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I'm ticking things off my to do list one by one this week! I've done the latest Crafts Beautiful project.....tick, paid some bills.....tick (& yuck!), made some samples for a forthcoming demonstration.....tick and now, finally, getting round to posting here. I'll tackle the next round of tasks tomorrow!
Talking of tomorrow (notice the smooth way that I dropped that in there!) my new stamps will be on QVC in Dawn's hour at 2pm, "crafting with colour". I hope that you like them, I have lots of ideas how to use them and have made a few samples for Dawn to show tomorrow. After the stamps have aired I'll be able to post pictures of some of the samples on here. Even though I've been designing for many years I still get a thrill when I see my artwork made up and packaged! I guess the day that one doesn't feel that excitement is the day one should call it a day.
Well, it was a really busy old few days one way or another. Hello to everyone that I met at Sugar & Spice in Billericay and at Sew Simple in Norwich. I travelled down to Basildon on Friday and was looking forward to a relaxing night before my two days of demonstrations. However, I had a bout of sickness (don't think it was anything I ate, but who knows) and hardly slept at all! Thankfully, the cramps and nausea abated throughout the next day, but it wasn't a good start to my weekend! However, I must tell you a hilarious story from my friday, pre sickness, evening. I was on the second floor in the hotel and access was via two lifts, apart from the emergency staircase. I was going out for a bite to eat so I called the lift, which took an age to come down to me. I got in and when the doors opened I stepped out, only to see that I was in the first floor as an elderly couple had also called the lift. I stepped aside so they could get in and then got in myself. I pressed for the ground floor and down we went, the doors opened three inches and then shut again. The gentleman immediately decided that we should press the alarm bell, so I assured him that all was okay and pressed the first floor button. Up we went and the doors did their three inch trick again before the lift shot down to the ground floor, then straight back up to the second floor, whereupon the doors opened. I stepped out and said that I'd call the other lift. The gentleman then said to me "When you go down, can you tell them that my wife and I are stuck in the lift on the second floor." Er.....it took a few moments for the full hilariousness of the situation to hit me! And, yes, they did stay in the lift that I had just departed! You couldn't make it up really.
Saturday was, as I said, a bit wobbly to start with, but Marion and her staff did make me very welcome in her lovely shop. It was nice to see a few men at the demonstration too...and I always think that I've cracked it if the husbands are impressed!!! Also met some familiar faces, which is always nice. Straight after I'd finished Marion took me to Billericay station and I set off to Norwich and then on to my hotel at nearby Taverham. I slept like the proverbial log and had a much needed extra half an hour lie in instead of breakfast, before the fifteen minute walk to Sew Simple which blew the cobwebs away. I had a lovely day there, enjoyed using some wooden stamps (I still love them!) and was so annoyed that I hadn't taken my camera, so will have to re make some of the cards to photograph. Duh! Then it was back to the station, a quick bite to eat and finally I was on my way home.
Not much to report in the wildlife stakes this trip....I saw a heron and some Egrets which were the highlight of the nature watch. There were some extremely pretty white cattle too, though the bulls were massive! Thankfully though, the trains were very quiet, as I notched up nine seperate legs over the three days. I was so glad to be home though.
So, yesterday, David and I went to our usual car boot haunt and, whilst rummaging in a box of old watches, got into conversation with a fellow rummager who, it turned out, was also rooting about for things to include in her artsy pieces! So, hello Chris, I hope that you found plenty more treasures. I also met someone I know through crafting, so it is a small world for sure. So, what did my rummaging bring me this time? Well, apart from the watches, I got a box of old dominoes (great as I had run out), which I am looking forward to altering. Also quite a few little treasures for the matchbox shrine workshop....mini figurines, a tin horse, some poker dice, a bottle of tiny coloured shells (they were a bit of a rip off at 10p mind you! Lol!) and a brand new ATC folder for 50p...a brand new one that has nine wallets per page, a great find! David was pretty disappointed...all he got was a belt, some miniature men's fragrances and sore feet! The weather was amazing after the previous two days and we were walking around for over four hours (it's a biiiiig field!) so we called in at a coffee shop on the way home and had coffee and a Scicilian Lemon Frappucino (guess which one I had?!), lovely.
So, that's me up to date I guess. I've been straight back to work today and feel good having ticked some things off that seemingly never ending list. I've also been catching up with everyone's blogs, so, even though I may not have commented I have been lurking! So, if you watch tomorrow's craft show, at one, let me know what you think and I'll post tomorrow with some pictures of my samples. Hope everyone had a great weekend! Lindsay
I photographed the page and these ATC's (which I received at the weekend) today...again, the light, or lack of it, didn't help! Going from the top left, with snowman, they are by Sheila, Glen, Jacquie, Jacquie again, Elaine, and the final two are also by Sheila. All brilliant little works of art and a prompt for me to add some new ones to my own swapping collection! 
Well, that's all for now as, once again, I am off to put the coffee on! Oh yes, and Heather, you won't believe this, but I actually made dinner last night!!! Mind you, it was only sandwiches!!! Lol Lindsay
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!
Above are the backs of the two pages just decribed. The flourish one is a thick paper towel which I dropped alcohol inks onto. Once dried this was surprisingly strong! I simply wrapped it around the page blank (before I did the front) and then drew some flourishes and words on with a fine black pen, highlighting with a sparkly pen. The back of the words page was, again, drawn with my 0.05 pen and coloured with Promarkers - I had fun with this one!
For the back of this one, which I did when we were "on holiday" at my parents in June, I did a simple picture, semi inspired by the yellow brick road! A bit of fun was had doodling anyway! 
I've managed to complete another page for Heather's book swap and I've also done a couple of the backs as well. One is for the back of my Heart & Soul page, but I didn't photograph it. The pictures below are of "The Timekeeper" themed one. I've used three of Tim's cogs...I love this element as the cogs engage with each other properly so they all move if you turn one of them (I'm easily pleased!!!). The metal bird is also one of Tim's (sounds like I've stolen his personal stash!), as are the clock faces which are from the Lost & Found Paper Stash. The background is a mixture of Big n Juicy ink over gloss card which I'd partly covered with a large clock mask (Tim again!). I scratched some of the surface off to give texture and also added some torn tissue tape from you know who! The wizard was cut out from a charity shop book find. I added the letters and calendar scraps and glazed them all with Glossy Accents. The clock hands are just twisted wire which I bradded into place so that they can be turned to any time. Passage of time is my main theme here I suppose with the bird symbolising that time flies...how true!
For the back of this page I've drawn a wizard using my 0.05 ink pen before colouring and shading with Promarkers. One tip with using these pens for skin tones is to use something other than the actual flesh colours for shading. I've used Blush to colour the face and hand and then shaded using Cool Grey 1. Using a grey or a very light green will give a much more realistic look to skin than using light, medium and dark shades of the usual flesh tones.
If you are colouring darker skin tones then just use darker greys and greens in the shadowy areas. If you look at portrait paintings, or even your own face in a mirror, you'll see areas of green, blue or even purple as well as the usual peachy, browny, pinky tones. Well, hope you like this latest page!