I'm still here!

Hello everyone, and sorry for being so long in posting....the rumour that my leg had got infected and dropped off is not true! Lol! No, I have had my head down, putting finishing touches to the "hush hush" project that I'm working on. I've just about hit my deadline for this stage, so am feeling rather relaxed this evening, although I start work on brand new stamp designs as of tomorrow. It's all go!

Since my last post I had a lovely busy day at Ream's in Derby, where the staff and customers were very welcoming, friendly and enthusiastic. Jill's son even kept me topped up with hot drinks all day and I was given bottle of wine before I left! Yesterday was a full day of teaching at JGD Crafts in Sutton, where a lovely group of ladies had lots of fun making a varied selection of distressed, stamped and inked cards. There was a lot of laughter, but they still managed to make some stunning cards.

I shall be at the Garden centre craft shops (ex Craft Central stores) in Chester-Le-Street and Carlisle this coming Saturday and Sunday, so please pop in if you are in the area this weekend. I'll be demonstrating Sakura pens on both these days and will have ATC's to swap, so bring one or two with you if you are coming along. I will be showing various techniques, including stamping, working on acetate and doodling. I have some nice train journeys to look forward to, as the scenery is stunning along the northern routes. Hopefully I won't have any confrontations with yobs this time either!

For those of you who had asked me to email any further lists of my clear out items, everything has now gone, so my lists are no more! There is a nice space where the clutter was, although it does seem to be managing to fill itself up again rather alarmingly! Some new boxes will hopefully keep everything in reasonable order though....no more collapsing drawers!

We've had a mixture of warm sunshine, winds and torrential rain in this last week and the trees seem to have swelled to twice their size. "Our" birds and beasties are all doing well, and, as I type this, some of our regular pigeons are tapping on the window as if to order more bird seed! They are comical characters. On a natural history note, I emailed Channel 4 last night after seeing Bear Grylls (not someone I normally watch) confronting a huge Boa Constrictor in Belize. It was a beautiful, awe inspiring snake - until Mr Grylls decided to kill it because it "had a lot of meat on it". It was sickening and a complete waste of a magnificent animal. Had he really been stuck in a jungle, starving, then, obviously he could be justified in doing what he needed to do to survive. However, he was simply making a programme about survival and I was absolutely fuming (and still am, as you may guess) that he and Channel 4 thought that this was okay behaviour. I'll let you know what they have to say when I hear from them. Rant over!

Well, this has been a loooong weekend, so I am just about to nip out to the Chinese takeaway - something that we don't have very often, but we are both shattered, so are having a really lazy night. Lovely!

I shall post again, with pictures, soon. Lindsay

Ouch!

Hello everyone, well, it's been a pretty dull day weather wise...must be a Bank Holiday weekend! In a way I was rather pleased that it wasn't a sunnier day, as I would have been fed up at having to stay inside and work! (That sounds really selfish, and I don't mean it really! Or do I?!?)

I had a rather nasty accident on Saturday as I was tidying my craft things away. Those of you who I have met may have heard me say that I often work on the floor - I know it's a little bizarre, but I just sort of spread out! I was kneeling down and picking up scraps for the bin when I felt a little pin prick at the side of my right knee. It wasn't painful, but, when I looked down, the handle of my heavy duty pricking tool was sticking out of my leg and the thick, needle part was in my leg up to the hilt! (An inch and a quarter - I measured it!) It wasn't bleeding and I gritted my teeth and began to pull it out - it came out a few millimetres and that was it, it was absolutely stuck. My skin was pulling up with the tool but it would not come out...and that did hurt! I realised that it was probably the dried on glue on the tool acting like a bee sting's barb. David was washing the car so I rang his mobile, only to realise that it was charging up on the shelf! I was upstairs and manouevred my way gingerly into the bathroom which overlooks where the car is, but I couldn't reach the window to call to him, so I threw a note of the window along with a plastic razor, which was the nearest thing to hand, to attract his attention. Nothing! So, I began waving a big towel up to the window, throwing all sorts of things down to him as well as shouting my head off...still no response. I gave up and stayed on the floor wondering what more I had to do to attract his attention. After about half an hour he appeared and it turned out that he had washed the car and gone straight to Sainsbury's! He hadn't even been outside as I rained down all the stuff!

Thankfully, after a few minutes of gentle tugging, twisting and tugging, David managed to pull the tool out of my leg whilst I stuffed a towel in my mouth and felt a bit sick! Amazingly, it didn't bleed and (apart from whilst trying to pull it out) was not painful at all...the only time I have ever been glad that I've got little fat legs!

Anyway, just to warn everyone - do keep an eye on where your pricking tool is at all times! Although it was a painful experience, it was very funny too!

I found some old card samples this week whilst I was rummaging about for some card stock. This first one was made several years ago when I was heavily into using little scrabble tiles - as you can see! It's odd looking back on things that you created a long time ago, and trying to recall what inspired the design. The one below was made as a project for Making Cards magazine and featured UTEE panels stamped in purple Stazon with vintage ladies (both from the Beryl Peters colection by Personal Impressions). I used Alcohol inks onto shiny card which had a sort of mother of pearl, pinky effect, which really softened the colours.I've just finished clearing away again (no stabbing myself this time!) and am now going to start typing up some projects before a relaxing evening watching some telly...if there's anything on worth watching of course!

Take care everyone, and watch out for those pricking tools! Lindsay

Look what came today! (& a Tartan step by step)

The postman brought me a small package from Personal Impressions this afternoon. It didn't look like much. Just a small corrugated card box that rattled a bit when I shook it. Looks can be deceptive though, as when I opened it, look what was inside...........yes, the new colours of Ranger Alcohol Inks in Lights and Brights. Twenty four luscious shades that all alcohol ink fans have been waiting for. They are pretty, rather than grungy, girly, pastel, pinks, lilacs, peaches....just gorgeous!

I've made a colour swatch on gloss white card so that you can see them properly - I added it as a small picture so that you can click to enlarge it to read the colour names.

I promised to do a step by step on how to create a Tartan effect with the inks, so thought that this was a good time to do it. Sorry if some of the pictures look a little blurry (it wasn't the excitement of the new inks making my hands shake, honestly!). You'll need: Glossy white card (preferably Cast Coated....don't use photographic paper for this), two or three shades of Alcohol inks (I used Watermelon, Clover and Willow), Blending Solution, Applicator tool and felt piece, non-stick craft sheet.

1. Press the felt piece onto the applicator tool so that it grips well. Squeeze drops of the Watermelon ink across the length of the felt, spacing them as shown below.

2. Now squeeze drops of Clover ink between the Watermelon blobs - that's a technical term by the way! Squeeze a little of the Willow in in any spaces between the first two colours.3. Add a little Blending Solution across the length of the felt, bearing in mind that the more that you add, the paler the ink colours will become.
4. Sweep the tool across the glossy card in a horizontal direction. Sweep it across again below the first band of colour. The idea is to try to get the bands of colour side by side as opposed to leaving white gaps or overlapping them too much. However, don't worry about this too much - if you do get a white gap it will still be fine!

5. Turn the card round by 45 degrees so that the bands of colours are now vertical. Sweep the tool across the card exactly as before to create the Tartan effect. If needed, you can add more ink and/or Blending Solution if you feel that the felt is dragging, or want more colour.

6. Once dry...this takes about two seconds!....cut away the edges where the colours look a bit raggedy - or leave them on, it depends what effect you are after. Use the design as a background on a card, for an ATC r even to punch shapes out of. If you want to stamp onto the card do be sure to use something like an Archival pad as opposed to a Stazon which, being a solvent based pad, will remove the alcohol ink.

As you can see, it's a really simple technique, so do give it a try! Apologies to any of my Scottish friends reading this.....unless I've been very lucky, I doubt that this is a legitimate Tartan design! Do note that I put a decent amount of Blending Solution on the felt for this one, so the colours are fairly muted. Just add less for a stronger effect. Have fun and let me know if you do give it a try.

Lindsay