Scrapstars 2014

Hi Everyone

Well after, what seemed, a very long journey home last night from Leeds we are back from an amazing weekend at this year's Scrapstars Retreat.  It was a weekend filled with laughter, chocolate, inspirational teaching, chocolate, a massive input of scrapping mojo, laughter, challenges, the meeting up of friends old and new and .... yes, chocolate!

We really did have an amazing time and I wanted to share some photos with you so grab a cup of coffee, put your feet up and prepare for a photo-fest!

 'The Shop' all set out; I love seeing it like this!

Showing some of our new paper ranges with samples behind.

Some of the samples from our Kits

And some card samples.

Did I mention there was chocolate?  One of these on each table!!

The lovely spacious crop room

and, below, yours truly

The totaly lovely and talented Kathy Rogers who taught two inspirational classes, but more details on the classes another day.

And Emma Trout, of Websters Pages and Ingvild Bolme fame, who taught three classes and here assisting with some new techniques.

And some late-night antics!

Oh, and did I mention there was Chocolate!

 And a farewell!  

I hope you have enjoyed a little taste of our fabulous weekend and I can't encourage you enough to book for next year's Scrapstars Retreat. The exact date is still to be finalised but is likely to be in March/April but do contact Caroline who can give you more details.  I will be back with details and photos of the amazing classes that took place over the weekend.

Happy Crafting!

Kate xx

Spring is here - time to get out the flower stamps!

Hello all,

I haven't posted for a while but I have been inspired by the spring weather (and the relaxing school holidays) to 'craft outside the box'.  These days I am often crafting just to get a card made for someone's birthday but I don't usually get a chance to try something new.  I had seen an article on using a brayer to create a panel of graduated colour (by Marie Jones in Papercraft Essentials).  I was struck by the beautiful, bright shades of yellow so thought I would give it a go.

Confession time:  using the brayer was a disaster!  All I ended up with a smugy, orange mess.  I think I have the wrong type of brayer!  So it was back to the old technique of blending Distress Inks - but doing it in a NEW way - with three shades of one colour - Squeezed Lemonde, Mustard Seed and Wild Honey.  I used the IndigoBlu 'Wild Meadow' stamp set, one of my all time favourites, and the sentiment stamps were both freebies from Craft Stamper.   I love the clean, crisp results and am grateful for my Martha Stewart's butterfly punch as I needed a strategic butterfly to cover a small stamping error.  Of course, as it is spring, the butterflies then went everywhere!

 

Have a great weekend!

Nicky x

 



Lovely new Lemonlush!

Hello all,

I have been very taken with one of the new patterned paper ranges - Studio Calico's Lemonlush.  The colours are fresh and zingy, and I love the watercolour look of some of the papers.  However, when it came to making a layout, I reached for the black and white 'Wordsmith' paper as the main background, primarily so that I could play with some other products newly in, namely the Dylusions Ink Sprays by Ranger. 

I had a black and white photograph to hand which suited the paper perfectly, although a colour photo would work equally well.  The photo is of my daughter and three of her friends, so I went with a friend's suggestion for the title - 'Three's Company' (with apologies to the original meaning of this phrase; 'Four is Not a Crowd' didn't occur to me until the layout was complete!).  Some May Arts Sheer Shaded Ombre ribbon in Parrot Green/Melon added a finishing touch.

Three's Company

Here are a few more of my favourites from this Studio Calico range - I've already started playing around with 'Flighty'. 

Lemonlush - Analytics

Lemonlush - Flighty

Lemonlush - Impulsive

I hope you enjoyed looking!
Nicky