A Messy Old Time !

I just got back last night from a two-day trip to Coventry where I was one of those lucky enough to be on one of Tim Holtz's "Journeys of the Past" workshop.  Lindsay was already down there as part of the Personal Impressions team, joining in on the retail workshop, so we met up in the Windmill Village Hotel where the event was being held and shared a room for the night.

It was a highly enjoyable workshop - Tim is an excellent teacher with a clear way of explaining things and an easy-to-listen-to voice.  We got really messy with inks and stencils, making backgrounds for tags, adding stamping and other embellishments, with the aim of creating a gorgeous tag book - to my relief, I did manage to keep up to speed with everything we did but have to complete it with more bits and pieces and fasten it together (as soon as I've a bit of spare time)!  Here are some pics from the event:-

 Lindsay took this photo of Tim and I

Tim giving us all instructions in his clear and humorous way - I was sat at the table just in front of the screen in the upper pic

Lindsay helping out in the "shop", taking her role very seriously!

Here's Chris (a fellow crafter and lovely lady) and I, obviously enjoying ourselves

Ali (a very talented artist-crafter) and her Aunt Mima - I know them both from an internet ATC group, but it was the first time we'd ever met, so that was lovely

Getting messy!

The workshop in progress with everyone very busy, heads down!

We came away with lots of goodies - the remains of our class kits which we'd been using (ink, paint, stencil, tissue tape, embellishments, etc, etc) plus we each received a big messenger-type bag, a Tim Holtz apron and a signed copy of Tim's book, "A Compendium of Curiosities Volume II" - very thrilled with all that. A "shop" had also been set up, with an amazing selection of products to tempt us all, so of course I had to have a spend (didn't feel too guilty as I had some birthday money to use courtesy of my son and husband!). Thank goodness for the messenger bag though - it held all the extra stuff I'd acquired for the trip back home on the train, don't know how I'd've managed otherwise)!

Here are all the bits and bobs, plus the part-completed tags, from the class kit

Messenger Bag, Apron and Book

..... and my "birthday" purchases

I can't finish without showing you a couple of photos of gifts I received from Lindsay for my birthday too ....

A beautiful necklace (which I wore for the Tim Holtz trip) and this lovely wall hanging, love the bright colours and dangly charms - its now hanging on my living room wall.  Of course, both made by Lindsay herself.  So I've been a very lucky girl this week!

Although I only had a couple of days' break it was really good to have a complete change of scene, recharge my batteries and come home again refreshed and inspired to start "being inky and painty" again.  

"Keep It In Balance"

I have so much stuff stashed away in the craft (erm ..... spare) room and I've been trying to de-clutter for a while now, as a result of which I keep coming upon items and snippings that I'd forgotten I even had.  One such was a browning sheet of typed paper headed "Keep It In Balance" and containing a note on stress by an 87-year old lady called Nadine Stair from Louisville (Springboard Women's Development Workbook).  I forget how I came by this but I do know it was a good 10 or 15 years ago, so I imagine Nadine may no longer be with us - however, her words do strike a chord with me, so I decided I wanted to add them to a page in my Smash Journal.  

Here's what I did .......

"I'd Pick More Daisies"

I selected a blank lined page and sprayed it with Ranger Dylusions Ink Sprays in Pure Sunshine and Fresh Lime (the only Dylusions inks I had at the time but nice bright colours that I wanted anyhow - I've since acquired several more shades and am looking forward to using them too).  Spritzed with water, heat dried, then sprayed a little Glimmer Mist (Key Lime Pie) over the top.  Heat dried again.

Next I stamped one of Lindsay's "Do Lally Pip" girls onto a piece of white paper with Black Archival Ink, colouring in details with Promarkers, then adhered her to the page.  I then copied out Nadine's words using the black pen supplied with the Smash journal and an orange Marvy Le Plume pen for the heading, outlined with a white pen.  I drew and cut flower shapes out of old dictionary pages and glued them to the page over doodled green stalks and leaves.

I was quite pleased with the result - now all I have to do is take notice of Nadine's advice and try to live a less stressful, more relaxed life - not an easy ask at the moment for sure!  Though the very act of playing about in a journal and messing with inks and paints has a calming effect and engages both the mind and soul.

Thanks for looking and I'll be back to share more "art" with you soon.

It's been a while .......

...... but life's been fairly quiet here for the past few weeks and I've done no crafting or journalling to speak of either.  Going through one of those uninspired phases that we all suffer from, from time to time.  However, things became a little more exciting last Friday when I was round at Lindsay's for a get-together and we ended up being evacuated due to a suspicious package on the nearby industrial estate!  Lindsay has written all about it on her blog so if you want to find out more, click here and check out her post "Best Laid Plans" of 5th October.  

As if that wasn't exciting enough, I discovered that Alfie Boe is due to play a concert at the Opera House next April (he's actually a local lad who many years ago before he became well-known worked in the TVR factory with a good friend of ours).  As Lindsay is a huge fan, and I rather like him too, I decided we deserved a treat to look forward to after all the unhappy times we've had recently.  Luckily, I was able to obtain a couple of good seats for us in the dress circle - most of the remaining seats were way up in the gallery (not the best place to be if you suffer from vertigo or don't like heights)!!!!  We have another beautiful Victorian theatre (The Grand), a listed building, here in Blackpool and they also put on a variety of concerts, plays, ballets and operas throughout the year.  We both enjoy the theatre and it seems such a shame not to take advantage when we have such lovely venues.  So we are now also booked in for two more concerts before Christmas ("A Christmas Carol" ballet production and a Christmas Carol brass band concert), just to get us in the mood for the seasonal festivities.  It's good to have nice things to look forward to.

Mia is as mischievous and lively as ever and has become an object of desire for some of the local "toms" - she may flirt and tease them a little, but that's as far as it goes - she wants nothing more to do with them.  Our Italian neighbours across the road have two or three young cats who were born to a stray they took in and they tend to spend most of their time outdoors.  One in particular is a real cutie, a little female tabby around the same size as Mia, and comes over to play in our garden with her most days.  Mia's quite happy chasing her about, playing hide-and-seek and stalking each other, but she gets very cross if "cutie" appears at the window and soon chases her away - the garden is fine but she's not having her in her house, thank you very much!  

I took these photos the other day when I spotted them by the pond through the bedroom window......

Well, this is the first time I've posted with the new-look Blogger and so far, fingers crossed, it's working okay.  I know Lindsay had some problems initially, but I think they're all sorted out now.  Why these sites always feel the need to constantly keep changing things, I just don't know ....... when most of us are quite happy with the way things are.  Ah well, I suppose they have to justify themselves by coming up with new ideas and designs (sigh)!

A Vintage Day

Thankfully, after the torrential rain that fell non-stop on Friday and resulted in the route of the Olympic Torch through Blackpool being diverted with celebrations brought into the Tower Ballroom rather than outdoors on the new Tower Headland (not having much luck with that venue at the moment - Elton John's open-air concert to open the Headland last weekend had to be cut short due to heavy rain and high winds!), Saturday dawned brighter and Lindsay and I managed to stay dry for our visit to the Vintage and Handicrafts Fair in town.

The Fair was held in the Winter Gardens building in the centre of Blackpool.  A programme of renovation and restoration began a year or so back, to return the Winter Gardens to the splendour of  its Victorian Days.  It was the first time I'd been inside since this work had been done and I must admit the entrance hall does look splendid !

(Apologies for the Ladies Toilets sign slap-bang in the centre of the pics - I tried to persuade Lindsay to stand in front of it but she was having none of it)!

 I absolutely love this shade of blue that's been used to paint the metalwork - just gorgeous!

There were lots of stalls offering a variety of vintage, handcrafted, antique and collectible goodies, along with some rather too noisy music on stage - a young lady with a guitar whilst we were there - the sound system was too loud and we felt rather sorry for the poor sellers whose stalls were directly beneath the speakers.  A section had also been set aside with comfy sofas and a stand offering tea, coffee and cream scones served on vintage crockery.

There were several stalls selling vintage clothes with vendors even dressing the part themselves ....

..... but one of our favourite stands was run by a lady called Wendy Moore whose wonderful fantasy creations of fairies, mermaids, mirrors and shells really caught our eye ..............

Lindsay especially loved these fairies hanging in the tree .......

 .... and we both thought the "blingy" mirror and decorated shell in the photo above were gorgeous too!

Another stall which attracted our attention was this one, selling individual pieces of vintage/collectible crockery.  Maralyn and Robert (trading as One Vintage Lady) run a china replacement service searching out those broken or lost pieces of crockery that you might be hunting for.

Lindsay had been on the lookout for pretty cups and saucers so decided to treat herself to this sweet Teacup Trio ............................

 I was very good and resisted buying anything, though I was tempted once or twice ......... this stall had some rather attractive painted wooden boxes for sale in a faded vintage style ........

 ....... and I was almost tempted by the Siamese cat kitchen roll holder (though I'm not sure what Mia would've made of it)!

Although I didn't spend anything at the Vintage Fair, Lindsay and I spent a few more hours shopping in town and I treated myself to a couple of new tops from M&S and couldn't resist buying two new books for journalling in - the covers were just so appealing.  The smaller book has Tiffany-style covers with ruled pages, ideal for "spill writing" (picked that one up along with another for Lindsay in the Discount Bookshop - only 99p each) and the larger one has plain pages, fairly thin, but will work well for art journalling especially if I glue some of the pages together for added strength.  This came from the TKMaXX store - they always have a wonderful selection of hard-to-resist notebooks and boxes (Lindsay treated herself to one and she may post a picture of it later on her own blog).

Came home rather worn out after a long day in town with poor tired feet, so am having a "chill out" day today - I may even get round to doing a page or so in my art journal (well, it's about time I started "arting" again, particularly since I've acquired even more books to work in) and this evening I'll be glued to the TV watching the England v Italy Euro2012 Quarter Final match (a bit of football over the summer to keep me going until our own Championship campaign begins again in August - here's hoping Blackpool makes it back to the Premier League this season, having just missed out by a whisker at Wembley last month!

This and that

I finally sorted out my browser/blogger issues by downloading Google Chrome (not without an afternoon's hassle mind you - nothing's ever straightforward is it?) to use as an alternative browser to my old Internet Explorer (thanks to Sioux for the suggestion, which confirmed what I'd been thinking).  So the problems I was having with Blogger have gone away (fingers crossed), though (like Lindsay) I'm using the old format to put up this post.  

Yesterday, the plasterers came round to sort out our kitchen ceiling so I decided to escape all the chaos and go spend the day with Lindsay instead, taking my camera with me so that I could help photograph some of her newest creations (not for public viewing just yet *LOL*).  I was supposed to be assisting Lindsay make some extra cards, etc, for her demos this weekend, but I think I was much more of a hindrance than a help.  Here's a picture I took of one of the cards Lindsay had already made:-

The stamped image is one of Lindsay's "Off the Wall" designs (Emily) and the text stamp is one of Andy Skinner's.  I have a "thing" about harlequin diamond stamps and stencils at the moment, so I really love the stencilling on this card too.

I took some photographs of another card that Lindsay created during the day too and this, along with the one above, will be on display I believe on Sunday when she'll be demonstrating her 'arty-crafty' techniques at the Strikes Garden Centre in Weavervale, Northwich (check out her blog for details - she'll be in Leeds tomorrow as well).

 Inking the card edges

 Black card sprayed through an alphabetic stencil with Perfect Pearls Mist

 Steampunk Sarah - one of Lindsay's new stamp designs

The card completed 

Whilst Lindsay was working on her laptop, I was very honoured to have Tara (originally our parents', now one of Lindsay's cats) jump up and sit on my lap - however, I think it was just so she could get a better view of the computer screen, maybe hoping that Lindsay was putting in a big shopping order for all her favourite food treats (chicken, salmon, ham .......... for starters!)

During the day I was getting updates from home about the progress on the plastering - all sounded pretty horrendous as apparently at one point a large chunk of the ceiling fell down and (despite dust sheets everywhere) created a huge mushroom cloud of plaster dust which enveloped everything!  Lovely!!! Eventually, I could put off going home no longer (and was also feeling slightly guilty by then about not helping my menfolk clear up the mess) - and yes, dust was everywhere and it took another couple of hours to clean every surface and make the place look presentable again.  Last job of the night was washing the floor down and we'd had enough by then.  However, it was worth it - no more ceiling cracks, now we've just got to get it all re-painted - more mess and disruption (I can't wait)!

I've still got to finish off the last two chakra pages for my journal, don't know when I'll get round to doing them, but will post pics here when they're done.  Thanks for the kind comments I received all ready about the pages I posted last time.

April Journalling ...... etc

I've been in trouble with Lindsay this week for not "blogging" for a while - guilty as charged, but the days just seem to fly by and merge into each other at the moment - so I thought I better do an up to date post, only to discover from reading Lindsay's blog last night that Blogger has changed (!) - as a result it looks like I'm going to have an almighty problem posting too, never mind uploading pics.  Everything has changed, the screen I'm using to type out my post is too small but is also covering up the Blog toolbar so it's making things very difficult.  Part of the trouble is because Blogger apparently no longer supports my Browser - so even more hassle.  Aagh, why do they have to go tinkering with everything all the time!!!!  Grr !!!

I hope everyone had a lovely Easter break.  Life was a bit more eventful than we'd wanted around that time though - we had a big leak in the bathroom which resulted in a cracked kitchen ceiling and lovely soapy water (courtesy of Max having a shower at the time) dripping down into the pan of eggs I was cooking at the time!  As a result (and due to the "cowboy" job done on our bathroom some years back) to find and cure the leak, our plumber had to remove the toilet in order to remove the fascia in order to remove the cupboard in order to remove the bath - what a job!  Thankfully, we were covered by insurance.  So now we are waiting on the plasterer coming (Thursday) to re-plaster the ceiling.  Will feel a lot happier then.

This is what the ceiling looks like at the moment!

I've been working on my journal pages for April and have found them quite challenging - they are the seven Chakras and I've created five so far (with much struggling, so I'm not altogether happy with them) - only two left to go.  Here are my five chakra pages (fingers crossed I can upload pics):-

Root Chakra

Sacral Chakra

Solar Plexus Chakra

Heart Chakra

Throat Chakra

Typing this post has been an ordeal and I'm giving up on it for the time-being.  I may have to look at downloading another browser before I post again, what a pain this is!

Just checking in .....

.... to say I'm still around, not quite hibernating as we've had a few sunny patches and blue skies mixed up with all this cold and windy weather.  My sister Lindsay is at the big Stitches trade show in Birmingham this weekend, demonstrating P.I. products and her new range of stamp designs, so we were again earlier in the week making more samples for her stand.  Here's a few photos of what we got up to:-

Here's Lindsay - in the frame!

Lindsay again, all smiles, painting this frame - ended up as a lovely "steampunk" piece

(check out her blog for a picture of it and other canvases/tags she made)

A messy-ish worktop - you can see some of the canvases I worked on (thankfully, you can't see me)!

Lindsay's "Terrible Two" weren't particularly impressed I'm afraid - here they are, looking rather disdainfully at the camera - wouldn't catch them getting their paws all covered with that yucky paint!

Thomas

Tara

I'm still working on my journal pages for February, but will let you see what I've done with them as soon as they're finished.