Rubber Stamping - North Wales

Hi everyone Well! here we are at McDonalds again.  How are you all - I hope you are getting the lovely sunny weather that we are. Now where did I get to? Hmm reading back - not very far.  I don't seem to have said that we spent Sunday doing absolutely nothing, very restful. When I last blogged I think we were just on our way out - so haven't said anything about that day.  We went to a rather nice small town called Lannion - lots of hills though - but some3 really beautiful buildings. Then we took a really nice scenic tour around the coast line.  Some great panoramic views from the cliff tops. Then back to this town where McDonalds is to find our evening meal.  On Tuesday we visited the village of Pont-Aven which is where Paul Gaugin started his school of painting in 1888.  A really beautiful village with a river flowing through - very picturesque. So lots of photos to take.  It was very busy as it is fairly commercial & of course...

Hi Ladies Whoo! we found a Mcdonalds. I am so pleased as it gives me the opportunity to properly say "Thank You" very much for all the birthday cards - they were absolutely gorgeous - just blew me away.  They are displayed all around the lounge area of the gite.  Talking of the gite - it is just heavenly - way out in the country - just the birds to disturb the quiet. Yesterday was really hot - reached 92 degrees (old money) & we did absoloutely nothing.  Well except to make our breakfast then later our dinner. But Saturday - our journey to the gite was very good & took less time than Google maps or Bobs satnav said.  The roads are so good here.  We arrived in our gite about 4:00pm, had a couple of hours quiet then went out for my birthday meal.  The couple who own the gite had booked us into a local restaurant. Now! it looks like these holiday writings will be rather full of superlatives - because the restaurant location was stunning & ...

Good morning everyone! It is just 9:10 am here - which of course is 8:10 am with you. We have just had our breakfast & starting to sort ourselves out for the final part of this journey to start our holiday proper.  Google quotes about 4.5 hours - but we will of course be having a couple of stops - so a bit longer than that. As I am unsure about when I will next be able to talk to you I would like to thank everyone for their cards that I have brought with me - I have in fact not looked at them yet - as I decided I would prefer to look at them when we get to our gite & be able to find somewhere to display them for the length of the holiday.  I can't believe it - I have reached the grand old age of 70!  Or as Bob expressed it in his card - sixty-ten. Where did all those years go?  I am still only thirty something really.  I wish.  No I don't actually - I have enjoyed every stage of my aging process - reaching various age stages has neve...

Well there is one on here for everybody else ................... so Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me It looks like there is probably the right amount of candles too.

Birthday greetings It's 25 June & a Mold member has a birthday Happy Birthday Clare have a lovely day  

Hi there again - it's me Right, we have now moved from Calais to Le Havre & arrived at our overnight hotel about 1:00pm, after a nice leisurely start to the morning. The motorways over here are so much better than at home - sad to say - & the journey was only just under 3 hours, but hardly any traffic.  Getting to Le Havre was not a problem, but actually finding the road that had the entrance to the hotel was a little more difficult.  Bob has sat nav in the car but since his lady was programmed some rights of way have been changed & a second exit off a roundabout was a one-way only in the opposite direction to which we wished to go.  Frustration set in as we could see the hotel but not how to reach it.  Obviously we did find the way in the end & it is also very close to a big shopping centre. So! after booking in & sorting ourselves out we strolled over to the shopping centre - well there was milk to buy again.  Ooh -...

Hi everyone Well we actually arrived at the hotel about 4:15 pm (That's 3:15 pm for you).  We had a good journey down from North Wales - encountering quite a bit of rain, but it is dry here - a little cloudy but reasonably sunny. We are staying just on the edge of Calais, then tomorrow we move on to Le Havre where will be staying on Friday night. Taking it easy for a couple of hours - we have tried to catch our emails but link is slow.  Yet I managed to get onto blogger - strange.  Keeping fingers crossed it doesn't fall apart when I am ready to upload this.  Bob has sorted the TV - so we are also keeping an eye on Wimbledon. We have decided to spend this evening at the hotel - having our evening meal here about 7:15.  We are not heading off too early tomorrow morning as Le Havre is only about 3 hours away.  But it will be nice to have the time to look around as I have not been there before. Well! I am not going to push my luck anymore ...

Hi everyone Just popping in for a quick chat before heading off on holiday. Did manage to make one card yesterday - a sample for a workshop when I return, but will have to show it to you after the holiday, as my camera is packed away. I have a very nicely packed craft bag to take with me - we will definitely be having some lazy time at the gite & that makes sure I have something to do. I hope the weather improves here for all of you & perhaps you will keep your fingers crossed for my weather too. Talk again soon

Good Saturday afternoon ladies Well, I think I am just about getting over the fantastic meal I had last night.  The portions were very generous - most enjoyable -  but somewhat more than I have been eating lately.  So today I am somewhat full. I am popping in today to post the photos of the show & tell from Mold II's meeting last Thursday.  I have, in the past, been having problems with slide shows & have sought some advice as to how to eradicate them. The problems that is, not the slide shows.  For now I am going to put all the photos in separately as I did the ones in yesterday's post. If you want a slightly bigger view just click on the picture & it will open in a different window.  You can even click on it again & increase the size a little bit more.  Just click on the back arrow to return to the post.                      ...

Hi - It's me again This time I am back to show you the photos of  the project from last night.  We made the large window tag card.  Not all the decoration was finished but some had advanced enought to allow me to take photos, But not everyone wanted a photo taken. After I have done this I will have to get ready to go out with Bob for his Company's celebration meal.  So the photos from the Mold Show & Tell will be in a post tomorrow. The rather strange second to last photo was taken so that you could see the easel style support that one lady - Barbara - had put on the back of her tag.  So this tag can have a stand - or it can be adhered to the front of a larger card.  Quite versatile. That's me for today ladies. More photos & chat tomorrow.

Good afternoon ladies I have just finished loading all the photos I took last night & I am going to put them here in 3 posts.  This one will show the couple of items that were brought back last night of the May project, which was the Gatefold card with recessed frame.  There were two brought back & there is a photo of the outside & the inside for each of them. This is the first one and this is the second one

Good evening ladies I have recently returned from the Mold club meeting  - I have taken photos of tonight's show & tell, tonight's project & a couple of the finished projects from last month which the ladies brought back for me to see. Tonight we made the large window tag card & the show & tell was to include newspaper in the card.  I was very impressed with the show & tell results, & will have a slide show of them for you to look at tomorrow.  I am sorry for the delay but if I am tired - which I am at the moment I can easily make mistakes & then I get very frustrated. This particular Thursday in the month (3rd)  I attend a lunch which is connected to another interest that I have, & sometimes I do get a bit tired doing the two things, because the Mold meeting falls on the same Thursday.  But neither of them can be  moved to another date - so as long as I take the rest of the day leisurely I am ok. At the mee...

Good evening ladies Sorry I didn't blog yesterday but it really was a non day. I don't mind burbling sometimes - & actually once I start I do sometimes find something to talk about - but yesterday - No. Today I have been over in Liverpool with Caroline - another day of just chatting with a friend about lots of crafty things. Caroline & I share several interests - other than rubber stamping, because after all it was Caroline who introduced me to the craft.  We both enjoy digital scrap booking & entering challenges amongst other things. So we had a good chat about those things.  I find a visit to her home & going into the room she works in quite inspirational with all her samples around.  It's just remembering the ones I want to try is the difficulty. It was rather a wet day, but for a little while it was fairly sunny so we had a wander around her garden, which was very pleasant.  She does seem to have green fingers. Tomorrow ev...

Good evening ladies Where did I go with Sue today? Well we went to Frodsham to The Lady Heyes Centre to visit Crab Apple Crafts.  We walked in the door & there was Joan & Rachel from Mold club. After a long chat with them we started looking around to see what would catch our attention.  I love all those lovely chipboard items they sell there - books, ribbon boxes, picture frames, drawer units - all waiting to be painted & covered in papers & then put into use.  There was a beautiful advent calendar box.  It was a large square chipboard base & all the bits to make the boxes which were placed around the four edges of the base.  This left a big square in the centre which in their sample had a beautiful Christmas decoupaged picture. I was reminded of the Christmas decoration I made there a few years ago - it's base was 4 small canvases - well I say small about 4" square.  We decorated them with inks & Christmas papers & images....

Good afternoon ladies Goodness me where has the sunshine gone. Well, as I already told you I was attending a workshop yesterday being run by one of the retailers that attends the stamp festival.  It was for the members of HSNW - we have a couple of these a year.  Yesterday the visiting retailer was Jean & Malcolm from Crafty Individuals . We were really spoilt with the projects they had chosen & the materials available to us.  I completed 4 projects in all, as I think did most of the ladies. We started the morning by making a rather nice pendant into which we put one of the little pictures that Crafty Individuals is well known for.  This was a nice easy project to start with but I could have chosen a brighter picture to use, then I would have been able to do more with it. I have stamped in it - a little white butterfly. The resin cover that goes over the picture helps magnify what is beneath it but does stop you putting any deep embellishment ...

Birthday Greetings It's 12 June & a Mold II member has a birthday Happy Birthday Sue have a lovely day

Hi everyone Well, it wasn't a craft day today after all. First thing my printer ran out of black ink & was low on the colours so it was necessary to pop down to Staples in Sealand Road for new ones. Then yesterday when I was out with my neighbour we had looked for something to go on a card she wanted to make for her grandsons graduation - without luck.  So whilst down in Sealand Road, I popped into Hobbycraft for her.  No graduation items there also, but they are selling Promarkers cheaper again - so I bought the shades of grey pack I have been thinking of buying.  They had lots of those plastic storage boxes for sale & I saw an A4 box that contained 17 small boxes - couldn't resist those could I & bought 2.  They mean that I can put all the little bits & pieces in the little boxes leaving them inside the A4 box for storage.  Much easier to store & hopefully easier to find as they will all be in one place.  You know t...

Good evening ladies Well as I said yesterday I was having a day out today. I took my neighbour to Llandudno.  We visited the craft shop & I bought some card for workshops etc & some card for producing templates that will be used. Llancraft have always had the shop next door - but they have now turned it into the Christmas Craft shop.  There are loads of peel offs, decoupage,m stamps, papers, card, brads, stickers.  the only thing they didn't have was  A4 card in red & green - which is something I was looking for.  I want to make an early start on some Christmas ideas - guess I might have to wait a little longer. We didn't stay long & took a slow drive back towards home & stopped off at Tweedmill (just in case I might find something for my holiday) & we had our lunch there.  Talking of holiday - only 14 days to go now. It was a very pleasant day & the rain stayed away as well. Right that is all I have today - should man...

Birthday Greetings It's 9 June & a CSNW member has a birthday Happy Birthday Joyce have a lovely day

Good evening ladies Today I have been concentrating on finishing the samples for PBC workshop on faux layers. The card on the left has been created using the faux torn paper technique, & is a stage on from the blue card shown the other day. This time after creating the faux strip I used a slightly darker colour ink on the edges which highlighted the torn edge, as if the centre core was a darker colour. The flowers had not originally been thought of as an embellishment but when I masked the card to stamp the little flowers down the central strip the masked slipped & I ended up with a portion of the flower on the white card.  I found these little flowers couple of projects ago so decided to use them again & changed their colour with DTP technique.  Although I like clean & simple I wasn't too happy with the amount of white & thought about stamping a greeting.  But then if it had gone wrong as the work was done directly on the base card the project ...

Good evening ladies Just a quick pop in for a chat today - no photos to share - but tomorrow there will be. I spent some more time on samples for my workshops over at PBC this morning, then after lunch I went down to the garden centre to meet up with my festival committee colleagues.  We always have a "debrief" after a festival - check if there are any matters brought to our attention by you the ladies who attend, or in fact from any retailers too.  Plus there are things to do in preparation for the Autumn festival in October.  It's no wonder the year seems to pass by quickly - because the other thing we had to discuss was dates for the festivals in 2012. I also had an email a couple of days ago from a group enquiring if I could do a talk or demonstration on something festive for Christmas.  Christmas 2012 that is - gosh that's another year gone. Here I am thinking about not only Christmas for this year but next as well & I haven't been on holiday yet....

Well it was for me. Good evening ladies. After finishing the sample spotlight cards this afternoon I went on to start on samples for another workshop that is taking place this month.  It is called Faux Layers. Now although I headed this "a new technique - well it was for me" - that is not completely true, as within the clubs we have done a form of faux layering when we used acetate templates to build layers around a central image.  I will be covering that technique as well & will have to prepare some samples in that style.  But today I started on the faux layers which could also fall under the heading Faux Backgrounds, & completed the first sample card. Despite the colour in the photograph the base card is white.  The faux layer or background is the blue section to the left. It is achieved by tearing a strip of copier paper in a random style & placing it on the right hand side of the card leaving part of the left hand side to the fold...

Hello ladies Ooh, I have had a good day today making cards. I started by returning to the technique called Spotlight which we have done at our club evenings.  But it is new to my workshops down at Purple Butterfly Crafts.  I say new I did have one workshop a few weeks back, only I didn't have any new samples, so I thought I would buckle down & create some. I made three cards all with the same image but created a different spotlight on each.  Then I created a fourth one treating the spotlight in a totally new way - well new to me.  Here are the photos; This one is what I would call the traditional spotlight technique. The image has been stamped in black archival ink, then part stamped again - just the large flower head. The flower head is then coloured, cut out in a circle & placed in the correct place over the top of the black & white image. In this second card I reversed the spotlight technique by colouring the whole image...

Birthday Greetings It's June 6 & a CSNW member gas a birthday Happy Birthday Gwen Have a lovely day 

Hi everyone Well, I did get a card made this afternoon.  I nipped upstairs while Bob & Gareth were watching the rugby.  It's a card for a challenge at CD Sunday, where the theme was scallops. I nearly didn't make it as the challenge closes tonight in time for a new one tomorrow.  All week I had been saying to myself I should get on & make it, but this lethargy just got in the way. Here is the card; The shapes were cut with some new dies I have which I bought from Purple Butterfly Crafts & I can't remember the make.  They aren't Nestabilities., I cut the base card with the largest of the dies & then cut the layers with each of the smaller dies. The papers, borders, little flower & main image were all off a My Craft Studio set of CD's. I just can't get over how realistic the roses look in the main image.  I haven't done any decoupage - it is just a flat image.  It shows how good the photography is.  That is - t...

Hi everyone My day today still isn't right - still feel grumpy & can't make my mind up about anything. Still I managed to get the tutorial up & running, although that drove me mad when the computer played up. Then a short while ago I had a really nice surprise - yes, one of my challenge entries has won me a prize - the entry was for the "Alter" challenge over at "Crafts 4 Eternity". If you want to look again it is HERE .  My prize is to choose 3 digi stamps & I found some really nice ones to have. I haven't done any actual crafting today, I am hoping to do some tomorrow.  I spent some time this afternoon looking on the Internet around the area in Brittany where we are going for our holiday to see what I might want to visit. Looks like there are going to be some beautiful village, river & canal scenes for me to photograph. With this lovely weather today I also pulled out all my summer tops & cotton jeans to wash & get rea...

Hi everyone I have just added the tutorial I mentioned yesterday to my personal blog. It wasn't as straight forward as I thought - although I am still learning how to do these things.  As I mentioned - yesterday I think - I did the notes in Word which I then put into Blogger, adding the pictures after.  It was rather slow & frustrating & kept doing things a different way to what I required.  When I tried to move photos they went to a different area than the one I was trying to put them.  But I got there in the end.  On that basis as I don't think I can just copy it from one blog to the other & also I can't go through the recreation again - I would end up throwing computer through window, perhaps you wouldn't mind popping over to my blog to look at it.  Clicking HERE will take you directly to the tutorial. It is quite long - but there was no way I could abbreviate it any more. Please feel free to leave any comments at the end of this...

Good evening everyone Hasn't it been a lovely day?  It also promises to be warmer tomorrow - just need that breeze to drop, or at least the wind to a breeze. I mentioned last night that CSNW was a small gathering last night so only a few photos, in which case I am not doing a slide show place them here one by one. The photos are from their show & tell where the challenge was to include newspaper in the design. I tried to get any text to wrap around the photos but once again the computer dug it's feet in & did things they way IT wanted to do them not the way I wanted to do them. Anyway the photos are nice & clear. Perhaps it is just me as I have had one of those days.  My workshop went well, but afterwards I just felt odd - a bit grumpy, unsettled, lethargic.  So perhaps my head wasn't in the right place for this. Although I am sure I wasn't doing anything different.  Aah - I did.  I pulled all the photos in together where as I normally pull ...