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Emma's Creativity Club Sneak Peek - Tea Party

Today's Creativity Club blog prompt is all about things that make you smile. SO I couldn't resist sharing this little vid that Mrs Collins and I created today all about a sneak peek of next week's Club download! It's always a scream filming stuff with Em, and shockingly we managed this in one take! It's a bit Jamie Oliver-esque!

Who could resist!

Bantam Chicks
Originally uploaded by *karlotta*

Today I'm catching up on a couple of the Creativity Club blog prompts. Yesterday's was to blog a favourite photo and with these little people pottering around the garden at the moment, who could resist!

Inevitably they will be making an appearance on a layout very soon!

It's also worth mentioning that this shot was taken with my new Fuji X10 camera. It's a super-clever compact, but produces great image quality! Perfect for those times you can't lump a hefty DSLR kit around!

Day 2 - Worth a look!

Day two of the Creativity Club blog prompts is all about inspiration. 5 docrafts galleries that have caught your eye! Here's mine...

Geraldine (ger76)

Great cards, great ideas and inspiring techniques.

clareamelia 

A brand new member to docrafts and I'm totally in love with these gorgeous cake designs!

CoventryAnn

Great layouts and really fun techniques and embellishments.

Redrottie

Lovely cards, great techniques, and a wonderful supportive member of the community!

beckied (Beckie Dreyer)

I've known Beckie for YEARS and she's still inspiring me after all this time!

Gosh it was hard to pick just five! Can't wait to see which galleries are your favourites at the mo!

Kick start your blogging - 5 reasons why you should craft.

If you're a Creativity Club member (and I can't think of a single reason why you wouldn't want to be!) you've probably spotted that the lovely Emma has set us all a task to get blogging for the 31 days of May. I'm guilty of not blogging often enough so I'm hoping her 31 blog prompts (one every day!) will be the kick up the bum to get back into the swing of things. It's the perfect way of connecting and getting to know other crafters/bloggers and club members so here goes!

Day 1 - 5 reasons why you should craft.

1. It's fun. Seriously in these busy, busy (and stressful) times it's enough that something is fun. Whether you work full time in a high pressure job or juggle kids (also a full time job I'm sure!) it's the perfect antidote.  Of course crafting is a wonderfully broad hobby. You might try card making or scrapbooking (my own personal poisons) or branch into knitting, crochet, sewing or baking. Each of these is a fabulous stress reliever and the beauty of them is unlike playing golf or potholing, you can squeeze them into an already busy schedule (plus they are rather cheaper too!).

2. You can make the most of what you already have. I'm sure all of us have a digital camera (possibly several and probably one on your mobile phone), and as such you most likely have a glut of photos sadly languishing on your hard drive. Scrapbooking takes your pictures from a fun day out....

... and turns them into a wonderful keepsake to be sure the memories are not lost.

This excess of photos is what drove me to scrapbooking. Countless photos of a new Newfie puppy was all it took!

3. Crafting turns a simple gift into something special. Giving a box of 'homegrown' eggs to a friend as a thank you or a stocking filler is all well and good, but it's even more special when you dress it up to show you really care!

4. It's about making something for you. While making a card or gift, you inevitably have to think at least a little bit about the tastes of the recipient. But for pretty much everything else you can just please yourself. Use exactly what you want to use in exactly the ways you choose to use them. Clashing colours, excessive lashings of embellishments, plaint slapped on or extreme minimalism. As long as it's pleasing to your eye then you've succeeded. You can't say that about many things in life.

5. Crafting is cool. Much like a fez, crafting is cool. It's social, versatile and so on-trend at the moment. Seemingly every TV celebrity is gagging to craft. Kirstie Allsopp brought it to the masses in her recent series and in uncertain financial times, make do and mend and 'upcycling' are the hottest buzzwords of the moment.

If you're a fellow Creativity Clubber, (or even if you're not!) leave me a comment with a link to your blog and I'd love to come along and read your reasons for crafting!

Creativity TV Teaser!

Top Dog!

Crufts starts today and while my girlies will be staying home (although they did qualify, attend and win stuff back in the day!) and watching on TV (especially Martha... she's such a TV addict!), I can't resist showing off a few canine bits and pieces I'm loving at the mo!

I'm sorely tempted by this cute cushion from John Lewis... I'm loving the patchwork/freehand embroidery look...

And things like this gorgeous Cath Kidston dog collar almost makes me wish my girls were a bit smaller! There's no way this is going to fit a Newfie!

These amazing underwater dog photos by photographer Seth Casteel.... Simply awesome.

And of course there is craft...I'm seemingly surrounded by doggy craft goodies at the mo. With Boofle and Hot Diggity Dog, I've been totally spoilt for choice...

I'm loving the Boofle fabric paper and buttons...

And Diggity is just too cute! Check out this cute bag by Jenny P...

What are your top doggie things at the moment?

Steampunk it up!

I've just installed the new docrafts Digi-Designer discs and to say I'm a little excited would be an understatement!

As well as about a million *disclaimer - not actually a million* papers, embellishments, alphabets and so much more from past and FUTURE Capsule Collections there are also digi stamps of the Papermania Urban Stamps range. But the hottest news for me is the inclusion of the simply AMAZING Papermania Chronology range! Here's a sneaky peek at just a couple of bits of steampunky goodness!

Excited yet? I am!

Something new for Digi Designer!

There's something new coming to the docrafts Digi-Designer.... Keep a look out for it coming to a shopping channel near you very soon!

10 things - Mother's Day inspiration!

I'm great at crafting to a deadline. I do it all the time... it's part of my job after all, but when it comes to making cards for real people, I'm always a little nearer the deadline than I care to admit!

So with Mother's Day just around the corner here are 10 cards to get you (and me) inspired to create!

by Mandy Brennan

by Rebecca James

by Jo Austin

by Jenny Pearce

by Rebecca James

by Clare Curd

by Jenny Pearce

by me!

by Jo Austin

by Jenny Pearce

I hope that's got your mojo going! I'll be back later with a sneaky peek at something new coming soon to the docrafts Digital Designer!

Calling Digi-Designers!

We're rather proud at docrafts of our Digital Designer software which is a cutting edge (but oh-so-easy to get to grips with) digi-crafting tool for cardmakers and scrapbookers. So far it's featured some of the biggest names in craft including Forever Friends, Tatty Teddy and Papermania and now it could feature YOU!

We're on the lookout for some really cool digital scrap designers that could create cutting edge kits of on trend, hot elements for digi-scrapbooking! Your designs could be being used by thousands of digi-crafters and could even feature on Create and Craft and Ideal World!


If you think you are up for the task, leave me a comment with how I would get in touch with you or tweet me @katygodbeer 

Catch Up Time...

Let me get this ol' chestnut out of the way...  I've been super busy. Hence zero blog updates. Sorry.

Now on with the fun stuff!

Recently I've been working on some printable downloads exclusively for members of the Creativity Club at docrafts.com and while you can't grab them directly from here I can tease you with them!

If you're a member (or would like to be) you can grab them right NOW!

In other news I've started contributing on a foodie blog! I'm quite excited about it and I hope you'll pop over to the Chicken Keeper's Kitchen and take a peek!

 For updates of new posts you can of course follow the blog or follow the twitter feed @keeperskitchen

Scrapping with Scraps

Continuing yesterday's themes of using scraps and my ongoing obsession with kraft cardstock, here's another page featuring plenty of both plus some pics of one of the gorgeous New Forest pigs that roam about at this time of year to munch all the fallen acorns.

This page is a perfect example of how you can really make the most of your smallest scraps. The central lined/striped panel looks to be about 7-8" but in reality is only about 4"tall. Simply by slicing it in two and hiding the join with more papers/photos you can get the illusion of a much larger piece of paper.

Just the Two of Us...

You might say that I'm a little obsessed with kraft cardstock. Looking back at the last few pages I've created (promise to start sharing them here more often!) and it's glaringly apparent that it's become my cardstock of choice. This page uses some of the plain Papermania kraft as a base... it's perfect for inking spritzing, and of course goes with everything.

I knocked up this page at the last Crafty Moments crop (do come along if you are local!) to satisfy my own crop challenge to the girls. The challenge was to use JUST scraps (bar a base cardstock) to create a layout plus use the ol' chestnut 'just the two of use' for the title.

Some of the other crop-girlies had a go too... Daphne and Carole both made gorgeous pages!

Now I just need to come up with a challenge for next time!

Tatty Sneak Peek!

One of the many things I love about my job is getting exclusive access to brand new products before anyone else! (it's a tough life eh?!) Today a brand new addition to the docrafts Digi Designer hit my desk and I didn't waste any time getting it installed!

So far I've only had a quick play and a browse through the adorable elements, but I can't resist showing off my favourite new character!!

I'll inevitably be back with more... If. You want to grab this new collection look out for more news coming soon about it's launch on Ideal World in a couple of weeks!

Wishing it was summer!

You might say that I'm not a big fan of the winter... once the clocks go back I don't really see the light of day (and only first thing in the morning!) so it's no wonder that given some cheery and bright papers I couldn't resist breaking out some pictures from my summer break...

Back in July I had a week's stay-cation (hate that word!), bumbling about the New Forest with the dogs and just couldn't resist getting my feet wet for a nice paddle with the girls.

Most of the page is made using the Papermania 52 All Occasion Card Kit. It features some gorgeous plain and printed paper flowers, plus heaps of cute die-cuts and loads of A5 sheets of cheery papers.

Of course this kit is designed primarily to make loads of pretty cards, but being me I had to make a layout too! I grabbed the opportunity to use the smaller sized papers and sliced them up to make a chevron design across the page - just loving that look at the moment!

If you like to see more of the page or grab my full walk-thorough of how I made it pop on over to docrafts.com right now!

Ask the Team!

This Friday will see the start of a new feature for Creativity Club members at docrafts.com Every week you can join Emma Collins, myself or some of the special guests from Creativity TV (and possibly all of us at once!) in a special live forum chat only for Club Members! If you are a member just pop onto the special Creativity Club forum at 10am to chat about Creativity TV, projects, downloads and more. Ask us your crafty questions, let us know what you want to see from your club or just join in for a good old chin-wag!

Hope to see you there!

Going clubbing...

I've been a tad busy lately. As well as the biggest batch of DIY in the world ever, the more fun sort of 'work' has kept me well and truly out of mischief!

If you're a member of the docrafts Creativity Club you'll have no doubt seen me (and the lovely Emma Collins) presenting our webisodes of Creativity TV. Despite being paralytic with feat to start with we're actually starting to get into the swing of things and (shhh) enjoying it rather a lot!

This week in Creativity TV our lovely guest Jo Austin demo'd a really clever pop up card that I can only share a wee sneaky peek of!

 And in homage I created a rather special layout with a cunning pop up element...

Another thing keeping me busy is that recently I've been donning my designery hat and creating a few exclusive printables, again for the Creativity Club.... this week I'm rather excited to share some fun and I hope really useful December number printables that would be perfect if you are planning on 'journalling your Christmas' and/or doing a 'December Daily'.

To grab these and to see the project above (plus one using the numbers) then pop over to docrafts right now! You do need to be a member of the club.... so if you'd like to join just click here.

It's crop night tonight and I can't wait!!! It'll make a lovely change to put the emulsion and gloss aside for some more crafty supplies! If you're local to me (Dorset/Bournemouth/Poole) we have spaces for some more crafty peeps... pop over to our facebook group for all the details! We'd love to see you there!

I Feel Like Crafting Tonight.

I'm ashamed to say that at the moment it's a rare occurrence for me to actually get any crafting done at home. I'm so very lucky to be able to have crafting as a part of my day-job but somehow it's not the same as crafting just for the hell of it. Just for me. But somehow, even though the creative juices are willing my schedule seems to be conspiring against me and after moaning chatting about it with my lovely friend Emma, she's decided to do something about it!

So tonight sees the inaugural meeting of the Crafty Moments club. Based at the Barrington Centre in Ferndown, Dorset you can join us for a few hours of crafty fun from 6.30pm to 10.30pm (not sure I'll be there till the end, I like to be in bed by then!!) for just £3.50 to cover the room hire.

It's a total crafty free for all... no rules, no restrictions on what sort of craft you do. Just some crafty girls having a chat and doing their thing. Perfect!

So if you fancy a crafty night out, please leave me a comment or just rock on up this evening!

Disclaimer - It's possible that my lack of scrapping isn't the ONLY reason that Emma has started the club... I mean... she only has two children under three and busy job too... so I guess she might have the same problem. But I like to think it's mostly for me. Self involved? Moi? :)

Going digi...

A few weeks back docrafts launched a fab new digi-crafting tool called the docrafts Digi-Designer on Ideal World -  it's been a huge success so far! I'm very lucky to have been given access to all the discs created thus far and I'm championing the cause for some easy peasy digi-scrapping using the clever software. (It works much like photoshop, but without all the bits and pieces you never use!)

A couple of nights ago Becks and Sheila revealed the newest triple disc offering - the Papermania Christmas Past collection. I truly can't understate how much is on these discs!!! There are 10 full Christmas collections to choose from!



I spent a little bit of time having a play and am really loving the gorgeous non-Christmass papers that are included in many of the collections as well as the very-clever colourise tool that lets you change the colour of the papers etc to perfectly suit your pictures.

So here's my first page with the new discs... it features a picture of one of this years chicks (Katrina) who seems to spend her whole life trying to be bad!



Hope you like!