Preparation Time

I hope you enjoyed watching the tartan mini bookatrix being made with no out takes!! That makes a change. It has been a while since we filmed and we had to remember to have all things needed beside us.

Very soon we are going to stay at Ann's house on the Isle of Bute in Scotland (as last year) along with another four people to have another 3 day crafting event. 

We all need to make in advance two projects for seven people taking with us everything that we will need to assemble our two projects. This also includes an extra craft table/chairs going over on the ferry as well. Rule is minimum clothing maximum craft!!

We are getting together next week to discuss the final details of eating and where we are going to sleep. The end result should be 14 projects in about three days.

We will keep you updated and after the event hopefully will be able to show you what we made.

Keep crafting

Booking our Spot

We're back! Craft & Chat Scottish Tartan Cards: Minibookz is now filmed, edited and uploaded to craftyalice's channel on YouTube - hope you enjoy it, we had fun making it!


We used the Minibookz board, which has six designs on it, to make a little bookatrix-type card.  It uses five layers of card, embossed on the board, cut out, peel-offs added, stuck together at the spine with added floral decoration and greeting. In this case we used a tartan theme.  There was another one made in cream and gold, but it seemed to miss being photographed! It might appear here later if craftywhippet photographs it... 

embossed on minibookz board

embossed on minibookz board

There was another one made in cream and gold, but it seemed to miss being photographed! It might appear here later if craftywhippet photographs it... 

Ruth remembered!

A box can be made for it and the Box Queen, aka craftywhippet, will be filmed making one to fit. 


Before the Minibookz board came out we used the Framey board to make a mini- bookatrix card, you can watch that video too.

embossed on Framey board

So have fun watching and crafting!
craftyalice

Book Card

Get Box-making and Create

Hi Everyone,

Our new video is now on YouTube, demonstrating Bookatrix Box-making. We started preparing early on Wednesday morning so that everything would be to hand. It was fun filming the clips and we decided not to delete the mistakes we made. This was a really busy time as we were also preparing the next two videos demonstrating a C6 box and the final one demonstrating the motto mini boxes. The craft area was covered with boxes of all different sizes and colours.

Craft & Chat (formerly Get Creative) 

In the process of filming, at one point the camera was switched off "by mistake". This, I may say was after only one minute of running, so all the “filming” was for nothing. This was to set the tone of the morning:-
I wasn’t far wrong. The next time, the phone rang just as we were completing the movie. We thought that we could pick up where we left off but the phone rang again. It was back to the beginning as I couldn’t remember what I had said. I think I had a few 'senior moments' aka 'intellectual incidents'.


The yellow scorer caused me some confusion as I called it a ‘grease mouse’. Alice corrected me, saying it was a ‘creaser mouse’, which wasn’t right either. It is in fact called a ‘crease mouse’ and I finally got it right. I will call it ‘banana’ in the future.

I thought it might be helpful to remind you of the template measurements mentioned in the videos that were made. I hope it will help you with your box-making.
Always remember that the base of all boxes have to be trimmed a ‘smidgen’ or, as Alice would say, 2mm.

BOOKATRIX BOX A4 card x2
C6 BOX 21x16 cm Border 2.5 cm
MINI BOX 13.5 x 9.5 cm Border 3 cm

The C6 Box-making Video will be our next one on YouTube so remember to look out soon for these.
You will also notice that the canary yellow polo shirts have gone and these have been replaced with blue. The polo shirt is a warmer one but we have a cooler top for the summer.
Until next time.
Bye for now

CraftyWhippet

Taster for the new-look Genius Hands

Welcome to Ruth's Blog Post! (formerly known as Ruth's Report)

Hi Crafters

I suppose first of all I should be wishing you a Happy New Year as this is the first Blog Post of 2008. I was on holiday in January and I am now catching up.

We are so pleased with the way crafters from other countries have subscribed to the website videos and we welcome all your feedback on what is of interest to you. Please feel free to contact us with your comments. Alice has created this blog from scratch and has faithfully updated it, as well as crafting and various other commitments. She is not called WebMom for nothing. Nobody else in Craft & Chat (formerly Get Creative) can do this and the work spent on the website is very much appreciated. The comments we have had from subscribers have been so encouraging so please continue.

The Report aka Blog Post at the end of the month is now going to include what we have been crafting, letting you know of any changes with Craft & Chat and keeping you up to date with YouTube instructional videos.

We would like you to feel involved with our craft by letting us know if there is anything you would want to see demonstrated on video - you can comment on YouTube or e-mail us. Can I remind you at this point that we are not professionals -- "Dawn Bibby I am not" (see our first Video Outtake #1: CraftyWhippet I am not) so don't be too ambitious with your ideas or we will be having panic attacks.

The new Keepsake boards are on sale now and the demo by the Glitter Girls on Ideal World last week was good. There is also a new board reaching the shops in March (available on eBay) and then again in July. I am hoping to try the Illusion board for box-making and in particular the size that fits the Bookatrix. I use the EasiScore board at present but this new board looks very good. I have not forgotten that I said in the Bookatrix Videos that we would demonstrate making a box for the Bookatrix to go in. Hopefully I will be able to link with Alice to arrange a time when we will both be free. It is our intention that by the time this post goes on the blog we will have demonstrated Box-making and have it on YouTube for you to view. We might even change our tops from canary yellow to a colour we actually like!!

We also like the Cuttlebug folders and a new range is now available. I have been looking for a Thinking of you or a Sympathy Cuttlebug folder and so far as I know we do not have any here in Glasgow. Maybe our American crafters can let us know if they have them.

We have been busy making mini boxes and it might be the case of sixth time successful... I like to use a template and Alice (an ex-maths teacher) likes to calculate and use a ruler for all her measurements. I compromised and left her to calculate...and then give me a template!! I think that was a good deal.

I am busy making some little cards for the ladies in my church for [UK] Mother's Day, which has been fun. As you know, sometimes it takes longer to think out the idea than to actually make it!!

I hope this has been of interest to you so...until next time.

Bye for now

Ruth aka CraftyWhippet

Welcome to Genius Hands on the Web

Hi!

Welcome to the new Genius Hands Blog.

We are card-crafters, making them for friends/charities and to sell. Our latest project is making YouTube instructional videos. As we are not experts, you will learn much better from our videos - we show how, complete with non-deliberate mistakes.

We used to have our own Reports on our old GeniusHands.com website which Reporter Ruth happily wrote up on our crazy gatherings of fun, but it's much quicker just to use Blogspot and YouTube! Subscribe to our Videos.

Happy crafting!

CraftyAlice