Sold exclusively through craft stores Creative Stamping will be on sale every three months, will showcase all the latest techniques and will be your comprehensive guide to all things stamping!

Would you like to know a little bit more?

Oh OK, then.

Sandwiched between 68 pages of stamping goodness, Creative Stamping will be bursting with giveaways, templates, exciting and innovative projects and all the latest stamping news you could ever ask for.  Not only that, but each issue of Creative Stamping will come with a free exclusive A4 sheet of stamps worth £15!

Remember, Creative Stamping will only be sold in craft stores, so if you want to secure a copy let your local craft store know now!

To find your local stockist of Creative Stamping or Creative Cardmaking call Chris on 0844826 0611 or email chris.cooke@practicalpublishing.co.uk

And don’t forget the next issue of Creative Cardmaking (issue 30) goes on sale 1st July!

Well our craft store only magazine Creative Cardmaking now includes a monthly competition and we want you to be a part of it!  Each month Creative Cardmaking contains a free designer paperpack, featuring some of the most gorgeous papers available.  These papers alone will have you itching to make cards before you can even get the magazine home; but don’t worry because that’s exactly what we want (well, once you’ve paid for the magazine that is)!  Use the papers to create a card, send it into us at Creative Cardmaking HQ and tell us which craft store you bought the magazine from.  If you’re lucky enough to be picked as our winner you’ll receive a £50 voucher (yes 50 quid off us) to spend in the craft store where you bought your copy of Creative!  Oh and by winning you’re also supporting your local craft store, because we’ll give it a £50 credit on its Practical Publishing account too!  That’s not all; your card will also appear on a full page feature within an issue of Creative Cardmaking where our readers can learn all about you!  So come on, let Creative Cardmaking showcase your talents by getting involved, just like our first winner did in issue 29…

Here’s the card from Debbie Stevens who picked up her copy of Creative Cardmaking in Mountain Ash Crafts, Stourbridge.

Front

Inside

So what are you waiting for?

Issue 30 of Creative Cardmaking goes on sale 1^st July and comes with a Krafty Hands paperpack.  For your chance to win a £50 spending spree in your local craft store, send your entry along with your name, address and email address to Your Creative Cardmaking Competition, Creative Cardmaking 30, Practical Publishing, Unit 1 Adlington Court, Adlington Business Park, Macclesfield, Cheshire, SK10 4NL.  All entries must arrive by 29^th July 2011 and don’t forget to include the contact details of the craft store where you purchased your copy of Creative Cardmaking.

Good luck!

To find your local stockist of Creative Cardmaking call Chris on 0844 826 0611 or email chris.cooke@practicalpublishing.co.uk

Well it’s been a while since the blog was last updated (apologies) but as you can imagine it’s all go here at crafting central, aka Practical Publishing International, as we work hard on bringing our readers everything that they’ve come to expect from us.

Many of you will be aware that at the start of the year we launched a brand new title called Simply Homemade, our essential magazine for creative women.  Just like with all of our other crafting titles, Simply Homemade is jam-packed with stylish projects and fantastic ideas to scratch that crafty itch that we all get when we’re not currently working on a project or two…or three.  Simply Homemade is proving extremely popular with our readers and if you haven’t checked it out yet then head on over to our Simply Homemade sister site to have a look at what everybody’s currently raving about!

Anyway back to business and as I was saying it can often get very busy here at Practical Towers, which is why I suggest (if you haven’t done so already) that you start following us on Twitter!  Crafts On The Net has its own dedicated Twitter thread where we update our followers with all the latest developments in the world of crafting as well as everything that we’ve got up our crafty sleeves!

In order to follow Crafts On The Net just click here!

Oh and it’s not just Crafts On The Net tweets you can look forward to, because Simply Homemade is on Twitter too!

In order to follow Simply Homemade just click here!

Well I’d best get back to work, following everyone on Twitter is a full-time job in itself!

Issue 44 of Scrapbook Magazine is out in the shops and has some stunning projects in it like this gorgeous baby mini book that I have fallen in love with

and these ingenious puzzle block layouts:

I’m also loving these vintage style layouts – absolutely beautiful!

You can get a copy of the magazine by going here

If you haven’t already heard, we’ve brought out a wedding annual called Perfect Day that has great ideas not only for making your own stationery & jewellery but also covers everything from flowers, colour schemes, wedding venues, hen party ideas to advice with writing speeches and general wedding etiquite. If you’re planning on getting married then this really is your essential read – find out more about it here

It’s also been mayhem over on the forum with the winners of the Crafter’s Companion competition resorting to pouncing on their poor posties in desperation for receiving their prizes – they do make me chuckle bless them!! They should all be receiving them in the next day or 2 so expect lots of cardmaking using the Flower Fairies collection going on all over the country soon!

These are some of the cards Kirsty Wiseman made using the free papers …………

and then there’s this little beauty that contains shampoo……

There are also cute animal/safari cards from Particraft’s Sue Wilson………

and then for all you foodies out there, Judith has come up trumps with her apple themed creations…….

I’m now working on both issues 13 of Creative Cardmaking and issue 3 of the Creative Cardmaking special edition. This will be my first time doing the special edition & I’m getting really excited about it as I have got Nitwits papers going into this issue as 1/2 of the bumper paper pack – more details to follow!!

I’m also off out for lunch today with fab designer Kirsty Wiseman which I’m really looking forward to as I haven’t seen her in ages. She’s been snowed in for the past few weeks and has got cabin fever to the extreme, so she can’t wait to get out from the confines of her home!!

Remember to pop along to our forum and get chatting with the members already in there – they’re a really friendly bunch and will make you feel really welcome.

I’d better crack on with some work now really – magazines don’t put themselves together do they?!!

The winner of Simply Cards & Papercrafts’ card designer of the year award went to ………………

Diane Ingram from Norwich with her gorgeous creations, shown below!

How gorgeous are her cards? We all loved her style and the nice, bright cheery cards that she made. I hope you all agree with us!!

I want to share some of the other cards with you though as the standard was so high it would be a shame not to include a selection for you to see. If you want to see the winner & all the runner ups in more detail though, get your copy of the latest Simply Cards & Papercraft (issue 66) where there is a big feature on them all!

We also had a visit from Sara Davies, Meg and Claire from Crafter’s Companion yesterday to give us a sneak peak of their product launches for next year. Now, I’m sworn to secrecy but WOW – you guys are in for a treat in early 2010 from them. They have so many lovely new products coming out including something major that I’m getting really excited about. I’m a tease, aren’t I? Sorry!! They then took us for a lovely meal at a gorgeous Italian restaurant in the evening so thank you so much Sara, Meg & Claire, we all had a wonderful evening with you guys!

I did manage to get away from the stand on Sunday though to have a good look around to see what lovely products were on offer. As always I spent far too much but I did come away with some beauties. Take for instance this rather nifty gadget:

This, is the fabulous i-top tool that lets you make your own covered brads. I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it and I will be doing a ‘Tried & Tested’ feature on it in issue 11 of Creative Cardmaking. You can get brad blanks (as in, get the brad in 2 parts to allow you to put it together yourself), stencils, punches & stickers to use alongside it, and I’m really excited about using it for the first time (I haven’t had a chance to breathe, let alone do any crafting since I’ve come back from the show!)

I also bought some adorable stamps to add to my collection from C. C Designs. These 2 cuties are the ones that I bought:

How adorable are they? I won’t bore you with every single purchase I made (you’d fall asleep before I got to the end!) but I did spot some gorgeous new templates from Colour My World and there were flowers from Prima Marketing that were just to die for. Needless to say, they were included in my purchases!!

It was great to see so many readers to our magazines at the show so thanks to everyone who came over to say hi.

That was my last show for the year so I’ll be saving up my pennies in preparation for all the shows that are happening in the new year. I’ll try to make a promise to myself to be a bit more restrained with my purchases next time – do you think I’ll stick to it though?!!

I’m off to the Hobbycrafts show this weekend to help spread the word about the site so if any of you are going to be there make sure you come over to the Practical Publishing stand and say hi – you can’t miss us as we are right near Create & Craft and Crafter’s Companion stands!!