Oh What Fun We Had........Part 2!

Another coat of paint is done and I think I will get away with one more coat - fingers crossed!  It is a bit of a soul destroying part of the redecorating process as this recess and all my many coats of paint will not be seen once the wardrobes are moved back in!!!!  All my hard work hidden ;-(....anyway on to much nice things.......where was I.......

Oh yes here is me putting on my new pinny.  Please remind me chin down pose does not a flattering shot make!!!  Just focus on the lovely pinny ;-)

Here is my friend Deb who is a much better pinny model than me.

We took these before Tim put us to work.  And let me tell you he is a hard task master.  We were inking at a rate of knots - Distress Stain and manilla tags flying all over the place. I have to say I was and always have been a slow swisher of inks but I proved to be a super fast inky edger!!!  Then we played with the fab layering stencils I mentioned earlier to create fun textures on our tags.

Here are my tags as I start to embellish.  We had so many lovely embellishments to play with.  Tim kept his eye on everyone and explained all the products and techniques we used as he guided us all to our finished project.

Here is Deb hard at work.  We had a fab table of ladies to craft and chat with and it seems we came from all over to join in the Tim Holtz fun.  Most of us were from the Midlands but we also had a lady who flew in from Ireland and Emma who traveled up from London Town.  We had a lovely time chatting and crafting, crafting and chatting!

When it was time to pack away Tim went into Santa mode and we all received some wonderful and unexpected pressies.  I will show you those later ....what a tease I know!!!

Here is just a small portion of the mess I made!!!  Notice I didn't distress Tim one bit ;-)  Then it was time to pack away and pick up our shopping......oh and of course it was time to get a photo with our instructor and enabler for the day....... but I am going to save that for the final instalment as I have one more coat of paint to get on and then I can relax a bit knowing I can put all the paint paraphernalia away.......

See you shortly X

Oh What Fun We Had!!!!!

I am still feeling all warm and smiley after a fab day out with my friend Deb yesterday.  We had a wonderful time with Tim Holtz at his last workshop and I have to say considering that it was his 4th in two days he was fresh as a daisy.  But I digress let me start at the beginning.

It took us a little while to find the venue and after following Mrs Sat Nav for a £4 quarter of a mile stretch of the M6 toll road we finally arrived safely at the Windmill Village Hotel.  We had given ourselves plenty of time to relax and have some lunch and I am really glad we did as meeting so many lovely like minded crafters was definitely one of the things that made the day so fabulous.  I might not remember all the names of everyone I met for which I apologise.  I think I was in giddy mode the entire day.  Poor Deb had to travel with me driving too ;-)  We immediately got chatting to some lovely crafters as we arrived - I have forgotten names here for which I do apologise - I am hoping they pop by and say hi so I can rectify that.  We were all so excited it set the tone for the day.

I know from my blog that the crafting community are a caring sharing bunch but to have it confirmed so spectacularly by every one we met was truly heartwarming.  After lunch and lots of chatting where I met fellow bloggers Annie, Rita and Alison for real and I bumped into the lovely Suzanne (I hope I remembered your name  right Suzanne) in the queue for coffees who had travelled all the way from Sweden to meet the lovely Tim we finally queued up for our first peek into our crafting room for the next 4 hours.

Here is the view from where Deb and I sat.  The room was lovely and spacious though it did get very warm - all that feverish inking causes friction and you know that friction causes heat!!!!  mmmmmmm I suppose it could have been all the fun we had chatting whilst we created too!!!

Here is my lovely stash just waiting to be played with.  I do love to see my own card class kits all set up ready for action but I can only marvel at the effort that must go into kitting out for Tim's workshop - A big thank you to Mario and his team - I will treasure my little wish bone charm dangling from the cutest little safety pin!!!

This is one of the pockets of my brand new pinny that I did not get any ink on whatsoever!!!  I may use some Distress Paint on it later to customise it as Tim taught us that Distress Paints are colour fast on fabric!!!!  Another reason to add more colours to my growing collection ;-)

We did a spot of shopping (it would be rude not to!!!).  and then it was time to begin.  I am pretty sure most of us stifled a slight frenzied scream as the class began ha ha!!

I know, I know it is a bit far away.  I didn't like to zoom in on my iphone as I know it goes a bit blurry if I am not careful.  I was already a fan of Tim's work and all the lovely products he tempts us with and it was a treat to see his enthusiasm and creativity in the real world.  Even at the end of a two day 4 workshop event he had time and a smile for everyone (more of that later!!)  Back to the class.  We had great fun creating a tag book and I have to say my latest must collect them all fad is Tim's new layering stencils - I got to take my first one home and had fun playing with lots of different ones whilst inking up my tags.  I know they are going to be so popular.  They are scaled down designs so they are perfect for creating layers on tags or cards - well on anything really.............and did I mention they are Tag shaped???? SOLD ;-)

I think I have to take a break there as I need to get the final coat on the woodwork so watch this space and in the words of Arnie.....'I'll be back!!!'

Be sure to pop back again soon!!! x

12 Tags of 2013 - August

I am off to meet Tim tomorrow so I thought I'd better make sure my homework was up to date!!!  Here is my version of Tim's August tag.

Tim ended up making 4 tags so you know me........any excuse to make more tags ;-)  It turned into a little booklet of tags.  Here is tag number 1....

I did not have the gorgeous travel stamps that Tim used but I did have a fab set of sewing ones from Creative Expressions.  I also don't own any Distress Markers so I improvised my colour stamping with clever manoeuvring of my Distress Ink pads!  Can you see my two tone cotton reels?  Here comes tag number 2........

I did make my usual video of how I got from Tim's inspiration to my interpretation but I will have to post that when I get to edit it at the weekend.  I really loved adding the little skirts to the dress form images.  Tag number 3.....

I found some lovely velvet ric rac in my stash so this tag is very storable!  I love that this set of stamps has so many wonderful quotes which were perfect to use on my tags.  And last but not least - Tag number 4........

Tag number 4 is actually the back cover of what turned into a little book of sewing tags - Hope Tim doesn't mind all this girly stuff!!!!  I loved making this cute little cotton reels and colouring them with the Distress Inks I used for the tags.

This final shot shows how the tags go together to form a little booklet of tags.  Don't forget to pop back for the video if you want to know what I did.  For more Tim inspired tags please follow this link although Tim won't be there as he is visiting with us here in the UK - I am so excited to be doing a class with the man himself tomorrow afternoon.  I will be sure to thank him for all the inspiration.

One of the jobs on my list for today is tidying up the mayhem created by making four tags yesterday and I have a small adjustment to make on the cover tag as I have attached the lacy pom pom a little too close to the hole and I can't quite thread it on to my tag storage (workshop available for sale from my blog or ETSY shop).

Thank you for popping by x

WOYWW 221

Very early good morning to you all - It is 3.22 am here and I am up and about and very glad you can't see me right now!!!  My eldest is flying back to Gibraltar today and I am seeing him off.  His Dad is dropping him off.  Whilst I am waiting for them to get dressed I thought I would make myself useful.  I hope I am awake enough to make a sensible post.

My first photo is off the mayhem making a Tim Holtz tag creates on my desk!!!  As you can see I had lots of fun yesterday.

I will be working on editing the video today though I will post the tag anyway as I am off to see the man himself tomorrow - almost as exciting as going to see the Osmonds!!!!  Giving my age away now ;-)

Here is a sneek peak of my August tag and like Tim I have made 4 tags - no wonder it took me so long!!!  A real tag work out.  I will post the photos of all 4 tags later today.  It turned into a mini book of tags.  You can see Tim's August tag in the background.  The technique was all about masking and stamping.

I am a bit sad now as I have just waived Damian off but only a bit as he is back at the end of September to start a new job - much closer to home than Spain and Gibraltar!!!

I am off to bed for a while as I definitely need more beauty sleep and will pop in and do my desk hopping after my breakfast.  If you want to join in a fab desk hop where you get to see what is on crafting desks around the world and to meet lots of fab crafting folk then follow this link to Julia's to find all the links you need to set off on a fascinating journey.

Night Night and see you soon.  Thank you for popping by x

Work In Progress

Hi everyone, its a lovely sunny day again today.  It was fab yesterday too.  Unusual for a bank holiday in the UK ;-) I am going to balance my day with more painting in Callum's Room (my MIL is coming on Friday!), my Tim August tag video and sitting in the sun - I think I need a timetable!!

Here is the mural a little further on.

I hope this is recognisable as New York!  The lights are now on.  I have been putting off tackling the face of the girl as I don't want to mess it up!!!

Today I will white out the final two little murals I painted!  Boo Hoo!  Another 5 coats of white but first a removal job for the boys to get this wardrobe out of the alcove - I expect a lot of cobwebs to be revealed!!!

So long Dexter - you have been hanging around long enough ;-)  Is that DeeDee coming out of the closet - sorry couldn't resist that one ;-)

....and my other job today is to finish off my August tag video.  Had to have a break in proceedings to upload the content of my memory card to my computer.

Hope you are having fun in the sun and in your craft room too!

Thanks for popping by X

Art Journalling Video

Today I was up with the lark - not sure why but I think it had a bit to do with not looking at the clock properly!!!  I thought it said twenty to eight and I was up and dressed by just after 7!!!!  I think I will put my glasses on in future ;-)

Still I feel I have got a fair bit done so far today and it is only 1 o'clock.  I have had my breakfast and was deadheading and pruning in the garden by eight!  The birds were singing and the sun was shining!  4 bucket loads of trimming later I came in to do some admin on my computer.

I have been surfing the net for things for Callum's room.  The wall paper is ordered and I have stocked up on printer ink.  I then decided to use Pinterest to collect ideas for bits and pieces for Callum's room  I found a really fab duvet cover but it is in America!!!  I am going to check out how much it would cost to deliver to the UK as I do love it but I have found a couple of alternatives if not ;-)  Gotta be careful of that - Note to self: make sure you browse UK shops ;-)

I am going to post my latest video before I  get some lunch.  I have wanted to set up and film an Art Journal page for some time.  I have only done 5 or 6 pages so far so although I did my first page in 2011. I am still a newbie really.  Here is my finished page.

If you follow my blog you will know I have made several mermaid tags in the past and if you were wondering how I achieve the effect this is the video for you.  I love editing these fast forward videos as I don't have to do much talking to myself.  Saying that I did manage about 10 takes on the intro before I was happy with it.

If anyone pops by who makes videos I would really like to know how you manage to shoot videos from your own view point rather than from across the desk as I do currently.  I think it would work best for this kind of video in particular but I have no idea how to set up my camera.

I also am led to believe you can rotate your film like you can rotate photographs - I may do a search on that before I eat.  All help gratefully received with that little conundrum!

Hope you enjoy my video.....I had great fun getting all my paints out.  I want to try some different styles of Art Journalling.  This one uses paint and decoupage but I think I would like to try an inky stamping one next.

See you soon.  Thank you for popping by x

Mural Update...

Making slow progress as life keeps interrupting but I am making progress.  Here is the mural so far.

If you recognise the skyline you may guess the theme Callum wants for his room!  I am just taking a break from painting the mist as I am rubbing off more paint than I am putting on!!!

My design is constantly changing as I get each stage finished.  I am thinking of painting the ....ooops......almost gave it away......that is for the next photo!!!!

I thought I would post this then go and have a coffee break ;-)

Thank you for popping by x