ATC's and getting ready for Artisan

Well it's been a very busy couple of days up in here in my studio ... piles of alcohol inks being sorted out :

and piles of distress inks ....

and some of the ATC's that I've been busy making ready to trade at Artisan ...

I'll try & get some pictures from Artisan to share with you soon x

Woyww ... A pile of Mess

Well I've got to admit things are in a mess, I'm busy sorting out workshops for the Artisan show, I'm doing alcohol ink techniques on Friday & Distress ink techniques on Saturday ...Got a stack of leaflets on my desk about the workshops to take there, and some pre-painted grunge shapes too. Really looking forward to it, and there will be plenty of time for shopping & trading some ATC's too ... As well of course as helping out when needed on Artist Trading Posts stand... Mums going with us Friday and my daughter is going with us on Saturday so should be a lot of fun !
Anyone on here going ?

& if anyone wonders why I'm sharing my mess with you pop over to see Julia

Mini Book Workshop

Well I think a lovely time was had by all, I certainly enjoyed myself with a smashing group of ladies :D
We made 4 different mini books today with some fabby results :D
Here they are at work :


Looking forward to seeing some of them at Artisan next week too ! Are any of you going to be there ?

WOYWW & other stories ...

Good morning all you WOYWW'ers ..if your not a woyww'er, you've obviously not been to Stamping Ground hosted by the lovely Julia.
I admit I'm cheating today & am actually writing this last night lol ..if that makes sense :D I find there's often enough happening here, trying to get 3 kids off to school so this is one job I can do when it's a little less frantic lol !
So on my workdesk today is a pile of Mini books, ready for the mini book workshop on Friday ... some still need some tarting up but I'm getting there !
There's also a small art journal, pages painted up ready for the next layer .. other than that it's probably the same as last weeks lol, I've not really tidied up since then !
I'll visit as many of you as I can when I get back from the school run & dog walk, over a nice cup of coffee and some toast, let me know if you want some too ...
thanks for visiting me today x

50th Birthday card

I mentioned last week that I'd made as requested by the teachers a card for one of the TA's at school for her 50th birthday, but I couldn't show it to you incase she saw it lol .. so today I thought I'd share it with you ...

I had a piece of Bronze coloured card from the school to use as my base as they wanted it to be a large card from them all, So I used my Tim Holtz Sizzix dies, the flower & the birdcage, I distress inked some card for the flower and mixed it with the bronze card and some of Tims lovely papers, I used buttons for the centres of the flowers and added some beaded trim to the bottom of the birdcaqe. I used a bundle of real twigs for the flower stems, bound together with some wire, and a strip of 7 Gypsies gaffer tape along the bottom.
The background was created with distress inks (that makes for a change then lol)and some paper artsy stamps.
Basically I just had real creative fun playing with it :D
Thanks for stopping by x

Mini Paper your Nuts class :o)

Well it says it all in the title lol .. a paper your nuts mini class :D
This is something that myself & Linda Elbourne saw in America when we went to Ranger U together, they were in the craft store Micheals & were quite expensive so me & Linda decided they were something that we could definately reproduce at very little expense back home!

So start off by either going to your local hardware store (or your other halfs garden shed or garage .. wherever he keeps his stash lol) and grab yourself a handful of these babies :o)


Then you need to tear up some bits of an old book, or some newspaper. (really small pieces are good here)



Using glossy accents randomly stick on the pieces of paper to the nuts


Then using some distress ink (I used walnut stain) rub a little onto the paper using some cut'n'dry foam & voila you should have some papered nuts :D .. excellent embellishments for book rings or as charms on the ends of fibre ... on a blokey card on a wire .. anything, anywhere .. hope you have fun :D (you can also do this to metal washers too)

WOYWW

Having had a bit of a break from blogs etc over the summer I am now back with vengeance lol, I have 'pimped my blog' with new buttons for online mini classes, Workshops and a gallery ... I've updated my links tab and dusted down my keyboard in the process :D .. I've finally swapped my Apple Mac computer which I couldn't get on with for a PC with a huge memory etc that works really quickly and has made my life soooo much easier :D
On my WOYWW today you will be able to spy an Art Journal amongst other things, that's because I succumbed to some more of Dyan's collage sheets and they're so lovely I can't resist playing with them :D
I'll post a picture of the page when it's completed ...
There's also a pile of metal embellishments, some 7 gypsies Industrial Gears which just fell into my hands last time I went shopping at Jamies Artist Trading Post lol :D some paperartsy stamps that I love and well a whole array of everything else in between too !
If you wonder why I'm sharing this information with you, you obviously don't know what WOYWW is .. well pop over to Julia's to find out :D x

It's all starting to take shape !

Finally ! I have worked out how to make buttons that link to my workshops, my gallery and my online mini classes, next is to set up my Etsy shop, and add more images to the gallery , but this is at least more than a start .. Hurrah !
Here is a sneaky peek at something that is soon to come :

This is one of the projects I've done for Etsy, though I have also done a couple of Mini Classes for the blog from it too, so look out for those !
I've done a card for the school, but I daren't show it to you just yet as it's not the persons birthday until Thursday, so I'd better wait & show you later in the week :o)