Trimcraft Demonstrations April/May 2017

Good morning everyone. Another week has rolled on by. This coming weekend is another busy one for me as I have demonstrations both days. After checking my diary I realised that I only have one free weekend until the end of July. So much for relaxing weekends. At least we have a Bank Holiday here in the UK this Monday.

This weekend my demos are for Trimcraft using their gorgeous newest collections. On Saturday I shall be at The Range in Carmarthen and on Sunday at The Range in Swansea. 

The Blooming Lovely collection is full of Springtime colours and wonderful florals.

The colour palette for Painted Blooms is rich with pretty butterflies and dragonflies.

The fabulously fun Kiss and Makeup collection has eye catching colours and should appeal to ladies of all ages.

Each collection comes with it's own range of embellishments including bunting, pegs, dies, ribbons, stamps and more. Don't forget to check them out at your local stockist.

I'd love to see you if you are in the South West Wales area this weekend. Otherwise, have a  lovely weekend.

Ministry Weekend April 2017

Hello everyone. The year is travelling fast and another weekend is almost upon us.
I recently spent a very busy weekend in Coventry at the Ministry of Mixology Retreat. For those of you who don't know, the Ministry of Mixology Retreats are run by Tando Creative and Andy Skinner. Most of the wet mediums we used over the weekend were supplied by DecoArt.

There were two main tutors. France Papillion and Kate Crane. Although their styles are very different both are lovely, patient and very talented in the world of mixed media. I really enjoyed both classes. I learned new techniques and got to play with products I'd not used before.

On Saturday I attended France's class. We made a book box to hold ink pads. The actual kit was supplied by Tando Creative and was easy to assemble once France explained it all.

The box was then covered in several layers of paints and finishes to achieve an old wood effect.

The final part was to decorate the top of the box and thread the string.

Kate's class on Sunday was a divided box to hold tags and four tags to put in it. I didn't manage to finish all of the tags on the day.

The box was decorated and assembled in the morning session. The colour palette and techniques were great fun to work with.

I managed to paint and embellish one of the large tags (6"/15cm square) and start painting the other tags in the afternoon.

On Saturday evening there were Make & Take sessions. I managed to do three of those. 

The first project was Dee Adams's Steampunk heart.

My second Make & Take was Hannah Oxberry's stencilled tag. I really need to practice this one.

My last project of the night was Nikki Killinger's acrylic media board. I now understand the principle of working backwards! 

I'd like to say a very big Thank You to everyone involved in organising and participating in the Ministry retreat weekend. I had a fabulous time and learned so much.
 I shall be attending a Clare Charvill workshop on Saturday and working with some pretty Graphic 45 papers. Have a good weekend everyone, I hope you have something nice planned.

Creative Artiste #25 April 2017

Hello everyone, happy Friday! I hope you all have a nice weekend planned. I'm off to Coventry for the Ministry of Mixology weekend. I'm really looking forward to all the craftiness! But first, today's order of business ....

Welcome to my April challenge post for
Creative Artiste.
We are a challenge blog for everyone who likes to mix their media. So, as long as you like to use various mediums on your creations we'd love to see you enter the challenge.

A big Thank You to everyone who entered Challenge #24 in March. Your projects were fabulous and our winner has been announced on the blog. 

Our theme is always
"Anything Mixed Media Goes"

This month we are being sponsored by
DecoArt
who have this wonderful prize for our winner.

I have decorated a jewellery box using some DecoArt products for my project this month.

This was a plain white box and I gave it a couple of coats of gesso to start with. I mixed DecoArt Crafter's Acrylic in 'Burnt Sienna' with some local sand and covered the whole box.

Once dry I used two shades of DecoArt Americana acrylic paint in turquoise to cover most of the textured layer, then dabbed on patches of Crafter's Acrylic in 'Early Spring Green' and 'Cool Blue'. I finished by adding patches of DecoArt Media Quinacridone Gold.

For the central panel I started by gluing on shells, glass beads, pearls, Art Stones and painted die-cuts.

The marbled effect was created with DecoArt Triple Thick Glaze and some Pebeo Fantasy paints.

This is a month long challenge so you have time to create projects and enter up to three times. A full list of the rules is on the challenge blog. For more inspiration please visit the Creative Artiste Challenge Blog to see the wonderful mixed media projects created by our talented team.  Remember to have fun and enter your "Anything Mixed Media Goes" creations in the challenge.
Have a lovely weekend everyone, whatever you have planned.
I've entered this project into the following challenges:
http://welove2create.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/challenge-7-anything-creativemixed.html x
http://alteredeclectics.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/april-challenge-over-at-altered.html
http://rheddscreativespirit.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/aprils-challenge.html
http://abitmoretimetocraft.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/a-bit-more-time-to-craft-challenge-41.html
http://moremixedmediachallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/more-mixed-media-challenge-anything.html
http://mixedmediaworld.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/mmw23-anything-mixed-media-goes-with.html

Crafts Galore Encore April 2017

There is a new challenge on the  

Crafts Galore Encore Challenge Blog. 

Thank you to everyone who joined in with February's challenge. The winners are on the challenge blog's 'winner's page'. This is a month long challenge and you can enter up to three times. A full list of rules are on the challenge blog.

Our theme this month is the popular
"Anything Goes"
and our sponsor is


A Day for Daisies
who are offering a $12 voucher for the winner.

I decided to keep things simple and make a monochrome card.

I used an A5 card base and painted the outside edge in black. I then distressed a paper from Prima's Epiphany pad and dripped on a few splashes of black paint. The flourish image was fussy cut from a different page and fixed in the corner.

I was given a single bird from the Freehand Bird 3 image. I used a graphics program to copy and flip the image. I then joined the two birds together and printed the image out.

The flowers were from my stash and the sentiment was computer generated.

Now please visit the  Crafts Galore Encore challenge blog to see the wonderful projects and cards created by the rest of the talented team and to enter your "Anything Goes" creations.