October is here!

Hello everyone...suddenly it feels like October usually feels! It's gloomy and been pouring with rain solidly here for the last two days and Thomas has hardly even ventured outside at all. He has a bladder made of iron!
Welcome to all the new readers and followers from down Essex way - and elsewhere. I had a really good weekend in Wickford and Billericay and met up with both familiar and new faces, and there was a lot of fun along the way. Not that you can see much sign of it here, as everyone, including me, was concentrating hard! This was on Saturday at In 2 Crafting in Wickford, where John was taking photos throughout the day for their blog at in2crafting.blogspot.com if you'd like to see more of the piccies (and spot if you're on any of them!). On Sunday I was at Pinnacle Crafts in Billericay - no photos of the day I'm afraid as I was loaded up and didn't take my camera away with me. Here are some of the things that I made over the weekend though....a couple of simple tags using alcohol inks over PI coated gloss card to create the tartan effects and using Gorjuss toppers for simple main images. I used letters from the Donna Salazar Spellbinders alphabet dies for the JOY message, whereas the SNOW uses Grungeboard letters, inked and then topped with Liquid Pearls. I do enjoy making tags at this time of year as they can be quick and simple, or more ornate and it's also a great way of using little offcuts of papers, ribbon etc. I'll have more tags to show you next week as I'm planning to make quite a few on this coming weekend's demonstrations. This card is another one featuring Gorjuss images - these are from the clear set "Snowman" GJCSA6008 - and I couldn't resist popping the extra Robin onto the snowman's carrot nose! The words are from my Silent Night clear stamp set, which has a selection of Christmas greetings to suit most card styles. I used Ranger Core-dinations cardstock for the background...love that colour! This little card was just to show the Palm trees from my Nativity stamp set being used for a non Christmas theme. I used my Stazon spray cleaner technique over an alcohol ink monoprint to create the background (I used Pool and Clover ink colours) and then stamped the trees before colouring the bottom of the panel with black ink and adding some upward black strokes for the grassy effects. I put a few drops of Sailboat Blue alcohol ink onto my craft sheet, and used a paintbrush to sweep the blue across the panel to represent the ocean. I drew the boat with a black pen - if you have a stamps of a boat, or other suitable silhouette, you could use that of course. I then used a white pen to add a few highlights and a fine black pen to draw some simple birds. My final card to share today is made using my Build a Snowy Scene and Christmas Post stamp sets. Some masking and Distress inks were all it took to create a traditional Christmassy scene...the foreground trees are a little small for accurate perspective to be honest, but....I don't mind...I just like the overall appearance! So, I had a really good weekend and no travel problems either, although my train to London was about ten minutes late due to....idiots stealing cables again. This has been happening more often as people are after the copper apparently, and it is creating havoc for the railways....and passengers of course.
I shall be on my travels again this coming weekend, with demos at Dainty Supplies in Washington, Tyne and Wear on Saturday, and at Stephen H Smith's garden centre in Scunthorpe on Sunday. Hope to see some of you there, but I'll be posting again before the weekend. Meanwhile, keep warm and dry everyone!