Rubber Stamping - North Wales

Good morning everyone. This morning I decided that I really should complete one of those zentangle card samples. They are being made using peel-offs as the main image - so in order to have a play I stuck the image on card & scanned it to use.  This left the peel-off image for when I had made up my mind exactly what I would do. I completed two images trying out different designs & then decided on the ones I wanted to use. Here is the finished card, along with 2 closeups using the silver peel-off image; I have another image to work with - a gold image.  Because I work, at the moment mainly in black ink, I think the silver peel-off is going to look better than gold - but we will see. I am going to take one of the practice images I have & add some colour using distress inks to see what difference that will make.  So watch this space. I am off shortly for my crochet workshop I have this afternoon - need to leave a little earlier than usual as I must visi

Hello everyone - it has been a really nice day hasn't it?  Although I think things are about to change this evening - mind you I forget that it is getting dark earlier - so it may not actually be preparing for rain. This afternoon I finished off the remaining fabric square cards I was working on in order to use up my found items.  Here they are - I am afraid no stamping was done on these - I used peel-offs - I know, naughty naughty.  Never mind I have some stamping lined up for tomorrow.  Although I have a workshop in the afternoon so not sure how far I will get with them. Here are the cards; Very much clean & simple designs. I also started working on some Zentangle samples for a workshop I am doing in November - will show you those tomorrow. Have a good evening.

Good evening everyone First things first - I received quite a lot of response to where the piano keyboard stamp came from that was featured in quite a lot of the music ATC's. You all pointed me in the direction of Kanban & where to obtain a set.  In the meantime - Rita of Mold II club - bless her has sent me her set to do some stamping with - so thank you Rita - I will make good use of the set until I have to return it to you. I think in an earlier post I mentioned about watching a DVD by Ali Reeve of Stamps away - well today another of her DVD's that I had ordered arrived - this one mainly to do with the things you can do with masks.  I spent a very nice part of afternoon watching the DVD & making notes of which techniques I want to try. Some of the things she suggests you do may be obvious - but I quite often need that kick start. Once the domestic duties of today were covered I sat down & started to organise a Zentangle course.  I have been asked to do one

Good evening everyone Well we seem to have got off quite lightly today with the weather.  If you have friends &/or family caught up in this bad weather further south I hope that they are all safe & well. Yesterday we popped over to the village Bob grew up in to put flowers on his mum & dad's grave as it was his mum's birthday in the week.  Then we popped to see one of his brothers to see how he was as he has been poorly & finally met up with some friends who live in Stafford area - for a nice meal & a chat.  A very pleasant day. Today - I helped Nadine take her cat to the vet for her jabs & then we took a trip over to M&S at Cheshire Oaks for a bit of a window shop.  Very pleasant couple of hours. It would appear my workshops scheduled for tomorrow & Wednesday are not taking place - so I had better make good use of the gained time - by making more Christmas cards.  Ah well - good things can't go on for ever can they! That's me f

............. amazed & speechless. When we first moved into our new home we had a couple of houseplants that we weren't sure where they would go.  One was a rather large umbrella plant & the other 2 were cactus.  These cactus never really knew which season they belonged to as they would often flower both Christmas & Easter. Anyway - when we first got to the house I put them on the step on the patio just outside the patio doors.  That is where they have stayed.  The umbrella plant has been blown over a couple of times (so I am going to have to keep an eye on it this weekend) - but survived.  A couple of days ago I was looking out at the garden through the patio doors & spotted ......................... .... can you see the little splash of [pink? You can see by their leaves they are a little bit tired - but that doesn't stop them producing those amazing flowers.  Like I said - nature is amazing! I know this post isn't about rubber stamping

Clocks go back an hour tonight! Enjoy the extra hours sleep - if you can.

Good morning everyone - I had intended to write some more last night, but after writing yesterday, along with workshop notes etc, I ended up with another migraine.  So as I was due to do a crochet workshop I went for a short lay down in the hope it would go away.  It's amazing what a darkened room will do for migraine.  My head wasn't aching - it was those blessed flashing lights. Anyway! the lay down cured it more or less & at least I felt OK to go & do my workshop.  It did leave me with a bit of a heavy head - if you know what I mean, so during the evening I just chilled out & watched TV.  I really must go & see the Doctor about them - or even the optician.  But I only had new glasses earlier this year. So! this morning I felt a bit brighter, although my eyes feel like I haven't slept in ages - really strange.  But enough of me - or at least my moans. This morning I returned to my fabric square finds that had been glued to card & trimmed, & l

Hi everyone Whilst taking a break from sorting my things for this afternoon's workshop (crochet) & working on the "fabric squares" cards I thought I would do a quick blog. Over the last couple of months I have been recording various programmes off of C&C - in particular those of Ali Reeve of Stamps Away.  As she has so many great & sometimes weird demos I watched & then marked them to keep.  Yesterday afternoon I went back to them watched them at fast forward speed to avoid the sales pitch & just concentrate on the demo's.  Whilst Ali was creating I was madly making notes.  Also as a member of C&C every so often they have a gift for you, all you have to do is pay the P&P.  The latest one was one of Ali's DVDs - so I sent for it. Lot's of great stuff & I will try to incorporate some of the things in our meetings. Just stepping aside for a moment - I have been given quite a few ideas for club meetings - still need a little mo

Yes it is me back again. I have been sent today a photo of a card made by Annette of Mold II that is featured in the latest issue of Papercraft Essentials.  Here it is Well done again Annette - keep up the good work. Don't forget ladies if you have successes then let me know about them so everyone else can hear about them.  I have now stopped my subscriptions to the papercraft magazines with the exception of Craft Stamper - so I need you to let me know if you are featured. Really off to bed now - night night

Good evening everyone Well here I am as promised with the photos from the Mold II meeting last night & the first ones are of their Show & tell which was an ATC with a music theme.  As I said last night we were a small group - only 7 ladies attended, so obviously there weren't so many Show & Tell samples either. Here they are; Here we have a set of 3 - which is the number of ATC's traditionally made together. As the colours are quite pale I have made the photo a little larger. A lovely violinist image. A great take on different musical moods. Another lovely trio of ATC's - this time with a festive theme. I don't believe it - that piano keyboard again. Now I know where it comes from I really must try & see if it still exists. Another festive ATC - "Dashing through the Snow..."  a lovely idea. I love these Show & Tell sessions as there is no end to the creativity of everyone with one theme - so ma

Hi everyone I have been in about half-hour after the Mold II meeting this evening, which was quite small - as several people were unable to make it.  It was a shame as they missed a really interesting demonstration from Caroline. The ladies that were there seemed to enjoy the demonstration & had time to have a play as well. I have some photos from the meeting which I will put here tomorrow, along with the photos of their Show & Tell, Hope you have had a good evening - more tomorrow - night night.

Good morning everyone & a bit of a grey one it is. I had a good meeting at HSNW last night & the ladies enjoyed learning about the grid background that we did some months ago - this one;- Some of the ladies came up with some deviations (I am sure that is the wrong word - but brain still dead from late night) - but I don't take photos there so cannot show you.  I might reproduce some of them later & put my photos here. Having dug out all my cards that have accumulated over several months & sorted them into types, plus sorting out those that need inserts - my spare bed looks like this -  Just before sitting down to write this blog post I packed them all into a box - because I have made myself a promise that the spare bed will NOT be used as storage.  Doing OK so far - but it is early days   :) When I have finished this blog post I am going to cut up the fabric squares that are now nicely stuck to card - then decide how I am going to use

It is 22 October & a CSNW member has a special birthday Happy birthday Gwenda - have a fabulous day

Good afternoon - not a good start to the day, but now we have lovely sunshine.  You just can't win with the washing can you! Over the last year, & especially whilst doing these various challenges I have accumulated quite a collection of cards.  Most of them were supposed to have gone to a coffee morning for one of my groups, earlier this year.  But it coincided with the wedding, so I didn't have time to sort them out. That has been my task today - so my nice new spare bed is currently covered in packs of cards, labelled as to what sort they are & also sheets of card toppers. The toppers are fabric ones.  I had a "thing" a while ago about those fabric lengths you can buy that are all different squares.  You know similar to what Pinflair have on C&C sometimes, except I bought mine at Voirrey or Lady Heyes. Whilst I do have a nice large craft room & lots of room for stash - I really do need to use a lot of it - not just keep it in boxes.  I said th

Hello everyone - I hope you are having a good weekend. Today I made time to do some stamping.  A couple of cards to show that I am going to be showing to HSNW ladies - the grid background design that we covered earlier this year (or was it last year!!!) Here are the 2 cards I made - although the butterfly one I did start a couple of weeks ago. Two completely different finishes.  The black & cream one has a 3-d flower in the corner.  I cut the corner of the background sheet away & stamped the flower image 3 times, cut it out then mounted them on top of each other. I also took a little time to make a card for this weeks CD Sunday challenge. If you want to read more about the cards - the background ones are on my rubber stamping blog & the fox one is on my digital blog. Enjoy the rest of the weekend.  'Bye for now.

Good evening I though I would just pop back in with a couple of things. I have been talking about crochet & the fact that I am making a baby cardigan for a friend - well here is a photo of the body part - I am now working on the sleeves - one is done & I am part way through the second one. Then over on my stamp blog this afternoon I also joined in a challenge on the Less is More blog. The theme was trees - so I used the lovely little folded tree that Joann from Mold club showed us last year. Want to read the detail about the card - then pop over to my stamp blog - I have had a couple of nice comments on it. 'Bye for now.    

Hi I am back again In the previous post about Mold Show & Tell I raised a question about the curved piano stamp on one of the ATC's that I had also seen used somewhere else. This evening I had an email from Rhiannon whose ATC it was & she said -   "You asked if the curved piano stamped on my ATC was a stamp, it is,on the same sheet is some music, a treble clef, some notes & another stamp which looks like stems & some flowers.  I bought them a long time ago from Q V C, they were the T S V ( today's special value) & my goodness they were too because there was 10 sets of stamps  + a box of different die cut cards in black white & silver in different shapes & sizes, & I didn't pay a lot for them, cos if I had to  buy the sets of stamps individual I have seen them priced at £5-50, I think I paid £ 22-00 for them & the box of die cut cards. BARGAIN.   Oops the stamps are Kanban   Love Rhiannon" Another message I r

Hello everyone - what a grey damp day! The first set of photos on this post are of Mold's Show & Tell last night - which was an ATC with a music theme.  Here they are; A really pretty piece of decoupage & I love the sheet pf music & the keyboard peeking out from behind. A great take on the theme - I particularly like the musical terms that have been cut out & placed around the ATC, also the little musical charms. Ah, more musical charms. I keep seeing that swirly keyboard image.  Is it a stamp, & if so, whose is it.  I want one.  (PS _ by "whose is it" - I mean the stamp retailer). There's those musical charms again.  This time the little piano has been treated either with promarkers or alcohol ink.  It just shows you how quick the glimpse is when I am taking these photos - because it was only when I was editing this one that I spotted the zentangle on the side of the grand piano. This ATC would make a great top