I actually had a few days off from crafting at the weekend (deliberately to start with, followed by another couple because of a mutant migraine!!).
Graeme's race on Friday was moved to the Olympic velodrome in London so we had a quick break in the big smoke!
A very impressive building and much better lit on the inside than the couple of others we frequent!
You can just see lots of passers-by looking in too, something you can't do at Newport or Manchester.
The racing was quite impressive, maybe not so much for Graeme and his chums as one or two Olympic athletes and some European pros are rather tough competition - but a pretty good workout and good viewing for everyone else.
We then stayed in Greenwich overnight as there was meant to be more racing the next day - but after Fridays leg-breakers cycling was not on the agenda any more!
As we were just round the corner from the Cutty Sark we had a look round there which was interesting - I'd only ever seen it on the tv before (generally with marathon runners going by).
The hotel was also right next to the National Maritime Museum (at the bottom of the hill in this pic) which is on the edge of Greenwich Park so we had a look round this too - a great museum if you are in the area.
Fuelled by several refreshment stops we then also walked through the park to outside the Royal Observatory and this was the great view - the O2, Canary Wharf, the gherkin, shard and Olympic park could all be seen from this spot.
Would of loved to go in the observatory too but had read rather a lot of info already and it was packed with people so we had another refuelling stop before the journey back.
Another stamp I came across from my local establishment was this cute panda, it was less than £3.50 and came with 3 sentiments and an additional little butterfly stamp - bargain.
It is an unmounted set from Crafter's Companion called 'Bamboo'.
I've used Copics C5, 7 & 9 for the 'black' and could of coloured these all day too.
The flower is also ideal for a spot of colouring and because I was quilling too I've added a 3mm fringed flower to the middle which fitted perfectly.
I've added some quilled solid coils in the corners to tie in with the flower centre and finish the card.
The pic is rather focused on the quilled flower, sorry about that - still struggling a tad with my scanner!
A quick card from my demos at the weekend. After my prep went up in smoke somewhat plan b consisted of quilling and colouring some other items!
This is the Woodware stamp 'Modern Spray' that was available in the shop and this is one of the images I coloured with copics. I did find myself getting rather lost in colouring a few times over the two days - it is so relaxing!
Fairly straight forward colouring and layered on some lovely pearl orange card also from the shop.
Sentiment from another Woodware set in my stash!
Another interesting moment today which will come as no surprise to everyone - there is always something!
Been making some samples for the next 2 days where I am doing a spot of quilling and copic colouring at the Yandles Spring Show (Martock, Somerset). At the expense of some samples I did quite a lot of prep stamping for some quilling/colouring combo cards so I could keep busy for 2 days.
All the stamps that had been ordered for the shop for me to promote have ended up in North Yorkshire!!! Not ideal at all.
This is the Woodware Bubble Bloom stamp called Clarissa.
They are designed for card candi etc but as soon as I saw them I thought of quilling.
For both of the samples I have used a combination of 2mm & 3mm paper in co-ordinating colours and in either solid or loose coils.
It's quite a nice card to make. The purple card has copic coloured leaves, the pink card has paper-pieced leaves.
I haven't got too fancy with the backgrounds but have finished with some more solid coils and a sentiment.
The punched layer uses an x-cut leafy lace punch.
Fingers crossed for the weekend - I shall be colouring and quilling something - maybe not bubble blooms this time!
So, after making 2 fab cards at Exmouth we still had 2 workshops to go on our day out.
The second workshop (after coffee of course) was with the fabulous Francoise Read. I am already a huge fan of Francoise and her brilliant Woodware stamps and crazily thought we were bound to use some stamps I already have - but of course we didn't!!
We made these 2 cards in our session:
I'm not a very 'pink' person but thought I'd try something different.
These stamps are Curly Birthday and Curly Thanks. The base cards are made from half a piece of A4 which makes them quite a large card to find an envelope for!
The other great thing with these cards is that they were coloured with Sakura Glaze pens. I did one card colour co-ordinated and the other somewhat brighter.
Some of the parts of letters were coloured with the pens and left to dry for a minute or two - then we coloured the rest of the letters and added glitter to the top which sticks to the ink.
This was very therapeutic and we could of sat there for hours colouring. Lucy ended up with a pack of 10 glaze pens - it did help when we were told there was only one left - you have to then don't you?!
After a lovely lunch we then moved on to round 3 which was with Janet the owner of Japonica.
These cards also had a colouring theme but with an emphasis on stencils and colour matching.
These chaps are Percy and Sludge, a Gruffies stamp.
The objective with this card was to stencil the background and tie the green colouring in with the ink used which was a good process to think about.
The bears are then coloured in pencils - something I must do more of, it was very relaxing and enjoyable.
Finally we then did some more colour matching with a Happy Hoppers stamp called Knit Chick Purl 2 - how cute!
With this card we added strips of card to the base card and, again, picked out these colours in the coloured image - again coloured with pencils.
A very cute stamp and a good way to use a few scraps for the background that we all have a pile of!
A great day out, followed by a spot of retail therapy in Japonica itself obviously just in case we needed more stamps.
Next time a bit of a quilling-stamping combo!!
What I haven't shared is another little day out I had!
I recently went down to Japonica in Exmouth for another great workshop day. This time my friend Lucy accompanied too which was nice. I always do 'show and tell' with Lucy after a workshop and she had to try it for herself this time!
I'm pleased to say it was a success and we did 3 workshops through the day - some of which I will share another day.
For our first workshop we had lovely Julia from Stamping Ground. She had made a card using a Stampendous stamp set that had since turned into gold dust and I was rather taken with the flowers on the alternative - a mistake it turned out as although the stamps are lovely it was a bit more of an 'event' to sort the card and needed masking and we had a bit of a slow start trying to be too precise.
Anyway, we soon rallied and got going and eventually produced this (which is 8x8"):
A little of the masking went wayward - I was being too delicate! The masking produced a wreath of flowers that we then cut out.
They have been painted using brilliance ink on an acrylic block with a spritz of water.
The background is mulberry paper which I hadn't used for years and this is also dragged through the inks.
Needs a little perfecting but it was good to try something different and (ahem) I might of bought these Woodware stamps too!
That was just one card - we then made another in a different style.
This card has used the 'gold dust' Ranunculus stamps that can be easier overlapped without faffing about.
They are stamped on to a page from an old paperback book and coloured with pencils - an outline of blue really making them 'pop'.
This is then stuck to the backing card and all run through the cuttlebug in an embossing folder - a great effect.
A little tag added to finish too.
So, now we were up to speed and this was only one class and we had another before lunch - better save that for tomorrow.
Jill
Three cheers - I've done some quilling!!
Lots to catch up with but I shall start with a sample I made for our Somerset Quilling workshop we had at the weekend.
The pattern for these rabbits was in Crafts Beautiful a while back and I had been meaning to have a go. They are designed by the fabulous Diane Boden who kindly let us share the design with the ladies.
You would never believe my rabbits were a tad towards last minute in my current crazy schedule and I wasn't entirely happy with my pots but I have since perfected them and will feature the improved model in a future post. The pots are made with 5mm paper which is available from JJ Quilling in every colour imaginable - and some you probably wouldn't of thought of too!! Do check them out.
I think they are so cute - not brilliant at getting the eyes but you can tell they are rabbits so not too bad for round 1. A quilling demo coming up next week so I will be trying some more this week.
