Just before I went on holiday I had been working with the Stampendous Pop Up die system thinking this would make another workshop to do over summer.

The pop up system is one die then you have die and stamp sets that can be used with the system. I opted for the dogs duo since you rarely see good dogs. Initially I just adapted the ideas which come with the packaging - I will try other ideas now I am back.

 I also tried using dies I already had for the flowers (although there is a stamp and die bouquet set, and a cat set and a nature set...) and again for the tree scene. The initial results are shown below.

I've not done anything this week since I've been on my holidays but I thought I'd show you some of the extra things I have done over the last few weeks. I showed you a couple of pieces of wall art 2 weeks ago and this is another - inspired by my playing with the distress inks.

We also had some transfer sheets in from Debbie Moore vintage chic collection. I tried these on the top so that items of clothing can be customized (problem was you could only use fabric with a low cotton content so that ruled out T shirts). I found by doing light transfers you could get many uses out of each transfer as I showed on the equipment roll and the bag. The pink I haven't made into anything yet but wanted to try them out on coloured fabric - although they also transferred well onto my turquoise ironing board cover!!

I have been working on the cards for the Creative Stamping workshop from the latest edition - Here comes summer.
I looked at doing different techniques 2 ways for a  lot of the cards and used distress inks & alcohol inks with the odd bit of mica thrown in. Hence there are far too many cards for the workshop but I got carried away!

Whilst not so busy I have been doing more cards with the new flower dies - some you will have seen before but some on the board are new.

Then I decided do do some wall art pictures

sorry about the refection here! - this was inspired by the work done by John Glossop - our creative expressions rep. although his have a lot more to them than mine.

Then when I visited an art gallery I saw a mixed media picture which I loved and came back and tried to replicate the feel of the picture on these cards. Next week I want to try a larger version as another piece of wall art. The card with 2 butterflies was using the new creative stamping stamps - which is why I was trying them stamped in 2 ways

Having started doing cards for the shop from earlier designs I decided to look back and see how popular shop cards have changed over the years. The designs are ones that have been used for birthdays, weddings and anniversaries
I started with hand embossed frames and a bunch of flowers, then move to simple cuttlebug embossed designs and now through the simple nesting dies to the more complicated ones and flower dies rather than punches.

ok so this is upside down buut you get the idea

Sorry nothing last week. I was busy sorting out rather than making cards, then I worked with the vintage chic transfer sheets on material. I will show you those projects when completed. Delays as have to do in house where sewing machine is rather than in the shop.
This week I have been building up supplies of cards for the shop and trying different colour combinations with card, papers and dies mainly from creative expressions. You may have seen the original designs on an earlier posting.

I've been doing bits of MDF decorating over the last few weeks but decided to have a go at finishing a number off. The paints and decoupage sheets were from "Vintage Chic" by Debbie Moore, The crackle paints etc and mdf shapes were from creative expressions. ( although the wooden box is from Woodware)

The one above is crackle using cosmic shimmer products and clarity stamp.
The one below mixed the chalk paint with dreamweaver's regular embossing paste to give a lighter shade when used over the dreamweaver stencil

Below I have used the psint through a mask and then stamped with it to give a shadow to the stampedimage. I then used the Lea-bility daisy over it

Below shows trying different effects on the top of my distress ink storage boxes. The top one is just sanded the one below used the cosmic shimmer crackle glaze with the Vintage chic paints. It didn't work quite so well as with the cosmic shimmer paints on the blue tag above

I've had 2 jobs to do this week - the first was to do some "cute cards" ready for that workshop and the second was to have a good sort out to try to create more space - not an easy task at all!!!
I must admit I lacked inspiration when tackling the cards. I wanted to use the new animals from Woodware and then I wasn't sure so I must admit I did take inspiration from the woodware catalogue and adapt their ideas for their stamps. I then looked to see what I else I had on the shelves and found some Kanban stamps of animals that hadn't sold so I decided to divide the pack up so I could sell them individually and use one myself for the rolling flower card. In my sorting out I came across the "Peter Rabbit" sheets - printouts from the CD I had and since I still had a copy of this on the shelf decided to use this for the forth card. Then I stumbled across a folder with bits of the honey bee stamped and cut out so I decided this would also make another option for this workshop. I like doing the bee with a wire spiral behind so it bounces about. The dandelion which we have everywhere at the moment in gardens, hedgerows and fields have inspired my use of it - made from the creative expressions cornflower die. It seemed to suit these types of card!

MDF shapes are my next project so Ill be sharing those with you next
Linda

This week I've had a look at using a new creative expressions die in different ways with different flowers. Same colour scheme ...

now I'm wondering what else I have done this week and don't seem to have got a lot done so sorry not a lot else to show you hopefully more next week

Boats & bikes

The new dreamweaver clipper boat and the stamp from woodware inspired half of this workshop. The clipper boat was done with paste and metallic f/x powders. I used a number of backgrounds created with the "creative palette " from Stampendous - great for using up old paints! I also added to the board a couple of sailing boats from last year - in case people want a more modern approach.

The feeling we needed something else for men I added bikes. The motorbike is a Marianne die and the trials bike a cheery lyn die. These were the main  items to use but I got carried away with the backgrounds and tried tractors and landrovers on them also. I found a topper sheet with a young cyclist so added that to make sure I had covered all age groups.