Hello folks, thought I'd sign in and do a post before the weekend is upon me. I spent the first two thirds of this week working on new designs, including an exciting project that is well and truly in the pipeline now. Then I got onto making samples for this coming weekend's demonstrations. It's a pretty busy weekend as I will be Crafts 4 U 2 Do in St Helens tomorrow, which I know from past experience will be a well attended day - hope to see lots of familiar faces there and some new ones too! I'll have to pack up about ten minutes early tomorrow as David has to take me straight to the station from there so that I can travel up to Washington (Tyne & Wear...not USA!). I won't get there till around 8pm, so it will be just a few hours to relax before bed time and then on Sunday I shall be at Dainty Supplies on Phoenix Rd.I've been using some lovely Hero Arts stamps to create some of my samples. The above was made by stamping the tree, squirrel, owl and hearts onto acetate and then turning it over. I then painted the images using Ranger pens filled with alcohol inks. These are great fun to use as you can keep changing the effects by adding more ink. I mounted the acetate over some new Neatnix paper (these will be available soon - check them out on the PI website) with a strip of torn green paper at the base. Some natural coloured card, a touch of Distress ink and a little circular message stamp brought all the elements together and an alcohol inked ribbon was the finishing touch.
The above card was a quick and simple one using alcohol inks direct to Gloss paper - picked up from my craft sheet. I stamped the Hero Arts images using Archival black ink and added a little extra colour using a Le Plume pen. The border is the Hearts edger and corner punches by Martha Stewart - the effect is so delicate that it almost looks like laser cut work. I kept this card simply matted onto white and lilac with rounded corners.

This last piccie is of my Ranger "Bible" which I made when I was at Ranger U a couple of years ago. The tags all feature different effects and on the back of each is a typed label describing the technique used. It's an invaluable tool that acts as a prompt when I feel low on creativity and a reminder when my memory is having an off day! I always have the tags with me when I demonstrate, so if you do come along to one of my days you can check it out.
So, my bags are all packed up now and I have my pencil and sketch book in there too so that I can carry on with my nw designs whilst I'm on the train! Lindsay