Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all the mums out there.Thanks to my daughters for their lovely preasents,earrings and a watch with changable straps. As to my Mum, I brought her earrings which will go very well with her present for her 70th birthday tomorrow. I hope she doesn't mind me putting her Mother's day card on here but I was really pleased with how it came out. Green's my Mum's favourite colour so that was the base for this card.

I now have the choice to mix my dies so there is Spellbinders,Marianne and Memorybox. Just a short post today as I've my Mum's birthday card to finish off.

Leigh & Glasgow

Three shows and a trade show since my last post,time flies when your having fun.Stitches was fun, great to meet everybody when they found me...... surprised quite a few people as I wasn't in my ususal spot.Think Linda could repeat my story word for word the amount of times I told it. lol. Then I was off to Farnborough with Kay,busy show,customers loved their decoupage,we loved the pig roast. Time to play with new Penny Black stamps at Leigh,I love London is the title for their new range.There is a mixture of cute and more graphic images, I like a mixture of both.

These are two of my favorites,the tower bridge was stamped in Black Soot distress ink and the colour pulled out from the image with a damp brush.The background was made scrunching up a piece of white card and swiping the ink pad across catching all the peaks.Then spray with water allowing the ink to spread,the following action I call my sizzle technique.You need a craft or travel iron for the next bit.Iron over the card drying and flattening at the same time.Don't worry about cleaning the iron,just iron a baby wipe,it works well. The mini was coloured with Spectrum Noirs.I used the flag mask from Stamps Away,which after embossing I inked with Weathered Wood distress ink.The apperture was cut using the pinking circles from Spellbinders. New Heartfelt Creations were launch at Glasgow,Lisa worked with the flowers stamps and dies,I had windows and scenes as well as crosses.

The cross was very popular,I stamped and embossing the image twice and cut out just the main part of the cross and use foam pads to attach to the full image.Repeat stamp the flower for the ones in the corner. The window is such a new die J & C Creations are taking pre-orders on it.I love window and door images, so many choices on what the view will be. Well I have a weekend off so I will be busy making samples for the NEC.For those at Harrogate and Olympia hope you have a very busy show.

Manchester

Arrived in Manchester thanks to Kay Rutter,a little less eventful than our ride home from Exeter, all I have to say is Snow..........to that one.
I will actually be demonstrating for J & C Creations at this show, big shot,spellbinders and the new LONDON range of Penny Black stamps which we ordered at CHA.
Here are a few more photos from our trip to CHA.
The dress was made of individual flowers in waves of different colours,the bolero jacket was made of beads.The stand owner took 6 months to make it,she said she was virtually doing it in her sleep.
There was even a shoe to match.....
It is taking a time to upload images tonight so I will do some more tomorrow.
Hope to see some of you tomorrow at the show.

CHA

No more guessing, I went to CHA the Winter craft trade show.Jealous....,I know I was of others who went in the past.OK I went to the Summer one in Chicago a few years ago but that was smaller than the winter one. It's been on my list of things I wanted to do, like spend Christmas day on the beach in Australia,that sort of thing.....
The reason I didn't actually say I was going was I wanted to surprise some of my American friends including Sue Wilson.
I went with Denise and Jennifer from J & C Creations,who really wanted to go this year.
We found some lovely products,which I let you know about as they arrive or you can check on J & C Creation's blog.Follow the link on my blog.
Well for the first full day we went to Disneyland, nobody could believe me when I said I'd never been to a Disney anywhere.The first shock we had was that is was 80 degrees and we were walking around in t-shirts.I'm not keen on scary rides but there were plenty of others to go on including a paddle steamer.There was lots to see and plenty of Shopping to do.We had a meal in Downtown Disney,waited for an hour for this but enjoyed the people watching and listening to a violinist.Later on we saw the fireworks and then walked back to the hotel.


Just a couple of photos to leave you with, others are on J & C Creations blog.
I'll post some more tomorrow.

Sandown

Well I just finished my my first show as a self-employed person,this was with Kay at Sandown.It was great catching up with everybody on set-up day, then meeting some of the regular visitors to the show.
It was a little quieter than usual,so as a treat and surprise to Ali from Ali-Craft, we each took an hour to do a workshop with her.It has been an age since I did a workshop with somebody else teaching.
I decorated a little wooden chest with Graphic 45 papers,distress inks and some pieces from Tim Holtz idea-ology range.It was great fun,wish I could have played longer.Kay did a mirror frame with some paints from Paper-Artsy.




As I didn't have time to finish it on the day, I had a play at home. So I added some gold leaf and swirly pearls.The pearls I altered by colouring them with Spectrum Noir pens but you could use any of the alcohol ink pens or alcohol inks. I used Glossy accents to attach the idea-ology pieces and to highlight areas of the paper.
Hopefully I'll have another chance to do a workshop soon, but it's given me an idea with what to do with those wooden boxes I've had stored for years.....

Well my next adventure starts tomorrow and I'm really excited, I'm not saying what yet,there are a few who know but I'll tell all in a few days time.
So I'll have to go now and finish sorting out.
Thanks for all the lovely comments,let me know what you think about the box.

Welcome

Just a short post to welcome my new followers and to thank those who have posted some really nice comments.I appreciate those that have been made, as it's nice to know what you like.
I'm hoping to post as often as I can,with all this extra playtime I can make a lot more cards.
That's until the craft show season starts of course.
The card below was made from pieces I die-cut at the NEC, I decided to leave them white after seeing Sue Wilson's card,first time I've tried a card like this.
Please leave a comment and let me know what you think.


I've have quite a few adventures to look forward to this month,details to be posted later.
Happy crafting

After a few weeks of winter cleaning... and getting ready for Christmas I'm now ready to start a fresh.What to play with first,I've been so used to being given a limited collection of products to work with. I may have to do the same to myself.
On the run up to Christmas I managed to make quite a few cards,here's a photo of one of my favourites,


For this card I used the Heirloom ornaments 2011 die from Spellbinders. Once cut, the shape was left in the die then embossed it using the polka dot mask,then inked using one of the new winter seasonal distress inks.Doing it in this way leaves a plain white edge to the shape.
The poinsettia was stamped using another of the winter seasonal inks, then the whole shape was embossed using Aurora Crystal embossing powder.To create the background I tore a piece of paper to use as a mask,inked around it and overstamped in the same colour using a wording stamp.Removed the mask then stamped the sprig with jet black archival ink.Both the sprig and poinsettia came from the A5 unmounted stamp set Snowflakes and sprigs from Creative Expressions.
I've used this die in so many different ways, hopefully I'll show some other cards in the very near future.,