Thank you She!

I got this very colourful award this week, so thank you She for including me. I now have to pass it on to five other people and tell you five interesting things about myself...mmmm, that may prove tricky!!! It's hard to choose just five bloggers too, but I'll pass it to:

Sarah McCrossan who always greets me with a big smile and a big hug!

My sister Heather Fenn-Edwards because this will make her smile!

Joanne of My Toby Jug who is one of the warmest people, along with her lovely husband, Terry, that I meet at events "up north"

Kym from Kym's Krafty Kards who was so wonderfully enthusiatic when I met her at a demonstration a couple of weeks ago

Debsg - whose comments always make me smile

But everyone who comments on here can take the award too, as I love reading your observations and your blogs. As to the five interesting things - I've used up quite a few on previous awards! So, here is what I can think of right now:

1. I used to be in a scrabble club and went to London to help at the World championships - I had to adjudicate on odd words and was in charge of the stopwatch! Gyles Brandreth, who founded the contest, was there and he was charming, funny and as eccentric as he comes across on the tv!

2. I don't get as much time to read as I'd like to, but I just finished the last Harry Potter book, so it feels like the end of an era!

3. I spent my 15th birthday in Leningrad when I was on a school holiday. The Russian people were the friendliest, as a nation, that I had ever met.

4. My sister thinks I'm psychic! Some odd things did happen when we were children, and we were convinced there was a poltergeist in our bedroom!

5. I had an "epiglotyl spasm" ('scuse spelling!) a few years ago which meant that I couldn't breathe in. It was the scariest experience of my life and it was only because David managed to keep me calm that I'm still here!

Well, they were five very random things, that's for sure! So, nominees...over to you now for your five things.

I am all set for the demonstration weekend at Dawn's now, though I do know there have been a few problems with the items that I am supposed to be using, so I may have to do a little bit of thinking on my feet! As a nod to the spooky date I have painted my nails black - guess what? I had no black nail polish, so have used a marker pen and overpainted with a glitter varnish....good thing that I am at home all next week as I may have trouble getting them clean again! I've also dug out my old witches hat and given it a bit of a revamp, so I'm sure there will be plenty of pictures to show you next week. Sarah texted me to say that she will be demonstrating there tomorrow as well, so we should have some fun.

Lastly, I just wanted to say that I have a mixture of feelings about Leonie leaving QVC. I'm really pleased and happy for her that she has this new adventure in her life and sure she will have a great time. But I'm also sad that we won't be meeting up at QVC or at Topaz anymore as I know Dawn is of course. Lindsay

Think ink!

I have not only been thinking ink, I've been pretty much dreaming ink too...along with crackle paint, acrylics etc etc. It's been a very enjoyable couple of days getting samples ready for this weekend's demonstrations as I've been creating a canvass or two, a brooch, a cuff and some other things as well as cards and ATC's. Here are some sneaky peeks of what I've been up to.....this is a plaque that evolved as it went on. Can you see what the expensive base to it is?!? Below is the brooch that I've made to wear on my Ranger apron. The photo doesn't show the words too well, but the legend is "Time flies when you're having fun", which seemed very appropriate for the last few days. It features Grungeboard wings and a chipboard heart and I've used Crackle paint and Crackle Accents to give texture and shine to the piece.

That's all the pictures for now - I shall save the rest for after the weekend. Hope to see quite a few of you on Saturday and Sunday of course...all ATC's happily swapped and refreshments gratefully received......only joking about the refreshments, we get looked after well at the DBDS!

There are a couple of new members to the family this week. My sister Heather will be telling you about one of them, but last week David and I took mum and dad to Cats Paws sanctuary, near Lytham and helped them to choose a little friend to adopt. After looking at lots of pleading faces and some cheeky ones, they fell for a little female called Tara. She was in the hospital section, wearing a large plastic collar as she had been pulling out her stitches! Little Tara had been brought in to be spayed by her owners after she had kittens and then they had rung the sanctuary to say that they didn't want her back. She is a beautiful "tabby tortie and white" with huge yellow green eyes. So, we put a deposit down (they ask for a minimum donation of £60 which doesn't even cover the jabs, vet checks and insurance which they provde for each cat they rehome) and dad signed all the forms. They had to wait until yesterday before they could pick her up, and last night she was, apparently, hiding under a duvet in the spare bedroom, obviously very nervous. Today she has been more adventurous and has picked a spot beneath the gas fire...completely ignoring the luxurious faux suede bed with removable furry cushion which my day insisting on getting for her! So, as soon as we get over there again I will take some snaps and post them on here. I am very jealous, but we just aren't in a position to have a pussy cat now really, so I will share Tara!

Tomorrow I'll be working on new stamp designs - the precise, detailed work will be a complete contrast to my messy week so far! I have a few ideas, but will spend a couple of days doing pencil sketches before deciding which ones to work into finished designs. As usual, I have a very tight deadline, but I work better that way - thank goodness! Lindsay

Halloween ATC's and inky backgrounds

Yes, I managed to take a few photos yesterday...at last... so here are some of the Halloween ATC's that I made for yesterday's demonstration. They all feature Alcohol inked backgrounds, some on gloss card and some on Personal Impressions metallic film which makes the transparent inks really zing. I also used my new Martha Stewart Scary Fence border punch on a couple of them as well as some stickers from ATD and K&Co. They were terrific fun to make I have to say - the pouncing cat one is a little different in that, looking at the inky background that I had made, I could sort of see a cat shape suggesting itself. I simply exaggerated what I could see and used a fine black pen to draw the shape in and accented it with white. It was a bit like looking at a cloud and seeing a particular image, so I must try this idea again. You will spot a few Christmassy ones in there too - really simply made by stamping Tim Holtz's wonderful ATC sized stamps over the background and highlighting with white. There is also one featuring the smaller version of my Scribble Snowman from the clear set. Nobody swapped with me yesterday, so these cards will all still be available at next weekend's demonstrations at Dawn's Studios.

Above is a box which I made from K&Co Christmas Cheer papers using a very straightforward origami fold. I used a square of my Alcohol inked gloss card to decorate thetop with the addition of a beautiful K&Co snowflake. A simple way to make an inexpensive Christmas gift look quite special methinks!

The card above was made using Distress inks to create the snowy background. I then stamped the trees onto alcohol inked metallic film and cut them out, adding tiny green gems at their points. The snowflakes are glitter peel offs which I've used alcohol inks on. This card started out as a bit of a mish mash, but I ended up really liking the end result!

Next is a simple, and, actually, unfinished (!) card that I made yesterday. I used three shades of Alcohol inks (Purple Twilight, Stream and Sailboat Blue) with the direct to paper technique onto gloss white card. The snowman was one of my designs last year and still one of my favourites as he is so easy to use. I added some white glitter paper across the bottom for him to stand on and I drew some naive snowflakes with the Inkssentials white pen. Maybe I'll get him finished next weekend!

Well, these are some of the things that I was up to yesterday. I now know that this coming wekend I will be doing Ranger based demonstrations at Dawn's weekend - both saturday and Sunday. So, there will be inks, paints, grungepaper, stamps (both mine and Tim Holtz designs) and some ATC's to swap too of course! I'll also be signing copies of my book and, hopefully, Heather's Beading book will be available too, as I know that some people have had difficulty in getting a copy. I'm really looking forward to a "grungy" weekend (!) and hope to see some of you there. I'll be in the Studio this time, as the Mill could not accomodate the extra demonstration tables as they normally do. So, it may get a little crowded, but it is really going to be fun! Please remember that, if you do come along, please do introduce yourself as, especially if you have blog photos that are not of yourself, I don't always know who you are, and I do like to say a proper hello! Lindsay

An inky day

I have multi coloured fingers this evening as I've been using Distress and Alcohol inks this afternoon to get some ATC's and background papers ready for my demonstration tomorrow at Dawn Bibby's Design Studio. Messy and fun! Hope to see some of you there and, if you're early, you can swap one of my new ATC's - bit of a Halloween theme on some of them, with orange and black Alcohol inks. I'll get some photos tomorrow - it was horribly dark here today, but that Autumn, cosy feel was nice too. Talking of which, the clocks go back tonight so it's a lie in and coming home in the dark tomorow....ugh!

Anyway, here are just a few pictures to liven up this post! The first one was taken at the QVC event in London, and is of my template kit with just a few of the samples that I made.

The card on the right features paper from the K & Co Winter Wonderland pack. I simply watercolour stamped two birds from my Swirly Birds clear set (PICS013) and added gem stones for their eyes. What, literally, tied this card together was the combination of purple and blue sheer ribbon which picked up on the colours in the paper. Simple, but I liked this one!

The last one shows two examples of the fairy cards which were one of the workshops that I taught at the QVC event. The backing papers are from My Minds Eye and are really easy to work with as they are double sided and have a nice mix of patterns and plain. The cards feature images from my Fairy Silhouette clear stamp set. Hope you like them, Lindsay

And breathe.....

It has been a crazy few days to say the least. On friday I travelled down to Bury St Edmunds and had a bit of time to wander around the lovely town before spending the evening in my hotel room making some cards for my template kit - I'd made some on the train too...got a few odd looks but hey ho!

I woke up on Saturday morning feeling well below par and think I have picked up a tummy bug from somewhere, so I wasn't looking forward to the long day ahead. However, some fizzy water and lovely customers at the Stamp Hut helped and I did get through the day okay! Hello to all the lovely ladies and gents that I saw there, as well as Paula and Dot, from the Stamp Hut, who made the day go smoothly. I had a long journey back so I didn't get home till well past eleven at night - just time for a quick shower and then bedtime!

On Sunday I was teaching a Christmas card workshop at Topaz with David as my glamorous assistant! As usual, we had lots of fun...poor Serena was having "one of those days" but she, like all the ladies, made three lovely cards. One ladies card did go missing, but after much searching, it turned up in my bag with the samples which I had been showing...oops! It was a lovely afternoon, with lots of laughter.

David left me there as I was staying over to help with samples for craft day on QVC. Dawn, Amy, Rena, Jill, Lindsey and myself were working away on a seemingly endless stream of kits. The amount of work that goes on behind the scenes in preparing one of these days has to be seen to be believed, from choosing products, planning the hours, preparing all the samples, checking all the boxes and getting everything together to get down to London. We had a quick bite to keep us going and worked through until nearly midnight. After a good, if short (!), night's sleep, we were back making more samples the next morning along with Jo. At 2.30pm everything was packed up into two vehicles and Dawn, Jj and Amy set off for London. Whew!

Today I had intended to have a day off and planned to watch craft day whilst curled up on the sofa, but another emergency meant that I have spent the day making more card samples! I have finally finished though, so we are planning to relax for the rest of the night. David and I are both still feeling very ropey - definitely a bug I fear.

Thank you to everyone who has texted, phoned and emailed me today after my templates were on the show at 4pm. Your lovely comments were all very much appreciated. I started work on the kit several months ago, so to see everything come together at last was very rewarding. Hope you have all enjoyed craft day. I think there were some very different, and lovely, new things on there today....something for everyone really.

We are off to see my mum and dad tomorrow and then I'm having a couple of days off. My good friend Jan Bloomfield will be at Topaz on Saturday to demonstrate Nestabilities and stamping - she is an absolute whizz with the Nesties, so do pop along if you need any tips, advice or inpiration. I'll be demonstrating there on Sunday, with lots of techniques to show and hopefully inspire you! So, I'll report back with more photos soon! Lindsay

Quickie!

Just a quick post as I'll be leaving to catch the train in a few minutes to go to Bury St Edmunds. It's a beautiful morning, so I'm looking forward to the journey as the scenery goes through many changes on this route. Looking at the autumn landscape from the train and trying to spot birds, deer, rabbits etc is so much more rewarding than reading a newspaper!

I'll be at the Stamp Hut on Risbygate from 10am-4pm tomorrow and then it's a long journey home again...not so much fun, as train travel in the dark is very monotonous. Then on Sunday I'll be up at Dawn's Design Studio to teach a Christmas workshop. I'm staying over on Sunday night so that I can help out in getting some sample cards made for Craft Day on Tuesday, as they are a bit short handed this week. Should be fun!

So, I hope to see some of you tomorrow at the Stamp Hut, and do enjoy Craft Day on tuesday! Lindsay

Typical!

Not much point in me being all secretive about my new products when I switch on QVC this morning and see some of my finished cards on the screen advertising craft day next week!!! So, just to let you know that you can see the full card that the cropped picture came from if you tune in to Dawn later on. There is a Santa and a Stork with a baby too...just to confuse matters! Definitely not stamps this time! Hope you like them anyway, Lindsay

Sore feet!

Very sore indeed! I've spent most of the last few days on my feet and my little toes also had an argument with a chair's legs, not once, but twice, on Thursday, so they are a lovely shade of purple! Otherwise, it has been a lovely, if manic, few days.
I set off to London on Thursday morning and arrived at the conference hall in Westminster ready to get things set up for my workshops. Kathy and Jayne from Personal Impressions had done a fantastic job in preparing things and cutting out gazillions (!) of pieces of card and paper, so there was less to be done than I had feared. I had time to say hello to everyone and then the doors were opened so that all the ladies (and a few men!) could start coming in and having a look around before the official start of the day. Dawn and Catherine Huntley welcomed everyone and introduced all the designers, demonstrators and manufacturers before the event was declared open.
Here's my huge workshop, all ready to go and the very posh sign on the workshop door! (I wanted to bring it home with me!)

There were lots of new products at the event of course, many of which will feature on craft day which is on the 20th October, so don't forget to make a note of that. I have some new items (not stamps) that will be premiering that day, so I hope that you'll like them...they are fun! Here is a very sneaky peek, as I can't show them properly as yet! Jayne and Kathy took turns to help me on the workshops, which I was very thankful for, as we had around twenty five (mostly) ladies on each class, and there was lots to get through in very little time. Apart from the "mystery" object on the right (!), we did watercolour stamping with my fairy set and some scrummy new papers, and a Distress ink card featuring my Swirly Bird owl.
The day flew by as we were so busy, and then it was off to the hotel, a quick change and around twenty of us went to a fabulous Thai restaurant by the river. The meal was beautifully presented and served as well as being just delicious. You can see the attention to detail in my starter (Siam rolls) which looked as if Alan Titchmarch had planted a mini garden on my plate! Here's a picture that shows the table to my left - you can see Dawn, Lorelei (the designer behind the fun ladies you may have seen on QVC last week) as well as Jj and some of the faces behind products like Stix 2 etc.

Leonie and I were sharing a room, so, needless to say, we nattering away until pretty late...or early! She was very touched by everyone's messages after her Gran passed away. Well, next day we had another two hundred or so lovely ladies and gentlemen attending the workshops and make and takes. It was great to see familiar faces and meet new people too, and lovely to see so many people having such a great time. Here is Leonie's table which was full all day long.
The owl card (bet you're sick of seeing my owl!) on the left is not the one we made on the workshops, as we only had a short time on each one, but it was the one that everyone seemed to like! The paper is from the K&Co Winter Wonderland pad and I matched my Distress ink background to work with it and create a wintery feel. I created the trees in the background and the owl's tree perch using Le Plume pens and the Inkssentials white pen. The holly images were from PICS02 clear set from Personal Impressions.

Again, this is not the fairy card that I was teaching as that one used new papers which will be airing on QVC. The fabulous flower and swirling leaves were cut from a Winter Wonderland paper and you can see the foiling on the images. I watercolour stamped the faires in toning shades. Oh, and apologies to those of you who came to the final clas on friday...I could see that some of you were disappointed that we were not doing the Distress ink card after the previous people had shown what they had been doing. Unfortunately, we only had a certain amount of card etc prepared, so we had to stick to what we had organised.

It was a great couple of days in London and I headed back clutching my QVC goody bag which promptly burst apart, spilling the contents all over the floor whilst I was in the underground - disaster! I crammed everything into my other bag - just - apologising for holding everyone up!On Saturday I was at Rosemary Merry's shop, Crabapple Crafts in Frodsham. I felt a bit woozy at the start of the day, but I soon came round and had a busy day creating Christmas cards with stamps, inks and papers. Joanne and her lovely husband Terry came along (Joanne came especially to get a copy of my book and they hadn't arrived, so we swapped some ATC's instead!) and we had a good catch up. It was a very jolly day with a lot of laughter and I met some lovely people who were very complimentary about my work...always appreciated!

David and I were busy on Sunday too and got back home in the afternoon...to be greeted by the sight of a bird of prey in the car park making a meal of one of "our" pigeons. He watched us warily for a few moments before flying off carrying his meal - quite amazing as he wasn't very big. I tried to see the colouring of the poor pigeon but he seemed to be one of the generally grey ones which I can't really tell apart. I don't begrudge the prey bird his meal of course, and it's a good sign to see top predators around as it means that we are doing well with the smaller birds, but it still made me feel sad. Even more sadly, I have to report that Matthew (aka "Limpy Lou") has not been around for about a week so I fear that he may well have been taken by the falcon...very ironic as he had made such a fantastic recovery. However, I will keep looking out for him and will report if he (hopefully) turns up again. I'm not sure which bird of prey we actually saw, but, as Autumn Watch are having a feature on distinguishing between them this friday, I may be able to tell after that.

So, today I have been sitting on the sofa with my feet up (still throbbing!) to recover from the hectic last few days...I always feel a bit guilty doing nothing, but sometimes it has to be done! On friday I shall be setting off again, this time to The Stamp Hut in Bury St Edmunds - a lovely shop in a lovely town, so I'm looking forward to that. On Sunday I'll be teaching at Dawn's Design Studio so it's another busy weekend ahead with quite a bit of preparation to be done this week. Well, I'm now going to watch University Challenge and see if I can answer a few more questions than I did last week! I hope everyone is well and hope you are still awake after reading this mammoth post!

London calling

Sorry for my absence this week, but I've been up to my elbows in getting things ready for an event in London tomorrow and Friday. I'm going to be teaching workshops at the QVC customer event, which will be for several hundred ladies (and maybe a few men!) all mad about their crafting. It's going to be hectic but fun.... I expect to have some good photos to show you after the weekend! I've been trying to make my workshop projects fit the twenty five minute time slots whilst still being interesting and a little challenging....I'll let you know how they go. So, I have just been busy packing my bags ready for the train journey down to the capital in the morning.

I get back on Friday night and then I'm off to Crabapple Crafts in Frodsham on Saturday morning to do a Christmas stamping demonstration. Hope to see some familiar faces there! And I am not even going to mention ATC's!

I've been using the gorgeous new sixty sheet 12" x 12" pad from K&Co, called Winter Wonderland. If you still have Christmas projects to do, but don't want to splash out on a specifically Christmas set of papers then do take a look at this one. It has flat, glittered and foiled sheets and although some pages have snowflakes, trees etc on them, they are very subtle and some pages are just simply patterns, so I know I'll be using this set for quite a few months.

I made a few more Witch ATC's for Heather's swap, so will try to post pictures of those too before I send them. I may well get round to organising a swap of my own as soon as this next week is behind me. Just need to think of a theme now!

Off to sort a few things out for tomorrow now and then a nice quiet evening before the mad next few days! See some of you soon I hope. Lindsay