Bunting galore, and a goodbye

I've been madly sewing this morning.  I'm off to teach art journaling at a Christian conference tomorrow followed directly by a family holiday so I was keen to get some bunting made for my tent (at the conference, to be transferred to the VW campervan whilst away after that).  I have tonnes of other things I should have been doing ;)

It was hard to get a decent photo of the bunting itself.  There are fourteen flags in total.  I bought the bunting from Paperchase then 'embellished' it!

The birds are from some fabric I bought on holiday a couple of years ago.  I have a matching tablecloth for the camper.

Yesterday saw a busy day of bunting making too.  I've been busy journaling, initially to de-stress after finishing work.  I'll share some pictures on another day.  I saw some blank paper bunting in Hobbycraft and decided it would be nice to do some journaling on the flags and hang them up during my workshops next week.  Over the week I have six classes, with a max of 11 people each class.  Attendees sign up the day before so I don't yet know how busy I'll be...looking forward to it though!

On a different note, a sad one really, we said goodbye to the play date cafe challenge today.  It was a quiet one, which is why I wanted to make sure I played this week.  It's a challenge I was honoured to be a part of right from the start, and one I continued to go to when my mojo needed a bit of help getting going.  Thanks for all your hard work running the cafe Julie and team!

my art journals IN PRINT!!!!

Oh I'm so excited, I still can't believe how much coverage the lovely Cynthia gave me in the latest issue of the stampers' sampler :) :) :)  I'm also very proud of myself that I kept it secret all this time ;)

I have to say a huge, huge THaNKYou to Julie Ranae because it was Julie who told me about the stampers' sampler artful envelope challenge earlier in the year (and sent me a punched shoe shape which I cut round to create the one featured below!).  I adore using envelopes in my journals, and to create journals from, so bravely trusted them to DHL and sent them off to sunny California!

Flicking through the magazine yesterday I could only find my work in pictures 4 and 6 above so assumed this was a heads up for the challenge being featured in the next issue.  Taking it to work to show my colleagues I discovered that the challenge was in this issue...

...and then even later (duh, I really wasn't concentrating), found the feature Cynthia had run on my 'Stamped Journaling' :) :) :)  I'm so happy, I still can't quite take it all in!!!

Thanks so much Cynthia for loving my work, and your sweet description of my talent too [whilst I describe myself as 'playing with paper, paint, inks and odds n ends', Cynthia says 'Sarah is clearly an artist and innovator as well as an experienced stamper' - how cool is that!!!!]

The Stampers' Sampler is available in the UK from Wendy at The Stamp Attic, and from Rainbow Silks.

Tomorrow I'm one of 120 bloggers taking part in a huge blog hop 'Operation Julie's Smile'.  There are over £1,500 worth of prizes in the prize pot and the hop runs the entire weekend so should be a good 'un!

PDCC62 time for a bit of journaling :)

I have enjoyed getting my journal out for this week's play date cafe challenge.  It feels ages since I did any journaling!  I got out a small Daler Rowney 148x130cm sketchbook out to do this piece in.  Julie's chosen this week's wonderfully soft and romantic colours of warm red, taupe and hot pink...

I've been wanting to do some pale beige/pink pages for a while :)  so I started with a taupe background, adding some stamping and stencilling in a warm reddish pink.

I used my Martha Stewart 'hydrangea' punch, and my Claudine Hellmuth stamps [which I got from Jennie in October but you can get them now with 20% off!) alongside some stitching.

I free machine stitched around the larger flowers...

The design team have yet again come up with some amazing projects, as have our design team in waiting!  They start officially on 13th January but we've all been having fun getting to know each other over the past week or so ;)

Andrea Ewen
Savannah O'Gwynn
Ruby 2 Shoes

Julie Ranae - senior designer

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 :)

PDCC 54: not quite peach, fortunately for me :)

... because I just don't 'do' peach!

This colour story from Julie Ranae reminds me of the lanterns that are very popular in the UK at the moment - you light a 'candle' underneath and the paper lantern floats away into the night - beautiful!  (You just have to make sure you buy environmentally friendly ones)

Jennie over at The Artistic Stamper provided each of the design team with their choice of stamps to use for this week's challenge, and is supplying a fabulous prize for this week's cup of the week:

£15 Artistic Stamper stamps plus

Kling On cushioning and free shipping worldwide

I've said before how much I love using Jennie's images, and since I love steampunk too, I just fell in love with her new tick tock butterfly :)

And I couldn't resist showing you the whole page of that book I placed the card on for photography purposes!  It's all about the study of insects and refers to a 'frivolous butterfly'!

Have fun with the colours this week, and don't forget to head on over to the rest of the design team to see what they came up with for this week's colour combo!

Suzanne Czosek

Andrea Ewen
Savannah O'Gwynn
Lisa Somerville
Ruby 2 Shoes

Then stop by the cafe to link up your piece so we can all head on over to see your work too :)

been poorly sick :(

... with an ear infection...which meant I couldn't teach my workshop at Paddy's on Wednesday. Big apologies to those I was supposed to teach! So, now feeling much better, I decided to do a step by step to one of the cards :)

Sometimes it feels like it must just be the right time to do something!  I'd been wanting to do a card with stepped folds for a little while, then spotted that Vixykins had had a similar plan. I thought that tumbling Autumn leaves would be a great theme for this card design.

 So I headed over to Sandy's blog, as directed by Vix, to get some idea of the folds.  I then adapted it to fit on a square card base.  Thanks Sandy and Vix for the inspiration!

Ok, step 1

Using acrylic paints (I used Stewart Gill True Colours, but Adirondack Dabbers are also fine!), smoosh and print autumn colours over a piece of cardboard (Amazon packaging in my case!)

Step 2

Apply gold paint to a leaf stamp using a sponge or dabber and stamp onto your painted cardboard.  I used the Tick Tock Flowers plate by the Artistic Stamper which is also available at Paddy's Stamping Place.

Step 3

Cut five leaves out, following the general shape of the leaf.  

Step 4

Head over to Sandy's blog and fold and cut your card (can you see the mistake I made with mine above? ) Stamp leaves over the card again using gold acrylic paint.

Step 5

Place a piece of A5 paper under the central section of the card and stencil through sequin waste with red, yellow, gold acrylic paints on the centre of the card.

Step 6

Fold your card correctly, and add your leaves and additional elements using Glossy Accents as necessary!

If you get around to making one of these cards, please let me know as I'd love to come and see :)  Now I've spotted that The StampMan's current challenge is Autumn so I'm off to link in this post :)  Vix is demoing at The Stamp Man tomorrow so I'm heading up there with her for a day of craftiness and friendship :)

What a great show!

LOL, not me, Happy Stampers North West festival at Port Sunny ;)

OK, we have had lots of laughs about this photo that the lovely Jennie Boxall took of me early today and iNSTaNTLY put on Facebook, and I mean instantly!!  Mind you, I don't think I could have resisted if roles had been reversed ;)  So yes, I am still speaking to her lol

My phone battery died fairly early on so my plan to take photos of the event didn't go ahead.  I just managed to get Tracey to take a photo of me with the gorgeous Paul B, who was on pain of death not to come and say hi

I had an absolute ball demonstrating this morning for Paddy at Paddy's Stamping Place, then catching up with friends and doing a touch of shopping this afternoon.  I'll share my goodies with you tomorrow, and some pics from the the art exhibition last night :)

Winged Globus Illuminatus

I've been playing with my Artistic Stamper stamps :)  I LoVe that light bulb! This is a snippet from my journal page, my last piece as Guest Designer over on The Artistic Stamper Creative Team blog, head over there for a better look.

I need me more playtime, I reckon the light bulb'll make great funky steampunk jars too... oh, and how fab would it be shrunk

a steampunk wedding at the Play Date Cafe

This week we've been sponsored by Creative Cuts, who sent the whole team a collection of wedding themed die cuts.  And it's a colour splash week, which was great for a wedding theme.  Just look at the colours Julie chose:

This week you get to choose your 'splash' colour from pink, copper or gold.  I was going to turn my cake box into something with legs etc but then discovered that Steampunk Weddings are happening out in the wedding world (and there are some cool ideas out there, just google 'steampunk wedding' for some fab images!) so decided to go with that as a useable theme.

The cake boxes fit together (if you have enough of them!) to make a whole cake so I co-ordinated them to work in this way.  I cuttlebugged the boxes and added zips, lace, cuttlebugged copper and stamped clocks and butterflies.

The butterfly is by Memory Box, and the clocks by The Artistic Stamper.

The wedding card came as a blank white card with the die cut edge and dress shaped aperture.  I put the cuttlebugged copper sheet behind the aperture, and added the pearls, then sewed lace and zip along the fold.  The 7 gypsies paper inside and the snap fasteners are elements I only added because the colour challenge is 'black and white with a splash of ...', but I'm glad I did.  That's the great thing about challenges, sometimes you end up doing things you wouldn't otherwise do!

Although our design team are using Creative Cuts pieces,  you can enter with anything that is

black and white with a splash of

pink/gold/copper

Check out the design team's pieces over at the Play Date Cafe, or individually here:

 Julie Ranae

Suzanne Czosek

Andrea Ewen
Savannah O'Gwynn

Lisa Somerville
Ruby 2 Shoes

 

Have fun with these colours :)