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Making Time

August 31, 2010 By 8 Comments

Well I try to.  This came about because I discovered a couple of packs of alphabet stamps I’d forgotten about (both bought on trips to the USA) and happened to have Scripts and Timepieces out on the table.  The background is Distress Inks – Wild Honey probably came into it somewhere because I just love that colour, and I think the script is stamped with Rusty Hinge.  The little brass clock charm has been coloured with alcohol inks.  I stamped the words  ‘time’ and ‘art’ in Versafine Deep Lagoon then used coloursoft pencils to shade around the words to make them pop. The stamped clock has been filled in with Glossy Accents.

Adrian managed to get some photos of Smokey yesterday.  He has been rather camera shy lately – almost like he’s teasing us by popping up, then the minute we have the camera ready, he’s nowhere to be seen.  So I’ll get them off the camera at some point soon and you can have a little basement bunneh fix.

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Live out Loud

August 25, 2010 By 12 Comments

I have students already!!  Thank you so much to everyone who has signed up to my classes – yay!  I’m actually feeling rather relieved as well because I was going through that moment of self doubt you get before the first guest turns up at a party.  Will anyone actually come?!?!?!!

It’s a joy to see some familar and not so familiar names and I’m really excited about spending five weeks playing with stamps teaching you some of my favourite techniques.  (Did I say ‘playing’ out loud …?)

Talking of out loud, if you are signed up to the Graphicus email newsletter, you may have spotted this card in your inbox earlier today.

Hundreds of people contacted us (well, ok, about six) to ask where they could find the sentiment shown on the card.  It’s from this set

called Live Out Loud which you can find on the website here.  The sentiment is one of my all time favourites and definitely a Desert Island Stamps must have.

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More info on the workshops

August 25, 2010 By 7 Comments

Well thanks to everyone who came to look round the new place and thanks for the compliments on the decor.  I wanted a clean, unfussy look that would be quick to load.  I faffed around for ages to tweak the theme I’m using. (For the techies out there, I’ve moved from wordpress.com to a self hosted wordpress.org website and it’s been a whole new learning curve for myself and Adrian.  If anyone knows how to get a HOME link at the top of the page using the Carrington theme, pleeeease let me know!)

I’ve been asked for more information about the online classes, so here’s how it works.  (See previous post for specific course information.)

First you need to register with My Creative Classroom.  (Yes, I know, another username and password to remember, but  you only need to do that bit once!)

You then choose the course you want to enrol on and you will be taken through a series of steps to pay for it.  Not entirely sure what that bit looks like as I haven’t been a student with them myself.

Once enrolled you have access to the classroom web page.  At the moment all that’s in there is an outline of the course, a link to the supply list needed and a welcome message from me.

Once the classes actually start, I will put the course material into the classroom each week.  You then go to the classroom yourself and you can look at or save that week’s files and work through any exercises there are.

You can pick up the course material when it suits you, it remains there for the duration of the course.  So you don’t have to be online at a specific time, you work at your own pace and your own convenience.

There is a mini forum in the classroom which is how you have access to me.  You can ask questions, show me your homework (assignments are issued, but obviously it’s up to you if you want to do them or not) ask advice or talk to other students.  I will check the forums as often as I can and I will try to pick one day of the week where I am more available – possibly even organise a live chat one evening a week.

Any more questions, please ask.

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Online Workshops

August 24, 2010 By 24 Comments

One of the projects that has kept me quiet lately is the start of my online teaching career!  I have been working with My Creative Classroom, an American teaching site, to put together two rubber stamping classes which start this autumn.

The first is aimed very much at beginners, but is also a great refresher for those with some stamping experience who want to round out their knowledge of basic stamping techniques.

The second course is designed as an intermediate stamping course and follows the same format.

During the classes I will be working mainly with Elusive Images stamps, so those of you who already have a few of our stamps will hopefully get some fresh inspiration on new ways you can use them.

Here’s the short version of each class, you can see more info and see pictures by following the link at the end.

Rubber Stamping 101: Back to Basics
Course Length: 5 Weeks
Start date: September 29th 2010
Course Fee: $30
Short Description: Love the idea of stamping but don’t know where to start? Confused by inkpads? Let me guide you gently through the basics and show you just how creative you can be with rubber, ink and paper.

Rubber Stamping 102: Terrific Techniques
Course Length: 5 Weeks
Start date: October 21st 2010
Course Fee: $30
Short Description: Uplevel your stamping with this wonderful array of stamping techniques, designed to stretch your imagination and show you just how versatile your rubber stamps can be. Suitable for stampers with some experience.

The courses are priced in dollars as they are run through an American website – but at today’s exchange rate, that is actually really good value for anyone paying in pounds or euros. Each week you will have access to a new module which you can view online or print out and keep. The course is also supported by video demonstrations, some of which are exclusive to the classes. Once registered you have access to a virtual classroom where you can interact with other students via a mini class forum. You can participate as much or as little as you want and work at your own pace. There is a gallery where you can upload your own work for ‘teacher’ to look at and give feedback, or you can just sit back and grab the downloads each week to work on when you have time.

I have heard from one of our customers who has taken classes with My Creative Classroom already and her feedback was very positive.  The way they are set up is as close as you can get online to enjoying the kind of  camaraderie that you get in a real workshop.

You asked for online classes and I hope that you will consider giving it a go and signing up to one of these classes this autumn.  Real school teachers have to do a year’s probation and these two classes are sort of my probationary classes.  I was invited to teach these two specific stamping classes, but if they do well and students like my teaching style, then I will be invited back to do more and with more creative freedom to design my own classes.  So I’m thanking you in advance for your support and hope you join me on this new creative adventure.

Click here to visit My Creative Classroom.

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Sunbunny

August 19, 2010 By 19 Comments

Is that a pair of bunny ears I spy …

It is!  A real live sunbunny!

How’s that for relaxed!

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Christmas anyone?

August 15, 2010 By 35 Comments

Well here I am at Graphicus yesterday, with Lynn’s lovely mannequins in the  background.  We had a great couple of days and I have to say a big thank you to Team Graphicus who, as always, rallied round the week before to get everything ready.  Thanks too to Jean from Crafty Individuals – it’s always inspiring to see you at work Jean and I must have one of those new seashore paper pads – they will go with our underwater stamps beautifully.

The Elusive Images Design Team artwork was on display and was very well received.  Don’t worry, you will see it coming up on the DT blog soon.

Meanwhile, here are some pieces that I managed to make during the day.

Two versions of the same technique.  The card above was stamped with Adirondack Denim dye ink, then a waterbrush was used to pick up the colour from the stamped lines.  A little stickles finishes it off.  The trees were stamped with Versamark then I drew in the hills with a Versamark pen and embossed it with Kaleidascope embossing powder.

The same watercolour technique was used on the card below, but this time using Stream Adirondack dye ink.

The paper is from our Spirit of Christmas paper pack (there’s a great offer on Artylicious Papers this week – buy the A4 pack and you can get the 6×6 pack for just £1.00.  You need to quote the promotional code ARTYPPACK when you check out to get the discount applied.)

The reindeer trim isn’t on the website yet, but will be soon.  We made up some ribbon tags for the open days which sold really well, each one had four meters of ribbon and one meter of a fancy trim such as reindeer, holly, snowflakes, etc.

I absolutely love this pinecone stamp and had to stop myself reaching for it ALL the time while I was demonstrating.  It’s a fantastic stamp for backgrounds and looks fab embossed in white or stamped in versamark on glossy for a resist.  The card above is stamped very simply in Memento dye inks on glossy card – New Sprout first, then Bamboo Leaves on top.  The base card has the same design stamped with Pear Tart down the side.  The greeting is stamped onto one of the flourish blocks which has been stamped onto glossy card with Pear Tart ink.

This one has been stamped with Adirondack pigment ink – the pinecones in Lettuce and the sentiment in Bottle.  It’s then been embossed with clear powder.  The baubles are from a brand new card kit which we just got in. It’s one of three new cardmaking kits which are aimed at complete beginners, but are just crying out to be used more creatively than intended by mixing them up with stamps.  Two of the kits are Christmas and one is a fun girly one that goes really well with our boudoir stamps and would probably keep a fashionista youngster occupied for a while during the summer holidays.  They will be featuring in next week’s ‘What’s new’ email, so more on those later.

And it wasn’t just Christmas stamps that we were showing off this weekend.  We also got into a spooky frame of mind on Friday 13th.  You can have a lot of fun exploring the Dark Side, mwah ha  hah ….

The card is a work in progress, it needs a sentiment or bats or spiders or something else!  The card panel is actually just stuck on with blu-tak for the photo!  The background is distress inks and the house has been coloured with Memento markers, then clear embossed by colouring over with a Versamark pen.  We are a little early with Halloween – not many of our suppliers have stock in yet of spooky embellishments, so we’ll definitely re-visit this nearer the time.

The thing is, Halloween is a bit of fun, but it’s unlikely you will need a huge number of Halloween cards (unless you’re having a fancy dress or kids party of course).  However most crafters are going to need to make a batch of Christmas cards, so now is a good time to get started.

I’m curious – how many of you are way ahead of the game and have your Christmas cards made already?

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