stencils and masks

I have started to look at doing different methods with the Dreamweaver stencils and assorted masks we have in store. Some cards are from last year but where I've tried different techniques with the same stencil I thought I'd include all ideas to show the various effects which can be achieved. I love the way you can do so many things with a stencil!

Over the last week I have been having a basic play with some of the new dies which we have in. As usual I have tried to look at different ways of using them and different colour combination. Later on I will try using them with other products and more complex cards. The 4 main dies I have chosen are all from the new Sue Wilson collections from creative expressions and we have these in stock.

 Then I also tried a few more for the Woodware stamps board. ( Admittedly some were adapted from their catalogue and our retailer workshop card). All the tree scenes use different powders from Stampendous to create the effects. My favourite snowman is also from Stampendous

I mentioned the woodware retailer workshop last time. We had Fran from Stampendous, Susan from Clear scraps and Kay from Hougie  as well as Jane and Francoise from Woodware doing the workshops. Judith and her team always give us a wonderful couple of days with lots of food and drink (non- alcoholic of course)
These are the cards we produced (with a few other bits filling the board on the bottom row)

Some of these ideas will be used in our workshops (as you can see by the trio of trees last post)

others will be modified slightly and some will just be examples of the products that are available.

woodware stamps

Well I'm sorry not to have posted for 3 weeks - I thought I had scheduled some for the weeks I was away but must have done something wrong!!! anyway back on track now.
The first weekend of September I went on the woodware retailer workshop - cards from that I will try and schedule for a few days time to check it works, but since by return I have tried out some ideas for my woodware workshop using their new stamps Some ideas worked better than others but I've shown most of them to give an idea on the versatility of the stamps. Other variations are still to be tried. The trees use lots of the powders from Stampendous to give the wintery feel.

the trio of trees can be used upside down as baubles as shown.

creative stamping 26 - Feathered Friends

This week I have been working with the latest creative stamping magazine stamps "Feathered friends".
The main focus this time was working with the new colour cloud inks from cosmic shimmer / creative expressions and also using the dies we have with the designs.
This was great for trying all sorts out with the inks -=  some worked better than others but I have included most of what I have done  just because it shows how the inks work in different situations.

  The owls don't show up very well on this picture so I've done a separate picture below. This also shows how I have used the Stampendous pop up die, and the dreamweaver tree die with the owls.
(note most of the dies above are from creative expressions - The Sue Wilson dies, with a couple of Spellbinders)

fantasy ? So

Well I was going to do a workshop involving some fairies from a die that one of our reps inspired me with but I been unable to get it - I gather it has just come back into stock at suppliers but after my first workshop date on this, so I worked with what I had got. The unicorn from Stampendous I love and since I had one for sale I wanted to incorporate this. Doing it a different way from earlier cards I was able to utilise the clarity silver birch trees also. The children are not strictly fantasy but it was another stamp I wanted to sell so I used it instead of my fairies.
So not strictly fantasy but........

I'm now working on the latest creative stamping magazine stamps "Feathered friends" so that should be next week's board

I've had a busy week with customers wanting special cards this week so instead of working on new stuff I've been doing variations on a theme. I took the basic idea from the card we did with Phil Martin but altered the size to be more useable and coloured with the new colour cloud inks instead of gilding wax. The results are shown below

This proved a popular design as I have sold 4 out o 5 already!

The card below was made at a workshop by Sharon and show yet another flower used in the design.

Peter Rabbit and friends

I was asked to do a Peter Rabbit card this week so I got out my print outs from the Peter Rabbit CD from crafters companion and set to to see how many variations I could do with these. (Also thinking I still have one of these for sale in the shop so perhaps samples would tempt someone into buying it..) I do get carried away with this sort of thing and keep trying various combinations until I realise I have spent days on this topic and really do need to get on with something else.
Here are some of my samples - sorry the picture seems a little dark at the back.

creative stamping - A tropical summer

This week I am going to show you some variations of my creative stamping cards which were done at the full day workshop this week. Since they showed me cards individually you are in for a treat - that of seeing cards in more detail than I usually show from my workshop boards. I hope you like them. If you are local and wish to try again the workshop is to be repeated soon - see my workshop list at www.llindas.co.uk

Since returning from my holiday in Pembrokeshire I have had very little time for crafting being very busy coordinating our village summer fayre which is tomorrow. Hopefully all will be back to normal next week and I'll have more to share with you.
Lorraine and I did go to a retailers workshop at creative expressions and so I have those cards to show you. We had the morning with John Lockwood and the decoupage papers, then the afternoon with Phil Martin and the coordinating cosmic shimmer products. We thought some colours were better than others for matching well in the various products Lorraine's Jade being better than my lilac. Anyway below are examples of what we did.

My holiday was good although the weather was not as good as that at home but what was nice was sharing the first weekend with my son his wife and our grandson who we don't see much of.

For those of you who are interested this is a picture of him then.