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Hello folks, sorry to have been AWOL this week but have been trying to get through lots of work....magazine projects, Christmas designs (my snowmen are melting as I draw them!) prepping workshops and demonstration samples etc.
Just a reminder that I'll be at Crafts 4 U 2 Do in St Helens tomorrow where it's always a fun day. I'll be demonstrating my some of my new stamp designs as well as some by Darkroom Door, along with Distress Stains, Perfect Pearl Mists and other goodies! Then, on Sunday, I'm at Dawn's Studio to teach two workshops - Fresh Spring cards in the morning and Steampunk style in the afternoon. There are a few places left I think, so do call Topaz Crafts if you'd like to make a last minute booking.
Last weekend I was down at ESK in Eastbourne...you may recall that I was going to have a paddle. Nobody told me that the beach there consists of pebbles and shells (as opposed to sand!) so I took a few ouchy paces into the water, stood there getting a good soak and then a few ouchy paces back to where I had left my sandals! Flip Flops are a must for that beach and I didn't have any - oh well! The weather was fantastic of course and I did a lot of walking on Friday afternoon before a lovely meal and early night (awful hotel, but I won't bore you!) ready for a busy day on Saturday. I must thank Gaynor and Anne for all their hospitality at the store and for the lovely meal we had that evening. I stayed over a second night before trolling home as it's a looong journey, so I didn't have to race to catch a late night train. That Sunday lie in (9am - how decadent!) was really welcome!
Since then I have been head down working, hence my absence on here. Thank you for all the quiz entries...I definitely made this one far too easy, so David will be having to draw a name from the proverbial hat! Shall have to go back to trickier questions next time! I'll announce the winner, and answers, next week, so check back to see if you have won.
There are still a few places available for the workshop day that Amy and I are hosting on the 15th May, so if you fancy joining the fun, just email me for details.
Well, my bags are all packed with inks, stains, stamps and punches, so I'm calling it a day now and going to spend some time relaxing before another busy weekend. Bank Holidays? No idea what they are?!?! Lol
On Sunday I was at The Craft Room in Garners Garden Centre for another busy, and very hot day. Hello to all the lovely ladies and gents who came along and welcome to my new blog followers too!
To the left of me was a ramp down to the beach and the sea was going out, so I made my way down to the sand. There were a few people walking along with their dogs which were enjoying the sea of course. I took off my boots and socks, rolled up my trousers and headed towards the water....crikey, it bwas freezing! The first wave nearly knocked me over, but, once I had managed to breathe again (!) the water was so refreshing and you can't beat the feeling of sand underfoot. 
I had a really long walk in and out of the water and then clambered onto some rocks at the edge of the beach where I sat, poured water over my tootsies to wash off the sand and put my socks and boots back on. My feet were tingling but all feeling of weariness had left them! I then had a wander around the beach side of town and decided to have a bit of fun in the arcade - well you have to don't you?! I set myself a limit and got a pile of 2p pieces....I only like the coin pushing machines! I managed to win two keyrings and a weird little angel before I ran out of coins!
And this is the shop front - it was such lovely weather that the door was open all day, and you can just see my demonstration table inside. The shop is in Roxburgh House, just beside the shopping arcade on Park Avenue.
Here are just a couple of the cards that I made - I was focussing on Martha Stewart punches and Distress inks. This one has the very useful Infinity Loop on the left, the PATP is the Flowers CET (I call it the Pansy set!) and the large butterfly punch. Really simple card that I made on the day. Oh, please ignore the squished Liquid Pearl centres on the flowers - someone put another card on top of this one before they had set - oops! The stamped flowers were from the Wildflowers set from Darkroom Door, stamped in black onto gloss card and smudged with Mustard Seed Distress ink.
This card has the same punches (except for the Loop) but I've used TH Vintage Shabby paper for the PATP mat. I'm really trying to use some different colours than my usual favourites as you can see! Very simple cards, but sometimes simple is best! 
Well, I must get on with work now. I am sorting everything out for my workshops at Topaz this coming Sunday. In the morning we'll be making Steampunk style cards in a two hour class. We'll be using new stamps from Tim Holtz and Andy Skinner who is a new designer for Personal Impressions. All the new PI stamps will be available very soon, but everyone on this Sunday's classes will be using pre production sets that I have in advance. The Steampunk cards are great for men or teens - two of the trickiest groups to make cards for! They will feature Top Hatted Victorians, watches, wings and....oh, all sorts of eclectic images! In the afternoon we will be making cards using my new designs. We'll be stamping onto book pages and using paints, pens, inks etc to create a range of cards in this three hour class. I just checked and there are some places still available if you would like to come along to join in the fun. Please contact Topaz direct on 01254 356501 if you'd like more information.
.....and Sheila! Both showing what they think of having their photos taken - charming! Everyone else, as you can see, was hard at work making their easter cards! Sheila is such good company on the workshops, always ready to have some fun and she does keep us in stitches!
Here's a picture of the afternoon's workshop where the ladies were all decorating and filling Sahdow Boxes. There's me, floating about with the tin of alcohol inks for the ladies to colour silver keys to make them look more aged. Lots of concentration going on here!
And look who turned up and tried to pinch my Ranger workshop canvasses! Terry has lost so much weight now that he can't hide as much stash now as he used to..... 
....so it looks like Joanne will fail in her attempt to get him to pocket the third canvass! Lol! 
In case you don't know, Terry "pinching" my stash is a regular episode when we see each other - and he really isn't a criminal - honest!
Also, look who popped by just to see if she could help! This is Speckle who is one of Fred's offspring - Fred is our most long standing visitor and my favourite. I think Speckle thought I was in dire need of her assistance given that she actually came in through the window and perched there, checking all my work! 
Well, this is just a quick post as the evening is wearing on now and it's time to relax for a bit. Just a reminder that after Stitches is over I shall be back on the road, or rail, and travelling up to Darlington for my day at The Art Shop on Saturday 26th. So, hope to see some of you there again for another day of creative ideas.
The afternoon brought Melt Pots to the table and we poured clear UTEE over stamped images set into Memory Frames, made a simple flower brooch using Claudine Helmuth sticky backed canvas, a pendant made with clear Memory Capsules containing various beads, shells etc and we finished with a simple (but, I think, everyone's favourite!) brooch made using Gorjuss Girls images set behind Facets and each with an Idealogy Bauble. These are something that are featuring in next month's Crafts Beautiful (March issue I think?!) for a set of Gorjuss Girls projects that I have done. As per usual, I think we probably made quite a bit of noise as the classes are always such a social occasion and there is always some good natured ribbing (who can pour the most perfect UTEE layer for instance) and laughter. David and I hadn't seen all the Topaz crew since before Christmas, so it was lovely to catch up with everyone again - Brenda was a star as usual, keeping us all going with "brews" and biccies in between demonstrating in the shop, Gill, who was manning the tills, Jane who was beavering away making samples and Dawn was also there, sorting out all the products for her forthcoming workshop weekend. On Sunday Mary was the official refreshments manager. As ever, Topaz feels like a home from home with everyone being so welcoming and happy to help.
In the afternoon, everyone did some face painting...that's painting a face for a page as opposed to painting their own faces! This caused quite some consternation at first as almost everyone was less than confident in their painting faces ability! I wanted to cut through that self imposed barrier and, as you can see, the ladies all proudly showed the results of their (in some cases, first) artistic endeavours....you can see Sheila peeping over her face which she topped with a tiny hat! 
We used Colourwash Dyes, book pages, paint dabbers and Gesso to create interesting backgrounds which were embellished with patterns stamped in acrylic paint, doodles and collaged images. Everyone was working in sketch books which I had provided so that these could be used either as practice pieces with notes about techniques etc, or as full on journals. I like the idea of a journal about journalling if you see what I mean! 
Next is Sheila's favourite page which she created with book pages, Gesso and paint dabbers. She really enjoyed collaging the magazine images together and creating the wings from painted book pages. She's also started adding frames and doodles around the image. I can't wait to see how these pages develop. 
Time seemed to be something that we are all very aware of as it was a theme that seemed to evolve in a few pages...including in my own journals. This bold page is from Elaine's book and she really threw herself into the process...we all loved the way she chose to use a "typical" model image and then changed her completely by twisting the feet, replacing her face with a watch dial etc. I love the colours too! 
And next is Kath's favourite page in progress......Kath made the incredibly delicate egg for me which I showed on here a few months ago, and she confessed to me that she feels quite out of her comfort zone when working with papers, pens etc. However, she showed no signs of that this weekend and here she used Gesso and paints over book pages and made a brilliant job of the wings and toadstools that she created from scratch. Kath also showed us photographs of some of the eggs she has transformed into works of art....they are absolutely amazing and we are trying to pursuade her to teach some egg decorating classes. 
Below is a really delicately coloured spread that Rochelle is working on. The gorgeous image of the woman was the starting point and Rochelle took lots of time to choose the placing of each image, the colours and framing to create a very flowing page. I'm looking forward to seeing how Rochelle's pages progress as she has a really good eye for layouts.
Victoria knew exactly that she wanted to have a mum theme for her journal as she is pregnant herself. I really loved watching Victoria's work unfold as she started out quite nervously having never done anything like this before, but, by the end of the day she was confidently doodling, cutting, sticking and painting! A natural journaller! 
Ethereal was the word which both Sonia, Karen and myself kept repeating whenever I came over to their work area. This page is Sonia's and I love the way she has softly blended the colours and chose images which perfectly suited the delicate effects. There was a happy coincidence too as Sonia added the dove images before she realised that the book page she used had reference to doves in it. (Weirdly....I have Radio 4 on as I write this, and they have just mentioned doves this second!). 
Here are Karen's pages and she is going to add some crystals going from the outstretched hand to the oversized bauble. Again, I love the colours that Karen chose and, hard to see in this photo, the delicate crackling effect that Karen drew around the framed areas. 
Chris brought some of her existing journal pages to show us and we all loved the very specific type of quirky humour that shone through them. Chris is really addicted to journalling now! Here is her work in progress with the time them (told you!) and as you can see, like many of us, Chris feels as if she is always chasing time! Can't wait to see where this page ends up! Don't forget to show me next time, or email me a photo or two!
It was a brilliant day and I have promised that we'll do another journalling workshop before too long. We'll concentrate more on words, doodling and drawing next time. Oooh er! Talking of future workshop dates, I have booked two more at Dawn's and, just to clarify, all the workshops which are listed will all be going ahead and we are looking to add more. Just check the Topaz website for dates and themes, or on here for my specific classes. The two new dates for my classes are Sunday March 27th - 10am-12pm and 1pm-4pm. Then Sunday April 10th, also 10am-12pm and 1pm-4pm. I'll be posting the themes for each class shortly.
For anyone who likes the style of the buildings....watch this space! Now it's time for some intense sample making for Stitches. Lots of exciting new stamp designs and I have quite a large new range coming out which I will post sneaky peeks of as soon as I can without getting into trouble! Many thanks in advance to my good friends who have stepped in to help me to make a display piece for my demonstration area at the show, again, I'll be showing you what they are up to as soon as I can.
So, the morning workshop was a repeat of the Ranger Mirror project which was so popular earlier this year. Joanne and "Peg Leg" arrived early and Joanne helped us to get set up - thank you! It took some time due to the sheer amount of products we were going to be using. The Ikea framed mirrors were colourwashed and set aside so that we could then concentrate on making all the Ranger technique filled examplars to decorate them with. We started with the Melt Pot, making UTEE filled Memory Frames, UTEE agate pieces, UTEE over stamps etc. Everyone's pieces were different of course, and we had no accidents with the Melt Pots and the leads which I was trying carefully not to trip over from my position in the middle of the tables! After the Melt Pots were switched off, we moved onto Claudine Hellmuth Sticky Backed Canvas, creating transferred images and resist images by stamping onto the canvas with Multi Matte Medium. Next we used Alcohol inks on acrylic Fragments, on foil and a technique that proved to be very popular which was inking a glass piece and then stamping with Black Archival ink before removing the stamped image with tissue to reveal a negative. Here are some very concentration filled faces!
We then moved onto Distress inks and Gesso (which I realised that we should really have done earlier as it needed to dry. Oops, sorry ladies!) and by then our three hours was well and truly up. Because the next workshop was only half an hour later we couldn't overrun, so everyone is going to assemble the pieces at home. Heather arrived mid morning and then joined everyone else at 1pm when the first workshop ended. Heather had brought the completed Chunky Books from the swap that myself, Joanne, Gez, Sioux and Sheila had all partaken in. Heather had wrapped each book in fabric and ribbon with name tags on them. The reactions of everyone were wonderful as Heather had done some an amazing job putting all the pages together. I'll post pictures of my book once I take them, but do check out everyone elses blogs to see some examples already posted. Thank you Heather, all your hard work was really appreciated by me and everyone else, especially as I know it was made extra tricky at the moment with your hand problems. 
.......and open.
Well, I was well and truly shattered after a long day on my feet and all the talking! So, after spending some time chatting to everyone and saying cheerios etc, it was time to make a start on clearing up...ugh! Worst job! We got some sorted but had to leave some things for the morning as Amy was ready to take me round to Dawn's house where I was staying the night as her sister, Rena, has not been too well. We had a lovely roast dinner and relaxed on the sofa catching up, watching some tv and playing with the doggies! I slept really well and it was soon time to get back to the tip that was awaiting me on the tables at the shop. Oh well, we just got stuck in and then I was ready to demonstrate for the day. This included me colouring Sheila's necklace after I made a casual remark about how I'd feel compelled to alcohol ink it...it was silver and pearl colours, but now it's oranges and browns! It was another fun filled day, and I'd like to say a special hello to Caitlin and her mum. It was lovely to spend time with you and I hope you can come to a workshop - you'll be well looked after. I'll post some new workshop titles and dates shortly.
.......I then finished the drawing and coloured the pages, using Promarkers, over the next couple of evenings and this was the final result. I do like the colours but was cross that I made a mess of my writing! Gggrrr! Never mind. So, one creepy page was finished! 
That was a pretty mammoth post, made longer by the fact that the italic button keeps pressing itself for no apparent reason so I have had to keep going back over text. Very annoying! I am now going to get on with rest of the day, which means doing...nothing! This is my Sunday! Thanks to everyone who I was with this weekend, including Brenda, who worked her socks off keeping everyone supplied with teas and coffees on Saturday! It was a really great weekend and hope to see you all again soon. Lindsay
I just wanted a pretty simple look to this one. My gessoed, painted pages are between my drawn and coloured with Promarkers ones - this way, it doesn't matter that the pen colour comes through to the back because the paint mediums cover it.
The next card is completely different, though still based around acetate. This time I stamped one of my favourite TH stamps (the serious faces lend themselves to adding an amusing word or two!) onto acetate, heat set the Archival ink and then painted the image from behind using Blending Solution to thin the colours. This is such a fun technique as the inks work so differently from paints - one colour will replace the colour beneath it, but, dabbling the colours on is a good way to get a very colourful look to the piece. I then mounted the piece over Personal Impressions Metallic film to give a glow behind the coloured image. Some distressed paper then seperated the image from the TH paper which I had used to cover the card blank. A distressed Adage Ticket, some TH tissue tape and an alcohol inked ribbon were the finishing touches. At my demonstration on Sunday I was asked, by a lady named Gail, what a painted acetate piece would look like over gilding flakes, so I made up a piece of white card covered with a silver and gold mix of flakes so that Gail could see the effect, which, we all agreed was pretty good and rather reminded me of a craft that I did as a child where we had black designs on glass and covered the backs with differently coloured sweetie wrappers! No picture of it I'm afraid, as the flashback was too much on the acetate. Anyway, hope you like this card. 
The last one was the one I wasn't sure about, but everyone on the class really liked it! The main image was created by colouring some white tissue pieces with alcohol inks in various shades. The stamped acetate was then flipped over and I piped Glossy Accents over the image, sprinkled on just a little fine glitter and then pressed small scraps of the tissue to colour the image. Once dry, I mounted the image onto the card (covered with TH paper), and added punched strips and a butterfly - these were from dull silver card that I'd alcohol inked. It's a very busy card, but sometimes I like going a little over the top!
Here are a few snaps of the workshop with everyone hard at work! We also did some very simple stamping onto tissue which we then applied to candles. 
And you can see how everyone is concentrating very intently! 
At this point, I am now typing this on Tuesday evening! I started this post last night but David wanted to watch a film (Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, which we've watched before, but that whole series can stand being watched a few times!) so I saved everything till today - more on today a bit later! So, back to the weekend...on Saturday night I was staying with Rena and Stephen (Amy's mum and dad). Amy and her little boy, Ben, came back with us for a couple of hours and we had another lovely dinner cooked by Stephen who is an excellent host! I had been warned that Alicia (Amy's niece) had seen something being made on a CBBC programme and that she was sure that I would know how to make it! It was some sort of tap...gulp! None of us had seen it, so we really didn't have a clue what it was that I was supposed to be making! (I have since googled it, so will be ready next time!) I decided that diversion was the best tactic, so I suggested that we make a magic card instead. We spent some time making the card mechanism, which has secret flaps, and then Alicia had great fun decorating it with lots of stickers. She showed Rena and Stephen and immediately turned to me to say "Shall we make the tap now Lindsay?"......hilarious! So, another idea had to be found, and I suggested that we make a Princess Tiara. This went down well, and involved lots more stickers, as you can see. Here's me crowning the little Princess.....
.......and here she is the next morning in all her cuteness! 
On Sunday I was demonstrating in store at Dawn's Studio along with Mary who was showing card ideas and techniques with stencilling paste. I was showing the techniques used in the workshop as well as general ideas for Christmas cards and ATC's. Hello to everyone that came along, including Sheila and her mum - I'll post a photograph of them both tomorrow along with a picture of all the lovely ATC's that I swapped with Sheila, Elaine, Jacqui and Glen. I am going to have to sort out some more storage for my collection of ATC's soon!
These sumptuous, glowing cards were made by Jane and Gill, and Gill was also making some of Heather's beaded dragonflies - her book is on the left of the picture.
And here are some of the cards which Jo was making on Saturday, building up "flowerscapes" to create these fantastic scenes. Again, my picture doesn't do them justice!
Here are some pieces that I was making using the Paint Dabbers Acetate Transparency technique. It's really simple, but the effects can be gorgeous. Simply stamp your chosen image onto acetate - if using Black Arc
Here's my table looking less cluttered than it actually was! Nice cup of fruit tea there too! 
I stayed with Rena and Stephen (Amy's mum and dad) on Saturday night and they are two of the most special people that we have got to know in a long time. Over the two days so many people came along to pick up tips and techniques and we shared lots of smiles and laughter - great fun! Sheila came on both days and left me speechless (and David will tell you that this doesn't happen very often!!!) by bringing me a whole set of goodies for my birthday - along with some relaxing bathing treats she had made me a card, ATC's and three amazing book pages as you can see below. Aren't they gorgeous? Btw, the Alice ATC was from Sheila on Sunday as a bribe to go through Grungepaper flower making with her! (Not that I needed bribing I hasten to add!). So, along with all the generosity last week I felt very fortunate indeed!
Next you can see the other ATC's which I received - clockwise from the top left they are by Elaine, Joanne, Sheila and Chris. Elaine had only just begun making ATC's so I got one of her first two - great fun isn't it? Joanne and Sheila's ATC's both had the same sentiment which was a weird coincidence. Chris has just decided to join in Heather's swaps, so I feel a bit guilty in choosing her beach hut card now, as Heather posted her latest swap theme is "Beside the Seaside", and I'm sure this one would have been perfect! 
So, thank you to all of you, including Paul, who I got several big hugs from! (they are always welcome!) It made for a special couple of days.