SUNDAY SIGHTS AND SOUNDS

Hello everyone

I didn't begin my main post on Saturday as I normally do - only managed to produce the title.  We had one of our regular big family get-together's at my cousin's house in Kent.  We all grew up together, so share lots of childhood and other memories.  The weather was great and as always, the time went far too quickly.  One of my cousin's, Maralyn Wimble, has been approached to hold an exhibition of her work - she is a very creative and imaginative artist and when I have more details about the event I will post them on here.  If you are in or around the area her exhibition is being held, I really do recommend you visit.

The Cycle tour is scheduled to hit Guildford today - my sympathies go out to the riders as Guildford High Street is paved in cobbles!  As it is the end of the race, perhaps the juddering feeling will not be too horrible for them. 

16 September is Celebrating Womanhood Day.  the main part of my post today is focusing on women, and the fabulous contribution we make to the world of handmade, as well as my normal craft and chatty stuff.

My post is not about a specific woman but about all of us involved in the world of handmade. Starting a business is very hard work, starting a business that is about handmade work is even harder.  Not only do we have to deal with the legalities of setting up the business, but we have a mammoth (ongoing) task of persuading and convincing the public that handmade is to be valued, it has been designed and created with care, imagination and expertise and will no doubt last much longer than something that can be bought on the high street.  Handmade today no longer means the knitted tea-cosy or the knitted crinoline doll covering the spare toilet roll.  However, the majority of the public still perceives handmade this way and subsequently undervalues our efforts and we must keep plugging away at changing their minds.  Do we give up?  No, of course not.  Why?  Because we are proud of our work, we believe in what we do and know that not everyone sees us as women who frequent craft fairs lurking behind tables with piles of knitted tea-cosies in front of us.  But, the added bonus here is that as we are women we don't believe in giving in, it's not in our nature.

To all those women who have been thinking about developing their skill into a business, go for it.  It is hard work and initially there will be more tears than smiles, but it is worth it.  When you make your first sale, get your first thank you, your first positive feedback you will know it is the best decision you have ever made and your smile will be bigger than you can imagine.  Good luck, we are not behind you, we are alongside you.

I hope you have been able to read this week's guest blog post?  Madeleine of the Craftsite blogged about cards and her post includes some great tips and beautiful pictures of her work.  Her cards are really lovely - thank you Madeleine for being a guest blogger again, I really enjoyed your post.

This leads me nicely into the World Card Making Day which is on 6 October 2012.  Last year I set up a competition for this event, but it was so close to the actual date that very little time was available for people to take part.  This time around, I am hoping there will be sufficient time for lots of you card-makers to join in.  I am planning on getting a sponsor (or even sponsors ) for this event as I feel it would be so nice to recognise the winning card (or cards) with a gift, so watch this space for news on this as it becomes available.  The theme this year is floral - absolutely anything to do with flowers.  It could be something made of flowers, flowers you have photographed, painted or decoupage - anything really as long as it is floral and it is a card.  Your photographs need to be with me by Wednesday, 3 October please and I will ask the sponsor (or sponsors) to vote for the top three. I do hope you will join in - I have featured some fabulous cards in my guest blog posts and do hope you guest bloggers will take part in this competition.

This also leads me into news about a new magazine (and website).  Have you heard of Make & Craft?  A magazine for the craft community that is edited by the dedicated crafter/craft supporter, Katherine Jewitt.  As the website says: Make & Craft magazine is an inspiring environment featuring contemporary tutorials and projects using a wide variety of supplies and techniques, as well as, reviving traditional crafts worth cherishing.  Make & Craft magazine also brings you  the latest trends, up-to-date products, craft books and supplies, new techniques, sneak peeks behind the scenes of Artists and Crafters, the best online sites, news round ups, a diary of craft events and a whole host of competitions and giveaways.  I recommend you check it out and see all of the goodies available both in the magazine and on the website.

Life is hectic at the moment (it's that tough time of year for crafters isn't it?) as I am rushing towards events that I need to have plenty of stock for.  My first one is on Saturday (details to the right of this post) and I am slightly panicking as my stock is low.  I keep making excuses telling myself that my main ones are in November, so there is plenty of time - however, it would be very wrong to not pay the same attention to my first one this week.  I have discovered that I always have excellent reasons for not doing something!  Perhaps I should write a blog post just using the list of excuses I have invented.  

Around, over, alongside and in between kitten fostering, I have been working on Orders of Service - I am pleased with how they look and very near to finishing them.  Next?  The table plan.  Here is a photograph of the Order of Service - names, etc removed, but I hope you like it.  The ribbon has not been fixed to the card yet, but that's the next job.  The original brief was for the main card to be pearlised cream, but was recently changed to the dark purple used for some of the trims on the invitations - I wasn't too sure at first, but think it is a striking colour combination.

Some time ago I mentioned the weird and wonderful search terms that have led people to my blog - I haven't added any for a while, but couldn't resist including these today (again, no change made to the grammar or spelling):

crafts with bricks
my oh my apple pie and country craft
posh crafts for christmas

Aren't they wonderful?

That's me finished for today - back to work now.  Do get in touch if you would like to be a guest blogger or if you want to join in the Card Making competition.  Everyone is welcome and if you are not a card-maker, why not give it a try - you could discover a new talent or an addition to your business.  I will be back on Wednesday and don't forget to come back on Friday to read my guest blogger's post.

Last but not least, some up-to-date pics of Ash and Micro.  They are growing very quickly and should be very soon be off to their new home.

Jill

TODAY'S GUEST BLOGGER IS......

Hi All,

It’s Madeleine from Craftsite again.

With budgets being squeezed all round as prices rise I thought that today I would write about money saving tips for card making. This article is aimed not only at individual card makers but the vast army of those who make and sell cards for charity and really need to keep their costs down.

First, I never buy cheap materials if cheap means compromising on quality – it’s false economy. A card must be able to stand up and I would recommend a card weight minimum of 225 gsm for card making or an even heavier for those larger cards, such as A5 and 8 x 8 – Craftsite’s creased card packs for larger size cards are made with 300 gsm card. It’s the same with embellishments, especially if you are selling cards, as a card made with quality card embellishments will be more likely to sell. The card below uses 240 gsm cardstock, a pretty backing paper and embellishment but costs only 63p to make.

 Look out for genuine value for money bargains and this is the best time of the year to do it. Right now the new Christmas stock is coming in to retailers and most retailers just don’t have the space for it all. Some of our suppliers are in the same boat when it comes to available space so many of our special offers at the moment are at way below wholesale prices. The card below was made with holographic card (30% off RRP) and a bauble die cut topper (35p for an A4 sheet of 8 die cut toppers). The glitter card and coloured card were left over from previous projects so this card cost just a few pence to make.

Look around the house for items that you can recycle into your card making. – buttons, old beads, pearl envelopes (these sometimes come with junk mail in them – throw away the junk mail but keep the envelope for punching shapes). Just be imaginative. This card was made using an aperture card and florist’s ribbon. If you have a die cutting machine you don’t even have to buy the aperture card. Cut your own shape on a piece of oblong scrap card, add the ribbon or whatever else you’ve found, and mount it onto a card blank.

Save the gift wrapping after opening your presents. This card was made using cut Christmas wrapping paper.

Just be careful when recycling, especially recycling old cards, that you are not breaching copyright. Use bits and pieces from cards, e.g. bows, rather than the designs themselves.

Have a go at making your own backing papers with stamps. Pick a background stamp that you’ll use over and over again – Craftsite has nearly 90 ink colours so you should always be able to get a matching colour for your project and it can save hours of searching craft shops for the right shade of backing paper that you need.

The stamp wasn’t large enough to cover the whole of the paper so I stamped the top and bottom and used ribbon to hide the gap.

Stamps in general are a good investment as they can be used over and over again. Look at the stamps you have and ask if they can be used in a different way, e.g. a stamp of a country cottage could be used for new home; birthday card; or add snow to the roof with crystal glitter or stickles and you have a Christmas card. It’s amazing the different looks that can be obtained using the same stamp. These 2 cards use the Prima En Francais stamp but glitter has been applied to one of them and the other coloured using Tim Holtz distress markers.

If you like decoupage take a look at the pictures and see if the design can be split into 2 – many of them can. If you can get 2 cards from the same decoupage design then a sheet of 4 step by step decoupage prints can make 8 cards. Splitting a design also means that your finished card is thinner and if you use 1mm thick instead of 3mm thick foam pads your card could squeeze into Royal Mail’s letter rather than large letter category resulting in a saving on postage too. Both the cards below were made using the same decoupage picture and each card cost just under £1 to make.

Some of the cards used in this article are available along with step by step instructions on how to make them in the Craftsite Gallery and you’ll find more ideas for making budget cards in our Card Making Ideas – Economical Cards section.

If you’d like to keep up to date with new card projects please like my Facebook page .

Have a good weekend.

Madeleine

TODAY'S GUEST BLOGGER IS.....

Hi Everyone

I’m Madeleine and I’m this week’s guest blogger. Together with my husband Tom I run Craftsite which, as the name suggests, is an online retailer of craft supplies although we mainly deal in card making and paper crafting as that is what I know best and if some-one asks me a question I like to have the knowledge to answer it. You’ll find us at www.craftsite.co.uk

Before we had the website I used to make wedding stationery. I still make the odd wedding invitation but nowadays I do it to show brides how simple it is to make their own wedding stationery and how much they can save by doing it themselves.

We also supply many small businesses with the same high quality card I used to use in my own wedding stationery business. We try to keep the prices low and give quantity discounts so that those who do it as a business can keep their costs down.

I’m proud of the number of different cardstock available on the website. We have a vast range at www.craftsite.co.uk/papercard  At any one time we have between 40,000 and 50,000 sheets of card and paper in stock in our paper store. Our flagship card is Stardream which we stock in both card and paper in 23 colours. Stardream card and paper is a double sided pearlescent and is ideal for wedding stationery or when you want to make a truly special card.

We don’t just sell card and paper but just about anything and everything that anyone needs for card making: embellishments, decorative stickers, rubber stamps, a vast range of inks (92 at the last count) plus loads of card toppers and die cut decoupage sheets, card making kits, pens, shimmer paints, embossing powders, masks and stencils, peel offs, and beads and gems. We have thousands of different lines. Whatever you need for card making we’ve probably got it.

My favourite tool is my Big Shot which stands permanently on the counter in the shop. We stock the Grand Calibur, the Cuttlebug, and the Big Shot and, although I’ve got all three, it’s my Big Shot that I use the most. Having 3 die cutting machines may seem excessive but about 50% of the queries that we get from customers relate to die cutting so if I can replicate what the customer is trying to do on the machine that she is using then the better able I am to answer the query.

I mentioned before the shop. When we were looking for premises 7 years ago we were mainly looking for a warehouse that we could use for the Internet business. The one we found came with a very small shop attached. A year later the shop next door became available and we knocked through to treble the size of our existing shop. The shop is a boon because I get instant feedback on products from customers.

We actively encourage feedback from Internet customers too. There is a contact form on the home page of our website where people can ask questions about products, ask about their orders, or just praise our service (the staff really love the ones that fall into the last category).

I wanted the website to be more than just an online retail store and very early on we set up the gallery. Ours isn’t just a “here is a picture of my card” type of gallery but a step by step card making projects gallery where instructions are given as to how each card was made. The instructions are printer friendly so anyone can print them off to have to hand when making their card and it is an extremely popular feature of the website. We have 98 different projects at the moment. You’ll find it at www.craftsite.co.uk/gallery  Here are some of our projects.

I’ve always believed in giving something back to our customers. So 3 years ago I started the blog to inform card makers not only of  new products but also how to start card making, how to get the best from a die cutting machine, making cards on a tight budget, making quick and easy cards and loads more. And if what you want to know isn’t on the blog, contact us and I will personally answer your query.

If you’d like to know more you can follow us on Twitter @craftsite or like our Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/Craftsite/235090142428