Saturday 28 April 2012

Good nearly afternoon!

Just a quick reminder about voting for your fave piece of Claritystampers NW homwework, I will be counting the votes tonight ready for class tomorrow so this is your last chance to vote.

Thank you
Have a good Saturday

Thursday 26 April 2012

Teaming up for a crafty event!

Just a quickie to let you know about this event!
(im very excited about this one)

Saturday 30 June
Lostock, Preston.
Special event hosted by myself & super talented Annette Lee!

 Half the day will be spent with Annette creating a stunning Wall Hanging with Cricut (dont worry if you dont own a cricut), and half of the day with myself using a variety of techniques and Crafty Individuals stamps to produce some lovely cards.
Class cost is only £25 including all materials and tea/coffee.
10am-3pm
Our theme for the day is
Essence of Nature
Places are strictly limited!
If you would like a place my email address is in the left sidebar.

Details of other classes will now be listed in the 'Workshop Dates' page at the top of my bloggy!

Wednesday 25 April 2012

Follow your Dreams

Hello!
Today's card is using the Follow your Dreams stamps from Claritystamp
Yet again it has taken about 2 hours to load a single picture, its starting to wear very thin now!
 
See you tomorrow (hopefully) with news of more classes.
 
Have a good one!


Monday 23 April 2012

Clarity Homework to be marked! Votes please.

Happy Monday!
Its that time again when I ask for your help, this is the homework from some of my Northwest Claritystamp ladies, your votes decide who wins a new Claritystamp of their choice.
Number 1

Number 2

Number 3

Number 4

Number 5

Number 6


Number 7

Well uploading those pics took nearly 2 hours, cheers blogger!

Thanks in advance for your votes and comments for my ladies.
x








Thursday 19 April 2012

On Your Special Day

Hello!
Yes Im blogging two days on the trot, thought I better try and redeem myself after my absence.  The only problem is that I havent had time to photograph most of the stuff I have been up to recently or I just cant show you yet, so I am relying on a few older projects for this week.
This is one of the cards I did for Creative Stamping issue 3 using the free stamp set.  The theme I was set was Wedding, Brown & Teal, using Bleach techniques.
Im not too fond of stamping with Bleach, but its fun to colour with it and use it for spritzing and stuff, open a window for some air though wont you!

Hopefully I will be back tomorrow, I need to load this months Clarity homework for you to pick a winner.

Have a good one!


Wednesday 18 April 2012

Soooo busy lately!

Well I finally found time to blog, its been totally manic in Casa Maria-or not as the case may be, I have not even been in the house for more than a 24 hour pit stop for the last 3 weeks!

I thought I would show you a couple of cards from my workshops, todays card is using Sam Poole's Nautical stamps, there are 2 sets and they mingle together very nicely.

Sorry about the dodgy pic, I was rushing!
The background is achieved using 2 of Ali Reeve's masks placed at opposite corners and sprayed with one of the new Vintage misters from Creative Expressions.
The torn light blue card has been stamped randomly with the large Atlas stamp inVersamark then edged in Denim Adirondack,can you see how soft the colour graduation is from the edges? thats my Splodge Away blending mat at work!

The little ships wheel is embossed onto Acetate and attached to a disc of blue card with a Screw Top brad, so the whel will spin (im easily amused).

Thats it for today, thanks for stopping by.


Sunday 8 April 2012

Vintage mixed media

Good evening, I wanted to show this piece I made on Thursday/Friday while I was staying with my mega talented friend Annette Lee.
I actually took several photos so you could see all the different elements/techniques but blogger is acting up again, so I have given up trying and will have to be satisfied with 2 pics.

The wooden frame was from Crafty Individuals.

First I painted randomly with two brown shades of Acrylic paint, then added a few bits of TH Tissue tape.  I rubbed some Inca paste to give a little shimmer then using a mica mask added leaves using some Croco metallic crackle paint in Bronze & Gold.  While I waited for the paint to dry I made the flowers from some lovely Grapic 45 paper we found in Annette's den, they were cut using a TH cutting die then inked with alcohol ink and dipped in UTEE,the little charm centres were also coloured with the alcohol ink.
I added some Mica Flakes to the bottom right corner, stamped some text from one of the new Sam Poole stamp sets and drizzled some UTEE over it.
The Dressmaker tile was made by pouring more UTEE over a Crafty Individuals stamp then I added some pink paint to the back for a gentle tint.
I used yet more UTEE, I poured some over a pile of Mica Flakes on my craft sheet and stamped a butterfly into it, then over the top I added a glazed butterfly for more dimension.
The Dressform was stamped onto glass and embossed Gold and Bronze, I then turned the glass over and coloured the wings with Alcohol ink.
The glass was then backed with some more of the Graphic 45 paper.
A couple of charms and beads added and thats it!

I might add some beaded fringe to the bottom, not decided yet.

Thats it for now, enjoy the rest of the Easter break.



Wednesday 4 April 2012

Moonlit Poppies

Anyone else having trouble with blogger?  It took forever to load this pic this morning, it didnt work at all yesterday!

Oh well got there in the end.
This is one of my Clarity samples from the weekend.

I had to 'borrow' the picture from the Claritystamp gallery because I didnt have time to get pics of anything before they were posted.
I stamped the little mice and covered them with masks, stamped the tall poppies and the small poppies side by side then masked all four sides.  I brayered a tiny amount of Juniper to the bottom of the pic to take the whiteness away a little between the poppy stems, I brayered the sky with Juniper and then Butterscotch to experiment. I coloured with Promarkers leaving each layer to dry before adding more colour. Then I removed the masking tape and stamped the friends sentiment, I thought it went well with the little mice!

Thats it for today, I got to tidy up and pack ready to be off on my travels again tomorrow.


Monday 2 April 2012

New Workshop dates.

Yes 2 posts in a day, shocking I know!
But I thought I would just let you know new workshop dates etc that I have confirmed today.

Saturday 19th May

I will be back at

in Stockton on Tees
There are two classes
10am-12.30pm
1.30pm-4pm
Little bit of messy play including Mica Sprays and other fun stuff!
Susan & Tom have all the details
01642 605117

Thursday 31st May
Another Claritystampers Northwest class
Birkenhead, Wirral
10am-3pm
Line Art watercolouring & Decoupage with Clarity Stamps
Email me for more details

Sunday 3rd June
Thursday class repeated
Saturday 16 June
JGD Crafts
Sutton in Ashfield
Class time to be confirmed
Hunkydory/Spellbinder class
Give Janet a call for more info
01623 557567

The Creative Expressions class in Preston next Saturday is now Full, I am hoping to return on Saturday 5 May, to be confirmed.

I have a couple of places left on the Claritystamp class on Sunday 29th April in Birkenhead.

Ok thats all for today!

Homework winner

Hello!
Although a little delayed, here is the winner of last months Claritystampers Northwest homework competition.

Well done Pauline and evrybody who took part, some lovely work again.
And thank you to everybody who took the time to vote and leave encouraging messages for my ladies-they do appreciate it!

I will try and load this months homework up this evening.

Hopefully I will have a card to show you tomorrow too!