Free Spirit

Hello all, and a special hello to everyone that I saw in Kendal on Saturday at the Paper Warehouse craft event which was really busy. The team there look after us all very well and keep us topped up with drinks and snacks all day so we can just concentrate on being creative.

I was working with my Zendoodle stamps and pens from the Artline range - all Christmassy I'm afraid! Here's one of the cards that I made which also featured papers by Teresa Collins....

....again, quite a simple card as I wasn't using all my favourite spritzy inks and sprays!

As I like to occasionally share a photo or two from "this day last year" I thought I'd jump back to 2012 and share a couple from this time two years ago. One is a card that I made using my Hopeful Harriet Doo Lally Pip stamp set....

....and the second is a gardening, well, building photo.....

...two years since I rebuilt one of the walls in my garden! Can't believe it's so long since I finished that job but I'm pleased to say that it is still standing! 

I haven't been out and about much since I was in Kendal, except for Church on Sunday, as I've been holed up in my Doo Lally room creating canvasses and hangers for my Etsy shop. I've been working in stages on several pieces at once but here's one that I finished this afternoon....

My poor fingers are every colour of the rainbow now - as well as thick black paint! I'm now working on a much bigger canvas, so I'll share a photo once it's finished.

Well, it's been a gloriously sunny and warm day today but I've been too busy to get into the garden, I might just spend half an hour on my bench with my book now though, to make the best of the evening before the sun fades. I do have loads of bulbs to plant but, I confess, it is a task that I always seem to struggle with. I think it's because there is no immediate reward as there is when putting plants into the garden - everything looks exactly the same when you've finished and it's a bit of a bore to do! However, I'm trying to focus on the prospects of Hyacinths, tulips, daffs, narcissus and crocus in a few months time to spur me on!

Meanwhile, the fields adjacent to me got their first haircut in years at the weekend. Everything had got rather jungle like and as the grasses and weeds were cut back there were rabbits running all over the place as well as much interest from the gulls and crows.

Yesterday evening I spotted this chappie....

....it's the first time I've seen a heron here, so, another one to tick off my list!
Well, I'm off to get into the garden for a while, so will sign off. Hope the weather's good where you are too.

Quickie!

Hello everyone, just a very short and fast post this morning. The sun is blazing down now after, of course, a very wet and cold Bank Holiday Monday - typical! Not that it really mattered to me as I was inside, working, all day, but I did resent having to put the heating on, albeit for not very long, in August!!!

Anyway, no photos this time, but just to say that I've added a couple more items to my Etsy shop....a canvas and heart shaped hanger....photos can be seen here.

Thank you for all the lovely comments and messages via phone, text and email, all of which are much appreciated.

Back to the Doo Lally room for me now and a day of making samples for this Saturday's event at The Paper Warehouse in Kendal. Hope to see you there!

PS If you pop over to my sister's website, here, you can see the mirror that I made for her birthday...she dropped some very heavy hints!!! Lol!

Kendal

It was a glorious day after a rainy start yesterday which was just as well or I'd have come home to two bedraggled pusscats - they went out at 6.30am and refused to come back in so I had to set off for the station and leave them to their own devices. As it was I still got told off by them when I got home of course!

I met up with Sarah and Esther on the train at Preston, so we travelled the rest of the way together having a catch up.We'd no sooner just about got our tables set up when people started arriving to go to the workshops and watch the demos - there were over twenty demonstrators, so lots to see. Here's Sarah with just one of her beautiful samples made with new Sizzix dies and matching stamps. Not quite sure what the joke was but here are Esther and Sheila posing by Esther's table, full of lovely samples made with dies and the Cuttlebug. You can see a basket of flowers on Esther's table and we were all given one of these by Janet which was a really nice surprise. And here's me, pulling an odd face as usual (actually, I've decided it's just my normal face really!!!) and, also as usual, with the messiest table in the whole shop! I was using Personal Impressions stamps, Tim Holtz dies and Distress inks. Andy Skinner's "Winter's Tale" stamp set was a big hit and they all sold out within fifteen minutes - I'd been looking forward to doing lots of Christmas Trees too!
In the afternoon, Sarah and I had the very nice job of presenting prizes and certificates to some of the prize winners in the card competition that Janet had organised to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Paper Warehouse shop. We were giving the prizes from PI and the winning cards were all brilliant - top prize was a Grand Calibur...wow! Well done to all the winners.
It was good to see so many familiar faces and old friends, as well as new people, all filled with a shared enthusiasm that made for a great atmosphere. Hope everyone enjoys their new purchases and don't forget to email me if you do get a memory block on what I was doing with Glue n Seal or anything else! Also, check out my older posts - you can click on any of the key words in the "Labels" list in the left column and you'll find more examples as well as some step by steps for various techniques. Just click either the name of the product, or "step by step" - I hope to add some more of these soon.
I had a quiet evening when I got home - jim jams on and lounging on the sofa basically! This morning I've been to St Chad's and spent some time after the service sitting on one of the benches in the churchyard, just contemplating things and reliving memories. Then it was coffee and a bacon sandwich in the village cafe before walking home in the drizzly rain. Once I've posted this I'll be planning a Crafts Beautiful project and working on some drawings that I've got sketched out in pencil.
Tomorrow morning I'm popping to Blackpool town centre to do some shopping for Heather's birthday on Friday, but, ssshhhhh, don't tell her! Not sure what we're going to do for her birthday yet, it depends on the weather really, but the zoo has been mentioned - there are giant anteaters and a pack of wolves as new additions there now. Blackpool zoo does a great deal of conservation work and the animals are really well cared for. Heather brought me a cutting from the local paper a few weeks ago as it was the zoo's anniversary and there were pictures from the very first day that it opened. They showed Johnny Morris riding in on a young elephant....you couldn't see in the picture but I wasn't far behind him! A long story that I won't bore you with, but I was in the same paper ** years ago as I'd been sent the very first ticket after something that I did "touched the heart" of someone at the newspaper! It made me feel very old seeing the black and white photos and reading that the original cost of a ticket was 18p!!! It's now £15.50....I think that's a bit more than inflation can account for!
Well, that's my weekend. I have to get some more mortar to finish my little wall before I can get the last big patch of the garden finished with weed control mesh and bark. I've got some steel rods to fix the bird table firmly into the ground and lots of bulbs to plant as well - I even won some last week but they haven't arrived yet! So,I'm hoping for a few dry days next week so I can get jobs done in between my real work. Speaking of which, I'll be at Cutting Edge Crafts in Skegness on the 1st September. This will be my first trip to Skegness, but I won't get a lot of time to look round as it's a long train journey and, even setting off nice and early I won't arrive till late afternoon. Still, I should be able to get a stroll along the prom if it's a nice day. So, hope to see you there if it's near your patch.

Bbbrrrr!!!!

Don't know how it is where you are, but it's freezing here! Kendal was cold too, but looked lovely with a frosting of powdery snow on the hills. "Hello" to Dorothy...I am putting a picture of the garden shelf card especially for you as a reminder of how it looked. I'm sure that you will manage it with no problem though! This card uses Funstamps FM197 (Gardening Shelf)...I added a die cut from the Carol Wilson range in the left corner (this was to cover a mucky mark...but don't tell anyone!)

I was also using Iris folding stamps by the very talented Anna Stemplewska (Google her name to find lots of great samples of her cards) which are really easy to work with, relaxing to make and create great cards, especially if you use larger card blanks. Here is a wedding card made using

Personal Impressions stamp P1481P. I used pearlised paper for the strips and just matted the image onto an 8" x 8" card, wrapping a ribbon around and adding a floral embellishment. Some gems and glitter added the final flourish.

Finally, here is a fun card using the Carol Wilson "How does your garden grow?" range. I used a Personal Impressions template for the apron shape, adding plain old garden twine instead of ribbon for a rustic look!

Despite the cold we have been out and about today. I don't always have Sundays free, so when I do, we like to visit the large car boot sale and market that's also a nice little drive out...wished I'd had my camera as the countryside looked like a fairyland this morning with the frosted trees and mist over the hills. We also made a discovery as we followed a sign that announced "good food this way"...the cold had made us unusually peckish! When we rounded the bend we came upon a huge lake that was home to waterbirds of every description. There were people with loaves of bread surrounded by honking geese, squabbling ducks, moorhens and swans. Thankfully, the catering van which was the source of the advertised good food, also sold bags of bird seed, so I was able to join in the fun of "feeding the ducks" which I think is a national pleasure. Hot chocolate and sandwiches went down well too...for us, not the ducks! We'll be going back there for sure - armed with stale bread! I think that moments like this are all the more enjoyable when they are surprises.

Well, after seven hours of walking around out in the chilly air it is time for a snuggly evening in with a beef curry to look forward to...lovely! Keep warm everyone. Lindsay

Tagging along to Kendal!

Thank you to Leonie for "tagging" me! My mission (if I choose to accept it of course!) is to give seven random facts about myself and then "tag" seven other people. A bit of fun and a way of connecting blogs. So, here goes.....

1. All my "Cherry the cat" designs are a tribute to our beloved cat (Cherry of course!) who passed away four years ago. She was a little sweetheart and we still miss her.

2. I believe in ghosts and supernatural goings on. Would love to spend a night in a haunted location...but not on my own!

3. I was originally a wildlife and landscape artist and Russell Grant (the astrologer) was one of my clients.

4. My sister is Heather Fenn-Edwards, an award winning beadworker whose stunning work can be seen on Beadworkers Guild stands and in magazines.

5. I grew up in Blackpool where my parents ran a hotel. We had season tickets to all the shows and saw everyone from the Beatles, the Who, and the Kinks through to Gene Pitney and the Bee Gees....I was very, very young at the time!

6. I stayed at Duncan Bannatyne's (Dragon's Den)hotel in Darlington and he was in the restaurant at breakfast. I think he must be the richest person that I've ever been in the same room with! He looked a bit scary though!

7. I love animals of every description, so my birthday treat this year was to go to Chester zoo. Brilliant! Long story, but I also had the very first ticket to Blackpool zoo and entered behind Johnny Morris on an elephant (Johnny Morris, not me!).

Now for my seven "taggees"! Debs from http://debscards.blogspot.com/
Clare at http://hornersartycorner.blogspot.com/
Jan at http://janbloomfield.blogspot.com/
the talented ladies at http://mytimetocraftchallenge.blogspot.com/
She at http://craftyshe.blogspot.com/
Paula Pascual at http://craftystorage.blogspot.com/
Michelle at http://cardgrotto.blogspot.com/

I don't have photos to upload tonight, but I'll be taking pictures at Kendal on Saturday, so shall post them on my return. Hope to see some of you there at Grosvenor House Papers...it's well worth a trip to. I've been making "shelf" cards and Iris folding using stamps this week, so do pop back for a look at the samples. I'm not sure how cold it will be in Kendal, but, if there's any snow I'll be sure to get a good picture! Enjoy the weekend everyone and do come and say hello if you are in the area on Saturday. Lindsay