All Caught Up!

It has taken me all week but finally all the outstanding orders from the Newbury Show last weekend are on their way to the PO and lots of the empty spaces on my walls and in my racks are filled again.

Want a quick peek!

Oh all right then....

New Graphic45 8x8 and coordinating 6x6 paper pads in Safari Adventure and Children's Hour with all the sizes of their brilliant Policy Envelopes in both the black and red - I can just see a smart envelope book with one of each size and colour for the pockets and pages... Hope to have the new Halloween in Wonderland Deluxe Designer Kits next week and am already chasing delivery dates for yesterday's reveals of the stunning Autumn collections, did you see the brilliant At The Races and St Nicholas collections, can't wait!

Next up all the Distress racks have been refilled, still no stock of Vintage Photo in the mini size but hopefully next week, and all the other colours in both sizes are here.

Also on the ink pad front.....

Versafine is fully restocked in both sizes, first time we have been able to get Smokey Grey in the full size pad for weeks....

...as too are the Versacolor cubes, great value for money and brilliant for the layering stamps which are the hot trend from several companies at the moment. The eagle eyed amongst you may have noticed we are now carrying the full range of Tsukineko's Ultimate Metallic cubes too, twelve shades of rich metallic pigments ideal for next season, which we are not mentioning, far too soon for the C word. Also a quick reminder we carry all the colours of StazOn inkpads at £5.70 for the standard colours NOT the £7.50 charged by a certain large craft superstore!

Ok on to the stamp walls, first up Tim Holtz...

Cats, birds, coffee cups, skylines, butterflies, stencils and mixed media dies #2 and #3 are all back in stock. Unfortunately still no Showtime, Wildflowers or Garden Flowers so I will reorder (again) next week. BTW did you catch the sneak peeks of the new dog stamps this morning? So cute!

On to PaperArtsy.......

Just a little range of Lin Brown stamps and stencils plus some JOFY, beautiful florals from Elizabeth Borer and the newest Darcy stencil. Love PaperArtsy stamps but as PaperArtsy themselves exhibit at all the same shows we do, we have decided to limit our stocks to just a dozen or so lines at a time but we will mix them up so there will always be something different.

P.S. We have their Crackle Glaze in stock too now!

And finally as they say, Kaisercraft's newest A6 stamps, three more designs from BoBunny (love the Falling Hearts and Stars), and some new Summer lines from Hero Arts plus all the ever popular Stamp and Cut sets back in stock. Forgot to photograph them but we also have all the Prima Doily and Leaves dies back in stock and are expecting their beautiful new Rossi Belle collection papers and flowers in about three weeks. Meantime I almost forgot to mention the new Homegrown collection from the fabulous 7Dots Studio, full of rosy pinks, dark greens and greys, delicious and so useable. We have all the papers, die cuts, stickers, and word bands in stock and the stamps should be here next week.

My desk is laden with lovely things to choose from for new workshop projects so it will be a very busy weekend but a most enjoyable one here. Why not pop on down and checkout the new stock and maybe get a sneaky peek of some of the new projects in the pipeline. See you soon Valx

 

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Art Journal Sunday

On the last Sunday of every month we welcome Art Journalers into our studio. Whether you have been journaling for a time, or are just curious and would like to give it a go to see if it might be for you, you will be very welcome. We provide everything except the journal, but don't worry if you don't already have one as any notebook or stack of paper that is sturdy enough to take ink and paint will do. All our workshop stamps, stencils, paints, inks and other consumables are available for you to use.

You don't even have to book, just drop in between 11am and 3pm, grab yourself a cuppa and stay as long as you like. The cost of the session is just £5, but do remember the sandwich bar is only open Monday to Friday excluding Bank Holidays but we have a fridge and microwave if you want to bring your own lunch.

Everyone tends to work in their own journals, sharing ideas along the way and some are following the Kate Crane Calendar so work on that. This month I was working on my April calendar page on what turned out to be a very wet and wild day, so thought I'd have a go at creating my own rainbow to cheer me up.

I gathered together some stash on a theme but ended up using very little of it which is not normally the way my journal pages go!

Using Tsukineko Memento inks I started by blending two shades of each ink colour onto the stamp to give me some shading from the top of my stamp to the bottom - this is a favourite Hero Arts stamp from a couple of seasons ago so I am not sure it is still available. I stamped the green of my rainbow centrally on both edges then continued out from there overlapping each image to give me a wider spread of shades. I repeat stamped the month along the central space of the piece using the same colours of ink blended each time.

I'm afraid I then got very absorbed and forgot about taking more step out photos but it seemed to take me an inordinate amount of time to do very little!

I cut myself a little square stencil from scrap paper and used thin layers of gesso to create semi transparent areas for each day as I didn't want to cover all the lovely drips - I used three thin layers letting each dry in between but only used the stencil for the first layer and just did the others by eye. I cut a piece of stiff card the same length as the squares and used that to roughly stamp the frame of the squares in white acrylic paint.

I then masked the gesso squares and stamped the umbrellas which are from Dylusions Ruby Rainbow plate, in black Versafine so I could paint in the spots and stripes on them with colours blended with Dylusions inks to match the original stamping. I often use Dylusions ink sprays to paint with as you get that wonderful combination of fabulous vibrancy of colour with translucence. All that was left to do was to use some small number stamps to add the dates.

I had such plans for this page with spritz and drips plus coloured texture paste raindrops but, unusually for me, I managed to stop myself and kept it very simple with some white space left too!

Not at all what I had 'made in my head' but I think I like it, what do you think?

Thanks for stopping by, if you want to come along to next month's AJ session it will be on Sunday 26 April.

Back soon, hope you will join me again x

 

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A Frugal Journey Through January Day 21

 

Welcome to Day 21, yes 21, of my frugal journey, thank you so much to so many of you for sticking with me.

Today I have some one layer magic for which you can create with some torn scrap paper, Distress Inkpads in one or more colours, a co-ordinating Versafine or Archival ink pad and some favourite stamps. Best of all you end up with a postcard sized piece which you can simply use as well... a postcard (if you are doing this I would add a layer of Glue & Seal before entrusting it to Royal Mail!), work directly on a card blank and it will be ready to pop in an envelope to go, mat and layer the finished piece onto a card blank for some real dimension, or use as I did above, the front cover to a mini book.

My promised video camera/light has yet to arrive so lots of photos today.

Start with half an A4 sheet of copy paper, folded into quarters, either the front of your card blank or a postcard sized piece of card. Place what is the centre of your folded copy paper to the centre of your card and either mark or just eyeball the size of piece you need to tear out of the centre of it to create a frame that fits the size of your finished card.

Don't discard the piece you tore out, you need that too!

Centre the frame over the card and tape it securely to your mat/desk. I am going to just use black ink for all of this as I think that best illustrates the depth you can create - and I happen to be a big fan of black and white!

I applied a fine layer of Black Soot Distress Ink to the inside of the frame and then used the inside piece to apply a little more ink to give a fake quartered effect. When you find yourself looking at this and thinking how uneven it looks remind yourself it's just a background!

 

Still using Black Soot I stamped the second I impression of two different Kaisercraft texture stamps onto my background, keeping to the quartered look. Still looking scrappy but just hang on in there!

 

Using one of the leafy stamps from this retired Hero Arts set, again with one impression stamped off on my scrap piece, I randomly stamped it over my card. Not impressed, bear with me!

I always add my sentiment at this stage, otherwise I tend to get carried away and not leave enough space for it. Versafine is always my first choice for this as the pigments are so strong so gives great definition to this final layer, but sometimes I use Archival as it offers a far more extensive pallette of colours.

 

I picked some bold rose leaves from the same set and again using Versafine Onyx Black stamped them to frame the greeting, repeat stamping each time until I had used all the ink on the stamp to add to the illusion of depth. Now I know this is still looking a bit, or a lot, scrappy but bear with me and remove the frame, carefully, because you will want to use it again!

 

Distress Ink but clean and crisp, and a normal stamp to post it too! Great as a postcard but you can layer it up as well, and use different colours, or multiple colours, different stamps, different greetings.... go on, give it a go.

 

 

 

That's it for today but I will be back tomorrow, same time, same place with another one layer idea, but this time for collage stamps. I hope you will join me then xx

 

 

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A Frugal Journey Through January Day 15

WOW, Day 15 on my Frugal Journey, who'd have believed I could blog a different project every day for more than two weeks! Not me that's for sure, but here we are.

Today is all about using up those leftovers from 6x6 pads, you know the ones you fell in love with and just had to have - but now have more than half the paper still in them.

This layout uses five 6x6 sheets of paper plus a scrap to stamp on plus about half an A4 sheet of white vellum. I used an ivory 12x12 sheet as a base and cut four of the sheets of patterned paper to 51/2 inches square, then die cut the fifth sheet into a large label which I cut in half. The papers were from a mix of Prima collections.

I stamped some swirls and the title with Versamark and embossed them with Wow's Vanilla White embossing powder. The year was stamped in Versafine Imperial Purple then the individual numbers were punched out with a 1/2" circle punch. The lace is from May Arts and the mini envelope an old McGill punch. I made the butterfly by stamping the smaller butterfly onto Grungepaper and the larger one onto Clearly For Art, coloured the smaller with Distress Ink, shaped both and sandwiched a Tim Holtz pin between them.Both butterflies are from Wendy Vecchi. I couldn't resist adding a little stamping with a tiny script stamp from Hampton Art that I have had forever.

This layout took me less than an hour to create - once I got the photos the right kind of black and white for the papers, I had to use them as one is the same design as the background curtain in the photo!

I used this layout for a workshop and, as I never make the same thing twice, I changed it around a bit and used entirely different papers, My Mind's Eye this time, and photos in the class.

Of course you could use the same idea on cards or journal page too.

I'll be back same time, same place tomorrow with lots of scraps of all sorts which become a very interesting background.

Hope to see you then xx

 

 

 

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A Frugal Journey Through January Day 13

Hello again. Today I have a project for you which I made some time ago but is one of my favourites, and was a very popular workshop project too. I love Dylusions stamps with all the interesting elements that can be endlessly mixed and matched to suit your project. Great fun!

The base for these is a paper mâché hanging which I painted black. I cut a piece of white card just smaller than the hanging, tore up leftover scraps of paper which I randomly glued to the white card covering with a couple of thin coats of gesso both to knock back the pattern on the papers, and to stop my ink runs from soaking too quickly into the background.

When the gesso dried I stamped the background with various Kaisercraft Texture stamps in Versafine Vintage Sepia then allowed some black and brown Dylusions ink sprays to run down the background. I also added splatters in the same black and brown, with a little white too.

I added a few extra ink runs on the second background then glued both backgrounds to the hangings. Not sure which one I prefer.

I stamped the full Dylusions figures, which were constructed from elements from various Dylusions stamp sets, onto white card to provide a sturdy base, then stamped the elements individually onto a selection of patterned paper. These papers were from Basic Grey Little Black Dress and Teresa Collins Vintage Finds. After cutting them out I glued the pieces onto each figure then cut the finished figure out and used foam pads to position it on the hanging.

All that was left was to add a greeting to each and these fab black arrow paper clips which I found in IKEA.

There was quite a bit of fussy cutting with these but with the radio on the time just flew, and I loved the finished characters! Hope they inspired you too.

Same time, same place tomorrow when I will have some distressed backgrounds to share. Hope to see you then x

 

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Home and Dry

Hello there.

Thought you might like to see what we made in last Saturday's workshop. This was the 'for instance'.

 

 

Now, in my studio the workshop sample is known as the 'for instance' thanks to a lovely lady from the Gloucester Egg Craft group who, during a workshop I taught for them many moons ago when I was waffling on trying to explain to the group that they didn't have to make their version a copy of my sample, cut to the chase with 'Ladies, it is just a 'for instance'' and my workshop 'for instance' it has been ever since!

 

We started by adding a layer of colour to a 8" x 20" canvas, just a splodgy background using three or four colours - if you find it ends up brighter/darker than you planned just add a gesso layer to tone it down.

 

Then we stamped a 12x12 piece of white tissue, ours came between sheets of Bazzill Plastic Paper but you can use one layer of a tissue or packaging tissue too. The idea is to stamp in layers covering the whole piece. The piece I used on my 'for instance' is stamped in Versafine Vintage Sepia but I have one done here with one layer in brown and one layer in black so the idea is clearer. The stamps are mostly from this month's DT kit from Prima's Engraver collection.

 

 

We then tore up our stamped tissue and added it to our canvas with matte medium....

 

 

I felt the sepia ink on mine was too dark so I just added a swipe or two of gesso on a baby wipe to knock it back a bit.

 

The houses were made using different paint techniques onto grunge board in plain and several textures, one with a embossed copper roof heated until the copper turned the colour we wanted. Everything was then assembled with Cosmic Shimmer Acrylic Glue, embellished a bit with Prima Say it in Crystals, metal keys, Ideaology Hitch Fasteners etc and voila....

 

 

And here are a couple who didn't copy the 'for instance' lol!

 

 

 

Great colours, but I didn't manage to capture just how pink Victoria got her copper roof to go.

A good days work I think.

 

Now this Saturday, 2 March. I am doing my Steampunk Phantom for the very last time, for the ladies who missed it due to the terrible snow in January, including the lovely Lesley from Snazzys DT who I haven't seen for way too long. (Soo excited, but it is a bit daunting having one of your own DT coming to your workshop lol!)

 

 

 and on Sunday I have an Art Journaling style canvas project with lots of paint, ink, sprays, sticky back canvas, stamps and much more..

 

 

...including a sheet of 12x12 paper from my favourite Dreamer collection from 7 Dots Studio designed by the multi talented Anna Dabrowska aka Finnabair - more on that subject next week ;0).

 

Then on Wednesday 6 March I have a Clean & Simple card making class using beautiful neutrals from Studio Calico's Classic paper collection and Hero Arts Stamps.

 

Next Saturday 9 March in the morning I have a pretty hanging made again using Prima's stunning Engraver papers and embellishments - if you want some serious inspiration with this collection pop over here and have a drool.

 

 

and in the afternoon I have a Pan Pastel workshop using them to make stunning backgrounds with stamps, masks, stencils and texture paste.

 

 

Busy week in the workshop.

 

Back soon when I'll show you how the AJ style canvases turned out xx

 

 

 

 

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Steampunkery Embellishments

Hello again stampers, two days in a row eh? Whatever next!

Yesterday I showed you my Tuesday evening workshop 'for instances' at Snazzys and I'm back today to give you the lowdown on how I made the embellishments using Chocolate Baroque's Steampunkery stamps. Firstly the steampunk topper,

which was stamped with Versafine Onyx Black onto the smooth side of some Ideaology Grungeboard which gave a good, sturdy base for a coat of Eco Green Crafts black acrylic paint and three layers of Snazzys clear embossing powder. I then restamped the wings from the stamp three times onto Ideaology Grungepaper and the turnkey once - much easier to cut out the detail, painted them with Eco Green Crafts Aged Silver acrylic paint and when dry, restamped them all again. I find it simplest when stamping elements from a stamp onto pieces I have already cut out, to ink the stamp, leave it face up on the desk and position the pieces onto the inked surface using an acrylic block on top to apply pressure to the piece before carefully removing from the stamp. I added a couple of gears cut from Ideaology Grungeboard and black shrink plastic, coloured with Viva Inca Gold in Silver, and topped it with a watch face from a selection of Snazzys Steampunk Bitz Watch Faces. I attached the whole thing to the aperture with Snazzys Black Foam Pads.

Next the caged Flying Alarm Clock,

which was stamped with Versafine Onyx Black onto Ideaology Grungepaper with the wings and the watchface restamped onto Bazzill Smoothie cardstock in Blackberry Swirl and embossed with Snazzy's clear embossing powder. The cage was cut from Grungeboard with the Tim Holtz Alterations die, painted with Ranger Adirondack Paint Dabber in Copper with just a smattering of black acrylic sponged on top to add to the grungy look.

The alarm clock was also painted with copper dabber and then restamped with Onyx Black as described above and after a swipe with the Viva Inca Gold in Copper I assembled the embellishment with Cosmic Shimmer Acrylic Glue and topped it with another of the watch faces from the Snazzys Steampunk Bitz set.

Lastly, my favourite embellishment, the Steampunk Beetle

stamped like the others with Versafine Onyx Black onto Ideaology Grungepaper with the watchface and the wings restamped onto Bazzill Blackberry Swirl cardstock and embossed with Snazzy's clear embossing powder. (I didn't bother painting and restamping this one as all of it was eventually covered with the restamped wing pieces and the UTEE beetle). Yes, I made a mould using Ranger's Mold-n-Pour and a lonely brass Steampunk Beetle from my stash - I could have overcome that it was the wrong colour for my project with some black acrylic paint and Inca Gold in Silver, but I couldn't get past it's weight, which was way too heavy for the piece. I melted 50/50 Ranger Melt Art clear and black UTEE in my Melt Pan and poured very slowly into my beetle mould. I was surprised how quickly it cooled and set, all ready with the extra wings and watchface for a (rather heavy handed) smidge of Silver Inca Gold and a good dollop of Cosmic Shimmer Acrylic Glue to assemble. The hanger is another Tim Holtz Alterations die cut from Grungeboard and painted with the Aged Silver acrylic paint and the jump rings are Tim Holtz Ideaology too! 

I love the way the embossing on the black cardstock wings was highlighted by the Inca Gold, and I'm sure I'll find a way of using that beetle mould over and over.

Thanks for popping by, back soon xx

 

Steampunk Challenge with Darkroom Door

Over at Snazzys Design Team Blog there is a Steampunk Challenge running this week and you could win a set of the fabby Steampunk Travel stamps from Chocolate Baroque that the DT will be working with this month.

To entice you to have a go at the challenge there are some samples over at the DT blog, and as I didn't have a DT kit this time  - the Headmaster can be a terrible meanie :0( - I have used the new Darkroom Door Frame (Postal 12 Up) & Collage (Mr Bright Idea) stamps with a Tando mask and some watchparts from my stash. The backgrounds are Pan Pastels in Paynes Grey and Ultramarine Blue Tints with the stamping in Versafine Smokey Grey and Onyx Black.

Do pop over to the DT blog and give the Challenge a go, you have a couple of days yet as it doesn't close until Midday on Sunday 19 August. I will be back with more workshop samples using these, and several other, great new stamps from Darkroom Door soon.

Thanks for visiting xx

PS you can win goodies each month over at the Snazzy's DT Blog just by taking the time to leave a comment!