Great weekend

Hello all, what a busy weekend that was! I met so many lovely people, both familiar and new faces and had lots of fun into the bargain. I was demonstrating at Topaz in the morning and then teaching a workshop in the afternoon. We made butterfly cards using various techniques...alcohol inks in the new bright shades, stamping, die cutting and peel offs, along with lovely K & Co papers. Then I went up to the hotel where Dawn Bibby was holding her residential weekend and said hello to everyone there. They were all busy making gorgeous books from acetate and K&Co papers and embellishments...very pretty.

I met up with Sarah, Leonie and all the girls from Dawn's team and helped to pack away so the hotel staff could get the room ready for the evening. A quick wash and brush up and then we all headed down to a lovely meal, followed by a crafty quiz....I was with the lovely Sarah and we were convinced that our table should have won! We definitely felt cheated! It was great to get some time to have a proper catch up as Sarah and I usually only have fleeting meetings. I just read Sarah's blog and she was burgled last night, as they slept, so hope that she is not feeling too shaken up today - it's a nasty experience for anyone that's for sure, and typical that it would happen to such a kind and caring person.

On Sunday the day began early as the ladies were bussed from the hotel to watch me, and some of Dawn's team, demonstrating. Lots of ATC swaps were done and plenty of hints and tips passed on. Then all change again for the afternoon worshop where we made my owl box. Joanne from My Toby Jug fame was at this one, so it was lovely to catch up. Hello to all the ladies from the weekend including both Margarets, Serena and Valerie. We had fun with the shrink plastic owls as it was the first time for some, so lots of giggling ensued as miniature owls flew around the room! I did take photos of the weekend, but will post them next time as I have so much to get through this week.

I am playing catch up with new product testing plus all my design deadlines and samples but hope to be able to give more details on what I am working on very soon. A giant headache has intefered with my progress today, so I went for a long walk to try and blow it away, with some success! Right, I shall press on and be back soon with piccies! Lindsay

Busy weekend ahead

Just time to sign in after packing everything up for my weekend at Topaz...I'll be at the Design Studio all weekend whilst Dawn and much of her team are busy teaching lots of ladies (and a couple of men I believe!) at her residential event.

I'll be demonstrating on both mornings and then teaching in the afternoons, so hope to see some of you. If you're in the area, and feeling creative, pop along around lunchtime and we'll squeeze you onto a workshop! I will, of course, have ATC's to swap as always, though I am a little behind on re stocking my album after last weekend.

Now it's time to watch the last of the heats of Cardiff Singer of the World on BBC 4 - anyone been watching it this week? It's been wonderful to hear some fabulous new voices and really hard to pick a favourite. There is an Italian tenor on tonight, so I am looking forward to hearing him with fingers crossed that he has a great voice.

So, just a quickie, but I have packed my camera, so should have some good pictures to post on Monday. Have a great weekend everyone. Lindsay

Lovely Lingfield

I got back quite late last night after a very busy and enjoyable time in Lingfield. It really is a lovely village with just a few shops, a couple of restaurants and cafes, a pretty duck pond (with duck house!) and some really beautiful old cottages. Needless to say that, as soon as I had left my bag at the shop and checked in at my hotel, I bought some bread and went to feed the Ducks and Coots (or were they Moorhens? I always confuse the two). The adult Coots were kept very busy as they had two broods to feed - "adolescent" chicks and the newest arrivals which looked like little black fuzzy pom poms! Very sweet! My hotel was one of the local pubs and was just a stride away from the cottages and church that you can see in the first photograph. From my window I could see the local countryside and the hotel garden had a horse, goat and rabbits, so I was in my element! I went out for a meal at a lovely Thai restaurant, a delicious red curry with Kafir lime leaves and coconut - beautifully presented with carved vegetables that were too pretty to eat!

The Craft Barn weekend demonstrations were in the local community centre and we had hardly set up our displays when customers began to arrive. I only had chance to take a few photographs of my fellow demonstrators as the crowds kept coming and the day just flew by.

On the left is Sue Roddis with a wonderful display of her altered art. You will know Sue from her many magazine articles - her pieces are really inspirational. On the right is Sandra Dry who designs stamps for Kadoodle - some very cheeky ladies can be seen at the front of her display! Below is Jenny Mayes from Hobby Art who was beside me - not that we got much chance to chat! Thank you Jenny for the lift to the station! There were many other designers there too - Paula Pascaul (who will be at Topaz with me this coming weekend), Julie Hickey and Kay Carley to name but three.

Once we had finished I went and fed the ducks again to unwind. I ate in my room that night as my hands were almost completely blue from using Distress inks all day! After a relaxing night it was time for day two which was just about as busy as Saturday had been. Thank you to all the ladies who swapped ATC's with me - they were all gorgeous - and for the lovely comments which I am always very appreciative of. I met familiar friends and made new ones too, so hello to all of you.

I was using lots of Ranger goodies and the card on the right was made using distress inks to create the background before stamping the sunflowers (from my "Count My Blessings" clear stamp set) with Walnut Stain distress ink. I then brushed gold Perfect Pearls over them and spritzed with water before heat setting. I finished with two fern images, from the same set, stamped with Pine Needles ink. The words are from Messages set 1 (clear stamps). This technique is featured on one of Tim Holtz's videos on his website, so do check it out - it's fun!

Two owls to finish with! On the left is a fun 21st birthday card that would suit a Harry Potter fan. The background is Que Sera Sera paper and the edge of the card is tinted with Dusty Concord Distress ink. The tree branches are just cut from black card and highlighted with a Just Glitter pen. The Fluffy Owl is stamped and cut out and I added the hat from my "Wizard Shelf"stamp. I cut a slit at the side of his wing and threaded a jump ring through this before attaching a small key charm. I then created a mini "envelope", cut around the beak and then popped the greeting underneath it. The final touch was to write the greeting across the bottom of the card.

The last image is not a finished card, but this proved to be the most popular demonstration that I did all weekend! The background is created with Broken China, Faded Jeans, Dusty Concord and Walnut Stain distress ink pads. I then stamped the owl using black Stazon. I spritzed a few drops of water over the card and dabbed these off to create a starry effect. I used a very wet brush to "draw" the moon in the sky and to paint the owl. Once dabbed away this has a bleaching effect with no noxious bleach needed! Just water! I added a touch of colour to his eyes, beak and feet and drew a branch with a black pen. Lastly I used my Inkssentials white pen to add highlights and a couple of extra stars. Hope you like it as much as the ladies (and men!) in Lingfield did! Thank you for all of the kind comments

Finally, I must say thank you so much to Jilly who sent David and I a beautiful card - David described it to me over the phone, but couldn't do justice to just how lovely it was. Totally unexpected and much appreciated! Hope to see you again soon Jilly. And hope to see some of you this weekend at Topaz - I'll be a bit busy this week now, getting ready for my demonstrations and workshops, as well as starting work on some new (non stamp!) designs. Hope you all henjoyed your weekends as much as I did! Lindsay

Julie's blog

Just wanted to mention my mate Julie Taylor's new blog www.lovefibres.blogspot.com - do check it out. Julie was the designer behind the Making Cards for Children special issue of Making Cards magazine and is a regular contributor to their monthly issues. If you haven't seen her work, Julie designs very clever cards with things that move, pull, pop out, turn etc. So do take a look and leave a comment for her to welcome her to the land of Blog! Lindsay

All set

Just thought I'd sign in before having a few hours of relaxation now that I have packed my case - hardly any clothes, just stamps, inks, papers etc! I have to go via the London underground tomorrow, which is never much fun - I always feel as though everyone but me knows exactly where they are going - but, other than that, it should be a straightforward journey.

I will try and get some good photos of what some of the other designers are up to and some of the various samples, though I'm expecting it to be a very busy weekend, so time may be limited. I will, of course, have ATC's to swap, so, if you are coming along, do bring some with you. I must also thank Larraine from the craft department at Strikes garden centre, Thornton, for the RAK which she gave to me as well as the ATC that she swapped with me. Ive been doing some with Distress ink pads which I have then stamped onto with permanent ink before "bleaching" areas, such as faces, with water, which makes the area pop out from the dark background. I'll post piccies of these soon. If you haven't tried it, it's a great technique and yet another feature that I love about Distress inks.

Well, time to think about preparing a quick meal (salad - so I can manage to "cook" that!!!) and then an hour of Springwatch. What is the concensus on this new series? Better or worse without Bill Oddie? I'm hoping that I will see quite a bit of wildlife from the train tomorrow, so shall report back if I see anything unusual. Bye for now, Lindsay

A day off at last!

Hello folks, well, I was writing this yesterday, had uploaded some photos and had nearly finished, when I was interrupted and, forgetting to save what I'd written, I lost the lot! Hence the wrong date at the top of the post - it is now Tuesday! I was a little peeved, but never mind.....so...here goes again....yesterday was a total relaxation day with my feet up on the sofa and just catchingup with emails and phone calls. It was my first proper day off in three weeks, so I didn't have the usual twinges of guilt that come with a "lazy" day!

There has been plenty going on, which is why I have been absent from here, and apologies to those of you who I have not been corresponding with as often as I normally do. On Saturday I was teaching a Cake Cards workshop at Dawn's Design Studio and the ladies all made fabulous cards....hello especially to Jilly and her lovely husband, as well as Margaret and Serena of course, Mary, Karen and the new ladies that I hadn't met before. We made a simple little card first, using a template that I had drawn out and decorating it with glitter, Que Sera Sera paper and adhesive borders....this is a useful little idea as it can be the card itself, or scaled down to decorate the front of a card or scrapbook page.

Next came a Wedding Cake Pop Up card using the lace and glitter technque to decorate the tiers. This was a fairly small version, but if made on a larger scale, this pop up is a real eye catcher. Everyone used different colours of glitter so we had quite an array of yummy looking cakes! Lastly we made a really fun card (either a dog or cat version - I'm posting the kitty one) using my "grab" stamps and a template that I drew to represent a cake with a big slice out of it. Just a silly, fun card, but everyone seemed to like it. That's my finger at the bottom of the picture by the way....the card refused to lie flat for me!

I shall be at Dawn's again in two weeks time, when I'll be demonstrating on both Saturday and Sunday mornings and doing workshops each afternoon (Beautiful Butterflies and Box of Delights)....see demonstration dates list for details.....and there are still a few places available on both of them, so do contact Topaz if you fancy joining me for some creative time with a lot of fun thrown in. Hope to see you then!

On Sunday I was at Burnside Garden Centre in Thornton, Blackpool at what used to be Craft Central. Hello to all the ladies (and men!) who came along, it was great to see you all and especially Joanne - we swapped four ATC's! I shall endeavour to post some piccies of them asap. I hope that you all remembered which pens were which and what you could do with them all!?!

Last week my sister, Heather, and I were down in St Ives, in Cambridgeshire, as we were doing a whole set of photographs (well we weren't doing the photos, we were posing with our hands!) for the projects that we and two colleagues are working on at the moment...more about that in a few weeks, but we are almost there I am pleased to say, as it has been a lot of work. The photography sessions were very hot and took forever to do but were very interesting and Brett (the photographer) was incredibly patient with us! I was also designing some new stamps, on another tight deadline, which will be out in few weeks, so, again, I will tell more when I am allowed to. There is always a lot of secrecy around new things as you may imagine!

As Dawn has already mentioned it on air, then I can now say that I'll be going onto QVC in July, as a guest on one of the shows, so will tell you more as I know it.

Today I have been preparing cards and ATC's for the weekend event at the Craft Barn in Lingfield, Surrey. I'll be travelling down there on friday and demonstrating there along with eighteen (yes eighteen!) other designers, including Francoise Read, Paula Pascual and Sue Roddis. So it will be a brilliant event with lots to see and learn about if you are anywhere in that vicinity. I'm looking forward to it and hoping that I get chance to see what everyone else is up to at some point too! My hands are quite oddly coloured now as I have been using Ranger inks for the samples and I have more on me than on the cards as usual!!!

Well, I shall sign off for now and hope that I post this before it disappears into a black hole in the lap top! Lindsay