

My very own template!! and I even managed to go up a gear and made this one.

I can't show the card for this one yet as it is my Mothers Day Card :) Yes I still have a few weeks to go and I have made my Card :D

I still have a lot to learn on designing these these templates as I cant remember everything but the good thing is, the class is always there for me to go back to and watch as well as every class Nikki has done!! I just don't have enough good free time to watch them all. Next Months class has already been released and I haven't got to watch it yet as I am still captivated in what I learnt last Month :D
As you can probably tell I  am so happy with this class and finally hooking up with Nikki :)
Enrolling in the Academy is closed at the moment but if you follow my link above this will take yo to Nikki's Facebook page where you can scroll down and check out info on all the classes and also there is a list to pop your name on if you would like to know when enrollment is back open :)
Right, let's get on to more box cards :D


Link to Silhouette America for the Free studio download :)