Hello, We are back! Look what our first post is...Christmas Decoration Making Workshop...

Christmas Decoration Making Workshop 

Sunday 15th November  

12pm to 2.30pm

Hi everyone,

Hope you are all well, sorry it has been so long since we posted anything but we are back with lots of exciting posts, workshops and demos at the shop in Wanstead. 

Christmas is rapidly creeping up so we thought is would be a good idea to get into the craft festive season.

Spend a few hours on a Sunday afternoon with a cup of tea and a piece of cake enjoying crafting at Craft Boutique at 84.

We will be using a few different techniques to produce beautiful Christmas Decorations, that can also be used for your Christmas wrapping or as presents for people. 

Cost: £12.50 per person

Refreshments and all your materials included.

Limited spaces available so to book your place please e.mail us or call the Gallery on 0208 530 1244.

We look forward to seeing you.

Lyn and Danielle 

BOXING CLEVER...

Picture work © Geoff Wilkinson 

We had a great night yesterday here at Craft Boutique at '84' in Nightingale Lane, Wanstead. The theme of night was decorating these lovely, handy jewellery boxes, although of course you can use them for whatever you like. Starting with just a plain undecorated box people soon got into the swing of things and as you can see there was some terrific crafting going on. There was tea, cake, bucks fizz and fun and everyone went home with a box they had completed.

Next Sunday we have a free demo day between 12 and 3pm if you are in Wanstead or nearby pop in and have a look what we are up to, hope to see you all then...

PS if you go to our September workshop page you can see all the craft demos and workshops for the month..

        Picture World © Geoff Wilkinson

ROLL UP, ROLL UP....

Today is the start of the Wanstead Art Trail and the Wanstead Fringe. We have free craft workshops today between 11am and 3pm so do pop in and see what we are up to...and don't forget today there is 10% off all craft products...hope to see you later...

CHECK THE SEPTEMBER WORKSHOPS..

Hi everyone just quick note. Apologies for not posting recently but we have been so busy re organising our craft shop, it's all in one room now, and preparing for next month. As you may know September in a very busy month in Wanstead, we have the Art Trail running from Saturday 5th  till Sunday 20th and the Wanstead Fringe running from Saturday the 5th till Saturday the 12th. We are keen supporters of both of these and are running several craft workshops during these events. When you have a second please look at our September page and check out a full list of what we have going on...

We hope you have the opportunity to pop in and say hello..

Brand New from Sheena Douglass….

New! Just Released Perfect Partner Festive Fancies from Sheena Douglass.

Another range of great Dies and Stamp Sets from Sheena, perfect for all your Christmas Craft Projects. Comprising of Baubles, Christmas Lights, Santa's Little Elf Helper, Fairies, Holly and much much more.

The sets also contain images and sentiments that can be used all year round in conjunction with her other Perfect Partners, which is why they are the ‘Perfect Partner’ for your crafting.

We have ordered them and they will be in the shop next week!

We will be stocking the full range.

Special offer: If you buy a matching Die and Stamp Set from the new Perfect Partner Festive Fancies range you will receive a 10% discount.

If you would like to pre-order, we can reserve them in the shop for you. Just give us a call on 0208 530 1244.

Special offer is only available from our shop in Wanstead and while stocks last.

It's a White Wedding….

Photograph World© Geoff Wilkinson - Design World © Lyn Wilkinson All Rights Reserved

Happy Saturday! I hope there is lots of crafting going on this weekend.

We were recently asked to make a wedding card for somebody for a wedding they are attending this month. We really enjoy doing projects like this, because we think it is a compliment when somebody asks us to make something crafty for them. 

We thought it would make a great post on the blog, so you can see what we have been up to. It is another joint project from us and on this occasion we did not have a design in our minds before we started. All we knew was that we wanted it to be in either cream or white pearlised card and wanted to incorporate an embossing folder to add texture.

As you can see from the photograph above we went with a very simple colour theme. I think it is always very interesting when you limit the colour combination on a craft project and in this instance the  main colour is white with a hint of silver.

The card itself is made from Crafter's Companion Centura Pearl 300gsm card and the colour is 'Snow White Hint of Gold'. Using the same card and Creative Expressions Heart Lattice embossing folder we created the top layer. Once the card was embossed we then die cut out Sweet Dixie's Floral Heart Frame which created a heart shape in the card, again in the same Centura Pearl card. Behind the heart cut out we put a piece of silver swirl texture paper to create contrast. We then stuck down the embossed card layer with Scotch Double Sided tape and using STIX2 double sided foam pads stuck the heart die cut out over the top of the shape in the card to create a 3D effect.

Using the Wild Rose Studio Dies, 'Little Butterfly' and 'Peacock Butterfly', we die cut one of each in the Centura Pearl card and one of each in the silver swirl texture paper. Using glue dots along the bodies we stuck the silver paper butterflies over the Centura Pearl butterflies. The self adhesive pearls on the floral heart are white 8mm and the ones on the body of the butterflies (which hopefully you can see) are 3mm, both from Creative Expressions.

The sentiment proved the most difficult as we really could not decide what to do. We went quite subtle in the end and I think it works really well. We cut out a small circle die, stamped a Wild Rose Studio sentiment using a VersaMark Watermark stamp pad and heat embossed it using WOW!'s Metallic Silver embossing powder. We used the STIX2 Foam pads to stick it to the card, again creating a 3D effect.

Photograph World© Geoff Wilkinson - Design World © Lyn Wilkinson All Rights Reserved

Finally to add some finishing touches to make the card a little more special, we used a butterfly stamp from the 'Lovely Garden' stamp set by STAMPENDOUS! to stamp a butterfly on the inside of the card and the envelope in metallic silver. 

I hope you have enjoyed today's post.

Dan

x 

What a Lovely Garden….

Photograph World© Geoff Wilkinson - Design World © Lyn Wilkinson All Rights Reserved

We are really big fans of Jumbo Cling Stamp sets and the matching dies from STAMPENDOUS! They are versatile to use in lots of different craft projects.

So using the 'Lovely Garden' stamp and die set we did a joint project and something a bit different for tonight. A craft project in a frame! You can see the finished piece in the photograph above.

The first thing we did was to stamp the large and medium rose, along with some leaves and the butterfly using a Rangers Archival Wendy Vecchi Ink Pad in 'Watering Can' on smooth white stamping card. The grey colour can be a good alternative to a black ink as it is a little softer. 

Next we die cut out the stamped images and coloured them using Tim Holtz Distress Inks in a variety of pinks such as 'Victorian Velvet' and 'Spun Sugar' and greens such as 'Mowed Lawn'. 'Mustard' was used to highlight the leaves and flowers and 'Seedless Preserves' (deep purple) which adds depth again to both the flowers and leaves.  

For the butterfly we used a combination of blues including 'Salty Ocean', adding the orange of 'Spiced Marmalade'. We used a Tim Holtz Mini Ink Blending Tool, which is great because it is small and round and easy to work with.

WOW! Ultra High Clear Gloss Embossing Powder was used in conjunction with a Watermark VersaMark stamp pad to give the die cut images a ceramic look, which creates a beautiful shine.To make the centre of each of the flowers I used Rangers 'Daffodil' Liquid Pearls. 

Photograph World© Geoff Wilkinson - Design World © Lyn Wilkinson All Rights Reserved

To stick the large flowers and leaves to the white mount board we used Cosmic Shimmer Acrylic Glue. The smaller roses and butterfly were stuck using STIX2 Double Sided Foam Pads to create a 3D look. This was also used on some of the larger roses around the edges to make them look more realistic. Mount board was used for the background because we were going to put it in a frame. In fact mount board is really good for using as a background on craft projects as it is sturdy but not too thick.

The picture frame we used is made out of a plain white wood moulding and was made in our Photography Gallery in Wanstead, 'Eighyfour'.

Photograph World© Geoff Wilkinson

We had fun making this project, especially using the new products from STAMPENDOUS!

We hope you enjoyed tonight's post. Look out for another post on Friday night.

Lyn and Dan

x x x