Inky Artitude

And the Halloween Lables Go To:

2011-10-08T11:19:00.000+01:00

Just a quickie this morning as there's lots on the agenda for today......

Last night I used the Random Number Generator to select a comment left on the Halloween Giveaway post to determine who will get the selection of Halloween Labels, Tag and some other bits and bobs. The number that came up was 1 and the first comment was left by Judith.

Well done Judith, there will be a package on its way to you on Monday!

Thank you to everyone else who left comments, it's lovely to hear from you and very much appreciated, as always.

Tim Holtz Tags and a Halloween Giveaway

2011-09-29T22:34:00.002+01:00

Well, the photoshop course I mentioned in my last post is underway and suddenly things that have eluded me finally appear so logical, I guess you could say 'the penny has dropped'. I'm sure that I'll find something else to stumble upon, but for now everything seems to be working and making sense.

I'm enjoying learning something new and being creative and not only with photographs but also in the studio where I've been playing with some new Tim Holtz stamps (new to my collection that is). I couldn't resist his Haunted Mansion set for Halloween art and last night I made this:

There are so many wonderful little things in the shops at the moment (specially for Halloween) that can be adapted for use in your artwork. A visit to the Pound shop got me these interlocking skeleton hands that I've attached to the bottom of the tag and the black spider is from a bag of spiders that's so big I'll never use them all. It's such good fun finding stuff to craft with from places you don't expect to find such things.

I've predominantly used Tim Holtz stamps and the Butterfly/Moth combo is from Paper Artsy. I utilised a wooden stirrer (courtesy of Costa Coffee) painted with a black Ranger Paint Dabber as a baton to attach the tag and and chain hanger.

The 'Embalming Juice' background is actually a self adhesive bottle sticker I found in another store. The packet contains eight different bottle stickers and there's one with 'Ye Olde Spider Venom 1896' which I think is my favourite. I've inked and stamped over the top to blend it in. I made the tag to fit the width of the sticker as they are just too nice to start cropping bits off!

Finally, I added little gems to the eyes of the Skeleton, Owl and Spider, a red heart gem to the skeleton's rib cage and another little gem to the 'boney hands'.

Keep your eyes open for other fabulous finds while you're out and about shopping. I've found all sorts of things this year that will be making an appearance in the things I make.

Another stamp set that I've been hankering after for a while is Haberdashery. With my love of sewing and fabrics I know I'll make really good use of this one. And here's my first tag made with the set:

The final tag is made from a compilation of stamps and features images from Crafty Individuals and Inkylicious. Again, I've used the wooden baton to attach a chain hanger.

And finally, when I bought the bottle stickers I couldn't just buy one packet could I? I mean, I have to have one to use and one to cherish as we do. Now, there weren't many of these in the shop and it's the first time I've ever come across them so I bought an extra packet! I'm going to give the extra packet away together with some of the creepy spiders and the Halloween Tag to someone who leaves a comment on this post before 1800 hours BST on Thursday 06th of October. The draw will be carried out randomly and I'll post the name of the winner on my blog after the draw has taken place.

So if you're into Halloween and would like these things you know what you have to do, good luck to all.

Happy Crafting.......

Playing with Photoshop Elements

2011-09-24T00:41:00.001+01:00

Just a very quick post this evening as I've spent the last few hours playing around with photographs and Photoshop Elements, just brushing up on resizing, adding text, digital brushes, frames and a couple of other things I wanted to get to grips with. It took me a while to figure out how create a frame around the edge of my photograph but perseverance payed off, I even managed to alter the opacity. I quite surprised myself with how much I've remembered, specially as I haven't done much in PSE over the past year.

Why am I playing with Photoshop? Well, I thought I'd better re-acquaint myself with the basics as I've signed up for a Photoshop course which starts this weekend. The lovely Carrie Anne sent me the details and I couldn't resist. And talking of Carrie, she has some really fantastic downloads that she's giving away entirely FREE on her blog! All you have to do is to sign up to her Newsletter and she'll send you the downloads. They are brilliant to use in your artwork and they are all authentic images from Carrie's personal collection of ephemera.

This is a little album I made some time ago using a Tim Holtz Sizzix dye to make the covers and pages. I was really pleased with how it turned out and I embellished the front with Prima flowers, stamps, adhesive gems and punched-out butterflies. Now all I have to do is fill it up.... with something!

I've been creating some new tags over the last week, I just have to get some photographs taken and then I'll show you what I've been playing with. If the sun shines tomorrow I'll get the camera out!

Enjoy the weekend...... Happy Crafting!

Pfaffing About with Friends!

2011-08-10T02:11:00.000+01:00

I have been considering buying a new sewing machine for some time now and was horrified at the prices when I first started looking around. My last machine which is still going strong was a considered purchase sometime between fifteen and twenty years ago. It has never let me down and is a double ended machine with great heavy duty sewing at one end and an over locker that trims away excess fabric at the other end. Apart from a regular service and the odd tension quandary it remains an absolute work horse and I wouldn't swap it for anything. But my artwork has been taking me in very different directions of late and I now want a machine that is compatible with my computer so that I can design and convert my artistic ideas into a computerised embroidery design and the machine, once set away, will do it.

So I've been trekking around the countryside looking at all manner and makes of machines and finally I managed to narrow it down to two a few weeks ago but couldn't make up my mind which of the two to take the plunge with. Both excellent machines and both within the same price range, can you believe you can almost buy a small car for what some of these machines cost?

In the end I dragged my DH with me for a final look at the very first one I had earmarked and with a sharp intake of breath I ordered one of these:

I decided on the Pfaff for two reasons, as well as being a tremendous computerised embroidery machine it is renowned for its first class sewing capabilities and IDT (Integrated Duel Transportation or Walking Foot technology) which will handle the finest through to the bulkiest of fabrics perfectly.

I don't know how many of you reading this dip in and out of Create and Craft TV these days but sewing seems to be making such a huge come back, whenever I flick over to see what they're up too there seems to be another sewing machine under review. It is lovely to see the craft growing in popularity again (along with knitting) and I'm sure that C&C TV will help in its growth but I was horrified when I first started looking for a new machine to find how few Sewing Machine Shops have survived. I wanted to give my business to a 'shop' and not purchase on-line as I know how important it is to support our bricks and mortar stores. Use them or loose them is the old adage and it is so true! I still had to wait for the machine to be delivered to the shop, that's the other thing I found.... they don't seem to keep stocks in store but considering the price I can understand that. I just had to control my urge to get stuck in and start creating until I got the call to say it had arrived in stock.

I am one very happy bunny now that I have my new best friend and I'm working my way through all of it's features, feet and computerised technology. It came with a trolley bag for transporting it around (I've been given a fantastic opportunity to teach with it so its important that I can get it from A to B relatively easily and safely) and they threw in the thread exchanger and some other things too.... I love a good haggle.

Here we are all set up and ready to make a start, can you believe it takes up almost the full length of this table.... now I really will have to move my upstairs studio into a much larger room or I won't have space to put up the Christmas tree up in the lounge when the time comes.

This is a selection of just some of the pre-set stitches it can do, it was the very first thing I stitched. I don't have any photos of the embroidery designs..... yet! What is really cool is that I can use any True Font to write a phrase, name, place name, or whatever else takes my fancy, on my PC and connect to the machine, press the button and it will stitch it for me. How cool is that? I am amazed at how much sewing machines have advanced since I bought my last one.

Now, talking of 'Friends'............ those of you who know me through visiting Graphicus when they were in business, will probably also know Judith who used to be our Office Manager. In addition to her clerical roll in the company Judith was also a brilliant Polymer Clay and Jewellery artist and she often taught classes in both subjects and demonstrated her craft at open days. Well, I am delighted to tell you that Judith has started her own business called Weddings of Clay. She fashions the most incredible, unique cake and keepsake toppers made from Polymer Clay and will work to a brief to capture every conceivable detail possible to make the piece totally unique to the recipient. Although Weddings are her forte she also does fabulous figurines for just about every other occasion known to man (woman and child too). Please take a couple of minutes to visit her website and leave her a comment to let her know you've been and please, please, please - pass the word if you know of anyone who is looking for something extraordinary for a special individual, or occasion.

Can you spot my very special little someone in the above photo? No? Let's look a little closer.....

Here's my Journalling Bear that Judith created for my birthday earlier in the year. His name is Jasper and he lives on my desk and he reminds me to drag out my journals and create whenever I look at him. He's sooooooo cute!

While I'm on the subject of friends, if you know Judith you will almost certainly know Denise (she was our Book Keeper and manned the tills at open days)..... and she got MARRIED today Hurrah, well yesterday or Tuesday to be precise (I've just realised its the early hours of Wednesday now). We knew it was on the cards but we didn't know exactly when it would happen. I got a text from her just after they'd tied the knot. The reason I'm mentioning this other than to keep you up to date with everyone, is in relation to Judith's new business. You see, Judith has also made Denise and John's wedding cake topper. Take a look at the Wedding Gallery and see if you can work out which one is theirs (a little clue.... they have a cute cat and both Denise and John have motorbikes)!

Seeing as I've mentioned my journalling, I will leave you with a couple of pages from one of my journals (above) and a page from my sketch book (below).

Until next time....... Happy Crafting to you all!

Tags and Stamps

2011-07-20T23:52:00.001+01:00

As you know from previous posts, most of my time over the last few months has been devoted to looking after Diesel while his broken leg healed and although he was only in plaster and then bandages for about eight weeks following his operation I have had to have eyes in the back of my head to keep him out of mischief and prevent any further damage. Then the rehab, getting him out and about walking to build up the muscles and strengthen the tendons and the occasional swim to build stamina (I wasn't aware that needed building - he never stops). All in all it hasn't allowed for any concentrated bouts of crafting so I've been dabbling here and there.

When the weather has been nice enough for him to be outside in the garden I've taken my lap top out and worked from the patio table planning and designing new and exciting things and keeping my eyes on him at the same time.

Now that Diesel can be left more to his own devices again it's freed me up to do more of what I want to do when I want to do it and I have been creating in many different ways, with fabrics featuring heavily in my pieces but I'll share more of that in the future.

What I have enjoyed has been going back and revisiting my huge collection of beautiful wood mounted art stamps that I have been collecting since 1981. When I first found rubber stamping I was in Tampa, Florida and I started to bring stamps and stamping supplies home with me after every visit to the USA, believing that my new found passion might last a few years at the most before I found something else to replace it with. How wrong can you be?

We now have access to all sorts of rubber, acrylic, clear and foam stamps in the UK but I still love the feel of a quality wood mounted rubber stamp and those stamps that I bought thirty years ago are still as good today as they were the day I got them. So, I thought today I would show you a few art tags that feature some of my 'old' faithfuls. I've mixed them up with newer acrylic stamps, images from paper napkins and hand drawn border lines.

The main image here is by Acey Deucy, it's called 'Sweetbriar' and this is one of my all time favourites. I've layered a small tag onto a large tag and used the background stamp by Anna Griffin to unify the two tags.The hi-lighting on the face has been created by working on a white tag and leaving an area un-inked where I've stamped Sweetbriar's face, it gives quite an ethereal feel to the focal point.

A mix of acrylic and unmounted rubber stamps here featuring Classic Icons by TPC Studio, 7 Gypsies and Lost Coast's Chess Pieces stamped over torn musical score which has been aged with Ranger's Distress Inks. I've used a white gel pen to edge the tag and add some hi-lights. The butterfly is from a paper napkin.

The same Anna Griffin image as used in the first tag has been stamped in a very pale ink to create the background then over stamped with a sweet collection of floral and dotty wood mounted stamps from Elusive Images. The main image is called 'The Calligraphy Robe' by Stampington and I've added a butterfly and flower stem taken from a paper napkin applied with DecoPatch Glue/Varnish which you can now find at branches of HobbyCraft. Check out DecoPatch's tissue papers, they are Divine!

On this tag I started by stamping the background with a clear Prima alphabet collage stamp then added torn and aged musical score down one side. Lost Coast's 'Chess Piece' and 7 Gypsies 'Travel' clear stamps simply stamped with Archival Black ink. Finally, the face of the chess piece has been covered with Glossy Accents and some more paper napkin butterflies added.

The final tag has been completely covered with a musical score then aged with Distress inks. Sweetbriar, the chequered floor by Lost Coast and a little swirl have been stamped over the top and the tag is completed with a butterfly cut from a napkin and a white gel pen border.

I finished all of the tags by attaching a metal eyelet to the reinforcement hole and linked them all together with a silver book ring.

Happy Crafting!

Diesel's Dog Days

2011-07-19T12:27:00.003+01:00

Hello to all my Mum's bloggy friends.... Diesel here! I've been watching my Mum while she works on her lap top and I recon I can hack this blogging thing she does (occasionally). I'm very intelligent being a German Shepherd, my breed is consistently in the top three breeds of dog for intelligence you know so doing a bit of blogging should be a breeze. Ahhummm, let's get started before I get booted off of here so she can go surfing... I don't get that, she doesn't go to the beach to do it more's the pity, I love going to the beach.

I wanted to say a huge thank you to all of you who sent me good wishes and enquired about me when I broke my leg, you are all so lovely I'd like to send you a big lick in return.
It's been a long haul for me and my Mum, she's had to keep a very close eye on me and restrict my movements for ten weeks. That's not an easy thing to do because I love to run around and play and protect my family from people passing the house, especially those who have dogs with them... I don't like strange dogs on or near my property. I don't mind the nice little Staffy who lives next door, I never bark at her and occasionally I get to play with one of her toys if it comes over the fence.

Anyway, I digress.... while I had the pot on my leg I got sick with something else and my nose went all dry and crusty, then my lips began to go flakey and peel off and I was finding it hard to breath at night so Mum took me back to see Uncle Derrick (my nice vet who calls me some very funny names) and he told Mum that I have a nasty thing called PEMPHIGUS FOLIACEUS,
not nice at all. Apparently my anti bodies are fighting each other. It is a known immune condition in German Shepherds and anywhere the outer skin joins the inner skin is prone to attack so the eyes, ears, lips, nose, groin and nail beds can be affected. But I got some steroid tablets to take and hopefully it will get it under control and I won't have to stand still while Mum plasters the greasy stuff she calls Vaseline all over my nose.
My pot is off now and I have to have lots and lots of short walks (yipee) and I can go further and further as we progress. I'm allowed off my lead in the garden but not when we go in the big field as I might get a bit too over enthusiastic again as I love to chase the balls and run really fast and jump up really high to catch them. I can go swimming at the therapy pool too so things are getting much better and I don't have to go back to the vet's until August which is a shame really as they all know me so well now and make a big fuss of me. Even Uncle Derrick who calls me 'Whally' says I'm a nice 'Whally' and I never growl at him.... ever!

So that's where I'm at at the moment. I'm not liking all this wet weather we're getting here in the North East as I love to be out in the garden playing and chasing the birds and other critters who try to share my garden but at least while it's wet I can play on this lap top thingy.
I shall say goodbye now and maybe I'll be able to come back again and let you know what I've been up to if Mum doesn't get angry with me for getting mud all over the little black buttons! I'm going to go and stare at her now until she gets the message that it's time to go walkies in the field.

Bye Bye to all my Bloggy Friends.... until the next time.

Love, hugs and licks......
Diesel x

Take a Break!

2011-04-04T23:59:00.000+01:00

Yes, I am speaking literally on both counts as you will see if you stick with me and read on..........

First of all, I have taken quite a break from blogging as a result of several major occurrences that have been very much controlling my life over the last few months but the most recent event, in a perverse sort of way, has initiated my return to the blogasphere today.

I haven't been doing too much crafting either, at least not in the way I used to. I've been concentrating very much on art journalling, drawing, painting and designing, returning very much to the disciplines I used to love so much following my years studying Art and I'm loving it. You'll have to hold on for a little while to see some of the things I've been doing, there's a brand new collaborative blog on the horizon and when we're ready to share I'll put a link to it in the sidebar on here.

So, what has forced my hand and got me back here now you may ask?

Well it's the second of the breaks I mentioned........................ as you can see here:

Our poor 'little' man is in the wars. Yep, Diesel has broken his leg and it has to be a complicated fracture of course.

I underwent surgery at the beginning of March and was ready to start with some gentle exercise to begin building up my stamina again and with the improvement in the weather over the last couple of few weeks what better way than to get out and about walking with Diesel. We've been taking it gently and last Tuesday it was so lovely and warm that we deviated from our walking routine and went for a romp in the field behind our house.

Diesel will do anything for a ball, he likes the type attached to a short rope as they can be thrown further and he gets a really good fast run. We take two and I throw one which he retrieves and as he returns it to me I throw the next one in another direction, he drops the first one as he goes past me and chases the second one and so it goes on. To cut a long story short, he'd had a good run and I decided just a couple more throws then I'd put him back on his lead and we'd return home. He was still booling along at a rapid rate of knots when he sighted where the next ball had landed and without dropping any speed he turned and grabbed for the ball, his left front leg went down under him in the turn and the rest of his weight followed and he yelled out but he picked himself up together with the ball and came limping back. I checked him over, couldn't feel anything too obvious so we slowly walked home.

He rested but it was clear that things weren't improving, his limp was more pronounced and the leg was very swollen so I rang his vet and made an appointment to go in that evening. They checked him over and gave him some anti-inflammatory tablets and pain killers.... exactly the same pain killers that I take for my knee. We were told that he was to have nothing to eat after 8pm and we were to take him back at 8.30 Wednesday morning for a general anaesthetic and a full set of X-rays.

We went to collect him Wednesday evening and Rob discussed the results of the films with us, it clearly showed a complicated fracture just where the long bone attaches to what we'd call the wrist joint. Apparently, this type of break is hardly ever seen in pet dogs and occurs more in racing dogs.... well, what a surprise! Diesel's leg was in a pot with a lovely pale purple dressing with blue spots, very fetching. The prognosis: they will repeat the anaesthetic and X-rays in five days time and if there's an improvement and the bones are growing together they will re-pot it and let it heal. If there's no improvement or the bones have got further apart then it will mean an operation to pin the joint together and we were told to prepare ourselves as in most cases this type of fracture requires surgery.

We also had a little plastic boot to put over the pot to protect it from moisture as the nice weather had now turned showery. You can see his other leg has a small shaved area where they inserted the drip to keep his organs supported during the anaesthetic, recommended for dogs over the age of eight. We left with strict instructions that he was to be kept quiet and have restricted movement until his return the following Monday (today).

Keeping Diesel quiet and still is a total impossibility and I stand more of a chance of winning the Euro Lottery than I ever do of restricting his movement. I slept downstairs with him in case he needed help in the night. Every time he tried to lay down the cast got in the way and he got stuck but eventually he settled. I heard my husbands alarm clock go off at 0545 in the morning and before I could make a grab for Diesel, to my horror, he was off up the stairs to get him up!

So lesson learned, we blocked the stairs with a fold up table so he couldn't do it again and Thursday night I stayed down with him just to be on the safe side. The alarm goes off on Friday morning and what does he do? Yep.... he jumped the table complete with pot, landed half way up the stairs and was off again. Result.... one broken pot right where the fracture is! Back we went to the vets.

He went in again today as planned and the news isn't good I'm afraid. There's no improvement (why am I not surprised?) So he will be going in for an operation on Wednesday to have the fracture pinned. He won't have to have another pot, it will be well bandaged and supported for approximately four weeks and all in all, recuperation will be ten weeks during which time he is to be kept quiet and have restricted movement.... arghhhhhhhh can you hear me screaming? Funny moment from today: Rob tells us Diesel is the only dog they've known to not only break the pot but to completely snap the strong plastic cradle that they use as a splint inside the bandages.... that's my Boy!

He was still feeling sleepy when we got home so after he'd been fed he laid down and had a snooze (thank goodness). The nurses decided on a nice turquoise pot with blue stars this time. They were going to put a white one on with pink hearts!

You can see how bleary eyed he is here and he's still trying to fight it. This lad never gives in!

"If only I can keep my eyes open I might be able to get her to play ball"

There, I'm awake Mum let's play..... pleeease!

I'll keep you up to date with how he gets on this week and I'll have some arty things to share next time too.

Let It Snow......

2010-12-03T00:31:00.000Z

......let it snow, let it snow! And yes, it just keeps on coming.

I looked outside as soon as the alarm went off this morning and guess what? Yep, it was blowing a blizzard. We had completely cleared the car of snow the night before and there was another three to four inches of fresh snow piled on top and all the footprints were again, covered over and an unblemished carpet of white lay waiting for us.

When I pulled the car off the drive and headed off in the direction of work I was only the second vehicle out of the close and the roads were treacherous, even the main roads were in a bad condition so I thought I'd give the back lane a miss and head straight for the A66 which is the main dual carriageway for travelling east to west. That was little better than one large ice rink with snow laying on both carriageways!

To cut a very long story short, I'd got half way to work before I spoke to Glenda and she told me that they were staying closed for the day and to turn around and go home. It was so difficult finding somewhere to pull over to answer my phone which had rang several times, that I eventually pulled off the road and into a pub car park in the village of High Coniscliffe. Big mistake..... huge! I got stuck, couldn't go forward, couldn't go back!

All in all it was one hell of a morning. I'd got stuck in a car park until a farmer came to my rescue, caught up in a free for all of spinning cars and a van on the A66 (I can't believe that not one of them hit me but they did hit each other, three in front of me and two directly behind) I managed to stop when the van in front hit two cars sending them off the road while he ended up side on across both lanes. In my rear view mirror I watched the two cars behind me, they couldn't stop. I braced waiting for the impact as they slid into each other and I was right in the middle of it all with an Angel on my shoulder! Not a scratch on me or my car. How lucky was that? Fortunately, no one was injured, just bits of car bumpers and trims strewn around the road. Finally, on the homeward stretch I ended up in a snow drift at the side of the road stuck again. You really couldn't see where the road side ended and the verge began. Two gentlemen came to my rescue and pushed my car sideways into the middle of the road so that I could pull away and I eventually made it home without any further mis-haps.

Things are progressing slowly at home, I've got some more paintwork glossed tonight and have had to position all manner of objects around and in front of the wet paint to stop Diesel from ending up with Zebra stripes and my paintwork from growing a thick black coat... so far, so good.

It has snowed on and off for most of the day. I've just had a look outside and yay!..... it's not snowing at the moment. So fingers are crossed for a successful journey in the morning.

My artwork for today features Christmas Cards......

Both of these cards have been made with stamped acetate panels which have had Abalone gold leaf and Copper leaf applied to the back of the acetate before layering it onto Mirri card.

I love working with Tim Holtz's Christmas stamps, they have a lovely vintage feel to them. Have you seen what he's doing with his 12 Days of Christmas Tags this year? Don't miss out on all the tips and techniques he's sharing!

All the other stamps shown here are from Elusive Images and you can find the full range of EI stamps at Graphicus.

I'm going to really have to get my finger out if I'm to have enough hand made cards ready in time to send this year. I hate to say it but I do have some bought cards on standby should all else fail!

To all of you who are knee deep in making your Christmas Cards and hand made gifts...... have fun and Happy Crafting!

'Tis the Season

2010-12-01T21:34:00.011Z

Can you believe that it's December already and the countdown to Christmas is well and truly underway in our house.

We are currently having the annual fight with the pre-lit Christmas tree.... well, it wouldn't be the same without the week long battle to get all 1200 bulbs working would it?

The lounge was all freshly decorated and cleaned last week and was looking pretty tidy until the trees (yes, there's three of them for the downstairs) and all the boxes of decorations were hauled down from the loft....

......and we ended up with this mess! On the table, under the table, in carrier bags, boxes and plastic sacks piled up all over the floor of the dining room. Well, there's one good thing achieved by all this - the loft is pretty empty. LOL

We started to assemble the main tree for the lounge last weekend and found that half the lights on the second layer up were out. I removed every bulb that was off and tested it.... five times (and that's a lot of bulbs) only to find it was a wiring problem. To cut a long story short, we've found a way around it and the tree is now assembled and ready to start the dressing stage.

The weather here in the North East is causing havoc. I can remember winters when I was little where the snow was so deep that it came over the top of my wellies and I always ended up with painful, itchy Chilblains. But over the years, the winter weather has changed some and we don't seem to get the depth of snow we used too... until now. I went out to clean the snow off the bird table today to put out some food for our feathered visitors and this is what I found......

It was cleaned off on Monday to put their food out and this is what's fallen since then. I just had to get a ruler and stick it in the snow to see how deep it was. I say was because that was earlier today and we've had even more since then with it forecast to continue overnight and throughout tomorrow.

OK that's enough for now about decorating and the snow, I will be updating my progress with the Christmas preparations as the days go on and taking daily photographs of whatever I'm up to for my '31 Days of Christmas' journal that I'm doing again this year. More about that in another post.

I'm really sad that the weather has caused the Graphicus Open Days planned for Friday and Saturday this week to be cancelled. I can't tell you how much I was looking forward to seeing everyone and to the fun and festivities we had planned, not to mention playing with some of the fantastic new products that have arrived from the USA this week. However, we are not going to be completely defeated by this white fluffy stuff that makes staying vertical almost impossible and driving, well.... the less said about that, the better. We still intend to have some fun on Friday and there will be some very special offers, great products and some interactive fun to be had if you keep an eye on the Graphicus blog and on Twitter on the day. My lips are sealed but I can tell you this, you won't want to miss out!

I'm going to leave you with some of my Christmas tags and artwork and will be back soon with the next installment of Lynn's December Life.

This selection of tags were made during my Vintage Christmas Tag workshop a couple of weeks ago. We had a really good time getting inky and glittery and we could have carried on playing long past the scheduled finishing time. In fact, the ladies who came to play were encouraging me to leave them overnight in the studio at Graphicus so that they could continue to play and make more tags. I actually believe that they may have been serious!

If you have any questions about the techniques or products used in the tag artwork, leave a comment here on the blog and I'll do my best to answer your queries.

Happy Christmas Crafting!

Oh The Weather Outside is Frightful...........

2010-11-25T22:22:00.005Z

Any of you who have been visiting my blog for the last couple of years will know that we are fast approaching my favourite time of the year.... yes, Christmas is just around the corner! I love making our home a warm and inviting place in which to welcome our guests, all the hard work (yes, I even enjoy that too) which goes into getting the house ready to put up the decorations and then sitting back and enjoying everything associated with the festive season.

Christmassy mugs full of steaming hot chocolate, the smell of fresh baking emanating from the kitchen and dried fruits soaking in alcohol for the Christmas cake and pudding, making a wreath of fresh winter greenery to hang on the front door, lighting fragranced candles throughout the house as soon as the light of day starts to fade..... there are so many family traditions and little pleasures that make this time of the year such a delight.

The weather is also adding to the feeling that Christmas is almost here. We had our first snowfall last night and it took me two hours and twenty minutes to get to work this morning! Mmm, I suppose there is a down side to this time of the year. The ridiculous thing is that the worst of the weather is across Teesside and around Darlington. Barnard Castle is just about clear and has only a light dusting of snow and all the roads are clear, crazy or what? I've just put our German Shepherd dog Diesel out for his last garden visit of the evening and it's snowing hard again.... I love it really, just not when I have that 60 mile round trip drive to do.

Tomorrow we will be making a start on assembling the big tree that goes in the lounge. It's a pre-lit tree and it takes some time to check everything through as it goes together and then the best part of a week to get it all decorated and finished ready to switch on in December. I am going to record our progress here on the blog. I don't know how much time I will have for any crafting but whatever I do make, I will share here. I certainly have some big intentions for hand made gifts to give to special friends and I'm going to make every effort to get them done this year. I usually end up running out of time and dashing to the shops at the last minute but I mean for this year to be different.

I hope you love Christmas as much as I do otherwise you're going to have to give my blog a miss for some time. Don't stay away for too long though, I will miss you and as they say in TV speak, normal service will be resumed in January.

We also have a busy time coming up at work next week getting ready for our Graphicus Christmas Open Days on the 03rd and 04th of December. There's another tree to put up and decorate, deliveries of exciting crafting goodies arriving from the USA that all have to be booked in and got ready for the event, demo's to be prepared.... oooo I can't wait. I do hope you are going to be able to join us on at least one of the days, we really are looking forward to letting our hair down and having some fun at this very special event. I'll try to let you in on more of the goings on next week as the preparations get into full swing.

Now it's time to close the lid on my lap top and climb into bed, only problem is..... I'm so excited about everything, how on earth am I going to sleep???????

Happy Christmassy Crafting to all and to all a Good Night!

Great Savings at Graphicus

2010-11-17T10:27:00.002Z

For all you crafting junkies out there, do you know there's some fantastic savings to be made over on the Graphicus web site? A beat the VAT increase sale started in the early hours of this morning and there's a huge selection of crafting goodies at discounted prices. This is not overstocked or clearance products but hot products that may well be on your Christmas List for Santa this year.

For example, if you love Tim's grungy style and want a great reference book for all his techniques, how to use Ranger products and loads of inspirational samples in full colour then you must own his Compendium of Curiosities. This wonderful book has a SRP of £24.99, has a previous purchase price of £19.99 and is on sale for only £14.99 plus you earn stash points to spend on other items too, savings on top of savings!

But BE WARNED: once it's gone, it's GONE! The product may well come back in stock in future but it will be restocked at the original pre-sale price or more if there has been a price increase in the mean time. So this is a great opportunity to get stocked up and save yourself some money or drop some really big hints to your nearest and dearest about how they can save money and delight you on Christmas Day.

I have my list at hand and now, I really must go shopping.... gotta get my sticky mitts on some of that great Tim Holtz stuff, some Copic sets and a host of other must haves too! Bet my other half doesn't know he's shopping for my Christmas pressies today (te he)!

Have fun with your crafty shopping and I hope you bag yourself some bargains!

Artwork Show and Tell

2010-10-26T19:50:00.000+01:00

In my last post I had intended to upload some of the art work that I had on display at the last Graphicus Open Days but Blogger was being bloody minded and turned all my photos on their sides... arghhh. Several people asked about future workshops with these items and I do intend to include similar techniques and projects in next years timetable.

I'm going to have another go and see if the problem has been resolved as I have quite a back log of art work building up.

Several hours later......
Well, the problem still exists but I've discovered that by going back to Blogger's old editor I can avoid the frustration of the turning images but it means I have to work in HTML and put up with the photos loading in an odd order all at the top of the post and broken links when I move the images around but at least I have images!

This is a deep edged canvas which has been collaged, painted, stencilled, painted some more then I've worked Golden's Light Molding Paste through stencils to give it lots of texture and depth.

The molding paste is one of my favorite mediums, it gives wonderful results when painted over with Tim Holtz Distress Crackle Paints which just adds to the interest.

Then comes some additional embelishments in the form of a brass escutcheon, a handpainted flower with a metal centre, some feathers and a feather butterfly.

This is an image transfer onto Claudine Hellmuth's Sticky Backed Canvas. It is a brilliant technique and is totally foolproof, unlike many of the other image transfer techniques.

I finished the canvas by adding just a touch of Gold Metal Leaf to the edges, a decorative border of cut dictionary paper around all four sides, some decorative upholstery nails and a hanging wire roughly shaped like a handle to which I tied ribbons.

If you'd like to try working on canvas with some of these techniques, I have a work shop programmed for Thursday 18th November 2010 called 'On the Outside Looking In' and there are still some places available (well, there were when I looked last Friday before I started my week off). This is a fab workshop and we'll be using two canvas's hinged together and featuring a window to create amazing dimension and an interesting focal point.

The other pieces I have to show you today are the waxed collage boards. I watched Suze Weinberg demonstrate this technique at a trade show earlier this year and instantly fell in love with the idea of creating art from next to nothing.

It uses the Melt Pot and wax pellets, together with printed images and rubber stamps to build up and create texture in the wax.

Bedazzles and Stickles are used for accents and the wax is polished with Perfect Pearls which give the most stunning depth of colour and luminosity.

I really love working with hot wax, it is so relaxing and makes a great 'chill-out' therapy when you need some down time. I keep saying that crafting should be available on the National Health system, are you listening Mr Prime Minister? It could save a fortune in medical costs and therapy and you meet such lovely, like minded people who are all too ready to share in your obsession.

Well, the old Blogger Editor has worked, despite taking an inordinate amount of time I've finally got some of the photos up. There's a lot more waiting in the wings and I'll be back soon with the next update.

Until then, take care all and enjoy your crafting!

Workshops at Graphicus

2010-10-20T22:29:00.000+01:00

Yes, I've been more than a little quiet on my blog of late. Life is hectic and there never seems to be enough hours in the day to fit everything in (not that I'm complaining, it makes life interesting). One of the things that's been occupying my down time has been planning my Autumn/Winter workshops at Graphicus.

There's a fantastic line up this time but some sessions are already sold out. You can link to my workshops through the 'What's On' category in the side bar on the right. There are also lots of other exciting workshops to choose from which are being taught by fabulous tutors such as Glenda, Judith, Lesley and Annette. Have a look here for the full programme.

We have a great time on workshop days with a fantastic camaraderie amongst our students. Many of them now know each other well from previous sessions and events at Graphicus but that said, they make new students ever so welcome and right at home from the onset. So if you're reading this and would like to come along, take the plunge now. Not only will you learn a lot in a fun environment but you stand to make some wonderful new friends with like minded interests.

We had our Autumn Open Days at Graphicus last weekend and as usual, we had a thoroughly enjoyable time meeting new customers, catching up with our wonderful regulars, playing with fab products and sharing lots of product information and 'how to' tips (and they call this work)? I will get some photos up of some of the things I made whilst demo'ing but it will have to wait until tomorrow. I just tried photographing the samples and the lighting is dreadful tonight. Hopefully, we'll see the sun tomorrow and I'll be able to capture some reasonable images to show you.

Some of the artwork I had on display around my demo area was from previous workshops taught in the Summer (why does that word 'Summer' seem so dim and distant?) and drew lots of questions and interest. I promised I would put up pictures of the items and teach them again next year, so here they are........ or here they are NOT!!! Blogger is playing silly beggars and loading them all the wrong way round. I noticed when I signed in tonight that they have an outage scheduled for later this evening to work on the photo upload facility, so with a bit of luck (my fingers, toes and legs are all crossed) they'll get it sorted and I'll try again tomorrow.

On a final note, Diesel has been for his annual EPI (Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency) health check earlier this week which he passed with flying colours. German Shepherds are prone to it and Diesel was diagnosed with it about four years ago. Derick, our vet, was absolutely delighted with his progress and seemed amazed that we are managing his conditions so well. Apparently, it is more difficult to keep it stable as they get older and talking of age, he was eight on Sunday..... Happy Birthday Diesel! He did get lots of cuddles on the day and a new ball to drive us insane with.

I'll try to upload those photos tomorrow, so until then..... play nicely and

Happy Crafting!

Spookin' Time

2010-09-13T23:56:00.003+01:00

Well, I survived the Paradise Weekend Retreat! It's amazing to think that just over a week ago it was in full swing and what a weekend it was. It was fast and furious and came and went in what now seems like a complete blur. I will be posting some photos on the blog soon but I didn't get nearly as many as I had planned to.

Straight after the event it was back to work and with Halloween just around the corner you can guess what I've been spending my time doing? Yes, I am having so much fun with these new Elusive Images Halloween stamps and they complement last year's 'Twilight Zone' stamp sheet so well that I just pick'n'mix them all up together!

They are incredibly inspirational and I have lots of things already in progress for 'The Night of Spooks', from little gifts for callers at the door through to journal pages holding childhood memories of the costumes my brother and I dressed up in - always homemade of course (there was no such thing as Supermarket Fancy Dress departments in those days) and all the antics we got up to on All Hallows Eve, never too naughty as Mum was always close at hand!

I'm really getting into it this year and have also designed a couple of costumes... just in case we get invited to some Spooktacular Affair but if not, then I'll just have to wear them to work.

This months Tagtastic Technique in the Graphicus Guild newsletter also has a Halloween theme, although I'm not going to show it in its entirety on my blog, but here are a few sneaky peaks of what you can expect.....

....and if you want to see more and find out how to make it, your copy of the September newsletter should be with you very soon. If you're reading this and you are not a member then click here for all the info on how to join.

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I intend my blog to be a happy place featuring mainly my art work with interjections of life as it happens. It is also my diary and a record of memorable events and as such, occasionally those events will be sad ones.

However, there have been a few too many sad events of late and it is with a heavy heart that last Friday, I attended the funeral of my very dear friend Patti who died in the most tragic of circumstances on the 01st of September. It was the happiest and saddest event I have ever witnessed.

Patti and I have been friends for thirty nine years. We met whilst working on the ground at Teesside Airport in offices right next door to each other, then we joined British Midland and went through our cabin crew training course together...creating havoc as some may well remember! We flew together on many an occasion and boy, do I have some hilarious memories of some of those flights!

Later, Patti's husband Paul was a groomsman at our wedding and so the friendship continued. Throughout all the years I knew Patti there was always a four legged furry friend somewhere close to hand, she loved her pets and was a dedicated horsewoman throughout her life, be it with her own horses or those of her children. So it was fitting that when we emerged from the Chapel this is what we saw....

She would have loved this sight.

I have so many truly wonderful memories of Patti and the times we spent together laughing that I am going to work on an art journal containing my memories of her, where it will take me I don't know but I'm sure looking forward to taking this last flight with her.

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I'll be back soon with some more crafty stuff. I'm putting the finishing touches to the Graphicus Autumn/Winter Workshop Programme this week so hopefully, I'll have lots of new workshop dates to share with you all.

Until then, enjoy your crafting.... and laugh often!

It was a Spookylicious Christmas!

2010-08-16T20:53:00.000+01:00

Well, you would have had to have been there for the title of this post to make any sense at all and if you were there, then you'll know exactly what I'm referring to.

Friday the 13th - yes Black Friday was the first of our Open Days at Graphicus and the day we chose to launch the most fantastic collection of Elusive Images Halloween stamp sheets. I am totally biased I'm afraid and totally hooked on these stamps and have lots of projects planned for them which I'll share as we get nearer to All Hallows Eve. As soon as I got my sticky mitts on the new stamps I knew exactly what I wanted to do with them....... a Spooklylicious Gothic Arch book for starters!

Front Cover (Copper Leaf on Acetate)

The back cover

I used a very delicate lace border stamp from another EI stamp sheet (Damask Squares) and embossed it with a twinkling black embossing powder to make a wrought iron fence in front of the haunted house.


Mischievous Cats..... love them!

Not all of the stamps I used are new, last years Halloween stamps are in there too together with others from EI.The whole book opens in one long string but I didn't have anywhere I could lay it out and get a photograph of it. I tried putting it on the carpet but Diesel thought it was for him and tried to lay down on it. I think he wanted to squish those cats!

I definitely knew it was Friday the 13th. Just before leaving for work I lost my glasses, couldn't find them anywhere and I need them for driving. I eventually found them hanging off the ironing board where I left them the night before and went to load up the car with all my demo gear. The weather was horrid, lashing rain, dark clouds, blustery wind (very typical of the 31st of October actually). I opened my drivers door to put a crate in the back and the wind took the door back into a concrete capped pillar on the drive resulting in a very nice (arghhhhh) dint.

It was a fun day though with lots of new faces at the event and lots of friendly familiar ones too, despite the atrocious weather!

Saturday was officially the launch of the Christmas stamps and they are so beautiful. There's such a lot you can do with them when you study each element and think outside the box. I'll be posting pics of the Christmas samples I made, but it will have to wait a while as I left them all at work and didn't photograph them... so I'll save them for later.

We had the brilliant Jean Hardy with us on Saturday, she does such fabulous work and I only wish I could have snook away to watch her demos. That's the only problem with demonstrating, you miss out on what everyone else is doing. Fortunately, Glenda was set up right next to me so I kept poking my nose in to see what she was doing. She had some fab demos and her samples were so festive. It made me want to get going on my own Christmas cards there and then. She also had some printed page samples of her free Artylicious downloads which are available on her blog. If you love beautiful papers go take a look... this one is my absolute favorite and I'm going to go snag it for myself. Glenda had printed it onto 12 x 12 pearlescent card and all I can say is WOW!

It was a brilliant two days and lovely to see so many people join us, many of whom had driven for several hours to be there not to mention the train journeys too. I am so looking forward to the next ones.... get your planners out now and make a note - 'be at Graphicus on Friday the 15th and Saturday 16th October, 2010'. We have Joanna Sheen joining us on the Saturday but more about that nearer the time.

The weather may have been gruesome on Friday but it did improve over the weekend and today I was out in the garden doing a bit of tidying (more like pottering) and had to run in to get my camera. The Buddleia bush was alive with Butterflies, most of them were Cabbage White's but there was one which was so rich in colour and it was huge compared to the others. By the time I got the camera and got back outside Diesel had disturbed them all, he was trying to chase the Bumble Bees, but the one I wanted to photograph was still fluttering around and it eventually settled on the guttering. I think it was waiting for Diesel to disappear so it could get back to work but it gave me a great opportunity to get some pictures, just wish I'd had a long lens camera.

Well, that's all from me at the moment. Before I go however, I would like to say a big thank you for all your kind thoughts and lovely comments on my previous two posts about Geoff. I really appreciate your comments on all my posts but these were extra special to Stuart and I. Geoff's funeral was beautiful. He had asked that no one wore black, he didn't want flowers and he wanted it to be a happy event. We did our best but it was hard to be happy. It was a wonderful turn out, so many friends and so many beautiful words. Thank you for yours!

Goodbye Dear Friend

2010-07-30T19:22:00.000+01:00

May the road rise to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face.
May the rains fall soft upon your fields
and until we meet again,

the Lord hold you in the palm of His hand.

Irish Blessing

Geoff quietly passed away yesterday morning at 05.35 am. Stuart has lost his very dear friend and his 'model railway' partner in crime. This gentle, sweet man will be deeply and sadly missed.

Shopping, Birthdays and Books

2010-07-28T23:49:00.000+01:00

Life is incredibly busy at the moment, both at home and on the work front.

At home we have friends who need friends at the moment. My husband has two exceptionally good friends who mean everything to him, one he owes his life too, the other is fighting for his life being in the final stage of lung cancer. It's hard to see such a lovely man loosing his battle, it's also hard to believe that only five months ago he was fit and healthy.

And don't they say 'it never rains but it pours'? On Monday we were told that my husbands oldest sister had been diagnosed with breast cancer and Parkinson's Disease and she's in hospital at the moment. We don't know any more at this time as they are now doing more tests so we're keeping fingers and toes crossed that Joyce will have a good outcome.

At work we're really busy with a mountain of things going on and events in the planning and preparation stage. I taught a Bind It All workshop today and have another on Saturday which I'm really looking forward to... it's a canvas journal containing both canvas pages and watercolour paper. We're going to get lovely and painty and very creative - I'll try really hard to get some pictures of every ones creations that I can share with you all.

Glenda's brand new CD ROM 'Essence of Nature' arrived in the building today and they were promptly re-packed and despatched to everyone who had placed advanced orders. This one's a beauty with gorgeous colours, inspirational designs and some lovely arty elements designed by Lesley. The class today got to work with some papers from the CD and the colour combinations they put together were fantastic.Thank you for a lovely day ladies, the art work you brought for me to see was totally stunning! Thank you for sharing.

Since my last post I have acquired a few new things as a result of a visit to York and another trip out to the Metro Centre. I'm sure those of you who have visited Graphicus on our Open Days will have realised that I have quite a penchant for wire mannequins. Well, my collection has grown by four..... I have two that are designed to hang from the top of a door, a free standing one and a little beauty that Jill found for me to alter.

Here's one of the door hanging variety, I bought two (different designs) because one will be perfect for displaying some of my larger, articulated tag art and the other one will hang inside my studio for me to hang up my pinny's.

This one has a centre hook at the waist and several more hooks around the hem line. It looks a bit grey in this photo but it's ivory really.

I'm really pleased with this one.... it was another TK Maxx find..... love that shop! I also got a fab cream wire book stand that is perfect for displaying art canvases.

Another brill find that I must share with you is this....

I found this at my local Pound Store and yes.... it was £1.00. Brilliant for degunking my scissors and that little scraper is now in my tool kit as it is ideal for spreading texture paste and other such mediums.

My visit to the Metro Centre yielded this.... an amazing 'glittered' lap top skin. I actually bought two, the other is black and silver and features roses, a skull combined with a butterfly and sumptuous scroll work. So ME! I couldn't decide which one to put on first. It's getting a bit much when my lap top has a fashion wardrobe better than mine.

It was my Sister In Law Susan's 60th birthday a couple of weeks ago and she loves butterflies, so guess what her card featured?

These butterflies have been stamped onto acetate with StazOn and gilded with Abalone Metal Leaf.

I used a Tim Holtz Sizzix Die for the mount which is covered with Artylicious paper then stamped and embossed the beautiful corners with a glittering white embossing powder (all stamps by Elusive Images). I also made a matching box to house the card and she loved it (thank goodness).

And finally for this evening, I'll leave you with a little taster of a Piano Hinge Skewer Book that I taught on a recent workshop at Graphicus.

It's now getting seriously late and I'm always ready for some sleep after teaching for the day so I'll show you some more pictures of this and another one I've made, next time. For now......

Have fun, Happy Crafting .......create Beauty!

Articulated Tags and Wagging Tails

2010-06-26T00:52:00.002+01:00

Gosh, where did the week go?

I had all good intentions of finishing up my next lot of tags and getting them uploaded to the blog earlier in the week. Tuesday night, all was going well and I got the other option of the caged bird tag finished and got all set up to take the photographs..... camera battery flat, so it had to go on charge overnight. Memo to self: buy a back-up battery. I use a Canon IXUS 800 IS, it's a brilliant camera but has one downfall - there's no battery meter. One minute it's fine, the next minute there's a flashing red camera icon on the screen and then it closes itself up and goes to sleep. Fortunately, a full charge lasts quite some time but a spare battery is a necessity.

Wednesday evening, I made a quick get away from work and hot tailed it from Barny to Darlington to catch the kennels on my way home. Diesel was out of food and I had to pick up his next 15K bag before they closed or he would be going without his tea and demanding mine! While I was there I just had to give my new best friend a cuddle, let me introduce you to 'Reno'......

Isn't he just totally adorable? I first got to know him when he was just eight weeks old and he's now nineteen weeks, very calm, very obedient and a real sweetie. His personality reminds me very much of Diesel's with not a nasty thought in his head. I make no apologies for the following:

"Just look at my big teeth, I've got some new ones you know, Pllleeease have a look"?

"Don't you think I'm a good boy? I can sit here being very composed, when really all I want to do is this"..........

Needless to say, I really wanted to take him home with me but Andy (his Dad who owns the kennels) wouldn't let me!

OK, drooling time over - until the next time!

When I eventually got home I managed to get another tag finished up and got the photographs done too. I've used the 'BIG' tags again from Graphicus, they're 21.5cm x 10.5cm (81/2" x 41/8"). If you ~~want~~ 'need' these tags don't hang around, as far as I know they are a one-off and we won't be getting them back in stock. Trust me, if you love creating art on tags - you definitely need these!

This is the alternative Caged Bird tag with a beaded trim around the base of the cage. The letters are Grungeboard Mini's again and I coloured them with a Copic Sketch marker then coated them with Glossy Accents. The flower is from my own stash (it's a Prima that I brought back from a trip to Las Vegas a few years back - see, I do use my stash.... eventually)!

The next one is a fully articulated tag that I made in the workshop last Friday. The top section is joined to the mid section by a working hinge.

There's another of those fab Tim Holtz Bigz dies, this one has several elements to it. You get a solid heart, an open decorative heart, wings and a crown.... I've cut them from plain Grungeboard.

This is another one I started as a demo piece during Friday's workshop. It's another image transfer onto Claudine Hellmuth's Sticky Backed Canvas with handmade paper flowers. You can see that it's not quite finished..... there's nothing on the hanging banner for a start....

.... and those flowers look pretty plain to me - too plain! So I got to work and finished it off and here's how it looks now.........

I've added Stickles to the stamped flowers in the background in rust and orange, attached a brass hanger at the top and there's those Grungeboard Mini's again on the banner. I originally coloured the letters and the laurel leaves with Distress Inks but I didn't feel that the colour was strong enough so I used the Copic's to beef them up.... I'm really liking Copic's on Grungeboard!

Finally, I worked on the flowers and glitzed them up with some glass glitter, a touch of yellow Stickles around the pearl flower centres and a decorative brass corner was added to the image transfer.

Well, that's all for now - the weekend is here again and I'm off to York in the morning so I must get to bed. Whatever you're planning for the weekend, have fun and of course.....

Happy Crafting!

Vacation Over

2010-06-21T14:31:00.001+01:00

As some of you may know or may have found out when you tried to visit here, my blog was being intermittently 'hi-jacked' and it has taken quite some time to work out how it was being done. It has been a case of removing items one by one to see what the outcome would be.

I must admit, I was so fed up of it at one point that I really lost the will to blog. I set up a blog on Typepad but really didn't want to have to start from scratch again which is what I would have had to do, as transferring all my stuff without finding out what was causing the problem may have meant that the problem moved with me!

After months of investigating I finally identified the offending widget and removed it, so hopefully, everything should behave itself now and you should no longer find yourself being transferred to the 'I Meetz You' site! It's certainly had a lot of testing every day and at different times of the day and night so we'll see how things go (fingers are firmly crossed). While I was messing around I decided to have a change of scenery and freshen things up a bit so things look a little different too.

I have a huge amount to catch up on, all the time I've been away from blogging I've been cataloging events and taking photo's so I'll be dipping in and out of the last six months in an effort to catch up some.

I'm going to make a start with some photos from an event last Friday, it was my 'Articulated Tag' workshop at Graphicus. The ladies who attended were lovely and they turned out some fabulous tags of their own but, as usual the day just flew by and we didn't get the last one completed so I promised to put the sample tags on here so they could catch up in their own time. Here's Part One:-

I've used the large #10 tags from Graphicus. They are a fabulous size and great for showcasing larger stamps, Tim Holtz die cuts and beautiful embellishments. We found these tags at CHA when we went to the trade show in Los Angeles back in January and I can't tell you how excited I was at the thought of having these beauties to work on. I was like a cat on a hot ~~tim~~ tin roof waiting for them to arrive from the USA.

The focal point of this tag is the image transfer onto Claudine Hellmuth Sticky Backed Canvas which has been triple embossed to give a glass-like finish. It's been embellished with the Tim Holtz Bigz Die - Tattered Florals which I've cut from Grungeboard that was first covered with a page from a dictionary and inked with Distress Inks after it was die cut, together with a lovely antiqued Key Hole. The pearly rose on top of the bird cage was made with the Melt Pot and Pearl UTEE. I made a mold from Mold-n-Pour using a button to create the impression.... I was really pleased with the result I got and of course, I can make it in a variety of colours too!

This tag features the Tim Holts Bigz Die, it's called Caged Bird and I've cut it from plain Grungeboard. The tag also features Fragments, Grungeboard Mini's, Film Strip Ribbon and a Philosophy Tag.

I've been working on another version of this tag this evening, with a beaded trim on the base of the bird cage. It's drying at the moment as I've coated the letters with Glossy Accents, I'll get it photographed tomorrow and onto the blog tomorrow evening with some more articulated tags from the workshop for you to see.

For now..... Happy Crafting!

Forty Fantastic Women, Four Classroom Assistants, Three Tutors, Two Tons of Wet Wipes and a Partridge In a Pear Tree! [Edited to include a very important omition].

2009-11-21T13:25:00.005Z

Okay, so the bit about the Partridge isn't quite true, but it could've been.

This time last week the Graphicus Paradise Weekend Retreat had kicked off. It had been an incredulous journey preparing for the event and none of us quite knew what to expect other than a whole heap of hard work both in the run up to the event and then throughout the weekend.

It all started way back in the summer (did we have one of those?) Glenda and I visited several possible venues between Barndard Castle and Darlington looking for somewhere that was pleasing on the eye with good natural light, comfortable and capable of accommodating forty very enthusiastic crafters both in a classroom environment and with overnight accommodation for those whose needed it. We eventually chose the Blackwell Grange Hotel on the outskirts of Darlington.

The Blackwell Grange Hotel

Several months of planning ensued which eventually culminated in weeks of intense planning and workshop development, product sourcing and ordering, kit making, packing lists, dozens of boxes and crates of equipment, stock and everything else that is required to occupy forty avid crafters for the best part of three days.

The Official Event Name Strap

Can you believe that we chose Friday the 13th of November to plunge headfirst into our very first Retreat? No, I couldn't either! But I have to say, it went swimmingly and we didn't forget a thing, we ran out of wet wipes, but we didn't actually forget anything. I think we should run a competition to guess how many wipes we went through from Friday to Sunday afternoon.... you'd be horrified to know the answer!

We had planned to advertise the event in a couple of craft magazines but as soon as the word got out - it was full.

Ladies travelled from the highlands of Scotland, from the far south of England, across the Solent from the Isle of White and every point east and west of the mainland and in between. And at 1600 hours on Friday it all kicked off and we were straight into the first session.

Friday and Saturday night we worked until ten o'clock and these wonderful women kept going the whole time and were back in the classroom to start 'fresh as Daisy's' each morning at nine. They were totally awesome! If any of you are reading this I have to say a huge thank you to you all for your unwavering contributions.... you made the event a huge success!

Jean and Malcolm Setting Up their Workshop

Glenda and I taught most of the weekend and our guest tutor Jean Hardy from Crafty Individuals taught an amazing workshop on Sunday morning until lunch time. Jean was ably assisted by her business partner Malcolm and their products were such a huge success that Malcolm had to make a trip to bring more stock so that nobody was disappointed and missed out on the opportunity to shop.

There are four other people who worked tirelessly, morning to night, to ensure that everyone was happy......

Kath, Lesley and Annette

These fabulous ladies were totally incredible, not only did they look after all of our crafting guests so well but they were there every step of the way to help Glenda and I behind the scenes with whatever needed doing, before, during and after the Retreat. Kath, Lesley and Annette - YOU ARE STARS of the brightest magnitude!

There is one person missing from this photograph and that's David (Lesley's husband) who did a fabulous job of running backwards and forwards washing and refilling water pots all weekend, operating the Bind It All and saving our bacon by dashing to the nearest supermarket when the wet wipes started to run dangerously low. He wields a mean tin of chocolates too!

David and Adrian (Glenda's wonderful husband) lifted and shifted us in and out of the hotel and this was tactically a massive manoeuvre as the hotel's trolley was out of action the whole weekend so everything had to be carried and ran some considerable distance. They also did a fabulous job as the Official Event Photographers recording all the action at the presentation when the Retreat came to an end on Sunday afternoon, you've never seen two photographers in charge of quite to many cameras. Well done Guys... you ROCK!

At Close of Play Sunday 15th November

Well, it's all over and I can't believe that it all came and went so quickly. Never mind, it's all to do again in April 2010 so we'd better get cracking, there's already a register of names that far exceeds the forty places available. April's Retreat is a repeat of this one but we have a brand new programme of events to develop for 2010's Autumn/Winter event. Yay!

I will leave you with some photos of the happenings of the weekend of the 13th - 15th November 2009:-

Just a snippet of photos but if you want to see more look HERE and HERE

Happy Crafting to All! (And to the ladies who were there and are now back home.... get down and dirty) Yeh Baby!

Edit: What a total numpty I am and I feel awful. I was so excited reliving the events of last weekend that I totally forgot a very important thank you and that goes to everyone back at the office, the team that people rarely get to actually see in action and without whom none of what we do would be possible.

It was great to have some of our lovely ladies join us for dinner on the Friday evening, it would have been even nicer if we'd had time to do a bit more socialising before the late session got underway.

I can't tell you how hard they worked to help us pull it all together, Judith who took all the admin, hotel accommodation and communication on board and got it 100% right and Carrie who's PC skills and knowledge of our new Digital Printing Press was invaluable. The night before the event Carrie was there until the late hours printing and cutting masses of stuff in the guillotine to go into the kits. They were incredible. Val and Vickie did a superb job of cutting all the stamps out used at the Retreat..... that was one hell of a lot of cutting (and it was done at the very last minute as we nearly forgot all about the stamps, can you believe that)? Denise and Emma kept Graphicus and Elusive Images running while we were all immersed in the preparation, no mean feat I can tell you and everyone mucked in to get us all packed up and out of the door. A HUGE Thank You guys - you're the best!

I have one more tribute to pay but I'm going to leave that to a post of it's own.... to follow soon.

Happy Birthday Diesel

2009-10-17T23:14:00.006+01:00

My blog post today is dedicated entirely to this young man...

Yes, today has been Diesel's 7th Birthday! I can't believe the years have passed so quickly but fortunately, it's true what they say about German Shepherds.... they never grow up. To prove it, here are some pics of Diesel doing precisely what Diesel does best - PLAYING! They are 'action' shots so please forgive the blurs.

Diesel is a real play boy, he's into all the extreme sports you'd expect of a super cool guy.... here he is taking a dip!

.....and still trying to play ball! We take him to the hydro therapy pool on a regular basis. GSD's are prone to problems with hip dysplasia and although he has an excellent hip score, we don't want to take any chances. Swimming is a great way to keep him fit and as long as he has a toy to retrieve he's quite happy, although if you take your eye off him for just one minute he turns around and swims with the current instead of against it... this dog's not daft by any means.

You should see him now, he's flat out on his blanket fast asleep. This little man's had a busy day.

Happy Birthday Diesel!

Busy, Busy, Busy..........

2009-10-12T22:35:00.004+01:00

No, I haven't been on an extended holiday, nor have I ventured to the Moon... or Mars! I have simply been incredibly busy. Mainly with planning workshops, prepping workshops, planning and prepping for the fantastic up-coming Graphicus Retreat, Christmas (although that's not had much of a look in so far), working of course and what seems like a million other things. I'm afraid something has had to go and one of the things that has been totally neglected among others, is my poor old Blog.

I have been doing arty things but so few of them can be shared at the moment as they are either for Workshops, the Retreat or Magazine features. I'm still having fun though and one of the best things I've done for a long time took place over the weekend on Saturday and Sunday.

Glenda and Lesley taught a Photoshop Weekend at a fabulous Training Centre in Middlesbrough. I have been wanting to learn more about Photoshop for such a long time, I dabble but end up totally frustrated when I can't make it do what I want it to do. So, it seemed like the ideal opportunity to finally get to grips with it. Oh Boy, what a fantastic two days. Most of the ladies attending had travelled for hours, some from the opposite end of the country... they were all fab and threw themselves into it with gusto! It was quite intense and I went home totally brain boggled at the end of each day with so many new things bouncing around in my head. Sorry, although it was all about photo's I didn't get to take any during the workshop, much too busy.

I really didn't think I'd managed to retain very much at all but I took lots of notes - all I have to do was decipher them. Not quite sure what language I was writing in but the Egyptians would have been proud of me. I switched my lap top on late last night meaning to write up a magazine article as the deadline for submission was today and found the mouse hovering over a certain photo manipulation icon on the desk top. Well, that was it - I just had to click on it didn't I? I amazed myself at how much I had managed to retain and had a really great time playing er, practicing. I WAS practicing really Glenda! I do hope that everyone else on the course got as much out of it as I did and if you've ever wanted to get past the fear factor and start working with Photoshop, look out for any future workshop Glenda might run.... I can highly recommend it!

Ok, onto some painty 'arty' stuff. I've been doing quite a bit of painting of late. Most of which has been for Workshops, but one in particular featuring GrungePaper was just so much fun that I'm going to share some, ok... lots of photo's. Now don't go assessing my photoshop abilities will you? I've just grabbed these straight from my photo organiser 'untouched'. The stamps used are Wendy Vecchi's Studio 490 and Elusive Images.....

Time is of the essence again and I don't have enough of it to write up all the details of the products used and what I've done with them so I'm afraid I'm going to tease you a little now. Those of you who are members of the Graphicus Guild will be able to read more about this project and other canvases in this months Guild Newsletter. If you're not a member but would like to know more ring Judith at Graphicus or go here to join the Guild and get in on the action each month.

I spent months trying different ways of making GrungePaper Roses but wasn't totally happy with the results I was getting, some were a bit 'flat' and not what I wanted at all. I would like to say a big thank you to Kat who was kind and generous in sharing information which most certainly helped me to perfect the technique. Kat has a lovely blog so do take a look if you have a moment.

I have seen some of the finished canvases produced by the ladies who attended. They continued working on them after the workshop until they had them just as they wanted them and they look absolutely spectacular..... their canvases were much bigger than mine too!

Well, I'm out of that four letter word (time.... ) again! I have some more art work to share but it will have to keep until later. There's another workshop to start prepping for Thursday and I'll try to find time to take some pictures to show you of all the wonderful pieces the ladies create on the Mail Art workshop.

For now.... Happy Crafting!

What a Blast!

2009-07-09T22:00:00.002+01:00

Friday 03rd and Saturday 04th July saw us all having a whale of a time at our Graphicus Open Day events, during which we celebrated the '04th of July' in honour of all of our American suppliers. Let's face it, a large proportion of the fabulous crafting goodies available here in the UK originate from the USA and any excuse for a huge crafting 'knees-up' is a good one!

I must admit, on Wednesday 01st of July I was having serious doubts about the event going ahead. At one point I imagined Graphicus floating away down the bank and into the town of Barnard Castle after torrential rain fell all day, accompanied by the most awful electrical storms complete with clashes of thunder that shook the building to its very core. We lost all of our electrics, computers, phones... everything! Our regular Wednesday Crop was taking place during all of this and the Cricut machines kept stopping in mid cut every time the electrics went off and eventually we lost the electrics completely for the rest of the evening with just the emergency lights at strategic points throughout the building giving a limited amount of light. But the girls were brilliant, they just carried on cropping and enjoying themselves while we continued stocking the shop and setting up the demo areas.

Thursday brought a new day and beautiful sunshine. At one point I was outside, up a ladder hanging all of the bunting and thinking 'phew - it's hot' (or words to that effect) and decided to open my car windows to help keep the temperature down inside for the drive home. I had to put the keys in to get power to the windows and the temperature guage was giving an outside reading of 34 degrees! What a difference twenty four hours can bring.

Friday was unbelieveable... it was so hectic from the doors opening at ten until we closed at five. What a fantastic turnout and that was even with the two Andy's battling it out for a place in the mens final at Wimbledon! Saturday was busy but without the crush of the previous day, just a nice steady flow throughout with several of our Graphicus Guild members meeting up at the event, some for the first time. It was great to see everyone having such a good time enjoying each others company and watching the demo's.

We had visitors from far and wide... from Devon in the South West, the Midlands, Scotland and I do believe we even had visitors from distant shores, together with all of our local customers who support us so well. It really was a blast. Everyone was lovely, friendly and extremely generous in helping us to raise funds for Graphicus's chosen charity: P.S.P. (Progressive Supranuclear Palsy). It was great to catch up with everyone and share in the fun.

This lovely lady is Issy, one of our customers who travelled from Stirling in Scotland to support the event and got into the theme of things sporting a fantastic top paying homage to the USA!

David (Lesley's husband and resident Chef) was once again working his magic in the kitchen serving up hot food with an American flavour. As the weather was so beautiful on Friday, many people ate alfresco under the sun shades.... not the only thing going on out there, let me tell you!

We even had some alfresco shopping going on on when the bargain bins ended up outside under the sunshade... nice one Ladies - I hope you found some great stamps in there!

On the Demo front we had Glenda showing off wonderful new stamps and doing amaizing things with Copic Markers (brand new and just put on the shelves on Thursday) together with lots of other lovely arty products. Lesley was having great fun getting inky with the Speedball Brayers, Big and Juicy ink pads, glossy card, and lots of fab stamp designs from Clarity Stamps. All of the things Lesley used were new in and just about everything sold out but they will be back in stock very soon. Judith was showing the versitility of the Melt Pot, UTEE, wire and beads and made some totally stunning jewellery with a centre core of Dew Drops... sooooooo cool! (Look out for Judith's Melt Pot Workshops coming soon). Annette was our Machine Specialist, being our resident expert on the Cricut, Expression, Create and the Slice and was just to the right of my demo table and those machines were smokin I can tell you.

Then there was me! I got to play with some fab new stuff... how about Heidi Swapp's Mega Masks, Invisibles and Distress Inks. Mix in awesome stamps from Elusive Images, Tim Holtz, Wendy Vecchi and 7 Gypsies, Perfect Pearls, lots of lovely 'trinkets' from the Ideaology line, Dew Drops, Prima Flowers, Tags, Tattered Angels Glimmer Glass Albums and whatever else anyone wanted to see. Ooo - seventh heaven! I have to admit, I'm somewhat addicted to those Mega Masks together with the Invisibles and Distress Inks, they are quite incredible and such fun to use.

The event would never have been the success it was without the invaluable assistance and very hard work of the front line crew. Denise, Emma and Victoria manned the tills, restocked the shelves, answered phones and looked after our guests. If there was an award for being a good sport it would have to go to Denise who turned out dressed (very daringly) as Daisy Dukes, complete with a long blonde wig which must have been terribly hot! In fact, all of the staff dressed in accordance with the theme of the event but Denise and Victoria were VERY daring. Adrian looked dashing and quite distinguished dressed all in black with a suave silver grey stetson hat, silver adorned belt and yes.... heeled cowboy boots! He manned the presses to manufacture more stamps when stocks ran low and very kindly offered a chauffeur service for a special lady who would not have been able to join us without his assistance. Val did a sterling job of manufacturing all of the stamps with which to stock the shop and David did a brilliant job providing the hospitality and keeping the demonstrators fed and well watered even though he was run off his feet in the 'chuck wagon'.

I have only one regret from the two days...... not having time to walk the floor with my camera! I didn't get any photos of the shinnanigans I'm afraid although, I did see Judith with a camera in her hand at one point, so look out! It may be worth checking Judith's blog to see what appears.

I did get some photos (post event) of a few of the pieces I made whilst demonstrating:

Heidi Swapp Invisibles, Hearts Mega Mask and Flower Mask, together with Distress Inks in Worn Lipstick and Tea Dye applied with the Inkssentials Cut 'n' Dry Foam Applicator. I just need the right photograph of Diesel to finish this off now.......

Heidi Swapp Circles Mega Mask on coloured paper and inked with Peeled Paint and Tea Dye Distress Inks. Collaged images (Elusive Images and Clarity Stamps) stamped with Black VersaFine Ink.

Rangers Adirondack Alcohol Inks - NEW colours from the Lights and Brights range together with Pearl Mixative, Blending Solution and Tim Holtz Stamps.

Distress Inks, stamps from Elusive Images, Tim Holtz and 7 Gypsies. Embellished with Glossy Accents, Ideaology Trinkets and Dew Drops.

Distress Inks, Elusive Images Stamps, Martha Stewart Butterfly Punch, Prima Flowers and Dew Drops.

Distress Inks, Elusive Images Stamps, and Dew Drop Embellishments, Water Colour effect achieved by spritzing the inked stamp with a Mini Mister containing water, before stamping.

I know I shouldn't be wishing the months away, heaven knows - they go fast enough as it is but I am so looking forward to the next event days in September. Better get my thinking cap on now and start coming up with ideas for demos and samples!

Have fun all and Happy Crafting!

A Little Light Entertainment!

2009-06-28T14:18:00.002+01:00

I'm really busy this weekend... as many of you probably already know, there are two fab event days happening next Friday (03rd) and Saturday (o4th) of July at Graphicus and I am up to my eyes getting stuff ready (that's not a complaint by the way - I'm really having some fun getting very inky and very painty) and working out what I'm going to be demonstrating. But unfortunately, I can't share anything just at the moment - it's under wraps until Friday.

Recently, I have found myself returning to my roots and picking up the pencils and pens... I have started drawing again! It's strange how, after such a long time out of it I've almost had to start from scratch to get anywhere near the quality I used to be able to achieve, but it's coming back - slowly.

What started it all? Well, I had a bit of a turf out and found some old charcoal and ink fashion drawings I'd done many, many years ago and some of my old journals and really liked what I had been doing. I then looked at all the blank journals I've collected over the years (can't help it, I have an addiction to beautiful books) just sitting on one of the book shelves in my studio and I knew that the time was right to get back into the groove.

I want to share something with you that I found while whizzing around the Internet looking at art supplies and yes, more journals. I howled at this.... it scratched my itch on two levels. One: my love of drawing and Two: we used to have a smooth haired Dachshund when I was little and I can just see her doing this!

I hope that made you chuckle as much as it did me!

Well, time to get back to getting even more inky. I might just post a real sneaky peek of some of the things I'm up to later... If not tonight, tomorrow maybe!

Enjoy your Sunday and Happy Crafting!

Blog Candy Alert!

2009-06-19T00:12:00.009+01:00

There are brand new Elusive Images stamps on the way..... they will be released next week and there's a different type of giveaway happening over on the Elusive Images blog.

You might want to hot foot it over there to check it out! Remember: You've gotta be in it to win it!

Good Luck All and Happy Crafting!

Playing Catch Up - Part Two

2009-06-09T21:47:00.012+01:00

Oh dear, I've been missing in action.... again! It was another dose of hospital and treatment last week which really did put me out of action for a few days. However, I'm going to endeavour to catch up with events and photos from the last few months and then I can get this blog up to date and back to the good stuff... crafting!

In my last post I mentioned that Diesel was off to the vets for his EPI check which I'm pleased to report, he passed with flying colours. Derek was really pleased with his weight and condition. While we were there he had his annual vaccinations and he is such a sweetie, I think he must be one of very few German Shepherd dogs who will turn around and lick his vet smack in the mush for being jabbed with a big needle. My last boy Degas would have taken the vets face off given half the chance.

February was a month packed full of events... some nice and some... not so nice! Early February saw us all at Elusive Images madly preparing for our big annual trade show at the NEC Birmingham. I should explain that most of the time when I refer to work I talk about Graphicus but I actually work for two companies (under one roof) confused? I am, most of the time, especially when it comes to answering the phone on my desk. For those who haven't a clue what I'm on about, Graphicus is the retail side of the company that sells all sorts of wonderful crafting goodies to all of you craft addicts out there whilst Elusive Images manufactures fab products such as the Elusive Images range of rubber stamp themeplates, wood mounted stamps and Artylicious CD ROM's but sells only to the trade. So this show was just for the shop owners, craft buyers and the press and it's spread over three action packed days.

Each year we try to theme our stand and the theme usually reflects a range of new stamps being launched at the show. Last year it was Peacocks whilst this year was Mardi Gras. Of course, the team on the stand have to be appropriately dressed and Glenda had sourced some fabuloso devore jackets in the company colours. Some visitors to the stand thought we looked very 'Harry Potterish'?

Here's Glenda, Helen and Emma all looking very elegant in their beautiful silk devore creations....

Glenda in full flow demonstrating......

And Carrie, Judith and Annette with Adrian beavering away in the background, taking the opportunity to get a hot cuppa before the mayhem begins when the show opens.

What you can't see in these photo's are the totally incredible watches we were all wearing that Glenda commissioned as a surprise for each of us manning the stand. We all sat down to dinner the night before the show opened after spending all day setting up and Glenda presented each of us with a beautiful little pouch and this is what it contained....

Aren't they exquisite? They were designed and hand made by the extremely talented beader extraordinaire.... our very own JUDITH! I was so surprised (although I did suspect Glenda was up to 'something' a few weeks before the show) and I will always treasure this very special piece.
Some of the art work and stock displays from around the stand.........

I have had to scrutinize all of the photos as several pieces of art work displayed on the stand are reserved for editorial features over the next few months, so some of the photos I wanted to show you.... I can't, at the moment.

As we had a strong Mardi Gras theme, I made this Venetian Mask using Elusive Images corporate colours and some of the brand new stamps released at the show. This was a real labour of love, originally inspired by the magnificent masks we saw in Il Prato, a shop in the Venetian Hotel, Las Vegas some eighteen months ago when Glenda, Adrian and I attended the Memory Trends trade show.

..... and the sumtuous colours of all of the other art work..... such stunning pieces!

The trade show is a lot of hard work and planning which usually starts mid summer the year before but it is such a fun thing to do and it's great meeting all of our trade customers, potential new customers, press contacts and of course, some of those well known guru's of the craft industry.

Well, when I sat down to do this post I had intended continuing with the February events which culminated in my knee replacement surgery but I really think that Part Three can wait until next time. It seems a shame to spoil these lovely arty photos with pics of my leg.... post surgery! I do want to share some pictures of the really lovely cards and special things people sent to me during my recuperation so they will be coming up soon.

Just to finish, I will leave you with some images of a tag I made last night. I was just messing around testing inks and ended up with this:

Using VersaMagic inks I stamped all around the edge of the tag using the lovely Christmas Rose stamp from the Roses Themeplate, with one full image in the centre of the tag towards the bottom. I then stamped the Art Words down the centre in quite a pale ink and took a large soft stipple brush and blended the inks while they were still wet.

Then I spritzed over the surface of the tag with Sticky Fingers Luster Spray Ink (Apricot I think) and finally with Fireworks Gold..... so zingy!

I took a Grungeboard flourish from the Elements pack and using my finger blended two of the Adirondack Acrylic Paints onto the flourish and dried. Then I added some Stickles to the flourish which was attached to the tag with silicone glue. Finally, some flat bottomed pearls, a large flower brad, rub-on letters and some ribbon finished the piece.

So, until next time.... thank you for all the lovely comments left on my last post, I really love to hear from you and appreciate the time you take to visit the blog and to leave messages.

Have fun and Happy Crafting!

Playing Catch Up - Part One

2009-05-18T10:23:00.012+01:00

Sorry I didn't make a return to the blog last night but my back didn't hold up long enough to get done all that needed doing. However, I now have a lovely cup of latte at my side and a very 'hot' water bottle that I'm half leaning and half sitting on so what more can a girl want? It's quite comforting really!

Moira, I hope you have your cuppa and biccies ready! There's an awful lot to cover going back over the last few months and I'll recap in stages but I want to start with an event from the weekend before last... yes, we had another two 'open days' at Graphicus on Friday the 08th and Saturday the 09th of May.

'Hello' to everyone who attended and boy, was there a lot of you. What a fantastic turn out, particularly on Friday - it was quite a crush. I was a little late arriving as I had a review with my Surgeon before I could get underway to Barny which meant I didn't arrive until about 11.20. The event opened at 11.00 and by the time I got there is was heaving and there was nowhere to park near the building and my boot was full with all my demo kit. I managed to squeeze my car into the tiniest of spaces in front of the big roller door but had a real problem getting stuff out of the boot as I'd had to go so far back. I want to say a huge 'thank you' to the two ladies who came to my rescue and helped me lift my rolling trolleys out of the little hole I'd managed to get myself into... I really appreciated your help.

It was a fun event with so much going on. Glenda was doing wonderful things with awesome paints, inks, stamps, Tattered Angels NEW stamps and all of EI's new stamps too. Lesley made a fab job of reviewing Glenda's new CD Rom which will be coming soon and she made lovely arty samples with sneeky peeks of some of the papers. Then there was our Judith playing with her latest and greatest toy... Suze Weinburg's Melt Pot. Wow! what truly amazing stuff she was doing, the most glorious UTEE beads and some even had centres made with the new CD Rom papers! You have to see Judith's stuff it is wondrous and she's got so many requests for workshops with Melt Pot Jewellery so look out - they'll be coming up in the next workshop timetable. Annette had a real bumper demo going on featuring the Cuttlebug, Cricut's (Personal Cutter, Expression and the Create), the Cricut Juke Box and the brand new Slice from Making Memories. Wow, I was so impressed and both Annette and I have added the Slice to our shopping lists. It is such a brilliant little machine and so portable - just what you need when you want to sit in front of the TV and craft or if you are going to craft away from your normal work area.

I was playing with all things Ranger, Tim Holts Ideaology, his stamps and Wendy Vecchi Studio 490 stamps with a sprinkling of EI too - in other words 'totally awesome' products. Here's a look at a few of the things I made along the way:

A Maya Road tin (Ribbon Sliders) which has been inked with Adirondack Alcohol Inks, although the colours I used were from the original sets we had just taken delivery of the brand new colour ranges. At least one person I know bought one of every colour.... yes Jo, you know who you are and I'm green with envy - aren't they gorgeous colours? Another 24 items to add to my shopping list!

I tore an elegant picture from a glossy mag, trimmed it to fit and slotted it into the little metal tabs on the inside of the lid, yay no glue needed! Idea for the Christmas table: one for each place setting with a special little something inside and a photo of the recipient on the lid - maybe a childhood photo could be fun. They will make great place settings with a difference!

Onto my fave product: Grungeboard (GB). Unfortunately, I couldn't demo Grungepaper as we just can't keep it in stock. The minute it comes in it goes out and the suppliers seem to be having exactly the same problem but hopefully, there's more on the way from the USA as I write this. This flower is a real mish-mash of stamps: I used EI's Big Flowers for the largest layer but stamped on the back of the GB, cut it out and stamped the front with one of Wendy Vecchi's (WV) large background stamps - so usable. The second layer is a WV's Studio 490 flower and back to Big Flowers for the top layer. Inked with Distress Inks and finished with Distressed Stickles and Tim's Metal Foliage = Yummy!

A Butterfly pin cut on the Cricut, embossed with the Cuttlebug, inked with Distress Ink and smooched with Distressed Stickles again. Ideaology pieces to finish. [Thanks to Ranger for the lovely idea for this piece]!

Tim's stamps, this time with Distressed Inks a little Grungeboard and the lovely Metal Foliage again.

Back to Wendy Vecchi's super stamps for this tag but I've mixed them up with Tim's. The Grungeboard Flowers and tag are inked with Distress Inks.

Lovely sentiments on these stamps....

Now, here's a complete mix of Wendy's stamps for the flowers and leaves, Maya Road chipboard swirls stamped with a WV background stamp, Grungeboard for the flower heads and leaves and a pin back attached to the reverse side and you have your very own designer corsage! We were making these in a workshop a couple of weeks ago. I have some pics from the day which I'll get onto the Graphicus blog soon.

I really do love Wendy Vecchi's 'Studio 490' stamps, they are designed especially with products like Grungeboard and Maya Road Chipboard in mind and are manufactured beautifully by Stampers Anonymous - quality through and through and worth every penny!

When I first came across WV's blog at the back end of last year I almost had a heart attack. I saw some tags there and instantly thought 'what're my tags doing on this blog'? Then I looked again and saw that they weren't mine but we obviously have very similar tastes both in products and designs that it's frightening. Then came the stamps which I instantly fell in love with but didn't buy for fear of my work looking even more like Wendy's (only Wendy's work is outstanding - have you seen the stuff she did for CHA Winter)?

On my birthday this year I'd just come out of hospital and was recovering from the surgery at home when Glenda and Adrian pitched up loaded with goodies for me. A chocolate birthday cake from - wait for it:- 'Thornton's', some of Tim's brand new stamps and yes... some of Wendy's too! (Pic above with some of the lovely gifts I got from fabulous friends.) Oh I was in seventh heaven - how generous and kind and that's not all, Glenda kept me going sending me aid parcels on a regular basis filled with new releases from Elusive Images and new papers from Artylicious together with many other fabby things.... am I making you drool? Do you need a new knee too?

Well, it would have been so rude of me not to use the WV stamps wouldn't it? They are so wonderful for using with GB, I just had to come up with things that hopefully don't look the same as Wendy's and I had to stop reading her blog on a regular basis too for fear of her lovely work influencing what I was doing. I do sneak back occasionally in hope that she will give a sneek peak of some more of her lovely stamps that are on the way, presumably for CHA - Summer Show. How will she top what she's already done? Do give them a try.... they're not just for GB but I do love the way you can give your flowers dimension by curling them.

My lap top's started playing up again so I can't link to the products at the moment - it keeps telling me that the 'link is broken' when I know it's not. The pc works fine but I can't sit at it at the mo with my back problem, I need a comfy sofa that absorbs the compression on the discs so I'll try to edit this later and insert the links so you can find stuff easily if you want more info on what I've used.

Thank you to everyone who has stuck with me through my prolonged absence on the blog and for all the lovely welcome back messages... I'll be back with another installment soon, I just hope I don't bore you all to death!

For now, I have to go practice balancing on one leg while I get dressed to go out, can't slob around in these exercise pants for a minute longer I'm afraid. Thank goodness you can't see me, you'd never come back! I'm off to the vets later this afternoon with Diesel for his annual EPI check up (he was diagnosed with Canine Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency when he was four), in other words his pancreas doesn't work and therefore he can't process his food and without daily meds he would just waste away. It's all under control but Derek, our fabulous vet, keeps a close eye on him to make sure all his organs are fit and healthy and that he continues to do well. It's not something that he can be cured of but with very careful nutrition we can keep him well and looking good.

Catch ya later..... Happy Crafting all!

A Pre Blog Warning

2009-05-17T15:32:00.005+01:00

Look out folks.... I'm back in the land of the living!

I have such a lot of catching up to do on the blog and so many thank yous to send to everyone who sent kind thoughts, positive support and beautiful cards and gifts while I recovered from my surgery. I've also got lots of pics for you (some not so nice taken from my hospital bed wearing no make up - eeeek! frightening) others which are prettier and of the more artistic type.

So while I get my head into gear, edit the pics and make notes so that I don't forget what I'm going to blog about, stay tuned..... I'll be back soon - hopefully later tonight or the wee small hours!

New Year - New Organisation!

2009-01-26T16:46:00.006Z

Yep, it's that time of the year again when you want to get out there, sort out, re-organise, clean..... now I did say 'want' to, this is not the same as doing it! I'm still enduring all the negative effects of the osteo-arthritis only now I have a back problem which, since the beginning of December has caused acute sciatica from the hip to ankle in my right leg and for virtually twenty four hours a day. It's hideous and means that I have to take advantage of any slight improvement to get things done so blogging and blog hopping have had to take a back seat I'm afraid. I do have some positive news on the health front though but I'm just waiting to have one more appointment confirmed this week and then I'll give you an update.... it's far from doom and gloom but I don't want to temp fate until I've had everything confirmed.

So, back to organising. I really do need to do a lot of tidying in my craft room, it still hasn't recovered from having everything dumped in there over Christmas. Initially, I thought it was just all of the boxes from the Xmas Decs and that once they were taken down on 12th night and stored safely back in the loft it would be all clean and tidy again..... wrong! It would seem that every homeless item in our house found its way to my craft room. One thing has become clearly apparent - I need a bigger room. Negotiations have commenced with DH and he agrees with me so we just have to agree with each other on how we are going to achieve the impossible!

After posting a comment about stamp storage systems on the Graphicus Guild Group last week, I promised that I would let you see how I store my unmounted Stamps. I also realise from the Group that many of you are 'in the mood' for re-organising your stash and work areas. I love to hear and see peoples ideas on how they organise stuff and if you want to utilise my system please do. It works for me....

This is just a small selection of the most frequently used stamps. They sit just above my work surface and are always within easy reach. There are many others which are stacked within the storage unit on the back wall behind where I sit. The beauty of this storage system is that they can store flat or be stacked on end like books. When I want a set or two to take to an event or work I simply choose the boxes I need and they keep my stamps safe and make them easy to transport.

You can laminate the stamp graphic and attach the EZ Mount cushion to the laminate or attach the stamp to the box lid and base and insert the index inside to save having to open every box when you're looking for a specific set of stamps.

These are the boxes that you can purchase through Graphicus. You can even get 'Boxed' sets which come with an outer unit that the boxes slide into - a self contained housing so that they needn't occupy precious shelf space.... you could stack them on the floor or under a bench if need be.

And don't forget, you can label the boxes to make indexing your stamps and finding them again, so much easier!

While I'm showing you my stamp storage I thought I would show you what I've done with all my small rolls of ribbon.....

I have a Ribbon Locker (Graphicus used to sell them but the company that made them are no longer in business) that I use for rolls of ribbon that won't fit into these clear plastic storage pots but I love these.... they can be wall mounted, carried to crops or craft clubs and the storage pots which link in three's can be removed and carried separately if you only need certain colours.

I can clearly see all the different colours and patterns which makes finding the right ribbon a lot less time consuming. I can simply hold up a small piece of card that I am using in my project and match the ribbon without having to open pots, drawers, boxes etc. I'm delighted with how they work and I'm still in the process of colour co-ordinating another stack..... do you think I have a ribbon addiction? Nah! just a total craft addiction that no amount of medication is going to help relieve the symptoms (thank goodness).

Ooooo yummy! I want to go play but maybe I'll just organise the next set. Now for the bad news: I'm afraid that Graphicus don't stock these (not yet anyway - note to self: speak to Glenda) they are just something that I came across while out shopping one day.

I have found some super stuff of late, not specifically designed for crafting but things I liked the look of and could see how it/they could work in my studio both on a practical level and for eye candy too. So I may make this a regular feature and share my shopping finds and organisational skills (eh? well, maybe I do have them sometimes) with you on my blog. I just need to find the time to blog 'regularly'! I will try to get back again this week but it's that time of the year again...... TRADE SHOW and it's coming up FAST!

I may not have a lot of crafty stuff that I can share at the moment as I'm knee deep in preparing delectable little pieces for the show and some not so little either - remember Percival Ponsonby Smythe from last year? Well if all goes according to plan there will be another 'themed' creation taking shape very soon, I just need to get my skates on!

Happy Crafting and good luck with all the organising!

It's a Brand New Year!

2009-01-01T03:15:00.003Z

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year with good health, good fortune and great contentment to you all.

May 2009 bring you fun, creativity in abundance, and lots of new crafting adventures!

Just for now, I will leave you with this.... it cracks me up every time I come across it:

Life should
not be a journey
to the grave
With intention of
arriving safely
In a pretty, and
well preserved body.
But
rather to skid
in broadside,
chocolate in one hand, martini in the other,
thoroughly
used up,
Totally worn out
and loudly proclaiming
WOW
WHAT A RIDE!

Have fun and happy crafting....

Ooooo New Toys to Play With!

2008-12-08T20:45:00.010Z

Whew, what a weekend we've had. It was the open days at Graphicus on Friday and Saturday so the run-up during the week had been ultra busy getting everything ready.

I was eagerly waiting for a delivery to arrive from the USA. Knowing that it had left the USA by air on the 25th of November, I had fully expected it to reach us by the end of that week. On past experience, the company we order from are pretty good at getting stuff to us quickly, on one occasion we placed an order on the Friday and it was delivered to us on the Monday! So when it hadn't arrived by Wednesday I began to get impatient. Why?.... Because it had all of the Tim Holtz new stuff in there, Stamps including the Christmas Stamps, the full range of his Masks, the Ideology range, Seasonal Grungeboard, Grungeboard Books, the brand new supa dupa Pink Bind-it-All, DreamKutz, Storage Tote and the Corner Rounder to name just a little of what was in the shipment. To cut a long story short, the shipment had arrived in the UK on the 28th and was sat in a corner of a warehouse in Manchester! Arrrrggghhhh! Don't you just hate it when that happens. Rob, (the man who can) said he would do everything he could to get it overnighted to us so we'd have time to check the delivery, price it all and get it out on the shelves for Friday's event.

Thursday morning we woke to the most horrendous weather.... Snow, Snow and more Snow! Very beautiful but I have quite a drive to work and it normally takes me about an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes in traffic and on country roads. So I left early at 0700 hours and joined the slow moving traffic, it was truly awful. It took me three hours forty five minutes to get to work and then I got my car stuck as I drove into the car park. I couldn't move forwards or backwards. The guys at the Carrosserie Car Company next door came to my rescue and got me out of the snow drift so that I could park... thanks Guys, I really appreciated it after the drive I'd had.

Needless to say, there were problems getting the US shipment to us from Manchester. We had a phone call to say it wouldn't happen that day but they would try for the Friday.

I was keeping my fingers crossed the shipment would come in time for our 11 o'clock kick-off on Friday and sure enough it did, just at the time I should have been starting the demo's. But after seeing what Tim has been doing with all this fantastic stuff on his blog I knew our customers would be straining at the leash to get their hands on it, after all, I was too!

Annette and Lesley got the demo's underway and the rest of us set to and got it checked, priced and on the shelves. Several things found there way to my shopping basket of course and I was able to demonstrate the Christmas Stamps, Masks, Grungeboard and Ideology line together with the Distressed Inks I love so much, Stickles, Prima Flowers, beautiful silk May Art Ribbons, Hambly Rub-Ons (see the lovely White Grungy Alphabet on the tag above - yummy) and lots of other lovely stuff.

I was surprised that so many people braved the weather to be with us. It had stopped snowing and the roads were in the main, much improved. But so many people had driven considerable distances, some from the Midlands, others from the West coast and a couple of ladies who's flight home from Egypt on Friday was so badly delayed due to the weather that they hot-footed it to be with us on Saturday instead.... now that's what I call dedication!

Glenda decided to give everyone a special treat just for the weekend and released a limited number of a brand new A4 themeplate that is absolutely amazing... it's called the Harlequin Rose and it is not going to be available until the 14th of January, 2009. I am going to be real mean and show you some of the sample pieces I made with it on Saturday while demonstrating.

This is a white tag that has a semi-gloss finish and I was asked by a customer if alcohol inks would work on this surface. Well, what better way of finding out than to try it. So I took some Red Pepper and Butterscotch alcohol ink and applied it direct to the surface of the tag using an ink applicator and felt pad. Then I overlaid it with Gold Mixative and a couple of drops of blending solution and cold dried it. I then inked the large Rose Collage image from the Harlequin Rose themeplate with Ranger Archival Black ink (a beautiful black ink that is fab on alcohol inks) and stamped the image onto the tag. I built a decorative corner from Prima flowers and gold and green leaves and finally added a gorgeous silk bow tied from May Art ribbon.

Here's a different colourway, still using the alcohol inks but this time it's Lettuce, Butterscotch and Pesto with Gold Mixatives and finished with a different Prima collection. Oh boy, do I love these stamps. I'm so sorry to do this to those of you who haven't been able to get your hands on them yet but please.... get your new 2009 diary and mark up the 14th of January, 2009 or put a reminder on your PC in Outlook or something similar so that when you switch on your PC on the 14th you will be reminded to order your new themeplate. After all, you've got to have something to spend that Christmas pressy money on don't ya? The only other way to get hold of this themeplate NOW is through the Graphicus Guild.

I am desperate to play some more with these beauts but there's a Christmas tree or two (or even three or four) waiting to go up at home. I do intend to get me some play time over the holidays so look out for some more samples with this set. If the light is good enough I might even do a step-by-step for the blog or if you're real good and you're on Santa's 'Nice' list, it could be a video! Let me know if you want to see more, there's a lot of lovely stamps on this themeplate!

On this tag I used Alcohol Inks in Cranberry, Caramel and Gold Mixative with Tim Holtz and 7 Gypsies stamps (all available at Graphicus).

The background on this tag is the Distress Inks applied with the blending tool, Tim's mask and stamps and finished with a piece from the Ideology collection. The script stamp in the background is an Elusive Images stamp from the Antiquities themeplate. Don't they go well together?

More of Tim's stamps inked with the Clear Distress Embossing Ink pad and black embossing powder. The background was created with with paint dabbers.

And finally, I was also playing with some of Stampsmiths photo-realistic stamps on Saturday and this is one from their Christmas plate, it's new for this Christmas and is a beautiful collection, elegant and artistic. If I'm not too busy tomorrow I will try to get these onto the Graphicus blog with full details of the products.

A little word of warning though... the Tim Holtz products were absolutely flying out on Friday and Saturday, I think we sold out of the Christmas stamps completely and the masks were close behind. If there is anything you want urgently, get in touch with Graphicus quickly. If you don't know what the product is that I've used don't worry, pick up the phone and ring - we'll help identify it for you. I don't think any of the new products are on the website yet but I'm sure Carrie will do her best to get everything that's still available photographed and uploaded this week.

Happy Christmas Crafting to you all!

Chocalisciousness!

2008-11-25T23:49:00.014Z

OMG! I blinked and the end of November came steaming round the corner and hit me full in the face... Yikes, it's frightening how quickly the days are passing and there's so much to do that I really don't want to do, like cleaning and decorating the house so that it's all fresh for the Christmas decorations to go up.

There are also so many things that I do want to do but haven't got time to, like crafting. Isn't it funny how you get so many ideas running wild around your head when you just don't have any time to play? I've had a note pad and pen surgically attached to me so that I can make quick notes of all my ideas which tend to pop into my head when I'm at the top of a ladder with a paint brush in my hand or elbow deep in sudsy water washing walls and windows.

And yes, my poor blog has suffered badly in the last few weeks. What with all the extra work at home, together with 'work' work and running backwards and forwards to the Doctors, the hospital and the Musculoskeletal Clinic while decisions are made about my knees that it's left me severely devoid of blogging inspiration.

However, the time taken going to all the different appointments has not been time wasted I'm happy to say. Once referred to the specialist clinic for assessment, it wasn't too long before they told me what I already knew.... I am way past any interim help or treatment. I have now been referred for knee joint replacement surgery and have already had my pre-op assessment meeting and completed all the necessary form filling and health checks to make sure I'm 'fit' for surgery.

Last week I trekked off to the hospital for all my blood tests.... honestly, they took so much of it that I thought they'd made a mistake, thinking I was there as a blood donor (I have quite a rare blood group and they are always trying to get their hands on it)!

So now I'm just waiting for my appointment with the surgeon and then I should have a better idea of when they will operate. I'm not looking forward to it but I am looking forward to eventually being able to get around without being doped up to the eye-balls with pain killers.

I have found some time (just a little) to do what I love best.... playing with stamps, inks and wonderful papers, yey! And of course, I taught several workshops in November, all of which have been great fun with fab people and an opportunity to paint canvasses, make accordion journals and concertina keepsakes with origami boxes.

With only four weeks 'till Christmas, almost everything is now geared towards the festive season. I've been working on a 31 day tag book. I'm about half way through covering plain white tags on both sides with lovely Christmassy papers, to which I will add smaller tags with embellishments, stamping and the date. The 'plan' is to take photos every day throughout December regardless of what I may be doing...... housework, shopping, gift wrapping, putting up the decorations, baking..... well you get the idea. I will then add the photos and journalling to the tags as a pictorial record of December 2008. I will let you see how it's coming along when there's something more to see.

Talking of photographs and putting up the deco's, several people have asked me if I'm going to do what I did last year and include our Christmas preparations on my blog? Well, as I'm planning on taking photo's every day for the December Album it should be easy enough to combine the two. So if you don't like Christmas I'd look away now and pop back in January when I'm all Christmassed out! I'll apologise now...... as anyone who knows me, knows that I love the festive season and totally enjoy every aspect of Christmas, even all the extra work. It's well worth it. So from here on in be warned, I'm in festive mode and loving it!!!

If Christmas had a flavour for me it would be epitomised by Starbucks Gingerbread Latte, in their words - 'a sweet and spiced latte with the aroma of freshly baked gingerbread'. Yummm it's delish! A couple of weeks ago while out shopping with DH, we popped into our local Starbucks and tried out the Christmas menu. I couldn't resist buying these lovely festive mugs so that we could make our own scrummy hot chocolate at home:

and this is what it looks like......

So now that I'm on a chocolate high, it's back to the painting (walls.... not canvas) oh poooo!

Have You Seen the Headlines?

2008-11-04T21:32:00.014Z

It’s been a busy couple of weeks with not a lot of time for crafting on a personal level as I have been knee deep in prepping up workshops and teaching of late.

Thursday saw us having fun with concertina albums filled with interactive tags. We used book board, some fab papers, lots of glue, Tim Hotlz’s Hitch fasteners, stitched envelopes some great fibre ribbons, brads, tags, hessian and a whole heap more super stuff. I have to say the finished pieces were incredible.... really neat work and a lovely bunch of crafters made it such a super day.

The weather was extremely unkind to us on Saturday, it was simply vile but despite the conditions we had people who travelled from far and wide... by train, on the motorway and across country to attend the Waxing Lyrical workshop. We had a blast and it goes without saying that Canvas and Wax was involved, you may have read about it in the newspaper yesterday......

......ummmmm! I shall say no more. If you would like to see the results of the workshop hop on over to the Graphicus Blog here and take a look.

I have been giving a lot of thought to the Christmas preparations that lie ahead and really must start to get cracking on jobs that need to be done this month, where the days are going I just don't know. Christmas Eve is seven weeks tomorrow - aghhhhh! I've got a few ideas in mind for recording events throughout December and I'll share them with you as soon as I have something to show you.

One of the girls on Saturday's workshop has finished all of her Christmas Cards! Oh how I wish I was that organised. One of the few things I've made with a seasonal flavour so far is the Glimmer Mist and Glimmer Chips tag tree:

Just a small selection of tags made with Glimmer Mists, Glimmer Screens, Glimmer Chips and some of the new Elusive Images Christmas rubber stamp themeplates. This was such a fun project to do and has loads of scope for Christmas banners, gift tags or even hanging tree decorations for the 'real' tree. The reverse side of the tags were all covered with papers printed from the Artylicious Season's Greetings CD Rom.

If you've already visited the Graphicus Blog to take a look at what we were doing on Saturday, you will have seen the canvas I was working on:

I have included a couple more shots here so that you can see some of the detail on the canvas, such as this cute little bird nesting in a bed of feathers, waxed and etched back....

.... images stamped onto tissue paper and applied with hot wax so that they look almost transparent on the canvas....

....stencilling with Stewart Gill's 'Galactica' applied with a pallet knife, yumm....

....dripped wax, Pearly Doodles with bronze beads and oil pastels! I will finish this piece soon now that I know exactly where I'm going with it and I'll let you see the finished results.

Happy Crafting!

Kindness In Abundance

2008-10-20T17:45:00.009+01:00

I must start by saying a big hello and thank you to everyone who left a message over the last week. Your good wishes and helpful suggestions have really lifted my spirits. The knees and back haven't improved much but I feel so much better knowing that there are so many lovely people out there who firstly, so unselfishly care about others and secondly.... visit my blog! A huge thank you. If kind thoughts could make you better I'd be the fittest person around.

One good thing has come out of last week: the back pain is all being caused by the problems I have with my knees. Some weeks ago I was given the results of the x-rays I had taken and it appears that it's got a lot worse than it was a few years back. I now have chronic osteo-arthritis in both knees.... no surprises there! What has changed is that I have been referred to a specialist clinic and now have my appointment date to be assessed - yey! I'll keep you posted.

I'm sorry I didn't get back to update my blog during the week. Sitting at the computer for any length of time has been difficult and that goes for sitting in my work room too. So not a lot of what I set my sights at a week ago has been achieved. I have chosen little things to work on that I can do sitting where I can be comfortable. Stampbord needs very little room to work on and that's one of the things I have finished....

This is a piece that I originally designed as a workshop piece for Elusive Images's Retailer Training event earlier this year. It is an articulated pin made from a domino sized piece and a 1" square piece of Stampbord. I used Ranger's Distress Ink Pads to colour the Stampbord and stamped the images with Archival Black ink. The stamps are all from the Antiquities themeplate (one of my favourites for this type of work).

I added some embellishments: the 'heavenly' word is a pre-etched Creative Acrylics piece that has been over written with the white Inkessentials pen and attached with Glossy Accents. The brads have had most of the struts cut off with wire cutters (just leave a millimetre or two) then the holes in the acrylic piece have been filled with Glossy Accents and the brads set into it.

I finished the pieces with some white rub-ons and a domed letter. The outside edges of the Stampbord have been coloured black using a Sharpie pen. My trusty Crop-A-Dile chomped the holes and set the eyelets to link the pieces together and I attached a sticky-backed broach pin to the back of the main piece!

I have been doing a little bit more to the canvas I showed you in the previous post and I now know exactly how I'm going to finish it. I may get some more done this evening with a little luck.

What else has been happening this week? Well, it was Diesel's Birthday and boy did he know it - he was full of it. My parents bought him a 'giggle' ball. He absolutely lives to play. I suppose being a German Shepherd it's in-built in him... after all, that's exactly how Police dogs are trained - everything is a game. I'm sorry to say the giggle didn't last long, within minutes of giving it to him he'd fathomed out what was making the noise and removed it. He takes the 'squeaks' out of all his chewy toys too! Funny thing is, he doesn't destroy the toy - just the noise.

As a tribute to the birthday boy.......

The photo of him was obviously not taken on his birthday! It's cold in the North East but not quite this cold...... yet! I finished this layout for Glenda's Winter Glimmer TV show recorded a couple of weeks ago and I used some of the Glimmer Chips (the icicles across the top) and the Glimmer Glass (fancy corners and the articulated hanging snowflakes).

He loves the snow and always manages to come in covered in it and with a little 'heap' on his nose where he tries to push it around.

And finally, how fast is this month going? I sat down to prepare my working timetable in the run up to Christmas and was horrified at how little time I have to get so many things done. I always do a three month planner on the PC for October, November and December. I fill in all of the work related dates first and then anything that I have to travel for and finally, any personal dates that need time allocating to them. I then look at what's left..... and finally at my list of all the jobs that I have to do in the house to get it ready for the festivities and the two just don't correlate... nowhere near. Oh dear, I feel a headache coming on!

But you have to start somewhere and on Sunday afternoon, just before the shops shut, DH and I rushed out to an out-of-town shopping centre where there's a Borders book shop. So while he went into Borders I headed for TK Maxx and they had just set up their Christmas department. It was lovely to browse while it was quiet and I couldn't resist this......

.... just what I needed to get me full swing into the preparations, I'll catch up in no time (knees and back permitting). I wish I had time to decorate the house for the fall. Some of my American blogging friends do the most beautiful things to their homes and one of these years... yeh, I know - you've heard it all before! But I will..... one day! But for now, I will just enjoy the beauty of the season and the wonderful colours it brings.

Have fun and Happy Crafting!

Too Many Loose Ends!

2008-10-12T15:38:00.014+01:00

I have so many projects started but not finished that it's getting to be 'more started than ever finished!' So I have decided to do something about it. I went up to my work room on Friday evening and pulled out just three of the said projects and decided that I would make a determined effort to complete them over the course of the weekend and the evenings next week. Three seems a manageable number considering I have a two hour live TV show next month that I need to start prepping for.

The first item is an altered canvas started at a workshop I taught in the summer.....

..... although it started out as a canvas I was using in the workshop to demonstrate techniques and to show how different products can be used, I actually liked the colours and worked along with the class when I could. The Grungeboard pieces are just laid on top to get a feel of what space I will have left as I want to finish the piece with some Ten Seconds Studio metal work.

There's lots of stamping onto tissue paper and layering with hot wax. The smell of the hot wax in the studio was Divine!

Next is an album started at a Workshop that Glenda and I took with the very talented Lance Anderson - Mr Rusty Pickle himself when he was over here in the summer.

The book was about 75% completed at the workshop. It was intended that you would add the photo's, journalling and the finishing touches later in your own time. I want to work in a few more pages myself and use the backs of the finished pages too, so I've bought some more Rusty Pickle papers and other bits so that I can tailor it to my own needs. I've really enjoyed doing this so far and definitely want to see it finished.

The third item I've picked out is a little chipboard box with cards on a chain inside from Maya Road which I started at the last Graphicus Open Days in September.

I chose to demonstrate with this as each of the little cards were perfect for collaging stamped images, inking and embellishing. I didn't get too much done during the open days as people wanted to see so many different products and techniques that I was swapping from one thing to the next but I would like to finish the box and its contents to put in the shop so that visitors can see what can be done with it.

I've also used some Maya Road chipboard flowers inked, stamped and embellished with Glossy Accents and brads. They are such fun to use and there's so many ways in which you can use them.

All of my good intentions have come to a grinding halt today..... I had a bad few days with my knees last week, my meds don't seem to have been helping much at all. I hate to be defeated and even more, to give in so I just ignore the pain as much as I can and do what I want. But last night it decided that it was going to get me back for not paying attention and I started to get some really nasty pain in my back so eventually I gave in and went to bed... well, it was about 1.30 a.m. so I didn't really see it as giving in! This morning when I tried to get out of bed I just screeched and couldn't move in any direction, either to get up or to get back into bed and had to just sit cursing.... everything hurt!

It took me over half an hour to get up and dressed and then I had to negotiate the stairs. It goes without saying... nothing much has been achieved today. I can't sit, walk or find a position to lay down in that doesn't hurt, so I don't think I'm going to make much of a hole in finishing any of the above today. Even sitting at the PC for too long is impossible and this has had to be written in five minute stages with time out in between and has taken most of afternoon and evening to finish.

If anyone knows of a good vet!!!

Friends In Art

2008-10-05T00:53:00.010+01:00

Today was World Card Making Day! (It's the early hours of Sunday morning now so really it should by 'Yesterday' was World Card Making Day). I had intended to make cards and took myself of to my work room quite early in the day. After all, the weather was miserably and cold so I didn't feel guilty spending it crafting.

Glenda has a new TV show to film on Tuesday and I needed to get on with some samples for it that I have in production. The stamps being featured on the show are brand new Christmas stamps from Elusive Images and they are great fun to work with. Here's a card I made earlier in the week with products that are going to be featured on the show.....

It's quite unusual for me to work with pink, not one of my usual colours. There are three sets of Glimmer Mists featuring in the product line-up and I had all of the colours at home to work with. I had to start somewhere, so I just dipped into the box and picked one without looking and it was 'Pink Taffy', and that was what set the ball rolling.

Anyhow, back to today. I had a bit of mess to clear away before I could get started and to get me in the mood for working with Christmas stamps I decided instead of music, I would play this in the studio:

I love this film, a real 'feel good' movie with some lovely winter scenes. If you haven't seen it, it's definitely worth a watch. OK, so the movies on, I've cleaned away all the clutter and just have to put a couple of sets of stamps away I was working with during the week and I can get started, the only problem is the stamps are like magnets and my hand is stuck fast to them. They are screaming 'use me' and guess what? I get completely side tracked and set about making a set of tags, first with the Eccentric Edwardian themeplate and then with Paris Memories.

It's very difficult to make out in the photo, but I added some Glossy Accents to the clock face so that it would look like glass.

Then I moved on to the Paris themeplates, they are every bit as lovely and I could have spent hours playing with these stamps. But, there was work to be done and the day was getting away from me.... rapidly!

I had a friend keeping me company in the studio this afternoon,

I'm not sure if Diesel was poking his tongue out at me, the results of my artwork or my choice in movies which he appears to be watching here!

Cute or What?

Ink, Stamps and Rock 'n' Roll

2008-09-28T01:38:00.013+01:00

Earlier this week I had reason to get out some very fine detail stamps - Photo realistic stamps, for something I'm doing at work. Well, as I've been on leave this week it has given me extra time to play (or it should have).

I haven't been able to do much as I've been suffering terribly with conjunctivitis. First in the right eye and then the left. Ughhh! Total frustration. I've had the time to do things for me, to take time and enjoy what I'm doing and I can't even see to stick things down straight. OK, moan over..... the eyes are definitely (hopefully) on the mend. So yesterday and today I've been messing around with my photo realistic stamps. I didn't realise I had so many until I fished them all out.

This is what's been playing in the studio, loudly!

Something old and something new, both brilliant. It's really hard to sit still with this stuff playing!

Both of the stamps I've used in the following pieces are by Stampsmith. They have the most amazing collection of stamps.

This delightful cat stamp is called 'Princess'. I stamped in black ink and just left it at that. The detail is all going on around the focal image. I used some lovely paw-print brads and some rub-ons to accent the lay-out.

In the second piece I used one of Stampsmith's best known stamps - Ophelia. This was the very first Stampsmith image I bought and there's a bit of a story to it. I'm going back at least six years to a day when I decided to try to find a craft company that I'd seen advertised in some of the craft magazines. It was before I had a Tom Tom sat nav so I set off armed with the stores phone number and a rough idea of the general direction in which I was heading. I reckoned it would be about a fifty minute drive, possibly an hour as I didn't know where I was going.

After driving around aimlessly for well over an hour I thought I'd better pull over and ring them for specific directions. When the phone answered I got a very helpful lady called Emma who told me exactly how to find them and off I set again. This time I followed Emma's directions to the letter and fifteen minutes later I pulled into the car park and parked my car outside of Graphicus! Emma was indeed, extremely helpful. She ordered the 'Ophelia' stamp for me direct from Stampsmith in New York. This was on the Monday.... you can imagine my astonishment when on Friday of the same week, Emma rang me to say my stamp had arrived. Wow! was I impressed. And that was how I found Graphicus. It was of course in the days when they were located just outside of West Auckland village at High Etherley.

This time I stamped Ophelia in brown ink and I created a border by randomly stamping around the edge with the Christmas Rose stamp from Elusive Images. I added some gentle colour using a large stipple brush and dye inks in soft colours and used a selection of Stickles glitter glue to highlight Ophelia's hair adornments. On the next layer I chose ArtWords from the Diamond Art themeplate to overstamp the background.

Ophelia is available in several versions, from tiny to the large image I used here (Size: 3 3/4 in. wide x 4 1/2 in. high) and they also make the large Ophelia looking left.

I'm sorry about the poor lighting in the photographs, I'm really disappointed with the results. My workroom has fantastic lighting for crafting by but it's lousy for photography! If the sun shines tomorrow I'll get better shots and edit this post so that you can really see the colours. It also doesn't help when I'm jigging around to Kid Rock's - Rock N Roll Jesus!!!

Playing Catch-Up

2008-09-28T00:09:00.007+01:00

I thought it was about time I did a little 'catch-up' with thanks and feedback from comments that some of you have very kindly left on my blog.

First of all, I'd like to say that I read and treasure every comment that you leave. I know how busy life can be and for you to take a few minutes to stop and say Hi and let me know that you've been by means a lot to me, thank you. I know some people don't like to leave comments but please, if you're one of those people and you think that in some way you're intruding - you're definitely not! I'd love to hear from you. I see lots of visitors to the blog from both near and far away places and wonder who you are.... let me know.... I'm fascinated and honoured that you visited.

Going back in the blog to the Concertina Keepsake that was made for one of the TV shows, several people left comments and emailed me asking if I would do a step-by-step on the blog? I would love to and will eventually, but I'm teaching this project together with an Origami Box to house the Keepsake in at Graphicus in November.

Lisa Bruno, a very welcome visitor from the USA contacted me via the blog. I have sent several emails to you at the email address you gave me but I don't think you're getting them Lisa. The first couple I sent bounced back so I re-sent them and I haven't heard anything since then. If you didn't receive my mail would you email me again (you'll find an email link if you go to my profile page) and I'll try using your message to reply.

And finally....

I'm honoured and delighted to have been given not ONE but TWO awards from fellow bloggers and crafters Phree at Ink Stain Survivor and Craftymamma at Craftymamma Love n Hugs. Thank you so much to both of you for thinking of me. I am going to have to give some thought to who I will pass it on to as there are so many wonderful people out there who deserve to be recognised. I will be back with my nominations.

Check out Phree's blog here, there's lots of lovely inspiration:
http://inkstainsurvivor.blogspot.com/

and then go take a look at Craftymamma's blog for even more inspiration: http://craftymammalovenhugs.blogspot.com/

Both ladies have beautiful artwork featured on their blogs together with some fab photography giving great suggestions for very interesting days out - particularly useful if you're a scrapper looking for great photo opportunities! I'm a regular visitor to both blogs and love what they do. If you're an Elusive Images fan - you will too!

Thank you both.

Autumn Equinox and New Beginnings

2008-09-24T17:09:00.009+01:00

Ok, so I know that it was the Autumn Equinox at the beginning of this week but what happened to Summer? We had a reasonably nice weekend, in fact on Saturday I hopped in my car and shot off down to Harrogate for a couple of hours to the Great Northern Papercraft Extravaganza. The weather was really beautiful with a fab drive in both directions. Sunday wasn't too bad either. Then came the 23rd and in came Autumn and I've been frozen ever since.

In fact, on Monday I was working away in my little studio and kept seeing something fluttering past the window, so after a couple of times of being distracted by this 'something' I sat back and watched and yes...... the leaves were gently fluttering from the large oak tree in the back garden. It wasn't the wind as it was almost still and the leaves were still falling. I wouldn't mind too much if we'd had a summer but we really haven't this year and it's turned so cold, I've been muffled up in a fleece much of this week.

Then, to add insult to injury, I get this sent to me........

That's my 'baby' brother! and the photo was only taken on Sunday the 22nd of September. Clive is a Captain with an International Airline and just a few weeks ago he re-based to East Africa. He has been lording it up in a 5 star hotel since then while he underwent his Sim checks and looked around at houses. Now he's having to do some work and his first flight since his move (on a real aeroplane - not a simulator) is today. Actually, as I am writing this he is winging his way towards London Heathrow where he is due to touch down about 2000 hours this evening. I don't tell him half as much as I should.... and if you do drop by the blog and read this Clive - I'm really proud of you.

He's been trotting around the globe for a lot of years, first in the RAF and then with several large commercial airlines, and he's normally home every week or so for his days off. But this posting will take him away for longer periods of time. Thank God for the Internet and Instant Messenger and web cams but even that can be frustrating. I don't think Broadband has reached East Africa yet.... you wouldn't think so by the length of time it takes for him to load a web page.

Just before he left the UK I set up a blog for him. Now it's normally the other way around and he is usually the one giving me advise and sorting out PC snags when he's up in this neck of the woods. But he was so busy in the weeks before his re-base that it saved him time by me doing the set-up for him. I thought it would be a great way of the family and friends being able to keep track of him and share in the places he visits and if he gets a few visitors to the blog along the way then it will all add to the interest. So if you'd like to check out his wanderings you can ride along with him here. There's not a lot to see so far, he tells me he's been really busy! Yeh Yeh! But he's posted an essay about his childhood and his longing to fly for a living.

Reading it was really quite strange, seeing someone elses view of our early years. I howled at his account of riding his bicycle through a rather posh restaurant in Mombasa and his memories of being bullied at school back home in the UK brought tears to my eyes. After all, I'm his big sister and I would have loved to have given them a taste of their own medicine.... if only I had known.

It was his recollection of us setting up our own aircraft cabin using the dining room chairs and playing airlines that really brought memories flooding back. Gosh, what a great time we used to have. With Clive playing the Captain and me wearing my little forage cap and white gloves (just like air hostesses used to in the early 60's when it was very much a debutantes job) and I would put on my best BBC presenters voice to announce ' would all passengers travelling on BOAC flight 90 to Beirut via Anchorage and the Azores (yes I know, strange routing but it sounded so exciting) go immediately to gate 2 where your flight is waiting to depart' . Who would ever have known that within 10 years I would be doing it for real and 6 years later, so would he! I told my parents that I was going to be an 'Air Hostess' when I was just 6 years old and I was accepted at a cabin crew interview just a few weeks before my 18th birthday. Oh happy days!

I will put a link to his blog on mine in the side bar and if you do stop by, please leave him a comment - he'll be so pleased to know you've visited!

Well, I've had a lovely time reliving some of my childhood days but it's time to get back to NOW!

I've been working on a lot of Design Team things that I can't share just at the moment.... I will as soon as I can. Some of what I've been doing is for the Graphicus Guild to be featured both this month and next month. Coming up very very soon in this months Guild newsletter is my Christmas planner using the Bind-It-All.

A sneaky peak. There's a step-by-step on how to make the planner/organiser and you get to see inside too!

This sample has been made using a photo-realistic stamp, I love working with them and own lots of them by companies such as Stampsmith, Oxford Impressions and Magenta to name just a few.
They are really quite different and you can achieve quite a dramatic result with them.

I may be back later with more pics of some other things, my camera battery is completely flat and it's taking forever to charge up.

I Hope You Have a Simply 'Awesome' Day!

2008-09-15T10:35:00.007+01:00

Just a quick post this morning as it's my day off but it's already packed with things I must do.

This time last year we (Glenda, Adrian and I) were in Las Vegas to attend the Memory Trends trade show. We started our journey on the 12th of September when we travelled to Manchester to night stop before an early start on the 13th, flying with my old employer BMI, direct to Las Vegas.

The point of all this? Well, a certain someone has a birthday this week and it reminded me of how we celebrated it last year. On the day of Adrian's birthday, I woke at about 4 a.m. (still not acclimatised to the time difference) dressed and went down to the Casino floor where there were several shops - all open at this ridiculous time in the morning! The Casino was still busy and you really couldn't tell if it was day or night.

I bought, YES I said 'BOUGHT' a couple of Birthday cards (having travelled light with the very minimum of craft stuff as I knew I'd be taking a whole lot more back with me, I didn't have what I needed to be able to hand make the cards). Back to my room to write out the cards, one from everyone back at Graphicus and Elusive Images and the other from me. Tiptoe down the corridor to push the envelopes under the door to Glenda and Adrian's room and then back to bed for a couple of hours.

When we met for a lovely leisurely breakfast Glenda presented Adrian with a chocolate doughnut complete with candle.

It has brought back such lovely memories so much so, that I spent most of yesterday organising and editing the hundreds of photos I took in Vegas. When I came across the ones taken on 'the day', I thought what a great idea to do a scrappin layout in honour of Adrian's Birthday. I can't say exactly which day it falls on (Yes, I do know - but with all the problems of ID theft etc, it would be silly of me to post it all over the Internet wouldn't it)? so I shall simply say........

"A very Happy Birthday Adrian!" I hope that you enjoy it as much as I did last year and that you manage to do something you want to do and would 'like' to do this time! (Glenda and I dragged Adrian around sooo many Craft Shops and Scrapping Stores, I'm sure it wasn't Adrian's idea of heaven even though it was ours).

This has really got me into the Scrapping mood and I think the time might be right for a Vegas album to record our adventures.... so look out, 'it's all coming back to me now'! Awesome. Didn't someone sing that line? I think she may even have had a show running in Vegas at the time.

Just a few bits and bobs that I've been playing around with. On this tag I coloured up the tag with Ranger's Distress Inks applied with Cut 'n' Dry foam, stamped the small script down the left hand side with Walnut Distress ink and stamped the emblem using the white Paint Dabber and then clear embossed it. I took a piece of pre-printed paper and stamped the lady with Walnut distress ink and attached it to a piece of Memory Glass using Glossy Accents. The glass was encased with Copper Memory Foil and adhered to the tag with clear silicone. All of the ingredients are from Graphicus and Stamps by Elusive Images.

This little piece was created by spraying the background with a concoction of Ditress Ink Refills, water and Perfect Pearls all mixed up in a Mini Mister. Inky and Fun!

It's Been A Fun Time........

2008-09-08T21:11:00.009+01:00

I've been absent from my blog for a week or two, mainly due to the work load at the moment. It's been incredibly busy at work since our buying trip. We bought such a lot of product and it all had to be sorted, priced and merchandised for the two open days that we had planned (05th and 06th September).

In amongst getting the August Graphicus Guild newsletter published and starting the articles for the September issue which we are trying to bring forward, Glenda thought it would be a really good idea to pull the shop apart. In hindsight, it was! But none of us thought so when we walked in at the beginning of last week, just a few days away from a major event and saw what looked like WWIII had started and ended in the shop. Wish I'd taken a photo of it from my office.... you wouldn't ever have believed the mess.

Anyway, everyone mucked in and worked really hard and put together the most incredible results. I did plan on taking photos of the shop before the event started on Friday but things overtook us and I never got the opportunity to get the camera out. I will get some photos this week and put them on the blog for anyone who didn't manage to make it to the event last Friday and Saturday.

Guess what arrived in the post at work on Saturday morning just before the second day of the event kicked off? This........

Yes, that's my Stampbord Mirror on the front cover and there's an article inside too. The article features an array of information and techniques by Glenda and my Stampbord Mirror Project.

I must say a huge thank you to Glenda for submitting this...... she is always telling me that I should submit my work to a magazine. So a big thank you Glenda! I am delighted that it got into the mag - I'm ecstatic that it made the front cover.

The Craft Stamper Magazine is full of wonderful work by some amazing designers including our wonderful Helen Chilton (stamp designer and card maker extraordinaire). I love the new format that the magazine has adopted since all the changes have been made and very much admire the
work of all the designers including Katy Fox, the editor. If you are one of the many people who stopped buying the magazine some time ago, please do give it another try! I think you will be very surprised at how good it now is. I read it cover to cover... there's some real cool stuff in there!

Back to the open days: despite appalling weather the event was well attended. It never ceases to amaze me how far people travel in such dreadful conditions to join us at our event days. Thank you to every one who made the effort and battled through the horrid weather to be with us, it was a brill two days, we met some wonderful people - some old friends and lots of new ones!

Glenda, Annette, Lesley and I were all demonstrating and we were supported by Judith, Carrie, Denise, Vickie, Kath and Jess who did a sterling job of keeping the shop shelves stocked (now that's a tongue twister), answering questions and locating goodies for the customers. Judith, who is our Guild Administrator was kept really busy by all you new members who joined at the weekend and were eager to get your hands on the latest Graphicus Guild Newsletter and Welcome Pack! And, last but not least - David (Lesley's husband) better known as 'Chef' who once again did a fantastic job of turning into Gordon Ramsey (without attitude) to produce some fab cuisine that kept us all going throughout the two days. I must say a big thank you too to Adrian who fixed my demo chair after the foot went missing from one of the legs.... oooo painful!

Debi, accompanied by her husband and lovely friend visited on Saturday. A fellow blogger and avid crafter (and shopper) drove quite a distance to be with us and brought some wonderful samples of her work for us to see. Both Glenda and I had seen photos of Debi's cards on her blog and when we found out she intended coming to the event, we asked her to bring the cards for us to 'stroke'. They were even more beautiful in real life and I was stunned when Debi gave me this card. I love it! I think it should have been the other way around though as it was Debi's birthday on Saturday..... I didn't know until just as she was leaving. So a very Happy (belated) Birthday Debi and thank you for spending it with us.

After we finished on Saturday evening I packed up all my demo equipment intent on carrying on with some projects at home on Sunday/Monday. Well, my knees had other ideas. I don't want to dwell on this subject too much (they occupy enough of my time). After a much misspent youth where years of ice skating/ice dancing, Latin American dancing and walking my way around the world for twenty five years whilst working for an airline just about destroyed all of the cartilage in my knee joints, I am now in severe pain most of the time. I am lucky that some times it's the right knee that is worse and others the left knee but this weekend it's been both of them together and the copious amounts of medication I have to take just hasn't had any effect at all. I'm waiting for the results of x-rays I had taken last Monday to find out what can be done. Anyway, it put pay to the plans I had to do more in my work room and to the shopping I had planned for today!

I have managed to do some work on an album whilst sitting on the sofa today. A few months back, Glenda and I attended a couple of workshops with Lance Anderson - Mr Rusty Pickle, when he was over here from the USA. I didn't manage to finish the album at the workshop and have been putting the finishing touches to the pages before adding photos and journalling.

The afternoon session was called the "Rustic Journey" workshop. We made an Altered Tag Accordion Envelope Album using Rusty Pickle papers and ephemera. Each of the envelopes contains a double sided tag - some of them are interactive.

This tag opens to reveal about 6 pages of plain paper for pictures and journalling. How cool is that?

Another little journalling 'tag' book I added to the page tag myself. There are more tags that I haven't included here.... too many for one post!

There is also a file folder tucked into the middle of the concertina album which houses another tag that pulls out sideways.

And finally, this is a find from a lovely shop in Barnard Castle that Glenda introduced me to. They have soooooo many fabulous things from small ornaments, lamps, jewellery and cushions right up to full sized pieces of furniture. It's one of those shops that you go into and spend ages browsing through the entire contents but still don't manage to take everything in. I saw this and thought that it would make a great home for my small albums! It is quite opulent and has a wonderful ornate catch. One thing's for certain...... I will definitely be going back there to visit again!

I'm So Excited!

2008-08-21T21:42:00.012+01:00

Last Friday I received an email which totally blew me away!

I've been sitting on it ever since and walking around with a silly grin on my face akin to that of a Cheshire Cat - and one that got the cream to boot. Why you may ask? Well, I'm going to let you into a little secret...... unbeknown to me (at the time), Glenda submitted a piece of my artwork to the Craft Stamper magazine for a feature they are running in the next issue. When she told me what she had done I was delighted and hoped, at best, that it would be included - even if it was only a small picture of the piece. Guess what????? I GOT THE COVER!!!! Yes, the email was to tell me that my art work has been chosen as the front cover for Craft Stamper, October issue.

Now that said, I really don't know if it will be the main picture or just a little one to support the main feature on the cover. I probably won't know until I see the magazine on the shelves, but anywhere on the cover is just fine by me. I have offered to do personal signings at my local branch of Borders - but so far, they haven't taken me up on my offer! LOL

Now, I'll calm down and get on with this. If the week started last Friday instead of Monday it would have been the start of a brilliant week. The rest of Friday and Saturday was spent prepping demos for the TV shows scheduled for Monday. I don't know where the weekend went but it disappeared in a flash.

Sunday saw Glenda, Adrian and I setting off on that long trek down the A1 to Peterborough to be in situ for an early start the next morning. The drive was pretty uneventful and we arrived safely, off-loaded the car, checked into the hotel, had dinner and crashed for the night.

One very funny moment and one that I didn't have my camera handy for at the time, was the picture of Glenda and I sitting at the table in the restaurant waiting for our dinner to arrive - both sat with our Tim Holtz scissors in hand, cutting out gold embossed Poinsettia's for an unfinished demo. Anyone would think we were addicted to crafting!!! Poor Adrian must live in constant fear of what we might do next. Our waiter did a very good job of ignoring our peculiar behaviour.

The TV shows were both fast and furious - again!

Here's the finished sample of the Frosted Snowman from the 'Snow is Falling' themeplate which was on the morning show.

I don't have a photo of the 'Crown' card from the Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh Themeplate as it was sent out to the email winner. I will try to make another over the weekend and include it on the blog if I get a minute.

Here's the little Concertina Keepsake that I've been teasing you with in the last two posts. Sorry...... I am naughty! I used to make these many, many years ago and to be honest, I'd forgotten about them. It was only when I was sat planning my demo's and thinking about what I was going to do this time, that I remembered this technique.

It really is a very simple project, I know it may not look it but it's easy to do. There is however, a lot of stamping and it's a great way of using all your Botanical stamps. I also made use of the Butterfly Bliss CD ROM for the printed card on the inside layer. This was made for the afternoon show but unfortunately I didn't get to do the demo as we sold out of all the stamps before I got to it.

Once the last show had finished, we got packed away and hit the road again but going South not North. We were heading for Cambridge where we were staying overnight.

In fact, we had a super evening. Adrian used to be at University in Cambridge so gave us a wonderful tour (on foot) of Cambridge and recounted some funny tales of a not-so-misspent youth. The rain held off, my feet and knees hurt terribly, Glenda had blisters on her feet, we had the most fab dinner (Italian) YUMM! got some lovely photos for the album and laughed - a lot.

The next morning (Tuesday) bright and early, we set off to one of our suppliers located not too far away. Unfortunately, they have recently announced their intention to close the business which is always very sad - but it gave us the ideal opportunity to shop for our up and coming open days at Graphicus in September..... and shop we did!

Adrian left Glenda and I to it and we were like two big kids in a ginormous sweety shop, oh Bliss! We filled box after box, basket after basket and mounded them up in the office ready for them to put our purchases through the till when we'd finished. We kept going back for more, then spotting something else that we'd totally managed to overlook. I don't know how many time we went round the warehouse (I do know now that our feet were throbbing) but you just don't notice it when you're shopping do you? When we finally finished we stood looking at the huge pile of boxes brimming with wonderful goodies and thinking that we were going to have to have them shipped. Then Adrian appeared to see what we were up to (it was mid afternoon by then) and he didn't even flinch when he saw the mountain of stash!

He assessed our selection and said confidently that it would fit into his monster truck and yes, they would still have room for ME! And they did! It was only a little space for me but I was surrounded by all our fab goodies so did I care? Nahhhh! not a jot. It gave me the ideal opportunity to sit and hug them all the way home.

I know this may not look like a lot but remember, I was in the back and we had two large rolling craft trolleys, a big box with all the sample artwork from two TV shows, two suitcases, an ink locker, carrying wardrobe, tool carousel, cuddly toy and a kitchen sink as well! (OK! OK! I'm prone to exaggerating, we didn't have a cuddly toy or a kitchen sink) but the car was filled to the rafters.

Once inside the building, you really get a feel for how much 'stash' we managed to transport. Now, let me at those boxes.

Stand aside Glenda..... let me in! You have no idea just how excited we both were. I don't think we've had such fun since hitting the craft stores in Las Vegas last September. Ordering stock on-line and from catalogues is never as much fun as being able to stroke the stash there and then.

What could this be I wonder? It managed to jump out of one of the boxes and landed right in front of my camera just as I opened the shutter. How fortuitous was that? All I can say is, if you are able to join us at one of the Graphicus Open Days (05th and 06th September) then please do, you're in for a treat!

And finally, I teased you yesterday with an obscure view of a little something I've been working on and here's another little taster. If you're a Graphicus Guild member you'll be finding out what all this is about very soon!!!

Coming Soon..... to a Blog Near You!

2008-08-20T23:22:00.006+01:00

I'm back from my travels! Oh what a fun week is has been so far, there's so much going on! I have been snapping away with my camera and had intended to sit down and bring my blog bang up to date this evening but it's taken me most of the evening to edit all the photo's and reduce them in size ready to put on the blog.

Then, when I was ready to begin my eye started playing up. It's incredibly sore and staring at this screen is making it much worse. So I'm going to get an early night (yes! anything before midnight is early for me). I'm a bit of a night owl and fortunately for me, I only seem to need about four to five hours sleep - leaves me more time for crafting!

I will aim to bring everything up to date tomorrow evening and will post pictures of the demos from the TV shows last Monday...... including the one I didn't get to do as we sold out of the Blooming Botanicals too quickly.

I also have some really exciting news that I've been dying to share with you. In the mean time, here are some photo's taken at fairly obscure angles for you to ponder over.

Night Night!

Add Talent, Imagination, Creativity and 'A Splash of Colour'

2008-08-16T22:38:00.006+01:00

This is just a very quick post this evening as I'm still prepping for the TV shows on Monday as well as getting the packing done in an effort to be ready to set off tomorrow.

I just have to tell you about the most talented lady who, after much encouragement (bullying to you and me) has taken the plunge and launched her new BLOG today! Yey! Helen is an Elusive Images stamp designer and a very valued member of the EI Design Team. She is one of the most stylish, innovative and imaginative stampers out there. I am sure you will recognise her work from many of the projects that she has had published in craft magazines here in the UK. Most recently, Helen designed the 'Snow is Falling' A4 Themeplate launched by EI last month. It is a fabulous set of stamps (see it on Ideal World and Create and Craft Channel at 9 a.m. on Monday) which I truly love working with - thank you Helen!

I am so delighted that she has finally started blogging. Please, do go and visit her blog and if you have a moment, leave a little comment for her. It's called 'A Splash of Colour' click on the link and you'll be transported to Helen's creative world!

I'll leave you with a few photo's of some of the prep from this afternoon. You'll have to watch the show to see the finished project... I'm quite pleased with the results.

Any ideas what it's going to be? The pattern is printed onto Ivory card from the Butterfly Bliss CD ROM and the Botanicals have been embossed with lightly glittered white embossing powder. I'll post the finished item here when I get back!

'Lights, Camera, Action'

2008-08-11T21:43:00.025+01:00

What's happened to the Summer? It would seem that we get a couple of nice days and then pay the penalty for the next two weeks - at least! The only good thing about it is that I don't feel quite so guilty about spending time inside in my craft room prepping, which is where I've been this afternoon and most of the evening..... with not a lot to show for it I'm afraid.

Glenda and I have another two live TV shows scheduled for Monday the 18th August on Ideal World and Create and Craft (all being well and subject to the usual last minute changes). We will travel down to Peterborough on Sunday as we have an early start on Monday and have to be in the studio to set up at 7 a.m. to be on air at 9 a.m. We then have a couple of hours down time before the second show at 2 p.m.

The nine o'clock show is going to be another Christmas show with Snow is Falling, Hearth and Home, the Three Kings themeplates, a 'premier' product and Season's Greetings CD ROM. After the Christmas Workshop last Friday I feel 'all Christmas'd out' and need to do something radical to get me back in the festive groove..... and NO! I'm not going to put up the Christmas Tree. I don't think I need to do anything quite that radical. But it may have to be a nice Christmassy movie when I get in from work tomorrow evening to help move things along while I'm prepping.

The two o'clock show will feature brand new stamps (yey!), another 'premier' item???? and Artylicious CD ROM's. We won't have the 'premier' items to work with until tomorrow, so I think once everything is pulled together it will be a lot easier to decide on what I'm going to do for demo's. My problem is narrowing it down, the stamps are all so beautiful there's soooo much I want to do with them but I just know that we won't get the time.

The last two shows in July were so fast and furious, I don't think I've ever seen products sell out quite so quickly. I hardly got into the demos before the stamps I was using became limited stock. So if you were watching and didn't get to see the whole demo, here are the finished cards I made from the show.

'Snow is Falling' Stamped with VersaMark ink and coloured with Pearlescent Shimmering chalks. The whole surface was then dabbed with VersaMark and embossed with clear embossing powder.

' Following Yonder Star'

Stamped on acetate with black StazOn and guilded from the reverse side with multi-coloured gold leaf.

'Hearth and Home'

'Christmas Fusion'

When we went down for the last two shows both Glenda and I took our cameras with us and we snapped away pretty much the whole time (except for when we were on air of course). I have several scrap books just waiting to be filled and I thought it might be fun to record our visits to Ideal World and Create and Craft.

This is 'Orton Hall Hotel'. A 17th century manor house set in 20 acres of parkland where we stayed the night before the show.

Here's Adrian relaxing in the Green Room. This is where the guest presenters hang out and get ready before shows.......

......and Glenda in the Green Room snapping away at something very interesting on the floor?

This is our dressing room. There are two attached to the green room plus a small kitchen. It all looks very exciting doesn't it, but if you could see us when we arrive with all our craft trolleys, samples, carrying wardrobes, bags and NO MAKE-UP! at seven o'clock in the morning, you wouldn't think so. The poor security men on the gate get to see us 'warts and all'. A frightening concept (speaking for myself of course).

Once we've put on our faces and coiffed the hair, the floor manager comes to collect us and we go through to the studio to set everything up. This is usually about an hour and a half before the show starts.

Glenda is getting all the samples and her demo equipment set up while Adrian is checking that the computer is loaded with the right Artylicious CD ROM and that the PC WORKS! You can see the bank of camera's and cue screens in front of the set.

Adrian is putting the PC through it's paces to make sure that it's not going to let us down once we're on air. This is a live show and we can't stop and start again if something goes wrong. Oh how I like 'living on the edge'!

Hey Glenda, you're on the wrong side of the camera. But doesn't Adrian look the part? He looks so at home and comfortable behind that camera all he needs now is the head phones.

Ok, we're all set up and ready to go. Just waiting to be 'mic'ed up' for sound. Then we have a final meeting with the producer and floor manager to decide the running order for the show, meet with our Ideal World presenter who for this show was Stephanie and then it's 'Lights, Camera, Action' and you know the rest.

Before we know it the floor manager is counting us out and the show is over. I've never got used to just how quickly it goes. We have a quick tidy and set up again with new demo's for the next show which is in just one hour.

The show was a sell out (including the stock we had for the eleven o'clock show) so we have to get back to the green room for a meeting with Adrian to make sure that we do have stock for the next show. Never fear, Adrian has already been on the phone to the office and the Production Department are in action as we speak getting more stock manufactured and ready to ship down to Ideal World..... like NOW!

No time for a cuppa, it's straight back into the studio to get mic'ed-up and do it all again. You may ask, why bother taking the microphones off when we're only off set for such a short time? Well, they are radio mic's and you can never quite be sure if they're turned off and sometimes you may just have to pay a visit to another 'little' room in the green room..... get the idea? It could be quite embarrassing to say the least.

After the second show has finished (another sell out - yey!) we quickly get packed away in the studio and return to the green room for yet another meeting, this time with our buyer. More shows are programmed in for the coming months and then we can hit the road back 'up north'. Here is Adrian packing the last of our equipment into his car before we leave. It's a good job his car is so roomy - you should see just how much stuff has to fit in there, especially when our trip is an overnight one.

Well, that's it for now. We do it all again starting with the prep and pack the car up for the journey south on Sunday! I know it can be quite frustrating at times, especially when everything is prepped and ready and a show gets moved or cancelled at the last minute but on the whole, it is great fun. We're crafting after all..... can it get any better?

A Little Forward Planning

2008-08-10T23:58:00.006+01:00

On Friday, Glenda and I taught a Christmas Workshop at Graphicus. They are always fun and a bit bizarre especially when it's hot and sunny and the Christmas music is playing in the background.... this is what Christmas in Australia must be like... mmmmm!

Two of the ladies on the workshop travelled all the way from Stoke to attend and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. I taught the morning session and Glenda the afternoon session.

My class was all about getting a head start on the Christmas preparations and we made this Christmas Organiser File Book with the Bind-It-All. The pages were all cut with the DreamKuts machine which saved me such a lot of time when prepping up the workshop. I have spent most of today putting mine together and adding the finishing touches. The one we made in the workshop had sections for Christmas Shopping Lists, a 'To Do' section, Christmas Card List and File Pocket Pages with tabs that you can keep things like receipts, postage stamps and gift tokens in.
It also has pages of Christmas Verses printed on vellum and plain sheets of card for stamping on. The Journalling themeplate has been used together with Snow is Falling, Hearth and Home and the Wise Men themeplates to decorate pages throughout the organiser.

I have added extra sections to mine today for note taking, menus and the endless lists I make to get myself organised for the festive season. I didn't get chance to join in the stamping on Friday so I took the time to add the stamped pages to my book.

The papers are all from My Minds Eye and Bazzill and I have decorated the cover with chip board letters inked with Adirondack pigment ink and edged with a Krylon gold leafing pen. I then covered the letters with Rangers Glossy Accents to seal in the colour and added a beautiful Prima bloom and lots of organza ribbons tied to the 'O' rings that bind the book.

Now I'm all ready to start the festive planning!

Just a Quickie!

2008-08-09T00:25:00.007+01:00

Card Featuring a Grungeboard Flower

I'm going to keep this brief tonight - I've been teaching a Christmas Workshop today, we had a fab time but I'm now about ready to fall into bed. So I'll post a full update tomorrow.

But for now, I've had some enquiries about the Grungeboard, the techniques I use to make the flowers and how to go about joining the Grahicus Guild. As I don't have individual links back to the people wanting to know more, I will try to answer your queries here. The August GG Newsletter will contain a step-by-step tutorial featuring the Grungeboard flowers and will go out to all GG members the week after next (all being well).
The Graphicus Guild details are available here! (click on the link).

The Graphicus Guild is all about education. Learning new skills and trying new techniques. The monthly newsletter is written for crafters at all levels and features all sorts of useful information including product reviews, money saving offers, step-by-step tutorials, inspiration, a monthly ATC swap, find out what's happening at Graphicus and when, and get priority booking on our workshops. These are just a sellection of the things you'll find in the newsletter on a regular basis together with a whole lot more.

I do hope this answers some of your questions if not all of them. The Guild membership is growing daily, it's a wonderful way of increasing your crafting knowledge and of course.... there's the opportunity to get your Guild Members Limited Edition stamps every month at very special prices! They are beautiful and well worth having in your collection.

For those of you who are not yet members:
We hope to be able to welcome you to the Guild very soon and to introduce you to the wonders of Grungeboard if you haven't already tried it.

Happy Crafting to all!

PS: Hi Lisa - if you'd like to leave a comment on my blog with your email address I will contact you directly, the comment including your email address 'won't' be posted to the blog to protect your contact details.

I'm a WYLDE Woman - and that's Official!

2008-08-03T15:11:00.020+01:00

Thank you so much to Glenda for thinking of me when passing on this award. It is indeed an honour coming from someone who is so acclaimed, both in the blogging world and the world of Art and Crafts.

I am officially......

A [Wild] WYLDE Woman!

Purpose of the Award: To send love and acknowledgement to women who brighten your day, teach you new things and live their lives fully with generosity and joy.

Is this me? I'm not sure but I will certainly try hard to live up to it.

There are only two rules:
1. You can give it to one or one hundred or any number in between - it’s up to you. Make sure you link to their site in your post.

2. Link back to this blog site (http://tammyvitale.typepad.com/) so I can go visit all these wonderful women.

Of course, I just had to go visit Tammy's site to find out how this all started. If you have a minute (you'll need longer than that mind you) do stop by and take a look, there are some fabulous links which will take you in all sorts of different directions. She has some wonderful work on her blog site which is sure to inspire.

Receiving this award has caused me some serious consternation... just who am I going to pass it on to? Glenda, quite rightly, richly deserved it. She is constantly inspiring people, generous in sharing techniques and ideas and packs so much into a twenty four hour period that it frequently makes my head spin. It has made me think very seriously about the purpose of the award and who, in my opinion fulfills the criteria.

There are several people who do fit the bill but some don't have blogs, others have already received this award or have blogs which are by invitation only. So I am going to give it to someone who hasn't been blogging for very long but has been crafting for an eternity. Whenever I talk to her or see her demonstrating products, I learn something new. Nothing is ever too much trouble for her, she is infectiously happy, a constant source of inspiration, forever coming up with new ideas and really knows her stuff. Want to know who it is? I'm going to do 'a Glenda' and say take a look here!

So what have I been up to today?

Well for a start, this little lot has been playing in the studio..... loudly,

while I have been road testing Ranger's Inkssentials Opaque White Pen. They have just arrived in stock at Graphicus but I have a feeling that they are not going to last very long. They are absolutely fabulous!

I have several 'white' pens from different manufacturers. Some work reasonably well, others are very hit and miss. I usually use Sakura's white Souffle pen which I have had some good results from. The only draw back is that you have to wait for it to dry to finally see the results. It appears 'watery' or 'milky' when it first goes on but dries quite opaque.

Now this little beauty is everything I had hoped it would be. Trust 'Ranger' not to disappoint. It glides on very evenly with no striping. At first I was a little concerned about the thickness of the nib, I needn't have been as it is quite deceptive and I was able to achieve some very fine detail with it. The ink is a bright opaque white and doesn't take long to dry. It's very addictive and I found myself doodling away on anything and everything. Here are some of the results:

Dots and Dashes.... great for faux stitching effects.

And this is how well I was able to pick out very fine detail in a stamped image.
Depending on how you angle and pull the ink you can even taper your strokes.... nice effect!

I could have spent all day just doodling. I feel a 'Black and White' phase coming on.

This stamped image has been embossed with white embossing powder before attacking it with the Inkssentials pen so you don't get the contrast that you do when just stamping with a white ink pad.

This is 'Art Word' from the Elusive Elements range, stamped in white ink with a free hand doodle frame applied with the pen.

Finally, my old friend Grungeboard. This is my latest offering using an Elusive Images Script stamp from the Age of Chivalry themeplate in the background and over stamped with Impression Obsessions wood mounted Victorian Rose stamp which has also been used to create the Grungeboard flower and leaves.

I have used Stickles glue to accent the leaves and around the very edges of the petals on the rose. A small gem in the centre of the flower finished it off.

The inks used are Tim's Distress Inks and VersaFine Onyx Black for stamping the flowers on the tag background and the Grungeboard.That's all for now folks! But there's plenty more to come - I have a lot of catching up to do.

This Time I REALLY AM BACK!!!

2008-07-29T22:01:00.003+01:00

Hi to all my Blogging Friends out there! Yay.... after working on my PC since Friday night, I'm finally back on line and 'de-bugged' by the look of it (fingers, toes, legs and arms all crossed tightly).

It has been a real battle and test of wills and skills (more will than skill I can tell you). After wiping my PC and re-installing Windows (twice since Friday night) I had everything zipping along beautifully yesterday until I tried to install the re-location disc that AOL sent out to allow them to move me over to their new BB Network and then it all went pear shaped and I lost my Internet connection.... same on my lap top! A very, very nice PC engineer came out this evening and sorted the connection out and got my systems singing sweetly once again.

Now I just have to install Office and all my other programmes, printers, camera etc, etc. I will work my way through everything methodically. But one thing's for sure - I can get onto Blogger again and I even have an operative browse button to access my photo's and a hyperlink that works too... yessss!

So I should be back with you again very soon. I have lots of pics to download and newsy bits to update so keep checking back. Thank you all for sticking with me through this technological nightmare, I really appreciate it and for all your lovely comments left on previous posts.

Now, back to work. The sooner I get all of this sorted the sooner I can come out to play!

Still Having Fun - if not a lot of sleep!

2008-07-12T01:21:00.019+01:00

Now Blogger's playing games - the date should read Satuday 19th July. I'm not the only one who can't keep track of time!

Before I get started I'd like to say a big thank you to everyone who's left comments on the last couple of posts and for all the lovely things you've said about my Grungeboard Tags. I really do have an addiction to that stuff and there WILL be more to come. Thank you for taking the time to let me know you're out there! For all the Graphicus Guild members, look out for next months Guild Newsletter (August) - I'm doing a 'step-by-step' on creating the Grungeboard Flowers.

OK, let' get started. What a whirlwind month July has turned into. So much so that I am totally convinced it's still June, having written June three times in one day instead of July. I really can't get my head around the fact that we are more than half way through this year.... frightening!

To catch up a little with what's been happening I'll go back to the end of June and the beginning of July when we held our two day Retailer Retreat. It was one of those events that you think you have plenty of time to prepare for and then before you know it..... you don't!

It was held at the magnificent Headlam Hall Hotel between Darlington and Barnard Castle. What a beautiful setting. We had the whole of the Edwardian Suite .... complete with a reception room, conservatory, anti-room where coffee was served morning and afternoon and of course, the main room which was set up for workshops. We also had two days of really beautiful weather. I am so pleased that everyone who attended got the opportunity to visit the North East when the sun was shining (it does - just occasionally)!

Glenda, Lesley, Annette and myself were teaching workshops for two days solid. It was like speed dating only for crafting 'Speed Crafting' - great fun! The workshops were all based on the products that Elusive Images manufactures or distributes to the trade and although it was both mentally and physically draining, we had an absolute blast. Hop over to Glenda's blog where you can see some photo's - I was so busy my camera never even left my bag which is a great shame because at the end of day two just before everyone departed, Adrian treated us all to his rendition of the 'Gay Starfish' - don't ask, if you haven't seen it I couldn't even begin to explain but it is side-splittingly funny. Oh how I wish I'd captured that..... could have made a fortune.

Then there was the aftermath of the event with work being extremely busy. At the end of that week, Glenda had the Pick of the Week launching on Create and Craft TV with the new CD ROM: Peacock Summer Party and a live show with brand new themeplates, so life at Graphicus and Elusive Images was mad - totally and still is!

I promised last time to post a photo of the parchment necklace I made using the Ruby Tuesday and Diamante Delights themeplates. Thanks go to Carrie-Anne for the photography! It was made for the 'Glimmer with Glenda' show featuring these stamps and was also displayed at the retailer training event. It has given me a lot of food for thought and I have another venture planned on a much 'grander' scale, but you'll have to wait for a sneak peek as it's going to take some time to take it from the design stage to completion. This one's a long term project for the coming months.... keep popping back and I'll keep dangling the carrot!

Ok! It's time to make art....... and this is where it happens.

Another thing I promised, was to show you some of the finishing touches I added to the home studio. I'm a terrible collector of objet d'art (another reason why I need a bigger house - or loft, as that's where most of it seems to end up).

I love this tweety bird carving - it's so cute and rustic! The crystal metal 'thingy' was originally a light. It was the crystals that caught my eye and I thought they would make great additions to Stampbord pendants, altered jewellery pieces etc., I may even be tempted to get my soldering kit out for these.

Do I have a thing about birds? I didn't think so - but maybe I do.... just liked this one too! Hey, maybe I DO, especially after my 'Percival' interlude! Do Peacocks count?

These are my inspirational affirmations, they are now hanging on the wall to the left of the window so they're in my line of sight when I enter the room.

The little display unit also has a home now and so do some of the jars and tins of Prima flowers that I seem to have amassed - you should have seen my suitcase after my last trip to Las Vegas! I had to buy another one just to get everything home, not to mention all the ribbons too. One of these days I'll show you a photo of all the crafting goodies I brought back.

Another project in the making, I think I may decorate this little metal dress form with tags and small pieces of art.

And finally, a little rustic stand to display my CREATE word just waiting to be worked on. Why are there never enough hours in the day, days in the week, weeks in the month?
And that just about brings me full circle........

To bring this bang up to date, we've just had a two day sale at Graphicus, yesterday and today. To say that it was hectic would contravene the trade descriptions act..... it was crazy! We had some extremely happy crafters who went away with some amazing bargains. Friday passed in a blurr and I hadn't intended going to 'the office' today, but I've got a lot of prep to get underway this weekend and my PC is still not playing nicely. It's refusing to open PDF files with Adobe and I needed to print Artylicious papers so I popped in to work midday to do some printing and get some materials to work with. The place was heaving again. Ran into some lovely friends and acquaintances and did far too much chatting and even ended up demonstrating things like the Cuttlebug.
So with only 11 days left in July here's what I have to fit in...... tomorrow and Monday I will be prepping for two live TV shows and getting everything ready to hit the Peterborough road on Tuesday after we finish in the office. Glenda and I have to be at the TV studio at 7 a.m. Wednesday morning to set up for the first show which is live at 9 a.m. (who agreed to such an early slot)? I'll let you guess the answer to that one - only kidding Glenda! Then we get an hour to set up again before we go back on air at 11 a.m. for the second show. Fortunately, Adrian has very kindly 'offered' to chauffeur us there and back so we can get some sleep en route if necessary. If you're around on Wednesday morning, don't forget to tune in - we have MORE NEW STAMPS for you and some firm favourites too!
I'll arrive home on Wednesday evening and start prepping again and putting up the kits for our Christmas Workshop. Thursday we're back in the office, the sale area has to be packed away and the studio set up for our 'Christmas in July' workshop which takes place on Friday the 25th. It's completely sold out and so has the next one that we don't even have a date for at this moment in time.
Saturday, I'm teaching an 'Altered Canvas with Ten Seconds Studio' workshop. I am so looking forward to this one - I love teaching and enjoy all of our workshops regardless of the subject but this one I am REALLY looking forward to. Let me warn those of you who are attending, we're going to be getting down and dirty on this one. The music will be loud (I hope you like Aerosmith), bring your latex gloves and an apron because we'll be spritzing, spraying, waxing and metal working to name just a few of the things I have lined up for you! It's going to be WILD!
Now, I'm off to my little studio upstairs accompanied by Led Zeppelin and a bottle of wine to start some prep.... I mean the CD naughty, not the band!

Grungeboard Inspiration

2008-06-22T20:26:00.010+01:00

Well, I said there was a chance of some more Grungeboard Flowers and here they are! I'm not going to share techniques with you at this moment in time as I have something in the pipeline which I'll tell you more about in a couple of weeks......

The basis of all my tags start with Distress Inks and anyone who's watched me demonstrate knows just how much I love these inks. You could take all my other inks away from me and as long as I have these and a Ranger Archival Black pad, I'd be as happy as a pig in....... (whoops)clover! But if you really wanted to make me happy I'd have to have my Adirondack dye inks too.

The flowers are made from sheets of plain Grungeboard or Grungeboard Basics to give it its correct name. You can do such a lot with this fab product from the man..... Mr Tim Holtz. It's very very robust and will stand up to inking, spritzing, crushing, hammering, being skwidged in the Cuttlebug and even put in the washing machine on a normal wash. How cool is that? Yep! you can sew it onto your clothes and continue to wash them as normal!! Just think of the possibilities. By the way, the Grungeboard Basic Pack is back in stock at Graphicus, it arrived from the USA on Friday so if you want some get it now, it's never on the shelf for long - just leave some for me!!!

Just look at these wonderful colours....... ooooooh so scrummy. The technique I use for laying down the inks is pure Ranger. Mr Holtz has taught this method for some time now and it is real easy but gives great results. Check out his web site, he has some real cool technique-based videos.The photograph above will give you a big clue as to where my inspiration came from for forming the Grungeboard flowers. This is a beautiful necklace that my Mum bought me for my birthday earlier this year. I loved it so much and thought it was a work of art in itself. I had been wearing it one day when I found myself in my studio playing with sheets of plain Grungeboard. I took my necklace off and placed it down on the worktop where I was sitting and my eyes kept going back to it glinting in the lights. I love the way the petals curl and it has such wonderful dimension and texture and that was it. I dragged out all my stamps with flowers on them, stamps that I could use for backgrounds and texture and I was off.......

This was the very first flower I created. Once I had my background worked up I added the flower and finished it with just a touch of Stickles.

Elusive Images stamps are brilliant for using on your Grungeboard. Try the Big Flowers Themeplate, or the brand new Ruby Tuesday or Diamante Delights Themeplates .

Here, I've mixed my stamps using some Blonde Moments flowers with Impression Obsession Swirls in the background and a little Hero Arts alphabet for words.

You can see the pattern and texture on the flower petals of the necklace, this gave me the idea to overstamp a layer of the flower.

I used EI's dots and swirls background stamp on the second largest flower which prompted me to use the 'Bandana' technique to pull the whole thing together. I love the 'Bandana' technique (devised by Robin Beam) and added touches to the stamped image on the tag using a Sakura pen.
Why stop at flowers? Butterfly's don't escape the Grungeboard either and they look great with a little dimension.

After a little while I spotted my Cuttlebug sitting on the floor and thought I'd try putting the Grungeboard in an embossing folder to see how well it would take, although I haven't included any photo's here I can tell you the results are stunning. Of course, Grungeboard Alphas and Elements do come in a range of textured designs but if you want different patterns... here's your answer.
On this sample, I put the tag in an embossing folder and ran it through the Cuttlebug and then inked the high spots and edges. This way, you really don't need to do any background stamping as the texture and colour is quite enough. Just add a few embellishments!

On this tag the background and the top layer of the flower have been spritzed with Glimmer Mists before assembly and you can just see the subtle sheen it gives to the otherwise dull surface of the Grungeboard.

Here are a few more pics of the culprit responsible for my Grungeboard addiction! This necklace was also the inspiration for a necklace that I made for Glenda's new TV Show: Glimmer with Glenda. I'll include it in my next post.

And finally..... NO GRUNGEBOARD! A very simple tag made predominantly with the fabulous Glimmer Mists. I started by spritzing lightly all over with Robin's Egg Blue and dried it completely. I then attached a Heidi Swapp Mini Damask Mask and spritzed over the top with Suede and let it dry before attempting to remove the mask. Finally, the tag was stamped with 'Art' words from EI using Walnut Distress Ink and a Fancy Pants Swirl stamp in Black Versa Fine.

A little tip...... for a long time I was disappointed with the results I was getting stamping in black over shimmering backgrounds such as Tattered Angels Glimmer Mists or Firework Inks, Shake 'n' Spray and Liquid Lustre all by Sticky Fingers so I decided to sort the 'men from the boys' and test all my black inks to see which performed the best. I sprayed card with Glimmer Mists and overstamped with every black ink I possess (and there's quite a few I can tell you). I tried the obvious ones first: StazOn, Archival, Memories etc and still didn't get a nice solid black that stayed black. They all seemed to be affected by the metallic pigments on the card until I tried Versa Fine Black Onyx. There was a marked difference and a very crisp, dark image which dried well and stayed black. Perfect!

I'm Back (in a round about sort of way)

2008-05-26T23:26:00.021+01:00

Well, I hate admitting defeat but I'm afraid for the last three months my PC has defiantly beaten me to a pulp. Little by little one thing or another would fail, not play ball or down right refuse to do what I asked of it.

Now I may not be a technology whizz kid but I know enough to keep my system clean and in good order. I regularly do my housework, back up my system and de-frag my hard drive. So you would think it would show some semblance of respect wouldn't you? Nahhh! To cut a long story short I've wasted so much time trying to sort out the problems and got absolutely nowhere. Norton and AOL seem to hate each other with a vengeance, blogger has blogged off and won't let me create hyper-links and the 'browse' button is inactive and won't let me 'browse' my photographs. To add insult to injury, the search page is all jumbled up and system restore won't restore.... time to call in the big guns I think.

Anyhow, by hook or by crook I'm going to update this blog if it's the last thing I do so I'm using my Mum and Dad's PC to get me back up to date while I work on mine to sort out all of the problems.

Going back to the end of March and beginning of April I had a weeks leave. So I thought what better way to spend a couple of those days than cleaning out and redecorating my studio? To be honest I should just say 'decorating' my studio as it has never really been finished properly.

I designed the room some four or five years ago while I was still designing kitchens for MFI and my DH made my designs come to life. He built everything to my specifications using a combination of kitchen carcases and custom built units. While he worked on making my designs a reality my thoughts turned to the interior decoration and I hunted down the fabrics and paper that I wanted to use.

However, I was so impatient to get the room into use to see if my designs would fulfill my needs that I never really got round to the decorating part and I turned a blind eye to the cracks in the walls that needed filling and flaking emulsion that had come off when I stripped the wallpaper off to start the refit.

I'm normally quite an organised individual and I don't like working in a mess but when your time is divided between work, looking after a house and all that entails and having an all-consuming hobby (make that addiction), sometimes you just have to ignore the mess and get on and create. But faced with this........I just knew that it really was time to gut the room, get the paint brushes out and re-organise. I thought a couple of days would see it finished and put back. Huh! how wrong could I be. First of all the paint wouldn't cover properly so I had to apply an undercoat - like this.......

and then I decided if a job was worth doing it was worth doing well, so I gave it two top coats of emulsion in a lovely rich shade called Brown Sugar. Then the paintwork had to be glossed etc. I wanted a simple white blind for the window, how difficult could that be?........ Very!

Magazines and books in abundance had to be sorted and catalogued..........

So I bought some nice new magazine files that would complement my new decor and set about sorting through mountains of American and English mags, keeping the American ones and ditching most of the others. Then, as I brought everything back into the room it was sorted and found a home (well most of it found a home). Some of it is still in the lounge and one of the bedrooms! I'm still trying to convince DH that he should custom build a large log house in the garden into which he could move his model railway and then I could convert the integrated garage and move my little empire into a ground floor room..... a bit more work is needed to persuade him I'm right.

OK, so back to my current set-up. As you can see, the room is very compact but I've tried to make good use of the space available. Leading on from the book shelves on the left hand wall is open storage from floor to ceiling. Originally, I had intended putting doors on but as the room is so narrow I decided against it and being able to see what's on the shelves helps me to use things that might not otherwise see the light of day. A portable 12"x 12" paper storage stands at the far end and is home to my two tier Clip-it-Up.

Lighting is extremely important and I have three different lighting systems built in. Phew! it can get hot in here when they're all on together.... but great in the winter!

Coming down the right hand side is an end to end work top with storage built in above and below. The narrow drawers on the left of the photo above house just some of my wood mounted stamps. As much as I love unmounted stamps, I also love my wood mounted stamps and couldn't bring myself either to part with them or to desecrate them by removing the wood - they just wouldn't be the same. Some stamps are just meant to be on wood! I also have my little TV, Video and DVD player mounted onto a bracket on the wall so if there's something worth watching on TV (like one of Glenda's shows) I don't have to stop crafting to go watch it in another room.Located under the work bench is more portable storage on wheels, and some A4 paper and card towers. At this end of my work top is a tall storage unit which houses a collection of Xryon machines on the top shelf, then DVD's and Videos and three shelves of A5 card and printed paper collections. The black wood display unit is going to go on the wall eventually.

I have a pull out shelf to the right of my sitting area and this is where I put my machines when they're in use. The Cuttlebug, Cricut and Sewing machine (for sewing paper of course) all fit beautifully on here but the Cricut Expression is a very tight fit.

Here's a better look at some of my wood mounted stamps. I have quite a collection since I bought my first stamp back in 1981 when unmounted stamps were unheard of. In fact, stamps of any kind were unheard of in the UK except for maybe foam ones for splodging on walls. My very first stamp was a Rose design from a lovely company called PSX but unfortunately they disappeared a few years back. Some of their original designs are now available again from Inkadinkado.

I need another set of these drawers putting in at the opposite end of the unit for all the stamps that are currently homeless and living in boxes. The runners are fully extendable so that you can get right to the back of the drawer box. Neat eh? DH's unique design! I just told him what I wanted and how it had to work and he made it happen.

A lovely little nick nack that was just waiting for a home in my studio..... another TK Maxx find!

Essential tools.... the Making Memories carousel, I can't do without it now, it's brill and more portable than you may imagine. My large Score-It Board, Mini Misters filled with Distressed Inks and of course 'Tim Hotlz Scissors' superb for cutting out unmounted stamps on EZ Mount cushion. Boy do they make life a whole lot easier with the amount of stamps I cut out!

The pull-out trolley is home to mainly ink pads and is great for standing the Ink Locker on when I'm sitting at the bench.... everything to hand.

And finally, back to the wall behind the door and leading on from the book shelves. The glass fronted drawer unit is home to large spools of ribbon, wools, tissue paper, fabric etc. Then more 'stuff' on the open shelves.

Since these photos were taken I've tweaked the decor and added a couple of nice finds which I'll post next time.

Well, I'm going to call it a night for now. My poor Dad thinks I've hi-jacked his PC for good..... little does he know that he may be seeing more of me than he would like (at least until I get mine sorted out anyway).

Back (hopefully) in the not too distant future.

PS: Most of my tools and gadgets can be sourced here.....

What a Difference a Day Makes (or 7 of them to be precise)

2008-03-18T22:52:00.005Z

Having been away at the NEC, it's now seven days since I last made the almost 60 mile round trip to work and what a surprise I got this morning. In only seven days - Spring has Sprung (despite the fact that snow is forecast for Easter this weekend).

It was a mild morning and quite bright and as I drove along the very scenic route to work. I was taken aback by the beautiful blossoms in abundance on the trees, some pink and some white. These trees had been completely bare last week. Japonika and Forsythia bushes were in full bloom and the sunny yellow of their flowers made everywhere look stunning. I had to resist the urge to stop and take photographs - I'd never have got to work if I had.

Now, back to my adventures at the NEC:

Having got the first very successful day over with, I returned to the hotel in the evening. There were several other exhibitors staying in the same hotel and we made arrangements to all have dinner together. The company was good even if the food was just 'OK'.

Friday 14th: You could really be forgiven for thinking today was Friday the 13th not the 14th. Overnight, the hotel car park had been hit by a gang breaking into cars looking for lap tops and sat navs. Seven cars were targeted where I was staying and one of them just happened to belong to a colleague and friend also exhibiting at the show. They seem to have gone for cars that looked like they could be 'reps' cars. Mine was fine but as I walked out to it that morning I could see glass all over the ground and a car just one away from where I was parked had been broken into.

We later learned that just about every hotel car park on the NEC complex had been targeted.

Although the day had got off to a bad start for some, the show turned out to be another successful and enjoyable day. A bit of a strange day in a way as one moment the stand was completely inundated and the next the aisle was almost completely empty. It left you wondering if the hall had been evacuated and no one had told you! But then the next wave would hit and you couldn't see the stands across the way again.

Some more examples of some of stamps and techniques that I was demonstrating at the show. Sorry about the lighting on these examples, I tried using the flash but it was bouncing off the pearlescent card and the pearlescent paint on the Peacock feathers. The Peacock has been stamped on vellum and 'bowed' out from the front of the card to give it dimension. I adore the little Peacock Feather stamp around the border - it is so delicate. The background stamp in black on the card above is also on the Peacock Glory themeplate and gives such a lovely damask 'feel' when stamped repeatedly. This is a very adaptable plate of stamps and well worth having in your collection.

Saturday 15th: Such a sad day. The show got off to a great start, it was busy from the word GO at 9.30 and by 11 a.m the hall was heaving. Then tragedy struck. I'm not going to go into too much detail, you'll understand why. One of the exhibitors collapsed on his stand and a very serious medical emergency was declared. The show was temporarily closed while the paramedics gave assistance and the air ambulance was brought in but I'm very sorry to say that every ones efforts were in vain. This very sad event cast a subdued air over most of the exhibitors I spoke to that day and our thoughts and commiserations are with his wife and family.

On a happier note, everyone I spoke to who stopped by the stand appeared to be enjoying the show - many people, even late into the afternoon had not stopped for lunch in fear of missing something good and they kept walking the show.

I got a lot of enquiries about the ink pad storage system I was using. It's called an Ink Pad Craft Locker. I knew that we didn't have many left back at Graphicus and some of you have been on the phone and placed your order for this very nifty little locker since seeing mine at the show. When I got back to work this morning I checked to see how many we have and there is ONLY ONE left now. So if you were one of the people who wanted one and you haven't secured yours yet, do it now! I know that we haven't got any more on order at this moment in time.

Sunday 16th: and the final day of the show started quietly, probably due to a combination of heavy rain and the fact the it was Palm Sunday. But again, by 11 a.m. we were in full flow and it was fast and furious. I love the buzz of the show, to hear all about the exciting things people have found to buy and what you have planned for using them. I was also really delighted to see how many 'young folk' we have coming into the crafting community - and boys too. Maybe the next Tim Holtz was standing watching my demo's over the last four days - who knows?

All too soon, it was time to pack up my demo equipment and head off back up the motorway in the direction of home. I'm pleased to say that the heavy rain of the morning had passed over and the driving conditions were relatively good. My little Punto did it's 'Transformer' impersonation and turned into a Porche and I was home in next to no time. Exhausted, but at the same time wired with enthusiasm to continue creating and I have lots of plans for the next two weeks to get some 'eye candy' ready for our Open Days at Graphicus on the 04th and 05th of April.

Here's a peak of a work in progress.... this is how it looked when I put all the elements together to get started, it's looking a little different now that it's about half way to being completed. Any ideas? I'll show you when it's finished!

And last but not least, I did get back in time to see the end of the final of Dancing On Ice. Wow, what a show. I'm sorry I missed the fly wire performances but what I did see was spectacular and on a completely difference level to last weeks show. This series has been the most brilliant entertainment and has given Sunday night viewing the sparkle it has sadly lacked for many a year now. Just a pity that they can't find a show to do the same for Saturday night viewing! The great British viewing public pulled it out of the hat again and the results were spot on. Hurrah!