Boo.....

Did I make you jump? it has been a while and I am sorry, but life and work has been getting in the way somewhat.

I did however almost have the whole weekend off from work. A rarity such as this must be noted and celebrated.  But alas there was nobody here to celebrate with as Colin was in Le Mans watching the practice sessions for the 24 hour race in 2 weeks.  The dog, the cat and myself did however share some scones and clotted cream, very rock'n'roll don't you think?  The rest of the time I was either sleeping or digging up weeds (and there are plenty of them, 13 bags so far and I'm still not finished) in the garden.

The lovely Nikky Hall over at Polkadoodles has been a busy bee, you can pre-order the new double CD Bonbon Belles.  It has oodles and oodles of embellies and backing papers and the belles themselves are soo cute.  There are also new digi's on the website just waiting to be downloaded and coloured in.

Here's a little card I made for the Studio 12 blog a few weeks ago.

The papers and elements are all from the Welcome Home collection.  The only bits I've added are cardstock, garden twine and small paper roses, and I inked all the edges with a Tea Dye Distress inkpad.  The ribbon and string running across the backing paper are a part of the paper, I simply cut along the edge of the ribbon with a craft knife and slipped my topper under it to make it look like its a separate piece.  I also made a card with the gorgeous Missy stamp, I do love this stamp range (Cherry Blossom Lane), such gentle images and can be used for a variety of occasions. There's even a CD to go with them.

Here are the cards from my Creative Expressions show.  There should also have been samples from my demo day at Emerald Crafts but I was in such a rush that I completely forgot to photograph them. I could kick myself I really could, but whats done is done and there's no going back now.

The items in the show were 3 Umount Posy stamp plates, Heartfelt Creations Rye Grass Flourish stamps, Couture Creations Embossing Folders, Spellbinder Nestibilities, Misting inks, Drawing Inks, Cosmic Shimmer Detail Embossing Powders, Mica Beads and Cosmic Shimmer Glitter Jewell's. 

 With mica beads on the background on the left, without on the right.

Well I'd best get back to work now, have a good day everyone.

Sorry for the absence everyone, normal service will be resumed shortly I promise.

I wi8ll be at Emerald Crafts, Lyndhurst, Hants, tomorrow, demonstrating for Creative Expressions, 10 till 4. If you are in the area pop by and say hi.

Sorry everyone for misleading you but my Creative Expressions shows next Wednesday are on Ideal World not Create and Craft.

Thank you to everyone for watching the Polka Doodles show today, and thank you to everyone that emailed in, and all the lovely messages sent to me.  I will get the instructions for the star card done soon I promise.

Here are the Clarity Samples as promised.

 Gold Pearl embossing powders

 Archival inkpads and kiss stamping

 Distress inkpads and lovely pink embossing powder

 Copic pens

 Kuteratake Zig Art and Graphic Twin Tip pens

 Archival and Distress inkpads and clear and metalic embossing powders

 Kuretake Zig Art and Graphic Twin Tip pens

 Archival inkpad, Spellbinders and A4 Embossing folder.

Just a quickie to let you all know I'll be on Create and Craft TV this Fri at 8am for Polkadoodles (heaven help me, I'll have to be up at the crack of doom!), and then I'll be back on C&C next Wed at 11am and 6pm Creative Expressions.

I will do a post with all the Clarity samples soon I promise, but I'm flat out at the mo.
 

Hello everyone, I'm here at last with plenty of pics for you to see.  I really don't know what happened to March, so much work and it flashed past before I knew it.  April has been a little bit calmer, but only a bit. 

This last week I've been doing some artwork with paints and inks and having a whale of a time with it.  I do love paints and inks, maybe that's why I took to Faux painting/effects.  It's a real shame I don't have more time to do it more often, I do miss it.  I would have loved to work for National Heritage/Trust restoring the old big houses, but alas I needed a degree which entailed being at Uni 5 days a week and with a morgage to pay I just couldn't do it.  If only I'd found it when I was younger.  Our careers advisers at school never gave us any information on jobs like that, all they ever banged on about was shop, office and bank work, none of which was I the slightest bit interested in.  Had I known about restoration of faux painting it may have been a different story.

I had a 50th birthday pressie to make for our friend Jez, it took me a while to decide what to do for him as it had to be something special that he could keep.  Inspiration hit when I was sat in the Dr's surgery, not quite as strange as it seems.  They have a few shelves of second hand books that they sell for charity, so that was what got me thinking.  Below is what I made, I was quite pleased with it, but flip me did it take a long time to do, even after ripping out about a quarter of the pages.  I don't think I'll be doing another one anytime soon.

 

 

 

 

I've also done a couple of projects for the Polka Doodles Studio 12 blog since my last post, both use Studio 12 stamps.  Nikky has loads of new goodies added to the shop website, it's well worth having a gander.  The first project is a wooden sign I picked up in Wilkinson's for £3, it's about 14" long so it was a real bargain.

 

A bit late now, but here are the Clarity samples from the April shows.

 

 

 

 

 

That's it for now. Have fun creating till I'm back again.

Hello everyone, a quick warning this could be a long post with lots of pics.

I'm sat here watching Hels wishing I had the time to get my melt pot out.  Its a fantastic tool that you can do so much with and it's well worth investing in one.

Nikky Over at Polkadoodles has been working her fingers to the bone producing even more lovely stuff for you.  She certainly is on fire at the moment with so many new products I would be here all night just listing them all. Hot off the press is the new Fredericka range and you can get them all on a CD, as digi downloads, an A6 printed pack of digis and an A6 coloured printed pack that you can use your dies on for some quick and easy toppers, also there is a gorgeous 8x8 paper pack to go with them all.  There really is something for everyone there whatever you crafting preferences are.  Its really worth keeping an eye on the new products section.  If you're popping over there for a little snoop, check out all the new clear stamps too, the Studio 12 and Susan Wackesser ranges are fabby and work really well together.  If you like Art Journaling, Mixed Media or Altered Art then these will be right up your street.

Keep checking the Polkadoodles and Studio 12 Blog for the weekly challenge (every Fri with fab prizes up for offer) and the studio 12 postings 3 times a week (Sun, Tues and Thurs).

Now for the Creative Expressions samples for the C&C show last week.  There are some tags missing because I only made them in the hotel the night before the show, so as yet they haven't been photographed.  Creative Expressions have brought out a little magic pot, pure genius in my humble opinion, its the Flake and Glitter Highlighting glue.  It's great for touching up designs, or using on embellishments as you can get into all the nooks and crannies with the little brush.  I wont tell you how long I have waited for something like this.  I have been gilding for quite some years now and this has to be one of the most useful things going.  The pots of gilding flakes are really big too, masses of flakes that will keep you going for ages.

 This if one of the Gilding Flakes pots that I've decorated.

 

 I love these Heartfelt Creations Stamps, really lovely big bold designs.

 

I love the Butterfly dies they are so versatile with the two layers, only one used here though.  The inked areas were dusted with the Cosmic Shimmer Mica Powders for this card, it gives it such a lovely shimmer.

 

 

 Heartfelt creations and Justright stamps here

 Painting with Mica Powders and spritzing with them above.

 

 This is one of the cameos that I gilded.  its hard to see the detail really but it does look good in the flesh.

 

I was going to add the Monkton Elm Demo samples but I really think this is enough for now, so I'll show them in the next post.