Monday 30 November 2015

Fabscraps High Tea Chipboard Mini Album - update

I made the decision to put my mini on ebay after all. I thought I would share the pictures that I took of it before I let it go.


If you missed my youtube walkthrough of this album here you go:


Monday 23 November 2015

Colouring For Adults

This year has brought about some interesting trends in the papercrafting industry. People have moved on from Smash Books and Project Life to simpler forms of expression like adult colouring and paper doll making. Its incredible the amount of interest that these new colouring books have stirred up. I was at a show on Friday and all the vendors were discussing this new fad.  Its really not a new fad though when you think about it. Stamping and scrapbooking have allowed people the guilt free opportunity to colour for a very long time. Why now are the colouring books specific to adults flying off the shelves? Its actually quite simple. We are all stressed. Not necessarily the depression, anxiety invoking type, sometimes its just our daily pace that causes our body or more importantly our brain to feel overworked. When we colour our mind is forced to focus on the small decisions required to complete the picture. The selection of colours, the type of medium to use, which picture to colour, all of these small decisions relieve our brain of having to tackle the larger issues in our life. Its like a mini vacation for our mind. Adult colouring books are being recommended by art therapists because of the therapeutic value they provide.People that were ruminating over health issues or personal problems felt immediate relief from just sitting down and colouring. It certainly does not have to be any particular book. Choose a book or even print off a free page that is the most detailed that you are feeling confident in tackling. For me, colouring the Prima Doll stamps provides me with the same calming effect as colouring the more detailed books. Find something that is of interest to you and give it a try. They are also great gifts for just about everyone on your Christmas list.




Try Adult Colouring with some of these free printable pages. Follow my board as I will be pinning new pages as I find them. Follow My Grandma's Teacups's board Colouring For Adults on Pinterest. Or purchase from Amazon

Monday 16 November 2015

Sparkling Poinsettia Mixed Media Canvas


Its time for Christmas gift projects at the library already. Whoosh where did the time go? This year I really wanted to do some type of mixed media project but as we are limited to 2 hours for the class I was a bit stumped. Luckily I spoke to Vicki Gee at a crop last month and she helped me work the details out in my head.

This is the project we will be creating December 3rd at the Tyendinaga Public Library.

Materials Used:

  • blank canvas
  • Heartfelt Creation Sparkling Poinsettia Dies and Stamps
  • Tattered Rose and Ground Espresso Distress Ink
  • Sharpie (gold)
  • Just Believe Paper 
  • Glitter Washi
  • Lots and Lots of Mod Podge (matte)









Friday 13 November 2015

Women Empowering Women

Women Empowering Women. That is the name of the local networking group run by Karen Tweedy Independent Director at Thirty-One Gifts. I love the name but I love the experience even more. Karen and I share a common passion for helping other Women achieve their dreams. Sometimes that means dragging them through countless social media tasks, sometimes it means celebrating their achievements over hot chocolate at Panera. The reason that this group is so effective is that we not only openly share our best marketing and sales ideas, we boost each other's confidence and gently nudge them closer to their goals. The group keeps us motivated, and accountable. That is something that is lacking when you are a one woman shop. I just want to thank all the members of the group for their ideas and support. I encourage all of our Independent Business women to find a tribe of women and start empowering one another.

Another great woman that is devoted to lifting other business women up is my friend Lynsey Jones. She owns a company called Party Plan Divas. Lynsey has devoted so much time to creating wonderful videos with tips and tricks to help people build their business. Lynsey has chapters of her Divas all over and she is heavily involved in assisting each chapter reach their goals. Lynsey is busy with promoting all her Divas in the Christmas Gift Guide right now but she is going to be joining us on the blog to discuss issues affecting women entrepreneurs in the near future. In the meantime, Lynsey will be sponsoring a giveaway of one of her amazing Party Plan Diva Agenda's. All you have to do to enter is sign up for her daily party plan tips email. (I have been receiving them for years and she has brilliant tips) as well as signing up for my monthly email list. Pretty easy right.

This is an older video that explains the planner. It was the first planner designed specifically for Party Planners. (Direct Sales).



a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thursday 12 November 2015

Heartfelt Creations Haul and Scrapbook Club Project

Don't you just hate it when technology issues mess with your plans. For whatever reason blogger would not publish yesterday. I tried well into the night and no luck. I decided that the best thing to do is combine the two posts (yesterday's video and today's project.) So it will be like getting to watch a whole season of your favourite show on Netflix. Ha. Well close enough.

This is the video showing the Heartfelt Creations Stamps and Dies that arrived yesterday.



This is the project we are working on tonight in our scrapbook club. 

Supplies Used:

  • Twig & berry Paper Collection (Kaisercraft)
  • Twig & Berry Diecut Pack
  • Heartfelt Creations Sparking Poinsettia Stamps
  • Heartfelt Creations Sparkling Poinsettia Dies
  • Ruby Rock It Christmas Ribbon 
  • Close to My Heart Ruby, Barn Red, English Ivy, Ponderosa Pine and Honey Inks
  • Ground Espresso Distress Ink
  • Flat back gems from Ebay (I paid 24 cents and it was free shipping)
  • Craft Medley Clear Glue


Monday 9 November 2015

Heartfelt Creations Sparkling Poinsettia

We don't have satelite or cable at our house because I felt it influenced the children too much and put them into the whole commercialization loop. Somehow though I don't seem to apply the same principle to my own viewing habits. I watched a video from Heartfelt Creations the other day and ended up ordering all the supplies that they they used. I could not help myself, I had to have it.

Here is my shopping list from the other day:

  1. SPRK POINS-CUT & EMBOSS DIES
  2. SPRK POINS-CUT & EMBOSS DIES
  3. LARGE PNST-CLING RUBBR STMP SET
  4. SPRKL PNST-CLING RUBBR STMP SET
  5. PNST NOTES-CLING RUBBR STMP SET
  6. SPRK POINS-HEARTFELT PAPER COLL
Thats right, I purchased both sets of dies, the coordinating stamps, the background stamp and the paper collection. Now I am stalking the UPS guy because I can't wait to get my hands on my new toys.

This is the video that did me in.



I am hoping that the delivery will arrive before Thursday so that I can incorporate these beautiful flowers into our club layout this week. We will be working with the "Twig and Berry" collection from Kaisercraft.


Tuesday 3 November 2015

Guest Blogger Exposed: Denise Marchetti

Last week we were fortunate enough to have the talented Denise Marchetti share her beautiful Prima Doll Calendar with us. I was so impressed with Denise's talent that I decided to delve deeper to learn more about this creative mind.

You will not believe what Denise really does with all that talent. REBORN BABIES! Have you heard of these. I only learned of them about a year ago when someone posted on facebook about having adopting a doll. I am a child of the eighties so I was an adoption certificate carrying Cabbage Patch Mom. I followed up on the link to see what the fuss was about. Honey, these aren't our Cabbage Patch kids. 

Check out some of Denise's Work:







Denise does not have any reborn babies waiting to be adopted at this time, but if you want to be placed on her adoption list follow this link Hand"D"Creations. There is also an amazing look into the hours it takes to go through the process of creating these sweet dolls.






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Monday 2 November 2015

Prima Doll Mixed Media Mini Canvas: Always be your own kind of wonderful

Late last night I was inspired when a mini canvas fell off my bench and onto my toe. Hey some people are inspired by apples hitting their head...for me a good swift knock on the toe does just fine. I made the decision that I have too many half finished projects lurking in my studio. One would think that I would have come to that conclusion before hurting myself, but potato p-a-t-a-t-o. 

I got out my Prima Doll stamps and an old pad of DCWV paper, a few Prima flowers and flourishes and some Basic Grey Rub Ons and Voila....my mini canvas masterpiece was born.

Here is what I did:



  1. I had previously painted the canvas a blotchy mix of pink and white acrylic paint. 
  2. I sanded down some of the areas of the canvas so that the texture showed through.
  3. I used the white rub ons and my bone folder to put the flourishes in the upper centre to right side of the canvas, trying to have as much show through were I intended to place my doll.
  4. Using a plain white paper doily cut in half I created a half moon on the right centre of the canvas.
  5. I had some Prima Say It With Crystals flourishes in the studio so I used one in the top left .
  6. I had some left over scraps of a crocheted doily from our club layout from a few weeks ago so I used it to create a sort of base to ground all the elements at the bottom of the canvas.
  7. Silver filigree and some pretty Prima flowers were added to the crocheted doily pieces.
  8. Using the "Always be your own kind of wonderful" stamp from Close To My Heart, I stamped my sentiment with black Memento Ink  and then coloured it with cotton candy ink (which I applies using a makeup sponge).
  9. I popped the sentiment up on foam squares and then finally adhered my pretty Prima Doll. She is inked using Tattered Rose Distress ink.


Thats It. As my little guy would say "easy peasy, lemon squeezy".