Two Bright Days in A Row.... Summer Must Be Here!

It could have gone either way this morning. At one point it was looking like rain was on the way again, turnaround and hey presto - the clouds had gone and it was beautiful. In fact, quite warm when the wind dropped, but ideal for yet MORE washing. Just how much washing can one do in two days? 'Mountains' it would appear.

Then there was the supermarket shop! Oh how I hate shopping for food which is strange really because I really do enjoy cooking as long as it's something creative. Of course Morrisons was full of parents and children, surely they have better things to be doing on their school holidays than screaming their heads off in a supermarket (and that was just the parents)!

A fruitless trip to Borders followed and then home. Managed to get a little more time to play, just an hour but it's better than nothing and I may be able to do more this evening.

These are plain luggage labels sprayed with several colours of Sticky Fingers spray inks, sometimes in layers and dried thouroughly before stamping with VersaMark Ink and embossing with gold embossing powder. All of the materials are from http://www.graphicus.co.uk/ and the stamps are by http://www.elusiveimages.com/ fastened together in colour groups using book rings. The collection on the left are the Autumn Inks and the Summer Inks are on the right.

In the first photo I have painted some of the stamped images with twinkling H2O's which complement the inks really well as they have the same iridescent finish.

This collection have all been made using Ranger Distressed Inks, Cut and Dry foam to apply the inks and then over stamped with small stamps (all by Elusive Images) to build the collage. I used a copper Krylon pen to edge the tags and some Glossy Accents to create a glass-like finish on the fob watch.

Now I'm off to do some more with the new Sticky Fingers Lustre Inks and the Damask Stamps from EI. Just before I go I must share a photograph of a fabulous 'late' Birthday pressy I got from the wonderful Carrie Anne.....

All made by her own fair hands! I love them. They have pride of place in my studio. The cylindrical bag houses a tin that holds colouring pencils and the open box is where my tag collections live.

The Secret Society of Invisible Blogging

Yes! I'm the founder member of the Secret Society of Invisible Blogging - I hope you have been enjoying my invisible posts, I thought they were very imaginative. But now I'm back with some visible blogging and have quite a lot to ramble about. Maybe if I didn't spend so much time Blog-Hopping I would get more updates posted.

I have been doing some arty things since I was last here, have had my brother visiting a few weeks ago, had a good TV show in July, I've taught some really enjoyable workshops and since the weather improved, we've actually been able to get out and about a bit. So this posting is a real melting pot of events and photos.

Work has been really interesting, lots of new ideas, plans and products. With Christmas looming before we've even had a summer, thoughts have turned to new Christmas stamps and a brand new seasonal Artylicious CD ROM. Can't say anymore at this stage but wow! they are amazing.

I've been playing and having great fun with the new Bind-it-All and DreamKutz machines from Zutter in the USA. I haven't finished my projects yet but will post a photo when they're ready (I can really recommend the Bind-it-All, don't know how I managed without one) . They sold out in one day but there are more on the way and should be with us within the next two weeks. Then on Thursday the Cricut Expression arrived! Well, it didn't stay wrapped for long. They arrived mid day and remained un-tampered with for all of about two hours then Glenda announced that she would have to open one and that was it - play time! What a machine, very impressive and the two new cartridges that are included in the bundle are really fab. My original Cricut is sitting along side me as I write this and looks soooo small compared to the Expression with its potential cutting area of 12"x 24". Looks like I'm going to have to have a bigger studio at home!!!

There was a live TV show in July featuring the new Paisley Elephant Rubber Stamp themeplate together with Damask stamps and Damask Delights CD ROM. The papers are just perfect for card making and scrapbooking and I had these lovely photos of my brother Clive which were taken on a visit to the Taj Mahal and some of the papers are very typical of batiked fabrics so they made the ideal backdrop for images from India.

I used Glenda's Waterfall Card idea and adapted it for a scrapbook layout and incorporated papers and small photos together then printed off some of the tags and frames from the CD ROM and used them for titles and journalling. It was so simple to do having downloaded Adobe Reader 8 which allows you to change fonts, font size and colour. I also added some handwritten titles using a Sakura pen in the same colour range as the papers.

Another use of the photos was in the Origami Mini Album which I love making and was a big hit following the TV show. I'm now working on another version of the album for the pre-record of the show to be filmed later this month.

While I'm on the subject of my brother Clive, he came up to visit last month and we managed to spend some time together while he was here. Although there never seems to be enough time to fit everything we want to do into one visit.

He did take some fab photos of me and my new car though......

Tee Hee!

My little Punto Sporting (keeping a low profile in the background) is pretty cool too!! 16 Valve and 6 speed gear box makes sure it really moves but it can't quite keep up with this 'Slinky Monster' but it's a lot more economic on the motion lotion doing the almost 60 miles round trip to work each day.

Well, that will have to be all for now if I'm going to find time to 'play' today. The weather is so beautiful, a little breezy but warm and sunny and I feel guilty spending it indoors but we were out and about all day yesterday. I'll try to get back later this evening with more from yesterday and some results from 'play time'.