Just to let you all know, we have now managed to upload the TEN SECOND STUDIO products into our online shop! Click HERE to be taken straight to it!

They are so much fun to play with and if you’re looking for ideas, why not check out this youtube video that we showed at our blog party on Saturday. You won’t believe how easy it really is!

(Samples of Appletini and Kiss Me Pink metals are from the Ten Second Studio Catologue)

Just a quick post to let you know that we will be exhibiting at Malvern Craft Show this week. Therefore, the shop will be running on reduced hours, which are as follows:

Thursday 11th March 2010 – 10am until 4pm
Friday 12th March 2010 – 9:30am until 5:30pm
Saturday 13th March 2010 – 9:30am until 1pm

See you when we get back!!!

is always can you use your alcohol ink pens for more than one color?

It is not ideal, but yes, you could! We have previously filled a pen with one color and then washed the color out by holding the pen under a running tap. It did take 10mins or so until the water ran clear (which is the sign needed to know the pen is holding no more ink). By doing this, we also wasted a rather lot of alcohol ink, which ended up been washed down the plug

Now to buy one pen per color, would be great but may also work out very expensive! So our solution for you, which is genius (!) and we got from the man himself, Sir Tim!

It is so simple, we were kicking ourselves, asking why we didn’t think of it!

FILL IT WITH BLENDING SOLUTION!

Oh yes! Blending solution is basically a colorless alcohol ink! So if you fill you pen with the blending solution, you will need to create your own ‘palette’ of colors and using the two together work perfectly.

How do I create my ‘palette’ of colors?

Well, all you need is an old tile, plate, artist palette or such like (ensure it is made from a material which the alcohol inks will dry on e.g. glass, ceramic or plastic – note PLEASE DO NOT USE YOUR BEST CHINA AS THE COLORS WILL STAIN!!!)

Drop a little puddle of the color onto your ‘palette’ and let it dry.

Then all your need to do is to use your alcohol ink pen similar to a paintbrush and pick the colors you want to use off your palette and the blending solution inside the pen will reactivate the dried up alcohol ink so that you have usable alcohol ink just on the pen nib! When you want to change color, you just need to clean the pen nib (as you would a paint brush) and choose your next color!

It is so easy and means you have absolutly no wastage!

GIVE IT A TRY!

Thankyou to EVERYBODY who stopped by and enjoyed our blog party on Saturday!

We had so much fun and hope you did too.

The winners of our giveaways have all been picked with thanks to www.random.org – True Random Number Service. So are you ready….

The winner of the TEN SECOND STUDIO METAL (one last tip) is………..

 Who is…..

Tracy W:

Organise, organise, organise! I’m sure I’m not the only crafter who has bought things and then forgotten they had it but by organising all my supplies – and making sure I put things back in the right place – I am able to put projects together so much quicker.

Well Done Tracy!

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 The winner of the alcohol inks (A fabulous giveaway!) is ………..

Who is…..

Katy:

oh super duper give away, im wanting to have a play with some of these to! I would love to see them used on flowers, i bet it would look stunning. Thanks so much for an amazing give away! xx

Well Done Katy!

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The winner of ‘Who wants a new stamp?’ is………

who is

Rosemary Hayward :

My last colour combo was pink and green, I made invites which you can see on my blog a few days back.

That is a beautiful stamp, I love the woodgrain background.

Well Done Rosemary!

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Please can all the winners e-mail us their postal address to

sparkleandscrap@yahoo.co.uk and we will get your prizes

sent out to you!

(Please e-mail us within 7 days to claim your prize or your prize could be forfeited)

Thankyou so much for joining us today, we have had so much fun and we hope you have too!

The party is now over, but don’t forget you can still enter our giveaways until 11:59pm GMT tonight (06-03-10), so get commenting to win those prizes!

See you soon x

Well at last March has started and it looks like we have seen the last of the awful weather, so we thought what better way to get into the mood of spring, than the Brilliant Blonde Moments Papers. Aren’t they great?!?

Well, this is a mini-book workshop which we held in the summer but I couldn’t resist sharing it with you again today!

For this project you require: 12″x12″ Cardstock (2 sheets); 6 – 8 sheets of 5″ x 5″ paper; 3 photos – no more than 6″ x 6″

1. Fold one of your 12″x12″ Cardstock pieces in half horizontally and open up.
2. Fold the same 12″ x 12″ Cardstock piece in half vertically and open up, so that the sheet has been divided into 4 with fold lines. Open up.
3. Fold the same sheet on it’s diagonal. Open up.
4. Follow steps 1-3 with your other sheet of card.
5. Place one 12″x12″ sheet onto the table and place double-sided tape or glue in the bottom right hand quarter which should be a complete square.
6. Place the top left hand corner – which also should be a complete square – of the second 12″ x 12″ sheet on top of the bottom right hand quarter of the first and press to adhere together.
7. You should be able to fold the side triangles inwards to fold the book up.
8. I have glued my pictures on the square sections and cut the 5″ x 5″ papers in half and adhered to the triangular segments to decorate.

Once you have the folds worked out, this is a quick project with can be replicated time and time again. It makes a great present and we see that Kirsty Wiseman even did her own variation on television this week. Hers was smaller, but she cleverly incorporated a cover and ribbon to complete.

Last month, we left you with an interesting sketch to use as your starting point for either a card or scrapbook page. Well, now that competition has closed and the winner announced, we are looking ahead to our next!

So here is your sketch challenge for this month. Entries are due in by Saturday 3rd April 2010 so you have plenty of time to start your creation! Use the sketch however you like, turn it around, flip it, reverse it, move elements about…whatever you wish and then submit a photo of your entry to sparkleandscrap@yahoo.co.uk. You can enter as many entries as you like. We will then post them all and ask our blog readers to vote for their favorite.

GOOD LUCK!!!

Okay, so this morning we looked at using our distress re-inkers to make our own custom ink-pads so this afternoon we will take a look at using them to create our own beautiful color sprays!

That’s right, if you are in the middle of creating a beautiful project and just need a spritz of color but do not have the right color glimmer mist then use this as a custom made fall back!

To create your own Re-inker spray, you will need mini-misters, your distress re-inker, water and to add a bit of glimmer – perfect pearls.

1. Take your chosen re-inker and add a drop or two into your mini-mister bottle.
2. Add water to this and shake! Remember the less water you have and the more drops of re-inker, then the darker the color of the spray will be. Vice Versa, the more water and less color you have then the lighter the spray will become.
3. If you would like to add a dash of glimmer to the mixture, then add a pinch of perfect pearls. Remember the more you add – the more the spray will sparkle. Shake again and spray!

Look at that, easy peasy, your own perfect custom color spray. There is no right or wrong in creating these sprays, be your own chemist and play with the different mixtures of pefect pearls and different colors available. The re-iinkers are water-based so they can be mixed to make additional colors. E.g. if you want a green, then just mix a blue and yellow together!

These are great fun to have a play with and can be used in the same way, which I showed you to use Glimmer Mists at the last Blog Party! So many possibilitys!

I hope we’ve showed you a couple more interesting ways to get the most out of those distress re-inkers!

We have the official results in from our Sketch Challenge competition. This was the sketch you were shown back at our last blog party and we looked at design ideas of how the sketch could be used from Natalie, Kate and Claire.

We had six entries who sent in their creations and we asked you to vote on your favorite. Here is a quick reminder of the entries we had:

1) Helen Jones

2) Katy Temple

3) Melissa Cruickshank

4) Samm Turner

5) Helen Salthouse

6) Jo Burton

Who did you vote for?!? Do you think your favorite won?!?

Well, we can reveal after a total of 105 votes, the winner who had 41% of the votes  is…………………………………………………………………………………………….

Melissa Cruickshank 

with her wonderful card!!!

A big well done Melissa from everybody here at Creative Moments!

If you can e-mail your address to us at sparkleandscrap@yahoo.co.uk , then we will get your goodies sent out to you asap!

Ok, so you’ve seen the video and seen just how easy it really is to work with metal – so now it’s your turn…or it will be if you win this giveaway!!!

That’s right, we will be sending one lucky winner a pack of the Ten Second Studio Metal (color unspecified) and do you want to know an even easier trick to try with the metal? Well, just run it through your BigShot with an embossing folder or die and it will emboss/cut perfectly for you! How clever is that?!? And what a great effect it leaves you with!

All you need to do to enter, is to leave a comment below telling us one of your favorite crafting tip’s! You have until 11:59pm GMT on the 6-03-10 to leave your comment. The winner will be picked randomly and announced on Monday!

Good Luck – we can’t wait to hear your tips!