New designs & a page

The postman called this morning with a package containing some new "things" I've been working on. They'll be on QVC at the beginning of September, so I shall be making some samples for the show. It's always a thrill to see the initial designs becoming a finished product, so I'm going to enjoy working with them now. Watch this space!

Hello to everyone that I met at the demonstrations this last weekend. It was a very busy two days, though not too much travel involved this time which made a nice change. The picture below is from Saturday's event at Crafts 4 U 2 Do....everyone was very jolly....honest! (I think everyone was concentrating!) The lady sat down is Joan, who was already there when I arrived to make sure that she got the plum spot! Lovely lady as was everyone that came along. I don't have pictures from the day at Crafty By Nature as my official photographer wasn't with me ie David! Anyway, hope everyone managed to paint some trees, blend their ink and make alcohol ink monoprints...I was thinking about you all! I've managed to complete another page for Heather's book swap and I've also done a couple of the backs as well. One is for the back of my Heart & Soul page, but I didn't photograph it. The pictures below are of "The Timekeeper" themed one. I've used three of Tim's cogs...I love this element as the cogs engage with each other properly so they all move if you turn one of them (I'm easily pleased!!!). The metal bird is also one of Tim's (sounds like I've stolen his personal stash!), as are the clock faces which are from the Lost & Found Paper Stash. The background is a mixture of Big n Juicy ink over gloss card which I'd partly covered with a large clock mask (Tim again!). I scratched some of the surface off to give texture and also added some torn tissue tape from you know who! The wizard was cut out from a charity shop book find. I added the letters and calendar scraps and glazed them all with Glossy Accents. The clock hands are just twisted wire which I bradded into place so that they can be turned to any time. Passage of time is my main theme here I suppose with the bird symbolising that time flies...how true! For the back of this page I've drawn a wizard using my 0.05 ink pen before colouring and shading with Promarkers. One tip with using these pens for skin tones is to use something other than the actual flesh colours for shading. I've used Blush to colour the face and hand and then shaded using Cool Grey 1. Using a grey or a very light green will give a much more realistic look to skin than using light, medium and dark shades of the usual flesh tones.If you are colouring darker skin tones then just use darker greys and greens in the shadowy areas. If you look at portrait paintings, or even your own face in a mirror, you'll see areas of green, blue or even purple as well as the usual peachy, browny, pinky tones. Well, hope you like this latest page!

I'm off to book some train tickets and hotel accomodation for my next trip down south now, then I'm going to carry on with some more work whilst watching Amy on QVC at 2 o'clock. Cheerio for now, Lindsay

PS Blog Candy and consolation Candy (for Jovick) has now been sent out....finally! I'll be ofering a new Candy before too long, so keep popping back.