Lovely Saturday

Hello all, I've just downed tools (pencil, pen and paper) for the day so I thought I'd do a post before I get dinner ready. A stir fry with noodles tonight and some of the veg that is ready to be picked from my plants. Friday night was my first home grown meal (well...almost all of it anyway!)....

...onions and cherry tomatoes from the grocer! The courgettes, sugar snap peas and chard were mine though! Just popped onto a tin plate and drizzled with olive oil, sprinkle of salt and pepper and roasted in the oven for about twenty minutes - they were yummy! The tin plate needed a good scrub though after the spitting oil!

Saturday morning saw me setting off to Burnley for my visit to The Craft Range for their craft demonstration event.It turned out to be something of an "old school reunion" (well, workshop reunion!) as there were so many familiar faces there. So, a big hello to Gez, Kath and Elaine, Jacqui and Christine, Brenda, Mary and Chris...and apologies if I missed you off the list! Chris, Jacqui and Christine...

 ....I was kept well supplied with hot drinks! As I was in the corner, I had to crawl under the table every time I wanted to come out from behind...good thing I'm not very tall!

It was such a busy day that I had no chance to see what everyone else was up to let alone take any photos. Mark Gould and Andy Skinner were in a separate room so not much chance for a catch up there! John Glossop was adjacent to me with some great altered art pieces. There were also demos from Clare representing Indigo Blu and also Wow powders and Crafter's Companion. So, a full house really!

As well as featuring stamps I was making lots of backgrounds using Distress inks, Dylusions ink sprays, stencils and Viva Decor Inca Gold. This was a simple scrunched black card tinted with Dylusions (using the opaque white spray makes the colours visible on dark card) which I then rubbed the Inca Gold over. Simple but effective!

I've become a bit obsessed with backgrounds like this one at the moment.....

....Dylusions sprayed onto my craft sheet and picked up onto white card with a little water spritzed over the surface. I then sprayed the white ink through a Tim Holtz stencil and then flipped the stencil over to use the ink that was on the surface. That way you get the positive and the negative images.

I've really gone mad with colour lately! I don't think you could get much more colourful than this really....

 ....subtle it's not! The die cut flowers were scrunched, wet and then spritzed with inks. Once dried I added touches of Inca Gold and some MME brads.
The day went by in a flash and I was soon on the train back home. I walked back through the park and saw something teeeeny dash across the grass to the right of me and then disappear behind a tree. Thankfully my camera was close to hand so I crept up slowly and found this little sweetie....

 ....altogether now.....aaaahhhhhh! (That's aaaaaahhhhh NOT aaarrrggghhhh! by the way!) It was a cute little woodmouse and he was as bold as could be. Of course, being me, I had to scrabble in my bag and break off a bit of samosa that I had just bought! I threw him a crumb and he sat there having a good feast whilst I took more photos.....

....oh yes, you can tell I'd had a good day of demonstrating just looking at the colour of my fingers! I was really thrilled with this little wildlife encounter. After he'd had a few more morsels he sped off back into the bushes with a twinkle in those big beady eyes!

It's all out there - you just have to keep your eyes open!
Right, time to get into the kitchen now and then a quiet evening (avoiding the dreaded World Cup!) before another day of drawing tomorrow.