And the Winner is....

Hello there, happy Sunday!!

A big thank you to everyone who entered the giveaway to win one of our new Crafty Alchemy sewing kits through this blog and the Crafty Alchemy Facebook page, we have a winner folks!

As promised little Miss H will be drawing the winner from my ever so stylish vintage hat...

(please excuse the mess in the Crafty Alchemy folding office - aka the folding table in the corner)

Drum roll please.....

And the winner is....

Sam Wheeler

Congrats Sam, just ping me an email (craftyalchemy@gmail.com) letting me know which of the kits you would like (there's Daddy Bunny, Mummy Bunny, Baby Bunny, Mr Owl, Mrs Owl or Baby Owl) and I'll get it posted out to you later this week.

Once again thank you to all of you who took part.

See you soon.

Claire xx

Scrapbooking - Happy Pooch

Oh my goodness, just how hot is it? I feel like the Wicked Witch of the West only without the lovely cold bucket of water. Both H and I have been hiding out in the shade as much as possible today but it's still too warm despite having all of the windows wide open, I do love the sunshine but I love it more when it has a breeze to go with it.

Anyhow, I should really stop waffling and get on with it otherwise I may turn into a Crafty Alchemy shaped puddle, which would not be good ,I have too much to do to turn into a puddle.

Since Sarah Hurley announced that the AFOMFT kits were being discontinued I've been working  my way through all of the left over bits (I still have one untouched kit and one more to arrive) and trying to get all of the layouts I've made blogged.

This one was made from an AFOMFT kit from a couple of months back...

I loved  the lemons and greys in this kit, one of my favourite colour combinations.
As you can see the photo is of Bailey (who incidentally is enjoying this weather a lot more since I filled the paddling pool for him to dive into and cool off) chewing on a bone.

I used one piece of 12x12 paper trimmed down a bit for the background and used the journaling cards as my other patterned papers, I added the  grey and yellow cardstock for the photo mat, base card and banner and the yellow brads from my own stash. The Kraft arrows were made by cutting down the self adhesive photo corners and added some Thickers for the title. The journaling reads "It's mine, nom nom nom, all mine" Bailey 2013.
As a finishing touch I added some doodled stitching here and there.

I'm going to miss these kits when they're gone.

Just a little reminder we have a little giveaway running here at Crafty Alchemy, just scroll down to the post below this one (or click here) for the details.

Take care, see you soon, try not to melt too much ;0D

Claire xx

It's Giveaway Time

Well hello there, it's nice to see you. Come on in.

It's Sunday morning, the sun is shining and all is good in the Crafty Alchemy Lab.

We've had a great few weeks around here, last week we launched our new look blog ***Ta Dah! Twirls around a bit*** and on Friday we launched our latest felt sewing kits in our Notonthehighstreet.com shop and our Etsy shop.

Here are the three bunnies, Daddy Bunny, Mummy Bunny and Baby Bunny...

And the super cute owls, Mr Owl, Mrs Owl and Baby Owl...

Each kit has everything you need (except scissors) to make your very own individual Owl or Bunny, this is the Daddy Bunny kit... 

And this is the Mrs Owl kit...

In addition to this, I was also up until 2am this morning working on new products, I can honestly say that, although I am being kept awake by large cups of Yorkshire Tea right now, that I'm extremely happy and excited for the future of Crafty Alchemy at the moment.

Now then , what else did I want to say?... hmmm... ah yes! That's right... who fancies a giveaway?

For all of the reasons I've mentioned in this post I want to share the love & spread a little happiness so I'm giving away one of the individual owl or bunny kits... you can choose whichever one you like... to one of you lovely people out there.

So here's what you need to do to enter...

There are two ways to enter, you can do either or both, if you do one you get one entry, both gets you two entries.

1, Become a follower of this blog and leave a comment on this post about which kit you'd like to win and why.

2, Like our Facebook page and leave a comment on the giveaway post about which kit you'd like to win and why. 

Please feel free to share on Facebook, Twitter (using @craftyalchemy) etc, but it is not a requirement for entry into the giveaway.

You can view all of the kits and their full contents here.

The giveaway will remain open until Midnight Saturday 26th July. Winners will be drawn by the very technical method of having my daughter H pick the winning name from a hat and the winner will be announced on Sunday 27th July.

Good luck, Thanks for stopping by & hope to see you soon.

Claire xx

Sarah Hurley 365 Challenge - Celebrate

Well hello there, how are you on this sunny Tuesday evening?

We have a new challenge over on the Sarah Hurley 365 blog this month and you still have time to enter. The theme for this month is ...

CELEBRATE 

There's a really great reason this theme was picked for this month, it was 4 years ago in July when Sarah started the original Sarah Hurley Challenges Blog, I joined the team 6 months later and Sarah's never been able to get rid of me since Bwahahaha!

I decided what better way to celebrate than to throw a party, and how do you announce a party? Why, invitations of course....

First thing I did was cut a piece of yellow cardstock to 6x4 inches and doodled a border around the edge, next I cut a piece of turquoise paper from one of Sarah's AFOMFT kit slightly smaller than 6x4 inches, I also doodled a stitched border around the edge. I made some bunting by folding small pieces of neon pink tape around pink and white bakers twine and then cutting out a little triangle from each to get the banner shape, I attached the bakers twine to the back of the turquoise paper using tape and then stuck this to the yellow card using double sided tape.

I stamped the Princess Girl Doodle Doll and coloured her in with Promarkers (Blush, Dusky Pink, Vanilla, Pastel Lemon, Mustard, Rose Pink & Orchid) I then used 3d foam pads to attach her to the card. 

I used the Block Alpha Stamp set to stamp "you are invited" onto scraps of paper from the AFOMFT kits, as a  finishing touch I sprinkled some silver stars over the top & glued them down where they landed.

All you need to do to enter is create something on a Celebration theme - remember there's an extra prize for using Sarah's products on your entry - and link up to this post here before midnight on 28th July. You can see all of the DT creations here too.

Thanks for stopping by & hope to see you soon.

Claire xx

Welcome to the Start of a New Adventure

Well hello there and a very warm welcome to the new Crafty Alchemy blog. Come on in, don't be shy, pull up a chair, the kettle's on and there's cake in the kitchen - feel free to help yourself :)

I'm Claire, the founder of Crafty Alchemy.

I guess I'd better start by explaining to my fabby followers old and new what is going on here...

I started blogging as Curlylocks Pics and Pieces back in 2009 so that I could share my crafty creations and ideas with other crafty people, things have changed a fair bit over the years since then.

In 2011 my blog had a name change and a facelift and became The Crafty Alchemist and in 2012 I decided blogging wasn't enough, I wanted more craftiness in my life, after much thinking, planning, making notes and muttering wildly to myself The Crafty Alchemist became a business, starting with an Etsy shop selling embellishment kits for all kinds of crafty projects

And more recently clear stamps and hand stamped notebooks

  I then opened my Notonthehighstreet.com shop in 2013 and it was this that brought about the change from The Crafty Alchemist to Crafty Alchemy, partly because it trips off the tongue a little easier and is easier to remember for all of my lovely customers too.

Whilst quietly working behind the scenes on all this I decided it was time to say goodbye to my original blog, I was struggling to get out of the habit of just posting my crafty creations rather than sharing all of the good stuff that goes on here in the Crafty Alchemy Labs (this is what my studio space is known as by my friends and family) so rather than trying to make the old blog fit in to this new era I decided to start again from scratch.

And here we are, a shiny new beginning on a shiny new blog.

I'll still be sharing my crafty stuff, hopefully in a little more detail than previously along with exciting developments and new products from the Crafty Alchemy Labs and this time it's not just me, Jennie aka Mum has joined the Crafty Alchemy Team and will be contributing on the blog from time to time. We may also have one or two guest bloggers in the future as well (please ping me an email to craftyalchemy@gmail.com or you can us the contact section in the sidebar if you're interested, we'd love to hear from you)

Thanks so much for stopping by to say hello, I really hope you come back again and join us on this exciting new adventure with Crafty Alchemy, I'm really looking forward to sharing all of the things we've been working on and are planning for the future.

Take care & hope to see you soon

Claire xxx

p.s I'd be thrilled if you followed me... just so you know ;-)