Card Patterns Sketch 57

My entry for the Sketch 57 Challenge over on Card Patterns. An anniversary card I made for my boyfriend. Hope he doesnt stumble across it on here first.

My altered journals....

I've had a busy week of spending way too much money on various Tim Holtz and other craft products, a little trip to Blade Rubber Stamp shop in London (it's only a walk away from my work, very dangerous!!) and last but not least doing some crafting.

I'm very pleased with some of my creations this week. As mentioned in a previous post I wanted to alter some mini moleskine journals I bought. It's really addictive, I'm off to buy more blanks later to do more!!! But here are the ones I created yesterday:

There were all really quick to make so I can only recommend it, they make sweet little presents I think.

This one is my favourite. The bird stamp is from the Tim Holtz "Life's Possibilities" stamps sheet. I just tied some string around the cover, fed it through a Making Memories "Dream" coin and tied a bow over a piece of tracing paper stamped with a script stamp. Done.

This was the first one I made. The script is Tibetan sanskrit and means "Younger Sister", I had it translated and then made into a stamp. I used gold perfect pearls for it. And then I added 3 punched circles, 2 of them stamped and one is a sister definition from an old dictionary.

To finish it off I tied some red and black fibre around the spine.

They are my entry to the challenge over on Tuesday Taggers!

I know the journals come in all sorts of sizes and colours, so I think I might have to work my way through the whole collection until I've altered one of each colour and size. I'll let you know how I get on.

Day of discoveries.....

I went on a little discovery trip on the internet today, looking through so many blogs and getting even more ideas in my head (and still not enough time to try them all out). Found the Hero Arts Group on Flickr and added some cards and also entered their challenge, which I didn't know about before now. (Note to self: Must add link to there on my blog)

When I say I don't have any time to craft I mean it... just look at this...

Stamps, brandnew, untouched, in their packaging. And some of them I've had sitting here for over a week. And my head is full of ideas I think it might explode.

Just about to start the busiest part of my working week, working all day tomorrow, Saturday and then Sunday afternoon and out for dinner after that. That's 3 days without any ink on my fingers :(

Catch you later, I'm off to work.

GREETINGS!

So, I've had a week since starting this blog to have a think how to approach this and im not much wiser. Been reading lots of blogs and loving them, yet no idea what I want mine to be like. So I'll just give it a go and try different things and hopefully I'll get a loada feedback from you guys and take it from there.
Got loads of great ideas of things to make and try but there's never enough time in the day. Though I have been very productive yesterday. Maybe a little late (I'm sure everyone else made their easter cards months ago) but I made about 20 cards yesterday for various birthdays and of course easter. A friend asked me if I could make her 10 so of course I didn't want to disappoint so I got cracking.
I've had them felt bunnies from paperchase in my drawer for a year now but was never sure how to use them so I forced myself to do something with them.

So I tried out a few things (check out all other cards in my flickr gallery) and eventuall came up with this.

I wanted to steer away from the fluffy bunny, pastel coloured easter theme I thought I had to go with just because that's what most easter cards in the shops look like. It's quick and it's simple. I'd like to make a few more of those but add to them, stamped backgrounds, distress ink, make it more arty. I have recently bought 7 sets of Tim Holtz stamps (bargain!!!) and haven't even taken them out the packaging yet. So maybe they could come in handy. Any new variations on the card I will post here so watch this space. Ideas welcome.

The other thing I've been looking forward to trying out was an easter seal stamp from Catslife Press. It caught my eye when I was browsing their website recently. (In fact so many stamps recently caught my eye I have spent most of my wages online and now eagerly awaiting the arrival of my parcels from the US).

I've come up with 2 ways to use it, yet again if I had more time to craft I'm sure there is endless possibilities.

So yeah, thats my creations for the week. I really hope to be exploring some metal stuff and embossing and things on monday when I have time. I enjoy looking at all sorts of altered art projects and really wanna give it a go but I'm a very neat and tidy person, I don't know if I could be messy although that's the look I like. I hope to be experimenting with these pencil tubs and little kraft notebooks.

So I hope you check back for the results. Thanks for reading!!

Hello and welcome!

Hey guys (that's if anyone's reading this yet),

first post so may I say welcome to Anikraft. My name is Anika, I'm 28 and based in London. I love crafting and I'm mad about rubber stamps as well as pretty papers. Let me tell you a bit about me. I'm originally from Germany but have lived in London for almost 8 years now. I came here to study and kinda forgot to go back home since. I'm a trained prop maker and set builder and currently work as stage crew in the west end. I love what I do and it's always a laugh, but I don't seem to have enough time to be creative. Monday being my only day off that is my official craft day and I am hoping to give you one craft/card making/scrapbooking project or ideas every week. I am hoping to meet like minded people and throw some ideas around or just to chat in general. If you'd like to have a look at my work so far you can check out my Flickr gallery (see links on the right). Not much going on in my shop yet but I'm only just setting everything up and there's just not enough time in the day.
So anyway, I hope to see you popping back. I have lots of ideas of things to do and give aways and stuff so bear with me and I'll see you soon!
xxxx