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

feeling sorry for myself...and it's all Colin's fault!!!

Not really but he had the cold first!!!
I made this jigsaw piece to teach lots of techniques to the ladies. It involves using three different types of inkpad, some stamping both with ink and paint, triple embossing, shrink plastic - loads of laughs and oohs and aaahs there - and a sprinkling of accent beads. Went down a treat... and here are yesterday morning ladies showing their jigsaw pieces - I managed to get through the class OK somehow as I have a really bad cold - closed the shop an hour early today though as I felt so rotten...so sorry girls forgot to take photos of the lovely work you did today... Here's my lovely Wednesday girls , Arlette, Alice and Celine showing the Christmas tags they made...

and here's the Monday girls...Sienna, Liza, Ana, Dayana.Daniella, Ciara and Lauren...

As I said earlier I have a really bad cold, shivering, head pounding, teeth aching - going back to bed so

Bye for now

Sue

An inky weekend...

This sums up the weekend I have just had. Inky fingers = joy at crafting and pure pleasure atthe wonderful company. One of my ladies Barbara, brought three of her friends from the UK to Spain for a weekend of crafting. She left the choice of projects to me but stressed they must be small and light as they were only bringing hand luggage. I chose to teach them a mini Ranger U - lots of techniques which they then made into a tag book, four Christmas tags - see blog post of last Tuesday - a sprayed and spritzed album for their weekend's photos and also a sprayed one page book. Whew! I work them hard but they must have enjoyed it as they are all talking of returning for another weekend next March.

They blended and diecut....and sprayed and rolled.....

and laughed..... Let's have a group photo before you go...

The lovely Liverpudlian, Barbara has had extensive dental work and is unable to smile at the moment - its a great shame as she is such a laugh.....Joy showing all the projects she made......Jen looking oh so pleased with herself.....

and last but certainly not least young Gina.....a relatively newbie to crafting but who shone with her inspired ideas... Right, my feet are screaming so I am off to soak them and then slouch in front of X-factor
so Bye for now

Sue

12 tags of Christmas - a little early...

With my Christmas themed open day in mind I made my twelve tags of Christmas a little early this year...so here are four to start off with - more later in the week.....
This tag has been spritzed and flicked, stamped and the flower altered..... and this tag has been textured and the lovely rosette added.....this has Dabber, Distress Ink and a bit of die-cutting...

and this one has the flower and book plate made with Alcohol ink and acetate - from where is a secret!!! along with masking.....

so that's it for today...

Bye for now

Sue

A bit of recycling

Becky's Mum displayed a poster for Javea Rugby Club annual ball in the shop and as I was taking it down I thought what beautiful card it was and decided to recycle it into tags so yesterday invited Becky to join me. ..
left -my tags and centre - Becky's tags and Becky hard at work. She is an avid crafter, excellent at school and a thoroughly lovely girl.
Bye for now

Sue

Techniques on tags

This is the tag that we made yesterday morning in class when 10 ladies turned up to play. Loads of lovely Ranger techniques - a mini Ranger U. I started off by showing them quite a few techniques on three tags and then when they were familiar with wrinkling, ironing (nuff said there!!!)...batik-ing, spritzing and flicking and distressing edges I showed them how to put them altogether in one tag. Jean proudly showing her finished tag... Jean, Karen, Bea, Jane, Lorraine, Christine and Pat... Jane, Karen, Lin, Bea and Jean using the Big Shot to die cut their flowers... Lin, Mu, Margaret and Pat hard at work...Right I am off to bed now - lie in tomorrow Yay!!!

Bye for now

Sue

3rd week of SSSS challenge

For those of who who do not know what the SSSS challenge is I suggest you visit simonsaysstampandshow.blogspot.com and see for yourself - it's a newish challenge blog just overflowing with great ideas and artwork. It's a site for people who love Tim Holtz, Wendy Vecchi, 7 Gypsies and Graphic 45 and all things vintage. Each week a challenge is issued and anyone can put a photo of their artwork on there and each week some lucky people win prizes - this is my way of doing something for myself. I make so many things to demonstrate techniques for my classes I need an outlet just for me to be me and this suits me down to the ground.

The theme this week is Anything Tim Holtz inspired - and I remembered he made a quilt out of grungepaper so thought I would try to use that as my inspiration. This started out as a 4 x 4 book cover - I had too many images and ideas so I then decided to use the 7.5 x 5 Bind-It-All covers and ended up with the 8 x 8 ones!!

This is the back and front cover unbound as I haven't yet decided what to do with the inside pages. I made the tag to go on the inside front but liked it so much I decided it would be good on the back cover instead. The tag has been inked with Distress Inks over Tim's mask, stamped, the edges distressed and some alterations attached and ribbons added.

On the front cover the grungeboard heart has been crackle painted and distressed over, the grungeboard wings have been Dabbered and sewn with wire, there is some stamping with Tim's stamps and some texturing with Tim's texture fade dies, the top right corner is a fragment glossy accented over stamping, the 13 was textured faded, distress inked with glossy accents over, the FLY letters were cut with a Tim Sizzix die called Vintage market alphabet I think, I added some paper clips to hold the typewriter key letters and a few staples and the rest has papers from Tim's paper stack and some embellishments from- yes you've guessed it , the man himself Tim.

I was a little panicky at first as I thought I was very low on Tim's bits and bobs but I needn't have worried - I had plenty.

Thanks for looking and have a go yourself - its good fun

Bye for now

Sue

ps just looked at the blog and think I might put some cinammon stickles on the crown tomorrow.

Yes, I'm back!

this is a pps. at the beginning haha!! Blogger is not playing the game and I can't seem to move pictures or text!!! what IS going on!!!


my 365 day challenge for May and June - sorry Kate but April got lost about 3/4 way through.

Yes, I'm back.

It has been a bumpy few weeks but we have survived the move and are almost there. Just the air con to have fitted (hopefully next Wednesday) and then that's all the major things done. We have probably made a few mistakes along the way but heyho! what's done is done and we will just have to live with it.

The work above is mine - gasp - yes at long last I have made something. What started out as a front cover for the Ranger techniques I have been demoing on tags changed when I realised I had fastened the flower through the hole for the book ring - out of practice is my only excuse!!!Lol!...so I coloured and stamped some card and glued the tag on and I think it looks OK.

I had an amazing class today. 8 ladies came and we distressed, we diecut, we stamped, we embossed, we drank coffee, we ate ginger biscuits and generally had a fabuloso time. I managed to remember to photograph a few of the ladies work before they left ...

all different but all very beautiful - just like the ladies themselves...a few photos of the girls and their projects... It is sooo hot here at the moment - around 30 degrees and not even a little breeze to help - so from a very sticky me I'll just say

Bye for now

Sue

ps won't leave it so long before I'm back

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