Dry embossing is something I hadn’t done for a long time. A friend is selling all her craft materials as she is emigrating and out of the many goodies she has I bought her Fiskers Scrapboss.

If you’re not aware of dry embossing you put a template over your paper and use a tool to outline around the template. This gives a lovely raised effect in whatever pattern you use. It’s particularly impressive on foil and matallic papers/cards.

This card was made using a flower stencil on pink glossy paper. I rounded the edges of the paper and matted and layered on gold and cream card.

Anotther tip is to emboss a pattern on the envelope, for a nice finishing touch.

Plans for the future are wedding stationery, more nappy cakes, baby bouquets, handmade cards, including Christmas packs (oh not that word in 30 degree heat!).

I’ve set up www.pollyannacrafts.co.uk so people can purchase items from me through my website. I’ll be making improvements over the next few weeks and adding more items. So please visit often

I’m more than happy to make items to order, so if you don’t see exactly what you want on my website please contact me.

Remember I do free delivery in Milton Keynes.

Today I’ve been designing a unisex nappy cake containing bathtime items. Finding a rubber duck was not the easiest task I’ve had while sourcing materials for my cakes. I found the one used here in www.hawkin.com, the only trouble was my husband and I spent ages playing with all the gadgets and toys!

The nappy cake has been designed as a unisex cake, as not everyone knows the sex of their baby before it’s born. This can make getting gifts difficult, especially when colleagues are going on maternity leave or for a baby shower. This cake contains bath toiletries, a manicure set and hairbrush set, as well as nappies.

My website is linked on my blogroll.

I have a confession to make…I struggle with designs for male birthday cards. I designed this card for my dad who is celebrating his 86th birthday and in 5 days my parents will be celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary.

This card is quite a simple design, using some scap bits I found in my studio. I used my beloved Crop A Dile to set the gromlets, after spending quite some time finding the instructions for this type of setting. The lesson is to file away the instructions for your tools!

I am a bit of a stamp addict, the cake and greeting were stamped and finished with gold glitter glue…remember to let it dry completely if using this type of glue. Many a time I’ve thought it was dry, only to smudge it.

Now I’m starting to sell some of my handcrafted items I’ve been practising how to package them. Today I’ve been wrapped up myself in cellophane and ribbon, well not literally you understand, but taking my time to present my gifts in a way I think they will be lovely to receive.

This nappy cake is for a colleague of my sister in law, who is leaving to go on maternity leave at the end of the month.

I use the eyelet setting and hole punch the most frequently, but now I’m doing more scrapbooking I’ll be setting gromlet more. However one problem I did have was in one of my studio tidyups I had mislaid the instructions. The Crop A Dile has blocks which are moved to set different types of eyelets and snaps. Fortunately I found the instructions on the web http://www.weronthenet.com/pdfs/CropADile.pdf which allowed me to finish my card.

Happy Birthday Dad!

I’ve found some of my customers prefer a more simple and classic ‘smooth’ cake. I designed this cake with that in mind.

I used the folded nappy method for this cake, added some bodysuits, bibs, socks and scratch mitts into the cake. Wrapped the layers with a fleecy blanket and muslin cloth and decorated with ribbon.

The little chap on top is a comforter. He’s a cute bear with a little blanket for baby to cuddle for security.

This card was a bit of a challenge and a step away from my comfort zone.

My friend asked me to make a card for her work colleague who is leaving to go travelling. I asked if there was a theme in particular she’d like and she asked if I could do soemthing travel related and this is the result.

I used Creativity Life core colour cardstock to get the texture on the suitcase. I scrunched it up and antiqued it a bit. The travel stckers were from some paper I won in a raffle! I heat embossed the ‘bon voyage’ using gold embossing powder.

Bon Voyage Emily!

For this cake I went back to the rolled methid because it was more approriate for what I wanted to acheive.

It was made for my sisiter in law as a gift to her work colleague who goes on maternity leave in June.

I find a lot of a nappies have patterns on them, however I like to incorporate that into the design. For this cake I made it pink and lilac, however it fits just as well with a boy for boy colour scheme.