Welcome to my blog!

Welcome to Get Crafty, by Craftsbystone, my journey into fancy folding, fussy cutting, stamp and die and origami. 

I've been crafting with paper since I was a kid, my dad gave me my first origami book at 7 years old and I've loved papercraft ever since.  I was also a Blue Peter child, made Tracey Island and recycled pretty much every loo roll, washing up bottle, milk carton and cereal box in the house.  I learned early on you can literally make anything with a bit of sticky tape and some cardboard, which was handy as we didn't have a lot of money growing up so making toys and shopping in charity shops was the norm and I still do the latter now.  My mum and I love a good charity shopping spree, but that's a blog for another time.

So, on to papercrafting and, in particular, cardmaking.   I've been a passionate fan and advocate of Crafter's Companion for a little over a year now (www.crafterscompanion.co.uk) 

I found them in August last year shortly after a breast cancer diagnosis (got the all clear after my op in January so I'm all good).  During treatment and recovery Crafter's Companion TV, their products and the I'm a Crafter's Companion Facebook Group have been an invaluable source of comfort, support and encouragement to me.  It's such a wonderful community of helpful, inspiring and talented people, from the design team to the show hosts and expert crafters and all the CC customers who constantly share their love for the products with beautiful makes every day.  It's easy to see why so many people love Crafter's Companion.

For me, CCTV and the products have been a welcome distraction from a very tough 14 months and are what have prompted me to continue with cardmaking post-recovery and start this blog.  I'll also be starting a YouTube channel shortly too and will let you know as soon as its up and running.

So, what will this blog offer you? Each week I'll be sharing my makes, tips and tricks as well as general inspirations that have caught my eye and inspired me to create and share.   You'll learn new card bases, techniques for stamping, colouring, die cutting and much more as well as unique, fancy folded card bases and a multitude of ways to decorate them for any occasion.  Below are just some of the makes I've created which I plan to share via tutorials so you too can create beautiful cards to gift, sell or share in your own blogs /vlogs. 

Plus, if you subscribe to my mailing list and YouTube channel (both coming soon), you'll get regular emails with updates on what's coming up and free digital downloads of some of my original patterned paper designs and digital cut files as and when they're used in my blog posts. 

So what's not to love about Get Crafty?  You tell me and I'll see what I can do about changing it 😁 I'd also love to hear from you about any techniques, card bases or anything else papercraft related you'd like to learn.  Whatever it is, I'll try my best to put together a detailed blog post to help you on your own papercrafting journey. 

I am a firm believer in collaboration and sharing great ideas so what's mine is yours and I hope what you learn and take away from my blog can help you to create beautiful cards and gifts to share how ever you'd like.  Although, I'd love a mention and link to my blog and other socials if you do share any of my ideas 😁.

As promised, here's a few snaps of recent projects that I hope to share with you soon.  Please follow me on insta for even more makes ABI. WILKI

Till then, take care and happy crafting x