Parchment Day

A lovely non-crafting crafty day out today!

I went along to a South West gathering of the Parchment Craft Guild and what a great day it was.
I first started parchment about 20 years ago when Pergamano was first introduced to the UK.  I was lucky enough to be taught by a fabulous quiller who had been one of the first Pergamano tutors taught by Martha Ospina.  As I then got in to rubber stamping and many other things I have lapsed in and out over the years but still love it.  It's a shame it is one of the more time consuming crafts when we all seem to have so few hours in the day.

Today there were 40 very friendly ladies and we were lucky enough to get 4 different 'sessions'.
Alison Yeates from Kingfisher Crafts did a great demo using watercolour (and the lovely polychromos pencils) on parchment, Linda Williams who is Chair of the Guild had some great tips on using grids and gave a demo on shadow writing as featured in a fabulous (currently out of print) Christmas book she has written and Gail Sydenham made painting with acrylics look amazingly easy!
We all had to miss one of the 4 demos so the demonstrators could have a break, unfortunately I didn't get to see Christine Coleman today but thanks to Sue Pritchard for telling us all about the Guild exam system, showing us examples and giving us some tips.

Well done to Celia Preston for pulling off a great day and keeping us fed and watered.

Much more inspiration and I will have to now see what parchment tools I can dust off to use!

Pussy Willow

This is the 'test piece' we did on last weeks course before we embarked on the Kingfisher.


I started off a little heavy handed with the grey to start with but the willows looked much better at the other end of the branch.


The branch and willows were then lightly embossed and the background is made up of 7 different layers to create an 'in the tree' effect.


Quite pleased overall and now got the bug to play with my pencils.

Kingfisher

Here is the result of my last couple of days!
I have had my lovely box of Polychromos pencils for sometime and not really used them much.


When I then saw that Christine & Alison had a Parchment Art master class using them and the subject was Kingfisher and Pussy Willow (two things I am a great fan of) I had to go!


Day one we produced a Pussy Willow piece and then started on a second and slightly different pussy willow branch for this picture.


We then spent day 2 with Alison giving us many demos on how to build up the picture with blending the pencils and using the right colours.
There are some things I would do slightly differently but for a first go I am pretty pleased.
There is only some slight embossing on the back of the willows and then the pencils are used as a dorso effect on the back, blending in with zest-it.


My pencil tin doesn't know what hit it!
Thanks for popping past.

And finally ...

I never thought I would finish wrapping presents - didn't realise there were so many until I unearthed them from their hiding places!

Anyway, all cards done, one final post before the hols.

The card here uses Alison Yeates parchment petals. They come perforated for folding and pinching so that when you have added your design they magically (after some practice) turn in to a very pretty shape.

I embossed a snowflake on to each petal here and added dots as a border (apologies to those of you that received one without dots - I forgot what I was doing!!). The bottom layer is traced, embossed and perforated round the edge (I used a new PCA tool, not entirely sure what it was yet but I liked it!).

I have had these for ages and pleased I finally used some. Finished off with card candy coloured with copics and a bit of Anita's ribbon.

Just worked out I have sold 90 cards at work this month, plus making cards for close family and friends - I now have a cold (probably not surprisingly) and will be having a couple of days of well earned rest!!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Parchment

Just a quick report on our weekend away - and a finished project!

Had a very good time in Paignton at a parchment weekend with Christine Coleman and Alison Yeates. I haven't completely stuck this project down in case I decided to add any subtle colouring round the border.

We started on the outside border which took some time. Then the inner border which drove me nuts and seemed to go on forever. After all that work we were then horrified that we had to emboss the rose in the middle. After a 'practice' rose we all went for it and were pretty pleased with the results I think. I certainly learnt alot about embossing and used several tools I had never had before (I do now!!).

Our practice rose then turned into our second masterpiece, with mixed results and much more frustration I think. This still needs to be finished so won't get posted for a few days as I have a few things I really must sort out - although I have had a small go at it since I got back.

I am certainly itching to play with lots now, even though I think we must of clocked up about 20 hours of parching at the weekend, might even of been more if we hadn't had a couple of traumas just before midnight on Saturday - possibly played too long that day!

Many thanks to Anne, Karen and Janet for their company and Karen for the lifts and excursion to Totnes for supplies. We certainly enjoyed ourselves and will always have a giggle at Anne's 'cupboard' and the hokey cokey mints for some time to come I think.

1st Birthday

Had a bit of a dabble with parchment, pre the 'parching' weekend at the end of November which is getting ever closer!

This card is for my Godson Alexander's first birthday. It is based on a pattern in a 2003 edition of Parchment Craft. Would of liked to emboss the writing as well, but sadly not enough time at the moment. The background piece was quite time consuming with a grid work background which was then embossed and cut out.

Some of the pages were pricked with a crescent tool then cut out, the bookmark also has cut outs in for the ribbon and the number 1 was embossed and the squares from a 4-needle tool cut out. Quite enough to be going on with!