Stitches - Part two!

Another photo-heavy post today, showing you some of the stuff that caught my eye at the trade show. 

Stencils and masks were everywhere, I liked these masks from Indigo Blu - they were huge, you don't get the feel of the size from the photo....

more stencils - love that spider web....

and from Clarity stamps....

this is a cute idea, you get a stencil in a pack.....

and on the reverse the mask of the same image....

 As always, one of the prettiest displays was from Sissix, that company really know how to catch the eye at these shows......

and some pretty display boards from Paper Artsy......

Right, that's enough for today. I totally forgot to draw the winner for the Craftwork Cards paper pad, so I will post that tomorrow. Sorry, hanging head in shame.....

Stitches....Part one

Well I have taken enough photos to keep you looking at the latest stuff from the UK for a few days, but first, here is my favourite photo - Kiki and Monty who made a flying visit to see us, but left early because Monty really wasn't well at all, poor little chap had a terrible cough, but he managed a smile for me here.......

So yesterday I went to the trade craft fair that we call Stitches - the proper name is Craft Hobby and Stitch International, and it's full of the latest and greatest products in the world of crafting - and not just paper as you will see

My first visit was to see my pal Kath Stewart and drag her away from the Fiskars stand for a coffee.....she spotted this wooden owl, and had to give it a hug, mad as a box of frogs

Here are some of the lovely samples she made for Fiskars, using the fuse.....

en route we called for Nikky Hall of Polkadoodles who is an old mate of ours and swept her and hubby Kris along for a coffee and a chat. Nikky was demoing Graph-it markers and Pan Pastels....

Here are some of the samples on her stand. Swoon, fabulous colouring. After seeing her demos,  Pan Pastels are now firmly on my wish list....

Well that's enough for one day, I don't want to send you all into sensory overload! Back with more tomorrow, see you then x

Lazing Around...

No, not me, my family have turned up a day later than planned, so no lazing around for me, but this Penny Black image looks pretty laid back......

I paper pieced the chair using papers from Craftwork Cards Amelia collection - the small scale of the flowers was perfect. I added a few punched flowers - mainly blue, to link up with the colour of her jeans....

I took the children to the cinema yesterday afternoon to see the Lego film. Four year Monty is only small, and when he sat on the flip up cinema seat, it folded up on him, his weight wasn't enough to keep it down, so the poor child was folded in half with his legs up in the air. I stuffed a coat down the back of the seat which made it a bit better, but halfway through the film a little hand tugged my arm and he whispered 'I am finding this chair really annoying, it's making me mad...' So we swapped seats, and it wasn't really any better, but it made him happy, he was no longer mad!

See you tomorrow x 

Swing Card....

 The trouble with these swing cards is that they have a wow effect when you open them, but they are almost impossible to photograph! This one is by Craftwork Cards and uses all their papers and sentiments....

My crafty cupboard doors are closed - we were expecting family to visit this weekend, but Monty has a virus and the storms are raging, so it's been postponed, which means the cupboard may be open for business again over the weekend - well, I can't just sit twiddling my thumbs in a pristine house with a well stocked fridge can I? I need to do a bit of gentle messing about with paper to get over my disappointment. A heat gun and a few pens always lift my spirits. I'm off to the big trade fair (the British version of CHA) at the NEC on Monday, so I will be able to report back to you on the latest products from the UK. See you then, have a great weekend x
      

Birdcages....

Here's another card made with those pretty die cut borders that I picked up in the wedding aisle of Hobbycraft.....

Here's a question. Every time I write a post, blogger underlines stuff that I know is correct, irritating. It just doesn't accept English English. I thought of this when I was stamping the sentiment for my rainy day card for Letraset yesterday - you make me happy when skies are grey......clearly a UK stamp, in the USA it would be gray. So I write flavour, you write flavor, I write fibre, you write fiber, I write humour, you write humor, I write licence, you write license...............and so on.

 It occurred to me that all my American blog friends must think that I am rubbish at spelling, and it set me musing about how this came about. Did the pilgrim fathers hop off the Mayflower and say 'thank heavens we left the old country, now we can do away with the ridiculous U in colour, it's no use to anyone, and frankly little Isiah needs a bit of help with his reading. Let's make it easy.....' Or was there some high level meeting in the White House, where Abe Lincoln said 'I am issuing a decree that in future we will write words exactly how we say them. Enough of this British nonsense. We are American'

I have to say, that American spellings make a lot more sense than our British versions, but one thing always bugs me when I go over the pond. Why on earth do you all call herbs 'urbs' - what's happened to that poor little H? I mean, you say 'hearts' and 'here' and 'happened'. What did urbs herbs do to warrant a h-less downgrade? Just wondering.....

Enough of my ramblings. Have a great start to the weekend, enjoy Valentines day. See you tomorrow x  

It's Letraset Blog day - You know what that means.....

My turn to post over on the Letraset blog, and yes, I am still messing about with stencils, hop over and see what and how I did.... 

and as always on Letraset day, here is a giveaway for one of you, a set of six muted tones ProMarkers - a couple of my favourites in here, I love dusky rose and ginger, use them all the time. 

Just leave your name under this post, and hop over to the Letraset blog to leave a quick comment. As always, only people who have commented on both blogs will be entered into the draw (it's only fair when Letraset are so generous).  I will post worldwide, and I'll draw a winner next Thursday and let you know who won the following day. Good luck

A short post from me today, it's taken me ages to write my post on the Letraset blog, they use Wordpress, I am used to Blogger, and I have to find my way around, so now it's 1.00 a.m and I'm ready to hit the hay!

See you tomorrow x

Stamping though stencils...

 Here's my stencil 'homework' for today, and I can't tell you how much angst I suffered getting to this point...

Firstly, I needed some white embossing powder. I had it yesterday, I USED it yesterday, nowhere to be seen, vanished, disappeared in a puff of powder. So I thought, black will do, but the next problem was finding a sentiment to emboss. Now I don't know about you, but I tend to go for simple sentiments, you know the type of thing - happy birthday, get well soon, good luck.....and so on. These flowery sentiments just aren't me, and I particularly hate the ones that would come under an 'encouragement' heading:

Don't let your dreams pass you by.......

Live life to the full with a smile on your face......

I have a feeling that if I sent cards to my friends with instructions on how to live their lives, they would fall about laughing

So I eventually found a nice simple little sentiment and set to stamping and stencilling (I used Tim Holtz ink splatter stencil), and got into a terrible inky mess. I won't bore you with that. Let's just say that this end result was about the sixth attempt I made. (It's so irritating to have almost finished a card and then drop an inkpad on it, or accidentally put the wet stencil face down on the card, or...................well, you get the picture)

So I hope you enjoy this one. It's the result of blood, sweat and tears....(I love it, which is just as well after a wasted afternoon!)

A day off for me today, I'm off to see my sister, lunch and a good old chin wag. Perfect, I'm glad to be getting away from the inks...See you tomorrow x

Stencils and ink - lots of ink.....

 It must be past time for me to practice some of the techniques shown in the online stencil class I took - the trouble is, none of them turned out anything like the instructors gorgeous samples. As I have a kamikaze compulsion to share everything with you, here they are - warts and all....

I had bought some stencil brushes at the NEC in November, but never used them before, I must say, I really like them, they give a much softer effect than the blending tool I have been using up to now....

My first disaster venture into the world of stencils was supposed to use one stencil and layer it. I didn't have a suitable stencil, but dug out this Union Jack one that I bought in a fit of patriotic fervour at the time of the Olympics, and never used....

It was supposed to be a controlled layering, but I soon lost the plot and it ended up as a random frenzy of colour - I quite like it funnily enough, I think a teenager would like this card......

The next one is using glimmer mists through a stencil. This worked quite well, but I was instructed to spray inside a box to catch the mist. Well, I couldn't find a box, so in my usual gung-ho fashion I sprayed away regardless, and now my desk and the wall behind are glimmering.....

I couldn't catch the pretty sheen....this one shows it a bit

Happy mail today from the Ribbon Girl, doesn't it look pretty? the white fabric is cheesecloth, I have plans for that, I am doing a guest designer spot for them in March, so you will have to wait a while....

That's it for today, I'm still getting inky so I'll see you tomorrow with some more stencilled cards, but before I go, for those of you in the UK, this might be of interest to you, it could be fun and an easy way to build up your collection of markers if you live close to London

Become a Letraset Product Tester

We're looking for keen users of the FlexMarker to do some product testing! The testing will take place during office hours at our offices in Shepherd's Bush, West London (easily accessible via public transport) and will take about an hour. As a thank you for your time and participation, you will receive approx. £30 worth of free Letraset products.
Please note that we will not be reimbursing any travel costs. If you would like to participate or for more information, please emailresearch@letraset.com by 21st February and quote “nib research” in the subject line.

Fiskars Fuse Birds....

This was the die I couldn't wait to get when my Fuse arrived, I had fallen in love with this little bird. So, it's a bird die I hear you say......but look, see all the birds in the photo below? I cut them all with one pass of the machine, I think that's pretty remarkable - eight little birds cut out perfectly in a matter of seconds....

You get letterpress plates with the die, here's the letterpress birds.....

The first thing I did was a tag, I used some Tim Holtz papers....

I put the word MISS in tiny letter stickers and popped a film strip on top...

there was a bit of stenciling going on there as well.....

and a sprinkle of distress embossing powder 

Then I used some bright papers by The Paper Studio to make this card, I cut the branch by hand....

the stamp is also by Fiskars and followed the curve on the pattern paper ....

So I hope these posts have given you a bit of a glimpse of what this remarkable machine can do, watch out for a lot more in the near future, but for now, I need to get on with some magazine cards and catch up with my homework for the online stencil course. I am dashing around in ever decreasing circles here. What's on your desk?

See you tomorrow x