about me .. ..

You can contact me by email at: anniejuk@yahoo.com

I am currently a member of the Cute Card Thursday challenge blog as I was one of the founding members and can't leave such a fabulously friendly group of ladies that let me join in as and when I can.  And when  the Marianne Design Divas asked me to join them, I couldn't say no, it is only one project a month after all.  Otherwise I might occasionally join other teams as a guest designer but sadly cannot commit to any permanent DT positions at this time.

My cards have also been featured in the Marianne Design Gallery, the Don and Daisy blog and the Snoesjes blog.

I have several boards on Pinterest too, see them here - that site is such a fabulous source of inspiration.

Past Teams I've loved to be part of include:

I was honoured when Sylvia Zet asked if I would be a February 2013 Guest Designer for Wee stamps digi images, and of course I said yes!

Cuddly Buddly Design Team

and the following blog challenge teams, some sadly no longer with us:

Lili's Little Fairies using Lili of the Valley stamps

Totally Papercrafts 

Stampavie and More 

ABC Christmas Challenge
Oldie But a Goodie

Magical Mondays

Just Cute Bears

Teddy Stampers

Tilda and Friends
Creative Inspirations - Guest Designer
Papertake Weekly - Guest Designer

I have been given some fabulous awards in the past, and thank everyone who thought of me. However, like many others, I craft for my own pleasure and although awards are nice, nowadays it's a polite no thank you.

A BIT ABOUT ME .. .. ..

My earliest recollections of childhood are of sitting on a little stool by my father’s tool chest with a colouring book and a box of pencils. We were a crafty family, I was taught to knit by my grandmother and to sew by my mother.  My father was a carpenter, painter and decorator and as a teenager my summer holidays were spent earning pocket money painting bungalows or pasting wallpaper!  I would use up left over gloss painting flowers onto pieces of glass, not for any purpose other than to please myself.

At secondary school my artistic efforts took a bit of a knock when I was told I had no talent.  I had no grasp for perspective and although I loved colour, my style was not what the teacher wanted.  Despite this I managed to scrape an O level in both Art and History of Art, but then promptly put my colouring days behind me for several decades.

I discovered rubber stamping in 2005 thanks to a tv shopping channel.  My first stamp came with Adirondack dye ink pads and a love of stamping and colouring the image was born. I was fortunate to be asked to demonstrate Elusive Images stamps at my local craft store, Becky Bee’s in Saltash, and ran a stamping craft club and ATC monthly swap at the shop for several years before it closed down.  Those were fun times and I had permanently inky fingers and an expanding stamp collection!  In 2007 I started blogging and discovered the cute style of stamping and colouring that is very popular in the Scandinavian countries.  I also started colouring with pencils and odourless mineral spirits rather than various different water colour mediums that I had been using up until then.  

I was given a set of alcohol markers for Christmas 2008 and although it took me a while to get the results I was happy with, I soon became a fan of them.  The markers I was using, although of excellent quality, didn’t have the brush tip that I was used to using with water colour and I found they were restricting my creativity somewhat.  Then in 2010 I discovered Copic markers that had the fine brush I was looking for and immediately fell in love!  At last I could colour the fine details on my favourite stamps, and now my style is changing once again as I discover ways of using the Copics.

I have become a fan of die cutting embellishments to decorate my projects, so much cheaper to use up left over bits of paper and card and also keep the postage costs down as I try to keep my designs reasonably flat!  99% of my dies are from Marianne Design and I just wish my bank balance was larger each month as more beautiful designs hit the stores.  I am tempted occasionally to try my hand at different techniques and styles but invariably return to my love of colouring in .. ..