Bit of a catch up

Sorry it's been a few days since I posted any photos so here are some from the last week or so. This is one from the dabble day at Samuel Taylors in Leeds where the ladies were doing a round robin of crafting in four different workshops. I took quite a few pics throughout the day but I picked this one for all the lovely smiles! Everyone had a great time making a variety of projects using different techniques and products. You can see more pictures of the day by visiting the Samuel Taylors facebook page...sorry I don't have a link for that. On Wednesday I was teaching another workshop, this time at Weavervale Garden Centre in Northwich. More smiley faces! The ladies each made three cards and were enjoying it so much that we overran by more than an hour! On Saturday I was at Astbury Meadows garden centre in Congleton where the demonstration table had been set up in the coffee shop...with the aroma of coffee all day which was nice! Here are a few of the cards that I made for the weekend. This one uses images from my Gwendoline stamp set as well as a quote from one of the Dylusions range of stamps. The background for this card is made using Liquid Pearls in Flamingo which has been randomly applied over card using scrunched up shrink wrap. Once dried, I inked over the card using Spiced Marmalade distress ink which, of course, resists the pearly paint. The effect is lovely and shimmery, though you can't really see the pearliness here.

I combined a couple of my stamp sets for this card and decided to make a DL one for a change. The cottage, trees and fence are from Build a Snowy Scene and the letterbox is from Christmas Post. I used White Opal Liquid Pearls to give dimension to the snow on the trees and roof etc before sprinkling with fine glitter. I used a white gel pen to add tiny snowy touches to the letterbox which give it more dimension.

This last card was great fun to make and features my Humbert & Spider Boy stamps. I used my Glue n Seal resist technique on the stamps before adding the blended distress ink background and stencilling the cog wheel using a Crafters Workshop template. I spritzed a little black Dylusions ink onto my craft sheet and spattered it onto the card with a paintbrush to create some inky blobs. Of course, I had to add three of my gem stone spiders to complete it!

When I got back on Saturday Heather met me at the station and we walked round to the church hall where we were the "Chalk and Cheese" team (Heather's idea!) in a quiz and curry night. I'm afraid we didn't win but we had a lot of fun trying. The curry came halfway through the quiz and then we all got to help ourselves to various components to decorate cupcakes with before carrying on with the questions. Here's Heather busy with her cake....

and this was my effort... ....as usual, I had to go over the top!

Yesterday we went to see mum and when I got home I had a "power nap" before cracking on with work. The nap was to get over the shock of having to get up in the dark twice for early morning trains during the week. There's something just wrong about getting out of bed before the sun is even peeking over the horizon! So, I've been virtually chained to the table since then, surrounded by pens and pencils and scary blank sheets of paper! I've got a nice pile of designs building now though.
Well, it's time for bed as I was up early again this morning and my eyes are really losing the fight to stay open now. I think a good night's sleep is coming my way...I even dropped off in the middle of watching Only Connect tonight, much to my annoyance! Night all.

Just saying hello

David insisted that I take time out to say hello and post a few pictures as well as to thank everyone for their kind words, positive thoughts and cards which are all helping us tremendously. Here are the handmade cards that we've received from Hazel, lots of staff and customers at the Astbury craft shop (where I should have been a couple of weeks ago), Joanne, Sioux and Joanne again. All gorgeous and all much appreciated. I know that I owe emails and thank you's to a fair few people but hope you'll forgive my tardiness in getting back to you all. Everyone's prayers and good wishes have been helping and we did have some good news last weekend, so please keep sending positivity our way and we can hopefully build on that. We really believe in the power of prayer.
Well, I have been given instructions to talk about other things, so I had better do as I'm told-for once! With the fantastic weather I have taken a few piccies of the garden...not quite up to the stage we had expected with everything that's happened of course, but thankfully nature has produced some colour of her own without my meddling! Apart from the mass of Bluebells that we have, interspersed with Aquilegeas, there have been an array of orange and yellow Poppies. This one was a perfect, papery specimen. Unfortunately, as I was so impetuous back in March, most of the seedlings and plug plants have perished in the frosts that we had later in that month, so I'm thinking of getting some more mature plants to get some colour into the garden. The tomato seeds are still waiting for me to sow them but I have been sorting out the peas and beans as well as Sweet Peas which a mysterious cat (not one of our two) has kept uprooting. They are safely under chicken wire now and I've just put up netting for them to climb through.
As you can see, our Cherry tree is coming into fruit so I spent an hour yesterday putting netting over it to keep the birds off. Quite a hilarious sight I'm sure what with me being such a shorthouse! David had already strung some net up across the tree a few weeks ago, so I had the job of forming a sort of see through marquee but I couldn't use the stepladders where the tree is. Still, as my sister calls me the Mighty Midget I got it done!
Talking of Heather, she laughed when she saw the sentiment on this card that I had made as one of the samples for my cancelled demo in Aberdeen a few weeks ago. I used PI coated gloss card and Marion Emberson stamps from PI as well as Glue n Seal. I mentioned this technique in an earlier post and said that I'd try more things with it. So, I dabbed Glue n Seal gently onto the stamps before stamping onto the gloss card and drying with my heat tool. Remember to drop the stamps into water immediately so they don't get gunged up. I then used Distress inks over the gloss card which, as you can see, resist the images. You won't get perfect details using this method, but I'm calling it the "Intaglio technique" as it has a textural quality reminiscent of early wall art. I simply matted the panel and used a white pen to add the dotty borders. The words are from Tim Holtz's Chit Chat pad which is filled with serendipitous word stickers. As I said, Heather laughed when she read the message, but she has been an absolute star over the last few weeks and I love her to bits.
Here's another Glue n Seal card where I've masked the butterfly (from my Arabella stamp set) with the product after I'd coloured it. Once heat set I smooched Distress inks over the background in blue shades. I then stamped the sentiment (from my Creative Thoughts set) and added Glue n Seal randomly over the words as well as raggedy areas around the edge of the panel. Next I went over with brown shades of ink which are resisted where the medium is present. Thanks to Paul for his wonderful paper flower tutorials, so I made a very basic version using white card tinted with blue inks. The paper on the left side is from the Kraft Funday range and I just tore a dotty MME paper to form the stem and leaves. Just a simple card to illustrate a few techniques!
Finally, to show that it always pays to complain about bad service, these cheery beauties turned up this morning from the Royal Bank of Scotland!

Neither Heather or I are customers of theirs, but we had to use them last week for a particular service that they deal with. We had to deal with the most miserable cashier who appeared to want to argue with what we were saying even though it was written in black and white. She seemed to regard us as not worthy of her time or a smile. Hard to explain here, but you know when you've had terrible service that makes you feel almost embarrassed to be in a busy place with other customers listening in. So, I decided to email a complaint and, surprisingly, received a call from the branch manager to say that she had had words with the cashier and that my email had prompted her to do staff training on the particular transaction that they fell down on. That was fine as far as I was concerned and then the flowers arrived today with an apology from the bank. Really cheered us up. As I always say, never judge a company by their errors but rather how they deal with them.
Well, I've touched base as David requested....don't want you all forgetting about me!!! I'll try and find some more things to share with you soon. Until then, heartfelt thanks for your continuing good wishes.

A weekend of contrasts

Saturday was the first of my new workshops in St Helens and it was certainly a good day to be inside crafting as the Heavens opened and it poured with rain almost the entire time. David and I were there bright (mmm that's debatable!) and early getting everything ready before everyone began arriving in various states of drenchedness!

David got everyone settled in with drinks and biccies and then we got straight to work with alcohol inks and Stazon spray cleaner. You can bet that the tables didn't stay as tidy as this for too long! This was the first card that we made in the morning. Everyone made an alcohol ink monoprint and then spritzed it with Stazon before heating the card to make the white speckles appear. The ladies all used a variety of colours, so the results all differed tremendously, some being light and airy, others more dark and brooding. There were a mixture of my fairy silhouette stamps and various trees and flowers etc for stamping over the surface. A little white pen detail just adds some highlights to the silhouettes. The next card hasn't shown up too well in this photo, but was achieved by stamping the images onto old book paper with a Watermark ink pad and embossing with clear powder. Distress Stains were stroked across the page to colour the background before covering the images with brown paper and ironing over the surface to remove the shiny raised areas which leaves a lovely bleached effect. We finished the morning session with a small card using Stains and Perfect Pearl Mists to create a sky background and used my Castle ATC stamp as the focal image. The moon was just a punched circle which was backed with sticky backed adhesive sheet rubbed over with fine glitter. After lunch it was straight back into getting messy! I think this was everyone's favourite card of the day! We used the Tim Holtz Kraft Resist stash to create the background and flowers which had been coloured with Stains and spritzed with perfect Pearl Mists. The velvet leaves were also coloured with Distress Stains. Here are Kath and Elaine with their versions of our second card of the afternoon which focussed on Tissue Tape and ribbon. They were enjoying the day - honestly!!! Here's the sample card which doesn't look as pretty as the ones everyone made...I used quite a dark tissue tape as I wanted to leave the lighter ones for the ladies to use. I think I'll replace my flower with a new one to give a softer look. Here are Melanie and Jacqui with their cards - love this photo! We finished the day by making a tag...I'd thought everyone might be a little weary by this time, so something less complex was called for! We used the Stains directly onto Darkroom Door silhouette flower stamps to create watercolour effects - the great thing is that you don't need to spritz them or breathe on them to reactivate the ink. This will be even more fun when the next 24 colours come out - soon! My top tip here was to use the edge of a piece of card dipped into Stains ink to stamp grass at the bottom of the tag. Well, that is a quick run through of yesterday's workshop! Everyone had great fun including me and David! I worked everyone quite hard, so hope all of you are recovered now! It was great to meet up with everyone that we haven't seen for ages and also to get to know new crafting friends. Sheila brought the Chunky books that she had brilliantly put together for me and Heather - they are just gorgeous and I will be photographing mine and posting the pictures to share with you on here. Thank you Sheila and everyone who made the pages.
The cards and tag are, or will be, featured on the Personal Impressions website under the projects section along with a product list and full instructions for each one.
After yesterday's busy day we were ready for a quiet day. It has been raining all day and I spent most of this afternoon with tears running down my face! We switched on Sky Arts and were treated to a concert by André Rieu which was a mixture of very rousing, jolly music and some tender songs which had a tear jerking effect. These concerts (which seem to be on each Sunday at the moment) are set in a different European city each time and are in the open air. They are so uplifting because there are hundreds, if not thousands of people singing along, dancing and generally having a wonderful time....I always imagine a world wide concert where everybody is joining in together at the same time. I know it won't ever happen, but it's a lovely thing to imagine. Immediately after the concert there was a new(ish) production of Tosca from the New York Metropolitan opera house. It's my favourite opera and was beautifully sung and acted so, I was awash with tears almost the whole afternoon!
It's been a lovely weekend of contrasts - busy, busy and full of laughter on Saturday and filled with music and tears today!
I'll just finish by showing you the stunning card which Joanne sent to me to wish us luck with the new workshops. The background is even better than it looks here! Thank you Joanne!
Right, I had better sign off now - will be back with photos of the chunky book pages next week.

Lots of pictures to share!

I have put the pens and pencils away for the rest of the evening and thought I had better upload some new pictures as promised. I'm still behind on my new design schedule - first time I have missed a deadline...ever! However, I'm on track for the new dates so wish me luck!

First up are some pictures from Dawn Bibby's residential weekend which everyone really enjoyed. Having said that, everyone round Amy's table looks a little glum, but I think they were just concentrating on their crafting! I was only there for the Sunday when there were around ten Make n Take tables for everyone to go round making a different project at each one. Below is the ultra talented Jane who makes lots of the cards that you see on QVC - she is a very versatile crafter and works away like a trouper behind the scenes. So, here she is at her table where the ladies were using hair gel in their cards!Next you can see Dawn who was using Distress inks and Ink Potion no 9 on her Make n Take project. As you can also see...even broken arms don't stop keen crafters!
Here's a face that QVC viewers will recognise! Craig (QVC presenter extraordinaire!) came along to the weekend with his friend Angel and they joined in all the fun and the crafting. I missed the Saturday night party, but am assured that he is a very talented dancer! Craig was absolutely lovely, one of those people who makes you feel as if you have known them for years.Here he is showing the watercolour stamped card that he made at my table.
And below with me and my friend, the lovely and talented Sarah who now has her work featured in Making Cards magazine....well done Sarah! She is modelling one of the new Dawn Bibby Studio aprons whilst I am wearing my Ranger one!
Now for a few of my recent creations! I made the frame below using a K&Co base which I covered in K&Co paper from the Que Sera Sera collection - I simply glued the paper on and cut it fairly roughly around before sanding the edges. This is a great way to work as it means you don't have to be too fussy with the cutting. I inked the edges and then did the same thing with three Maya Road chipboard birds. I used Ranger crackle paint on a couple of Grungeboard swirls, letting them dry naturally until the paint began to crack and then heating to speed up the process. The chipboard word was painted using Adirondack acrylic dabbers. I then simply glued everything onto the frame using good old Glossy Accents and added a handful of Petaloo flowers as a finishing touch. Great fun to make and it didn't take too long either...Christmas present ideas I am thinking! PS the kittens are anonymous ones....I just needed a picture to pop into the frame!
Next is one of my favourite cards that I've made this Christmas. I used alcohol inks on gloss card and then cut it using a circular Nestie, matting onto a scalloped circle after adding a swoosh of white card for snow. I stamped, coloured and added the smaller version of my scribble snowman from PICS01 Christmas set 1 clear stamp set. The gorgeous Snowflake by Sue Dix is from the same set and I used Distress ink pads Faded Jeans and Dusty Concord to stamp it onto the background card. Clear gems added to their centres just add that necessary touch of bling! My favourite element here is the ribbon. Why? Because it was just a boring white sheer ribbon until I ran my alcohol ink applicator tool along it so that it perfectly matched the rest of the card! This is one of my top tips - just buy plain white ribbon and then colourise to match your card....job done! Saves scratting around looking for that elusive piece of ribbon to match your project that's for sure! Here is a card made using Tim Holtz stamps...they are fabulous to use, just about fool proof as they seem to stamp perfectly every time, even the tiniest details show up. I used a large square card and made my background paper with Distress inks (there's a surprise!). I spritzed Perfect Pearls around the edge of the card blank and generally distressed and spritzed everything in sight! The butterfly was just a metallic piece that I found in my oddments box of bits and bobs.

Next is a little house that I made using Maya Road chipboard pieces for the sides -

again, paper covered, sanded and inked

as for the frame.

I added some paper grass and some acrylic square windows.

I simply folded some card to make a box base and attached a house shape to two sides.

Some Maya Road tree and bird stamps were the finishing touch. Voila! A dinky holder for ATC's on my demonstration tables!

I had a lovely trip to Norwich, travelling down on Friday meant that I had a chance to look around the city and do some window shopping....no buying when I know that I have my demonstration baggage to take home with me! Here is the Arcade which is a genuine Art Nouveau building and was, as you can see, beautifully adorned with trees and lights for the festive period.

And here is a very inviting looking window of a shop that had made such an effort with their display that I had to take a picture - this was the handmade chocolate shop and, no, I didn't indulge...in fact, the delicious aromas that emerged as people entered and left the shop was enough to get a chocolate overload on! Finally, here is a shot of Jarrold's department store where I was demonstrating the following day. The photo does not do justice to the dazzling lights that adorn the building. I must say that Norwich have made a really big effort with their Christmas displays and, as the afternoon grew darker, the atmosphere became more and more festive, so I had a really lovely wander and ended up walking miles. Hello to all the ladies and gents that I met on Saturday. Everyone was so enthusiastic and friendly that it was a pleasure to talk to you all. One comical thing was that I was positioned right in front of the lifts on the third floor and I was working on a little kidney shaped table that was on wheels. Let's just say that I had to keep my knees pressed against the sides of the table to avoid finding myself on my way down to the first floor!
Again, apologies to my neglected friends and those who I am owing ATC's etc to....please bear with me. It's a very busy time here and things have been rather difficult for one reason and another, but I shall rectify the situation asap - promise! Lindsay