Stamperama - my first show visit of the year!

Hi all, just got back from a great day at Stevenage for the Stamperama show - got sidetracked so not many pictures, but there was a great crowd of the 'PAtwits' there... great to see Leandra Mark Lin and Emma and Hugo, from Paperartsy, and Lin, Chris, Lin, Alison, Julie Ann, Miriam, Caz N, Wendy, Sarah, Gabrielle, Freya, Kirsten, Lisa, sure I've forgotten someone, I am so sorry if that's the case...

Emma running the make and takes - colour swatches for the new Paperartsy Infusions, gorgeous little pots of pigment dye crystals that are water reactive - 12 fabulous colours.  at the table top right, Miriam, Wendy (former Stamp Attic Wendy) - was so great to meet her finally!
bottom row, left corner is Caz Newton. don't know the others..

 Lin and Lin! the first of many caught unaware expressions... sorry, Lin S!

 then Chris and Lin had a go at the Infusions...

 lunchtime... sorry Miriam!  and I've cut Jo off too... oops, didn't do well today!

forgot this one of Lin's demos with the new Infusions... nice!!

 stash pics... non Paperartsy stuff first... hardly anything caught my eye apart from some stencils, cos I don't have many......ahem
 and a reduced Stampendous grungy stamp set. little bundle of flowery ribbon and the white pen seems to have disappeared... some copper wire.

 first Paperartsy pic... just a few... some of the older C6 ink and the dog type plates (just need some EZ mount now... no-one had any) and one or two new Hot Picks..

 and a couple more... and some of the Infusions.. and a new colour chart.

Will try and take these in better light later but I know you lot are keen to see them as soon as possible!

WOYWW 351 journals in progress

Hello and happy Wednesday again.   Time for another desk meet up with Julia..  at the Stamping Ground

So,following on the question I carefully didn't ask last week, (your comments did make me smile!)  there is no new stash this week - but that won't be the case next week as I am going to Stamperama at Stevenage on Sunday, meeting up with lots of crafty friends.  Quite by chance (ha right) the UK trade show has been on at the NEC in Birmingham this week and Paperartsy (among others) have been showing MORE new products... oh poor bank account... the wish list is very long again!

So instead, today I have taken a picture of my living-cum-craft-room from the window looking back to the space on the floor I work on..

doesn't look a very big space does it?!

It isn't.. very cramped working..

I know you've seen it before,  but
the wooden boxes contain some of my wood mounted stamps (and no, I will never a) get rid of any of them or b) take the wood mounts off...)   The other boxes contain all manner of things - paper pads, chipboard, inks, cling mount stamps.. but all fairly organised!

on the craft mat is a journal page in progress - or possibly just about finished.

I've been using the new Coral Fresco colour and also the Copper; both of which are gorgeous... and the new stamps designed by Kasia for the Everything Art Wanderlust course..



There's another page too I've been working on,

using a Stencil Girl stencil, black gesso and the Copper and White Fire metallic Frescos.    the crows are by Lost Coast Designs and "fell " into my basket when I was buying something or other the other week... they're stamped onto book paper covered in White Fire paint.
in hindsight, they didn't need to be stamped onto book paper as they have text in the white spaces on the bodies... but I like them, even if they are a pain to fussy cut round the feet!


Looking forward to catching your desks, and if any of you are going to Stevenage, let me know and we can look out for each other!!

Wanderlust - Everything Art - February challenge

This online course I am following is great - I get to watch the videos as they come out but haven't caught up with all the lesson prompts... you can join up here 
However, the February challenge did speak to me.  We were asked to find a pattern in something around us that we liked, and use it as inspiration for a journal page

 I used the new scarf my boss gave me this week..

 and the new Coral Fresco

 with some crackle glaze and then lines of Snowflake and Carribean Sea Frescos

 and vertical lines of White Fire fresco (love this colour)

 and some pen work

and the new Everything Art stamp set

and some scribbly circles in aquamarine archival ink (an Emma Godfrey stamp)

love the coral fresco underneath the crackle layer!

WOYWW 350

So, desk time... WOYWW time.. As ever, all the info here at the Stamping Ground with Julia

a nice round number, week 350... I wonder how many of the 350 weeks I've had new "stuff" on show... actually, no better not go there... far too many to count...
today is no different.. I blame Paperartsy and my addiction...

I had this shot all ready to share with you today.. some new stencils and Fresco paints (bubblegum and winter green)





but then on Tuesday...

... another stamp set came.. so I took the shot again...

as you can see (and some of you read the blog post about it on Sunday) the stencil has already been put to good use...

and I did a journal page for the Wanderlust online course too... you can see more here if you missed it

so a productive weekend, and lots of fun to be had ahead with the new stamps - they were designed by Kasia who is running the Wanderlust course with Jamie from Artist Trading Post and we are promised more later in the year!

so, thanks for visiting, and I'll be round for tea and cake and your desk very soon...

Journal play - just for fun

I've finished the very pink journal page I had part done on the WOYWW post from last week
but not without a false start.

 I had dribbled Fresco paints as shown...
not sure which the palest is I used - Dolly Mix I think, then Rose possibly, Orchid and Bougainvillea for sure.


and spread them with a plastic stir-fry spatula I rescued from the kitchen as it hasn't been used for it's culinary purpose for ages and was in the way in the utensil pot...
although this did merge them a bit too much,

so I added more pinks and snowflake, and dragged the colour with a credit card (an old one!)


that's where it was on Wednesday, although I had added some black stencilled numbers but not got round to photographing..

Earlier this afternoon, I stamped the Lin Brown daisy and added some other Fresco colour to some of the petals - my intention was to block out the background as Leandra had done in one of her periscopes but didn't like the flowers... so I started again over the top first with gesso, then re-did the pink - and turned it into a 2 page spread

Instead this time I just used the daisy stencil and the little stones stencils across the bottom of the page, and some leaves at the top stamped in black archival ink.

 used my white sharpie to outline the daisies

 and stamped the "daisy" from stamp set, writing in the rest of the words ....

using my fudeball pen

It is very pink, but I love the bold silhouette stencil and stamping against it.

Thanks for looking  - totally different to the earlier page for Wanderlust, I think you'll agree!

Wanderlust book prompt 3 - write lots...

Friday saw another prompt in the Wanderlust Book challenge run by Everything Art.. "write lots" ...

Regular readers of my blog will know that my journalling doesn't usually include much writing, it's not my "thing" but in the interests of following the challenge... here goes.

Kasia made some great videos (it's not too late to sign up to this year long on line class - I'm already way behind

working in my large journal I've set aside for this part of the course, I added some black and white gesso to the page, and some torn book pages, pen scribbling.....

 added some stencilling (new Fresco colours - zucchini and white fire) and some texture fibre paste,
 drew some lines to write between

 and started writing...
I decided to limit my colours to black, white and green.

I can't for the life of me get a decent picture of the full page, sorry!

Despite the writing - not my actual writing, that's not too bad - the words mainly, being nothing much - I am pleased with this overall page.

WOYWW 349

Hello deskers... Julia hosts this weekly desk snoop - link here

At the risk of sounding repetitive.... I've bought some (more) new stuff from the Paperartsy launch... just one more parcel to come now... I have no willpower, do I hear you say?  Quite possibly..

oops!   these are the new Lin Brown flower sets... loving them all, will be inking them up soon (possibly even before this post publishes!)

I have been playing with some of my new supplies already, which is always a good thing, right - buy it, use it...

I was playing with the new metallic Fresco paints - the copper here in the background, is gorgeous - and the white fire, in the middle is even gorgeouser (I know, I made it up!)

the robot is from one of Jo Firth Young's new sets

I've tweeked this since, but not got a photo of it - I painted a piece of card with the pewter (older metallic) paint, then stamped and cut out the robot and layered it onto the tag.  It wasn't my idea, I confess, it was Leandra's herself, but the pewter is a more robot-y colour!

I've also got a very pink start to a journal page... not sure yet where this is going - it involved a lot of splodging and dragging paint with a credit card (an old one, not the one I'm using to buy new stash with!)




Better go and catch your desks, now - but before I go, if any of you like orchids, I went to Kew on Saturday for the start of their annual orchid display... if you didn't catch the link on facebook or twitter head here for some visual delights!

Bump and Crackle... journal pages

Really on a creative spurt at the moment, thanks in no small part to Leandra's periscopes for Paperartsy.

A couple of journal pages for you now,

 I started this one with some leftover Pumpkin Soup (Fresco paint)  which I doodled in blobs on my journal page, then took some Beach Hut and did the same.

I filled the space with Antarctic and painted some crackle glaze over the blobs only.

Let that dry (used the heat gun, it was applied too thickly really, I should have scraped some off)  then when it was dry stamped the Kay Carley flower over the top..

 Added a thick layer of Chalk over the blobs.. used a brush but because the crackle glaze was too thick it hasn't crackled very well.


stamped the flower again in black archival randomly over the page - not using an acrylic block to get an uneven look...


coloured some of the flowers with a yellow Pitt pen

Stamped two of the quotes from the new Lin Brown set...





Country View Craft have a challenge of "make your own background so I am entering this one there..

close up of the crackle and background.













the second part of the blog title, "bump" is on the other side of the spread.(left hand side)

 I had a big blob of Pumpkin Soup on the top of the bottle and didn't want to waste it... daubed it on the journal page... big mess.

Covered the rest of the  page in Beach Hut... bigger mess!  Painted over the first part of the Pumpkin Soup with Snowflake, added more Pumpkin Soup.  Another layer of Beach Hut..

Stencilled (one of Lin Brown's new ones) the flower in Snowflake

edged down the edges of the Pumpkin Soup using a Pitt Brush pen in Green Gold (it looks just like the Pumpkin Soup colour, not much green about it!) and then the white one on top

Stencilled the words (same stencil) in Little Black Dress, then bumbed and stencilled in Snowflake


This page ended up a lot better than it deserves to be after a ropey start!

Topic 2 - Hearts - crackle tag

What a fabulous (expensive..) week its been at Paperartsy... wonderful new releases of stamps, paints and stencils... and periscopes each night with wonderful demos from Leandra. You can see her periscopes here 

Last night (Saturday) she revisited some crackle techniques and afterwards I sprang into action...
This tag fits the hearts topic that closes later today

 I forgot to take a photo of the base tag before I crackled it... but used several colours of fresco paint on top of a tag I painted black... I used bougainvillea zucchini and mermaid

 the smaller of the hearts from Emma Godfrey's heart plate EEG13 to fill the tag.

used a translucent Fresco to add some colour on top of the tag -pumpkin soup and beach hut

I was looking for some heart shaped buttons but can't find any...

entering the Paperartsy Hearts topic challenge here 

a huge thanks to all the Paperartsy team and their wingmen for (making me spend so much money) a wonderful week, brilliant new stamps stencils and paint colours (get COPPER and WHITE FIRE, you won't be sorry) you are all fabulous.