Saturday was fun!

Hi there everyone
I hope you all had a good weekend; I certainly did! So here is my Saturday.......... A loooooong one so pull up a chair and grab a coffee! woke up at silly o clock which was to be expected I guess and toodled off to the station to catch the train to the NEC.

Taking a photo of your reflection; that's what you do at 6:30am.......... then I was hungry so ate my breakfast and made a silver surfer to guard my ticket

Yes, I know; there's not much hope for people like me; still, I'm happy. We got there easily enough and ridiculously early so we went outside to the lake and then decided to do some geocaching while we were there. First find of the day was hidden here

Then it was back for a coffee; Starbucks was closed so had to settle for this; more caffeine, as if I was not wired up enough!

We walked around to the LG Arena and I loved all the different textures and colours on this living wall.

Then it was time for me to don my hiking boots and trundle myself over to the workshop room; Being my first time at the NEC, though I knew in my head it was a big place; walking seemed to take forever! I got to the other side at last, found the room and sneaked a peek through the door; yes!!!! Tim was there! So; I met up with Andy Skinner and had a good chat; more coffee with Kathy and then it was time to go in.
 This is what we had waiting for us.

Some of Tim's new distress markers (Fab!), Ranger's new waterbrushes, The new Dylusians masks and a prepped kit. Tim took the first session and this is what we did.

Loads of fun stuff, playing with old favourites as well as some new stuff; I was really pleased to try out the markers; I think I'm going to have plenty of fun with them! I agree with Tim, Ranger's new glue stick REALLY DOES WORK!  I had a good time and afterwards I had a lovely chat with both Tim

and Mario; could not forget him!

I had a fabulous time! The second half of the workshop we started on an  altered book with Dyan Reaveley but I'm not finished mine yet so I'll share that later!
So all super excited I went back to my wife who'd been waiting patiently for me reading a good book (And being chatted up by a guy to boot; honestly, leave her alone for a few hours!) and we made our way back home  with a little side stroll along the Thames..........

Modroc Journal

Hi there everyone;
I'm gearing myself up for a GREAT weekend. Tim Holtz has landed in the UK and guess who is getting to see him tomorrow?! Well; I'm hoping it is going to be himself doing the Ranger workshop tomorrow at the NEC and my entrance ticket is safely in my bag and the excitement is mounting; either way I'll tell you all about it next week. Then on Sunday I've a class at The Craft Barn so all in all a fun filled exciting weekend!!!!!!!!
So today I thought I'd share the rest of my journal with you. Some of you will have seen bits on the Craft Barn blog HERE but I wanted to share these pages with you.
Here's the front cover

 All the journal pages have been made out of modroc (Plaster of Paris bandage) and tied together with vintage lace. There are 10 pages all together. This is the cover and the medallion has been made with friendly plastic, a Sweet Peas stamp, black acrylic paint and plenty of Inka gold! I just love the way it turned out!

 This page has some of my hand made papers, The image(also Sweet Pea) has been stamped onto mica and the back painted to highlight.

 This page is similar but with some alcohol inks too. I just love these images! I like the textural contrast too between the mica and the roughness of the pages.

 Again, I love the softness of the image and the subtle distress inks against the pages.

 These pages use stamps from The Artistic Stamper and also Katzelkraft, again, gorgeous images that work well with the textures.

 These stamps from Toodles and Binks work well too for layering up backgrounds; I just need to find the right journalling!

The lastly, the back page, another Sweet Pea and friendly plastic medallion. I really enjoyed making this journal and there is still place to add writing etc so it is very much a work in progress I love to look at it and run my hands through it to feel the textures!
Hope you enjoy seeing it too.
Have a fun and creative weekend!

Die cuts with a difference....

Good morning everyone
Hope you are all well. Today it's my turn over at the Craft Barn where this week we are looking at die cuts but looking at them differently; trying to see the possibilities...........
So without  further ado I'd like to introduce you to Olly the Ostrich.

He is descended from a long line of distinguished reindeer; also known as Sir Tim of Holtz, fanciful flight die! Isn't he cute? Then of course there is his little brother; now he's a little bit eccentric, and his fashion sense, hmmmmmmm

The details of the "how" are on the Craft Barn blog too but I've decided to add them here too.
The process is pretty straightforward as you will see from the next photo!

You can see by this picture what to do next. In the middle I've shaded in black the areas you need to cut away from the original shape on the left to leave you with the shape on the right.
(tip; keep one cut shape as a template so you can easily make more!)

For the first tag I kept it more realistic by using natural colours and a feather before mounting it onto a tag which I'd stamped onto with Katzelkraft stamps and then mounting that tag onto a second tag cut from corrugated card

For the second, smaller one cut out from the mini reindeer I had much more fun, using brighter colours and playing around with pens I created my "Zebritch" which worked together nicely with the sentiment for a fun and quirky tag which I popped into my journal because I liked it so much!
He (or she) is standing on a shape cut out of the Artful dwellings die and the tag has been inked and stamped with distress inks and a bit of masking added too.
Have some fun today!

WOYWW # 141

Good morning peeps
I've not been around for a couple of days so I apologise, life has just been a bit manic but I'll try to get better, I have a list of things I want to do step by steps for but ....... well, let's leave it at that shall we as you've come to see my desk!

 Surprised? Yes, I'm working indoors on the dining room table; not really because it's too cold outside but because I've been too lazy to unpack my bags from Sunday's class so I kinda just started working from them.

 I picked this dress form up from a charity shop yesterday for the princely sum of £1.00 so am looking forward to transforming it.

 This os one of the pages from Sunday's class which I am going to get finished, hopefully  today.

Then I have an idea that I want to try with this embossing folder, isn't it lovely? it involves the little tree die so we'll see how it goes........
So there's my temporary workdesk; pop over to Julia's place at Stamping ground to see more and I'll try to pop in for a peek later.
Have a blessed and hopefully creative day!

Going for texture.....

Good day peeps
Welcome to Friday and a new challenge over at The Stamp Man. It's my turn to play host and because I love texture I thought that's what I'd do and I made this tag.

So, if you are here because of this on Wednesday; now you know what I was hiding.

I started out with a large paint covered tag and then added some small beads to the base using a 3d glaze to secure.

I keep a jar of odd coloured beads in a jar just for things like this where I plan on painting over.  When it had dried I covered the beads with gesso

Still doesn't look too exciting so I added some gesso detail using a mask into the top corner and added a piece of embossed paper too. Then I covered everything with a wash of forest moss and perfect pearls which then tied all the separate items together nicely!

I cut an embossed acetate tag and attached that to the tag with ribbons and added a metal flower that I added embossed detail to using distress embossing powder.
I die cut a coloured the trees and deer and added everything as seen. There's loads of lovely textures and layers going on.

So for more texture inspiration do pop on over to The Stamp Man and then why don't you have a go too, you may win the £10.00 voucher!
Hope you all have a great day, I'm teaching at The Craft Barn on Sunday; my art journalling #2 class. Still a couple of places if anyone is interested; details are HERE.

WOYWW #140

Hi there everyone
Yes, it's that time of the week again where we drag our workplaces out into the light of day for everyone to oooh and aaah over............ Thanks to Julia at Stamping Ground.
Here we go then.

 So here it is. Things to see this week that are finished and part finished......

 On the left are these tags. The bottom one was from Lin; isn't it lovely. I spent ages chatting to her and Leandra at the bluewater hobby craft show. The top ones were some of the things I'd made for the weekend's minifest at The Craft Barn.

 This is a secret still, but there are some tantalising bits peeking out!    

 My journal page is open still at one of my last pages; I am happy with the way it turned out so I like to look at it still.

 On the right are these tags; none of which are actually finished but I did them over the weekend while demoing some techniques with embossing folders and these are some that I want to finish.

Then there's this, I actually really like the way it turned out though I was just playing so i'll finish it off sometime soon I think.
So, theres a peek into my world this week; I hope your world is full of creativity too.
Oh and a little heads up, over at The Craft Barn I'm sharing a journal made from Modroc, I'd love for you to take a look! The link is HERE and here's one page

Card for Try it on Tuesday

Good morning peeps
It's a new week and a new challenge over at Try it on Tuesday with the theme of True Love. It's card week so we are looking forward to seeing your cards with the theme. (just in time for Valentines day!)
This is my card for this week

I used a Tim Holtz sentiment as my starting point and added more words using small alphabet stamps as a reminder that in the midst of the storms of life we don't dance alone if we are in a loving relationship. I coloured this with fired brick and stormy sky distress ink and stamped around the edges.
I coloured the main card with fired brick distress ink and stamps used are from Spring sprung (Tim Holtz)
I embossed and painted an acetate tag with paint and mounted it onto a black tag and layered the main piece on top of it. I cut and embossed a couple of small butterflies and a heart out of silver card and aged with black paint before fixing in place as seen.

There's plenty more inspiration over on the Try it on Tuesday blog so I hope to see you there.
Enjoy the rest of your day.

Scrapbook page for Katzelkraft

Good morning folks
I've a scrapbook layout I'm sharing over at the Katzelkraft blog today. The details are here if you'd like to pop on over and take a look.

Take care and I hope you have a creative and blessed day.

Just another snowy day.......

Hi folks,
well, as predicted there was a good layer of snow around this morning. this is the view from the house to my studio. Fairly early so still pretty blue tint to the pictures.

Far too cold to go out so instead; because I still had all my stuff in the house from Saturday's demo day at The Craft Barn I stayed inside and worked on my journals. I'm pretty pleased with the way this one turned out.

 This page has one of my demo backgrounds added onto the page along with a mica embellishment and some painted and splatted details!

This page uses one of the new Paperartsy stamp plates from Thursday. I think this figure is just fab and the right size for these pages.
It was lovely to see everyone at yesterday's demo and thank you for all your lovely comments and all your questions too! I'll try to get some of the step by steps posted here this week so keep an eye open for them!
See you all later.

Metal and acetate at The Craft Barn

Hi there.
Over at The Craft Barn blog this week we are exploring metal and acetate and today it's my turn. I made a tag using acetate and metal.
All the details of how can be found by clicking the link but here's a peek to whet your appetite!

 Do pop on over to see the full tag let us know what you think. There are so many different things you can do with metal and acetate and there are plenty of fabulous ideas there this week so I hope you have fun playing along with us!
Have a blessed and creative day.

WOYWW#139

Hi there everyone and welcome to the massive blog hop of desks in all their glory, big ones little ones, empty ones and full ones; messy ones and tidy ones; Julia over at Stamping Ground has the lot! I've had a load of fun this week and my desk reflects that so I make no apologies this week for the state of my place!

Has he NO shame I hear you say? Naah, not this week. What you see is the leftovers of a creative zone after being in full swing; I've managed to finish about 4 or 5 pages in my journals that have been brewing in my mind for a while now. I've made a book from scratch; finished off some class samples and managed to get ever so slightly ahead of some deadlines so I'm feeling pretty chuffed even if I'm so cold I can't feel my toes!

So in the middle is one of my pages (apologies for the weird colour, it looks much better but in this light if my camera wants to over compensate it will, no matter what I do!) The right hand side is finished and the left will be finished sometime soon; just brewing a bit in my mind still!)

On the right here is this box, which some of you will have seen before. I use it now to keep all the stuff that I use a lot of in my journalling classes as well as my own journalling, in one place, so all the old gift cards, lids, charcoal pencils and pens etc. Anything that I find useful to make a mark on a page will end up in here..... so won't be long till it's full I guess!
Anyway, better don the thermals and get back out there, I'd better tidy the mess up a bit and pack for my class on Friday at The Craft Barn; I'm also demoing there on Saturday the 4th February so if you are in the area do pop along for a day of fun and inspiration.
Cheerio folks; hope you all have a blessed and creative day!