Tuesday 29 December 2015

christmas specials & basics

I hope you all had avery happy christmas. I had all of my family stay with us so it was a busy couple of days and week before preparing. Well that's my excuse for not having posted for a while.
I'll start by showing you the specials done for my boys. My eldest son has a young boy and the youngest 2 dogs so you can work out which went to each of them

This card uses the Stampendous Pop up die and their dog stamps



Then after doing family specials I had to do some quick cards  for neighbours and customers


The die above was from creative expressions and the stamp below from woodware - stamped in white  as a resist then going over with colour cloud inks and smoothies


Apologies as usual for poor quality of pictures but it's me doing thinks in a rush as usual!
I'm sharing ideas not perfection!!!

I'll try to remember to share the handcrafted cards sent to me when I take them down

Tuesday 8 December 2015

wall art



I had been asked to repeat this workshop after we did it in summer but left it until people (including me) had had a chance to do their Christmas cards. This workshop has proved popular with attendees being very pleased with the work they had done and so I am showing you these canvases from last week.








Well done to Jenny Dave Christine Sharon & Marj.

Wednesday 18 November 2015

I've not had chance to post much lately since I've been so busy with workshops there hasn't been much time for new cards. I do have a few customer cards to show you (although I can't find them all! will keep looking) using Woodware's trio  of trees stamp and a few specials with pasting embossing folders and dies.






Monday 2 November 2015

Shaped Specials


I've been working on using different shaped cards for our specials recently. This shows the double diamond shape with the striplets from creative expressions in the centre and then other dies on the diamonds (sorry about fussy tablecloth - as usual done in a rush should have sorted a plain tablecloth!)


The above are variations on the 3 tier card we did with Jane Gill on our retailer workshop and below we have variations of trees and deer while I tried to decide what worked best. I do need to work on some more with flowers but that's for another day




I then tried using the clear scraps acrylic sheets with craftwork card and other papers. I did have problems with light while trying to photograph these since the acrylic showed up lots of refections but hopefully you get the idea

Friday 16 October 2015

creative stamping 27 - Woodland Christmas

As you can see there are some cards here where I couldn't decide which I liked best so I've put the different options in. I started being unsure what extra technique to specialise in this time but then decided I'd incorporate ways with masks although only a few are shown here.  The lower robin background was a marble effect debossed and filled with sparkle texture paste. I love this effect and I  found the twiggy christmas embossing folder worked well here.




The mica effects with masks at the bottom don't show up as well here as do in life.


Sunday 11 October 2015

Mixed techniques

Having had my initial play with items on their own I then started to mix techniques together so we have backgrounds made with masks using both paste and mica. The church scene I tried to change to a winter scene by adding different powders from stampendous. The vintage blue is always good in the sky and chunky white sprinkled is great for falling snow but this year we have the new sparkle and puff which I like to use for snow on the ground.
I adapted the robin card we  did on our retailer training to use the woodware new robin rather than the stampendous one which has only just come out. I added flock to it on the bolder version set on black.
Once again still a lot more to do but these are just some ideas for you.



Friday 2 October 2015

stencils and masks

I have started to look at doing different methods with the Dreamweaver stencils and assorted masks we have in store. Some cards are from last year but where I've tried different techniques with the same stencil I thought I'd include all ideas to show the various effects which can be achieved. I love the way you can do so many things with a stencil!


Monday 28 September 2015

Over the last week I have been having a basic play with some of the new dies which we have in. As usual I have tried to look at different ways of using them and different colour combination. Later on I will try using them with other products and more complex cards. The 4 main dies I have chosen are all from the new Sue Wilson collections from creative expressions and we have these in stock.

 Then I also tried a few more for the Woodware stamps board. ( Admittedly some were adapted from their catalogue and our retailer workshop card). All the tree scenes use different powders from Stampendous to create the effects. My favourite snowman is also from Stampendous




Wednesday 23 September 2015

I mentioned the woodware retailer workshop last time. We had Fran from Stampendous, Susan from Clear scraps and Kay from Hougie  as well as Jane and Francoise from Woodware doing the workshops. Judith and her team always give us a wonderful couple of days with lots of food and drink (non- alcoholic of course)
These are the cards we produced (with a few other bits filling the board on the bottom row)


Some of these ideas will be used in our workshops (as you can see by the trio of trees last post)
others will be modified slightly and some will just be examples of the products that are available.

Friday 18 September 2015

woodware stamps

Well I'm sorry not to have posted for 3 weeks - I thought I had scheduled some for the weeks I was away but must have done something wrong!!! anyway back on track now.
The first weekend of September I went on the woodware retailer workshop - cards from that I will try and schedule for a few days time to check it works, but since by return I have tried out some ideas for my woodware workshop using their new stamps Some ideas worked better than others but I've shown most of them to give an idea on the versatility of the stamps. Other variations are still to be tried. The trees use lots of the powders from Stampendous to give the wintery feel.

the trio of trees can be used upside down as baubles as shown.

Friday 28 August 2015

creative stamping 26 - Feathered Friends

This week I have been working with the latest creative stamping magazine stamps "Feathered friends".
The main focus this time was working with the new colour cloud inks from cosmic shimmer / creative expressions and also using the dies we have with the designs.
This was great for trying all sorts out with the inks -=  some worked better than others but I have included most of what I have done  just because it shows how the inks work in different situations.

  The owls don't show up very well on this picture so I've done a separate picture below. This also shows how I have used the Stampendous pop up die, and the dreamweaver tree die with the owls.
(note most of the dies above are from creative expressions - The Sue Wilson dies, with a couple of Spellbinders)


Monday 24 August 2015

fantasy ? So

Well I was going to do a workshop involving some fairies from a die that one of our reps inspired me with but I been unable to get it - I gather it has just come back into stock at suppliers but after my first workshop date on this, so I worked with what I had got. The unicorn from Stampendous I love and since I had one for sale I wanted to incorporate this. Doing it a different way from earlier cards I was able to utilise the clarity silver birch trees also. The children are not strictly fantasy but it was another stamp I wanted to sell so I used it instead of my fairies.
So not strictly fantasy but........

I'm now working on the latest creative stamping magazine stamps "Feathered friends" so that should be next week's board

Sunday 16 August 2015

I've had a busy week with customers wanting special cards this week so instead of working on new stuff I've been doing variations on a theme. I took the basic idea from the card we did with Phil Martin but altered the size to be more useable and coloured with the new colour cloud inks instead of gilding wax. The results are shown below

This proved a popular design as I have sold 4 out o 5 already!

The card below was made at a workshop by Sharon and show yet another flower used in the design.

Friday 7 August 2015

Peter Rabbit and friends

I was asked to do a Peter Rabbit card this week so I got out my print outs from the Peter Rabbit CD from crafters companion and set to to see how many variations I could do with these. (Also thinking I still have one of these for sale in the shop so perhaps samples would tempt someone into buying it..) I do get carried away with this sort of thing and keep trying various combinations until I realise I have spent days on this topic and really do need to get on with something else.
Here are some of my samples - sorry the picture seems a little dark at the back.



Monday 3 August 2015

creative stamping - A tropical summer

This week I am going to show you some variations of my creative stamping cards which were done at the full day workshop this week. Since they showed me cards individually you are in for a treat - that of seeing cards in more detail than I usually show from my workshop boards. I hope you like them. If you are local and wish to try again the workshop is to be repeated soon - see my workshop list at www.llindas.co.uk











Friday 24 July 2015

Since returning from my holiday in Pembrokeshire I have had very little time for crafting being very busy coordinating our village summer fayre which is tomorrow. Hopefully all will be back to normal next week and I'll have more to share with you.
Lorraine and I did go to a retailers workshop at creative expressions and so I have those cards to show you. We had the morning with John Lockwood and the decoupage papers, then the afternoon with Phil Martin and the coordinating cosmic shimmer products. We thought some colours were better than others for matching well in the various products Lorraine's Jade being better than my lilac. Anyway below are examples of what we did.


My holiday was good although the weather was not as good as that at home but what was nice was sharing the first weekend with my son his wife and our grandson who we don't see much of.
For those of you who are interested this is a picture of him then.