Unseasonal apologies

I know it's still only August, though you'd be forgiven for thinking it was almost October after the crummy weekend weather we just had, so I feel I should apologise for posting festive images this early. It's the nature of my work, of course, to be always a few steps ahead of the calendar and it's Christmas products that I'm using on demonstrations at the moment. Only a couple to share tonight though and quite straightforward ones at that - I'll be at Paper Warehouse in Kendal on Saturday and they prefer clean and simple cards there. I find them harder to make than my usual messy style!

Anyway, I've been working with my Zendoodle range of stamps today, both the ready doodled versions and the plain ones. Although the idea with the plain ones is that you can fill them in with Zentangle patterns, they are also perfect for paper piecing. As I'm using some Teresa Collins papers on Saturday too, I thought it was a perfect way to utilise them. This one is an ultra simple card using my Zendoodle Tree stamp...

...told you it was simple! Just a few adhesive gems and some Stickles (oh yes, and I get a bit of sneaky distress ink in there with a little water spattering!) to add some sparkle.

Next is my Zendoodle snowman and I made the background directly on a folded A4 white card using a Crafter's Workshop stencil (Aspen Trees) and Weathered Wood Distress ink, just blended more softly as I went further down.

The sentiment is from my Inspirational Christmas Quotes set. I must admit that I did enjoy cutting out and piecing all the snowman's clothes - for a change anyway! I finished off with Aged Mahogany Distress ink smudged round the edges and some baker's twine wrapped round the spine.I stuck little circular stickers, from the Teresa Collins paper pack, back to back at the ends of the twine. Simple but I quite like this one!

I was looking back at my "photos from this day last year" but, as they happened to be of a ginormous spider, I decided not to put them up here! Tomorrow will be a year since Tim Holtz and the Ranger team came over to the UK for the weekend event with Personal Impressions - where has the time gone?! This was what I was doing at the event....and it was fun to be on the other side of the table for a change!

Heather and I spent some time together for her birthday - it was very low key but that was what she wanted, so the birthday stripper had to be cancelled....no...I'm only joking! We just went for a Sunday lunch and both felt like we never wanted to eat again! If you haven't seen Heather for a while you'll get quite a surprise next time you do as she has lost over three stone to date and looks great.

Well, it's only just past 9pm and it's dark already...how depressing is that?! Worse still, Blackpool Illuminations are switched on this Friday (by Peter Kay this year) so that's that! Time to wash the dishes and make a coffee I think so I'll say goodnight. 

Oh, if you read my previous post and went to look at the canvasses on my Etsy shop - they're not there anymore! I'll be adding some new items very soon though. Right, off to the kitchen now - night all.