2014: My Year with Stampotique

OK, where did that year go?  I can't believe I've been on the Stampotique Designer's Blog team for a whole year!!  I have absolutely loved it; such a wonderful, friendly group of people.

As it's Boxing Day here in the UK an appropriate final project for 2014 would have been an altered matchbox, but that only occurred to me as I wrote this post!

I decided to pick out some of my favourite projects from the year and was hoping to put them in a slideshow but couldn't work out how!  So you have a shorter collection of photos from over the last year.

I've never done one of those end of year looking back posts but looking back at these projects is making me consider doing one!

I've made tags, envelopes and journal pages and happily cut, stuck, stitched, sprayed, collaged, stamped, painted and doodled and had a wonderful time :)

I've also made some lovely friends and want to thank Carol, Jim and Kim for having me on team this year.

Thanks for sticking with me on this photo heavy post!  And thanks for supporting me through my Stampotique adventure :)

 Wishing you all the very best for 2015, Sarah xx

eeek...a radio broadcast and an art exhibition launch

I'm nervously looking forward to being on local radio later!  Chorlton FM is broadcasting daily from the 16th-29th May across South Manchester and online.  They include coverage of the 2011 Chorlton Arts Festival, for which I did a workshop last Sunday.  I'm being interviewed at about 6pm, which I'm sure will involve lots of giggling on my part ;)

I'm also busy prepping for my first solo art exhibition at The Cubby Hole, Crewe in June.  

I've been really enjoying 'moodling' with some paint and canvases!

With the odd bit of paper and glue thrown in ;)

Still lots of pieces to get finished ...  I'm always on the last minute with these things - just the way I work best I guess!

Chorlton Arts Festival 2011

I took my 'Big Paint' to Chorlton today.  This week it's Chorlton Arts Festival and there's been tonnes going on already.  I passed this fabric covered tree on my way home, and am looking forward to visiting a variety of exhibitions later in the week.

The 'Big Paint' started with a blank-ish canvas of watercolour paper, and ended with pieces like this:

These will be made into little paper folded books and displayed in the Chorlton Arts Festival Hub.

It's not easy to see much difference via photographs but I'm really pleased with how my journalled 'plate' came out of the kiln.

I stamped with both conventional and unconventional items, and painted through lace.  

And I just thought I'd leave you with this image which greeted me from the children's corner as I came down the stairs of the art studio when leaving work yesterday:

new things

A friend and I are starting a new venture together next week, teaching half day workshops in our local church building.  They have a fantastic cafe each Tuesday and Thursday so we're running our workshops in a good sized room off the cafe so we'll all have easy access to the great coffee and cake ;)  

My first workshop is this little trinket box, and the following week Jo is teaching shaped cards.  We're situated in Sale, Cheshire, if anyone's interested in joining us.  

All the details are on my new website, The Art of Moodling.  I'm thrilled to have been able to use the artwork from my blog banner on my website, and on my business cards.  :)  The hardest thing was to describe what I do, but I'm pleased with the description I came up with in the end!

I play with paper, paint, inks and 

odds n ends to make beautiful things, 

and teach others to make lovely things too! 

I'm teaching a weekend long workshop at The Cubby Hole, Crewe from tonight, which I'm really looking forward too.  Our theme is 'Permission to Play' and we're focusing on some big ideas.  The Big Paint kicks off the weekend at 6pm tonight.  I'll share photos as soon as I can :)