It's a Creative World

Alice Tales: A Terrific Charity Tea Party!

Hi-de-hi Campers!

(Anyone remember that? Don't leave me hanging!)

Welcome to Thursday - I hope you're having a wonderful week and looking forward to your weekend - I also hope you're not all washed out...!

Sticking with our Wonderful Wonderland theme, I wanted to let you know about our Alice-themed crafty party, and drop some free printables on your (computer) doorstep.

On Saturday 13th October this year, I'll be hosting our SEVENTH annual Breast Cancer Research fundraiser - affectionately known as Pink Booby.  Each year a group of crafty types come together to raise money - we have a long crop, sometimes 24hrs but only 12 this year (!) with up to 57 people (yes we've calculated and that's as many as we can fit in).  People come to scrap and make cards, sometimes by getting family to sponsor them per item completed, some just to craft in a relaxed atmosphere.  With sponsors, raffles, cakes, classes, technique tutorials and kits, it's always fun, always busy, and always for a good cause :)

This year I decided to go a step further and have an Alice theme, and started designing and creating way back in March, to get my catering, decorations, and everything else just right.  Then I look at all the lovely ideas my fellow IACW contributors have highlighted and wished I'd saved myself some of the hard work! :)

Here's my contribution to the Alice-fest here - my Alice-themed hybrid ATC from this previous post.  I chose the White Queen from the second novel (Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There) because I thought my Marie Antoinette Octopode digi-stamp looked the part, and designed and printed my own backing paper and text - based on the five impossible things the Queen believed before breakfast:

Unfortunately, I can't yet share all our Pink Booby Alice makes with you all, as I've got it all under wraps for the party - but I will share soon.  Until then, why not throw your own tea party?  Whether it be for charity or friends, there's nothing like getting together (and getting crafty!) over a cuppa - HERE are some printables I've created especially for our event (minus our logo) so you can label up your cookies and drinks, then let us know how you get along!

See you down the rabbit hole ;)

Thanks for reading,

Leanne

www.beautifulimpressions.co.uk

In the Pink for breast cancer awareness

IACW is celebrating breast cancer awareness and have dedicated this day to pink. So get out that pink ribbon and show your support!

Hello from Lemon. My layout is about HOPE.

I HOPE you check yourself at regular intervals and don't leave it before it's too late. I HOPE that those of you that are suffering recover soon.

And hello from MadDi. My sister always tell me that "I march to my own drummer" (think that means I am always out of step LOL), so here you are from me; a muddle of vibrant and vintage and loads of almost pink! And oops I thought this was also about using LOADS of stash!!!!

I used a disgusting amount of PP that I have used so often in the past, and a big pic of me dressed in so many shades of pink it was scary!!!! But what would pink be without green so I have loads of that too. Plenty ribbon and blooms for a totally "over the top" page, a bit like me!

My layout is dedicated to all of you who are fighting breast cancer and those that are sharing in that battle - I send my strength to all of you...

 

And just in case you think I cannot do VERY PINK here you are!

 

Caz

be you....

 

{please excuse the cut off bits, my scanner is a little short!}

Thank you from the cReative giRls - now lets see some pink!

And our bosoms extravaganza draws to a close

When we first discussed the idea of raising money and awareness for breast cancer month we had no idea how you, our readers, would take it. Would you read it and move on to the next blog or join us? We truly hoped that you would join us but had no idea how it would pan out.

Well, what can we say? It's not enough to say that you joined in as you picked it up and ran with it. We hoped to raise £310 but had no idea if we would manage it. We beat our target and are hoping to go on and double it before the end of the year. Call us optimistic but we really believe that with your support we can do it.

But, it's not just about raising money it's about Women standing together and supporting each other. So many of us have been touched by this dreadful disease in some shape or form but we won't bow down to it. To show her support Di has put together this tribute for all women.

Today we want to remember survivors and those that lost the fight. Not just to this disease but to all forms of cancer.

Angela would like to say a few words about Auntie Margaret

My DH's dear Auntie Margaret survived Breast cancer in the early 90's, long before I knew her. Sadly while I was pregnant, she discovered that the cancer had returned and spread throughout her body. She fought very bravely through what was a terrible illness.

Auntie Margaret passed away 3 weeks before my son was born. I will always be sad that Daniel never got to meet his Auntie Margaret, but we tell him about her all the time, and have a little jumper that she knitted for him. She went out of her way to make me feel like family from the very beginning.

She was such a lovely, amazing lady, who always tried to make everyone feel welcome, I will never forget her encouraging smiles at large family events when she knew I was nervous, and how she had a hug and a kind word for everyone.

I hope that what we have done this month will help people to be more aware about breast cancer, and that through early detection hopefully a much more positive outcome for everyone.

Di would like to remember her Mum, Caz's Gram.

My mum was a legend in her own lifetime. When she was diagnosed with a rogue cancerous brain tumour we her family were devastated but inspired by her courage. She underwent radio therapy and died in my sister's arms just after undergoing her last treatment. We were blessed during the last 3 months of her life in that we all got to see her and spend time with her. She is a hard act to follow and still inspires us. She was Mum, Gram and friend. This is the last photograph I have of her and it was taken by my niece Danni. She had begun to lose her hair and wore this lovely hat!

We loved all of your bosom layouts and could never pick a favourite to showcase. But, a special place in all of hearts is now taken up by Kat's Mum. Kat's layout is so inspiring and we wish her Mum all the best for the future.

To celebrate the end of our *Bosoms extravaganza* the fabulously talented Kate Hadfield has designed two sets of pink digi doodles exclusively for It's a creative world.

You can download the first set here and the second set will be available this weekend.

And what a difficut draw this morning coming from donations, layouts and comments. But the winner is Diz who wins the goodie bag from Scrapbook Inspirations!!!! Please email your addy to [email protected] and we will get you prize to you!!!

We have lots of prizes today so keep coming back to us! We have prizes for donations, layouts and comments . We will be announcing the Scrap your Boobs layout winner at about 9.00am this morning.

Thank you all so much for making October a memorable month! Your layouts, donations and comments have been AWESOME!!!

9.00am prize winners!!!

And the winner of Andrea's beautiful pink collection for the scrap your boobs layout is JANE with her LO titled "Big, Small men an' all"!!!!

The winner of the donations prize is Jackie! well done. You have won from A trip down memory lane - Pink craft mate tote.

1.00pm prize winners!!!

The prize for layouts, donated by Caz, a Pink pamper kit goes to Karen with a layout titled TLC

The prize for doantions, sponsored by Papermaze goes to Lesley Susan Pearcey 

5.00 pm prize winners!!!

The prize for layouts, sponsored by Design Collective, a months membership, goes to Natalie and her *learning to love my skin* LO

The prize for donations, sponsored by Scrap Magic, a colelction of PINK bazzill, goes to Ceruleanblue!!!!!!

9.00pm prize winners!!!

Teresa Mitchell is the Layout winner, she wins a months subscription to the Design Collective!!

And the winner of a £10 donation by Di in their name is Charlene Marie Lee!!

Please email your addies to us at [email protected] and your prizes will be on the way!!!

With love and thanks from IACW XXX

And, as an extra thank you there will be a lucky dipper for all the comments left today. The winner will receive a months free membership to the design collective. The winner will be published tomorrow.

Need Inspiration?

The girls at It's A Creative World are so thrilled by the number of entries into our 'Scrap your Boobs' challenge and all the donations to our Just Giving Page. It's not too late to contribute to either, you have until the end of October.

Christmas Ornaments

Making your own Christmas ornaments gives a personal touch to your tree, and it is something you can do with children, too.

Here are just a few samples of ornaments from the IACW team:

Andrea

Brown felt, gingerbread coloured fabric, bondaweb or similar, thin ribbon, dimension paint, sharp scissors and very fine black and brown pens, makeup blusher.

Cut a two squares of fabric and iron bondaweb onto the back following the manufacturers instructions. Make a template of a gingerbread man shape on thin card and draw around it onto the reverse of the fabric, directly onto the bondaweb

Cut the two shapes out using sharp scissors to keep the edges sharp and neat

Place one of the shapes bondaweb side down onto the felt and iron to adhere, when you iron his head sandwich the ends of a loop of ribbon between the fabric and felt

Cut out the gingerbread man shape leaving a border of a couple of millimetres

Turn the gingerbread man over so the felt is uppermost and iron on the second fabric shape

Joy

Seaglass ornament

I drilled the sea glass (barely under water) to make a neat hold in the glass. I then stamped it with a Green Pepper Press stamp. I put in in the melting pot, and I sprinkled UTEE on it to make the image pop. I then outlined it with a gold Krylon pen.

Ranger glass slides

I took a pictures of my son stamping and colouring. I then cut the artwork to fit in the slides, and I added his photograph of him making the picture. I put a wire loop in between the pictures. I added gold tape around the edges (a Ranger technique and also demonstrated to me at Magpie Crafts).

Shrink plastic ornament

I stamped onto shrink plastic, puched a hole at the top, and coloured the bear and stars. (The plastic is actually clear, and the bear is coloured white, but it is difficult to tell in the image.) I shrunk it (with a heat gun) and added a white ribbon. This is a great project to do with kids.

Angela

UTEE and Cookie Cutter Ornaments

These Ornaments were made using Christmas themed Cookie cutters and some UTEE. First of all I heated Clear UTEE in a melting pot, then added some Opals Embossing Enamels (an Australian made version of UTEE) in various colours, and a tiny amount of UTEE flex.

Once this was all melted, I poured it out onto a non-stick craft sheet and set the cookie cutter into the UTEE .The cookie cutter should be inked with some versamark or other release agent to remove it from the utee when it has set.

Leave the utee to cool. Be very Careful! This stuff really burns! I left mine for around 10 minutes and then very carefully pressed out the shape. If you are very careful you can have the positive and negative shapes, the negative would make a nice frame.

Now it is ready to be stamped on using Stazon ink, I then doodled around the stamped images using Sakura Souffle pens to make them stand out more.

Love from us at IACW XXX

Hey presto you have a sweet little gingerbread man to hang in your home over the festive period, he takes next to no time to make and he's even low fat and oh so healthy :)Use the very thin black pen to draw a smile and two eyes and the brown pen to dot his freckles. Make rosy cheeks by dabbing a cotton bud into your blusher makeup and then dabbing lightly onto his cheeksUse dimensional white fabric paint to 'ice' wiggly stripes onto his hands and feet and also to add his buttons onto his tummyIngredients:A fabric and felt gingerbread man that requires no sewing.

And Just a reminder from Di!!!

For every 1 pound that you donate to IACW Just Giving page I will donate 1 pound. This challenge is open until Sunday midnight 21st October!!! So come on girls just 1 pound from each of you! And why would I do this? Because cancer took my mum. Here she is....

Because of her I have a mother,I am a daughter, and I am blessed.

Love from Di

Jiggling through October

More than 1,000 women die every month from breast cancer in the UK. Breakthrough Breast Cancer is committed to fighting this devastating disease through research and awareness, and has established the UK's first dedicated breast cancer research centre, in partnership with the Institute of Cancer Research. Charity Registration No 1062636

This is why we at It's a creative world want to do our bit to help. But, it wouldn't be us if there wasn't a little bit of fun along the way.

We are challenging you to SCRAP YOUR BOSOMS be they big or small, pert or not so perky, wrinkly or smooth. We want you to be proud of them and the fact that you have them.

Obviously, there may be survivors of this awful disease reading our bloggie blog and we would be honoured if you were to share your story with us.

And now for a little surprise. To say thank you to the lovely ladies who have shared their bosoms and/or donated so far we thought that a prize was in order. So, we had a lucky dipper for a 12x12 pink album and the lucky winner owns these very impressive bosoms. If you recognise those bosoms and that sexy rexy tattoo please email your details to [email protected].

We have set up our very own Just giving page and every donation no matter how big or small is truly appreciated. It really is a case of every penny counts so please don't feel that you have to donate a huge amount to make a difference. You can increase your donation if you confirm that you are a UK tax payer yep the Government coughs up a bit to help out.

You have until the end of October to email your bosoms to us. We will have a lucky dipper at the end of the month for a rather fabulous prize.

Our Just giving page is open until the end of the year but we will have a lucky dipper at the end of the month for another fabulous prize.

There will also be a few random prizes along the way but you've got to be in it to win it.

We would like to say a huge thank you to the following lovely people who have provided prizes.

3D Jean

A string of beads

A trip down memory lane

Angel Crafts

Craft Obsessions

Forgetmenot Paper crafts

Kirsty Wiseman

Papermaze

Scrap Magic

The design collective

This list is being added to all the time and we would love to receive more donations if you are feeling generous.

The Creative world team have also donated goodies including a handmade bracelet, Claudine Hellmuth stamps, 12x12 album, gift vouchers and childrens art stuff to name a few. And, we have a fabulous hybrid/digi give away coming soon from the fabulous Kate Hadfield.

There will be another fabulous give away this weekend so keep 'em peeled.

Thank you so much to all of our readers.

Because of you - Just a design...

Hi all from Di.

In support of breast cancer awareness month I have a very simple project dedicated to the special women in my life, and to ME; because of them, I am who I am.

This design is dedicated to Caz, Linda and Mags

“Caroline (CAZ)” is my dearest darling daughter. She is my reason for being. She is beautiful. She is funny, creative, adorable, loving, gentle wise and kind. She is everything I could have hoped for. I am soooo proud of her.

Linda is my sister. She is my wings and the wind beneath them. She is a jewel. She glows from an inner beauty. She brings laughter to my life. She inspires and encourages me to reach for the sky and soar.

‘Mags’ is my mother. She was spontaneous, impulsive, generous, loving, inspiring and creative. She has been my inspiration for almost 60 years. I love this photograph taken having tea at the Mount Nelson hotel in Cape Town. It was her best treat whenever she visited me. We had a glorious happy day together. She died of a cancerous brain tumour over 2 years ago and I miss her every day.

The design uses cardstock and a little patterned paper. Photographs are inked with charcoal and matted onto plain black cardstock.
Add a few embellishments and the title and you are done.

So, go on find the special people that have made YOU what YOU are and celebrate their life!!!

Don't forget our scrap your boobs challenge and just a little encouragement from me:

Thanks for visiting us. And just a reminder that you can make a donation to breast cancer awareness on our Just Giving page. Your donations are so appreciated :D.

Love always from Di XXX

Get ready to use that patterned paper

We at It's a creative world are so pleased to have a very special guest designer join us today.

A huge fanfare please for the uber-talented Paula Sealey. Paula has a fantastic eye for colour and her ability to put patterned papers together is amazing. So, without further adoo I shall hand you over to Paula.

*Hello, and thanks to the ladies at Creative World for asking me to be a guest here.

I have been scrapbooking for around 4 years now, and love the way I can express myself on a page using paper and embellishments. I adore patterned paper, and have managed to amass quite a large collection of it during my scrapping years! Sadly for my bank balance, there is hardly a sheet available that I don't like! I love mixing up different patterns and colours on my layouts, so they tend to be quite bright and vibrant.*

I hope you enjoy them!

Thank you so much for coming to play Paula. Fabulous layouts as always.

Todays post has been sponsored by Jaq at A string of beads. Jaq has donated to the ever growing prize pot for our *Scrap your bosoms* challenge.

Jaq's aunt set up the Crazy hats breast cancer appeal and has raised an amazing £450,000 so far. Some of the *old timers* on UKS may recall colouring in some stamped images to help.

Please have a dig around the back of your sofa or the bottom of your handbag and donate to our Just giving site. It is a fabulous cause and every bit helps. Also, you will be entered into our lucky dipper and could win a fabulous prize.

Toodle pip

Labels: Breast cancer awareness month, Guest designer

Breast Cancer Awareness Month - the boobs are out!!

Hello everyone, and welcome to another month here at It's A Creative World.

October 2007 is breast cancer awareness month in the UK, and with that in mind, the team at It's A Creative World have been busy getting creative with their boobs! We wanted to do our bit to raise the profile of breast cancer awareness month, and, in addition to our creative efforts, we have set up a Just Giving page where our readers can make a donation to Breakthrough Breast Cancer, one of the UK's leading breast cancer charities. We've set our target at £310 - that's £10 every day throughout October - if we could exceed that amount we'd be absolutely delighted. The donation page will remain active for 3 months until the end of December, and you can donate at any time up until then. Anyone who donates online between October 1st and October 31st will be eligible to win a prize in our draw, which will take place at the beginning of November, to give as many people as possible the chance to donate in October. We already have some fantastic prizes on offer, including a pink scrapbook album, a pink bracelet, an A4 sheet of Zettiology stamps, a £10 M&S voucher, and a £10 NEXT voucher. Further prize details will full details of donors will be added during October.

All of us know someone who, at some time or other, has been affected by breast cancer. Breast awareness means knowing what your breasts look and feel like normally, so you can be aware of any changes and check them out with your doctor as soon as possible. If cancer is diagnosed, prompt treatment offers the best chance of a successful outcome. The message from Breakthrough is this: show your breasts some TLC - Touch, Look, Check.

Before I go any further, a little announcement - we are very proud to welcome yet another FAB lady to the It's a Creative World team today!
The fabulous Charlotte!!
This lady does the most beautiful monochromatic pages and her use of loads of photos on one LO is just inspiring! Of course having the cutest little boy as the subject for her LOs is a bonus. Keep an eye on this lady cause she just oozes inspiration!

So, on to the main event - the Creative World girls get their boobs out!! We allowed ourselves a completely free rein with our different interpretations of this challenge - I suggested that everyone should scrap their boobs, and the girls have risen admirably to this. Without further delay, I am delighted to present a feast of bosom!!

Andrea

A beautiful tag in Andrea's instantly recognisable style.

Angela

Angela's innovative and inspirational fabric journal.

Caz

A vibrant and evocative layout from Caz, with some of the finer detail shown here:

Charlotte

A gorgeously pink and girly layout from Charlotte.

Diana

Our very own Calendar Girl, looking very much at home!

Joanna

Lovin' her boobs, and lovin' life!!

Joy

Yet more gorgeousness from our Queen of all things altered, and a beautiful ATC.

Maria

A very sweet and simple ATC, taking its place amongst Maria's Momiji collection!

Trish

Very pinky, very perky, Trish's striking layout.And so, loyal readers and new friends, we throw down the gauntlet to you all, and ask you to make October the month that you SCRAP YOUR BOOBS!!! If you're feeling brave enough, email a photo of your interpretation of our challenge to us at: [email protected], and we will add any photos submitted to our flickr slideshow. As an added incentive, anyone who submits a photo of their project will have their name entered into a draw for a fabulous prize, this gorgeous selection of pink scrapping loveliness put together by our very own Andrea.

We also hope to be able to offer a few spot prizes throughout October, so please keep checking back, and please help us raise some money for an extremely worthwhile cause. If you have anything you'd like to offer for our prize draw, please email us at [email protected] - we'd love to hear from you.

xxx THANK YOU xxx