Corners & Circles

Hi Everyone, For those of you who were able to attend our Punch demonstration last weekend, I promised to share with you the measurements I used to create the circles from the Martha Stewart Corner Punches... These proved such a big hit at the demonstration!So here comes number one, using the Eyelet Lace Corner (M42-60013), which is part of the Eyelet Lace Around the Page Set. In future posts I will share the dimensions used with all the other corner punches, including the new ones which are on their way very soon.So, for the Eyelet Lace (M42-60013) you will need a 4 3/4" circle.Divide it into 8 equal sections. Again, for those of you who came to the demonstration, you will have noticed I used my special template, which makes my life so much easier and once I have the time to produce them I will let you know, who knew they would be so popular!?
OK, Spring is not quite here just yet! But the days seem to be getting a little bit longer, and I'm sure I did see a little bit of sunshine the other day, so let's hope Spring isn't too far away now.With that in mind I wanted to go for a springtime theme, and therefore coloured my White Circle with Yellow Chalk.And then passed the circle through the Cuttlebug using the Nat Cuttlebug Embossing Folder.And then went over the embossed image again, this time using Green chalk to highlight the embossing.Then taking the Eyelet Lace Corner Punch, I lined the centre of the Punch up with one of the lines I had previously drawn on the back of the circleand punched.Then continued this process, lining the punch up on the next line etc, etc, until I had gone all the way round.I then glued the cut out image back onto the original circle.Punch out a Flower from the Martha Stewart Water Lily Punch.And chalk with the same colours used for the background, but this time a little more intensely to give a stronger colour.. If it all looks the same then it can get a little bit lost...Add a few bits of bling by way of some complementary coloured gem stones and apply the Water Lily to the centre of the circle using a foam pad.I took 2 co ordinating pieces of paper cut at 5" x 5"and used the Eyelet Lace Punch to cut corners into one piece and matted it onto the other.I then used the corner punch to cut into all 4 corners of the base card.The outer corners are quite straight forward. Open the wings of the corner punch, place the card stock in at a right angle and cut.To punch into the inner corners of the card stock. Only open one wing and use the mark located on the side of the punch as a guide and line this mark up with the fold in the spine of the card and punch.Repeat this process for the other corner, this time closing the wing you have just used and opening the other.
And there you have it!!
This is a great idea to get the most out of your punches, and as I said I will continue to update with the dimensions for all of the corner punches, so keep the measurements to hand and check back soon for some more updates.
Thanks for checking us out..
See you soon.
Pinnacles...

From Billericay to Birmingham....

And back again! All in a day's work. Hi Blogland, Hope you are all well Today?Yesterday was our annual trip up the M6 to Birmingham for the Craft and Hobby Show, (other wise known as Stitches)at the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) in Birmingham.
Setting off silly O'clock in the morning to avoid the traffic we made good time, until we hit the snow!!!, or more accurately, the snow hit us!Leaving Essex where we just had rain we travelled into Hertfordshire and hit a blizzard!! not only that, but road works too..! Now, I am the first one to admit that my sense of direction is not the best.. To be honest, I travelled to Bristol once and got totally lost.. When I saw a sign saying "Welcome to England" I realised that I had missed Bristol completely and had almost ended up in Wales, at lest the "Welcome to England" sign meant that I was coming back the right way and I eventually found where I needed to be some 3 hours later!! So, with heavy snow and road works needless to say we ended up going up the M11 instead of carrying on on the M25.. oooppps,,! Anyway, a quick turn around at the next junction and we were back on track!! arriving in Birmingham for the start of the show...
The hall that the show was held in was a lot smaller than usual and some of the stands, even for the big international companies were a lot smaller but there was still plenty to see and toys to play with..As they were right at the front, our first point of call was to one of our Dutch suppliers.. I love this company, not just for their product range, but also for who they are as people. Our Rep, Mark is just the best. He just can't do enough for us, even though he was suffering from a soar throat he guided us through all the new goodies on offer.. Introducing us to other reps and the head honchos from his company. It really is shameful that these guys can slip from Dutch, to French to German to English just like that! very impressive.. I myself know very little Dutch, only enough to buy a paper and to excuse my ignorance of not being able to speak the language properly, although on a recent flight (sat still for the whole flight, you'll know why if you have read my last post!! yikes!) to Holland I did learn the Dutch for !Overhead Compartment!.. It's "overhead compartment", I guess there is no translation!! Anyhoo, "Bedankt" (thanks) Mark for showing us around.
So here are some of the things that will be winging their way to Pinnacles very soon??.New Pink Slice Accessories.Including the Hands Free KitMore Tim Holtz Accessories, including some Brand New Distressing Ink Colours.And of course the Gypsy,mine won't be so blingged up as this one though!Who wants a Punch?
For those that were able to come to our Punch demonstration last Saturday will have seen the Martha Stewart Deep Edger Punches, I called them the Big Bad Boys as they are hefty Punches.. Well, you ain't seen nothing yet..Look at this beast.. It's huge...
And just to wet your appetite even more,there are more Punches on their way from EK Success and Martha Stewart!!Can't wait to get my hands on them.. And yes, I will sort out all the sizes for the round the page corners to do the Circle Punches from the Demo on Saturday..All the new Beatrix Potter range from Crafters Companion will be here shortly.
As will be the new Colours from the Cosmic Shimmer Mists.
We were treated to an excellent demonstration from Sheena Douglass, yes that's her off the tele..She was using a range of Eco Friendly Paints and Inks.. There is a story behind the concept of these products and this will be shared with you when the products are launched in the UK on Create and Craft, watch out for this show with Sheena and the Co Founder of this company Julie Andrus, if nothing else it is an inspiring story and they are great products. So we bought the lot and will have a lesson using them later in the year with a great techchnique we are calling "Slap, Crackle & Pop", so look out for this one in the new lesson sheets coming out soon. We all try to do our bit for the environment, including us at Pinnacles! We recycle all of our packaing. Well, there is a recycling centre across the road from us, so it would be wrong not too. And, as you all know, all of our bags have our "Crafters Care" Logo on them, encouraging you to re use them each time you shop..Next stop was Sizzix.. This stand always blows me a way! So much effort must go into setting up their stand for the show, and boy does it show...
New Textured impressions on their way..Fantasic Summer Time diesCupcake anyone?The New Tim Holtz Alterations Range..And introducing the Eclipse.. Now, you know I am a fan of the Cricut, but I suspect the 4 Cricuts we have in the shop are about to gain a new little brother....
So, with aching feet and heads buzzing with inspiration it was time to head back home to Essex, but not before visiting the last few stands we had overlooked.. This however proved more difficult than first thought! Up one aisle, down the next.. "Was it here"? "no there".. See I told you my sense of direction wasn't very good.. The show was actually a lot bigger than we first thought!! Still we had a great day and got home safely in no time at all...Oh, and by the way.. If anyone is looking for the nations grit supply, we found it in a warehouse at the NEC..Not much to go round eh!! Let's hope there's no more snow...
Thanks for checking us out and see you soon.
Pinnacles..

Packing a punch!

Hi Everyone. Phew! My first demonstration day has now passed.. and did I enjoy it?.. you betcha!! will I be doing anymore? DITTO!!
I teach all the time, but I have never actually demonstrated to an audience before and certainly never all day to crowds of people.
We started at 10am and I did not move out of my seat until 4pm! as we had avid crowds watching all day long. I'm not one to sit in one place for very long, I always have something to do, sometimes I even find myself doing something you ladies can do quite naturally.. I believe it's called multi tasking!?
The only time I find myself sitting completely still is when I am on a plane.. The thing is, when you have plunged 25,000 feet because the plane cabin has lost pressure you tend to think it will happen again, to be honest if someone opens a packet of crips on a flight now I think the wing is falling off, so this is the only time I sit still, obviously now the only other time I remain seated is when I am demonstrating..
We had lots of questions and the uuuoooo's and aghhhhhh's are always great to hear when you all see something you like or another way of doing something.. There were so many different things I wanted to share with youincluding turning a corner punch into a circle punchor using a Punch for something other than it's intended use....The Butterfly Punch was always going to be a winner though and so easy to do once you know how.. I will upload more techniques from the day in the near future, including all the measurements I used.. The only thing is I know that there are more of the Martha Stewart Punches on their way to Pinnacles and I hope to see them at the Trade Show on Monday. Rest assured I will sort out the measurements for these new Punches in due course for you all..
Thanks to everyone for coming and for making it an enjoyable day.
Thanks for checking us out
See you soon
Pinnacles.

Getting ready..

Hi Blogland.. You may be aware that I have my first ever demonstration day on Saturday, and I want it to go smoothly. So I have been playing for a few weeks now in preparation for the day.
Punches are a great way to add accents to your projects, the thing now is that some of them require a bit of instruction on how to use them. So on Saturday this is my intention.. Not only to show them of in their simplest form but also to take them up a notch..I'm hoping I am well prepared, in fact I have produced some mood boards to show the punches off.Frequently you can see something on the shelf in it's packaging and it gives you no inspiration at all,but once you see what it can dothen the creative juices start flowing,well that's how it works for me anyway..
So boards prepared and samples a plenty I'm hoping for a great day.Here's just one of my samples for Saturday.
I took a piece of Mirror card and punched completely around the edge of the card stock with the Lattice Border and Corner Punch Combo from Martha Stewart. This needs to be done on a specific measurement of card stock, although I suspect with a bit of playing around and double punching you can punch on any sized piece of card, when I have the time I'll give it a try and let you know.Once punched, I measured in an Inch all the way round onto the back of the card and scribbled on the piece of card which I wanted to cut away..Top Tip alert!! Always cut into the area you are getting rid off, so if you come off of the line you are not cutting into the piece of card you wish to keep.. OK, I know that is probably easier for us right handers than you lefties but it is achievable...
Once the frame is cut out, mount it onto some more card to give a slight raised or even embossed effect.I took a simple peel off of a wedding car and placed it on Black Mirror Card and cut around it.This was mounted onto the frame with foam pads for dimension. I also applied a peel off sentiment, again in Silver.. Colour on Colour has a great effect I think, almost looks as if you have embossed the words...I took the base card and cut into all of the corners both back and front, inside and out.. I'll show you on Saturday how to do this for those who are coming to the demo, and to those who aren't, then in a future post.Finally mounting the frame and car onto the base card, a bit of ribbon and a bow, a few pearl gems and voila!!
Hope you like it and I look forward to seeing those of you who are coming to the demo on Saturday.. be kind to me...
thanks for checking us out.
See you soon.
Pinnacles..