Late night post

Hello all, it's almost 11.30 pm and I should be getting to bed really, but I'm just winding down after friends have left so it seemed a good time to touch blog base. This evening I hosted another viewing of the film Les Miserables (my fourth time now!) ahead of the course that starts tomorrow night. I can really recommend the film if you haven't seen it but you need the tissues handy!

Tomorrow morning I'm off to my dentist again when he's going to get my new crowns started - hoorah! I may have my smile back in a couple of weeks! My numb jaw is beginning to get feeling back so I may not have to see the neurologist after all with a bit of luck. Another hoorah!

Meanwhile I've been busy getting things ready for my all day workshop at Daisy Jewels and Crafts in Coventry on Saturday. We'll be making several projects including cards, a tag and a wall plaque and we'll be working with all sorts of lovely things like Dylusions ink sprays, Distress Paints and inks, Inca Gold waxes, Zendoodle and Doo Lally Pip stamps amongst other things! The class runs from 10.30am - 4.00pm and costs £35.00. I know there is still room on the workshop so, if you fancy joining us, please contact the shop directly. You can find contact details on the above link or phone them on 07779 110813.

Here's a sneaky peek at some of the elements that will feature in our projects...

....shiny and colourful! There again......

.....frayed and distressed! But also....

.....some funky stripiness!
(stripyness....stripeyness...stri....?!?!) Just a little peek as I said and there will be more besides.

Well, it's now almost midnight...why does posting take so long? Or is that just me?

Here's another of my "this day last year" photos, this time of a card that I made for a workshop project....

....I notice some Graphic 45 papers in there as well as stamps from one of my 2013 Doo Lally Pip releases "Steamed Up".

Well, I really should make a move to get ready for bed now. It's been another lovely day here and I still have the front door wide open to let the fresh air in. Time to round up the two terrors which should be fun....when it's warm outside they do like to run me ragged at bed time and they'll speed off just as I think they are coming in - Tara, especially, thinks it's a really jolly game!

A fun Saturday

Just a few photos to share with you tonight, most especially for the ladies that I met when I was teaching the Victoria Stampers group on Saturday....I promised to post the pictures of my class samples! Hello to everyone who was in the class and a special thank you for the lovely card and the choccies - the chocs are "secreted" in a special place only to be broken into in emergencies! 

We started the day off by making a card that was inspired by doing the Ranger/Personal Impressions event last week. Techniques I've done before but hadn't used for a while...so it was good to be reminded...the proverbial much needed kick up the bum!

 We used water colour paper to stamp onto, everyone choosing from a selection of stamps that I'd taken along or ones that they had brought. The inky background panel was created with a mix of Stains, Distress ink pads and white Distress paint. The flowers are Tim's Tattered Florals die cut from Grungeboard before being inked and covered with Rock Candy Distress glitter. A simple card but a pleasing one to make!

Next we worked on making decorative hanging panels. Heavyweight card stock was the base for lots of ink spraying, stamping, bleaching and colouring.....

.....this was my example as a guide, but the ladies came up with their own versions of course.....

 .....some very neat colouring going on.......

.....and I loved what Mo did with my "Time Traveller" stamps. Here's a finished panel, complete with eyelets in the top ready for a wire or ribbon hanger......

There was just time for everyone to get started on a steampunk styled card....not much time to complete them though, so here is the card in question for those wanting to check out the details!

Thank you ladies for a lovely day and to Lynne for organising the event. We raised £25.25 for Trinity Hospice as well, so a great day all round. 

Today has been spent making more samples for the show at Event City this coming Thursday-Saturday. I ended up with so much Glossy Accents dried on my fingertips that I couldn't feel what I was doing anymore, so a good soak in hot water and some scrubbing was in order! It's almost bed time for me now with the alarm set for a really early start to get the day underway nice and quickly as the last couple of days to prep for the  show are upon me!

A warm welcome too to new followers and another reminder to leave a comment to be in with a chance to win the blog candy....after the post titled "......American Candy". Okay, signing off for tonight!

Port Sunlight

What a dolly mixture kind of a weekend it's been! It's been glorious sunshine here one minute, then really chilly, then raining and there were even hailstones on the way home yesterday. I set off at 6.45am for my trip to Port Sunlight and the Happy Stampers show and my first train change was at Wigan, where there were hundreds of footie fans (good natured ones!) waiting for the train down to London where their team were playing in the cup final. Standing room only so I was glad that I was only on board until Warrington!

After a couple more trains I reached Port Sunlight and walked down to Hulme Hall where I was shown to my lovely big demonstration table and then brought a coffee and a bacon butty - talk about being looked after! I'd not long got set up when I heard my name being called and looked up to see Sheila, Kath and Elaine......

 ......all of whom I haven't seen for about eighteen months or more. That's my table to the right of the picture - sorry it's a view from the back, not the front! Hello's too to the lovely Jacqui, Christine and Chris, who I didn't manage to get snaps of, and the "two sisters" (they're actually mum and daughter, but David always called them the two sisters!) Melanie and Joanne who I did......

....posing with one of my "journal pages". I was given a gorgeous tag and ATC by Sheila and Chris respectively...thank you both.
It was a really busy day at the show...one of the best organised in my opinion. There were lots of great stands, although, as usual, I didn't get the chance for more than a barely cursory glance. Great to spend time amongst real stamping fans who crowded Hulme Hall all day and I was really gratified to hear all the lovely feedback for my Doo Lally Pips! (oh, that sounded a bit rude didn't it?!) I was also very touched by all the good wishes and positive comments on my decision to take up the invitation to become deputy Verger at St Chads.
There was only one negative thing about the day and that was that, on returning from my quick sandwich break, I found that someone, or someones, had taken all the tags that I had placed at the front of my table, plus one or two off the display stand, a small canvas and two of my Distress ink pads. Karen, from the Happy Stampers (who organise the show) had asked if I wanted someone to sit at my table when I went for lunch, but, not suspecting there may be such rotten people in the room, I said it would be okay. Karen kept apologising to me, but it was no reflection on the organisers....just down to bad human nature I'm afraid.
It made me really furious though (as well as the customers who were there when I realised what had happened) especially as I'm really up against it for the next three weeks getting enough samples made for demos and workshops etc. I really don't know why anyone thinks it is okay to just take things that someone has spent time creating, but then, there's a lot I don't understand about human nature. Thankfully, 99% of the people I meet wouldn't dream of doing such a thing and I'm not going to let it spoil an otherwise lovely day. So there!
After the show finished I did my usual speed packing and was off to the station to catch the first of my four trains home. Unfortunately I took some bad advice from a couple of the rail staff and decided to take a slightly different route than the one I had planned and went to Liverpool Lime Street having been assured that there was bound to be a direct train that would get me home earlier. I should have known better really and it turned out that I couldn't get a direct train and my ETA would be almost an hour later than if I'd stuck to my plan! Add to that, the signals went pop not long after leaving Liverpool which resulted in a stop start journey as the driver had to get permission to continue safely at a snail's pace....oh well....the best laid plans and all that!
I decided that, being back so much later than I'd planned, I would be a bit naughty and I picked up a beef curry from the Chinese takeaway on the walk home from the station.I got back, fed my two sulky feline friends, put my jim jams on and opened the bottle of lager that I'd discovered in the back of a cupboard a few days before. Well, I very rarely have anything stronger than soda water, so I didn't feel too naughty. It nearly knocked me sideways though and I slept pretty well!
Good thing I set my alarm this morning as neither Thomas nor Tara woke me up - they must have thought I needed my bed! I walked up to church and, after the service, there was a "pasta & pizza" lunch in the church hall to which all the parishioners were invited. Very nice too, with lasagne, various salads, etc all made by the Curate's husband! There was wine too, but after the way the lager knocked me out last night I thought I'd better decline!
So, I was quite late home from the village and I got back feeling pretty cold and wet as the heavens opened again just as I was walking through the park. I was dismayed to see that lots of the colourful tulips had been snapped off and discarded along the paths - even in this quiet place there are idiots who just can't help being destructive I'm afraid. It's even more annoying when they don't take the flowers but just cast them aside. Gggrrrr!!!
Well, I'd better make a move I guess. I've a busy time ahead and even more to do now that someone thought it was okay to take my samples. This coming Saturday I'll be at Samuel Taylors in Brighouse again. I'll be taking a Steampunk themed workshop in the morning and then demonstrating in the afternoon. I do know that there are still some spaces left on the workshop, so if you fancy joining in the fun, just contact the shop and they will give you all the details. Looking forward to seeing some of the Port Sunlight ladies on Saturday afternoon though - and I'll remember to bring my "Hope Blooms" stamp set as promised!
Right, bed time now, so I'll say goodnight.

Sir Stampalot

Just a short post today before I get down to some drawing. I'm off to Peterborough tomorrow for my weekend at Sir Stampalot - bags all packed and samples made! On Saturday I'll be demonstrating at the shop...have lots of stamps by myself and Andy Skinner as well as new Graphic 45 and My Mind's Eye papers. Then, on Sunday it's a full day's workshop where we'll be making cards and tags and using all sorts of things from alcohol inks to stamps, papers to mediums and Distress inks. Should be a busy, but fun day!
I'll take some photos to post here next week and don't forget to leave a comment after my Candy post (further down) before 7pm on Monday to make sure that you're in the draw.
Meanwhile, we've had some torrential rain here over the last few days which, thankfully, has not disturbed the freshly planted seedlings outside...however, somebody has been scraping away at the Sweet Peas despite my sticking a defensive barrage of canes in the soil! Don't know who the culprit is but have my suspicions Thomas, so, once I've reinstated the poor plants it will be time for chicken wire. Let battle commence!
Well, I had better crack on with those drawings now, as the hours just seem to be flying by lately. Hope to see some of you this weekend and, if you want to check if there are any places available for Sunday's workshop, just contact Sir Stampalot directly. A bit previous I know, but have a great weekend everyone.

Breather night

Hello folks, just a quick post to hope everyone has a lovely weekend. I've had a bit of a relax this evening after a hectic few days of preparing my workshops for tomorrow and Sunday at Topaz. So everything is ready for stamping, making jewellery and Journalling...not all at once I hasten to add! I'm sure there will be something I've forgotten, but as we have piled four boxes, three bags and a couple of other bits into the car boot I am hopeful that everything is in there!

For anyone coming to the Journalling class on Sunday, if you have any of your own paintbrushes, pens and pencil, please bring them along, but don't worry if you don't have any, or don't read this....of course, if you're not reading this then....well, you know what I mean! I'll have everything with me but I know that I prefer using my own brushes etc, so thought you might too!

I really must try to kick this exclamation mark habit! See what I mean?

Looking forward to seeing everyone over the next couple of days, as is David, who will be acting as my glamourous assistant as usual as well as being the official photographer of course, so I'll post pictures of what we do in the classes.

Then next week is full scale preparation for Stitches. I'm really looking forward to working with this season's new stamps and will show you as soon as I can. I'll be taking my laptop with me this year so will be able to post each evening with some pictures and reports from the day...that's the plan anyway! This year I'm teaching two workshops with Andy Skinner who is an amazing ceramic artist (you can check out his blog in my sidebar) so I know that's going to be a lot of fun.

Okay, it's just a quick sign in tonight really, so will be back after the weekend with photos and a few tales too I expect! Lindsay

Time to rest

Today was the day for some time off after a few weeks of solid work. So I took a leaf out of Tara's book and had a lie in! Then there were some good tennis matches to watch...well, first day of Wimbledon, it would have been rude not to! I should say here that I was writing all this yesterday ie Monday, and had almost got to the end of this long post when something happened, I think my thumb slipped onto a mystery key, but, whatever it was, it deleted the entire post, words and pictures! Ggggrrrr.....I just didn't have the heart to re-do the whole thing from scratch last night. Maddening. Tara is mum and dad's cat and the lovely picture above is of her fast asleep in my bed at their house. I really miss not having kitty feet padding around, so it was a treat to have her company whilst we were house sitting a few weeks ago.

The next picture is of the three ATC's which I made for Heather's swap last month. The theme was "A little birdie" and the only rule was that there must be a bird and a figure on each ATC. I decided to draw my own designs for these, so I pencilled the images in, inked them up with my 0.05 pen, coloured with Promarkers and then added extra details with more pen work. I hope the recipients liked them as I had great fun creating them! If you fancy joining in one of Heather's monthly swaps check out her blog (in my blog list at the left) and just email her - then you can join in as many, or few, of the swaps as you want to.

While we were away I did a demonstration at Windmill Crafts in Thornton and managed to get a photo of Terry trying to sneak off with more of my stash in his sling! He would have got away with it if he hadn't been so over enthusiastic - I think my bright orange guillotine was just a little ambitious! For anyone who hasn't read my earlier posts, there is a long standing joke now that Terry pretends to pinch goodies off my table and I take a picture for the blog - poor Joanne (Terry's wife) always looks mortified but it's very funny! Best wishes to them both at the moment because now Joanne has had a "trip" as well - I think they need to start taking more water with it! (Only joking!).
The card below was made using one of my new character stamp sets. This one is Finlay the frog (PICSA6113 Prince Frog) and I stamped one of him lying down and then used several impressions of the sitting version to create the crowd behind him.

I simply cut the grassy strips with my scissors, but the Martha Stewart grass punch, or fringing scissors give a really good effect if you have them. I used the crown and message from the same set. The frog stamps are great for male cards...which man wouldn't like to think he was the real Prince! As you can see, I enjoy making fun, whimsical cards, but I also love making more artsy pieces as you will see further down.

On Saturday I was at Dawn's studio where I was teaching a workshop entitled "Secret Canvas". One of the ladies attending was Sheila and she completely overwhelmed me by bringing a wonderful gift that she had made especially for me. It's a box which Sheila has made and decorated with friendship definitions. Inside are five RAKS, one of which is made using my TSV stamps! The remaining ones all feature Aliced in Wonderland images. Sheila, thank you again for this beautiful gift, you are an extremely generous and talented lady.

These pictures are of the sample which I made for the workshop, showing the front and back of the canvas. The colours don't look as vibrant as they really are, but I used ochres and gold combined with teal as my pallette. The flowers are all hand dyed ( a technique I'll be demonstrating in my next few demonstrations) and the "secret" area in the back has a mixture of photographs, a "love letter", a lock of hair (mine!), an altered matchbox, flowers etc.
I think all the ladies were a little
intimidated by the stark white canvasses to begin with, so I got everyone to sponge paint on them straight away - amazing how some colour makes an empty space less scary! We then used tissue to create texture, added crackle paints, grungeboard letters and stamped images.
As you can see, everyone was soon getting quite engrossed in their pieces of art. Here's a face that many of you will recognise! Amy made a very girly pink and lilac version, complete with fairytale castle and winged key, for a little girl's bedroom. Below you can see Sheila's canvas coming together. It was, as always, fascinating to see how different everyone's style was.
We had a lot of fun, with lots of laughter throughout the day, and we over ran the allotted time too! I think that all the ladies were going to add extra ephemera, charms etc to their creations once they got home as well.

Below you can see how well everyone's work turned out (I told them they could do it!)

From the left we have Elaine, Lesley, Sheila, Kath, Sarah and my sister Heather. No Amy on the picture as she had to get back to work before I took this. Kath and Elaine came in to see me the next day to show me how Kath had finished her canvas off with lots of extra embellishments.

If you fancy coming along to one of my workshops, keep checking the "demonstration dates" section on here for what's coming up. My next one is on Saturday 17th July and is a Ranger techniques class where we will be using all sorts of different Ranger products and each technique will be used to make an ATC sized aide memoir with the option of putting them all onto a ring to keep them together. If you'd like to book a place, please contact Topaz Crafts directly - not many places left! The last couple of photos are of a little tin that I altered using alcohol inks and stamps. The images are all Darkroom Door by Rachel Grieg - a really talented photographer who then turns her images into superb rubber stamps. I highly recommend them as they are not only wonderful images but they stamp beautifully. I used the inks to colour the outside of the tin. I then used Rachel's butterflies, flowers and words (from the "Wildflowers" set) to embellish the lid. For the inside I ditressed some cream card with inks and water and stamped a Tim Holtz message onto the one for the base. I hand dyed Petaloo flowers to match and added these, as well as two velvet butterflies, also from Petaloo. It's just a whimsical piece, not practical at all, but I like that!

I stayed with Rena and Stephen (Amy's mum and dad) on Saturday night and little Alicia was staying over again too. No "Cockle Overs" (forward rolls!) this time, but, instead, we were making some felt monsters which later became characters in a puppet show with Alicia and I behind the sofa enacting St George and the dragon! Stephen filmed the whole thing and has threatened to add it to the Topaz blog, so myacting skills (!) may well be there for all to see! It was a lot of fun!

On Sunday I was demonstrating all sorts of techniques at Dawn's studio and must thank everyone for their lovely compliments about the TSV and also for the gifts which I received - there are some lovely, kind people out there!

So yesterday was a rare day off with sunshine, tennis, watching the birds and just having some relaxing time at home. Just the job! I'll be posting some pictures and a bit about my art background (as requested) after this post, so will say cheerio for now. Lindsay

Back home

Hello all, well, that was an exciting and busy few days! So much so that I didn't take a single photo while I was at QVC, there was just too much to do. Thank you for all the lovely comments and emails that were waiting when I got back and I hope those of you who bought the TSV will really enjoy using the stamps - I'd love to see what you create with them. The stamps will also be available in stores as individual sets...I'll update on this as soon as I know when.

I'd already met Craig and Anthony before but not Simon...I was rather glad that we were sitting down together as he is rather tall! Craig is lovely and Anthony is such a "card" (to use a pun as he is so fond of doing!). I also met up with Catherine Huntley again, a genuinely lovely lady. My good friend Paula (Pascual) was also there, so it was lovely to spend time in her company again - I got to meet her gorgeous husband Omar too!

When I was on my way home I had lunch at Victoria station and, bizarrely, bumped into someone that I know who lives very near to me! Then, today, I hopped off the bus and bumped into Paul (of the Artsiders blog)! I did look around to see if I could bump into Chris Packham (Springwatch) but no such luck! (I love that man's encyclopaedic knowledge...he'd definitely be on my fantasy dinner party list!)

Well, back to "normality" now and I'm looking forward to my weekend at Topaz, kicking off with the Secret Canvas workshop tomorrow - which I will be sure to photograph!! Then I'll be demonstrating in the studio on Sunday...a bit of all sorts.

Well, must sign off as dinner is about to be served and I'd better be ready! So, will be back in a day or two with pictures and, as quite a few people have asked about my art background, I'll be putting up some photos of my paintings as well - just got to scan them in first. Lindsay

ATC's, art, apologies and available spaces!

Hello all, I do like aliteration as you can tell from my titles! The ATC part of the title refers to the beautiful ones which I received from Heather in her butterfly & dragonfly themed swap. Aren't they lovely? From top left and clockwise, they are by Alison Brandist, my big sister Heather and Sandra Zengler. They are now going into my ever growing collection, which I often have a browse through to give myself a burst of creativity if I'm feeling a bit "flat". Heather also included a teeny tiny bag with these little beauties inside (below) which she had made for everyone who took part in her swap...I'll be using these and taking all the credit for her work....no, not really Heather!!!! But I will incorporate them somewhere along the line. Heather has a great eye for design and if you fancy getting involved in swaps then do take a look at her blog (in my blog list) as Heather's swaps don't involve having to join a group or anything, so it's simple and fun to join in. Now I need to apologise to Sheila, as I was intending to post a picture of the three wonderful ATC's that she swapped with me and I did indeed take a photo of them. However, it has now vamooshed off the wretched computer into some sort of black hole, or worm hole or whatever, so I will need to retake the picture and add it next time. They are worth waiting for though!The art part of my title is also appropriate for my WOYWW picture - though I did cheat a bit and removed what I was actually working on (if I put it on here I'd be in big trouble!). This could have been taken on Tuesday or today as well as I have been drawing all week after getting this weekend's workshop sorted on Monday.

So, onto available spaces! There are just two left for my Saturday afternoon "Ranger Mirror" workshop at Dawn Bibby's design studio in Church, Accrington, where we will be using the Meltpot, Claudine Helmuth canvas, and lots of Tim Holtz products. If you do fancy coming along then give Topaz crafts a call on 01254 356051. If you want to get my sister to sign a copy of her Beading book pop along anyway, as Heather is coming to my class - she'll be the one causing trouble in the corner ! LOL! I'm stopping over with Dawn on Saturday night and then I'll be back in store on Sunday to do a very eclectic demonstration with lots of techniques to share. I'm looking forward to the weekend very much and I'm sure I will have plenty of good photos to share next week - as well as Sheila's ATC's!

For those of you in the Bury St Edmunds area, I'll be down there at The Stamp Hut on the following Saturday, and then the weekend after that I'll be up in Scotland! David is taking me as it is a 600 mile round trip and my Sunday venue is in Kelso which has no railway stations within reach. I'll be at Broughty Ferry, Dundee at Kitty Krafts on Saturday and at the craft shop within William Strikes Garden Centre in Kelso on the Sunday, so looking forward to seeing my friends north of the border once again.

Well, that's all for the moment, so will say cheerio and hope everyone has a great weekend. Lindsay

Ranger techniques mirror workshop

Hello folks, hope not too many of you are snowed in, like my friend Jan in Scotland. She bought a snow shovel a few weeks ago but says that it got left outside and now she can't find it....it's buried in the snow!!! Lol!

Just wanted to say that there are, at the moment, just three places left on my Ranger mirror workshop at Dawn Bibby's studio on Saturday 17th April. So, if you fancy coming along please contact Topaz Crafts directly (details are in my associated links to the left of my posts) to reserve a place. It will be a fun afternoon with lots of techniques along the way - UTEE enamelling, colourwashing with acrylics alcohol inking, creating with acrylic fragments, distressing etc plus various ways of using Claudine Hellmuth's new sticky backed canvas and gesso. I'll be in the studio all day on Sunday 18th as well to demonstrate my favourite products.

Not much to report other than that I've been making card samples today using Ink Potion no 9 and re-inkers to create backgrounds for stamping onto. No picture of my WOYWW though...too grim to take any decent photos on this particular Wednesday! Lindsay

Land of the Living....

....How terrible is it that it feels as if I have been cut off from the Land of the Living whilst our broadband was kaput?!?!?! No emails and no blogging as well as not being able to check simple things like train timetables without hanging on a phone for fifteen minutes! However, I'm back up and running with a wireless connection now which has solved the problem, so I am trying to catch up with everyone and everything now. I will check out everyone's blogs but I might not leave messages or I'll get nothing else done!

I have a busy couple of weeks ahead now with new designs to work on, lots of samples to be made and workshops to prepare for a big event with several hundred people attending - yikes! I did indulge in a sort of day off today though, and I spent an hour or two making ATC's for the Witch themed swap that my sister has organised - check out Heather's blog and join in if you are able to...I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone does for this one, as there are pictures of Victorian ladies to download and alter. I'll post photos of mine tomorrow...but I must warn you, they are a bit scary!

Personal Impressions have made last minute arrangements for me to be at Dawn Bibby's Design Studio in Accrington this saturday from 11am - 4pm, so hopefuly I'll get to see some of you there. I'll be stamping of course, as well as signing copies of my book and swapping ATC's too. On Sunday, Leonie will be teaching an afternoon workshop there but I'm not sure if there are any places left on it.

Well, this is a quickie post just to say hello, but I'll pop back tomorrow and add those photos. Lindsay

Room with a view, talented ladies & Matthew!

Here are one or two piccies as promised. Unfortunately I didn't get to take any of the cards that I made for Saturday's workshop with the failing batteries in my camera, but here are all the ladies on the class proudly holding their wonderful creations!They did really well with the Distress inks and blended some gorgeous sky effects - I think some of them quite surprised themselves! It was a lovely, messy workshops with inky fingers all round and - great fun!

Next is the room with a view, which in this case, was the view from our hotel room in Scarborough. We were so close to the sea, it was lovely. Being born and brought up at the seaside I sometimes don't apreciate how much I miss it until I can smell the salty air. And I couldn't resist showing you the Koon Koon pig from the animal sanctuary near Filey. Doesn't he look handsome in his "leopard" print coat?!

Lastly, here is Matthew. Who is Matthew I hear you ask? Well, that is the name I have given to our poorly pigeon......I said that he looked like an oven ready chicken and he doesn't look like a Bernard, so....Matthew it is! I shall give you regular reports on his progress. He has been visiting each day for his seed and peanuts and has now started to get a little more feisty, batting the other birds with his wing to keep the away from his food whilst propping himself up on the other one. He was preening his feathers today and seemed to be wondering just where his tail had gone!

This picture shows his good side and though his wings are folded back here you can just see where his tail used to be. His back and neck feathers are coming through and, if his leg doesn't get infected, I think he may just be the comeback kid!

I have been making sample cards today for my demonstration at Card Craft in Lancaster on saturday, so have got rather sparkly hands now! Yes, the glitter has been wafting around the balmy air and turning plain penguins into little dandies in sparkly black evening dress! Do pop along if you live in the area and...don't forget your ATC's for swapping.

Right, I am off to catch up with a few emails now before a relaxing evening watching a (hopefully) good film. Will post pictures of my latest cards very soon. Lindsay

A day off at last!

Hello folks, well, I was writing this yesterday, had uploaded some photos and had nearly finished, when I was interrupted and, forgetting to save what I'd written, I lost the lot! Hence the wrong date at the top of the post - it is now Tuesday! I was a little peeved, but never mind.....so...here goes again....yesterday was a total relaxation day with my feet up on the sofa and just catchingup with emails and phone calls. It was my first proper day off in three weeks, so I didn't have the usual twinges of guilt that come with a "lazy" day!

There has been plenty going on, which is why I have been absent from here, and apologies to those of you who I have not been corresponding with as often as I normally do. On Saturday I was teaching a Cake Cards workshop at Dawn's Design Studio and the ladies all made fabulous cards....hello especially to Jilly and her lovely husband, as well as Margaret and Serena of course, Mary, Karen and the new ladies that I hadn't met before. We made a simple little card first, using a template that I had drawn out and decorating it with glitter, Que Sera Sera paper and adhesive borders....this is a useful little idea as it can be the card itself, or scaled down to decorate the front of a card or scrapbook page.

Next came a Wedding Cake Pop Up card using the lace and glitter technque to decorate the tiers. This was a fairly small version, but if made on a larger scale, this pop up is a real eye catcher. Everyone used different colours of glitter so we had quite an array of yummy looking cakes! Lastly we made a really fun card (either a dog or cat version - I'm posting the kitty one) using my "grab" stamps and a template that I drew to represent a cake with a big slice out of it. Just a silly, fun card, but everyone seemed to like it. That's my finger at the bottom of the picture by the way....the card refused to lie flat for me!

I shall be at Dawn's again in two weeks time, when I'll be demonstrating on both Saturday and Sunday mornings and doing workshops each afternoon (Beautiful Butterflies and Box of Delights)....see demonstration dates list for details.....and there are still a few places available on both of them, so do contact Topaz if you fancy joining me for some creative time with a lot of fun thrown in. Hope to see you then!

On Sunday I was at Burnside Garden Centre in Thornton, Blackpool at what used to be Craft Central. Hello to all the ladies (and men!) who came along, it was great to see you all and especially Joanne - we swapped four ATC's! I shall endeavour to post some piccies of them asap. I hope that you all remembered which pens were which and what you could do with them all!?!

Last week my sister, Heather, and I were down in St Ives, in Cambridgeshire, as we were doing a whole set of photographs (well we weren't doing the photos, we were posing with our hands!) for the projects that we and two colleagues are working on at the moment...more about that in a few weeks, but we are almost there I am pleased to say, as it has been a lot of work. The photography sessions were very hot and took forever to do but were very interesting and Brett (the photographer) was incredibly patient with us! I was also designing some new stamps, on another tight deadline, which will be out in few weeks, so, again, I will tell more when I am allowed to. There is always a lot of secrecy around new things as you may imagine!

As Dawn has already mentioned it on air, then I can now say that I'll be going onto QVC in July, as a guest on one of the shows, so will tell you more as I know it.

Today I have been preparing cards and ATC's for the weekend event at the Craft Barn in Lingfield, Surrey. I'll be travelling down there on friday and demonstrating there along with eighteen (yes eighteen!) other designers, including Francoise Read, Paula Pascual and Sue Roddis. So it will be a brilliant event with lots to see and learn about if you are anywhere in that vicinity. I'm looking forward to it and hoping that I get chance to see what everyone else is up to at some point too! My hands are quite oddly coloured now as I have been using Ranger inks for the samples and I have more on me than on the cards as usual!!!

Well, I shall sign off for now and hope that I post this before it disappears into a black hole in the lap top! Lindsay

Apologies

I must apologise for not posting before now, and for not adding any pictures as I'd promised. We had to cancel the workshop on Sunday, so I didn't get to take photos and it has been a blur of activity here with me trying to catch up with projects and samples for this weekend in Scotland. I am all packed up now and ready for the long haul tomorrow. It's taking over seven hours to Inverness, which I had thought was an inordinately long time...only when I checked my tickets did I see that I have almost three hours to wait in Glasgow! So, if you are in Glasgow station tomorrow between 1.30pm and 4.30pm and see someone in Starbucks, surrounded by empty coffee cups, it may well be me! I shall definitely need to take a couple of book with me!

I've made lots of samples and I'll photograph them and be sure to put some up here when I return. I've been making some Tartan designs using Alcohol inks to go with the Scottish stamps that are one range I will be showcasing, so I'll give details of how these are done, as it's a useful technique.

Now I say this every time, but if you are coming to one of my demonstrations this weekend, please do bring an ATC to swap with me! Thanks again Sheila for the lovely Easter one that you sent me - it has pride of place in my album!

Well, time for a cup of Peach and Tangerine tea now and a relaxing evening before the mad few days ahead! Oh I have new dates added to the demonstration list too, so do check them out - I'll be in Chester-Le-Street, Carlisle and Blackpool.....not all on the same day though! Speak to you when I get back, Lindsay

Workshops and a lovely award

Hello everyone, hope you all had a lovely break over Easter, and thank you for all your comments and emails - they are much appreciated, as was this lovely Blog award from Hazel..thank you Hazel! Time constraints at the moment mean that I am not going to pass it on to five specific blogs though...so, instead, I'd rather nominate all of you who read my ramblings and who have a blog yourself - hope that's okay, as I really enjoy reading all of them!

Well, workshops are the theme at the moment. Hello, first of all, to the ladies who were with me at Crafts U Love in Horley on Saturday. You all worked really hard and I hope that you managed to finish those boxes! The ladies made pop up cards, secret message cards, Owl and tree cards and they also made a start on some boxes - so we got rather a lot done! I really enjoyed spending time with you all and look forward to coming down there again in the not too distant future. My train journey home took forever, but I had a lovely surprise when I got in as David had done some clever swapping around, fixing and re-arranging to get my storage more organised for me after my drawer disaster (ooh er!) last week. What a star!

On Friday I will be in Craft Lland in Llandudno (clever use of wordplay eh?) and at Crafty Co Uk in Liverpool on Saturday, where I'll be demonstrating Sakura pens on both days. So do come along if you are in the area.

I will be at Dawn Bibby's studio on Sunday where I'll be teaching a workshop from 1pm - 4pm. The theme is Novelty Cards for Children and there are still a few places left if anyone is looking for a creative afternoon this weekend. Just call Topaz if you are interested in coming along. I will post picture of the cards next week.

As many of my colleagues are having clear outs of their craft rooms at the moment and selling items on Ebay, I thought I'd join in! However, being a bit wary of Ebay and such like, I thought I'd cut out the middle man and do it via my blog. So, I will be making a list of items that I'll have for sale and will let you know when it is ready then, if you'd like to take a look, just email me and I will email the list by return...I'll have to restrict this to UK only because of postage I'm afraid. Anyway, watch this space for the big clear out! There will be some bargains I'm sure!

Right, more samples to be made, so I had better sign off for now. Take care everyone, Lindsay

What fun we had!

This afternoon was full of fun with the ladies at my workshop at Dawn Bibby's Design Studio! We laughed so much that we were aching, but we did manage to get some cards made as well! The theme was paper piecing and I had designed three patterns to cut the various parts needed to create the three cards, a Teddy Bear, Oriental theme and an Easter Rabbit for the children...it was this last card which caused the humour, as several ladies thought that their bunnies looked rather homicidal! These cards made a change for me and were great fun to design. A little chalking around the edge of each piece (cut from Bazzil card) made a flat image come to life as you can see from the Teddy above. Below is the Oriental card which features branches and mountains cut from card, punched blossom and a folded kimono with a face hands and feet added.

Here is the Easter Bunny who caused all the fun! It's amazing how a slightly differently angled ear, size of eyes or position of a nose can make the difference between a cute rabbit and a manic one! I thought they all looked great considering how little time was left to make the last card of the afternoon.You'll have to take my word for it, but this is Dawn taking a picture of me taking a picture of her! As I said, it was a fun kind of day! The ladies are all working away and ignoring us as you can tell!
Lastly, here are some of the class showing off their Teddy cards - I'm afraid the wall behind me didn't allow me to get a shot of everyone in this picture, but you can see that everyone was doing a good job!
I'll post some more pictures of cards that I made using the Personal Impressions templates which involve paper piecing...they are extremely cute images. By the way, if you are coming to the Party Night at Dawn's Studio on Thursday, or if you are going there in the near future...check out the newly revamped loos....that is all I am saying on the matter! Lindsay