Charms, candles and calendars...

...oh and of course Christmas Card Competition! Just a few of the things going on at our Wednesday workshop this week.

Our last workshop of the year is traditionally one where we present prizes to our card competition winners (and maybe a few other awards too - although no mice this year we promise!)

We also have the Charity raffle, so don't forget to bring your prize donations and some money to spend on tickets.

As well as all this we hope to make some time for quick demos on how to make your own calendars, wine charms and decorated candles. Some of you may have done the charms and candles before, but they proved to be popular so we are including them again. For those of you who want something different, Marilyn will be on hand to demonstrate how to make a calendar for 2011.

Finally, we will be giving out questionnaires for you to fill in for next year's workshops. For those of you that were not at the last meeting, we are changing venue next year, since the Peace Memorial Hall could not accommodate us on our regular last Wednesday of the month slot. We are only moving down the road to St Michael's Church Hall - thanks to Jan for arranging the bookings - but it does mean we can keep our last Wednesday of the month slot and it has its own car park, cups and dishwasher!! Dates and times will be confirmed in the New Year, but we would like your input as usual on workshop themes so please take the time to fill in the questionnaires.

See you on Wednesday.

Tags, Bags, Boxes and More

Christmas workshops are coming around thick and fast at the moment! No sooner have we finished one then another comes along i.e. next week! Our traditional two November workshops this year fall on Wed 10th and Wed 24th and we will also be celebrating our 4th birthday this month - Happy Birthday ACMC!! Having two workshops in November allows everyone the chance to go to their various work/family Christmas dos in December. And also it means we can fit in a Card Club Christmas party in December - date and venue currently under discussion, but likely to be a meal out similar to last year. Will let you know soon, so you can book the date in and choose your glad rags!!

Since we concentrated on getting up to date with our Christmas card making at last month's workshop, we thought we would do something a little bit different on Wednesday 10th. So we will be making our own gift tags, gift bags and/or gift boxes and embellishing them too. Karen W will be bringing her Cricut Expression machine and "Tags, Bags, Boxes and More" cartridge and there will also be opportunities to create your own tags, bags and boxes using our die cuts, templates and folding techniques.

Christmas Card competition entries need to be in by next week too, so please remember to bring them on Wednesday 10th. See the blog entry for October if you need a reminder of the theme.

Christmas Stamping Masterclass

Well another month has gone by and Michelle and I still feel we are behind on the Christmas card making. So we thought that this month we would give everyone a chance to get ahead by having a rubber stamping masterclass. We have lots of Christmas rubber stamps available for you to use. There will be opportunities to review basic stamping, embossing and colouring techniques or simply to stamp a load of different images ready to colour at home, plus a few different ways of using your stamps that you may not have tried before.

Should be a very productive evening!



Also just to remind you of this year's Christmas card competition theme - set this year by Pat T who was our winner last year. Pat has chosen a "Looking in, looking out" theme and made a sample card (outside and inside shown above) The idea is that you create a window card and either create an indoor scene looking out on to an outdoor Christmas scene (like Pat's example above) or vice versa. Pat said she would be on hand to give advice if anyone needed it, so if you are stuck for inspiration make sure you catch up with her. We will need your entries in by the first of our November workshops (10th) so that prizes can be awarded at the second November workshop (24th).

Clearly Christmas

Just a reminder that it is our September workshop this week (Wed 29th). We will be looking at lots of ways of using clear acetate on your Christmas cards (since there are now only 88 days till Christmas!) Come along and have a go at Cuttlebug embossing, stamping, alcohol inking, crystal lacquering and tissue papering on acetate!!

Also you might be interested to know that it is World Cardmaking Day on Saturday 2nd October so we thought that we would link our challenge to that this month.

Find out more on Wednesday!

See you then.

Altered Art Images

Well the creative juices were really flowing at the Altered Art workshop on Saturday 11th September. Kay led the demo and inspired everyone to create wonderful pieces of art - from canvases and coasters to photo albums, frames and mirrors. All were very different. I will let the photos speak for themselves this month!!

Kay's canvas

Elise's canvas

Sarah M's photo album

Ollie's photo album sampler pages

Natalie and Gill's holiday souvenir mirrors

Linda's autumnal coaster

Claire's coaster mini scrapbook

At our next Wednesday evening workshop (Sept 29th) we will be well and truly getting into Christmas using acetate with rubber stamps, to create cards and embellishments. Michelle has already been getting into the Christmas spirit with the new PartiCraft Christmas stamp sets as she prepares for Ally Pally next weekend (Sept 25th - 26th). She will be bringing the new stamp sets to our September workshop too.

Only 96 days till Christmas - apparently!!

They came from far and wide...

... Isle of Wight, Devon, Newcastle (and Denton) I believe!! It was a relatively quiet month for ACMC with lots of you off on holiday, but some of those who did make it there had travelled a long way to get back in time for Card Club - now that's dedication for you!! Lots of techniques with metal were explored and Kay's butterflies went down a treat.


It was also Chris's last club night. Chris has been with ACMC since the very early days, so it is with sadness that we say bye-bye & wish her well with her house move on September 8th. Her daughter Louise will still be coming to the club though, so we can keep in touch and I'm sure that if we give her plenty of notice, she may still appear at the occasional weekend workshop! We would like to thank Chris for everything she's done for the club, which includes her invaluable help at numerous Village Days as well as her more recent duties as 'Mug-monitor'!! Do come and join us on Friday night for a drink or two to see Chris on her way - the more the merrier! (see e-mail for details) And no, we couldn't let you go Chris without reminding everyone of one of your early card designs - see below!! (It was for a challenge - to incorporate black lace into a card). It's always the quiet ones you need to watch out for, but don't let that put you off joining us for a drink! We will miss you Chris!

We are now gearing up for our Saturday Altered Art workshop on the 11th. For those of you attending, don't forget to gather up your holiday souvenirs and mementoes such as postcards, tickets, maps, old coins, stamps etc. ready to bring along. We will have some available, but obviously your altered piece will be more personal if you include some of your own items. Kay will be on hand to get you started and then you will be able to ask us all questions or for advice about particular techniques, as you get stuck in!! Below is a link to an altered art website to give you a bit more insight and background into how it has developed.

Looking forward to getting messy!

Melt pot magic

Here are some piccies from last month's workshop - better late than never! (from top - embellishments by Penny, pig card by Linda B, butterfly card by Gabby and triple embossed seahorse by Carol E) Thanks to Kay and Penny for the loan of their melt pots - we are looking into getting our own for the Club as it proved very popular. Don't forget to let us know if there are any other resources or techniques that you would like us to investigate for next year.

This month's workshop - Wednesday 25th ie tomorrow!! - is on metal techniques. Kay is guest demoing again and will be using peel offs on metal to make butterflies (see below).

I will be demoing Cuttlebug and embossing board techniques with metal and Michelle will be exploring techniques with metal tape. If you have any suitable embossing tools - stylus, paper stub etc then please bring them along.

We will be taking names for the September Saturday 11th workshop this week too, so please bring your diaries along with you. And don't forget your photo challenge cards from last month.

Couple more items of interest - Hobbycraft in Croydon is now open - has anyone been? I haven't made it there yet, but hopefully can combine it with trip to Ikea soon! Also Ally Pally craft show is coming up on 25/26th September and Michelle will once again be helping to demo on the PartiCraft stall - lots of new yummy stamp sets apparently!

We're all going on a Summer Holiday...

...No more working for a week or two (or eight in my case!) In honour of the long, hot summer holiday period I've changed the blog background - actually the blog decided for me as our other background had disappeared when I logged on. Still gets us in the holiday mood!!

Michelle and I are not heading off on our respective family holidays till after the July workshop and will both be back in time for the August one, so business as usual with the Ashtead Card Club. We know there are a few people away this month, and expect that some of you will be away for the August workshop too, so please keep us up to date on that. We will also be starting to take bookings on Wednesday for the Saturday workshop on September 11th. We are planning to do an Altered Art session and have already begun discussing ideas with Kay. Please check your diaries on this one and let us know.

Kay is helping with demos this month too. We have arranged with her to bring along her melt pot and for her to show you some techniques with UTEE. (Ultra Thick Embossing Powder). Michelle will also be giving you some top tips on using UTEE without a melt pot. I will be demonstrating triple embossing techniques for those of you who prefer to work with the regular embossing powders and heat guns.

Well done to everyone who entered our Membership Pack Card Competition this year. We announced our winners last month, as chosen by Andrea McLean - big thank you to her for doing this for us. Kay won first prize with her elegant butterfly design.

Our second and third prize winners nearly didn't enter their cards, but I'm sure they are glad they did now! Linda B came second with her penny spinner design and Sarah P came third with her butterfly design easel card.

Well done to all our winners and all of our entrants.

These are not just handmade cards...

...these are ACMC handmade cards, and lots of other crafty items on sale too!! Ashtead Village Day was another success for us this year. We had a dedicated and hard-working set-up and sales team. In fact we were so efficient that this year we were all set up by 11am and had time for tea and cakes before the selling began! Thank you very much to Linda A, Kay B and Karen for helping set up and staying for the rest of the day and to Chris and Linda B for their help on the stall and dismantling it afterwards.

The weather was a little breezy at times, but fine and warm and at one point we had to move Claire W's candles out of the sun to stop them melting! Our takings were up slightly on last year and pretty much everyone who sent items to sell, sold something. Kay was especially pleased to sell two of her lovely altered metal mirrors. (see below)

Kay's Mirrors

Michelle's Gift Boxes

Michelle was on duty all day personalising gift tins to order (see below) and this proved to be popular, as did the Lucky Dip and children's craft activities as always.

Personalised Gift Tins

This year the Membership Pack Card Competition was not actually judged on the day, but Michelle did manage to arrange a TV personality to judge the competition for us later in the week. So you will find out the winners and the mystery judge on Wednesday - our lips are sealed!!

We met lots of new crafters interested in the group too, so a big hello to you if you are reading our blog for the first time! Please give either Michelle or Claire a ring first to check availability of places if you are interested in coming along to any of our meetings - dates on the side bar.

And talking of our next meeting - it's on Wednesday 30th June - this week. The theme this month is die cut machines and we thought we would have a slightly different format to the evening and launch our first "Bring your die cut machine to Card Club" evening. We will have a few show and tell sessions about some of the electronic die cut machines that we don't see in action very often - Cricut, Craft Robo Lite, Slice etc. Michelle is bringing her Wizard and obviously we have the Club Cuttlebug and Sidekick machines. But we thought it would be a good opportunity to share knowledge and borrow other people's dies or embossing folders etc. Don't worry if you don't have a die cut machine or if yours is too big to bring - there will be plenty of machines to go around I'm sure!

See you all on Wednesday for a cutting fest!

Pro Markers and Digital Stamping Info

The Pro Markers we tried out on Wednesday with our rubber stamped images proved to be a big hit with lots of you and Michelle will be placing an order very soon, for those of you who wanted your own. Don't forget to let us know if you have any swapsies!

For those of you who wanted the info on Digital Stamping websites, and for those of you who weren't there or didn't get the printed handout, I have managed, with the help of my techie hubby, to put the file online. Click here to access it, then you should be able to click on the web addresses to access the digi stamping sites. Don't forget to read the angel policies.

The funny greetings in text boxes did not come out with the correct formatting using this method, so I have decided it is easier to email this file to you and then you can save it to your own PC and re format it as you wish. I've included a few instructions on there for altering text boxes too.

We have started sorting cards for sale at Village Day so if you still plan to send us your cards for sale, please let us have them as soon as possible so we can be organised before the day. Hope to see as many of you as possible - Saturday 12th June!!!

Funny Men

Lots of updates and reminders in this post, so here goes...

Firstly the focus for our workshop on Wednesday is Funny Men's Cards - at the request of Karen W. With Father's Day around the corner and football fever about to hit, we thought now would be a good time to fit this one in. We will have a whole range of rubber stamps available for you to try out, and we are also going to be going hi-tech and introducing you to Digital Stamping. We are planning to try colouring with Pro Markers and hopefully will have quite a range of colours if our latest order arrives before Wednesday!

On the Pro Markers note, there are now quite a few of us who own various sets and Michelle would like to set up a Swapsies Club, as she is finding she has a few colours doubled up. If you are interested, you might like to print yourself out a chart to keep a record of which colours you have and see how many more you need!! Click here to find a blank chart for colouring in your marker colours and let us know if you have Swapsies.

Other things to remember for Wednesday include:

• Stamps and stamped images for the catalogue if you haven't already returned them.


• Think about whether you need any more plastic boxes - any size as we are about to do a mixed order. Prices should be similar to last time but we will confirm on Wednesday.


• Membership Pack Competition Cards - last chance to bring these before judging at Village Day.


• Cards for sale on the stall at Village Day. Please make sure they are all in cello bags, with envelopes, and with your membership number clearly marked on a sticker. It also helps us a lot if they are already categorised by event. Cards will be sold for £2 or three for £5, unless otherwise priced.


• Challenge cards - on an anniversary theme to be sold at Village Day. (If you need to know more about anniversaries, check out Linda Bradley's web site here.)


• Cards to donate to Sarah M's son who is selling cards at Village Day to raise money for Scouts.


• ...and obviously a very big bag if you are bringing all of the above!!

Just a couple more things. The raffle last month for Adam's Appeal raised £62, which Gabby will very kindly pass on to Adam's parents. Gabby and Carole have both been very active in their fundraising over the last couple of weeks. For more information and updates on Adam's Appeal click here.

And lastly on a celebrity crafting note, Michelle will be attending a PartiCraft all day workshop (run by Create and Craft Star, Sue Wilson) and she is happy to share lifts with anyone who would like to go. Visit the PartiCraft blog for more info.

Busy, busy, busy.

Well it has been a jam-packed crafty couple of weeks for the two of us. Since the last post we have had our monthly meeting in Ashtead, one of our Saturday all day workshops, the Tadworth meeting on Monday and, that same day Michelle also ran a Brownie craft workshop (34 Brownies no less!) and a Girl Guide workshop! If we're not careful we might start getting crafty withdrawal symptoms before our next workshop!!

Anyway here are some piccies from the messy, inky Ashtead workshop in April. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and some fantastic backgrounds and cards were produced.

Chris and Mary's cards (above) were created using the Glimmer Mists technique, demonstrated expertly by Kay. Thank you Kay for being so creative and organised with your demo, as always!

Michelle brought along lots of her Particraft stamp sets and showed how to create your own amazing backgrounds using distress inks combined with the stamped images, in a collage effect. The backgrounds above were designed by Linda B. and Penny, and the wine card was created by Claire W. The stamp sets proved to be very popular and featured on some of the candles created at the Saturday workshop too.

Our third demo was using ink brayers and some of our background stamps in combination with Versamark/Perfect Medium stamp pads to create the resist, and Big and Juicy pads to add colour. Kay P. and Jackie's backgrounds are modelling this above! The ladies and gentleman at Tadworth also enjoyed this technique this month.

We had a few familiar faces attending our Saturday workshop as well as a few new faces and a sprinkling of junior crafters! The Fimo tea lights proved popular with all ages, as did the hand stamped candles. (see below)

Tea light designs by Grace, Sarah and Olly.

Candle designs by Monica and Linda W.

If you missed out on the Saturday workshop, then put the date of our second Saturday workshop in your diary now - Saturday September 11th.

Hope you are all busy getting your Competition cards ready and your cards for sale at Village Day. Thank you to those of you who have volunteered to help already. It is a fun day out and we do always have a bit of giggle on the stall!!

Happy crafting!

Let's get messy!

Another Card Club is looming and this time it's going to be messy! We are going to be focusing on making our own backgrounds using Glimmer Mists, Distress Inks and Versamark ink pads and brayers. Actually it shouldn't be much worse than it normally is, but you might want to think about your outfit for the evening (ie not your best new white t-shirt!) and if you have a crafting apron then bring it along.

Here is a sneak preview of what we will be doing on Saturday 8th May at the all day workshop. The idea was that we could create some other crafty items to sell at Village Day and the theme we have chosen is decorated candles (rubber stamping) and tea light holders (polymer clay millefiori techniques). These items will be available on Wednesday for you to have a closer look at. Book your place now!!

Dynamic Demos!

The cards created at our last workshop were a little more dynamic than the average card and our three guest demonstrators were pretty dynamic too! A big thank you to Marilyn, Pat and Carole for all their preparation and hard work on their demos. See them in action below!

Michelle and I were also very impressed with the cards created for the "Smallest Card Challenge". Apparently Marie's husband also got involved on this one! Not sure which card was his though. It was good to see that even on this scale lots of different techniques can still be used. To get an idea of scale, check out the Mini Eggs in the bottom right hand corner of the photo!

Don't forget your challenge this month was to stamp up those images for our catalogue - thank you to everyone who has agreed to help with this. Please bring the stamps and images back to the next workshop. Also if you have a good idea for any more of our monthly challenges please let us know. We are always open to suggestions. Your next challenge will be making sure you have your Membership Pack competition card ready for judging in June. I know some of you have done them already and some of you will get your Membership packs this month, so get those creative thinking caps on!

A couple of reminders on dates for the diary. Coming up very soon is our first Saturday workshop of the year - May 8th. We will be making decorative stamped candles and decorating glassware, this time with polymer clay designs which can then be baked in the oven. For those who missed it last time or want more, we can also have the glass paints available as an alternative. We are taking names now, so please contact either Claire or Michelle to book your place. You can either stay a full day or just do a morning or afternoon.

Also the 'Sincerely Yours' craft show is on on May 23rd at Biggin Hill in Kent. Click here for more info and to book tickets.

And one final thing - does anyone know this woman? She kept trying to get into the photos!!