first Play Date Colour Challenge of 2010!

Gold   Silver   Black   White

These colours from Sandi have sooooooooo much potential.  I LOVED the challenge of this one as I would normally pair black or white with silver, but put gold with cream.  I love jewellery with both silver (or white gold) and gold together but have never used them together in my artwork.  Black and white I love, as regular readers will know.  So what did I make?

....Something I've had in my head for a while!!  I decided a bird would be perfect as he/she could have a black and white body with metallic feathers.

I cut the body shape out in card and covered it with a retro scrapbook paper of black squares on white.  I stamped over this, and added peeloff (yep!!!  don't forget, they have their uses sometimes!!)  dots.   

Each tail feather is different.  There is a silver piece of card covered in sticky backed ribbon, cuttlebugged foil leftover from a workshop I took from Sue Roddis [she's teaching it at The Stamp Attic on and they have a few places left on the second day if you're quick!!], and cuttlebugged gold card embossed with white EP and dipped in glitter whilst still hot.

Have fun playing with these metallics, plus black and white.  I think they'll be some amazing interpretations as the colour combo is so amazing

real snow...how fab!

We don't get good snow very often, the clouds usually tip it on the hills surrounding Manchester before they get to us.  But we got some today :) 

We had a bit of snow yesterday but it had gone by the evening, washed away by Manchester rain.  But we woke up to that special silence snow brings, and the excited voices of the little ones next door, which hinted that it had snowed again.  I have to say though, it was a lovely surprise to see how white it was out there.

[unfortunately we don't live in that yummy b/w house but the house in the middle above with the beech tree in the garden - still a gorgeous house though!]

Gyp loves catching snowballs (and eating them) but was rather surprised to discover that it was a bit slippy out there.  Frozen rain from last night meant treacherous road and pavement conditions.  But we were ok building a snowman!

And I made it out for lunch with some girlfriends from school.  Look at these snowmen in a shop window we went past,...how fab are those hats!!

With all our December birthdays over [my youngest nephew was one yesterday :)], I settled down to getting a bit further with my Christmas cards. 

I partially cuttlebugged the white card with the snowflake EF, and mounted the pieces I'd made at Paddy's last week on her batch card workshop.  I loved making these, Paddy comes up with some amazing techniques :)

I'm adding stitching to mine so it's the sewing machine out tomorrow.  Which is good, as I've got some Christmas presents to make!!

my day

Well I'm certainly having a better day than my good friend Julie! Read her blog here to hear what is happening at the end of her garden - it's shockingly unbelievable! Sorry Julie, I'd share these with you if I could!!!

A guy came into the shop today and wanted help undoing a leather thong necklace in order to swap a couple of beads over. He'd bought it in Jamaica and had to have it re-threaded this time when he went over there. It wasn't til he got home he noticed a couple of beads were incorrect and he couldn't work out the knots. I did it for him and refused any payment; it was my good deed of the day! Anyway, a couple of minutes later he reappeared with this box of chocs for me! Isn't that kind :)

Now to make you smile Julie! I tried taking a picture of 'Scrap', Tom's guinea pig (remember I told you he wanted to buy one? He had the biggest smile on his face the whole of that day; he's waited sooooo long for his very own pet!) Anyway, Scrap is a little reluctant to have his picture taken...

No, I don't have a furry growth, it's Scrap crawling up my arm inside my cardigan!! He was a bit braver when he had Brillo to crawl under!

And even braver when I lined them all up. Here are Fudge, Boris, Brillo and Scrap. Fudge and Boris belong to school but they live with me most holidays and some weekends! Fudge and Boris are 1 year olds, Brillo and Scrap are just 8 weeks old - bless!

Now onto cards! I've tried taking a picture of one of the moving cards I taught on my workshop today. It's made out of a single piece of A5 card but by cutting and scoring you can create a moving central circle.

closed

open

card standing up (sorry it's not a great photo!)

Not only did I meet new people on today's class, I learnt two new things! A folded flower, and a new fold for a card. I'll get pics up soon, when I've had a play with the ideas :)

what fun!

I was teaching a card making work shop today at Paddy's Stamping Place. All the cards had some kind of movement eg slide, twist, turn. This is a slide card.



I met some new people who hadn't been on my workshops before and we had a great time. Workshops are great aren't they? Spending time doing what you love, catching up with old friends, meeting new ones :)
Paddy was away as she has had a bereavement in the family which meant I got to be 'shop girl' this afternoon. I love doing the till. It's like playing shop again :) But locking up isn't quite the same as being locked in an unfamiliar stamp shop!!!!!!!

Next workshop is on Wednesday :) although I may 'play shop' again before then; I've been meaning to do a window display for ages!! Have an idea, will let you know if it works out!