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

Friday 21 June 2013

Where's the time going to?

I've no idea where the days are going to recently. It only seems a couple of days since I was at Dainty Supplies and yet, tomorrow, I'm off to Leeds, to Samuel Taylor's for another Saturday of teaching and demonstrating. I'm sure some sort of time warp is going on, it's the only explanation! Mind you, being busy does make the time go by more quickly of course, and I have been up to my eyes with one thing and another all week. I haven't had a lot of time to make the best of the sunshine in the garden, but I have managed to do a bit of tying Sweet Peas to netting, some of the dreaded weeding and making up a few extra pots with the very last of the plants that I grew from seed.
I've just added another painting, a little scarecrow, to my Etsy shop after putting the finishing touches to it this evening. I'm very partial to scarecrows, ever since primary school when our teacher used to read the Worzel Gummidge stories to us, although I never watched the TV series....it didn't fit the pictures that were in my head! Here's a little peek of the painting anyway....
.....it's done with watercolours and fine pens for the extra details.
I spent this morning with Heather and Graham and one of the tasks was to help Heather to get past her mental block about using her sewing machine....she's had it for aaages and not even threaded it yet! Anyway, it was all very simple so she's all set now to start adding stitching to journal pages etc now. We had a good look through some old photos that has us laughing one moment and then cringing with embarrassment the next. We also wondered why we spent so much time when we were teenagers worrying about our weight and our looks - we both looked very slim and rather gorgeous! Lol! 
While we were rifling through bits of fabric for Heather to practice on we found some little pieces of Aida fabric and I said that I sometimes get the urge to do some cross stitching or tapestry. No sooner said than done and Heather nipped upstairs and came down with this tapestry kit that she'd had for years and never done. 
Not sure when I'll get chance to work on it, but I'm looking forward to getting started and it will be something different to do. Thanks Heather!
When Heather dropped me back here the sun had begun blazing down and Thomas and Tara both came out to enjoy the warmth. Here's Thomas on one of the gate posts, purring away as usual and thinking how lucky he is to be here and not back on the city streets as he was when he adopted us....

 Or maybe he's just admiring the flowers! Oh, don't look too closely at my lawn which is really overgrown again until I get a lawnmower sorted! Tara was, as ever, thinking about her tummy and chomping on grass.....
 Talking of chomping, I had some more of my home grown produce tonight. I made a version of Singapore Vermicelli......I do mean a version! Here's my "recipe"....I fried some chopped onion in a pan and added a few teaspoons of Madras paste and a bit of crumbled vegetable stock cube. Next I added some leftover chopped up chicken and a little bit of chopped Spam....yes, I know, it sounds awful, but I only use a bit and it adds an extra flavour that just works. I poured in a whisked up egg and broke it up in the pan as it set. Next came my freshly picked vegetables which I chopped and added - they need hardly any cooking. Finally, a bag of "ready to wok" fine, vermicelli rice noodles added to the mix and tossed through with some Soy sauce to taste. Eh voila....oh, that's French, not Singalese!
Here are the veg immediately after I picked them......
 .....my first courgette, some more French beans and, at the top, leaves picked from my three Rainbow Chard plants. They were absolutely delicious!
That's a bit of a round up of some of what I've been up to. Next week is going to be madly busy getting ready for my day at Colemans Craft warehouse on the 29th June, as well as several duties at St Chads that I'm taking on for the first time whilst the Verger is on holiday. 
Well, have a great weekend everyone and enjoy the official start of Summer!

6 comments:

Paul B said...

We enjoyed the unexpected sunshine today too. Weather reports said it would be dry and instead we walked around Arley Hall with hot sun & clear blue skies!! No wonder your cats enjoyed themselves :) Gorgeous photo of your produce. More people should grow their own. Good to see you might be helping to influence others to do the same :) Have fun with the cross stitch. I used to do it a long while back but it's just way too time consuming lol. Have a great weekend. Pxx

Rachelxx said...

Lovely to meet you this afternoon at Samuel Taylors Lindsay - loved watching you 'play' :-)

Anonymous said...

Love your little scarecrow painting - any chance of designing a stamp set featuring him in the future? Perhaps with some added accessories like crows!
Christina xx A Maze of Memories

Susanne said...

Love your scarecrow painting, what a great idea a stamp set with the scarecrow and other features :)

Toby said...

So much enjoyed your class Lindsey, great to escape to some one else's class and pick their brains for a change. Loved it all and am back in Scotland and hoping to pass a little of it on to those who are stuck up here! Hope that your week is not too exhausting
Toby

Anonymous said...

Your Scarecrow is lovely Lindsay. And what a great photo of Thomas, love him ♥ Enjoy your cross stitch, I have just re-found mine, it's a really good de-stresser! S xx