Hochanda

We have the lovely Katie Skilton in the building today, with the One Day Special, the impressive Big Shot Plus.  Katie has two more shows to go, 4pm and 7pm, so don't miss out This is such a bumper kit, and what a fantastic machine. Sizzix know their machines, and this will give you the strength and reliability you expect from Sizzix, with that good solid platform - but it's got that feeding platform of 8.5" x 11". You have a selection of dies to get you started as well. One of the die ranges Sizzix are famous for, are the steel edge dies. These have a bigger bite than your normal metal dies, which allows you to cut thicker material - and we're talking bolsa wood, cotton, grunge board, mount board. Of course you can still cut regular card, but they also allow you to cut through multiple layers of card - so can really speed your crafting up if you are doing a large project. We loved this card from Katie's blog It's so neat and sophisticat...

In my last post, I shared some experiments I had done with Starlights paints, from Imagination Crafts.  These are so scummy, but I wanted to finish a project for you as well.  Here's the above card. I started by embossing a plain piece of scrap white card.  Isn't it wonderful when you can turn a piece of scrap card into something so pretty.  I used a sponge to gently sweep the paint over the top of the embossed card, it just highlights the embossing and emphasis the detail.  Look at the sheen on the card!  Isn't that attractive. I then cut a frame out of white card and then gold card, which I glued together.  I decorated the frame with Christmas flowers I then painted a piece of scrap card with the White Gold paint, and blasted it dry with my heat gun.  When it was dry, I used a rub-on sentiment.  I cut this down and matted and layered gold, then red.  I really like this sentiment topper - and all the colours...

Hi, it's Jenny, and this is my first crafty project for the Hochanda blog. It started with a visit to the studio, where they run the live shows from, but they also keep all the crafty "samples".  These are basically the lovely crafty things you see on the telly...and I got to wander around and pick what I wanted to use!  It was really tricky, to be honest, where do you start.  I opted for some of the stamps Chloe has brought to us, and I went for Christmas designs.  I like making Christmas decorations, I think they make a lovely gift idea. Firstly I dug out some of my MDF, and prepped a few pieces at the same time.  First with black acrylic paint, which I allowed to dry: I applied the paint with a sponge, as it's really quick and you only need a little paint for a good coverage. I then went over the top with white acrylic paint - or you can use gesso.  Again, I used a sponge. I then used lovely ink from Cosmic Shimmer.  I applied ...