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

Sunday 17 July 2011

A weekend of contrasts

Saturday was the first of my new workshops in St Helens and it was certainly a good day to be inside crafting as the Heavens opened and it poured with rain almost the entire time. David and I were there bright (mmm that's debatable!) and early getting everything ready before everyone began arriving in various states of drenchedness!
David got everyone settled in with drinks and biccies and then we got straight to work with alcohol inks and Stazon spray cleaner. You can bet that the tables didn't stay as tidy as this for too long! This was the first card that we made in the morning. Everyone made an alcohol ink monoprint and then spritzed it with Stazon before heating the card to make the white speckles appear. The ladies all used a variety of colours, so the results all differed tremendously, some being light and airy, others more dark and brooding. There were a mixture of my fairy silhouette stamps and various trees and flowers etc for stamping over the surface. A little white pen detail just adds some highlights to the silhouettes. The next card hasn't shown up too well in this photo, but was achieved by stamping the images onto old book paper with a Watermark ink pad and embossing with clear powder. Distress Stains were stroked across the page to colour the background before covering the images with brown paper and ironing over the surface to remove the shiny raised areas which leaves a lovely bleached effect. We finished the morning session with a small card using Stains and Perfect Pearl Mists to create a sky background and used my Castle ATC stamp as the focal image. The moon was just a punched circle which was backed with sticky backed adhesive sheet rubbed over with fine glitter. After lunch it was straight back into getting messy! I think this was everyone's favourite card of the day! We used the Tim Holtz Kraft Resist stash to create the background and flowers which had been coloured with Stains and spritzed with perfect Pearl Mists. The velvet leaves were also coloured with Distress Stains. Here are Kath and Elaine with their versions of our second card of the afternoon which focussed on Tissue Tape and ribbon. They were enjoying the day - honestly!!! Here's the sample card which doesn't look as pretty as the ones everyone made...I used quite a dark tissue tape as I wanted to leave the lighter ones for the ladies to use. I think I'll replace my flower with a new one to give a softer look. Here are Melanie and Jacqui with their cards - love this photo! We finished the day by making a tag...I'd thought everyone might be a little weary by this time, so something less complex was called for! We used the Stains directly onto Darkroom Door silhouette flower stamps to create watercolour effects - the great thing is that you don't need to spritz them or breathe on them to reactivate the ink. This will be even more fun when the next 24 colours come out - soon! My top tip here was to use the edge of a piece of card dipped into Stains ink to stamp grass at the bottom of the tag. Well, that is a quick run through of yesterday's workshop! Everyone had great fun including me and David! I worked everyone quite hard, so hope all of you are recovered now! It was great to meet up with everyone that we haven't seen for ages and also to get to know new crafting friends. Sheila brought the Chunky books that she had brilliantly put together for me and Heather - they are just gorgeous and I will be photographing mine and posting the pictures to share with you on here. Thank you Sheila and everyone who made the pages.
The cards and tag are, or will be, featured on the Personal Impressions website under the projects section along with a product list and full instructions for each one.
After yesterday's busy day we were ready for a quiet day. It has been raining all day and I spent most of this afternoon with tears running down my face! We switched on Sky Arts and were treated to a concert by André Rieu which was a mixture of very rousing, jolly music and some tender songs which had a tear jerking effect. These concerts (which seem to be on each Sunday at the moment) are set in a different European city each time and are in the open air. They are so uplifting because there are hundreds, if not thousands of people singing along, dancing and generally having a wonderful time....I always imagine a world wide concert where everybody is joining in together at the same time. I know it won't ever happen, but it's a lovely thing to imagine. Immediately after the concert there was a new(ish) production of Tosca from the New York Metropolitan opera house. It's my favourite opera and was beautifully sung and acted so, I was awash with tears almost the whole afternoon!
It's been a lovely weekend of contrasts - busy, busy and full of laughter on Saturday and filled with music and tears today!
I'll just finish by showing you the stunning card which Joanne sent to me to wish us luck with the new workshops. The background is even better than it looks here! Thank you Joanne!
Right, I had better sign off now - will be back with photos of the chunky book pages next week.

9 comments:

Hazel (Didos) said...

WOW busy busy, All the cards and tags look stunning, Hope all is well, Love Hazelxo

Gez Butterworth said...

Wonderful blog post Lindsay. I am so sorry I couldn't be with you all. Your cards are all beautiful and inspirational as always!

Glad you like your chunky book..can't wait to see all your pages. I've blogged yours today as I knew you would have received your book yesterday! I am looking forward to meeting up with Sheila tomorrow and hearing all about your wonderful workshops. Glad they were a success. Here's to many, many more.xx

Lovely to hear you managed some 'me' time today with David. Sending you both lots of love. Gez.Xxx

Glennis F said...

What a lovely weekend you have had. I would have loved to have been there for your workshop. I love your little castle stamp - do you know if they are available in New Zealand? I should have got one at the Craft Barn Extravaganza!

SusieJ said...

Sounds like a perfect weekend to me. :)
Love all the cards and the tag.
Hugs xx

Lindsay Mason said...

Thanks for the kind comments ladies. Gez the page you made for me is wonderful - thank you. Glennis, I'll find out about the stamp and if it's not available in NZ then I'm sure I can arrange to get one to you. Lindsay x x

Joanne said...

I've read through this post 3 times now just to get the 'feel' of the day. The cards are so lovely that I will be making them from the project instructions on the PI site, just a soon as I get my sticky mitts on some Stazon spray! Sooo glad it all went well, it had to with the glamorous assistant doing his 'thing'!
Big Hugs Joanne xxxxxx

Anonymous said...

Hi Lindsay and David, thank you so much for my lovely day on Saturday. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed it. You both put so much effort into making these days fantastic and I do appreciate it..I hope yo uhave had a lovely day today, so glad you had David had a good Sunday, you both deserve it. *waves* to Gez....who loved our cards and Tags...another lovely day!
Hope to see both again very soon. Much love and big hugs S xx
ps.....glad I can't be seen in those piccies!!!

Liverpool Lou (Anne) said...

All the cards are beautiful; great techniques you've used :-) I followed a link from Chris (Pearshaped Crafting)
Anne x

Ali said...

All the cards and tags looking too much lovely...
Scratch Card Printing
clear business cards
Membership card printing