Hels comes up north weekend!

What a terrific weekend we've just had with Hels Sheridan. We made two outstanding projects, I love them both. There was 17 of us and we all did our own individual take on Hels instructions. The results were amazing, so many wonderful FINISHED projects. Yes we all finished our projects, which is very satisfying when you arrive home with something finished to look at. 

We really were very productive considering all the belly laughs and the off-crafty-topic conversations we had! A huge thank you to Sue Tucker who organised the whole thing like clockwork. :)

Here we're all are engrossed in painting our canvases.

Here's Gemma, Tracy (me), and Helen.

There's Lou in the middle, probably looking for the Bora Bora PaperArtsy Fresco Paint! We kept stealing it sharing it with each other all day.

 Naughty Sam holding up her probably someone elses canvas background! You gotta keep your eye on this one or she'll be licking, sniffing and stroking your make if she likes it better than hers!  

Tracy working on her gorgeous canvas.

Helen rubbing treasure gold on the edges of her lovely bright canvas.

From front to back: Sue, Jane and Joan all with goldfinger's!

From front to back: Debbie, Jane, Gemma, Helen and Lou (still on the cadge!).

From front to back: Donna, Susie, Janet, Sam, Joan and Jane. They were a noisy lot on that side, sheesh!

Can't take em anywhere! Joanne was on the end, but she's not in the shot. 

Sue Tucker got all adventurous with my camera and did lots of tilted pics. This is one of them, but I straightened it in Photoshop. Love the way some people are leaning over to the right, as if that would make a difference! I just love everyone's expression on this pic, it summed the weekend up really.

Full of fun.

Hels looks ashamed though :), we were all like naughty kids!

Hels made each of us a little bag with a name badge in and some die cuts. It was such a nice touch, I loved it.

I'll use the name badge forever now, Thank you x

Here are the two projects I made :)

I've used PaperArtsy Grunge Paste, paints and JOFY stamps. 

The edge got in on the action too!

This project uses TH burlap panels. Love these panels.

It's very Tim tastic with lots of die cut elements, Distress paints and Idea-ology.

Well if you've got this far then you deserve a well earned cup of tea and a biscuit to keep your sugar levels up! Thank you for popping along and reading my blog post.We had such a great time on the workshop, and I think we're all pushing for a repeat performance very soon.

Poor Hels!

Have fun in your crafty space, Michelle  xxx

Dylusional Doilies for Creative Expressions

For Creative Expressions this week I've used the fab Doily die from Couture Creations. I cut 3 doily's and inked them up with Dylusions inks, Vibrant Turquiose, London Blue and Crushed Grape. I added a few ghosting layers of dots on the doily's too. Then I stamped the flourish stamp from the Floral Silhouette stamp set on the background of the card using Shaded Lilac, Squeezed Lemon and Tumbled Glass Distress Ink. I've stamped the Delicate Asters stamp for the bright yellow flowers in the middle of the doily's.

I'm loving the lovely bright colours, in keeping with our bright hot sunny days. 

It's short and brief this week, as the crafty room is too hot to be in during this weather.

I think I'll be moving some of my crafty stash outside next week, lets hope we get a nice cool breeze soon.

Is this technically a heat wave we're experiencing at the moment, I think so?

Michelle xx

A fun and arty packed weekend!

On Saturday I was teaching at Art from the Heart's preview day, what a lovely bunch of ladies too, we had lots of inky fun making this lovely Match Book below. I love preview day, the shop and studio is buzzing with excited crafter's. It's always a great atmosphere.

Managed to get a quick piccy in of these lovely ladies.

Kate Crane, me, Gillian Simson, Dyan Reavely & Darcy Wilkinson

Then it was off on a road trip to PaperArtsy headquarters with Darcy and Gillian.

It was so hot driving down to Essex, we were nearly boiled alive in the car. 

We had such a giggle though.

We arrived at Creasey Farm, home of PaperArtsy and the lovely Franich Family who run it.

Here's Mr PaperArtsy, being cool as cucumber in their amazing workshop.

They were so generous to put us up for two nights.

Here's the view I woke up to in the morning, gorgeous or what!

No time to take in the views we had work to do. 

We were there in a training/work capacity and we had lots to do.

As soon as we landed we helped set up the venue for the trade event which was going to happen all day Sunday.

We were so hot and tired after setting up that me and Gillian couldn't resist a dip in the swimming pool at the venue.

We got back after setting up and Mr PaperArtsy put some great sausages on the BBQ from a local farm. 

Oh they were tasty washed down with some well earned G&T.

Those kiwi's know how to do a BBQ.

Sunday was brilliant, lots of familiar faces.

Karen Daniell, Gabrielle Price and Suzie Candlin.

I spotted Helen Chilton, Helen Pigott, Nina and Neil Walker. There were loads more peeps I couldn't put faces to names.

Darcy and Anita 

Mrs PaperArtsy, Leandra doing her thang, showing us all the great techniques she knows.

Gillian with Bora Bora Fresco Finish paint all over her lip! I know you were hungry Gillian, but's that's just crazy.

The food was amazing at the venue, really tasty, but I had to take a pic of the cakes, they looked yummy.

Love my camera sometimes!

By the afternoon the table had lots of great tags with tons of texture and techniques all over them.

Then we had another great evening of more sausages, Prosecco and G&T.

Leandra Tweeting our dry ships!

Then everyone Tweeting! 

Not a great action shot granted but we were being particularly rowdy between tweets!

Then there was the drive home, we were surprisingly chipper seeing as we were functioning on only a few hours sleep. This moment was helped by Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody coming on the radio! Love Darcy's face!

A whirlwind of a weekend, nearly 560 miles driving but every second worth it!

Can't wait till we can do it all again!

Phew you made it to the end.

You deserve a cuppa and a slice of cake.

Michelle xx

Great new products from Creative Expressions

This will have to be a short and sweet post as my internet is not working and I’m waiting for an engineer to come out on Saturday. It’s very frustrating. I’m currently tethering my connection from my phone which is very VERY slow.  So here goes....only taken two hours to upload!

For the design team this month Creative Expressions has sent us the gorgeous Doily die from Couture Creations and some fab Cosmic Shimmer texture paste.  I can see that these are going to be well used, they’re great! The texture paste comes in a whole host of colours too, with some metallic ones as well.

In the card below I’ve used the lovely Doily Die, it’s a thin die and works in all die cutting machines.

The sentiment is from the Special Sentiments stamp set from Creative Expressions too.

 Hopefully by next week, we’ll be all sorted and I’ll be back online.

Michelle x