Midweek Papercraft Party (12)

Welcome to another Papercraft Challenge!

Last week's winners are:

Maya and Chris

Well done you two - please email wendy@handmadeharbour.co.uk with your choice of three digital stamps from the Handmade Harbour store.

<---- You can also grab the winner's badge from the left sidebar!

OK, so let's move onto this week.  Our theme this week is...

Thank You or Thanksgiving.

This is what the design team have been up to with the theme...

Lynne turned the girl with bunting digital stamp into a gorgeous thank you card.  Check out Lynne's blog for how she made this card...

And they say great minds think alike, don't they?  Zoe came up with exactly the same idea!  Another gorgeous card!

But now for something completely different!

This funky chicken digital stamp made a perfect Thanksgiving card, I think!  It's by Rachel - you can see more on her blog.

I love what they did this week - I think saying thank you can be really important and there's no better way to do that than with a handmade Thank You card.

This sewing machine image has the thank you message integrated into the design - close followers of this blog may recognise this card from a while back!  I used Promarkers for the colour and fabric, stitching and buttons around the edges.

There's chance to win digital stamps ever week - and you double your chances if you use a Handmade Harbour image in your project.  Don't forget there are free digital stamps you can use too.  For a chance of winning, just take part in the linky party...

What have you been making?  I'd love to pop along and have a look!

Midweek Paper Party (4)

Hello and welcome to our papercraft challenge!  This week's theme is Fun or Funny!

Unfortunately, last week nobody used a Handmade Harbour digistamp so we don't have a winner this week, which makes me sad - I like to give some free stamps to a winner!!  At the bottom, you'll find out how you could be in with a chance of winning this week without having to buy anything.  I would LOVE to see more people using Handmade Harbour digis!!

For inspiration, let's have a look at what the design team made!

I love what Lynne did with the cute monster digistamp!  His googly eyes and tuft of fluffy hair just add to his uber-cuteness!

Rachel's card uses the retired couple digistamp and it looks great (below):

Deanne's kitten Smudge got in on the act again (read more on Deanne's blog) ...

but Deanne still managed to make these fab cards:

(love her hair, above - so shiny!!)

I love the sense of depth in the one above.  

 Zoe used the same image but came up with a totally different card (below) - very girly with all that pink, and a sense of depth again, achieved in a totally different way! The humorous enormous cake digistamp is a popular one!

If you are inspired to join in this week, we'd love to have you.  If you'd like to try a free Handmade Harbour digistamp, pop over to the free digistamps page.  There's a brand new one to download!  Don't be put off by it asking for your email address - you won't be put on a mailing list.

If you use one of the Handmade Harbour stamps (including the freebies) you will be in with a chance of winning three digistamps of your choice from the Handmade Harbour store.

To join in with the papercraft challenge this week, please simply leave a link to your blog post!

Free Supplies for Tutorials!

I'm excited to be getting together with Totally Tutorials to offer some free digital stamps in exchange for tutorials!

Basically, this is how it works:

• you apply to get your freebies
• I send you the stamps of your choice if you are selected (I've no idea how many people will be interested so there has to be a cut-off point!)
• you blog about how to make whatever you made (or do another kind of tute, like how to use Promarkers, or use digi stamps)
• you send your blog link to Totally Tutorials and me

Are you interested?  Excellent! So here it all is in a bit more detail:

• You'll get five free digital stamps of your choice (you don't need to use them all in your tutorial)
• I'll choose up to five people to receive the stamps, which will be sent to you by email
• You can be based anywhere in the world and you have until 9th July 2013 to apply.  I'll let you know within 3 days of the closing date if you're successful and you'll receive your stamps as soon as possible after that.
• I'd like you to be able to post your tutorial within two to three weeks of receiving your stamps - ideally on your blog, but if you don't have a blog you can still join in by posting on Craftster, Instructables or Cutoutandkeep
• You need to let both me and Kym at Totally Tutorials know once you have posted your tutorial

Still interested?  Email me: wendy@handmadeharbour.co.uk telling me a bit about why you'd like me to choose you, what you'd make and which stamps you'd like to have.

There's more info about the Exchange Program on the Totally Tutorials blog.  If you are interested in applying, pop over to check the details.

PS: You can check out my digital stamps on the Handmade Harbour website.

Handmade Monday 114

Hello! Welcome to Handmade Monday!

Well, it's not hard to figure out the highlights of my week include my visit to London and the UK Pinterest party on Thursday evening.

Pinterest goody bag

Do you use Pinterest?  I can't imagine life without Pinterest, which probably makes me sound like a bit of a geek without a real life. Interestingly, it was probably my slightly obsessive pinning habit that got me onto the guest list - funny how staying at home and drooling over cool images can lead to a posh party invite!  It's a crazy world!

I think I need to do a separate post on the party and introduce you to some of the amazing bloggers I met there.  Watch out for it this coming week.  Oh, and my Pinterest boards are here, just in case you haven't discovered the joy that is Pinterest.  Is there anyone out there who hasn't yet?  I'm currently finding it invaluable for collecting inspiration for my new digital stamp images.  It's like a giant digital scrapbook - with links!

Back to London.  London is a place full of surprises.  Traffic and tall buildings, of course -  and...er, herons...

out for lunch in south west London

and farm animals...

with lambs and goats happily feeding from their mums

aah!

I very much like the way perfectly gorgeous snippets of nature are dovetailed into sometimes quite a small space creating what seems like a mini-getaway that can be enjoyed by many.  I have never really understood London living (to me it seems busy, cramped and overpriced with a liveliness and culture that might of course appeal but at what cost?) but I am beginning to see why my daughter loves it.  She's a city girl at heart, though, and I'm just not.

This was another surprise...

the world's first unattended city shop.  

Hope they've taken the keys out of the ignition...

I didn't visit the honesty shop, but maybe next time.   It's housed in an old double-decker bus parked in a place that hosts a weekend market with craft stalls and things that are just a bit different - so I'm told.  I wasn't there over the weekend this time, so maybe I'll visit it next time I'm in London - it's just a short walk from where my daughter lives and most of the walk is along that heron-populated river.

In other news, if you'd be up for some digital stamp testing for me, please have a look here for free digi stamps in exchange for feedback.

Oh, and yes, the vanbag got finished - more on that soon!

And that's it from me for now - over to you for Handmade Monday's lovely blog hopping...

Free Digital Stamps...

... in return for letting me know what you think of them!

I'm looking for testers for my brand new range of digital stamps.  If you are into card making then I would value your opinions, whether you already use digi stamps or not.

However, if you already do use digi stamps, then your opinions might be really, really useful to me!

a little peek at one of the stamps
(the actual stamp won't have the watermark all over it!)

Please email me at wendy@1stuniquegifts.co.uk if you are interested in helping me out in return for free digi stamps.  You'll be sent download links to 8 stamps, 5 of them are black and white line drawings, ideal for colouring yourself, and three are colour for using as backing papers or similar).  I'll also send you a list of questions about your opinions, which I'd be really grateful if you could answer for me.

Once you have the stamps, you can use them as you like (but please don't pass on the stamps in a digital format to anyone else).  You can use them on cards, gift tags - anything, really, and you can sell whatever you make with them at craft fairs or in your online shop too because I'm offering the stamps with an Angel policy (there will be more specific copyright info on the website when it's published).

The website for selling my new digital images is probably about 3-4 weeks off.  I'll let you know as soon as it goes live!

PS: If the email link above doesn't work for you, copy and paste my email address:

wendy@1stuniquegifts.co.uk

into the address bar on a new email.