Out and about

What a super day it was at High Legh garden centre yesterday. It took a sight longer than it normally would to get to Knutsford due to the engineering works on the line, so three hours there and the same back! From the back of the house I can see the massive crane and the various trucks and so on that are helping to lower the bridges to allow for full electrification of the lines - don't ask me what's powering the trains at the moment! They are working pretty much through the night so it makes for quite a dramatic floodlight scene at night - as well as being a little noisy!

Everyone was very keen yesterday and my attempts at making a nice display of my samples were soon given up in favour of everything being passed around the table instead! Hello to everyone that came along and I hope you're all going to have great fun using the stamps and the ink sprays. It's always good to see familiar faces and Chris took some photos for me...being watched by her very crafty granddaughter Em....

...this was me inking up the edges of a tag that I'd covered with Tim Holtz tissue wrap and spritzed with Dylusions ink sprays. The tissue has a slight coating so I always dab at the inks with kitchen towel to blend them into the surface. This is the tag that I was working on....

 ......I used kitchen towel at the base, scrunching up a piece that I'd used to clean up the spare ink from my craft sheet, and glueing it to the tag with Glue n Seal. I just kept brushing more of the medium to the paper until it was saturated and then sprinkled it with a touch of Rock Candy Distress glitter. I've stamped, coloured, cut out and stuck down the character from my "My Fragile Heart" set. The flower is just two circles of Kraft Resist paper that I screwed up, spritzed with ink and then heat set. I added a small metal flower to the centre with a brad and then inked a ribbon to co ordinate.

Here's a piccie showing more of the table....

 ....and after I'd had a tidy up by the look of things! It's always tricky to balance displaying samples and obscuring everyone's view of what I'm doing, hence the rather flat appearance of everything.

Here's a last photo of a card that I put together on the day....

 .....the background of the panel was made using Distress Stains in various shades including the Tarnished Brass metallic stain - this creates some lovely marbled effects. I used the scrunched up inky kitchen towel technique again to form something for the character to sit on. She's from my Piffy on a Rockcake stamp set. The flower was made like the one on the tag, except that I used two scalloped circles instead of plain ones. I made the stalk from twisted kitchen towel and the leaves were simply torn from the same sheet. The text is from my "Don't be afraid" stamp set and the butterflies are from my "Hope Blooms" set - I just added a couple of shades of ink and misted with water lightly before stamping down. I often don't get to finish cards on a demo day as it's more about techniques, but this one just came together nicely.

I was so tired last night after such a long day, that I fell asleep on the sofa after dinner and woke up there after midnight! Of course, just the act of getting myself ready for bed then woke me up again! Today began with going to church and some hearty singing which always lifts my spirits. Then I had coffee with some of my friends from church before the "Lent Lunch" in the church hall - this is a symbolic simple bowl of soup and a piece of bread. It was very good soup though - all homemade and with a choice of five flavours. I had to buy a few groceries before coming home and I've spent this afternoon peeling and chopping vegetables for a curry that is bubbling on the hob as I type. 

David's curries were always one of my favourite treats and, though I've made some simple veggie ones, I decided to be more adventurous and make a beef one, following as many steps from David's "recipes" that I could. So I've been sealing and simmering the beef, frying off the spices, cooking lentils to thicken the curry and adding an array of veg, ground almonds and coconut. Goodness knows what it will be like but it smells pretty good at the moment! I have to confess that it has had quite a bit of butter added to the mix as well but, as I said, David's curries were a treat so I don't feel too naughty having it once in a blue moon. I'll let you know if it's any good!

I've had the final episode of the amazing penguin "spy in the huddle" series on in the background - I'd seen it last week but it certainly deserved a second viewing. Have any of you been watching it? Can you think of anything more appealing than those penguin babies? And wasn't it a nice change to watch a wildlife programme that didn't keep showing things being killed or eaten? 

Well, I'd better check that my curry isn't burning, so I'll sign off for now. Hope everyone had a good weekend.