Stitches & hearts

Hi bloggers!, yet another busy week seems to have passed me by  in a bit of a blur. 

Today Mum & I visited the Stitches trade fair at the NEC in Birmingham to order nice new crafty goodies for the shop.

I've come away with lots of inspirational ideas, just can't wait for the orders we placed to arrive so I can have a play.

Our favourite stands this year were Creative Expressions, so many new products were showcased on their stand today we just didn't know where to begin!.

 Woodware, always such fab card samples on display. 

 Paperartsy, lots of lovely conversation & gorgeous design displays.

 Indigoblu where we watched lots of lovely Ice Resin creations taking shape by Nikki

 & Sizzix whose samples were great & we loved the retro 1950's range. 

Really wanted to share this cute tree of owls on the Sizzix stand.

The pink owl, bottom left actually had fluttery eyelashes! So cute. 

This huge wooden owl was on display at the entrance to the hall. I know a few people who would love this in their garden! 

Isn't he great?.

Just had to take a picture of this amazing creation, everything has been knitted! & that cute little pup reminds me of my sister's collie dog.

We also held another workshop for Out Of The Blue this week. As it was the day before Valentines we decided to do a heart/lovebird theme. 

Everyone really enjoyed making something other than a card this week & went home with a sweet gift for a loved one.

Here's another one of the designs I made as a sample to inspire them.

Hope you like it.

 Quite a few of the ladies were rather taken with this Heartfelt Creations stamp, I love it & am sure we will find lots of uses for it in future workshops.

This time I stamped & layered the flowers in Festive Berries distress ink. 

 Also loving that black Distress Glitter!

That's it for tonight, off to bed now as I'm back up at Stitches again tomorrow with Carole, here's hoping we don't have any car problems this year! 

See you soon! 

X 

Pretty little heart

Hi everyone,
Today I am showing you a little creation I made as a sample for this weeks 'Out Of The Blue' workshop.

We thought we'd do something other than a card & decided on some decorated MDF shapes in the form of birds & hearts. A bit of a valentines theme?.

I've made a few of each shape & here's one example

The MDF blank was primed & then painted with Adirondack lights pink sherbet acrylic paint. I then stamped a script stamp  with a butterfly in the design in clear embossing ink & heat embossed with white embossing powder. I used the same stamp & embossing powder on lilac card & cut the butterflies out. I shaped them & stuck them to the heart & added pearl gems & lilac coloured craft wire for the bodies & antennae. The same craft wire was used to make a hanging loop & a pendant at the bottom to which beads were added.



I also added a strip of white cotton lace across the heart to finish.

I made a few others of different styles & techniques.
 Our group can choose what techniques they want to use on theirs based on the examples Carole & I have to show them.

I really enjoyed making this little heart, a pretty hanging gift, tag for a wine bottle or maybe a tag for a wedding gift?.

Thanks for visiting

Amy x 

Second Zentangle inspired workshop

Hi bloggers, well this week just seems to have absolutely flown by.

 We've been to the Spring Fair at the NEC ordering lots of lovely new gifty things for the shop which is completely exhausting as it involves miles of walking with so much to look at & allow your brain to process with lots of decision making involved. I feel like I need a holiday! But, having said that I do enjoy catching up with reps & meeting the owners of the companies we deal with. Its also a great way to see what new trends will be emerging.

Anyway, as promised here are the pictures I took of some of the cards created by my group at our last workshop using Dreamweaver stencils & Zentangle.
Our second set of crafters really enjoyed this workshop & several have been back into the shop to buy more stencils, pens & other bits & pieces to create more cards at home.

This card was made using a black peel off sticker which was cut around & mat & layered. A lacey die cut edge was added along with stripy ribbon & an introduction of red with the stencilled 'valentine' & hearts.
We always say all materials needed are provided but if anyone wants to bring anything along they are more than welcome. Well, the lady who made this card brought along a box full of fabulous dies, I was very jealous! They were all beautifully stored too, something I definitely need to work on.

I also had a few new ladies in my group who had never attended one of our workshops before & had not really done much card making.  I think they did a fine job & I'm pleased to say they have booked onto future workshops.

A couple of ladies decided to make Valentine's cards with a bit of red & white on black zentangle too. 

Well, that's going to be it on the Zentangle subject for a while! We are working on our project for this Thursdays workshop using MDF shapes rather than card making. 

Hope you all have a lovely crafty weekend, I think I need to catch up on some sleep!

Amy x 

Heart with Flowers

Another quick post today as I am off to work in the shop this afternoon & then it's straight out again to teach our next workshop featuring Zentangle & dreamweaver stencils (see previous posts).

Tonight is our second Zentangle workshop & I'm intrigued to see how tonight's group get on in comparison to our first which was on the 16th.

 Hopefully I'll remember to take some photos so I can show you.

 

 

I wanted to show you something heart related today as we are fast approaching Valentine's day, although my heart isn't red or pink.

 The shop deliveries of Valentine's cards & gifts have long been arriving & are on the shelves so I thought I'd make a few heart shaped crafty items, more of which I will post at a later date.

 

I've also been working a lot with flower stamps & dies lately so flowers had to feature in my project too.

 My daughter's name is Daisy so I always seem drawn to flowers!

 

 

I used an MDF heart from Indigoblu, primed & then painted with a pale yellow acrylic paint.

I then used a Creative Expressions mask & spread texture paste through it onto the heart.

When dry I then decided to paint over the top with the same pale yellow.

 Distress inks in mustard yellow & brushed corduroy & then bronze gilding wax were blended over the surface.

The flower stamp is from Woodware & I stamped all 3 sizes several times in sepia archival ink, cut them out, added the same distress inks & layered them up, shaping the petals to add dimension.

I then added the swirls with gold pearlised pva from Creative Expressions & flat backed pearls in the centres of the flowers. Don't look too closely, the glue is still wet!

 

 

 

The sentiment is also a stamp from Woodware which I stamped in sepia & tore around the edges & distress inked. The final touch was the gold organza ribbon to hang.

 

All these products are available to buy in my shop Out Of The Blue.

 I really enjoy creating these projects to show you & our customers what they can make using them.

 

I hope you like my project, any comments are much appreciated.

 

See you soon

 

Amy x



Mr Zentangle Owl

Morning everyone. Hope you've all had a good week & have lots of crafty plans for the weekend?. I'm hoping to have a day of crafting tomorrow & I've gathered a nice stash of crafty goodies from the shop to try & come up with some new projects for future workshops.

My card today is another Zentangle card as we have another workshop this Thursday using the Dreamweaver stencils for Zentangle.

This particular owl stencil proved to be very popular with our group last week, not surprised really, as owls still continue to be a very popular theme in both our craft & gift sections of the shop.

 

 

This was actually my first attempt at Zentangle & I quite liked the result.

Once I'd finished the owl I simply mat & layered him onto black & white card stock & patterned paper. I die cut some flowers & layered them up, punched a strip of white card with a Martha Stewart border punch, stamped the sentiment from Indigoblu & edged the black card with white pearl cosmic shimmer pva. I also added some faux stitching .

 

One of my New Year's resolutions was to enter more blog challenges, so I'm going to enter this card in 2 today.

 The first is Country View Challenges where the theme is Monochromatic

& the second is Crafty Cardmakers and more where the theme is Black & White & you can win goodies from Woodware.

Pop over & take a look, there's some fab projects on both.

 

That's it from me today, I'm off to work in the shop.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend.

See you soon

 

Amy x

 

Celtic Knot

Morning everyone, just a quick post today as I have a busy day ahead.

 After a lovely relaxed day off yesterday spent wandering around Bath with my friend Julie & our two little girls, my day today in contrast will mainly involve appointments with reps in the shop ordering new lines & then this evening we are off to a 'show' to order our Christmas cards for this year!

I probably won't get in much before 9 this evening so as I'm back in blog mode at the moment I wanted to write this post before I head off to the shop for the day.

 

My card today is a black & white simple card that I made as a sample for our Zentangle workshop last Thursday (see previous post). It was very quick to make using a Celtic knot metal stencil from |Dreamweaver.

 

 

Once the stencil had been outlined with a fine liner, it was very quick to fill in as the spaces between each part of the knot as they were only small.

The sentiment is a Woodware stamp & the black card was punched with a Tonic Celtic border punch

I also doodled around another piece of white card to mat the main design onto & added some faux black stitching & some black gems.

 

Hope you like it?

Thanks for visiting

 

Amy x

Out Of The Blue Zentangle Workshop 16th January 2014

Well, it's been quite a while since my last post!

 Things all went a bit mad as they usually do in the run up to Christmas.

 It's our busiest time of the year in the shop & there is non stop display rearranging, ordering, unpacking & pricing to be done.

 Mix that with Christmas shopping evenings, Christmas craft workshops to teach, celebrating special birthdays & trying to get my own Christmas shopping done & I was definitely ready for a nice few days over Christmas to sit down & put my feet up!.

 I had several Christmas creations photographed & ready to write posts for but just never got the chance, but never mind, they will just have to keep for this Christmas!.

That all now seems like yonks ago & we are already now mid way into January!. It really is a month that drags, but for me it normally chugs along quite nicely as we attend trade fairs for the shop & begin ordering lots of new goodies.

 Plus it marks the start of our 2014 workshops for Out Of the Blue, the first of which was last night.

We decided to ease into the New Year with a zentangle project for our ladies. It's really quite addictive once you start & I managed to get quite a few images prepared while I sat watching tv which was a great way to get my non Christmas mojo back. I'll save those for future posts.

 

Some of our ladies were a bit worried about where to begin but we used dreamweaver stencils & woodware peel off stickers as a starting point & once they got started they were well away!.

 I don't think our craft room has ever been so quiet!, everyone was zoned out & concentrating on their tangles!.

 

 Here's a few pics of their creations

 

 

 

We concentrated on monochrome & added touches of colour with ribbons & gems & everyone loved it.

 

 

 

 

 I think our ladies will be looking at their stash of dies, stencils, punches, masks & stamps differently now to see how they can zentangle with them.

 

 

 

 

 

Well, sorry for such a lengthy post, but I did have a bit of catching up to do.

I'd just like to end by welcoming my newest follower Viera, thanks for choosing to follow my creations it's nice to have you & very exciting to add you to my small list of followers!

 

See you soon

 

Amy x

 

P.S  I'll be stopping by your blogs & commenting again soon!