Autumn approaches

Thanks to everyone who came along to my demonstration at Crafty Corner in South Shields yesterday. It was great to meet you all and I hope that you will all be getting nice and inky with the ink sprays and spritzers! As promised, here are just a few of the cards from yesterday to remind you of what I was doing.

The snowman from my "Cold Hands, Warm Heart" set,stamped coloured and cut out and I used Stickles Icicles over his ruffles and pom pom buttons. The background is the Crafters Workshop Aspen Trees stencil that I used Distress inks through, adding less pressure as I moved down the card. The words are from my Inspirational Christmas Quotes set. Super simple!

This card is one of those that came from creating something else! I was inking a Sweet Dixie die cut dove with Versamagic and I decided to make use of the negative. I placed the dove onto a piece of card that I'd already decorated with Goosebumps spray and Distress inks and then stroked the ink over the image...thereby coating the die cut and creating the negative at the same time. I embossed the dove with both gold and silver powders and the card below with just gold.

I was showing how brilliantly Dylusions ink sprays work to create backgrounds on white card but here I used them on some manilla coloured card. By adding the opaque White Linen spray to the other, transparent, colours,it completely changed the look and toned them down. I used images from my Moon Gazer stamp set and a white gel pen to add highlights.

 Of course, as I hadn't been to Crafty Corner before, it was only right to do one of my faux bleached snowman scenes! This time, to ring the changes, I decided to work directly onto 300 gsm card that I had cut using the Sweet Dixie Holly and Star die. Those of you who have seen me demonstrating this technique before will know how simple it really is....just Distress inks blended over the card and then the snowy foreground, trees and snowman created just with brush and water...with a few details added to the snowman of course.

Of course, the cards I make on demo days do tend to be rather "unfinished" looking...often without greetings or those little extra dimensional extras - it's all about the techniques on the day!

I'd gone up to Newcastle on Friday (quite a trek) and stayed in a hotel right next to the rail station. A beautiful interior greeted me as I entered, including two magnificent chandeliers....

....they were e-nor-mous! I wouldn't fancy the job of cleaning them and they did give me a smile remembering the famous Del Boy chandelier moment!

Today has been a bit of a rest day as I was really shattered after all the travelling and getting home late. Church this morning followed by coffee with friends and then home to enjoy some sunshine in the garden.I'm making the most of the warmth as there are definite signs of the waning season...coming home last night it was already dark by 7.30pm (groan) and this morning I had to squeejee the condensation from my  windows - how depressing! To crown it, when I set off for Church, there were skeins of geese flying overhead, honking away....there we have it...autumn is on the way!

Still, the darker evenings do tend to herald good telly programmes! Downton was a real treat tonight...no spoilers though in case you haven't watched it yet! Good start to the new series though.

Well, I'm away to my bed now.My sister, Heather, is coming round tomorrow and we're going to be spending some time together in my Doo Lally work room....I guess that means we probably won't get much done if past experience is anything to go by! (Yack, yack, yack.....!).

Don't forget to leave a comment below the Blog Candy post (a few posts back) if you haven't already done so. It finishes on the last day of September. Night all.

A little help

Good evening all, I hope it's been as glorious where you are as it's been here in Lancashire.What a beautiful, sunny day it's been.

I've had a little help in my Doo Lally room this week,or should I say a little help-er...and not so little either! Thomas seems to have decided that my work needs to be supervised - only trouble is that he doesn't leave me much room to do anything!

Not even sure that he approves of my work!

I'll be travelling up and across to Newcastle on Friday and then onto South Shields on Saturday morning for my demo at Crafty Corner. I've got lots of Christmas cards and tags made using my latest Christmas stamps as well as Sweet Dixie dies and various sprays and spritzers. Could get messy (could? Who am I kidding?!).

Talking of my pusscats, I had a close shave this week in the form of Tara - who else? What a little monster she can be! I was letting her out and she stretched her front legs right up as if to tell me to hurry up.I bent forward to give her a little kiss on her head and her paw came right up and into my eye - it was so fast that I didn't have time to blink. I felt her claw in my eye but, thankfully, no damage was done. She really can be a minx!

Thomas was rather unpleasant to be around yesterday as he was rather whiffy! I think he'd been curled up in the sun too long and he's also recovering from a bout of fleas...yikes! They do both have their drops but, living with open land so close by, and the fact that there are quite few farm cats about, fleas can be an occasional problem. He's been scratching, as they do, and was generally looking (and smelling!) a bit of a mess! I made the bold decision to give him a bath!

Never in a million years would I contemplate this for Tara - I'd be flayed alive - but I thought that Tom might just be okay with it - enough for me to give him a little wash anyway. Having read that a few drops of vinegar in the water is excellent for cat's that have had fleas, I added some into the warm bath water, changed into my old clothes and shut us both in the bathroom. 

Of course, as soon as I started to lower him into the bath his legs extended in four directions and he made rather a loud grumbling sound. However, once he was in the water,he placed his front paws on my shoulder and stood quite still as I gave him a really good wash! He even purred! Once rinsed off I got him in a big towel and dried him off and, after a few shakes, he trotted off very happily and sat in the sun. He seemed to actually enjoy the whole experience and he looked a lot happier!

Well, aside from feline escapades it's been pretty quiet here except for working on various samples and projects. I made a few jewellery pieces for my Etsy shop using metal bezels and Ice Resin. They are fun to make but the frustrating part is leaving them alone until the resin sets....sooooo tempting to stick your fingers in to check.....not a good idea! I hid them away till the following day so I wouldn't be tempted and then I was able to add chains, bows etc. This one is called "Fly Free", with the little bird,some metal flakes and a bow.

And this one is called "Soulful" which seemed to bemuse my nephew when he saw it on Facebook!

All my "stuff" for Saturday's demo is packed up now, so I don't have to think about that now until Friday. Tomorrow will be a mixture of a little housework (nnoooooo!!!) mainly prompted by the fact that my neighbour will be popping round to look after the two terrors. She always says that she doesn't notice the lack of housekeeping but I'm sure she must be thinking that I'm a real sloven!!! Lol! I'll also be working on some canvasses that have been ordered and then it's Church in the evening, although not a service. This time it's puppet rehearsals first and then we are hosting a concert called "A Little Night Music" which is songs from the shows. There will be refreshments and a raffle...I'm helping...with refreshments....not singing! So, it should be a lovely evening altogether.

Right, I am off to make a coffee and a sandwich before Bake Off, so I shall bid you good evening and hope to see some of you on Saturday.

Don't forget, if you haven't already done so, do leave a comment after the previous post to be in with a chance of winning my Blog Candy. All the details are below. You can't win it if you're not in it!