Meet Our Design Team

Below, you will find the names and bios for each of the members on our current Design Team. 

 

My name is Helen and I live in a small town called West Kirby which is in the north west of Britain - the nearest big city to us is Liverpool.  I work for an organisation called The Abbeyfield Society which is a world-wide charity providing care for older people.  I'm an Activities Coordinator and I work in a care home and two sheltered houses providing activities for the residents.  We craft, play dominoes, do crosswords and do chair exercises as well as enjoying music and films together.  I've been making cards for many years and love stamping, working with digi stamps and colouring with Promarkers.  My favourite card making time is Christmas and I'm really looking forward to being part of the team.

Crafting has always been my hobby – in fact my husband would say it’s my obsession! I enjoy all sorts of crafts but my current passion is paper crafting. At the moment I live in the UK but for the previous 17 years I have been an expat, living in Australia, Hong Kong, Abu Dhabi and India. Whilst overseas I always managed to find friends who also wanted to craft! Now back in England I spend a lot of time in my craft room. I like to play with different techniques, making both mainstream items and more left of centre projects. I use a lot of digi images but also like getting inky…and I love different folds, ATCs and fat pages!

I was very excited when Lisa asked me to join her team. My favourite cards to make are Christmas cards so obviously I jumped at the chance. Having worked with other crafts over the years (dressmaking, embroidery, crochet) once I was introduced to card making I was hooked. Everything else has pretty much taken a back seat. Since I retired I now have more time to spend crafting but, alas, not quite as much money to spend !!!

I have been married to John for 46 years and we live in beautiful Oxfordshire in the UK on the edge of the Cotswolds, an Area Of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). Our house is in a very isolated position and we get cut off when it snows heavily – a problem when I was still working, now it’s just an excuse to do more crafting! The superb views certainly make up for the isolation.

I have made some wonderful friends since I started my blog and have been lucky enough to meet up with some of them on occasion.

My other hobbies are cycling, walking and fell walking. So I have hobbies for both good weather and bad weather. Not a bad combination.

Hello! My name is Suze and I live in New Zealand.

I have been card-making off and on for a number of years since a friend introduced me to rubber stamps although I now work mostly with digi stamps. My style is mainly CAS but I'm trying to learn new techniques. I first started blogging my cards in February 2012 so that I could enter some challenges. I initially started with mainly Christmas challenges to take the pressure off at the end of the year but have since found several others that have appealed to me. Since I live on the other side of the world, so many of the challenges are the opposite season to ours which certainly makes things interesting!

I am 70 and live in Sydney, Australia with my husband Tony.  I have two daughters and four granddaughters.  My granddaughters and all their friends call me Granmargaret.  I was made redundant at work at the end of January 2013 so after working for 53 years so I am now retired.

I started stamping and making cards in 1995 and started scrapbooking about 1999 and making ATCs in 2005.  I am still a cute stamper and make simple cards.  My favourite colours are purples and pinks. I started my blog in April 2012 with the help of cyber friends and started joining challenges to give me ideas for my cards and then was happy to be invited to join some design teams.  I have lots of rubber and clear stamps but use mostly digital stamps now as they are easier on my sore hands.

I am group Mum on some yahoo stamping groups.  I suffer from fibromyalgia and arthritis and have eye problems so spend my days making cards, a little scrapbooking and talking to my cyber friends on the internet.  This helps take my mind off the pain.

I have made many more cyber friends since starting my blog.  My eldest daughter Lynda and I are cancer survivors and we thank God for every day and for all our friends who pray for us.  I was excited to be invited to be on the design team for 12 Months of Christmas Link Up.

My Name is Amanda or Mandy to my friends and Made by Mandy in the crafty community.

I am 48 years old. Not quite sure how that happened so quickly as I still feel like I am 21! I live in Sutton Coldfield, just outside of Birmingham in the UK with my wonderful husband Paul. We have been together for over 30 years and I am very lucky to spend my life with such a lovely man.

I have been crafty ever since I could use children’s safety scissors! I have dabbled in quilting, dressmaking, crochet, knitting, embroidery, cross stitch and since November 2002 pretty much exclusively cardmaking after seeing a demo at the NEC. I have been blogging my cards since May of 2007. I love taking part in the challenges and the blogosphere is a constant source of inspiration.

My signature style is bright and colourful. I like to make unusual cards and adore using pretty papers. I’ve never been happy with the stamped images I produce so digi stamps have been an amazing way of improving my cardmaking skills. I love the flexibility of resizing and combining images. I can also experiment with different styles of images that I wouldn’t have purchased as a rubber stamp.

I had a break from making cards for a number of years but now I am back in. A new house, a new craft room, a little bit older but not necessarily wiser LOL.

I am extremely fortunate to have these ladies with on the team. You will see projects from The Sleigh Belles during the Challenge Start each month and you will see projects from The Merry Maidens during the Challenge Midway; so, get forward to being super inspired by this talented group of individuals. Each of these lovely ladies would be happy to have you visit them. Clicking on each of their pictures will take you directly to their individual blogs.