Fly my pretties, fly!

This spread in my small Dylusions journal makes me smile - its so... erm... busy!! Painting, stencilling, stamping, more painting....

I seem to be going through a 'add more colour, and make them bright!' stage at the moment... do you think its because I want it to be summer when all the flowers and colour starts appearing everywhere?

I've used Kay Carley's 'butterfly' on this spread - I loved it as soon as I saw it! It might make regular appearances - I think its going to look lovely with my flowers!

 Thanks for stopping by!

Mini mash-ups!

In January and February I went to the 3 craft industry trade shows - had a fun, tiring and inspiring time at all of them.... I demo'd at all 3 - some of my samples are over on the PaperArtsy blog as part of my post about the new stamps (HERE) and here are a couple more.  When I'm demo'ing I like to mix up the PaperArtsy ranges to see how they'll look together, and mix old and new of the JOFY stamps too... always fun to do...

Green and teal/turquoise blue is always a lovely combination...

The PaperArtsy mini stamp I used on here is one that Leandra had chosen for the stamps on the demo desk - I'd forgotten what a lovely little stamp it is.  I'm very tempted to buy another one so I can cut it up and have an alphabet set to use on journaling - the 'open' design means the letters could be coloured in... very useful!

This next sample has lots of white space (I do love a bit (a lot) of white space!) and is a mash-up of mine and Tracy Scott's newly released ETC24...

Thanks for stopping by...

Ooooh I do like to be beside the Seaside... part 2..

... a couple more samples from Sunday - a long canvas (12x4in) - quite clean and simple... huts were stamped on tissue paper, glued to the panel and painted with Fresco Finish - Bora Bora, Elephant, Beach Hut (appropriately) and the green on the centre hut is a mix of Bora Bora and Guacamole (nice!).

 Stamped the phrase repeatedly along the top edge:

I bought a box of driftwood from Birds in the Barn when I was over there last weekend - the wood is lovely and some pieces were perfect for stamping and painting.  This little hut is from the row of beach huts on JOFY16 - would make a great lighpull in a beach themed bathroom..

... and because I really do 'like to be (and live) beside the seaside' on Sunday I took the 10 minute drive to the seaside... even though its actually the Thames Estuary we have a fantastic long stretch of beach, beach huts, fun fares, a Pier (complete with train!) and recently we've also had glorious sunshine too.... yay for Essex!

Most of the beach huts in Thorpe Bay are on stilts because of the slope on the beach:

Some people keep their huts plain (treated) wood but there's a stretch where the huts are lovely & smartly painted {I'm a little biased as that smart blue one in the middle of the photo belongs to my MiL and her sister :o) }

They are so 'summery'!  I love the red & white one too - very striking against the sky and sand.

I went down the beach early on Sunday morning for a bit of beachcombing.  First thing I found (but left behind) made me chuckle:

There's a statue somewhere missing a nose! lol  I checked- its just a stone but it definitely looks like a nose don't you agree! 

I 'needed' sea-worn glass and 'stuff' from the beach.. but, pickings were few and far between - I was disappointed and pleased in equal measure that there was very little sea worn glass - disappointed because that's what I wanted but pleased because hopefully it means that less glass is finding its way into the river/sea (less bottles being discarded etc etc etc)

There were A LOT of cockle shells.. . I picked up a few of these white flat ones but only if they had worn holes in them (great for threading) but as you can see very little glass.... (and I'm glad)

 LOVE my bits of wood... especially the right hand piece - lovely cracked paint!

Hubby's not often quite sure about the 'treasures' I bring home - but even he said - 'ooh thats a good bit of wood'  lol so it must be winner!  lol

OK, I'm going to go and make something with my stash from the beach...

Thanks for popping by

oooh I do like to be beside the seaside Part 1

.... It felt quite seaside-ish sitting at my demo table at The Craft Barn on Saturday surrounded by beachy images, stamps and samples... It was a lovely day- time to chat with customers about the new stamps, Fresco Finish paints and whats coming up in the next month or so (taps nose in I've-got-a-secret-type way).

But, note to self, DON'T FORGET THE CAMERA! doh because I did forget my camera so, for some of the samples I made on Saturday, the only photos I have were taken on my phone - apologies in advance:

Started the day with a book cover.
I love using the Stix2 Stamp Masking sheets for masking off images - such good thin surface to stamp futher layers over.. Paints used are Nougat, Beach Hut, Elephant, Haystack (lightened) Baltic Blue, London Bus and of course last but not least - Tinned Peas.

Then a wooden thermometer - the photo of the whole piece wasn't quite in focus so here's the detail shot: The letter are corrugated card board die cut using the Sizzix/Tim Holtz 'word play' die.  The hut image was stamped onto scrapbook papers (my minds eye) which was then painted with Baltic Blue and detail added with Aquarelle pencils (faber castell).

Next it all got a bit shabby chic - this is an idea I've had right from when I was designing the stamps - I wanted to be able to paper-piece the images together - creating an almost patchwork effect:  Created using My Minds Eyes papers (a 6x6 pad - love these pads - 12x12 sheets shrunk to 1/2 size - perfect!) with a bit of Claret & Elephant Fresco Finish (bit of Tuape and Nougat on the canvas board base) (canvas measure about 5x7 cm):

... and this is the mini23 version: again with scrapbook papers and this time each roof is coloured using the Aquarelle pencils:

... and every day at the seaside should include a bit of sandcastle building:

This card - lovely and simple card, coloured using the Aquarelle pencils as part of a demo to a customer - it makes me smile - lovely bright sunshine colours...

I'll have a couple more samples to show you tomorrow.....

x

Craft Barn Extravaganza....

... is where I spent last weekend demo'ing my little socks off and enjoying every minute.

Its taken me a while to write this post - life kept getting in the way - kept going back into the 'drafts' box...! lol but now, eventually (lol), here comes the catch up...

It was the first extravaganza at The Craft Barn's lovely new location - 3 marquees nice and close to the shop... really nice set up.

Here's my demo desk - tidiness is always a bit tricky during demo's (for me anyway) and so I decided to display my samples vertically rather than horizontally:

   

The shelving unit on the right was an ebay purchase- best £15 spent! lol- and it folds up flat. genius!  I forgot to photograph behind the desk but that was really organised - tiers of wire baskets holding all the necessary bits and pieces.

Here are some of the samples from the day - keeping them nice and simple.  I demo'd my 3 new A5 plates and 6 new minis...

 I love how this arch sample turned out - scrapbook printed papers mixed with Fresco Finish paints - a combination that makes me very happy!

 ...as does the combination of Fresco Finish and book text! :o)

back with some more samples in the next few days....

A Crafty Day at Colemans....

... is what I had on Saturday... Its called Colemans Warehouse but I'm not sure that does it justice! Soooo many great craft items under one roof ....

It was a really enjoyable day.... & a busy, creative day (judging by the amount of paint and ink that was on my hands!)  Thank you to all the lovely people who came and watched my demos - with JOFY Stamps- thanks for the lovely comments, & the PaperArtsy Grunge Paste (whats not to love about that product!) and the general 'oooh'ing and 'aaaaah'ing at the reliability of the Crackle Glaze!  it works I tell you... every time!

Speaking of Crackle Glaze & JOFY stamps:

The crackle on this wooden block (liked these blocks a lot) has been painted on in areas rather than all over to demonstrate that its possible to do that - you don't have to crackle an entire surface...
The flowers are painted with Fresco Finish, stamps are from JOFY12

This smaller wooden block is a perfect size to use with a Mini stamp - Mini10

Towards the end of  demo days I seem to create what I'm going to start calling 'scoop up' creations - items that I make from all the bits that are left on the desk:

Gotta love a tag!  especially a corrugated cardboard tag, with flowers and a button - the second button of the day!  I only used two buttons all day - very restrained for me! lol

Look at the size of my demo desk!!! I laughed when I saw it - now that's what I call a demo desk! lol - lots of space to spread out and get messy on.. ahem not messy - no, creative on...

Its lucky the desk was this big as I took lots of samples with me and I'm always happy to do that- items that have previously been posted here on the blog.  But, I hope that the people who watch demos, look at and photograph the samples understand that as a demonstrator I make and show samples not to have them copied but to provide inspiration that hopefully acts as a springboard for their imagination, so that they can go home and create their own projects.

* * * * *

I'll be returning to Colemans on the 30 August for the demo day, and on the following day (01 September)(duh, sorry to state the obvious! lol) I'll be running 2 card making classes - JOFY Florals in the morning and Christmas Cards, yes Christmas Cards(!) in the afternoon.


aaaanyhoo - back to the studio - things don't design themselves do they! ...

Enjoy your day