Happy Halloween

Just thought I would try to post the things I made for Halloween...so here goes...

 31 October Street has a scary house.....
above is the front...

and here are the side views...

and the back door typically with the cat wanting to come in...














and here is my graveyard complete with coffin, gravestones, lamppost, lantern and skull...

closer view of the coffin.....

 close up of the top hat...

this is the house in the display in the front window of the shop...I tried to photograph the whole display but the reflections of cars spoilt the photos.....

and the coffin shaped bookmarks.....the old book is in Polish I believe...

and the trick or treat bag made from a black envelope.....every girl needs a trick or treat bag at Halloween!!!

part of the shop window display..... how good is that old book I picked up at the charity shop and altered...

                                  and an easel card party invite.....
                                 
and some happy girls with their coffins.....

and top hats...

and bookmarks and bags.....

Yay, the photos have loaded so expect more catch-ups now I have found out how - I know not the why or the what but don't really care- hahaha!!!!!

Hope your Halloween was good

Bye for now

Sue

what I've been up to...

At the weekend I was browsing other blogs and I came across a challenge to use yellow, kraft and white or ivory. As yellow is so out of my comfort zone - I do not look good in yellow and have never in all the houses I have  ever lived in had a yellow colour scheme - except in the current house where I inherited a yellow room, bought yellow bedding and thought mmm! yes this looks bright and cheerful. Anyway, I digress.....
so I got out my spray inks and templates, drew a birdhouse on a large piece of card  and set to work. I diecut birds from kraft card and flowers from the mop-up piece of card - well true crafters never waste anything - I put the kitchen roll from mopping up aside for another day...I die-cut a hanging sign and purely by accident sprinkled white embossing powder instead of clear onto the hanger part and it looks antique - happy accident eh!!

 I was having so much fun that I then went on to tags and so I Distress Stained some tags...

and die cut more birds and flowers, stamped a bit and stained some lace and seam binding, added a few embellishments and ended up with very messy hands but three very nice tags - so all in all very happy with the result...

Right, just a quick call out for the ladies who live in Spain but not in Javea - I have had a load of new dies and texture fades from Sizzix but be quick...you know how fast these disappear...

and disappear is what I am going to do to watch Britain's Got Talent so

Bye for now

Sue

Just one word...

TIRED!!! so I will just show you this week's project and then buzz off for a much needed restso Bye for now

Sue

There's me so tired I can't sleep and what happens. I have lunch today and promptly fall asleep on the sofa for a couple of hours and now I am wide awake and it's 2 in the morning so I thought I might as well catch up on the blog so here's what we made in class today.
I made this beer mat trio last August for a Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge and the ladies have been asking me to teach it. They brought in their beer mats and armed with rubber gloves they pounded their little blending tools to their hearts content...
pause for a photo ladies please...

and here's what a few of them made.....

Well, I am going to bed to read and see if that helps me to drop off - at least it's a fiesta tomorrow and so I have the whole weekend to spend asleep if I wish...yeah I wish!!! you know along with the washing and ironing and all the other chores you try to put off as long as possible so

Bye for now

Sue

ps Oh and I still haven't finished unpacking all those boxes - 4 left I think

New Challenge

Over on the new Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge blog the challenge this week is "Things with Wings" so to me that means birds and butterflies. I took three beermats, covered them in Alcohol inked glossy card and edged them with gold Dabber. I then stamped a few Tim Holtz stamps directly onto the beer mats. The butterflies I stamped onto card covered with book page, coloured them with Distress inks and then added touches of Stickles. I dug out my Grungeboard letters and Dabbered them and Alcohol inked them, added a metal bird embellishment coloured with Alcohol ink and attached it all together with ribbon after Crop-o-diling. Oh and not to forget the Wendy Vecchi sentiment.

It now adorns the wall by the till.

Off for some lunch and a rest before the younger kids class tonight.

Bye for now
Sue

Some lovely people making some lovely art...

My side step card....

and Eileen, Jean, Margaret, Lorraine, me and Mu yesterday with our beautiful cards..

I was so proud of the lovelies that came to today's class as they made this complicated tri-shutter card. I taught the mechanics of making the card and then they changed tables where Yaa was waiting to help them stamp, distress, cut out and paint the various elements on it. Here's Yaa helping the girls and Mario... and these lovely girls - Sophie, Becky and Lauren are here on holiday from Oban in Scotland

Two great mornings work and some happy people

Bye for now

Sue

another busy day...

.....in paradise.

This morning between 10am and 2pm

I washed 32 very dirty blending foam pads
made a card
made a scrapbook page
checked around the shop for missing items of stock
wrote out orders for several suppliers
de-glued a couple of tables used by the kids last night
and served a lot of customers.

Then lunch in one of the bars behind the shop followed by a 20 minute trip to the nearby shopping centre at Ondara where I bought a new unit to hopefully organise the classroom - then back to the shop to assemble it, home, feed the dogs and cat, get the washing off the line, sort and fold it, grab a bowl of cereals as can't be bothered to make tea, check e-mails, dig out 5 credit notes which I keep forgetting to use!!! water the plants - ask Colin why I have so many - load today's photos onto computer and then blog.....and it's now 23.43 - aaagghh!!!! where did the day go?????


On Saturday evening at friends Maggie and John's barbecue, Maggie who is a very talented quilter, showed me some of her beautiful quilts saying one in particular was a favourite of hers.
It was blue and brown with shabby edges (deliberate) so I made this card as a thank you. I distressed the edges of the brown squares with my Tim's distresser tool and also the lollipop flower. I have been doing a lot more doodling lately so thought I would add some to a scrapbook page for a change and am quite pleased with the way it turned out.....and yesterday I had the back windows etched so that people know what the shop is and what we do and sell. Almost three months after moving here we are still getting people in thinking we are new.
The back windows over look two bar/cafes - the shop door is only onto the main road - so we have been getting people peering in while waiting for their coffees or egg and chips.

I still feel wide awake but I have another long day tomorrow with a big kids class between 5.30 and 7.30 and you always have to be one step ahead of them so better go to bed so

Bye for now

Sue

Boy, are we motoring now!!!

I have been in work, work, work mode for the past few days and today made a couple of cards for tomorrow's class.

Last Friday Mu asked if I could show them how to make a sidestep and a triple shutter card so tomorrow that is what we are making.

A sneak peek of two more completed projects for Autumn workshops but the light is too bad to photograph them tonight so they will have to wait till tomorrow. Just look at the Distressing technique with the blending tools and the concentration shown by the girls.... and here's Marta and friends showing their cards Sven here on holiday from Germany...Somehow Bad Blogger deleted the photos of Beni and Celine so they will have to go on another post. It is so frustrating not to be able to move photos around any more if you forget one or accidently delete or if blogger does it for you.
If anyone out there in blogland knows how to get around this problem please let me know - thanks.

Bye for now

Sue

1 down...

...and still loads of unfinished projects to go!!!
This morning in between serving customers and chatting to Inga who popped in to mull over a project she is currently working on, I managed to finish one of my own projects. Sorry, Lin its not the mica powder one - that is next on my to-do list. In November I saw a case for sending CD's Tanya had decorated. We tried to buy some of these cases but they were discontinued so when I got home I altered the sizing and made a template to fit a 12 x 12 piece of cardstock.

I used Delish designs papers and Tim Holtz stamps, a bit of inking here and a bit of stamping there and am really pleased with the way it has turned out.
I made a conscious decision not to bring Tanya's home so mine would not just be a copy of hers and I added pockets, tags, tickets and flowers.




Hope you like this as much as I do. It will be a workshop in the near future. Let me know what you think - I just love comments - the more the merrier.
Bye for now
Sue

A day of mixed emotions

I thought as I am regularly asked about the different ink pads I would teach a class on this. On glossy card we started with Versamark and stamped and heat embossed and then blended the Distress inks and then stamped over with Brilliance and Stazon. As we moved from one ink to another I explained the differences.



the results don't show up as well as I would have liked but in real they are lovely.

Christine took to this like a duck to water and raced away...



..and Lynda was very adventurous and the bolder colours really show the effects well...(but why the photo has flipped on its side I know not)



...and Norah stepped well out of her usual comfort zone of green, green or green!!!



Today was Norah's really, really last day living in Spain and she came to class as usual. She collects boxes and so I made her a personalised one - green of course!



It is painted with Dabber (lettuce), stamped with her favourite Tim's "cow parsley" flowers, copper, silver and gold leafed, with a grungeboard name and flowers and leaves, a picture out of Suze's book and a couple of jewels. A little bit "ott" but she loved it.

On the inside is a lovely verse and all the things relevant to the verse...you should be able to read it if you click on the picture of the inside of the box



Thanks Christine for taking a photo of the two of us - a lovely reminder - not that I shall ever need one. Norah is a lovely lady with a heart of gold, who makes a fabulous lemon curd, has a wicked sense of humour with her Yorkshire common sense and we have shared laughs, pain, and mad days out!!! and I shall miss her loads and loads...and when you are reading this when you get back to the UK Norah I hope it makes you sad that you have deserted me - do I care!!! flicks hair!! Lol!



We went to a restaurant on the beach for lunch after which Lorraine joined us and we moved to another watering hole on the Arenal for more and then more drinks. We sat overlooking the sandy beach and watching the boys jumping into the sea from the steps in front of us and just people watching and chatting until we suddenly realised a quick lunch had taken us to 6.30pm!!! Whoops - better get on - Lorraine back to her family, me to see if Colin was OK (course he was - take him a cake and he won't know he missed me!!) and Norah for last minute bits and bobs still to do. I had to be firm with her when I dropped her home to stop the tears which were threatening to flow.

And I now have to face the fact that there will be no more cheery face popping her head in saying "shall I get you a paper". It will be very lonely from tomorrow,
but you know I wish you every good thing possible. Love and huge hugs xxx

so Bye for now Sue