Oops! Haven't blogged in ages....

...so here it is! I've decided to do Kate Crane's Journal ! I've done my first pages and here they are:

Rather pleased!

Sunday Special for the 1st December............

......really! December?? Already???  Just to cheer us all up after that thought, here is a totally gratuitous picture of my Sid:

(If you don't like cats, stop following my blog is all I can say!)

I've had a lovely craft-heavy weekend!  Yesterday, I spent the day at the wondrous emporium that is 

The Artistic Stamper, Craft Store and Art Bar!

We were very honoured to have the lovely and talented Jo Firth-Young come to teach us some Fresco Finish paint techniques to make a lovely Christmas Canvas. We used paints (got painty fingers), stamps (got inky fingers) and die-cuts (no - no die-cut fingers thank you!).  Here's my finished piece:

and some close ups.......

Unfortunately you can't see the glitter, but believe me, it's been 'blinged' to death!

And on to Sunday. Well, when it comes to crafting, I definitely have two personalities - number one is the 'create, misbehave, anything goes, slap it on a page/canvas/box and see what happens' which is what I did in yesterday's class, and then there's this weird person. Who makes cards. Very neat cards. When I say neat, I mean really neat! See what I mean:

  Yep! I've sold my soul. Only to Stampin' Up you understand! Me, Mum and Meryl (my lovely sister) had a great afternoon doing a dress rehearsal for my 1st proper demo next week! Mum and Meryl made 4 cards each and they were beautiful!

I was surprised at how exhausting it was! But thoroughly enjoyed my crafty weekend!!

 Just in case you missed him, here's Sid!! Again!!

Thanks for looking!

Sunday Special! On a Tuesday??

Yep! It's me again!  I'm back! Had a wonderful Saturday Workshop at The Artistic Stamper with Kate Crane! This is my second foray into Art Journalling and I LOVE IT!

I've got loads of pictures to share:

This is a page I made after the workshop using stuff 'n' bobs from my stash of Dylusionals, Stencils and Washi's...rather pleased although Nick did say 'Looks like a pair of lungs' (What does he know!). Watch this space to see what it becomes! I also made a page for bunting using orange, yellow and red

•  Loving my purples and greens - did I tell you that is my favourite colour combination (closely followed by pink and teal/aqua - though I suppose that's really the same colours, just paler!!)
  See below for the 'finished' page!

  
  
  
  
  
  
• Love the 'Ghosting' using water technique! How cool is that!
  

I had to cover a Saxo Pot before I could start though.............

And the Birthday Card took me ages...........but pleased in the end!  This actually used the background I prepared for making the bunting!

And so to the pages I made during the work shop!Painted page work in progress! This was using acrylic paints

And an inky page using Dylusions sprays! See below for how this page was finished and what became of the page to the left....or what to do with overspray and blotting pages!!

 

       Painty page number 2

And both painty pages

And this is the left hand page of the 'blue-green' pages finished off at home.........

Oh! and if anyone knows how to rotate photos in blogger, please let me know how to do it!  These images are all the correct orientation in my EOS photo professional editing programme!!

Finally, a heartfelt thank you to Jennie and Mal for hosting and a providing a lovely lunch! And a big, big thank you to Kate for coming all the way from t'North to teach us!! Please come again soon!

 If you want to get inky get yourself to The Artistic Stamper!

Thank you for looking (and apologies for the previous edition of this blog if you saw it - Blogger decided to add multiples of the same photos and I tried to caption them all, as you do! Sorted now!!)

TTFN xxx

Oh Dear......

....It's been so long since my last blog I couldn't remember how to do it!  So, what's been happening? Not a lot! That's quite a good reason for not blogging!! Anyhoos!, exciting news is...............drum roll purlease..............I've become a Stampin' Up demonstrator! I've liked the products (ok, the white ink pad) for some time so hosted a party with Caroline. A lot of fun was had by all, and I think the phrase is '...and the rest is history'.  So here are some of my creations using Stampin' Up:

Strawberry Slush for the background and top petal, Pistachio Pudding for stem (Tape it stamps), Chalk Talk sentiment and the dotty paper in black from the Neutrals

 Two Christmas cards using the 'Neutral' set and 'In Colour 2013-2015 papers', the Mosaic Madness stamps and punch. The 'ribbons' are the 'Tape it' set.  ' Deck the Halls' is from the 'Christmas Messages' set (which I rather like!)                            

Two very simple cards which I'll be using for my workshops (I really like these!)

And Finally....................Love this!

I stamped and cut about 30 flowers so loads more cards to come!

TTFN

Sand Castles in the Air: Rejoining the....

Sand Castles in the Air: Rejoining the....: ... world of blog! Next time we go to Dover Castle: Memo to self: 'TAXIS BOTH WAYS AND FLEECES!!!' Sittingbourne Station: Tickets ...

Rejoining the....

... world of blog!
Next time we go to Dover Castle: Memo to self: 'TAXIS BOTH WAYS AND FLEECES!!!'
Sittingbourne Station: Tickets ordered on-line, collected! Sitting in the sun - lovely and warm and sunny

Get to Dover Priory: lovely! Warm and sunny
Taxi up - Fine and only £6:40!
Up there: blowing a hooley and cold to boot!

Nick decided to wear armour to keep warm!

 And added a shield for protection against the wind!

Liam added a waterproof to stop the chilling wind! (so did I, but there's no photos! I had the camera!!)

They both loved grinding corn the Roman way!

We watched two displays - one by the Horrible Histories guys with gladiators which was brilliant (Liam complained 'there were only 2 globs of blood!') then 'The Ermine Street Guard' with their display of the Roman Army and how it worked. Some pics from the displays...............

No stirrups! Very impressed!

The mighty 'Testudo'

This machine fired melons way over the castle walls in the background!!

And to finish.....Well of course....it's our own little roman soldier!

On the day we......

 Managed to eat packed lunch (which was lovely thanks to me! Although the pork pies and sandwiches were frozen, the drinks were perfectly chilled)
Walked down - that's a lot of steps and a very steep slope when you do the direct route. Got serious cramp in my left thigh and was thinking Nick would need to flag down a passing motorist for assistance! Did make it in the end!

Monday: Never again. Unless it's by train and taxi both ways!
Monday Addendum: still can't walk normal because of cramp in left thigh

Tuesday Addendum: Would definitely recommend this as a day out! (But I'm still walking funny)