Workshops & Courses Sept/Oct 2012

ALL of my courses are bookable in advance - a deposit of £5 will secure your place. 
No more than 12 per class. 
Mre information - just telephone me 01395-271739 or message me via e-mail.

3 session course -STAMPING TECHNIQUES

Sat 15th Sept -     PRINTING, MASKING & BACKGROUNDS

Sat 13th Oct  -     EMBOSSING for a perfect finish

Sat 10th Nov -    COLOURING TECHNIQUES &generally getting the best out of your stamped images.

ALL 3 SESSIONS 9.30 to 12.30 =  £30. 

FREE "MAKE & TAKE"   Wed 12th Sept 10 to 12noon

AT Glenorchy United Reformed Church.

A opportunity to make a card using paper-craft tecniques with Jan Caudrelier as part of Glenorchys festival to  celebrate the opening of their newly refurbished areas. Just pop in to participate!

WORKSHOPS with Jan -Daytimes or Evenings

FRIDAY SEPT 21st -     CHRISTMAS ASSORTMENT    10-4pm  £17.50

We will make a variety of cards using a wide variety of trends-Easel, Tent, Screen cards -all using Stamping with Cuttlebug Folders and dies for our layouts. (You willnot need your own Cuttlebug for this class -but do feel free to bring yours along if you wish).

WED SEPT 26th      USING FRANTAGE   7-9.30pm   £10

Frantage is the NEW Vintage embossing powders by Stampendous.  I shall use specific stamps that really allow the Frantage to enhance their images to the best advantage. The Crushesd Ice is my favourite so far.

Mon OCTOBER 1st        BLACK MAGIC TECHNIQUE  10am to 12.30pm   £10

We will use whit eink and watercolour pencils for this tchnique to create some lovley effects.

NB Please bring WATERCOLOUR pencils if you have them.

and in the afternoon....

Mon OCTOBER 1st       EMBOSSING IN WHITE  1.30 to 4pm   £10

Embossing in white can create some stunning effects used with coloured card.  Hee are a few ideas using NEW seasons stamps.

Mon OCTOBER 8th      PAPER PIECING   10 to 4pm   £17.50

Paper piecing (NOT piercing!) is an interesting way to use some of the lovely papers that are around.  Woodware have some NEW design stamps that will be perfect for this technique too! (I sometimes call this "colouring-in with papers!")

Lilies in Paper and Vellum

Lilies in Basket

My demo in JAPONICA this week was all about Punch craft.

These lilies are made from the small Lilium Feathers punch by Leone Em. I used pink paper -shaded with a darker pink.

The Basket is a die-cut looking very contemporary in white -but cuts equally well in cork sheet -very "basketty". 

I have used a 1" punch by Woodware - Monstera leaf -as I like the round shape of this hot house leaf with a Lily -it works well in green vellum too.
TOP TIP - If you do not have lots of colours of vellum - use white vellum and swipe a BRILLIANCE inkpad over it - let it dry before punching it.  BRILLIANCE dries very well in Vellum and comes in lovely colours -shads of green are particularly good.


Close up of stamens



Close up of support in green.

The close up shows the stamens inside the Lily.

The support for the flower head allows flower to remain erect on the card and not flatten.




Large Lilies in Vellum


These Lilies were made in white vellum coloured with a BRILLIANCE inkpad -Yellow and Coral. 
The large Lilium Feathers punch by Leone Em was used for these flowers.  Cream vellum is the overlay background on the long white card and the Lilies have been "tied" into a bunch with Ivory Organza ribbon. The Monstera leaf adds another shape to this bunch too -all in green vellums.

* NEXT weeks FREE demo in JAPONICA is USING SAKURA GELLY ROLL GLAZE PENS with GLITTER. 
Thursday morn 10-30 til 12.30.

Close up of larger  lily in vellum

Hobby Art Scenes 'a La Janet'

My demo in JAPONICA last week was all about scenes! This set has a mixture of scenes already made in it so it was very simple to use.  (Scene-it Toppers).  They were all gently coloured with soft pencils ( I use the Sakura ones as they blend really well) onto linen card for extra texture.  I took my green shades from the paper I chose for my layout in this simple screen card.  All the messages came from a set designed specially for landscape and seaside designs.  A screen type card is a good way of using small scenes to incorporate into a bigger card.  Larger scenes are much more difficult to create - so I don't do them much bigger - ever!

This stamp is just 1 large stamp -Tuscany - but I have covered the foreground with Lavender Magic Soft to make it look like a lavender field for a change!  Usually this design is seen with sunflowers in the foreground!

Autumn Scene-It, was the set used for this design. 

TOP TIP 1- Use the printed acetate sheet in the set to help create your scene by placing it over our prints to see if you have room for the next tree or house etc..
All the scene has been printed with black Versafine inkpad and then coloured with Tombow pens (on an acrylic block, ink being picked up using a brush and water). 

TOP TIP 2- Look for opportunities or colour as often scenes can be drab wth lots of green and brown, such as the poppies in th foreground to add that touch of colour. 

I have added Glossy Accent to the red petals to make them more prominent. The layering in red and then black makes these red poppie stand out even more too.  Again the scene-it messages are perfect for this scene. "The Earth laughs in flowers!"  The tiny decoupaged butterflies are from two accents in the message set and painted wth Tombow pens, just to add a tiny embellishment that is appropriate to the design. 

Stampendous Roses

I decided to use this fabulous large Roses set by Stampendous for my Demo instore last Thursday as I feel that often folk are a little shy of using bloomin' great stamps...and these are!  I love the cling rubber style stamps asyou have the best of all - hand cut rubber dies, mounted onto a cushion for easy stamping - easy to use and easy to store.  My favourite.  Stampendous have lots of lovely large sets (£13.20) for 2 large stamps - lots in stock at Japonica -with even more samples to see.
The thing you have to remember with using  a large stamp is to inkup well with a good inkpad -my favourtes are Brilliance or Versafine as both give good detail. 

    I used Onyx Black Versafine and embossed my outline with clear embossing powder first of all.   I printed the same image onto cream SHRINKLES using a black Stazon inkpad.  For colouring I used sponge dauber to pick up ink from ikpad and sponge gently onto both card and cream Shrink plastic as I used BRILLIANCE  Rocket red gold and Pearlscent Olive - both of these will dry on both surfaces and will ensure the colours match when used together on a card like this.  The colouring effect was a soft haze of colour rather than precise colouring-in - very easy to do with a little practise.

The roses on this Funny fold card were printed as before and embossed. I used Pearl paints -A Mica Pallette -Pastelle (by US Artquest), for the colouring, layered onto pink Pearl card and then onto the main card of Ivory pearl. The colours I used were a pastel pink and a grey green for the leaves.  All of this Pearl gives a very luxurious finish. This card was made from an A4 size card and will need a DL envelope.

 This a colour variation on the above card -just to show how you could use the same rose -but create 3 different panels for a smaller card (A5).  I used more bronze & golden tones with sage greens for this card.  All of the colours came from the same palette of pearl paints!  The wording stamp (Love is Patient...) is by Hobby Art and makes a lovely background to these rose anniversary cards. This is also available as a cling rubber stamp now at £5.50.

A Paper Anniversary

This is a boxful of Greetings cards made for a 1st (Paper) Anniversary.  The box of 15 square cards are very simple and uncluttered designs.  The  cards include some Birthdays, Thank you, Anniversary & Best Wishes for a young couple to use.  They are so busy these days that I thought a box of handmade cards would be quite useful-and of course it is PAPER!        

The 3-D butterfly is a favourite Peel-Off and makes a very pretty card.  All of the cards are 125mms square and have insert papers in them printed with an appropriate message. 

I have made use of Cuttlebug embossing folders too to create interesting but simple backgrounds and layers for the designs.   Organza ribbon adds a soft finishing touch to most of these cards too, with Diamond  Stickles added at the very end-so it cannot be smudged!

The box lid was made from a silver foiled wedding 12 x 12 paper I had, and i tied organza ribbon around it and added a simple tag in the colourscheme of their Wedding Day to finish it off.

TOP TIP - A box of handmade greetings cards can be a welcome gift for many occasions - some one who is busy working, or housebound or disabled would enjoy giving handmade cards.  You could add a book of stamps and a special pen to complete the gift too!