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

Dabbered, stamped and distressed...

I painted, dabbered, stamped, distressed and stickled a wooden box for the girls to take inspiration from.....





and Yaa and Melissa made theirs tonight choosing beautiful jewel colours


Emily, bless her - she is only 6 cleaned all the stamps, put them back onto their sheets, put away the stamp pads, acrylic blocks, scissors,so I think she deserved to sneak into the photo albeit holding MY box!!!

That's all for tonight so
Bye for now
Sue

Just to wish you all a Very Peaceful Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year.

I am flying to the UK tomorrow - snow permitting!! - and will return on 28th so wishing you all a very Peaceful Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year.

Bye for now
Sue x

Tags for Christmas

This morning we made tags using mica spray techniques...

We polished, sprayed, stamped, painted, resisted and distressed...but unfortunately the camera doesn't pick up the wonderful shimmer on here...

these two are mine...





...and these next two are Erica's...





...and Erica brought in a star book and a couple of Christmas cards she had made...





Well. I am still crawling the walls with the pain and Colin has rung his golfing buddy who does something with manipulation whether physio or other and so I am seeing him on Thursday afternoon. Hopefully, I won't be banging my head on the ceiling by then.

so 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

a little more of the same

The lovely Margaret who comes to Friday class had a new hip in March and was doing so well with her recovery but she phoned today to say she has an infection in it so
Get Well Soon Margaret we miss you.

On Tuesday the ladies enjoyed the challenge that I set for them and so I repeated it today. Same sketch, same basic ingredients and off they go...



This is mine from today


I had stuck it all down before I realised that I had forgotten to stamp the flourishes - oh well never mind!!

and Muriel's



and Fizz's



and Linda's



Janet took her card home to finish so I will post it when I have the photo.

.....and all very different from each other and from those made on Tuesday. It is such a pity that the sparkle of the glitter card on a couple of these doesn't show up.

-amile please-



More happy ladies = happy me!

Bye for now
Sue

PS Janet's card is here...

What a way to spend a day!!!

Yesterday for the class I set them a challenge - they could only use what I had put out for them and they had to make a card based on the sketch I had drawn. It was interesting to see what different ideas and slants they put on them.
I gave them loads of different colour pieces of card and paper, both patterned and plain, every Distress ink pad, a pot of clear embossing powder and a selection of Paper Artsy and Blonde Moments stamps and that was it.

The sketch was fairly simple - they could use reels of tape or ribbon or pots to draw the circles out with and then just add their own imagination.

This was the sketch and my card





and Christine's


So there I am with my new Cannon IXUS801S (which is fantastic after my old cheapo camera expired) taking photos of the cards when up popped a message - Charge battery - and it promptly switched off!!! so no way of taking photos of the other cards.

As Norah lives in an apartment above the shop ahe popped in with her card today and I was able to photograph it with my now recharged camera but as Erica lives miles away unless I can get her to email it to me you will have to make do with seeing her discuss with the others how/where to embellish her card.





After class I planned to drive to Ikea which happens to be almost 2 hours drive away to buy some new chairs for the shop and a couple of other bits for myself and Norah had offered to accompany me so off we go. Two hours later after an uneventful journey down the motorway we pull into the Ikea car park to realise it was very quiet, eerily quiet in fact!!! so we park up and get out, walk to the front doors and lo and behold there is a large notice proclaiming they were closed for Murcia Regional Day - how much of a b....r is that!!!

Not only were Ikea closed but so were all the other shops so no visit to Primark or anywhere else. We decided we needed to eat so dropped into Pizza Hut and had a really lovely meal of spinach and three cheese tortellini - the service was diabolical and the music worth listening to but SO LOUD!!! it made your ears hurt!!! and then another two hour journey home. What a way to spend a day - a very HOT day at that so thank goodness for air con in the car.

Bye for now
Sue x

PS Erica has now emailed me a copy of her card so here it is

Quick and easy but quality

Some of my ladies have been asking for quick and easy but quality Christmas cards and so here are the ones I made this morning. A couple of Paper Artsy stamps, red card and three shades of green and a dab of Stickles and voila!! 25th June taken care of.
NB - from Jume to November the 25th of the month in my shop is Christmas card making.

I have started to make matchboxes with tags inside for the 25th July but they are not quite finished. I will show those in a few days.

Tonight, the younger girls completed their paintings. I had done this class with the older girls and wasn't sure whether to give it a try with the younger ones but they mastered highlights and shadows so well. I am so pleased with them as they are only 9and 7 years of age. They have done a brilliant job. Well done girls.



Even though it is just gone 8pm it is still 25 degrees - thank goodness for air con in the shop. The sun is shining in the window and the birds are singing still.
I am now off to watch a bit of TV, have some dinner and kick off my shoes - well flip flops and relax!
Bye for now
Sue

Workshop project...

... for later in the year. Yes, due to Tanya's pushing and prodding I am not only up to date with all my work but also have almost all the samples made for the July to December workshops so thank you my friend for those bruises!!!

Here are the two sample exploding boxes I made using Distress inks and Crafty Individual images and Paper Artsy stamps.



I still have one more little house to make and a piece of jewellery to finish off and then I'm done.....but then I have 125 invitations and all the associated reply cards, name places, table plan, etc involved in daughter Victoria's wedding in October and needed for July.

Well. I'm off to bed to read a bit more of Twilight book 3 in the hope of banishing all those crafty ideas from whizzing around my head. That's my trouble, I make the samples for the class or workshop and then have another idea and so the night before end up making new samples. I really must stop making life more difficult for myself than needs be!!

Night, night, sleep tight
Sue x

This morning the ladies asked if we could colour dominoes and matchboxes with Alcohol inks.




Of course, I was delighted as I just love playing with any Ranger product but especially their gorgeous Alcohol inks. I got so engrossed that I forgot to put the kettle on until quarter to twelve!!!! Class is 10.30 till 12.30 so nearly home time although classes often don't finish till 1.00 or later!! I am very easy going especially if I too am enjoying myself. Suppose I should be more business like but......well maybe next week, next month.....




These are Norah's










and these are Erica's


The photos don't do the colours justice at all as they really are bright and they look quite muddy.


Erica brought in the mini book she started in class last week that she had finished at home. She has made it for her two granddaughters and it is really lovely. The Crafty Individual papers and pictures are just perfect for this project. Add in a little charm or two and a piece of ribbon et voila! or aqui tienes as we say in Spain!!





A clap of thunder and a few flashes of lightning are putting this post in danger of being lost so I'll sign off for now and hopefully return later. Whoops another crash and flash!!! Bye!!! xx

Tim, you are a true inspiration

I remembered seeing a technique of Tim's where he blasts a blob of alcohol ink with air from a can - well I had the alcohol inks but no aerosol so what to do??? "Think out of the box" I say so I followed my own rules and found a solution. The kidz have juice to drink in little boxes complete with....yes, a straw....so.....drink the juice and nick the straw!!! easy heh! A bit of glossy card later and hey-ho.....fun!

I had earlier been playing with my Sticky Fingers inks without much success. I had lots of inky pieces of paper but no inspiration of what to do with them.



Then suddenly inspiration struck. This looks like a quiet rural landscape - what if I made the other alcohol ink piece into urban!! Got it!



Heyho! bit of stamping later and two more atc's are made!! The urban jungle houses are coloured with Wet look markers and heat embossed with clear and the atc edges roughed up a bit!! while the rural idyll houses are painted with sticky fingers inks (maple and olive). Add a songbird embellishment and the piece is complete. Voila! very pleased with these two.



Right, ignore the grey sky and the howling wind which I suppose is keeping the rain away - we've had enough rain lately thanks - and get on with making some more art.
Bye then
hugs Sue xx

Another lovely day in Paradise.

I'm Happy. It's definite!!! Yes, my good friend Tanya has booked her flight to come for a week in April and I'm really excited. We get on so well and are on the same wavelength and I am really looking forward to her visit. We'll create, eat chocolate,laugh, shop and then create and eat more chocolate.....have more laughs and then do it all again!!! Bliss!

On the work front I seem to have been busy lately without anything to show for it. When I returned from wedding dress shopping last month I seemed to hit a plateau - ideas didn't work, it almost felt as though my head was empty..... but at last things are starting to come together and so here are a couple of my latest projects.

First off is an album I made. The papers are from the so gorgeous Delish Designs range with Laura Ashley die cut flowers, Crafty Individuals images and Paper Artsy stamps.


















I made this album as a gift for a friend. I wonder who....!!!



















The beautiful double sided papers are from Robin's nest with yet more Crafty Individual pictures and Paper artsy stamps and of course can't forget the Stickles. Gotta have a bit of glitz!!

I've also been working on a scrapbook page or three but not finished yet. Maybe tomorrow. Waiting for dabber to dry on grungeboard before it can be Stickled!! is that a word?? well it is now! ha!ha!

Right I'm off to bed with a mug of hot chocolate - no surprise there - and to start the first of a series of three books I've been lent about life with the Amish seen through the eyes of two sisters. Its called The Covenant by Beverley Lewis. I'll let you know how I get on tomorrow.

Night, night
hugs Sue xx