welcome

Welcome to the "Time to Sow" blog. Our aim is to provide craft materials with a Christian flavour for adults and children of all ages. Along side the craft products we have an extensive range of puppets in all shapes and sizes to help make teaching the gospel fun. So if you are Stamping, Scrapbooking, Decoupageing, Card Making we have everything you need. We also stock all the accessories like Inks, Embossing powders, tools, card stock, etc. so if you would like your craft to carry a Christian theme then we are the blog for you.



Wednesday 28 July 2010

breaking news

As most of you will know we have had some big changes at time so sow. starting with our new website with

  • Monthly step by step video projects staring myself,Tim lockey and the dog.
  • New gallery with shopping lists and instructions
  • Links to our facebook page and here of course.
  • And brand new products...............................

Breaking News..........

Words like honey our in house range, are at this moment working on brand new papers and clear stamps including the new 8x8 double sided range to be launched at Detling bible week next week i hope to let you get a first looks in the next couple of days. As well as the 8x8 papers i have designed a brand new range of 12x12 range for the young a heart i cant wait to play with them.

but as you will know words like honey is not just papers but stamps decoupage and more , so also we are adding brand new topper sheets of cats and dogs but not just any dog but westies!!! new decoupage monochrome and colour sheets and last of stamps launching in september.

Talking about stamps, want some ideas on how to use them, keep an eye out in your craft magazine's we been working with the big names to bring you tips and ideas on how to use words like honey for all occasions.

Saturday 3 July 2010

when people say watercolours i think of charming artist in Meadows painting cow and country houses with big wooden frames and big white flapping shirts, but while on the stamp addicts retreat I've discovered water colour paints in tubes! there called niji water colour there are available on site later this week.


I found one of the best inks to use for watercolour to be brilliance, memento or versemark that been heat embossing like in"limited stock blog" see previous post. once the image is stamped up i take small amount of the paints and squeeze them on to built in palette. I then pick the colour up using a water brush pen and paint in the stamp. while at least that how i was taught at school,but as i have discovered you can use than as a acrylic paint surprised i was.
what you need is a mesh heat sheet, a colour duster and paints coordinating colours.

1) squeeze out small amounts of paint on to the heat sheet and pick up the colour using the colour duster.
2) use almost a stenciling technique tap and twist the color on to the card stock. as you can see this makes a for some quite eye catching back rounds to layer or stamp over top .










3)use the Brilliance Graphite Black Code: PERl BIP82 ink pad to ink up your chosen image I like to use Architectural Column Code: SBSG1060 as i think this technique makes for a good manly card.



4) take a white chalk pencil to high light parts of the stamped image.
5) for more depth use and back round stamp IE a text to stamp over the whole design.I find a nice copper or metallic colour ink help with the finishes look.










Enjoy and i hope to see you soon any questions tips or ideas please send me a comment and i try the best i can to help god bless, Emma.

memory glass and powders

I have spent most of the day sortting out my craft room, in other words discover all my "lost" bits and as always I have bags and bags of card toper and embellishments which I always keep because you never really know when your going to need it IE when that card your making really needs something extra.
I real like using them with the memory glass when used with back round paper you can crate for some real depth and layers images. I have also been trying to discover some family history thus I have been try to use some of the photos for something more personal.
remember you have to use just 2 sheet of glass, the more layers the more depth can be crated in your captured images. once you ready to seal it use the sticky metal tape run round edge so you know how much to cut for each project and peel of the backing 2 cm at a time so that you don't end up in a sticky mess like i do most of the time. once the glass edge's are all cover plus some extra for over lap smooth i like to use a bone folder for this task. now take a step back..... not happy with it.... thankfully for us with a little work we can peel of the tape cleanly. redo, add or take away once happy with it replace the metal edging. now if it needs that extra something you can add alchol inks to the tape. i can assure you once you start you been keeping a eye out for some small detailed images to add to your work. which can be made as card toppers, jewellery and scrapbooks.









The other way of using the memory glass is to put the sheet of glass in to the frame, metal wow embossing powders in a metal pour or like we do use mini foil tins used for take aways. a mix of colours two or more and plan with the colours nature puts the odds colours together when you think of it but it works. Then pour melted embossing powders on the the glass for some real one off creations. with the addition of perfect pearls lightly sprinkle on the glass and in to the mix it creates a shimmer once the light captures it. I find it reminds me of a layer cut gem try and and see for you self.
For more tips on using melted embossing powders check out our YouTube page with step by step projects.

Oh what a beautiful weekend , just so hot even too hot to craft. as promised here are the photos of our night distressing.

This was crated by stamping the french love letter in the mahogany and the portrait in black soot, with a sliver fabric pen for the outline simple yet very eye catching while out shopping in town had a lot of comments about it.







This atc was dune by first stamping the ink pad on to a heat sheet and spritzing with the ranger water spritzer check our website for details. Then I taken the act to the water ink mix so the colour can be soaked up by the act. I personally love this techniques as no matter how many times you use the same colour you know it will come out different each time.






This atc was crated with cut and dry foam stamp the ink on to the heat sheet again as before but don't mix in water use the cut and dry to drag the colour from the sheet to the atc. This techniques seen to give a much softer look to you work and a much more even coverage.





For more on distressing check out our you tube page for step by step projects hope this posting has made you want to get crafting. I hope to see you again soon .