A super Saturday

Welcome to new followers and readers of my blog and hello to everyone that I met on Saturday at the Happy Stampers show in Port Sunlight. It was a really lovely day with so many friendly people who were all enjoying a common passion amongst like minded folk.

It's such a well organised event and I was chuffed to see two purpose built display stands already in place on my table which left me with much more room to make my usual  mess - though I somehow managed to avoid spritzing the cream tablecloth with inks! I'll share some more photos of the samples I made with my new stamps later in the week, but, for now, here's one using the "Winter Scene" set, plus the owl from my "Build a snowy scene" set. The sentiment is from my "Religious Greetings" set, though they aren't all strictly religious, but definitely have a leaning toward more traditional and spiritual sentiments.

I know that I make a lot of samples using my faux bleached distress ink skies, but it's just because I get asked to show this technique over and over again! I promised the ladies on Saturday that my next You Tube video will be based on the faux bleaching so will let you know when it's done and uploaded. I have a busy week but should have some time after next weekend to get it done. Watch this space!

Hopefully I'll get it done without too many bloopers! It reminds me too of my favourite line that someone said at the show. It was a husband who was standing watching with his wife. On seeing me using my waterbrush to bleach out trees on another snowy inked background he remarked "so you spend a fortune on these inks and then take them all off with a bit of water!?" (or words to that effect). It caused quite a lot of laughter around my table!

I caught up with quite a few old friends on Saturday, as well as meeting new people. A special thank you to Ruth for bringing me a very thoughtful gift which I was very grateful for. It's not only a beautifully scented body oil, but is one that repels those nasty mosquitoes! Thank you Ruth. It was especially good to meet up with friends who knew David too and to share some memories. I'm sure that he was sat with me all day and I could visualise the big smile on his face at all the kind comments that people made.

I had a big tidy up of my work table on Sunday so I could work on my new stamp designs this week without any clutter to distract me...doesn't take much! Yesterday I had an eye test where my pupils had to be dilated which meant that I could hardly focus for several hours afterwards which was really frustrating as I wanted to crack on. They went back to normal eventually of course, so I did some late night drawing to make up for lost time!

The washing machine decided to be naughty again today. My clothes have had a really good clean....three complete wash cycles and about half a dozen rinses, drains and spins before that darned door would open. There's no rhyme or reason to why it suddenly decides to be awkward but I'm just not letting it get the better of me!

I just watched the second episode of The Paradise. Don't know if any of you have seen it, but I was rather disappointed in the first episode and thought I'd see if it improved tonight. I'm still not very keen. There's too much in the way of silly and unbelievable story lines for me and I realised that what I'd been hoping to see was just people going up to laden counters and asking "May I have two reels of your finest white silk yarn, half a dozen pearl buttons and a packet of size 14 sewing needles" then assistants measuring off yards of beautiful fabrics, folding them up and wrapping them in string tied brown paper packages etc etc. In the food department there would be cheeses being cut with wire and wrapped in waxed paper, quarters of old fashioned sweets poured out from glass jars and loose teas being tipped into little packets. Yes, an hour of that would be rather lovely! However, Downton Abbey has me hooked once more and I watched much of Sunday's episode through tear stained eyes!

Well, my two little perishers are ready to come back inside after their late evening stroll now and it's time for bed. Clean sheets tonight which always makes me look forward to bed time more than usual. So, complete with my new fragrant oil, I am hoping for a good sleep to prepare me for another busy day tomorrow. Take care everyone.

PS I've no idea where these photos will appear on this post as they keep moving about. I am giving up and will just let them stay wherever they decide to go!

Oh no!

Oh no, oh dear, darn it, blast and other mild expletives. Looks like the new look blogger reprieve is finally over and it's the end of normal service for us more technically challenged posters. I almost stopped blogging completely last time....couldn't position photos where I wanted them, couldn't space text as I normally do and even the smallest post took me forever.

Well, I am going to add two photos just to test out if anything has improved since last time. This first one is one of my "infamous" water bleached distress ink cards. I'm mainly adding this because I promised several people over the last few weeks that I would! This particular version was made using about five ink colours....honestly, you can use more or less any that you prefer. I generally use Broken China or Stormy Sky as a starting point. I'll add Worn Lipstick, Dusty Concorde, Faded Jeans and usually finish with Walnut Stain or Frayed Burlap.

Just blend them right over the card - the cardstock is important, as the faux bleaching won't work on every type of card. You need a heavy weight card with a good surface such as PI's Artisan cardstock. The snow drift is made using lots of water swooshed across the bottom of the card with a tissue dragged across it to lift the colour out. The trees are painted out with a water brush, as is the moon. The snowman is a circle and an oval bleached out with water and then the details added with the fine points of my pens. I added a stocking hanging from this chap's twiggy arm so that the message would tie in with the overall picture.

Well, woopie dooh! After lots of messing about, the picture has slotted into place...well, it seems to have...I'll see when the post is published!

This next card has a similarly made sky with the addition of a masked off area to create the snow. I lightly drew a big circle in pencil and used plenty of water to paint over it then dabbed with tissue to take the colour out. The Gorjuss image was stamped, coloured, cut out and added. The words are from a Dylusions stamp set called "The Right Words". 

 Well, experiment over and it certainly seems to have been a bit easier than the last time I tried the new blogger "interface" (I don't even know what that means). I am going to cross my fingers as I press the "publish post" button and just hope that it looks normal. If it doesn't then I shall just sulk.
PS I have published and looked at the results....not impressed! The font size choice means keeping the text as small as it now is, or having it the size normally reserved for young children's books! So, hope you're not squinting to read this! If anyone knows how I can alter the text size to my normal preference, please let me know.