Sara Sandberg

The Craft Barn Extravaganza 2013

What a fantastic weekend I have just had! Every year, The Craft Barn holds an Extravaganza event. If you have ever been to a craft show and been frustrated that you can't get close enough to see the demonstrations, you need to watch out for the date next year and come and join us!

For the last few years, Cardmaking Paradise members have been meeting up at the Extravaganza - and each year more and more come along. We now all stay in a hotel together for the weekend, and just chat, laugh and have fun from the minute we get there on the Friday until we are all hugging goodbye on the Sunday evening.

I have lots to show you from the Extravaganza, and products and techniques we saw there to share - but it's far too much for one blog post, so I will do it bit by bit each day!

Today I will introduce you to our lovely Cardmaking Paradise members having fun in the sun - what better way to spend the time than with crafty friends, watching demonstrations, and shopping in the lovely new Craft Barn shop?!

 

Above, left to right are Renate and  her husband Reinhard, Heike and Michael who travelled from Germany for the weekend.

Marion, Netti and Pam.

Hilda and Glennis

Above we are at our evening meal. On the second evening, Sheelagh held a workshop, which even the husbands joined in with! Jill brought some lovely Isle of Man soap as a gift which was the prize for a game too.

Above everyone is busy folding paper, which after a few glasses of wine isn't as easy as it should be!

The demonstrations are held in three marquees behind the shop.

This picture was taken at the end when it had quietened down. As you can see, the set up is brilliant - it's wonderful to sit in front of the talented demonstrators and watch them create their masterpieces, learning different techniques and discovering what products can do.

The new shop is in a beautiful setting, with a lovely farm shop next door, and a lovely nursery and coffee shop across the way. Here Maggie, Marion, Jean, Pam and Annie are having a lunch time rest.

This is Peter (Glennis from New Zealand's husband), Chris (Maggie's husband) and Pete (Annie's husband). They all share similar interests and have great outings together while we are absorbed in the demos and shopping.

Above is Jean - a really talented lady with a great sense of humour! There should be a Hilda and Jean show on TV - we just don't stop laughing when they are around!

This is Annie, Hilda, Jean and Sheel at the coffee shop.

The ladies bought me this gorgeous flower arrangement as a thank you - I felt it should be me thanking them though! It is just such a great experience being with them all at the Extravaganza! The arrangement was made by Jean's daughter.

Have a lovely evening.

Smiles,

Tomorrow I'll show you what the demonstrators were making.

Free moustache templates!

It's a craze the teenagers love! Well, mine do anyway! Max has moustache stickers on his phone, Nicole has strawers with moustaches on them, and Holly went out wearing one the other night!!!

So as a bit of fun I have created some moustache templates - share the link with your friends, they are free for everyone!

Free moustache templates

Love and smiles,

Owl Shaped Card Template

I am sorry not to have updated you with the last projects! Internet browsers are ganging up against me! Chrome has crashed, and can't be uninstalled or installed on my computer! Internet Explorer won't let me upload photos to Typepad, so I am here with Firefox seeing if that works!

Yay!! It does!!! I designed this owl for Marion's birthday, even though I had only a couple of weeks ago designed a different shaped owl;

I love them both! The first is very quick and easy, but I love the character of the one above here.

Also I have added a new handbag to the site;

If you're not a member, take a look at www.cardmakingparadise.com - there are lots of lovely free resources there for you. If you would like to become a member and have access to all our lovely projects, I keep the price very low so that everyone can join in.

It's exam time for the Sandberg kids. Holly is preparing at uni in Bournemouth by eating pizza, Max is here in Southampton playing his computer game - and Nicole has a radical approach, she's in Plymouth revising!

Have you heard of Snapchat? It's an app where you take a photo and send it to someone with a message on, and they can only see it for a few seconds. So I am constantly gettting pictures sent from the kids and I have had to train myself to put my glasses on before opening them, otherwise it's gone before I've seen it!

If you're quick you can screenshot them, but it's not the cool thing to do! And it's definitely not cool to save the pictures and put them on your blog! ;)

Aren't we lucky to have all the technology we have now to keep us in contact around the world. When I worked on the ships I used to have to find a phone ashore to contact home, and it used to be such a pain finding one, plus it was very expensive - I didn't usually make it past the shops/bar on the way there! My poor neglected Mum!

We got Mum started with an account on Facebook so that she could see pictures of family my sister and I post there. Mum is about as handy with a computer as a chocolate teapot, and hasn't a clue what she's doing on Facebook, but is just enjoying browsing around looking at photos. Or so she thinks - actually she's pressed requesting to be peoples friends on several occasions - and it's friends of the children, goodness knows how she got there! She has no idea how to ask someone to be a friend, so has no idea how this has happened! But can you imagine how cool it is for the kids when their grandmother is requesting to be a friend to their friends?!! Poor Mum is now frightened to click on anything! She has been instructed to look and not touch!

I hope you have had a lovely weekend, and if it's Mother's Day in your country, I hope you have had a lovely family time.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend!

Love and smiles,

Current Card Sketch Challenge

Here's my entry for our current card sketch challenge;

It was a bit cheaty of me really - I had an idea for doing this with the Memory Box oak tree die when I designed the card sketch! And the two came together! Our card sketches are definitely bringing a softer colour scheme than my normal cards out fo me!

Going back to bright, did you see my latest design for Cardmaking Paradise?

If you would like to see the project closer you can do so here. My Mum saw the newsletter announcing this, and asked if she could have one! I told her she hadn't quite grasped the concept of the website! The idea is you go to the project and make your own!!! (Now she'll be reading this and reminded I haven't made it for her yet! :o)

I have my daughter Nicole home from uni for Easter, which is lovely! Holly is coming for the night tomorrow, then back to Bournemouth to go on a skiing trip organised by a group at uni. I used to go on a skiing trip with a large wild group every year when I was Holly's age too! It was on one of these trips I met my gorgeous Danish husband! I told her to be careful, you can catch things on trips like that which stay with you for life! ;)

I hope you are all having a good week - what would be REALLY nice for Easter would be some warm weather! Anyone got any going spare they could send over to the UK?!

Love and smiles,

More beautiful things at Stitches

I hope you enjoyed Part 1 - onward with more lovely things!

It's always fun seeing new stamps, shapes and colours of our favourite products - but to find something completely different is really exciting. Tucked away was Brit Wellens, a truly talented artist, with a product I know a lot of you who love texture are going to LOVE! It's called Powertex, I wish I had taken more photos of the wonderful things Brit had made, but here are the two I did take.


When material is dipped in Powertex, it dries really hard. So the top frame the material string had been dipped in it, and the material too and it looked fantastic! If you look at the gallery on the Powertex website you will see more of Brit's creations.

Another talented person shares his name with my Dad! Ken Oliver was showing us Spellbinders Bezels. This made my day, as I had seen them online and loved them - and to see them in real life added another page to my shopping list! 

It's such a great idea, there are dies that fit the Bezels perfectly and you can create beautiful things with them.

They are finished with Ice Resin, which is really easy to use - no mixing, it comes in a two part container that dispenses the correct amount of both parts easily for you. Again, not the best photo I could have got for you above - but I was too busy watching Ken creating! I will definitely be keeping an eye on Ken's Blog - he had some fantastic things on show he had made.

 
The altered book above was amazing, how he created the gradiated circular tear out I don't know - but I hope to find out!

I'm rubbish with compact cameras, but I would freak everyone out if I arrived at the stands with my SLR!!! It was lovely to meet Ken, and to have new inspiration.

Lots of more lovely things on display! Paper Artsy have new colours in their fabulous Fresco Paints range - the best paints ever! (Well, IMO anyway!)

These pictures are from their gorgeous display.

Jean and Malcolm from Crafty Individuals were there - they are such nice people. Whenever I see a distinctive tree I think 'Malcolm would like that!' as he has used his great tree shots for some of my favourite products of theirs! As always, they had some beautiful things that Jean had made on display.

This card caught my eye on the Marianne Design stand.

Look out for Snoesjes, which is a range including these great characters! If you go to the Marianne Designs website, there is a slideshow of cards on the home page which are just stunning.

I took this photo of a Sizzix stand on the way out just because I love picket fences and birdhouses!

That is a gorgeous fence, and I love the way it's painted and adorned.

And by now, I was so excited by all I had seen, I couldn't wait to get home to share it with you!

Love and smiles,