Saturday, 26 February 2011
Thursday, 24 February 2011
PDCC70 - back on the wagon
What a fantastic response to our first 'Combined Grind' challenge last week - my piece is still half finished I'm afraid - life just pushed all blogging stuff out of the window last week. But thankyou to those that emailed to check all was ok :)
This week's colours come courtesy of Ruby2Shoes, aren't they gorgeous?!!! The idea for my project started with a metal flower I purchased from The Cubby Hole, Crewe on Tuesday, and some embossing powders I bought at the same time, inspired by Fran on the Woodware stand at the trade show.
This is a small black sketchbook by Daler-Rowney from Dunelm, about A5 in size.
I got my dabbers out to paint a patch of colour on the front, only realising after painting in orange, that it I meant to do it turquoise lol.
So I painted over it!
Then added some green through my flower stencil.
I cleaned my stencil off inside my journal, the start of a page :)
I kept the stencil out to add more colour to the front of the book.
After using the metal flower as a stamp, which didn't show up too well, I attached it to the front of the journal and filled it with green embossing powder.
The green is a very 'flat' colour, so after adding some orange powder to the centre of the flower, I filled the whole shape with kaleidoscope embossing powder for a bit of sparkle!
Some snippets of painted paper and lace, bling and fluffy wool with beads and I was rather pleased with the result. I was trying to keep the design in the bottom right hand corner but my backgrounds always creep into the 'white space'!!!
This week our guest designer, Maria Gurnsey, an ippity chick of great fabulousness, is also providing our prize. Head over to the play date cafe to see the wonderful ippity stamps she's given us to give away :) And whilst you're there, why not check out the great inspiration provided by our wonderful team of designers. This week there are one or two projects other than cards to give you inspiration :)
Wednesday, 23 February 2011
WOYWW - in the studio
Today I am working in my friend's art studio at The Mustard Tree in Ancoats, Manchester. [I'm usually over there on Tuesdays but I had a fabulous day out to The Cubby Hole, Crewe yesterday with a couple of friends :) We had such a fun time :) ] I am gathering together shapes and patterns to use in my pieces for my exhibition, and practising working BiG!!!
It's a wonderful place to work in, full of inspiring objects, and surrounded by fun people - we have a good laugh as well as supporting each other in our work.
Graham is a really talented artist, and is currently working on commissions for John Lewis and The Hilton Hotel - if you know Manchester's Betham tower well enough you can just spot it on Graham's easel in the background.
Tuesday, 22 February 2011
more later, as promised ;)
Met two very busy people, one gave me a sample, the other didn't...guess who!!!
[Sue, next time we see an old ledger, we MuST buy it, this one was FaBuLouS!!]
Dyan's ledger book was 'absolutely fabulous darling'! Full of colour, images, writing, and wonderful snippets of someone's handwritten numbers. Every time I saw Dyan the ledger was held close with both hands!
It's that first mark in such an old book that's the hardest, but this ledger would never be looked in otherwise, so a great new use for it!
Carol was very taken with Dyan's Dina Wakley style kitchen roll, used to mop up excess ink:
Then of course my yummy tag was from the Timness himself.
I AdOrE the new distress ink stains, the colour is so easy to apply, and looks fantastic layered, and is oh so, so vibrant. The kraft paper is a must too for lovers of kraft paper with black printing on - fab, fab, fab.
And check out my 'crinkldy' ribbon! So easy to customise with the ink stains. I did like the perfect pearls mists, which spray the shine without a coloured ink, but I don't use that idea enough to warrant them ... yet!
But the distressing tool has been added to my birthday list - so much better than my scissors! There was a very cool looking little dispenser for tissue tape, which just looked too cute not to have lol!
I must also share a pic of another special person (I'd show you Wendy and Jennie and Kate and Colin too but didn't take your photo!!!) learning to knit/crochet with some fabulously therapeutic wool from the Wendy wool company:
We called it 'monkey wool' as it looked like monkey's tails, and the pieces on the wall looked like monkeys! It's texture is like fleecy jumpers - cosy!
Monday, 21 February 2011
Craft and Hobby International Show, Birmingham
What a treat I had on Sunday - Carol (of Cubby Hole fame) and I spent the day at the trade show in Birmingham. I've been to a variety of shows in my time - bears, crafts, miniatures... but this was my first trade show. It was weird seeing stuff and not being able to buy it!
I mean, how GoRGeouS is this enormous hydrangea stamp from Stampendous! Fran had a fabulous array of embossing powders to 'colour' the outline of the image with...
before using chalks to 'colour in'
I also fell in love with a paper pieced poppy, which I think is also by Stampendous but would need to check that...it was on the Woodware stand.
I love, love, love buttons
so the button company stand was a great one
Whilst browsing some yummy, yummy beads
I spotted a sign ...
Oh,,,,,,,,,,my,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,goodness! It was Steampunk heaven! So many beautiful elements, which will definitely be finding a home in my stash, via The Cubby Hole!
It was also great to see some familiar faces at the show, of which I will share more tomorrow :)
Saturday, 19 February 2011
AWOL....again!!!
I've been running quite a bit of Maths Professional Development for teachers the last week or so, which has stolen my craft time. So I thought I'd share one of the videos I love to use, it's so funny!!!
Monday, 14 February 2011
Happy Valentine's Day!
This fortnight's StampMan Challenge is Hearts, brought to you by the lovely Lisa Sparkle.
I'd already made my textured grungepaper heart using Moonglow two toned embossing powder in Bougainvillea Red/Teal when I spotted my box of leftover tiles from the bathroom.
I added some collage elements after first embossing some flowers directly onto the tile from the Aspects of Design 'Butterfly Beauties' set. I'd used the same set (the girl's hair) to add texture to my heart.
I'd like to wish all my bloggy friends a very 'Happy Valentine's Day'! And also enter this piece into the Stampotique Designers' Challenge - Hearts :)
Thursday, 10 February 2011
PDCC68 better late than never!!!
Apologies for the late appearance of my play date cafe colour challenge piece - I had to respond to a statement yesterday from one of the drivers that hit my car back in November and it sent me all of a wobble, and I ended up not being able to do anything! The statement wasn't correct, and thinking it through so deeply took me right back to spending all that time in the centre of the M6, in the dark and wet, and on my own. :(
Julie picked our colours this week and I just LoVeD using them, especially that pink! I made a journal page using Adirondack paint dabbers, a doiley and a white gel pen.
I then added paper hearts, stitched downt he middle, and tiny crocheted hearts, one of which I sprayed with pink Sticky Fingers ink. These were so cute to do; I was out with my crochet bag and intended to make some more hearts for my heart garland but I'd brought the wrong crochet hook, so I made miniature hearts instead!!!
Think I'm going to be making some more of these!!!
This journal page is A5 in size and the hearts are about the size of a 50p piece. Fiona's been crocheting with this week's colours too - the most gorgeous pair of baby sandals! And this week we have our first guest designer of 2011 - the talented Kazan Clark (who co-owned 2sketches4you). So please take a look at our designers' wonderful work over in the cafe, and visit their blogs to show them some love.
Monday, 7 February 2011
Pay it forward and spread a little happiness!
Oh the wonders of the internet :) Whilst hopping around some wonderful work spaces on a Wednesday afternoon in January, I spotted this on Twiglet's blog and thought I would join....I'm always up for spreading a little happiness around.
Its a brilliant way of making the world a better place without expectation of anything in return...just giving for the sake of giving, to make the planet a bit more cheerier. Always remember if you smile at someone you get one back.
If you would like to take part, then you need to be one of the first three people to leave me a comment on this post letting me know that you want to join in pay it forward. I will get in touch to ask you to send me your address, and in due course I will post a little something out to you!
The first three people then in turn, will send out a little goodness to three others and so the love and the happiness continues to spread around our little globe!
So - how about it ? Do you fancy joining in and spreading some love in the world? Look what the wonderful 'Twiglet' sent me:
A gorgeous felted brooch in my favourite colours :) and one of her stunning, stunning felted seascape pictures. It is so, so gorgeous :) [sorry no pic of that just yet]
I've been crocheting again so you may receive a flower brooch from me, or crocheted hearts, or I may go back to papercrafts and make little books - or I may do both, who knows!
This photo doesn't do the colours of this cotton any justice. I fell in love with these colours last week on a visit to John Lewis with the lovely Sarah from PebbleBlossom. I purchased my Embellisher from her on ebay just before Christmas and we got on really well within a few minutes and stayed in touch. VeRY conveniently John Lewis is situated about half way between our two houses ;) Sarah is very clever and does real sewing, like roman blinds and curtains! We had a lot of fun stroking fabric, oohing over colours of wools, and generally having a great time shopping and nattering, and even stopping to give colour advice to a lovely lady who was crocheting some bunting for a baby's party lol