As Promised - A Quad Easel Card

I did promise a few of you at Harrogate that I would post instructions on how to do a Quad Easel card just like the one you saw on my table (see here) and prior to that had made a promise to Tam and others via the internet so here goes.

You will need to cut cardstock as follows:
1 square 8" x 8" which will be your base card
1 toning/contrasting square to be your upper layer 7.1/2" x 7.1/2" (seven and a half inch square)
Mat and layer these two together to begin with.  Set to one side.

4 pcs the same colour as your base card 3.1/2" x 7" (three and a half inches by seven)
4 pcs the same colour as your base card 3.1/2" x 3.1/2" (three and a half inches square)

4 pcs in your toning/contrasting colour 3" x 3" (three inches square) - these are to stamp on

(click on picture to enlarge and see sizes if unsure)

Stamp your images on your 3" squares and mat these on your 3.1/2" (three and a half inch) squares.  Set on one side.

Take your 3.1/2" x 7" (three and a half inch by seven inch) pieces and fold in half and then fold the bottom corners up to the centre fold as in the picture below

I always find it best to put a ruler on the bottom square, corner to corner, and score before folding.  That way you get a much neater, exact and crisper fold.  Go over the folds with your bone folder.
(Below I have shown you how the rectangle is folded on some patterned paper just to make sure you can see what I mean)

Now put sticky double sided tape on the triangles as shown below

Then attach your square with your stamped image on as below:

In this one I did not have as many layers as in the previous one so as not to confuse you, so I decided to do a little corner punching to add some interest and stop it being too plain.

You can now add your "stops" - these can be diecuts, stamped images etc with a sticky foam piece underneath or you could put brads on as I have with this one.

Place your individual easels on the base card carefully (do a dry run, I found this confusing at first) so that each one is facing outwards and then fix into position either by double sided tape (strong one please) or using sticky foam pieces which is best if you have used brads, otherwise they won't lie flat.

Top View above

I used brads for the stops but a punched circle with words stamped on for just one of them.  (Birthday Greetings)

Yes, it does fold flat for giving

Tip: 

1) If I want my hole in the centre of the card for my brad or just for placement of anything (it gets covered) I put my ruler corner to corner and mark a faint pencil line and then do it with the other two corners so I have a cross - "X marks the spot!"

2) I always put a hole in my base with my pokey tool to mark where I want the brad and then lie that one on top of the other one and poke through again, repeat with the other two.  That way all the holes are in the identical place on each one.

I hope you can follow this, I always find it difficult to do a tutorial on blogger because you only have a little window to work with.  I will try to find time to do another one but video it just in case you didn't follow but that might be another week yet as it will be a Blue Peter job.  LOL.

If I have gone wrong or missed something please do not hesitate to tell me - at least then I can correct it.  Who will be my guinea pig?

Two Posts in One Day

Well, I did say "I will be back" like Arnie said (see post below) but even I did not think I would be crafting quite so quickly.

Got an idea in my head for a card to support some friends who have just started up their own blog (now don't get confused - yes, I am part of a new blog but this is another one).  Made a chilli for tonight and disappeared into my craft room, looked for my "hat ladies" and came up with this card for "Out of a Hat Creations".

It's a bit of fun and I hope the ladies like it.  So why don't you pop on over to their blog and give a bit of support to Florence, Janet, Sandra and Chrissie.

In case you are wondering what the "R" is for it is "R is for RED"  - remember the poem by Jenny Joseph?  


"When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired ..."

Love it!

Eyes Right!

Eyes Right and what do you see?  A new Challenge Blog is coming to town - The Artful Times!  The terrible or terrific, or maybe 'terribly terrific trio' (big LOL) is best, of Sam, Von and me have got our heads together and started a new bi-weekly blog challenge.  Or is that a Challenge Blog?

When I heard the last one I was on the DT for was closing I knew I was going to miss it so got together with the others and we began planning our next move.  It's taken us a while but we have gone live just for you to have a nosey at, click here, and next Friday, the 30th March, we will have our first challenge up and ready for you to join in.

I've nothing to show you craftwise as I bought a new sewing machine yesterday (whoo hoo) and what with all the research before I bought and setting up a new Yahoo Group and the Challenge Blog my crafting has had to go on the back burner.  But not for long.  Like Arnie - "I'll be back" as I can't leave it long before I craft.

In the meantime I took a photograph this morning of the flowers my son bought me for my birthday, just one rose went brown and is now missing - not bad for twelve day old flowers.

WOYWW 146 and Help!

BRENDA - BUTLERS ABROAD - I CANNOT POST ON YOUR BOG IT KEEPS TELLING ME TO LOG IN.  Sorry about that shouting but I tried and tried to leave a comment for Brenda last week, even yesterday again, but all it kept saying was that I was not logged in.  Can anyone sort me out please.  This is what comes up and I have rewritten my details under the comment box on her blog.  
"That email address is associated with an existing WordPress.com (or Gravatar.com) account.  Please click the back button in your browser and then log in to use it"


I do and it still comes up with that.  There's lots of comments on Brenda's blog from all you WOYWW'ers so why me, why can I not comment?


Sorry about that but hope someone can help me.  Now to my desk which was lovely and clean and tidy when I left on Friday for the show in Harrogate.  I came back whacked out and dumped my stuff, yesterday I emptied my box and this is it :

A shufty to the left and you can see what I bought at the show.  Not showing are the boxes for storage - £15 worth of clear plastic boxes.

Stamps, Dies, charms

and below are some of the diecuts I did back at the hotel on Saturday night with the dies I don't have (as yet LOL)

Those Memory Box dies are so finely detailed that I could not resist and even though I was tired and weary I had to keep going till I had one of almost each die Tracy had in one of her boxes.  Now what can I make?  I've laid them all out to sort into packets as they are so intricate and get caught up in one another.


I will be doing a tutorial on the quad easel card for those of you who saw me at Harrogate and anyone else who would like instructions.  Just give me a mo to tidy the room (again) and get organised with step to step (Blue Peter) samples.  Will be up before weekend, fingers crossed.

Fabulous Weekend

Just thought I would show you one or two photographs from Sunday. It was not quite as busy so I managed to get out of the booth a bit more and have a look around. It was good to see some more of my friends on Sunday too but I was surprised that only one person remarked on my WOYWW badge - and she doesn't post on the blog!

I just walked up from our stand to take this - supposed to show the crowds but doesn't really fit the bill does it?

Neither does this one taken down the side

But ... as promised

This is George

They insisted I put one of the pair of them on my blog so here you are - Gorjuss George and Luverly Liam.

with Calista Calibur - my machine

It turned out to be a lovely day and so I went outside for a breath of fresh Yorkshire air.  It was so nice to see the signs of Spring in the form of the lovely golden daffodils but I didn't get them on this photo.  Doh!  Had it been nice and warm the steps would have been full of people sitting eating lunch and just chattering.

This is Barbara whom I have worked with many many times.  It is always a joy to see and work with her and this time she was mainly demonstrating Becca's (Feeken) Peg Bowmaker alongside other things.  We had quite a laugh over the weekend, the most on Saturday when we were so squashed, because of the crowds behind us, we kept bumping into one another with our backsides.

Here's the boss - Tracey.  You will not believe what she did.  She made my machine squeak so that she could tell whether or not I was working.  Only kidding, but that's what she kept on saying.

These are some of the beautiful cards that were on Tracey's table. Fabulous dies that are so tempting - so tempting that half my pay went on buying new ones.  (The jar at the left hand side is one of the candles that George bought her for Mother's Day)

All too soon it was time to pack up - I say "all too soon" but to be honest we were all tired and ready for the show to finish, I don't think any of us recovered from Saturday being so busy.  Here are the crew packing up the stand (note the difference in the above photographs) - Oyster Stamps family - until the next time.

Before I leave you all I must just show you a shot or two of the room we had at The Days Inn on Weatherby Service Station.  Good value and a lovely wet room type shower.

Ooos!  Nearly forgot!

Do you recognise this lady from the TV?

Phew! It Was Busy

... To say the least. Arrived at the Great Northern Papercraft Extravaganza in Harrogate and it was a tad cool in the hall. Not for long!
When the doors opened it was busy - and I mean busy. Barbara and I found ourselves squashed up against our tables, unable to move and just about able to demonstrate. The stand was "heaving" and stayed like that until well gone two in the afternoon. In fact it was probably more like three o'clock before we managed to take stock of our area. By which time we had probably both lost a pound in weight as it was so darned hot. What bliss when someone opened the door by the side of us to go out, albeit briefly.
Here's Barbara busy doing her sales pitch at around 3.30 pm which was the first time I managed to get out to take some photos.





My lovely bosses, Graham putting some dies back and Tracey taking a well deserved break from her demoing those lovely Cheery Lynn and Memory Box dies, but still working away on the other side of her desk. Poor Tracey had had to desert her demoing at one point to help the lads who were seeing to the needs of the customers. We were just so busy.









Here's Liam who is such a lovely lad and who I always look out for to take a cash sale or help someone take a machine out to their car.





As I said, I didn't get out until the hall was getting empty but here are a few shots of our stand (depleted stand I should say) and a shot down the hall from where we were.





I did manage to have a word with Richard at the very end as he sat in his own little booth demonstrating the Pazzles. Here he is with his delightful wife who makes the most delicious biscuits. Perhaps I can get some photos of the amazing work he does with this machine.





Hopefully after a good night's sleep I can get some more photos tomorrow and I must get one of George who spent most of the day trying to convince me he was Tom, his twin. They can't pull the wool over my eyes, especially not when I am in Yorkshire.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Finished the Reorganisation

I cannot believe it has taken me so long to reorganise my craft room.  Does it look any different?  No, not really but it is tidier and I now have a dedicated shelf, a baby box and two tins dedicated to what I hope will be a new craft to me - sewing.  Can you have a look - no, I am saving it for WOYWW next week.

Wednesday afternoon I got to screaming pitch as I just seemed to be surrounded by all kinds of things and getting nowhere.  My craft room (which is only small) extends to a purpose built cupboard in the utility room.  Sshh!  Chas does not know it was built for that, he thinks I just moved into it gradually.  He does, however, know that one of the wall cupboards has been taken over by me also.  Then there is the piece of furniture in the lounge, not sure if he knows what is in there - craft things.  So you see, my quest for reorganisation took me to other areas and resulted in some of them being sorted too.

At last, late last night I got to do a bit of crafting.  First of the week.  I am at the Harrogate Show this weekend and I always arrive with very little to show so I set to and made a card - a Quad Easel no less.  My first attempt at one of these.  Do you want to see?

Am hoping I have done it right as it is going with me and it is going to get a lot of handling and probably criticising.  Perhaps someone will tell me I have done it wrongly.  Who knows.

Anyway, off to make some ATC's now as I must join in the swap this month over on one of the groups I am in and I need to do one for Vicky Stampers - now what was the theme - ah, Books - mmmmm.