Birthdays galore in November!

I don't know what it is but there are loads of birthdays this month amongst my friends and family.  I thought I'd share a couple of very simple cards I made for my cousin Jenny who had her birthday few days ago and her fiance Andy who has the honour of having the same birthday as me!

Jennys card was made with papers from my craft CD Rom Colour Me Happy and the flower is just two different sorts of Prima flowers layered on top of each other and attached with a fancy brad from my stash.  I was really pleased with how the flower turned out so I kept the rest of the card very simple.  I think that is a good way of showing off a complicated embelishment..less is more as they say!!

Now, mens card are never easy I find, and they are not my favourite card to try to make so, I decided to keep Andys card pretty simple as well just using the papers, also all taken from my craft CD Rom Colour Me Happy, to make the card and keeping the embellishments to a minimum..

I can't remember where I bought the Happy Birthday spongy topper sorry but I have a packet of them that have saved my life a few times making cards!!  I just added a co ordinating button with a little button twine to finish it off.

I have to admit that my card making has taken a simple turn recently, with all the fab stuff we have been working on ready to be released in the New Year it meant that my card making has had to be quick!  Now as everything is coming together and the pressure is starting to lift, slightly! I hope to be able to get myself around a few interesting blogs and get some new ideas for cards.  I'm looking forward to it!

Before I go I want to just remind you that there is just a few more days left to join in with this months Get Funky! challenge and be in with a chance of winning £20.00 worth of vouchers to spend on www.funkyhand.com  Next months challenge starts on 1st December and I'm the host..it will be a special month as it's the last of the year and I'll be telling you all about the exciting changes we are going to have starting in the New Year.

Anyway, enjoy your day whatever you are up to..and try and fit some crafting in if you can.
Speak again very soon
Anice xx

Happy Birthday to me..& a little gift for you!

Yes, it's that time of the year again when I have to accept that I am now over forty years old and there is no going back!!  It's my Birthday!

I was pretty lucky with my pressies this morning, Ian got me a new going out bag..the cutest little Radley handbag you have ever seen..

and I have had the most fabby green handmade button bracelet and a button brouch from my best friend and Business Manager Corrina..

As I have been so lucky with all my cards and gifts I thought I'd share a bit of the birthday love and offer you all a little present as well.  If you use the following code when you check out of my website www.funkyhand.com today you will recieve 20% discount on your order.  Enter the code 422DAY (make sure you use all capitals for the letters)  With all the newly discounted prices on all our Funky Hand original craft CD Rom collections that will add up to loads more in your basket for loads less.  Use it today as it's only going to be available until midnight.

With all the nice things about my birthday there always has to be something that is a negative..well this morning I woke up to this view..

Yep we had snow last night, and as I write this post it's starting to come down again.  I hate snow!  I just hope it doesn't ruin all my plans to go out tonight, but I definately wont be wearing my high heels that's for sure!

Have a great day whatever you are up to today and don't forget to grab the 20% discount off Funky Hand crafty stash before midnight.

Speak again very soon
Anice xx

Permanent price reductions on Funky Hand craft CDs

Just a quick message for you today, we have alot exciting new Funky Hand products to release in the New Year and our warehouse needs to have a bit of space to fit them in as they start to arrive so... we have decided that it was a perfect time to PERMANENTLY reduce all the prices of the Funky Hand original collection CDs on our website www.funkyhand.com.

From today you can grab yourself a copy of the Funky Word Books craft CD for £7.99 instead of £15.99.It's FunkyToo, Funky Seasons, V Funky, Now that's Funky and Funky Daze craft CDs are also £7.99 each down from £14.99.  The Funky One and Yule Be Funky craft CD ROMS are down to a fab £5.99.

If you have a gap in your Funky Hand craft CD ROM collection NOW'S the time to grab a fantastic bargain..and you'll also be helping us make space for all the really exciting new products we are going to be bringing you in the New Year.  Go on treat yourself..you know you deserve it!!

EXTRA LITTLE MESSAGE: If you experienced any problems ordering on our website on Wednesday fear not, as my lovely techie Ian and he has put everything right. Feel free to fill your baskets!!


Speak again very soon
Anice xx

Papercraft Essentials Magazine..

 
We're all pretty excited here at Teapot Studios as we have a great Funky Hand paper and extra giveaway included in this months Papercraft Essentials Magazine Issue 61.  What's even better is that Jane from the Funky Hand Design Team was kind enough to create some fab cards to be included in the magazine to inspire everyone to make wonderful Winter themed cards from the giveaway papers and extras.

Here are a couple of pictures of the cards that Jane created that are included in the magazine..

Jane has done us proud here at Funky Hand and I wanted to say a very big thank you to her for all her hard work not only putting the cards together but writing all the instructions and coming up with some great tips as well.  Now there is no excuse for you not to get out to the shops and pick yourself up a copy of the magazine as you are going to get eight co ordinating Funky Hand papers, a matching Alphabet collection, two mini gift bags and a set of nine tags as well as a great mag filled with ideas for your card making.  If you like this Winter Skating collection from the magazine you can find it, along with more papers to match on our Funky Hand original collection craft CD Funky Seasons.

If that is not enough excitement for one day! I'm also here to let you know that there is going to be a good reason to pop over to our website www.funkyhand.com this weekend as we are going to be making a few permanent changes to some prices of products over there. It will be a fine time to grab yourself some great bargains..but more of that here over the weekend.

One last thing before I leave you for today, please don't forget to pop over to the Funky Hand Design Team monthly challenge blog Get Funky! to take a look at this months challenge.  There is still plenty of time before the end of the month to enter the Tag It challenge and be in with a chance of winning a £20.00 voucher to spend on the Funky Hand website.

Enjoy the rest of your day, I'm off to get back on with designs for the new Funky Hand craft CD ROM out in the new year.  I'll speak to you again very soon.
Anice xx

Christmas Word Book time...

I hope you are having a great week, things are going 100 miles an hour here as we pull everything together for the exciting new releases in the new year.  But less of work and more craft I say.

I promised you images earlier in the week of the second demonstration that I made on my last show on Create and Craft TV.  Of course I couldn't not include a Wordbook in my demonstrations so, my second creation was a Christmas word book made with none Christmas papers. If you saw the show you will know I didn't really have time to show you how I created this card, if you didn't..well you can have a closer look at it as well this time!!

..and here's a closer look at the jingle end!!

This word book was created using the second Funky Hand Papercraft Factory craft CD release Colour Me Happy.  I enjoyed making this wordbook as I decided to just keep to two of the colours in the collection and not mix up the papers like I nomally do for demos.  The only time I included the other colours from the collection was when I printed off the JINGLE letters for the sentiment.  But because I work hard to make sure that all the colours work together in each colour collection it still worked!  The ribbon and the fab button were available on the show and Ideal World had been kind enough to send me some samples of them so I could include them in my demonstrations.  I'm ashamed to say that I don't know who they are by but I'm sure a visit to the Create and Craft website www.createandcraft.tv will give you the info, if you want to know more.

Once again I just scored each letter page and then glued them together but you could use lots of different ways of attaching the word book pages together..punching holes and threading ribbons through, using your Bind it All machine, adding rings..the list can go on.  The great thing about word books is that you can use them for whatever you like.  They can be a straight forward card made special by using letters for a name or personal message or they can be a mini scrapbook where you can add pictures and journalling to remember a special time.

I have noticed recently that scrapbooking is very slowly growing in interest over here in the UK, of course it's been a very popular craft pass time in the US for years and digital scrapbooking was the thing that really got me interested in paper designing all those years ago.  If you haven't tried scrapbooking yet and are a bit afraid of those 12 inch by 12 inch papers to start with a mini version using a word book could just be what you are looking for to give you a simple and small start!  Both of my papercraft factory craft CDs Dreams Come True and Colour Me Happy contain word book generators where you choose the papers, letters and colour of the letters for each page.  If you find it's not really for you then on those CDs you will find hundreds of papers, resizable digital stamps and letters to continue your card making with! Oh, but if word books do end up getting your creative juices flowing we do offer packs of wordbook envelopes in white and cream on our website www.funkyhand.com so there's no problem sending them out in the post. 

Right I'd best get back to work or you wont get to see the new papercraft factory craft CD in the new year and all the other great craft stuff we have planned..just to let you in on a secret though..all the papers are finished!!

Speak to you again soon, enjoy your week.
Anice xx

Let's take a look at what she made...

It's a bit of a mad house here in Teapot studios at the moment.  We are frantically getting ready with new products for release in the new year, all very exciting but also very time consuming.  Hence the reason I'm here a week late with images of the cards that I made on my last Create and Craft TV show a week ago..  I'm sure you'll forgive me.

So without any more waffle here is a couple of images of the first demonstration that I did on the show..

and a closer view of the shaped Christmas tree..

This Christmas card was made using none Christmas themed paper from the first Funky Hand Papercraft Factory craft CD release Dreams Come True.  If you didn't see the show, I decided that I wanted to show crafters that you can use papers that are not directly related to Christmas and still make fun Christmas cards.

This card is pretty simple, like most of my creations! With just three triangles cut from co ordinating papers from the same colour collection mounted to look like Christmas trees.  I wanted to make it a little more interesting and folded the central tree in an none uniform way to give the card some depth.  By only attatching the folded tree where the valley of the folds touched the cards it meant that you could flatten the tree and put it in a normal envelope and then when it was removed it would spring back with a little teasing!!

It's a great card to make with scraps of paper as well..which I know all us crafters keep 'just incase'..well a quick Christmas card like this one can be just what you were waiting for!

I'll be back soon with the other card I made on that show
Have a great day
Anice xx

Novembers Challenge on Get Funky!

November is here so that means a new challenge over on the Funky Hand Design Team challenge blog Get Funky! Congratulations to last months winner!

This month Lucy is in charge of setting the challenge and she's come up with a good one!  This month we'd like to see you make a Tag with a Funky Hand paper or digi stamp.  It can be any size you like for any occasion.  So why not get a headstart on those tags for Christmas or have a nice rest from the Christmas crafting and make something for a completely different occasion..it's totally up to you!

I have made a tag which is pretty simple compared to the fantastic ones you will see from the other girls over on the Get Funky! Challenge blog but I enjoyed making it just the same!

The base of the tag has been cut out using a sizzix die using a paper from my craft CD ROM Dreams Come True printed onto card.  I then added a doodled outline around the edge using a Sakura pen and added some great black and white spotted ribbon that I received from Create and Craft to use in my demos for the show over the weekend.  I then dug out my Prima flowers, that have been hidden away for far too long and attached them to the tag with a couple of K&Co brads that I've had forever!  As I said, simple but sometimes that can be just as effective.  This tag will go on an upcoming family birthday pressie so it wont be wasted!!

So, get yourself over to the Get Funky Challenge Blog and join in with this months challenge, as usual there is a £20.00 voucher up for grabs to the lucky crafter that wins the challenge to spend on my website www.funkyhand.com.

I look forward to see what you create, speak again soon.
Anice xx