The Glasgow Hobbycrafts Exhibition

Evening all,

Here's where I've been for the better part of the day. On the left is a shot of the 'armadillo' which is next door to the Scottish Exhibition & Conference Centre, on the right. I left home at 8.50am, arrived at the SECC at approximately 10.30 - looks quiet doesn't it? Appearances can be deceiving and in this case it most definitely was because inside it was heaving - the organisers must be chuffed to bits with the turnout for this first day of the fair. I had a great time, meeting people and spending all my pocket money : )

The first booth I hit was Barbara Gray's (Claritystamp) where she was demonstrating with the promised Scotland stamp. Apologies to everyone, particularly herself,  for the quality of this photo but Barbara never stands still, the woman's a human dynamo :)

Several interesting demos later I tore myself away and headed for Sheena Douglass' demo area at the Crafter's Companion stand and managed to get a better photo this time.

It was fascinating watching Sheena showing us the Paint Fusions techniques and like Barbara, she's so ready to show you how to do it. Dragging myself away yet again I eventually found myself at the Create and Craft stand and who was there but Leonie and Nancy doing their stuff demonstrating the Cricut and Cuttlebug. Apologies once again - the photographer was not up to the job today, Leonie really does look a lot prettier than this but I caught her when she was concentrating on the question one of the C&C Club Members put to her  :(

Nancy was busy too but at least she's smiling in this snap.

Others I bumped into were Kay of Hougie Board fame,

and helping her out was Lorraine who keeps me entertained with her blog, The Crafty Coo

I also met up with the Craftywhippet, aka Ruth, and Craftyalice, who together are Get Creative and can be seen on YouTube and have a blog - http://getcreative-thinkz.blogspot.com - for a wee blether.

 

Did I mentioned that in between watching demos and having wee blethers with crafting friends it was spend, spend, spend for this little crafter - I'm now the 'new poor' and I will be on a spending moratorium until the next show in October. Oh, but how I enjoyed myself - and I didn't have to pay any P&P, though I did have to carry it all home on the bus - the best way to get to and from Glasgow from Ayr in my opinion : ) Leaving the show at around 4pm I arrived home at 5.30pm, just in time for a much needed cup of tea.

When I get sorted out I'll reveal my haul - and what a revelation that will be!!!

That's all for tonight as I'm absolutely exhausted and need an early night but I will be back.

WOYWW - Week 91

Good WOYWW morning everyone,

It's a beautiful morning here in sunny South Ayrshire, the birds are tweeting and my garden is basking in early morning sunshine so I'm planning a trip out somewhere just for the pleasure of it. March already, where's the weeks going!!

If you are wondering what WOYWW is about click the link on the left, this will take you through to the Queen of Workdesks, Julia's site, The Stamping Ground. Go on, live vicariously, enjoy snooping through the workdesks of the world!

So what's on my desk this morning - well, a lot. After I'd completed yesterday's project, see it here,  I decided to take stock and look at the partially completed projects that were pushed to the side. So here they all are and hopefully later today, after my jaunt, I'll finish at least a couple - how difficult can that be after all? All I have to do is 'just do it' surely!!!

So from the left there's this week's Christmas Card, can't forget my one and only New Year's resolution! Beside that is my first experiment with TH's alcohol inks - not so good but I'll stamp it with the car stamp and a sentiment and see how it looks then. Under the ink pad is another first - a brayered scene which still needs leaves and flowers stamped. The reason it's still unfinished is that I wasn't too happy with it at this stage so it's lingered unloved till today.

Just behind the stamps are a couple of experiments - yes, more experiments : ) I've been following Debbi of The Crafty Cuttings of Wiccababe fame's blog and she has been showing us alternative ways of using Promarkers. This one involves recycling the clear plastic packaging that comes with embossing folders, etc, Promarkers and embossing inks. All I have to do with the couple I have here is emboss them with the Cuttlebug and make cards with them. To the left of them and in front of the chook cupboard is a tray with TH's inks and a water coloured stamp on an easel - it's there because I'm not sure I want to part with it in the form of a card - it's so cute I might have to keep it for myself. Finally, the yellow carton - I've saved it because it's a great shape so I'm going to make a template from the base and the lid. I had a bigger purge of the worktop at the weekend and got rid of the clutter that was in the left hand corner, making room at last for my guillotine so now it is handily out, ready and waiting for any time I need it.

I won't go over the clutter that's around it - suffice to say it's all useful stuff - really it is!!

That's it for today and time for my first cup of tea of the day - I've earned it : ) I wish you all a lovely day and a great week and I'll be popping round to as many of you as I can over the next few days. Many thanks to those who visited over the last week and I apologise if I didn't manage to return the visit. Hopefully, I'll do better this week.

Happy crafting,

Berry Sweet Tilda - Challenge Card + The Lang Scots Mile

Good Afternoon,

It's some time since I made a Tilda card but when I saw a couple of the challenges this week I decided to re-visit the little lady. I've had this stamp for ages but never had a suitable project for it before however it is ideal for this card.

A tip I'd seen somewhere, sorry can't remember who's blog but thanks to whoever you are, was to dab Tilda's cheeks with a white pen as a highlighter, after colouring with Promarkers (I'll add a list of the colours used, together with the materials, to the end of post). Tilda is adhered to the card with dimensionals so that she stands out against the heart-shaped doily (another item that had been around in my stash forever) and the trim.  The strawberries got the white ink dot treatment too.

I made this topper by printing out a digital stamp twice and colouring with Promarkers, then dotting the fruit before covering with 3-D Clear Gloss Finish - like Glossy Accents but a bit runnier. When the gloss had dried I cut round the images then intertwined them and used a glue dot to make a little bunch of fruit and flowers. Yellow gems are added to the centre of the flowers as a finishing touch and the finished bunch has been adhered with dimensionals to the card.

The two beautiful design papers come from Bearly Mine Designs and I created the sentiment stamp using them too. With the digital cutter in the graphics software I grouped together a bunch of strawberries placed in the centre of a scalloped circle taken from the vintage style paper and the text shaped into a circle - making two small stamps and one large one altogether.

It was a bit of a fiddle to cut round the scallops but I did it whilst listening to Desert Island Discs and it was done in no time : ) The large sentiment was adhered to the inside of the card and the remaining small one went on the back.

Materials used:

• Cardstock: Stampin' Up, Wild Wasabi
• Digital Design Papers: Bearly Mine Design, Delicious Delights #19; Vintage #05
• Stamps: Magnolia - Tilda with Flowing Hair; Clear Dollar Digital Stamps - Little Strawberries (glossed with Anita's 3-D Clear Gloss Finish) 
• Embellishments: Twine from The Ribbon Girl; lace punched trim, heart-shaped doily and yellow gems from stash

Promarkers: Burgundy, Cardinal Red, Ruby, Poppy, Olive Green, Pear Green, Pastel Yellow, Cinnamon, Caramel, Apricot, Oatmeal, Vanilla, Blush, Pastel Beige, Ivory, Ice Grey 1, Blender

I would like to submit this card for the following challenges:

Totally Tilda Challenge Blog - Challenge #17, Fruity Tilda (the strawberries)

Bearly Mine Challenge – Challenge #5 - Birthday Cards ( suitable for a summer birthday)

Papertake Weekly Challenge – Anything Goes with option for something old (I've had the Tilda stamp for quite some time, ditto the doily)

Docrafts - Hazel’s Tilda Three Stamps Challenge (1 Tilda stamp, 2 Little Strawberries stamps and  sentiment stamp I created myself) 

I just love strawberries, can't wait for them to be plentiful in the shops again, so this card was a real pleasure to make. The days are starting to draw out again and there is a real feeling of winter passing. We've had a few sunny days recently and the garden is greening up - I can see buds on the honeysuckles and there are flowers and touches of red on the pieris. And the birds are much in evidence at the feeders.

For those interested, and many thanks to all of your kind good wishes after my recent bad bout, we did attend the first of the two workshops for pain management and we're looking forward to attending the second. So far we've looked at what pain is, how it affects us, the value of physical exercise, stress, relaxation exercises, the value of setting goals. The hypnotic effect of the relaxation exercise we were taken through had us chuckling - the Estate Manager actually fell asleep and had to be nudged awake at the finish!

Setting our goals was revealing too.

I had not really realised how housebound I have become - walking anything but a really short distance has come to mean several painful days to follow. I used to be a very active gardener but now anything more than 10/15 minutes pottering leads to more debilitating pain. So my goal is to get out more in the fresh air, still keeping the walking to only short manageable distances, taking my camera to record my year in my scrapbook and on this blog.

The EM is really going for it - his ambition is to walk The Lang Scots Mile by the end of the year. The Lang Scots Mile is marked out along the promenade here in Ayr and it is based on the old Scottish mile which apparently is longer than the one we all use today.

His plan is to work up to it by degrees, a quarter of the distance to begin with and as he gets fitter he will walk further until he can walk the entire length - and then back. Ah, that will involve walking 2 lang miles! I've told him I'll be waiting in the car : )

So things are looking up in the Worthington household with lots of fun stuff planned for this year. I'll let you know what the 2nd workshop teaches us and keep you posted on our progress.

In the meantime, I'll just pop downstairs for a cup of tea and then start on my next craft project.