hi
This week I have been trying to do more examples for the all day creative stamping - Fab 50's workshop and some more with the Gemini (border) dies from creative expressions.Both workshops are on for the first time this week , to be repeated later (see website for details)

Fab 50's are as shown - using different products with our stamping.

I have tried to show that the Gemini dies can be used with lots of other techniques. I have used them here with dies, stencils and some stamps - more of those to follow. (The Poppy is a new stamp from Woodware)

and then before this last week's workshop I managed to do a few more cards  with the striplets which I showed last week

Hope you all had a good Christmas and New Year. My Christmas was great - especially seeing our grandson who is now 10 months old and we hadn't seen him since August! The disaster over the Christmas break was a roof leak during the snow which damaged lots of papers so I spent a week drying off the partial affected sheets to use in workshops or sell for silly prices and sorting everything. I therefore made no cards for 2 weeks.
I had started before the break working on the striplet dies from creative expressions. Here are some examples - I have looked at different backgrounds to them- metallic leafing, glitter, flock, embossed sheets decorative sheets etc. The lovely thing about these dies is that you can extend them to the width you want. Here are some examples although I do intend to try more.

I am also halfway through the Gemini border dies and the creative stamping "Fab 50's" workshop boards so they should follow soon.

Sorry to any followers for not having posted for a few weeks. I've been busy with my Christmas cards most of which have been variations on those I've shown you before.
The one special card was for my son and family. Since my grandson likes flap books I decided to do a flap card which ended up as a 3 page book card.
Hope these pictures show it adequately . I used a selection of stamps from the creative stamping magazines and an embossing folder. Pages are shown with flaps closed and then open.

Then there was making special cards for the shop - the only type I sell at Christmas. I did 8x8 variations of the 5x7 cards I'd done before. The first one kept selling as soon as I'd made it.

Last week I started working on the new border and striplet dies from creative expressions, so those will be the ideas coming in the new year but for now there is a break from the shop and cardmaking while we celebrate Christmas with the family.
Merry Christmas to you all.

I've been busy with various workshops and card orders since my last post but I also managed to complete the board for the latest creative stamping "Labelled with love". We did the all day workshop on this yesterday and I wanted to take pictures of the different colourways that some people did but in the rush at the end didn't get round to it.
I concentrated on different ways with different types of glitter and metallic leafing but there were other cards using distress inks and papers from a creative cardmaking magazine plus of course various dies. I have been trying out different ways with the creative stamping striplet.
The pictures are not good - sorry! but hopefully will give you some ideas of how to use the magazine stamps of which we still have a number left. Thought it more important to get a posting than wait till I can do and post a better picture

Sorry there was no post last week and i only have a few things for this week having been busy with workshops.
 During our Stencil course I was asked about the sparkle texture pastes on acetate and the next two cards show this. An earlier card using trees can be seen if you go back a few postings

 
When doing pearlescent paste mixed with micas it didn't dry so we heated it for this lovely effect

Then some popular specials.

Got to post now as battery running out!!!!1

I was distracted from my plan this week by being asked to do a sympathy card. I set about looking at partially done cards/flowers to get these done then looked at variations of cards for an autumn / Christmas theme. These are some of the cards I came up with.

For these cards I adapted a style I had done earlier for this season

Wanting to combine stamping techniques with die cutting I tried these ideas. The bird is from Stampendous and the poisettia from Woodware. Creative expressions dies

  This one is awaiting the greeting - the holographic card has really caught the light here!

Sorry I missed last week, didn't have too much time to play and what I did wasn't finished so I'll make up for it this week.
I have been looking at new products in e.g. spellbinders scene, Vienna die from creative expressions and then for those who had purchased the pivot and accordian dies earlier this year I tried Christmas variations.
My results are just trying different ways with these dies so some will end up in "quick cards" workshop, others for "Specials" alongside those in my last posting and others in the "more ideas" workshop.

Simple backgrounds to the spellbinders die but trying to see what worked best.

 Below are some uses of the Vienna die - poinsettias get everywhere this year!!

The a couple of quick cards using the pattern part of the die

Just a couple of extra cards ( creative expressions tree & frame, Marianne snowman and deer)

 then the pivot and accordian dies we used earlier in the year

Well I'll see what  else I can come up with this week

This week I've been working on quick cards and special cards. I'm going to show you the specials today.
Some of these are new like the box card ( thanks to Sharon Bramley for the original idea which I have adapted) others are old styles but for those of you who haven't seen them before I thought I'd include them.
Dies used here are mainly Marianne but 2 are Cheery Lynn.

 These are my tunnel squeezy cards where the apertures get smaller to stress the distance

Another box style with new dies from creative expressions

My fold back aperture cards suit a variety of  adaptations

 The card below is the one we did with Jane Gill on the Woodware retailers workshop which is similar to my tunnel squeezy above but has a front cover

 Other types which fold flat.

This week I have been trying to finish the board for the Creative Stamping 19 " Classic Christmas". I still have a few of these magazines & stamps available for anyone interested. We do a full day and half day workshop using the magazine stamps - details on my website www.llindas.co.uk .
I try to use a variety of techniques with these stamps and some of the other new items in store like the tree pivot die. Others like the Christmas tree easel I show "how to ..." get the effect you need.

Over the last week I have been working on the "Stencils & Masks" workshop and the Christmas Creative Stamping. This week I'm showing you the "Stencils & Masks" - the other will be next weeks by which time I have hopefully used all of the stamps.
I started   "Stencils & Masks" with the intention of using the sparkle glitter pastes and inking methods as the main methods for the workshop but soon decided I needed to try other things so I did some " Molten Magic" and then ideas for the next Stencil course workshop where we are covering Pearlescent paste, translucent paste, crackle paste (but this card wasn't dry enough to finish) and Zentangle. I do love exploring different ways of using the stencils.