PDCC 64 with our brand spanking new design team :)

It's like an enormous party over at The Play Date Cafe today as we launch our new DT!  Sooooooo much fabulous inspiration over there :)

And Julie's choice of colours is very 'me', although I don't think I've ever combined grey and beige before.  

Isn't that soft blue so beautiful!  I've had a ball of grey wool in my crochet hook in my bag for a week or so now so always planned to include a grey crocheted flower in this piece.  I just love greys...although not grey, dull days I have to say!!!

I used a 7 gypsies Paddington paper on my tag (it had to be a tag, I was getting withdrawal symptoms lol) available in the UK from The Stamp Attic, along with some smidgeons of paper hanging around my desk!  The brads are 'Making Memories' upholstery brads and the washer is lovely and rusty, picked up off some pavement/car park somewhere ;)

 

Have a wonderful time visiting our design team this week, and apologies for not getting around to 'see' everyone last week, life caught up with me a little!

Julie Ranae [senior DT]

Savannah O'Gwynn [senior DT]

Ruby2Shoes [senior DT]

Andrea Ewen

Fiona Schultz

Jaclyn Miller

Jinny Newlin

Libby Hickson

Michele Gross

TRacey Kuzniak

Colleen Dietrich [private blend designer]

Milliande Art Journal January 2011

Each January Milliande produces a video prompt a day for your art journal and this year I decided to join in.  I LoVe the first theme - starting at the end of the alphabet, and working on 'Z for Zebra' until Milliande feels she has exhausted the theme.

day one

I adore using black and white so this theme is right up my street!  I watched Milliande's video then had a hunt on the internet for some zebra images.  My zebra is a blind-ish contour drawing, a great idea from Carla Sonheim's Drawing Lab ABC for Mixed Media Artists.  

I am a bit of a perfectionist so have learnt a number of tricks to stop myself being so judgemental about my work.  I found the key really to be a kind of 'controlled randomness'!  A blind contour drawing won't be perfect because you're not looking at your paper, but it does turn out like the object to a certain degree - I love the quirkiness of it!

My 7 gypsies Paddington papers caught my eye as I gathered my supplies for this page, so I decided to use torn strips from the 'Blackfriars' sheet instead of painting stripes...just LoViN' those numerals!!!

Thanks for a great prompt Milliande, I know I'm just going to really enjoy this theme.  Day two's videos will be up shortly, and I'm also joining in with The Sketchbook Challenge so I've got some busy playtime ahead - woo hoo!!!

Brrrrrrrrr!

It's very, very pretty outside today, with stunning frost and snow, but it's flippin cold!!!  -8c is far too cold for me, so I'm putting off going to the post office (much of the post is delayed anyway!!) and doing jobs in the house to keep warm.

I did venture out earlier to take the kids to school, and came back a bit of a nervous wreck after sitting at the top of my road giving way to a car which then slid towards me on the ice.  Fortunately it stopped a few inches from my bumper.  I hate driving in this weather, I did a graceful slide in the same spot on Saturday. 

This is one of the views from my attic bedroom window on Saturday morning.  I'd been really looking forward to the Christmas party at the Cubby Hole and although they'd had very little snow in Crewe, we'd had enough to make the drive a bit dodgy, especially in Malc's little car.  I can't wait to get mine replaced!

In celebration of all this white stuff, and in an attempt to put off the many jobs I have to do today, I made a tag!

I have a little packet of flowers I crocheted in the summer :)

I layered the flower with bits of lace and organza ribbon, having collaged a plain manilla tag with stamping, dabbing and some music paper (7 gypsies, Paddington paper from The Stamp Attic)   :)

I'm going to post this on Jennie's blog as she's been suffering from tag withdrawal symptoms!  

Oh and ps, we're introducing our new designers over at The Play Date Cafe this week.  We'd love you to stop by and meet them :)

bring on the sunshine... it's a play date colour splash!

Colour splash challenges are our most popular and Julie's chosen us a great colour to work with in these dark wintry days - YeLLoW!  

I had a lovely surprise when I picked up the 7 gypsies music paper [Kilburn] from the Paddington range - it's black and white with a splash of yellow :) [Available in the UK at The Stamp Attic].  I used my new die by Joy, from a new little craft shop I found in Chorlton, to cut the butterflies on a paper ribbon.

A rectangle of cuttlebugged paper, some lace and pearls and my card was done!  One of the quickest I've made but I'm really pleased with it!  Don't forget to check out the inspiration from the rest of our design team

Andrea Ewen
Savannah O'Gwynn
Ruby 2 Shoes

Julie Ranae - senior designer

and head over to the Play Date Cafe  for info on the announcement of our new design team - woo hoo!  It was so, so hard to choose just 6 of you, we were inundated with fantastic submissions.  Thankyou to everyone who applied, and congratulations to our new team :)  We will be introducing them to you in the run up to Christmas next week :)