Busy Busy Busy ....

... buzz.. buzz.. buzz...

I've had a lot of fun in recent workshops creating these cute box canvasses with people.. for each workshop I've tweaked the design slightly... so nice to see them all lined up..

The canvasses are an ideal size - at 4x6 inches they are no bigger than a standard greeting card.. so the design could be easily applied to a card if they are more 'your thing' than canvasses.

(I especially like the flying bees on the top of the canvasses - can't resist pinging them lol)

x

Inky painty indeed!

A day spent at That's Crafty, running my first workshop at this great craft shop (where they have probably the biggest range of stencils I have ever seen in one place! and lots of paints, inks, and other 'stuff' to work with them!) :o)

We created this cute canvas combining JOFY stamps with a Prima Julie Nutting girl stamp - I have a couple of these and they're adorable and, I think, work really nicely with the JOFY stamps.

Everyone in the class created lovely (and finished) canvasses - and had free range to choose outfits for their 'girls' from a pad of My Minds Eye papers - nice small designs which were perfect for dress fabric.

Here are a couple of boards:

I really liked the bold geometric of this dress (on Linda Carpenter's canvas) (I would wear that dress, if I was younger!), and the blue bee-hive.

This girl (Janette Smith's) also wore a largish print, this time with co-ordinating flowers - really fresh and summery.

People were sometimes undecided on how to layer up the dresses - with contrast pockets or without, with or without contrast sleeves so I suggested (because lets face it nowadays most people have a camera phone with them and its a useful tool) they photograph the dress with the options and then look at the photos - which is what we did with the cute blue yellow dress (on Liz Riding's canvas) shown below - love this option... (by the way: the contrast pocket option was chosen)

This was a fun class - & its always interesting at the end of a class to see how the canvasses are all so similar but all different at the same time.

x

A weekend of JOFYness

This weekend I will be in two places - yes TWO demo'ing the latest JOFY stamps, paints and stencils - it seems aaaaages since I've done this and so I'm really looking forward to both days very much...

On Saturday I'll be at The Craft Barn, Nutfield inSurrey

and on Sunday I'll be at Birds in the Barn, Marks Tey near Colchester in Essex.

I hope to see you at either of these lovely shops



x

JOFY Street...

... is made up of houses made by 'TeamJOFY' for the recent new stamp launch... I thought I'd share a few photos with you ..

This is one of two house panels I created - I wanted to show how the houses can be shortened - the green house on the left has been cut across just above the word 'bricks' and reattached just under the scallop roof line - virtually seemless!  The house can also be 'remodelled' by cutting a panel out - removing the centre 'floor' (cut just below and just above the windows).

I varied the height of the trees in the same way.
The houses are painted in Jade and Southern Skies - tone on tone.  The roof of each house is painted Slate - obviously! lol

Helen Chilton created this house against a stunning sunset - who wouldn't want to live there!

Kay Carley created this fabulous dimension card:

I love how she incorporated the tools (JM43) into the street scene.

Kay will be teaching this card as part of a class at The Craft Barn on 31st May - contact the shop or visit their website for more details.

So there it is - JoFY Street - the sun is always shining, the trees are green and life is good! :o)

x

Patchwork Panel...

... another sample from the recent JOFY releases.

Creating paper patchwork panels can be a little bit addictive - cutting out random sized rectangles and squares, gluing them down, & adding journaling, stamping or stencils over the top... 

This is the blue tone panel I created using a 12x12 page as a base, and then cut it into smaller pieces - for this project it was a 6x6inch panel.

I used Buff -  one of the new JOFY Limited Edition Fresco Finish paints - to white was over the top - wiping so some of the patterned panels can almost be seen.  I also added a layer of Chalk in the same way.

I stenciled onto the panel using one of my new stencils - LOVE this design that was on one of my stencils last year and I had planned for it to be an arrangement of 3.  I stenciled in Slate - very happy that this is now in the main colour groups of the Fresco colours (as is Chalk! yay)

I cleaned the stencil, flipped it over and stenciled the design in Pearl Glaze - I like how this gives an iridescent translusent effect - sometimes you see it sometimes you don't - as shown in the photo above where the image disappears towards the bottom of the stem.

Here is the panel - mounted onto chipboard painted with Mermaid and State.

** NEW ** JOFY 2015....

Thank goodness - I can share with you my latest JOFY product designs... and I'm so excited to show you...(its been hard not letting any information slip!)

Leandra's put together a video telling you all about this release...

and over on the PaperArtsy blog you can see lots of samples that myself and a group of lovely creatives made with the new products. Please take a visit - the samples are lovely.

Tomorrow I have a project to show you created with the new stamps.

Hope you enjoy the new release.

x

I'm embracing romance .....

... in Craft Stamper's February issue... I designed the cover stamp and projects inside.......

The February issue isn't all about romance - its packed full of lovely colourful projects - grab yourself a copy now.

EDIT:  I've had a few questions about the embossing folder used on the card in the article - part of the  Cuttlebug set called 'Love is in the Air' (reference: SKU:2000221)

xx

Countdown to Christmas: Day 7

I spent today at The Artistic Stamper in Faversham, Kent, where the Christmas Extravaganza weekend was in full swing.. The workshops were all about making a calendar for the coming year... I thought I share the page I designed for December - it has a very chritmassy wintery feel...

(please excuse the paperclips! lol)

Its created with JoFY stamps, Sizzix dies and Artistic Stamper stencils.

Christmas is coming....

.... and I have been getting ready for it by teaching Christmas themed workshops - ho ho ho!  and in all future christmas classes anyone who is a 'bah humbug' in class gets to wear the elf hat I bought - complete with bell!!! it'll bring out the festive cheer in anyone!!
(a photo? you want to see a photo of the hat???  hhhhmmm nearer christmas maybe - don't want to peak too soon!)

I'm off to the Stamp Attic on the weekend of 22/23 November where we will be fully embracing christmas - a card class on Saturday and then on Sunday we're making a lovely hanging decoration...

I'm really looking forward to the weekend, there are a few spaces available so contact Wendy at the shop - all details are HERE...

Mince piece are optional - but Christmas spirit (of the hohoho variety, not brandy!) is mandatory - feel free to wear your christmas sweaters!!!

Hope to see you there!

ALBOTAT... a festive mash-up...

... JOFY getting festive with Woodware...

Loved this Woodware stamp (Festive Background JGS260) as soon as I saw it - knew it would make a fun background for my baubles!  This was a 'make it quick, see how it looks' card - might do other versions with more baubles...
(The bauble is from JOFY28, painted with the new JOFY Limited Editions paints (love how they look against kraft card)

ho ho ho

ALBOTAT... sample pages...

.. from AllyPally... all created using JOFY stamps, Fresco Finish Paints...

Th panel above combines Turquoise (on of the new JOFY Autumn Fresco Limited Edition paints) and Chartreuse (Lin Brown's Fresco Limited Edition paints, set 1) - love this colour combo!

Lots of lovely painty layers...

ALBOTAT... teeny tiny...

... book created as part of a demo at the recent AllyPally trade show...

Its only 5x5cm in size, created from a 10x10cm chipboard panel that was painted, stamped and cut up to create pages which I stamped with detail on each page.

A little bit more 'less is more'...

On the PaperArtsy blog on thursday I posted my monthly project. As part of the post I showed how I altered a small scrapbooking card-  & here is the card I created with it:

Here's the scrapbooking card 'before and after':

I teamed the card with a die cut shape (Sizzix, 'Beautiful', 659174), I love this shape and I had been experimenting with shading the swirls to make it look dimensional (left hand die cut is without any shading):

I thought these two elements would look great together, so I created a 12.5x12.5cm card, trimmed the front to reveal the inside edge where I had attached a contrast grey panel. I attached the altered scrapbook card to be flush with the cut edge of the greeting card blank and selected one of the flourishes and wrapped it around the altered panel (so the swirls spread out over the edge to make more of a feature of them).

To finish the card I added a simple greeting (from JOFY23) and then all that was needed was some sparkly bits (of course!)

x

A Birthday Extravaganza!!

The Artistic Stamper Shop's Birthday Extravaganza

Saturday 23rd August. 

This is going to be a fun day. I'll be there running a make'n'take using Fresco Finish paints and JOFY stamps, and there will be other make'n'takes too, a raffle and a barbeque.

Hope you can join us - go to the Artistic Stamper website for more details.

The same, but different...

... and by different I mean better... nicer... more enjoyable...

On saturday I packed my bag.. or the (smallish) suitcase that was needed because I decided it was easier to pull rather than carry a bag containing 21 stamp sets and misc' other bits & pieces... (you know- those things that you pack 'just in case')

(& yes I realise this is quite a plain suitcase, no artistic embellishment -  this is because my husband also uses it for business trips! when I find the photo (or suitcase) I'll show you how I customised my large suitcase)

.... and boarded the train to London to go work... I used to do this all the time - 10plus years commuting to London doing jobs I mostly enjoyed (I say 'mostly' as the year spent in a merchant bank was NOT my cup of tea at all lol).. so the journey/commute to London is all very familiar - but the job is much more enjoyable... and the weekend commuters are slightly more relaxed.. ;o)

I spent the day running a workshop at Blade Rubber Stamps, situated near the British Museum, in the Bloomsbury area of London. They have an amazing selection of rubber stamps - especially wood mounted - its lovely to see them all lined up on the shelves, like little pieces of art (which I suppose they are really aren't they).
I visit this shop quite regularly as its close to the hospital I visit once a year - its my 'treat' after the visit (any excuse really!)..and so it was a pleasure to be teaching a workshop here.

The class was an newly updated version of my recent 'Book of Blooms' project (using new stamps and paints) - and this is the creative bombsite of a table - creativity in full flow.... so many stamps and paints to choose from...

and here are the lovely ladies responsible for that creativity with their projects... a pleasure to teach them....

.... and to create 'aprons' for 2 of them to protect their clothes from paint and creativity! lol  I thought it was a resourceful use of bin bags! :o)

This was a much nicer working day than my previous 9-5 - though maybe not as clean an tidy.. :o)

Thanks to the ladies for coming along, and to Deidre and staff at Blade Rubber... Hope to see you again soon

x

The demo desk from both sides...

Last weekend was a fun one!

On Saturday I was at The Craft Barn where I had the first chance to demo my NEW stamps!! yes, new stamps.  

Its always a lot of fun to demo new products - but I'm not sure customers on Saturday were ready to contemplate Christmas - I think we're all enjoying the gorgeous weather we have here in the UK at the moment to think about Christmas just yet... and so I found myself demo'ing the flower stamps and stencils. When I demo the samples are along the 'less is more' 'clean & simple' lines because I want the stamp designs to be the focus..

(& look at the amount of YELLOW I've used on these cards - I am embracing yellow!!)
One of the new plates has a design created to be stamped over the top of the my flower stencils as shown below (and also doubles as a lovely fragile snowflake...):

I also created a couple of christmas cards.. but I'll show you those later in the week.. easing you into the festive seasons gently..

You will start to see the new stamps arriving at your local PaperArtsy stockist but they're not 'officially' released until later this month....oooh and paint - lets not forget the paint!! (more about that later in the week too...)

On Sunday I dosed myself up against a thumping migraine/sinus headache and went to Stamperama in Stevenage.. and I'm so glad I did - I had a really good time..
Much as I love demonstrating and teaching it was nice to be on the 'other side' of the demo desk.  I was able to walk around the show, see what was new, chat to the crafty people I know that were there, watch demos (love watching demos!) and SHOP!!  :o)
Its been a while since I've been to Stamperama and I forget how easy it is to get to and what a nice show it is - not too big and all the stands are craft specific... smaller than in previous years but still worth the visit.

x

What nicer way to spend a day...

... than to make a line of bunting...

which is what we'll be doing in the class I'm teaching at The Stamp Attic on Sunday ... stamping, painting, & stenciling to create a line of mdf bunting...  there's still time to book your place - contact the shop and come and join the fun.

x

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside....

...oh I do like to be beside the seeeeeeaaaaaaa...  the sea in question this weekend was Deal in Kent where I had a fun day teaching a workshop at the Swanstitch shop....

... to a lovely group of ladies- Anita and her customers made me welcome and we spent the day creating a canvas and a couple of cards...

We laughed, painted, stamped, glued, sang 'happy birthday' to Kate, laughed a bit more and were creative all day.  Here are Anita's photos of the projects, now on display in the shop in among all the lovely paint and mixed media products:

Thanks for having me, and thanks to everyone who came along- hope to see you all again soon (well, November actually, if you're around and in the mood for a bit of Christmas themed creating!)

For the first time Matt came with me on a teaching trip (thats him peering through the window of Swanstitch in the top photo) - he stayed at our very lovely b&b in Deal while I went to teach.  We stayed at NumberOne B&B run by the lovely Nicky & Mark, who made us very welcome. I'd definitely recommend this b&b if you ever need somewhere to stay in the area - its lovely and close to the seafront, and a short walk to the high street with all its interesting shops, pubs and 'bits and pieces' to see.
Deal is a lovely relaxed town - I really enjoyed our weekend..

We drove down on Friday.. got settled at the b&B then went for a walk along the High Street..

(I love hollyhocks - so quintessentially 'English cottage garden'.. I just wish I could grow them like this in my garden!)

(worn flagstones at the information centre - how lovely is the texture!!)

.. we had a lovely meal and walked home- just as the wind changed and it got a 'little bit' stormy! (not as much as it had been in Essex the night before when we had an AMAZING storm!).

After 'work' on Saturday (too enjoyable to be called work, surely!) we walked along the seafront... a lovely relaxing way to end the day... I couldn't not take photos so here's a few:

the weather worn look of these railings on a building facing the sea caught my eye, I preferred these to the recently painted ones on the adjacent balcony - I like how it accents the detail.

We made it home on Sunday afternoon before the rain arrived, in what can only be described as torrential amounts, accompanied by thunder and lightning, so we were at home to bail out the patio and garage which were quickly ankle deep in water...  I hope you were all ok and relatively unaffected by this crazy weather we're experiencing at the moment here in the UK.... and now we have sunshine again! lol

gotta love the English summertime!

x