Carlisle and an ATC

Hi folks, hope you all had a lovely weekend wherever you were. I had a great time up in Carlisle on Saturday and "hello" to all the ladies and gentlemen (including some extremely patient ones!) that came along. No ATC swaps again....mmmmm...I shall be getting a complex! Hope you are all managing to create those Distress ink skies, just keep practising and it will suddenly come right. As well as my Christmas stamps, I was also using Nestabilities and here are a couple of samples from the day.....this one is my Script Robin coloured with Le Plume pens, spritzed with water using a Mini Mister and stamped onto white card. I then cut him into an embossed circle and matted him over a scalloped circle. Simple card, but kind of fresh with the lovely colours of the Peppermint Twist papers. Next is are two cards using my Sitting Snowbaby stamp. The first uses the "I Believe" Peppermint Twist paper which has a lovely Santa and Reindeer silhouette in one corner. I stamped my Tree Line silhouette image across the bottom twice and then cut the paper along the bottom edge of the trees. I mounted the paper onto white card and cut it to fit just inside the DL card matted onto silver. I used an Inkssentials white pen to create a snow effect on the trees and did a light blue colourwash below each tree. I stamped the Snowbaby onto frosted shrink plastic before colouring and miniaturising him and attaching him to the card. A clear silver glitter pen added a touch of sparkle. The third card features the Snowbaby again, but this time he is set into a frame made using Nestabilities scalloped circles. The gorgeous snowflakes are from the Spellbinders Snowflake Wonder set cut and embossed in plain white card. The sentiment is from the clear stamp set "Christmas Sparkle" by Sue Dix. Above is a picture of my typically messy table! Well, half of it anyway, with a copy of my book near the corner. I had a lovely big area to work in at the Carlisle shop, but I still managed to create a bit of a tip! Thanks to the lovely girls there who looked after me and kept me supplied with fruit teas all day. Lastly is a picture of the ATC that I have created for Sarah's Blog Candy. Apologies that the image is not very sharp...I was being a little ambitious with my camera I think, and the light wasn't too good.It does look better in "real life" so to speak! I decided to do a hand drawn one so that it would be an absolute one off. It's a simple, cutey cat with some sketchy lines for a bit of depth and a little dimension added with some 3D pearl accents. Just leave a comment on Sarah's blog to be in with a chance to get your paws on this, an ATC from Sarah and one from my sister (check their blogs to see them) all very different in style and technique. Plus there are paper and stamp goodies to win as well!

I have another few days of sample making ahead - Alcohol and Distress inks as well as stamps - for Saturday's demonstration at Sew Simple in Taverham, Norfolk, so hope to see some of you there....ATC's will be swapped - or else!!!

I was thinking that I may be reporting sad news about Matthew, as we hadn't seen him for a few days. However, we may have just been unobservant as he has been here today and is now so well recovered that he is not so easy to spot anymore! He sat and soaked up all my compliments on how sleek he looked this afternoon, and seems to thrive on it...it's okay, I already know that I'm eccentric! Well, cheerio for now, Lindsay

The week's events

Hello folks, I have pictures to share tonight as I finally got the camera batteries sorted out...about time too! Today I received copies of my new book as well as the three others in the series. To get a sneaky preview just go to http://www.magmaker.co.uk/ and click on the link to the Mastercraft books. They should be available in the shops from the end of this week.

Now for Matthew's progress.....good and bad news really. The good news is that his tail feathers are now coming through and already about a half inch long which is great, as it means that the feather follicles were not damaged when he was attacked. The bad news is that, because he has no tail to balance with, he is having to rely very heavily on his one good leg and he is obviously struggling, so he was finding it very hard to hop onto the sill to get his seed and nuts in the last couple of days. However, we are making sure that he gets a fair ration of the food, so it is now fingers crossed that his tail regrows quite quickly so that he won't have to carry his entire weight on one tired little leg. Will keep you posted of course.

On Thursday I had caught up with myself so David decided that we should go out for the afternoon and we ended up in Southport. We had the best fish and chips that we have had in a very long time - from The Dolphin, on Scarisbrick Ave if you are in the area! We had a stroll through the town and along the marina front before the obligatory spending of several pennies in the arcade of course! I then got a phone call which meant that we had to curtail our day and head home so that I could write some project instructions for a sudden next day deadline! Such is life!

On Saturday I was in Lancaster at Card Craft and below are some of the cards that I was making on the day. The one below is using my Robin Post stamp on a background of Peppermint Twist paper, and some of my favourite snowflake embellishments from the K&Co Swell Noel range. I used pens to colour the robin and then added a sheen using the Gold Just Glitter pen that gives a subtle accent. My newest acquisitions are two Martha Stewart border punches and you can see the vellum border near the bottom of the card which is the Doily Lace pattern and is just stunning and really easy to use. I have used my other punch - a Zig Zag with holes and an embossed line - on the pink snowman card. I added fine Candy Floss glitter to the embossed line using a glue pen. These punches will be getting a lot of use I think! Next is an acetate card which I hope that you can see okay as, for obvious reasons, this card was tricky to photograph! It features my Feathered Friends stamp as well as K&Co Peppermint Twist papers and embellishments. Some toning ribbons just finished the design off nicely....a good tip is to round all the corners of the acetate, including those on the backbone, which gives a nice notch to hold the ribbon securely in place.

The card with the Sitting Snowman Baby in lilac is a "cheat's" shaker card! I can't take the credit for this idea which I saw...somewhere! ButI thought it was a great idea and a good use of the cellophane bags which we put our cards into. The image has been stamped and stuck well down onto a background then put into the clear bag. Then I added chunky glitter and some Micro Beads before sealing the bag, sticking it to the card front and adding a simple covered frame over the top. Eh voila! A quickie, cheaty shaker card! The final card here is one where I just got carried away and combined my stamped image with Peppermint Twist papers, Swell Noel snowflakes, grunge board flourishes and some sheer ribbon. Over the top, but fun! Mmmmm, now I see that the pictures have actually come up in the wrong order, so I hope all that made sense! Hello to everyone who came along to see me in Lancaster - your kind comments were very welcome and I hope that your fingers didn't get too dirty with all the Distress inks that you bought! Thank you to Joanne, as usual, for the ATC swaps...I love the them.

Today I went to my parents' as it was my sisters' birthday so we all had a day out together (I'm doing well for days out just now!). Part of the afternoon involved a trip to Farmer Parr's in Fleetwood, which is a lovely place full of friendly farm animals and also has a museum of farming and domestic "nick nacks", tools and general nostalgia. Here are just a few photos to share the day with you....how adorable are these white Chipmunks? There were about six or so in a large enclosure and they all wanted to be at the top of this artificial Christmas tree! They were tearing around the cage at a rate of knots and we spent ages just watching their antics. Very entertaining little critters! Well...I had some more pictures to share, but for some reason they are just refusing to behave now, so I shall have to sign off for tonight and try again tomorrow to complete this post properly. Maybe it is getting late and my brain may have gone awry now! So, I'll say goodnight and continue, hopefully, tomorrow. Lindsay

Card instructions and an award!

Just a quick post to say that there are now instructions for my shelf cards on Personal Impressions website and there will be more added soon. Just go to the website (the link is in my website list below left) and click on the "project focus" button to download them.

The award is for "Best Stamps" and was won by Personal Impressions in the Craft Business awards 2008/9! We also won awards for "Best Cardmaker" and "Best Manufacturer", so we are all very pleased (and a bit proud too!!!) Lindsay

Stitches show....part two!

I'm a little late posting this as I have been getting ready for my demonstration at Heaths in Barrow-in-Furness this weekend and I'm travelling up there tomorrow. I'm also making samples for craft day on QVC on the 26th of this month when I'll have stamps on the show. So, this may not be a very long post - but I'll share the pictures with you!
Here are Tim and his assistant, Mario, on the demonstration stand. I was having a break while Suze was showing the Melting pot at my stand, so I took the opportunity to check out what Tim was doing with the fabulous new colours of Alcohol inks (yes...there are 24 vibrant new shades!) Grunge paper (this is great as you can punch it and curl it and colour it with just about anything) and other goodies too numerous to mention!

Tim made the fabulous tag for the candy and then Mario took our picture as you can see - you can also see some of Tim's new stamps in the background.

In the left picture you can see Suze Weinberg demonstrating on my stand - we had to do a quick shuffle to clear a space for Suze's Melt pots and she was soon surrounded by visitors.

Monday night is always spent at the Wing Wah Chinese Buffet restaurant which serves an amazing array of food. All the Personal Impressions team are there, plus everyone from Ranger, the girls from Country Love Ceramics (who were also demonstrating on our stand) the team from Spellbinders and Marga from Avec who makes wonderful bead jewellery. Needless to say we had a really fun time - Marcella from the Country Love had a birthday in a few days, so one of the Wing Wah special desserts was ordered...however, Suze had a surprise as PI got one for her too even though it wasn't her birthday!

Well, Tuesday was the final day and I had another workshop to teach as well a full day of demonstrating.....oh no!..... the image uploader is freezing on me again so I will sign off and finish this post with the last pictures when I get back from Barrow.

So, goodnight for now...Lindsay