I have had...

... the most fabulous day down at The Cubby Hole!  I taught a felting workshop for the first time and although the table started off fairly empty and most un-Sarah like, by the afternoon we'd got lots of supplies around and about and we all felt (ha ha, pun not intended but funny so I'm leaving it!!) much more comfortable.

Still no phone, so no pics as yet :(  Hoping Tracy'll blog her pieces so I can nick her pics, although I have caused her a massive amount of money today as she fell in love with my embellisher.  

a great British Play Date Cafe Challenge :)

...cos this week I chose the colours :)  and Tracy Evans is our guest designer :) :)  How cool is that!!!

This image reminds me of bubble painting with the kids at school - a great activity :)  I love the splash of bright green mixed amongst the blues.

I was tempted by a peacock theme this week but ended up with my favourite hydrangeas!  Julie was telling me she's just got some of the new Martha Stewart punches so I ended up checking out the new releases - and fell in love with cherry blossom!  They are random flowers just like the hydrangeas - need to get saving!

I felted some bright green curly locks onto some green felt, then free machined some punched painted paper before stitching on the blue ric rac and adding some blue shinies!

Have fun with these colours :)  And don't forget to check out what our DT have been working on this week -

but don't forget to enter your piece over at The Play Date Cafe ~ have fun!

Jinny Newlin

Libby Hickson

Michele Gross

TRacey Kuzniak

Colleen Dietrich 

Julie Ranae 

Savannah O'Gwynn 

Ruby2Shoes 

Andrea Ewen

Fiona Schultz

Jaclyn Miller

and this week's guest designer

Tracy Evans

This week we're kindly sponsored by 

Steampunkin' Saturday

Quite how this collection passed me by, but when I arrived at The Cubby Hole, Crewe on Saturday to teach my Steampunk Journal workshop, there was the MaGNiFiCieNT Steampunk Debutante collection from Graphic 45 - wonderful not just because they're Steampunk, but they're in my favourite colours AND Art Deco. 

Wow!!!

When we'd finally all got over the excitement, and selected our must have papers, we settled down for the class.

And look!  Two blokes on this workshop :)  Paul, Carol's other half, joined us this week, and judging by the gales of laughter from the 'top table', he fitted in perfectly and had a great time. Paul had never done any stamping before, never mind playing with inks and making books, but he did a fantastic job!  Special thanks to Christine who helped out when necessary :)

I'm sure I've said this before, but what I love about workshops is how differently people's work turns out, and this one was no exception.  There were some wonderful additions of colour to the 'sepia' palette...

 Paul

 Sue Roddis

 'little' Sue

 ...different front covers... 

 Tracy Evans

Paul

 Suzanne

[We were so impressed with Suzanne, she sometimes finds this inky, messy work a bit much, in a workshop situation, but she was in her element with this book, and was so chuffed to use the sewing machine for the first time!]

And of course, the inside pages.  [Sorry about the orange hue, these pages are quite orangey but my camera phone seems to think the surrounding table is too!]

 Wendy

 Suzanne

 Sue B

N

Nigel

C

Christine

 I had a fantastic time everyone, thanks for being so much fun to be with :)  I'll leave you with some pages from the sample journal I left with Carol...

...a reminder that if you're a 'southern gal', I'll be teaching this class at The Stamp Attic in a couple of weeks [check out their website for deets]

...and finally,  the link to the Graphic 45 blog.  If you're a fan of Steampunk, you HaVe to see their stand at CHA, and how the girls all dressed up, and this amazing project using the new papers :)