Bows & Brushes - WOYWW

I didn't do a WOYWW post last week because nothing had changed on my desk, sadly I hadn't got around to doing any crafting really. This week I am showing you my other workdesk as this is the one I have been working at this week. Yes I'm greedy and have 2 desks! 
The desk I showed where I did my art journalling is my messy desk. The one that I do card making, scrapbooking and art journalling on. The desk I am about to show you is my business making desk, the one I use to make my hair bows and jewellery for my handmade business. I find it so much easier having the 2 as I can keep my business separate from my personal crafting.

So this is that desk this week.

You can see a lot of in progress bows and my new fabric bow on a head band. I'm still unsure about that one to be honest, I'm not sure if the bow is a bit big for the band. I have also started making up some school sets that you can just see in the left hand corner, I am just waiting on some more bits to finish them off!

The brushes in the middle of my desk were my fave finished make this week. They are a new product for me, well I say new the decoration bit it new as I was just covering them with buttons before. But I LOVE these, think the blue and purple are my favourites, I just adore those little bees!

Got a lot of mini bows to make up this week as I am going to be sending some stuff to a shop for them to try and sell them for me, fingers crossed I sell lots lol! Well that's all from me this week.

Happy Crafting,

Maxine x

Art Journalling - WOYWW

Ooh here we are my first What's on your Workdesk Wednesday post! I haven't actually done any crafting this week yet and this is still left over from what I did at the weekend. I am TERRIBLE at tidying up. My desk was nice and tidy 2 weeks ago and hasn't been that way since. I even forget to clean my brushes and have had to throw away several glued up ones that I have forgotten about, oopse!

Anyway on my desk right now is the start of an art journal. If you read my last post then you will know I have recently discovered an amazingly talented lady called Jennibellie and this is part of her FREE class that she runs on her site. I have had fun so far getting messy and creating. It doesn't look like much yet but I'm hoping that once I get more done on it it will look better.

It was fun getting my paints and sprays out again. I completely forgot what I had! Loved that I had so many coordinating ones for the papers I wanted to use. Next step it to turn it into an actual mini book then I can start working on the individual pages.

If you want to check out Jennibellie's site which I totally recommend then it's http://journalworkshops.ning.com/. I will hopefully get to work on it again this coming weekend and will show more on here when I've done it.

Happy Crafting,

Maxine xx

P.s. Don't know what WOYWW is? Check it out here - http://stamping-ground.blogspot.co.uk/p/what-is-woyww.html

Smash Book

I was planning on joining in with WOYWW (What's on your Workdesk Wednesday, you can find out about it here.) but I forgot to take a photo of my desk! I can show you however what is on my desk (among other things) that I am hoping to start filling shortly.

This is my handmade, hand bound album that I am planning on using as a smash book. 

I am really pleased with it. This isn't the first time I have made a chipboard album but this is the first time I have bound it in this way. And I just love all the fabric and ribbon scraps on the spine, makes it really touchy feely!

I got the idea for making this book from an amazingly talented lady called Jennibellie. You can find her blog here and the 2 videos I used for inspiration on her YouTube channel here and here. Only major difference was that I used chipboard instead of a box and scrapbook papers for the covers.

Don't know what a smash book is? In this video from Jennibellie she explains what the difference is between an art journl, junk journal and smash book. In my eyes, and what I am planning for my smash book, it's a book where you can stick memorabilia, photos, tickets, notes and odds and ends that you have collected that don't necessarily 'fit' a Scrapbook page. I have loads of cinema tickets that I have kept over the years that I plan on sticking in, I have photos from penpals, stamps from other countries, little notes I have written, receipts, maps etc etc. With my scrapbook pages I tend to plan them and have a specific theme on each layout, with my smash book I am literally just going to stick things in randomly as I find them! I already have a box full of things to get going!

Do you have a smash book, either a bought one or a handmade one? How do you use yours, I would love to see!

Thanks for reading and do make sure you check out Jennibellie's You Tube channel, sooooo much inspiration!

Happy Crafting,

Maxine xx

A sketch and Layouts

After talking about my favourite ever layout in my last post I thought I would share the sketch I created ages ago for it and the 3 layouts that have come from it. I created this sketch for my previous craft shop blog (the blog actually still exists and there is a lot of inspiration still there from my previous design team you can check it out here - http://www.trulymadlycrafty.blogspot.co.uk/).

I still love this simple but effective design and maybe as I haven't scrapped for so long when I do I will use this sketch as my inspiration to get me going again!

P.s. Can you tell I have a thing for butterflies on my layouts?! Never realised I used quite so many!

Happy crafting,
Maxine xx

Bit of a Scrap

So I thought it would be good to share a few scrapbook pages. These were all made sometime in 2010/11 I believe and I don't think I've shared them on here before!

This layout was created from a UK Scrappers Cyber Crop class. I really enjoyed making the  felt embellishments although it makes the page very bulky in my album!

I love this page, it's not my usual style at all but I find it really fun and I love all the layers and the pearl swirl.

This is one of my all time favourite layouts and I have actually created 2 other layouts based on this one (one of the others is a few posts down). I love the stitching and all the different ribbons and extra bits. I also love seeing all my different hair styles on one page. I might have to do another one like this though because last year my hair was blue all over then purple all over!

It's a shame that this layout didn't take a photo so well, it's not very easy to read the title (better IRL) but it says 'Snowflakes are Winters Butterflies'. This was created with a kit I believe for a UK Scrappers Crop.

Thanks for having a look and hope you like my creations :)

Happy Crafting,

Maxine xx

Life is like a rollercoaster...

Wow, it has been a little over 4 years since I last wrote a blog post. A lot has happened in my life since then, although it doesn't feel like it until I sit and think about it.

My life really has been full of ups and downs since I last posted.

Sadly I think the downs have definitely got to me more than the ups. I am unsure right now if I am currently on the way up again or going back down but I am hoping that 2015 might be an up and I will have less downs from now on.

This blog post I think is going to be more for me than anyone else. If you happen to read this and want to comment (please be nice!) that would be lovely but I finally feel as though I need to write this down. Looking back through my blog has been hard. Seeing the happy times and knowing how wrong it all went is harder than it really should be, but sadly that's life.

Since I last posted I have got engaged, moved out of my parents house, changed the name of my business and build a reasonably steady website. 2011 was an up for me, everything seemed to be going well, sadly that didn't continue. 2012 I broke up with my fiancée and all my dreams came crashing down. I was suddenly living alone which was something I had never wanted to do. I got myself a little puppy. Quite simply the cutest little guy ever. He became my reason for getting up in the morning and continuing to carry on. 

By the summer I had met someone else. This was unfortunately to be my worst mistake ever. He messed me about continuously but stupidly I stayed. We moved in together and my little puppy went to live with my parents. My life became a constant tip toeing around him, never knowing how he was going to be from one day to the next, not knowing if today was going to be a good day or a bad one. We did have some good times and there are a few things I can look back on fondly but mostly it was a nightmare. One positive thing about my new partner was that he did encourage me with my handmade business and took me to my first few craft fairs. I also merged my craft business with a shop and Creative Hobby Supplies was born (I still work there now).

Thankfully by summer 2013 the relationship ended. It did however leave me a complete mess and I struggled for quite a few months to sort myself out. Trying to find my feet again after him telling me for so many months that I was nothing without him was very, very hard. I did a few stupid things and for a long time didn't want to 'do' life any more, but slowly I managed to pick myself back up.

2014 held a few bumps for me again, I met someone who really liked me but sadly I just didn't feel the same and then later in the year the opposite happened and I realised how I need to keep my heart more protected and be less open with my feelings so that I don't allow myself to be hurt so much again. I have gone back onto my antidepressants. A lot of people keep telling me this was a bad idea. Maybe for them it would have been but for me it has worked. I'm not on a particularly high dose but it's enough to help me along and keep me out of the black hole that I never want to enter again. I have also cleansed my life of negative people. I have very few friends and even fewer now but I couldn't deal with the people I called friends being in my life and causing me even more upset and hurt, friends are supposed to support and be a happy thing not cause you more issues. This was hard to do but I think in the end has been good for me mentally.

I changed the direction of my handmade business and had a rebrand in early summer and Buttons & Bows Boutique was born. This resulted in an amazing few months of school and summer fairs. I finally had something that people wanted to buy and spent most of May and June making stock and attending fairs. This did me the world of good. It kept my mind off of all the negative and gave me something to focus on.

Towards the end of summer and mid Autumn I had problems with the ex from my bad relationship. This finally resulted in a trip to the police station, thankfully nothing more has happened and I hope that I can say he is finally removed from my life, and I have finally realised just how much better off I am for it. 

I booked a lot of craft and school fairs again for Christmas and enjoyed every minute. Meeting lots of other lovely craft sellers and customers, it all came to an end far too quickly! 

I didn't enjoy Christmas and New Year as much as I would have liked, I didn't really want to spend them single again but I am trying my best to stay positive and have lots of plans to try and make this year a better one with less of the downs. I want to take my business further and I would love to find my papercraft mojo again and maybe start scrapbooking once more, as I have pretty much neglected this since the break up with my fiancée all that time ago at the beginning of 2012!

Phew, that pretty much brings us up to date I think. I have done some crafty projects in between these times as well as all my items that I have sold with my business, they have just been different from what I was sharing before all this happened. 

If you have managed to read all the way through then thank you and I look forward to sharing more positive things with you in the future!

Happy Crafting and Happy New Year,

Maxine x

UKS Swap

I have taken part in a swap on UKS to create a Christmas Wall Hanging. It's not something that I would normally do and I can't wait to see all the finished sqaures together. So here are all of my 12 squares together.

I started off my painting the edges of the chipboard pieces (they each measure 3"x3") then I cut some leftover Christmas papers slightly smaller. I cut some acetate squares a bit smaller again and stamped using acrylic paints onto it with a snowflake stamp. I used a flourish Inchie stamp for the middle and then sewed the acetate over the top. Finally I punched some snowflakes out of some silver card and printed the words from my computer, inked the edges and applied some gems. I really enjoyed doing them and while they are not what I originally planned I am very pleased with them, just hope that everyone else likes them too when they are received!

I also thought I would share a non Christmassy Card I made a while ago. I am not a huge card maker but I thought this was quite pretty!

I just love butterflies and pom pom ribbon at the moment!!

Thanks for looking!