Design Team......give a warm welcome to the lovely Claire

My design team is made up of a very talented bunch....and I'm happy to say Claire isn't just crafty, but she's also a brilliant director at Hochanda!  Here's a little more about our Claire:

 Claire has a crafty Facebook page that she posts her crafty activities to: www.facebook.com/thecherrypickedcrafts

 First, please tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into crafting?

I'm Claire. 28 from Kent originally, now living in Peterborough. I'm currently working as a Trainee Studio Director at Hochanda with the lovely Leonie. I started crafting when I was really young with papercraft. Making cards for people's birthdays, the usual kid crafting. I slowly learned more and more as my Nan opened up a craft shop and got into different crafts like needlework. This slowed down a little as I was busy with my education for a few years, but I got a job working at Create and Craft and got back into the crafting world learning from the shows and offen spending too much of my paycheck on new crafty goodies. I'm now at Hochanda doing much the same but with more spare time now to get the crafty juices going again. 

Have you got a favourite craft, or do you like doing a little bit of everything?

I really do like a little bit of everything. I'll often walk into my craft room and see what takes my fancy that day or even get sudden inspiration to make something and end up forgetting what I was doing. I'm going through a sewing phase at the moment. 

What's the most rewarding thing about crafting for you?

The look on the persons face when you hand them something you've made. They realise you've taken the time out of your day to make something unique for them. That's the best gift you can give and receive. 

Have you ever sold your craft work?

I did a few commission pieces, but mostly I just craft for fun or gifts.

Finally, what crafting tool could you not do without?

Ooo that's a tough one! I think it would be my fineline sharpie. Good for drawing on your own designs, filling in any gaps you've missed stamping and then of course filling out the inside of the card to send off. 

Watch out for Claire's lovely creations, and check her facebook page out as well :)

Christmas Baubles!!

I thought I'd do a post!! Last week I had lots of Christmas baubles to decorate, which I really enjoyed!  It's lovely to do something different, and have a play.  I thought I'd share a few of the designs with you:

The first bauble (these are glass), was coated on the inside with Cosmic Shimmer Glitter Jewels.  I did this by spraying Crafters Companion spray adhesive into the bauble.  This coats it enough in adhesive so when I put the Glitter Jewels in, and gave it a shake, it coated the entire bauble.  And looks really pretty.  

I then took some die cut snowflakes and popped them on my craft mat.  I coated these with clear drying glue.  This softens the card so it will easily wrap around the bauble.  I applied another coat over the top, to make sure it sticks properly to the bauble, and then leave it to dry.  Easy and perfect.

Next, I used one of the open baubles which are designed for you to either build inside the bauble, or pop a tea light in there for extra sparkle.  I mixed the acrylic lacquer with a tiny little pixie powder, and then applied to the bauble.  Dab it on to create texture.  I love this, as the lacquer dries clear, and the pixie powder shines!

The final one for today is very easy...I've simply used Cosmic shimmer pva to apply jute cord to the bauble.  I've then wrapped pretty lace around the bauble, and then ribbon.  I then managed to get really carried away decorating the bauble with die cuts.  Very easy indeed!

I'll pop a few more on tomorrow.  Thank you for visiting :) xx

Design Team.....Welcome the new members

Good morning lovely crafters, I hope my post finds you well and full of glitter or paint!
Now, it's that time already when I need to introduce my brand new design team members.  My original plan was to rotate my Design Team after 6 months....but I just couldn't do it.  My design team have been so amazing, I didn't want to loose them.  So instead, the wonderful Crafters Companion have agreed I can have more members!  Hooray.

I'm therefore very very pleased to introduce the brand new team to you.  First of all, please meet the lovely Diane

Brilliant photo Diane, I figure you are going to fit in very well :)

I asked Diane to answer a few questions for me, so we can get to know her better:

I have always crafted, first as a little girl converting boxes for my dolls to live in and spending many rainy afternoons on the original form of scrapbooking (cutting stuff up and sticking it into a large sugar paper album with ridiculous unusable "gloy glue" ...remember the horrible rubber tipped glue we used to have to put up with) to approx 20 years ago when my brother bought me a box of watercolour paints for Christmas. I didn't really know how to paint so I just practiced painting miniature trees. With some birthdays looming, I decided to cut the trees up and make some little cards, then I discovered you could get peel offs to add messages to the cards....
then I discovered you could buy rubber stamps to add messages and images.......soon my little bag of craft stuff turned into a crate of stuff which turned into a desk of stuff .....and now I have a craft 
room room which is still not big enough!! The addiction is now incurable.

Mmmmmm now the tricky questions 

Fave crafts....
Love ALL things papercraft...3d decoupage a slight exception as I am a bit of a maverick with scissors (if you like images with heads/bits/chunks missing I'm your woman for the job) But particularly passionate about economical crafting i.e. recycling, upcycling where possible. Love 
using my craft stuff combined with everyday stuff. (Ha ha ....loved your latest challenge....eggshells!?!) oh and my new fave thing is creative gift wrapping! Giving up on buying lots of different wrapping paper .......this year it's only brown wrapping paper and whatever I 
can do to it with my craft stuff. 

 
Most Rewarding thing ....
Well I do love the pure escapism, totally self indulgent, "just for me" time but even better is sharing crafting. Love seeing the joy and self achievement people have once they have had a go at making something ....if only more people would join the crafty brigade....the world would seriously be a better place! (Perhaps we could sit a few world leaders down with some paper, paint and sticky stuff....although sharp scissors might not be a good idea). 

 
Selling craft stuff....
Yes, used to sell cards at one or two outlets ....my best sellers used to be in a pub!! Landlady kept a basket on the bar, apparently it saved a lot of marriages...equivalent to garage forecourt flowers but hopefully a little bit more thoughtful as I liked to make some of them a bit special. Sadly the most successful sellers on mass were very simple novelty based cards, not so much fun to make, have made special commissions for people but actually always worried that I didn't meet expectations when I was asked for those.Also did a couple of commissions for magazines. 

 
Favourite craft tool....

oh that's mean ... like asking "which one is your favourite child".....If the chips were down, couldn't live without my paper trimmer ....as I said, rubbish with scissors can't cut a straight line for toffee.

Thank you Diane.  Look out for Diane's work soon to be seen on Hochanda.

Entwined die collection

Good evening crafters.

My poor blog. I've been so busy I've neglected it completely!!

Well, I'm going to try and get some posts done regularly - let's see how I get on.

Today I wanted to share a quick card using my brand new entwined Christmas die collection. The dies I have used for this card are the Christmas tree base die and the frost die.

This is the card I have made:

I started by using my snowflake stamps and a versamark pad to create a stamped background. I then edged my card with cosmic shimmer glue and white embossing powder. When you melt the powder you get a lovely bumpy texture

I created a green background with distress ink, and then used the base Christmas die to cut a tree. Use white card to cut the base tree again, and then glue the White tree over the top of the green, leaving a little border to create a drop shadow effect 

I then cut the frost out of blue card which I covered with versamark ink and embossed using kalidescope embossing powder

Now, entwine the layers together. This is so easy. Simply lie the base on top of the frost die cut, and bring some of the swirls round to the front. I use 200gsm + card, which is substantial enough to entwine without ripping 

Now mat and layer your base card

And finally use my stamps to create your sentiment, and use 3D gel to attach it to your card 

Embossing folders and stamps

Morning crafters...following the launch of my embossing folders and stamps, I thought I'd share some finished samples from the wonderful design team - who've done an amazing job again, a big thank you to Nick, Katrina, Jane and Elaine 😊

Also, to show how the folders work beautifully in the aperture created with the entwined heart dies...hope you like them. See you all ar 9am

Entwined die collection

Good morning crafters

Sorry...I drafted this ages ago and then forgot to post it!!

Last week was a great - and very busy - week!! My one day special showed the launch of my first set of my entwined collection. This was an idea I had some time ago - so to see it come to life is really exciting! I thought I'd do a little tutorial to give you an idea of how the dies work..or my thought process at any rate!

First I cut the base die out - leaving space around the card to use it as an aperture, and then used the scroll design to do the same, in a contrasting colour

I cut out lots of the entwined element to go with my base die

Using the base die cut, entwine it into the fancy aperture, and then, using 3D foam, glue the base die aperture over the fancy aperture:

Start to entwine the swirls into the heart 

Stamp your background with one of my swirl stamps and emboss in white. Then stamp and emboss a sentiment to hang in the heart aperture.

I'm looking forward to my next launch this evening, where I'll bring more lovely stamps and embossing folders which will co-ordinate with the dies 😊

More stuff!!!!

Hi crafters...I've done some tutorials....they're still sitting on my phone...hopefully I'll find time to share them with you!! Eeek.

Today is a very busy day. I have my normal let Leonie loose show at 2-4 today, see pic attached for a sample of some of the beautiful products:

Then later this evening I launch my first range of dies!! Exciting. Scary. 

Right, not long till my show - hope you can join me.