busy, busy, busy...

... so I'm soooooooooooooo looking forward to going away in our little vw campervan tomorrow :)  We were supposed to go today but I didn't get the curtains made in time!!  I promise to put photos up when we get back next weekend.  Malc's been fixing and polishing her, and she's now resplendent.

I've had a really busy couple of weekends, last week I was at The Stamp Attic, and this Saturday at The Cubby Hole.  Carol has started holding exhibitions of artist's work at The Cubby Hole so when I walked in the other day the walls were filled with colour.  

The canvases were a riot of colour yet very precisely and exquisitely painted.

We set to work creating our own riots of colour after embossing metal and covering little books.  

 books by:

Christine    Wendy

me   Suzanne   Tracy

Lisa (+Lisa turned her sampler piece into a bkmk)   Tracy E   Sue

I really enjoyed teaching this workshop.  I taught it last week too but my phone was playing up so I didn't do well on the photos front. 

exciting news!

I feel truly, truly honoured to have been invited on the USArtQuest design team, along with

Suzi Blu 

Lea Cioci 

Jessica Griffin

Jan Hennings

Terri Sproul

Connie Vogt

and our senior design team leader, Julie Ranae :)

Watch this space, and those of my fellow design team members, to find out what it's all about :)

pdcc#31 on my poor neglected blog!

This last week has just been soooooooooooooo mad busy so Thursday has come round rather quickly for me.  I've got loads to share, just haven't had a minute to sit down and sort out photos etc. 

 I had a fabulous weekend teaching down at the Stamp Attic where Ruby and I decided to challenge ourselves for this week's play date cafe challenge and use the same papers and embellishment.  Whilst discussing the play date cafe over coffee, Ruby asked me how long the challenge had been going.  I said I thought it was about September when it started when Joanna piped up "I know how long it's been going...30 weeks!"  Well, Ruby and I could hardly stay on our seats we were laughing so hard - two members of the design team who hadn't clocked the numbers in the weekly titles lol

Julie chose this week's colours, and Ruby and I did have fun amongst the paper stacks in Wendy's shop (Wendy has lOAds of papers :) )

The papers were called 'So Sophie' which is very appropriate for me as that's my daughter's name. 

I also added in an element of punching, courtesy of Martha Stewart, some die cut butterflies from a cupcake case, and some Ippity stamps from the set 'Where you should be'.

Butterflies and flowers feature in many of our designers contributions this week so don't forget to check them out.  And a big thankyou to everyone who plays along with our challenge this week - they were certainly popular colours!!

Here's Ruby's card with mine so you can see them together :

another metal box...this one's for PDCC#30

I so enjoyed making my metal covered box the other day I decided to have a go at using a different colour acrylic paint for the base, choosing 'pink' from this week's play date colours mainly as I could find a green and a yellow stazon ink to colour the metal but the pink is rather bright in stazon, to say the least!

Mona chose this week's beautiful Spring inspired colours and it's amazing how every play date cafe designer's piece is so different this week.  The balance of colour in a project really changes the effects.  Mine is very definitely PINK!!!

The base metal is gold coloured and I painted it with pink True Colours [Baby Girl] by Stewart Gill before spraying it with pink Sticky Fingers spray [to add texture] then adding extra colour using Sunflower Yellow and Cactus Green Stazon Ink.

I cut the dragonfly from felt and organza using the new die from Paper Artsy.  I'm so in love with that die!!  Don't forget to visit the cafe for some more inspiration for these colours!  I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with :)

have a fabulous time in Almaty Sue!

Sue's leaving for her new life abroad tomorrow and I'm just so grateful that with the internet etc that it's so easy to stay in touch.  I'm going to miss our playdates like crazy, although I reckon we can point the webcam at our hands and have virtual ones via Skype!  So today and tomorrow are sad days for me (and Sue...and Wendy ...and...) but I had a fabulously relaxing day today making this

What a relaxing day, making a metal rose, embossing metal in a variety of ways and colouring it.  It was a workshop at Paddy's with Kay Halliwell-Sutton  and I just love my finished piece.  I will apologise for the photo though, it wasn't great light to take it in.

 

I so love that Ten Seconds studio mould, it's been on my list of wants for ages!!! [it still is lol]

And the decoration is just as yummy inside the box!  I can't wait to fill it with treasures :)

Kay had already filled her box with some fabulous ATCs. 

 

 

There are two places left on this workshop at Paddy's Stamping Place tomorrow [Saturday 15th May] if you can make it - I'd highly recommend it ;)  Phone 0161 798 5115

port sunny samples in order

I've put together some of my sample pieces from the Port Sunny show - finally some order to that gorgeous pile of yumminess ;)  Unfortunately, it's cost me money - I've definitely fallen in love with the dragonfly die, as well as the bird cage and the ticket.

I just love how that bird cage makes an instant tag!

And that dragonfly cut out of metal, or sheer fabric, is just so, so yummy!

 

I have to say though, that moth is rather tempting too, it makes such a great foam stamp - great for stamping then adding the detailed stamp on top!  Gonna have to have a go at that with the dragonfly!!

The ticket die sounds a strange one I know, but I think it's just one of those things, a bit like needing a square punch.  Got an idea for it which I'll share at the weekend (Sunday most likely).

Here's a treat for those of you who know me, and my friend Helen.  This is Helen's sample piece using the dies

I love her contrast of the hard metal and the soft fabric.  And how cool does the moth look with those cogs!!!

And finally, Paddy's yummy sample board - she's been playing with tomato puree tubes again, and fabric, along with the cuttlebug of course (and a heat gun to zap those flowers, and I mean zap!!)

PDCC29 i NeeD to art journal

It's been a very busy week for me, with lots of issues to sort through, so I really needed my art journal yesterday so I could relax and shut my mind from too many thoughts.  I decided to use my colour choice for this week's play date cafe colour challenge, despite having gone through a number of ideas of what to do for my piece this week, none of which was a journal page lol!!

I love, love, love this photo!  It's from a website where you can freely use the photos for art purposes :)  How cool does that peeled paint look :)

I love how the blue is just a hint above white!  

The saying is from a set of stamps that I won from Savannah [by accident lol, I didn't realise I'd entered for a giveaway!!] - I copied the writing so it would be large enough on my journal page [except for the word 'should' which I stamped and cut out!]  And if you look really closely you can see my new favourite background stamp in the world - the artistic stamper's sequin waste stamp :)

a busy time at Port Sunny

...but such fun!  I was demoing the new Hot Picks stamps and co-ordinating dies from Paper Artsy on Paddy's stand.  Apparently Leandra will be bringing out a new set of Hot Picks each month - oh dear, I need to start saving up :)  I gave away quite a few sample pieces, especially as I met a lot of people who had distress inks at home and hadn't ever used them.

I used the top of my plastic box to dab some ink on from the pad, sprayed this with water, then swiped a piece of white card across it.  Once this was dry, I cut the shape using a die, then stamped the co-ordinating image, again using my distress inks.

I did start the day with a pink phase, but I must have given those samples away lol.  I also used a combination of stencils to colour the paper, dabbing the ink through after picking it up on cut n dry foam.  I fell in love with the dragonfly, but this was my very favourite one :

 I just love the mustard and blue colours together.  The text stamp is from the Hot Picks set.  By just inking up part of the stamp, and holding it with the edges curled up, you can add texture without the words being too clear.  The following is the only photo I took on the day (so no embarrassing photos of Wendy and Sue to get my own back with!).  Paddy sent me off for an hour over lunch, and demoed some fabulous pieces using sticky back paper, gold flakes, embossing powders, the cuttlebug and Stazon Ink.  But guess what?  I don't have any pics of those sample pieces ...sorry!

If you head over to Sue's blog, you can see an 'altered' sample of mine though.  I discovered that the leaf die makes a fabulous bird shape, so Sue took one away to give it a hat and boots at my request, but I LoVe the knobbly knees he now has too lol

flowers on film for PDCC28

Julie has chosen such pretty colours for this week's play date cafe colour challenge, although I have to say that the air was pretty blue the first time I used my 'fanciful flight' die by hrh (his royal holtz!!).  I've cracked it now (ie worked it out, not broken it lol) so used it happily for this week's challenge.

I'm loving how the new distress ink colours fit in with these challenges!  Purely coincidental; or more likely, excellent palette of colours provided in distress now!  Spun Sugar was the pretty pink I chose to work with this week.

And I'm LoViNG this new film strip die!  Watch out for some design team pieces for The Stamp Attic using this.  

This week I challenged myself (in a comment on Joanne's blog) to finally make an easel card, and I'm really pleased with the result.  I'll definitely be making more!

Don't forget to check out all the other colour designs this week, they are all stunning, and we have a guest designer.  So head on over to the Play Date Cafe :)

playing with stencils

I love using stencils, especially sequin waste, in my journal, and decided to have a go at covering a page just using stencils.  I used a combination of Stewart Gill and Crafters Workshop stencils, both available at Paddy's Stamping Place; and loved the result I have to say!  

 

So today I used the piece to demonstrate making a little book as part of my Art Journaling 3 class. I made a second sheet of stencilled paper and used it inside my folded book to create additional signatures.

- a great little book to journal in, and tuck inside one of my larger journals!  Art journaling 3 is all about adding little pockets, books and tags to your journal, and developing writing in your journal.  

I'm so glad none of us were suffering from colds or hayfever, our magnetic poetry style writing would have been seriously disturbed lol

There were little words everywhere!!  But they made cool additions to our tags...

 [front of tag]

[back of tag]