I think Spring is here!

It's a glorious day here on the Fylde, so I hope you're enjoying decent weather wherever you are...I think we deserve some warm, sunny days now. Today was my day to spend with Heather, visiting our mum and then doing some grocery shopping in the village. We each had a wrap for lunch and, when Heather left, I decided it was too nice a day not to make a start on the garden, so I've just come in after a couple of hours of rather random tidying. Random because, yet again, the garden has got away from me and it's a formidable task to get it back into some sort of shape. So it's just been a bit of hoeing here, pulling up some weeds there and a bit of pruning in between. Barely any difference if truth be told, but it feels nice to have made a start. Thomas and Tara really enjoyed being outdoors with their mum too! I'm still plucking up the courage to use the new lawnmower though!

I'd like to say that my garden is full of colour like this....

 ...but that is the annual carpet of crocusses...crocii (?)  that St Chad's church in Poulton is famous for. They are glorious and draw visitors and their cameras from far and wide!

I left the beautiful flowers in Poulton behind on Friday when I travelled up to Beverley ahead of my demonstration the following day at Studio Craftique in Hessle. My journey was delayed due to an "incident" on the line - yet another person had chosen to end their life in front of a train. I say "yet another" because it seems to be happening more and more and is a tragic reflection of the pressures of modern life. Very sad.

When I changed trains at Hull I was met by this character in the station......

....a statue of the poet Phillip Larkin. It's a very lively statue with the figure looking as if he is just dashing for his train like the rest of his fellow passengers.

Whilst in Beverley I managed to take a look around both St Mary's church and the vast Minster which is just awe inspiring. It's almost impossible to imagine the time, labour and skills that went into creating these astonishing buildings.

Even the organ pipes were most beautifully and elaborately painted and adorned.

Well, after an evening in Beverley it was time for a good night's sleep before going along to Hessle and Studio Craftique where I soon got set up for a busy day.

I was working with Ink Effects and So Soft paints from DecoArt as well as Doo Lally Pip and Dylusions stamps, Fabrico pens, Tim Holtz fabrics and Sizzix dies - great fun! Here's the completed tote bag that I showed you a sneaky peek of last week....

....I used the So Soft range to paint over the stamped images and Fabrico pens to add extra details and the wording. All the mediums used are fully machine washable...and I've really tried and tested their durability which is second to none.

Another tote bag, but this one featured leaves which I painted through a Crafter's Workshop stencil, framing a hessian panel that I'd appliqued two kooky birds onto (Sizzix Bigz die Birds # 3). I cut the birds from Tim Holtz fabric and felt and sewed them with a small zig zag stitch onto the hessian. I love the birds die. They are such simple, yet effective characters.

I made good use of the cards that I'd prepared a couple of days before and which I showed in my last post. I simply machine stitched a selection of hessian and plain and patterned fabrics onto Kraft card blanks so that I could paint them on the day. This one was fun to do!

I stamped the "behatted" skull, from Dyan's "Day of the Heads" set, onto the hessian using black Archival ink and then painted it with So Soft colours. When dry, I added details using a black Fabrico pen.
Here are three more cards made in the same way......

....everyone seemed to like this simple, yet effective, technique. To paint over the patterned fabric (see flowers on the centre and right hand cards) I used the So Soft Ultra White which is great for working over dark colours (or patterns) as it gives great coverage. It's useful as a base coat for other colours too, so you could paint a pale pink over a dark blue fabric by applying the Ultra White first. 

Well that's a brief round up of my weekend! Tomorrow I'll be getting things ready for next Saturday's day at Time 2 Craft in Chesterfield. I have some new Susan's Garden flower dies to get to grips with. They are very relaxing to make though, so I shall enjoy listening to a radio play whilst I cut and shape the petals.

Meanwhile, after the glorious day, it is getting very chilly now, so I am going to put the heat on for a while and then take a nice hot shower to warm up before dinner. Pasta tonight, nice and easy.

Some painting diversions

I've been painting today...fabric painting that is to say. It was time to get some Christmas themed tops made up for when I'm out and about demonstrating, especially at the shows and I thought you might like to see what I came up with. Although it's getting colder now (almost daily it seems) some of the venues I'm at get pretty warm, so I've painted a turquoise Tee.....

 He's a bit of a grumpy old elf I'm afraid! Not sure he agrees with the sentiment! Mind you, I'd probably be grumpy with those spindly legs! He is one of the characters on my "Santa's Helpers" stamp set, but I've enlarged him here of course. The words are from my "It's a time to give" set. I had great fun painting this - especially adding the snowy white on top of all the letters.

I've also done a sweat shirt, this time featuring one of the steampunk snowmen from my "Nicicles as Icicles" set. The colour looks a bit more like puce here, but it's actually more of a lilac shade.

I'm really impressed with the DecoArt So Soft fabric paints which really are permanent....my other tops have been through the washing machine loads of times now and they look as good as when I first painted them. No ironing needed either - just paint and allow to dry for 48 hours before wearing...oh...and don't forget to wash the garment before painting. The white really does cover well, even on darker fabric....I can really recommend them wholeheartedly.

Well, those are two of the tops that I'll be wearing when I'm at the Event City show next week, so you should be able to spot me if you're coming along!

As well as my new Christmas stamps I'm also going to be using a range of dies called Die-Versions. I had a delivery of some of them this afternoon and they really are lovely. The packs are really dinky, but they pack a punch. Look at this lovely "Winter Wonder" die.....

.....can you see the words cleverly set within the snowflake?

There are lots of font dies too, here are a couple......

....again, small packages (great because they don't take up lots of space) but each set has two dies and the letters and digits are a good size.

Well, it's been a gloomy, rainy and chilly day here....I've had to put the heating on a couple of times, but not for long, just enough to take the nip out of the air. Thomas has loved snuggling up on the bench under the window in my Doo Lally room so he can rest his chin and paws on the hot radiator! I decided to be lazy tonight and had a slam in the oven ready meal.....a big Yorkshire pudding filled with beef slices and gravy - perfect for a chilly evening - yum! I even cheated and used frozen peas and instant mash! I have to say that instant mash is tons better than it used to be. It was a nice easy dinner after a long, busy day and hardly any washing up either!

I've been packing my case up for my trip over to the Victoria Stampers group tomorrow where we'll be having lots of messy fun with stamps, inks, cardboard, grungeboard, glitter......lots of stuff! I'll try and remember to take a few photos of what we get up to.

Right, time to sign off now and get the kettle on so I can settle down for the Masterchef final. Heather and I both love watching this show (David loved it too) and we can't decide who's going to win this series. Of course, Strictly Come Dancing starts on Saturday - unfortunately I'll have to watch most of the episodes on my little laptop screen as I'm usually not back home from travelling about until late in the evening. Not too many people in this series that I am familiar with, though I do like Dave Myers and Mark Benton. There are one or two that I can't stand as well, but I won't say who they are!

Okay, coffee time now, so I'll sign off and wish everyone a great weekend. 

PS Don't forget to leave a comment on my post "Catch up Time & American Candy" further down the page - I'll be closing the candy on 17th September, so you still have a week or so to join in and be in with a chance to win.

PPS Well done to ? ? on winning Masterchef! (no spoilers here!) It was a close run thing but I absolutely agreed with John and Greg's decision.