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 27 March 2015

Bit of a catch up

It's been a busy time here in Doo Lally Land! I was at A Maze of Memories in Long Crendon a fortnight ago which was, as always, a really great weekend. I was there for two days this time, with a workshop on the Friday and then a demonstration and Make n Takes on the Saturday. Lots of fun with all the ladies who make my trips there so special. Here are a few pictures from the weekend....
 ....lots of concentration here!
 ....adding colour to the book boxes that everyone was creating.
 ....Make n Take day!
....more concentration on Saturday!
I got back late on the Saturday night after a fairly straightforward journey and then it was a busy week ahead filled with all kinds of events. Church on Sunday of course, which always inspires and settles me for whatever is coming up. On Monday evening I was one of the "St Chad's Four" team for the Town Quiz which saw lots of teams competing for the annual trophy. We didn't win but we didn't do too badly either...my history and sport knowledge were pretty useless but I redeemed myself in the Colours and Music rounds!
Tuesday evening was taken up with a meeting of the PCC and on Wednesday I was back at Church for part four of our Lent course where we've been talking about the plight of Christians in the Eastern countries - quite an eye opener at times. 
On Thursday morning two of my good friends treated me to a trip to a garden centre that's a bit further out than the one I normally manage to get to. The displays there are always gorgeous and they had lots of Spring like colours and themes in readiness for Easter of course. I loved these lambs and sheep!
And I couldn't resist posing with King Kong outside in the garden area....
I can't imagine what Tara and Thomas would make of him if I'd brought him home for our garden!
This week has been a little quieter on the social front, but I've been enjoying the glorious weather and have been making a (very slow) start on getting the jungle outside looking more like something resembling a garden. I've been making myself getting at least one job done out there every day so I cleaned out the mini pond and refilled it on one afternoon, pruned all the roses and the big lavender bush another day. The lavender has, unfortunately, largely died,so I was very sad to have to cut away large parts of it where it had just become dry and woody. I'm hoping that the rest of it will fill in the bar patch as it always makes a fantastic display in the summer and is noisy with bees for months on end.
I was amazed when looking through my photos to realise that by this time of the year I have usually got trays of seedlings filling the conservatory. Ooops....I appear to be way behind! Partly for this reason, and partly because I really don't want to turn the conservatory into a full time greenhouse again, I've decided to just buy trays of young Sweet Peas and tomatoes etc this year. I bought one or two last year and they did really well, so it will mean less mess and more time to spend on getting the garden tidy as a whole.
I also put up a new arch over my garden bench as the original one was very flimsy and blew down in the strong winds. Thomas decided to enjoy the sunshine after I'd tied all the climbing roses onto their new support and I joined him with my knitting as it was such a gorgeous day!
Talking of knitting....Heather has, somehow, managed to get me totally obsessed with it! She brought some odd balls of yarn and needles and I decided to start a throw made up of six inch squares. My skills stretch no further than plain knitting and I don't do increasing or decreasing either (!) so I'm pretty much left with squares or scarves! The one on the bench is a scarf in progress and here are the piles of what I've been creating in the last couple of weeks or so....
....the beige squares at the back are actually quite a bit bigger and are for cushion covers - there will be four squares per cushion front but I haven't decided yet whether to have the backs also knitted or to use a natural linen fabric instead. The two colourful piles are the ones for the throw - plain and random patterned to alternate. My ongoing scarf and the latest square are at the front. I'm really enjoying it and it's something that I can do in the evening or when I'm on the train...the cushion squares were all done on my journey to, and from, Oxfordshire!
I decided to get a throw for the sofa last week too as, although it's really sturdy and comfortable, the fabric was almost threadbare in places and looking really scruffy. David had been part way through re upholstering it (there was no job he wouldn't tackle - and do well) and it's not something I could do - I certainly didn't inherit my mum's sewing skills! I ordered the throw online and it turned out to be a rather more limey shade of green than the one I'd expected! Never mind, it's bright and cheerful and Thomas seems very happy with it....
All my new stamp sets are in the shops now and mine arrived at the end of last week....
....quite a lot as you can see! I just need to make samples with them all now! Talking of samples, here is a sneaky peek of what we'll be creating at my workshop at Craft Range on 11th April...
....it's a canvas using the Deco Art Media range of paints and pastes. I'll show the full canvas at a later date!
Meanwhile, my Studio Workshops are filling up, so here is an update on them:

Tuesday 5th May - fully booked
Thursday 7th May - one place available
Wednesday 20th May - fully booked
Wednesday 3rd June - three places available
Thursday 11th June - two places available
Thursday 25th June - three places available


These are full day Mixed Media workshops in my studio. They are small classes of no more than three people so lots of personal tuition.The cost is £50.00 per person per day, which includes all materials, refreshments, lunch and a goody bag to take home. Please just drop me a line on ljm.design1@virginmedia.com or PM me through Facebook if you're interested.

Right, back to work for me now. I'm working on a new range of stamp designs and a couple of commissioned canvasses so lots to get on with!

Wednesday 11 March 2015

Whoops!

Apologies! I made a mistake in typing my email address in the sidebar with relation to my new Studio Workshops....thank you to Dawn for pointing this out to me.
So, to clarify, my email address is ljm.design1@virginmedia.com   - if you have emailed me and had no reply, please contact me again with the above address and I'll be sure to get back to you.

Friday 6 March 2015

At last!

Gosh, it's been a while...mostly because something has been messing around with my access to blogger and keeps sending up a page that interrupts me whenever I've tried to post. I think it's something to do with Virgin having "updated" whatever it is that they update and my system doesn't seem to support everything as it did before. Gggggrrrr!
It's also been a really busy time here one way and another....Stitches trade show was as manic as ever - even more so this year, as I was working on both the Personal Impressions and Deco Art stands. Here are some images from the show.
The Deco Art stand and the make n take area that myself and Mark Gould were manning.
I was adorning T Shirts with Andy Skinner's latest stencils and So Soft paints.
One of my hand painted samples using the So Soft paints.
A Mixed Media hanger...I wanted to do something with a more Summery feel.
There's always time for some fun however busy we are of course!
With Andy...the Master of Mixed Media! And the thorn between two roses at dinner with Andy and Mark Gould...
My new stamps were previewed at the show but, due to the pre production sets not being ready, I haven't been able to make any samples to share with you as yet. You can check out the new sets here though  and they will be hitting the shops from around the 15th March...fingers crossed!
I'm happy to say that I'm now on the Deco Art International Design Team which is really exciting. My first step by step project on the Mixed Media Blog can be seen here and there is a new button in my left sidebar which will take you straight to the general Mixed Media Blog. 
I've also been really busy with Church of course...lots of special services lately, including Ash Wednesday and St Chad's day. I was in Chorley on Wednesday for a full day's seminar on courses that we'll be running in the Summer so that was very interesting - if a little long! 
My garden is looking extremely neglected...probably because it has been! I am just waiting for the weather to warm up so that I can get out there and hack through the jungle of weeds, clean out the micro pond and mow the lawn at last. 
Thomas and Tara are beginning to spend a little more time outside again and I can tell that Spring is approaching by the fact that I am finding cat hairs attached to my clothing again..the moult has started!
 I've also decided to start running small (very small!) Mixed Media workshops from my little studio here.I can only take up to three people per session and these will be full days priced at £50 per person which includes all materials, refreshments, including lunch, and a goody bag of papers, ribbons, die cuts etc to take home. You can check out the first dates in my demo/workshop list on the left or you can request a specific date and I will try to fit it in for you.
Right, I will crack on as I have a large amount of dies to cut in preparation for tomorrow's workshop at Craft Range in Burnley!