About Me

I'm a freelance artist, designer and demonstrator and have been involved in arts and craft my whole life in one way or another. I design stamps for top British company Personal Impressions, under the "Lindsay Mason Designs" brand, as well as papers, templates and other crafting products. I'm a certified Ranger Educator and my first book,"Stamping", was published in 2009. I also design regular projects for Crafts Beautiful magazine and have made guest appearances from time to time on QVC. I've recently joined You Tube under the name of LindsayMason1000 where I'm posting short technique videos and you can buy my paintings and hand crafted pieces from my Etsy shop. My work takes me all around the country demonstrating stamping, papercrafts and general inkiness! When I'm not working, I love gardening, church & community activities, nature watching, journalling, music and theatre and just relaxing at home. Email me at: ljm.design1@virginmedia.com

Tuesday 7 April 2009

What a nightmare!

Hello everyone, what a nightmare start to my day I had! I was all set to get cracking on some projects that need to be done "yesterday" and the first job was to get out some stamps. I'd decided which ones to use last night and was already dreading the usual search amongst my, less than organised, collection! Apart from the boxes of stamps that are dotted about the place, my main collection is held in a three drawer unit that, admittedly, was not designed to hold hundreds of wooden blocks! There was I, rummaging through the layers, when the whole set of drawers completely collapsed!!! Yes, all three drawers gave up the ghost and all my stamps ended up in piles buried under each other and the remains of the drawers....wonderful! So my stamps are now sitting in the empty frame of the unit waiting for me to come up with a new storage solution...I think that some stackable trays are in order. I am now waiting for another crash, as the top of the, now drawerless unit, is weighed down with boxes of ink pads, peel offs, powders and a hundred other things. So long as the floor doesn't give way I wil cope, and, yes, I did eventually find the stamps that I was looking for!
I've taken some new photographs of the boxes, as promised, though they are still not as good as I'd like as it is rather dull here today. I'll be teaching these on two workshops at Dawn's Design Studio, one in June and the other in November. They aren't a new idea, and are a variation of the Exploding Boxes that many of us have made. But I had great fun making them, so I hope that you like them. The first one was made with papers from one of the latest K&Co ranges called Que Sera Sera (they are absolutely stunning by the way!) and I've used one of their adhesive borders around the lid. Inside the box are birds from my Swirly Birds clear stamps set which I've combined with the tiny flower from the "Count My Blessings" stamp set.
This picture shows the inside of another box and I used some of the alcohol inked metallic film and stamped butterflies onto it before cutting them out and adhering them onto acetate strips. I went a bit mad with the adhesive gems as you can see! No picture of the outside of this one as the image didn't come out very well.The last box is a little different as I had an idea to use the Owl stamp full sized on the outside whilst doing shrink plastic versions on the inside and I knew that I wanted to create a tree effect. After some thought I came up with the idea of a piece of black corrugated card which I cut into a wedge shape and then cut "twiggy" shapes into the diagonal edge. I rolled the card up with the tallest edge in the middle and stuck it into the bottom of the box - my must have product, Glossy Accents, came to the rescue for this job, as it stuck the spiral of card into place within a minute so that I wasn't forced to hold it for an age whilst it set! A little more Glossy Accents around the edges strengthened the bond and allowed me to add glitter for a slightly mystical look. The Owls were coloured with watered down Marvy Le Plume pens and I used a gold Just Glitter marker to add sparkle and a warm colour so that they look like Barn Owls when the light shines through them. I also coloured the beaks in gold to highlight them. I'll admit that I did make about twelve more shrinky owls before I was happy with the final three!!!
Apologies for the less than brilliant pictures, but I hope that they give an idea of what the boxes look like, and hope that they might inspire you to have a go. My friend Sarah has posted some photos of the weekend up at Oswaldtwistle Mills, so check out her blog (in my blog list) to see those...hooray, no pictures of me this time!!! Also check out MyTobyJug blog where Joanne has also posted some great pictures.
Well, I am going to have a cup of raspberry tea now and then back to those stamping projects! Lindsay

9 comments:

Artyjen said...

Fab. Just because something is not new does not mean it can't be original! Has to be the best innards I've seen in an exploding box. Love the owl one best I think.
xoxo

Anonymous said...

Having seen these boxes "in the flesh" I can say they are gorgeous. Love the "Owl" one. xxx

Hazel (Didos) said...

Wow these are stunning, I love the owl one. Hope all is well with you, Hazelxo

Joanne said...

I couldn't sleep on Sunday night as all I could think about were those gorgeous exploding boxes. Then I got really bothered that the June workshop would be full as I could make it after all. Rang Dawn's as soon as they opened Monday and luckily booked a place. Hey Ho!! lucky me. Can't wait. Thanks for the mention. See you in June. xxx

Paula said...

Wow Lindsey these boxes are amazing!
Paula x

Lindsay Mason said...

Thanks everyone! Paula, I'll be showing these to your ladies on Saturday and they will have a template to make them. Lindsay x

The Crafty Goat Girl said...

Hi Lindsay, it was lovely to see you today, the ladies loved your classes. Hope you got home safely? The owl box was fantastic, see you soon hugs Heidi xxx

Hazel (Didos) said...

Hi, hope you had a good easter weekend. Pop over to my blog to collect an award, See you soon, Hazelxo

Lesley said...

Beautiful boxes Lindsay xx