Cute stamps and peel offs

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce you to someone.  This is maybe not what you would expect from an Elusive Images stamp, but this is the first of a brand new range of stamps, by a new and very talented designer called Polly Greathead.

His name must remain a mystery for a little longer as we want you to guess what it is.  He does have a name already, and he has several friends who will be joining him over the next few months.  If you think you know what he might be called, then please leave a comment below and anyone who guesses right will be put in the pot to win a set of the stamps.

I think he has a sweet little face and he stamps up just lovely.  He is a joy to colour in with my copic markers too – see, here he is in bright colours.

I used masking on this card, something I will be going into in detail in this month’s Guild newsletter.  This was stamped on glossy card and the sea was created with stripes of different shades of blue.  I love the way the copics layer – you can really see it in the effect of the waves lapping over the sand.  I’ve highlighted the surf with a white inkssentials pen from Ranger.

This one was done with Derwent Inktense pencils and gives a much softer effect, perfect for a baby announcement or congratulations card.

A little bit of shading under the feet grounds him so he’s not floating in mid air.  The “boy” word is a Magenta peel off, believe it or not.

See, I can do cute cards with peel offs too!

Anyway, we’d love to know what you think of him, and don’t forget if you want to win a set, take a guess at his name by leaving a comment below.  Good luck!

(PS – thanks to all of you who were asking after Derrick at the open days – please send a little positive thinking his way, he’s not very well at the moment and may end up back in hospital if his kidney function doesn’t improve soon.  More on the open days to come including pictures of some of the things I was demonstrating. )

Summer Food Festival

Saturday 8th and Sunday 9th August 2009

I have been invited to take part in a local event at Thorpe Farm Peel House this August. Thorpe Farm were one of the very first customers of Graphicus back in the days when I was a bit of a Xyron specialist and they used to buy their Xyron cartridges from me. There’s also a connection with Thorpe Farm through Tracy and Philip who run the Falconry Centre there – they are neighbours of Adrian’s parents and really look after them.

So how could I refuse an invitation to join them for two days celebrating food, drink and crafts. There is a website set up for the festival – www.theglutton.co.uk – take a look, if you’re in the area that weekend, it sounds like lots of fun. To quote from the site: “Rosemary Shrager and Masterchef champion Matt Follas will be cooking throughout the weekend and passing on their top tips, hints, favourite recipes and maybe even a bit of celebrity chef gossip!”

I’ve persuaded Lynn to join me, so you can come along and see us both on our stand in the “Handmade and Gorgeous” marquee where we will have a selection of products with us. We will also be providing a few TV style demonstrations in the main marquee throughout the weekend which will be shown live on a large screen TV – they’re expecting quite a lot of people. Our demonstrations will be aimed at complete beginners to stamping and papercrafting with simple, elegant projects.

Thorpe Farm Country Park is easy to get to as it’s on the A66, not far from Barnard Castle – a stone’s throw from Yorkshire and Cumbria and just nine miles from Scotch Corner off of the A1.

So if you fancy a lovely day in the Teesdale sun (thinking positive here) enjoying a posh Afternoon Tea and Pimms and watching Rosemary Shrager or Masterchef winner Mat Follas demonstrating their favourite recipes in between catching fabulous, inspirational demonstrations by myself and Lynn, we would love to see you!

Event Details:

Thorpe Farm, Greta Bridge, DL12 9TY 10am – 4.30pm
Adults £7.50 Tickets Children under 16 free
Concessions and OAPs £4. Evening Bash £15

What a day!

Well it’s been one of THOSE days.  Plagued by last minute problems on the Brocade CD, Lesley and I had a batch of file crunching stuff to do at home today and what happened – severe thunderstorms knocked off the power this afternoon when we were only about an hour away from finishing.  Grrr.

This came on top of an unfortunate mistake by BT which had already rendered us internetless yesterday.  I called in a fault on the line on Monday after a weekend of zero or treacle like internet speeds and they said there was a massive fault on the line which they couldn’t clear on Monday, but hoped to get done on Tuesday.

So we got home Tuesday to find no phones or broadband at all, but a message on my mobile saying they’d cleared the fault and the line was fine.  Huh? Adrian had a hunch and went and plugged a phone into an old line that’s been disconnected for over a year, and sure enough, they’d reconnected that one – ok for phones, but no good for internet. They’re now telling me it’s a two man, two day job.

So with no internet or power, I decided to go and relieve Lynn at the office (late night crop) so she could get home.  Well the normal road to work was flooded, so Lesley and I turned back and went a different way.  We met Adrian coming down the road and stopped to tell him about the flood, but being a typical man in a big butch 4 wheel drive, he just had to go and play in the flood, didn’t he.  His number plate and some random piece of plastic from underneath his car are now floating gently around the Lynsack area of Teesdale.  If you find the number plate, please drop it off at Graphicus!  (Sorry Adrian, but honestly!  Boys and their toys …)

We got to the office to find the power had gone off there too!  The girls were cropping by daylight, though the thunder was still rumbling around and making it much darker than it should be.  Lynn still stayed late and we all mucked in doing stuff to get the shop ready for the open day on Friday.

I’ve just started a strict diet and had taken some salad and part baked bread rolls to the office (so we wouldn’t be tempted by snacks and takeaways) – but of course, there was no power to cook my part baked rolls!

After a couple of hours the power came back on and the irritating beep of the alarm system finally stopped.  Back home we still had no power, but at least we could bake the bread in the Aga.  After dinner, I used the last of the daylight to do a little bit of crafting, but I was just about to give up when Adrian heard the extractor fan in the bathroom start up – hallelujah, power at last!!

He’s made up for his jaunt in the flood by jury rigging up an old broadband router to the working phone line, giving us internet access (of a kind) for the first time in two days.  It’s amazing how much you miss it when you don’t have it!

So, if you’ve been wondering where I am and why I’ve been quiet on the blogs, it’s been a funny old week.  I know we’ve just launched some new Elusive Images stamps and you probably don’t want to hear this yet, but we have even more new stamps coming out in about a week’s time. Really beautiful seashore inspired stamps plus a taster set from a brand new artist in a completely different style from our normal range.

Those of you who can make it to the Graphicus open day will get to see them (and buy them) this weekend, those of you in the Graphicus Guild will be getting them as your offer of the month, and those of you with a really good Elusive Images stockist in your area may even have them already.

More info on those next week – power and internet permitting!

Summer Shimmerz

I made this card today for an advert and I just love the freshness of the blue and white together.  I must have been inspired by the blue skies.

I thought you might like a step by step on this one as I haven’t done that on the blog for ages.

So you will need:

• Loving Sentiments stamp set
• Shimmerz in shades of blue (Precious Metal Paint would work nice too)
• ScrapFX chipboard scroll
• Flowers (sorry, I’ve had them so long I can’t remember where I got them, but they’re probably Prima)
• White glossy card
• Any dye inks in shades of aqua and blue
• Adirondack Stream pigment ink
• Black archival ink
• Turquoise cardstock
• Watercolour paper
• White A5 card blank
• Blue dewdrops

1. The sentiment is stamped onto white glossy card that has been coloured with dye inkpads.  I see it being referred to as the wrinkle free distress technique around the web, but I always used to think of it as the ‘mop up the ink that’s left over on the non-stick craft sheet’ technique myself.  Basically, dab a dye inkpad or two in your chosen colour onto the craft sheet, mist with lots of water, then pat your cardstock on it to mop up the liquid.  You get a nice soft background – the more water you use, the paler it is.

   I make up a batch and put it with my white card and often use it for greetings and sentiments where I want just a hint of a colour to tie in with the rest of the card.  I also like the way the water tones down the high gloss and turns the glossy card into more of a satin sheen instead.

2. So stamp your chosen sentiment with black ink, trim and rub the inkpad around the edges.  Mat onto turquoise card.
3. Make the shimmery background by painting stripes of shimmers paint onto watercolour paper, starting with a bright blue at the bottom and fading through to turquoise and palest aqua at the top.  Leave to dry then trim and mat onto turquoise card.
4. Lightly pat the Stream pigment ink all over the chipboard scroll then emboss with Aqua Tinsel embossing powder.  When cooled, pat all over with Versamark and emboss with clear embossing powder.  Use ordinary, not UTEE as the piece is too fine for UTEE.  Repeat two or three times til you have a nice glaze over the sparkly embossing.
5. Stick the shimmerz background onto a white A5 card and mount the sentiment on top with foam pads.  Stick the chipboard scroll down the side – I used my Herma tape roller which has actually worked better than I thought it would.  As it transfers little tiny glue dots, it’s put adhesive just where it needs it on the fine pieces of the chipboard.  In the past I’ve also used tiny dabs of Glossy Accents and PVA glue – anything clear drying basically.
6. Stick the flower between the sentiment and the scroll and finish off with a coloured dew drop in the flower centre and you’re done!

I could see this card working well in other colourways too, so you could choose a flower as a starting point and coordinate the rest to match.

I found a couple of those mop up backgrounds and have scanned them so you can see the subtle pattern you get.

This one had less water, so the colours are a little stronger.

Even though the high shine has been lost, they still behave as glossy card does, so you get a lovely crisp stamped image with dye inks and you can add more colour with a brayer, stylus tool, ink blending tool, sponge, etc.  Click on any of the images for a closer look.

Well I hope you enjoyed the project and if you have a go at something similar, please leave a comment and let me know.

Not Guilty, Your Worship

Is that …. a CREAM cake?!?!

For me?  Oh, you shouldn’t have.

Oh, you didn’t.  Hrrrmphh.

Well a cat can dream.

And scheme …

… and eventually the hoomins will give in to my excessive kyootness.

Nom, nom, nom.

Blog Candy Alert

There’s new Elusive Images stamps coming out next week and there’s a different type of giveaway happening over on the Elusive Images blog.

You might want to check it out.

Feel free to let others know by putting this logo on  your blog.  Random giveaways might happen to people who do …

Men at Work

Stage one on our journey to having central heating again got underway this weekend.  The oil tank has to be relocated to comply with new safety regulations, so we decided to hire a digger to clear the chosen piece of ground, and at the same time we could do another job that badly needed done: clear our central reservation – a mound of mud and grass that had built up between the tyre tracks on our dirt track drive.

Now if anyone has ever seen any of the digger sketches from the Fast Show, it will probably come as no surprise to hear that the thought of hiring a digger for the weekend is enough to reduce most men to a state of excited childlike anticipation.  It’s rather cute actually.

Of course, it’s a serious business being a digger driver, just look at the levels of concentration required.

Basil carefully supervises.

We have a great bunch of friends.  Come and stay for the weekend we say, we have a great program lined up for your entertainment, we say.  First you can help us fill a skip with old building rubble, then you can help us move six tonnes of gravel onto the drive.  You’ll love it!

Well the work party was made up of our good friend Nick the stone balancer – more on that later – and David, the man most of you will probably just know as Chef.  Some say he invents quiche recipes in his sleep and he can chill pastry with a blink.  All we know is he’s a jolly good sort and is probably aching right now in places he didn’t know could ache.

These three boys all got to play with the digger and they all proved they have something in common with mad dogs by working right through the scorching midday sun on Saturday.  What a gorgeous day it was, but less than ideal for manual labour.

We finished the day with a barbeque – once news of the digger got around, we had them queuing up, so we thought we would make a party of it.  We forgot to mention that the barbeque was still flat packed, so the first arrivals were handed a screwdriver and the instructions.

The girls took a lesson from Basil and practised the art of supervising.

Basil makes a great foreman, he has supervising down to a fine art.

Thanks to the efforts of Mike and Steve, we were then able to get down to the serious business of cooking.  You can never have too  many cooks at a barbeque.

So a huge thank you to all our good friends who came along and made it a fun evening.  Let’s hope we get more nice weather and can do it again sometime.

On Sunday, we had a cracked wall to knock down, it was an accident waiting to happen, so we thought we might as well get rid of it while we had the skip.  After it had gone, we let Basil out and he looked around, then looked up to where the gate posts used to be.  A heart wrenching little moment because it was a favourite spot of Sesame’s.

Ah, nothing like a bit of demolition work to make you feel like a real man!

So back to the stone balancing.  It’s the latest pastime of our good friend Nick and really is what it says on the tin, balancing stones.  Take a look at this!

Nick's Stone Balancing

You can find out more about stone balancing at www.stonebalancing.com – fascinating stuff.

More from the bits box

The magazine article I just finished this week is for Creative Cardmaking featuring our Retro Vases themeplate.  I sent them a selection of cards to choose from, and of course in the process I ended up with lots of stamped stuff in the bits box.

That particular themeplate is packed full of stamps – about 44 I think, but I keep losing count!  Anyway, there are lots of solid stamps as well as detail ones and together they mix and match into vast permutations of different designs and patterns.

The background on this card is a much  loved technique – direct to paper.  I used pigment inks and just squished yellow, lime green and turquoise inks together onto a piece of card, then stamped the solid egg shape with turquoise, and stamped the leaf in green.  I think they look like some kind of seed pod.

The dragonfly came out of the bits box – a left over from an open day when we first got Scrap FX chipboard into the shop.  I still think their designs are stunningly beautiful – so much so that this dragonfly fell into the ‘too precious to use’ category, so it’s been lounging around in the bits box ever since.  Ridiculous really!

The words are from the Curly Birds themeplate and they are stamped over one of our new blush block stamps, coming out very soon.

The craft room is looking remarkably tidy at the moment and I have actually got four A4 bits boxes stacked up on the table, so plenty of fodder for more cards to come.  Tonight I started putting something together from the boxes that involved a glimmer misted tag which I stamped over with one of the brocade stamps using an Adirondack Ginger inkpad.  I am trying to make stuff from what I have without generating new bits, but as I misted the stamp ready to clean it, I thought it would come out lovely on watercolour paper …

So I tried stamping onto wet watercolour paper

then on dry

then I overstamped the wet-in-wet one with black

and hey presto – yet more things for the bits box!

Birthday Bird

This card has been sat around in pieces for weeks – a relic of the mountain of prep that goes into a TV show.  Each time I get back from filming, I’m faced with this chaotic pile of the bits that didn’t make it, the poor relations and the extra (”here’s one I did earlier”) pieces that never ended up being used.

People often ask me about cards I do on TV and I have a confession to make now, well two actually.  Firstly we don’t have Sky, so I  never see the shows on TV myself.  Secondly, after filming a show, my brain seems to shut down and I often can’t remember even the next day what I actually did.  I seem to have selective TV amnesia – I even asked my GP about it once a few years ago and she asked what I had for breakfast – I couldn’t remember if I’d had toast or cereal.  She told me to come back if it ever got to the stage when I couldn’t remember if I’d even had breakfast or not!

So if you ever stop me in the street and compliment me on a specific card I made on a show, I will smile vacantly and thank  you politely.  But if you ask how it was made, I’ll probably start to sweat and tremble before blurting out “it wasn’t me” in a blind panic.  It’s certainly got me into some interesting conversations at work, not least when I’ve been confused with someone else (you are the blond one aren’t you?).

Anyway, this little orphaned bird piece here sat for weeks in my ‘bits’ box and last night I was trying really hard to tidy up and ignore the pile of new stamps on the table that needed testing.   Somehow one of the greetings found it’s way onto an acrylic block and next thing you know the teal blue StazOn was eagerly pressing up against it whispering “play with me … you know you want to”.

So my crafter’s logic decreed that I could have a temporary break from the tidying if I actually made a completed card instead of adding to the bits box.  Ta-dah!  A finished card. If I remember rightly (and I think we’ve just established that my memory can’t be relied on) the background is brayered with Fresh Greens Kaleidacolor, then overstamped with the same inkpad using the collage background from one of the Butterfly Collage sets, before the main image was stamped in black StazOn.

The blue swirly background isn’t showing up too well in the photo as the flash has bounced off it – it’s Brilliance inks and the funky doodle swirls – another piece from the bits box.  Actually, that piece was far too small for the card, so what looks like one long background strip is actually a very small strip at the top and a bigger one at the bottom.  Very thrifty!

Well, I’ve put off the tidying long enough.  I have crafty friends visiting at the weekend, so have to have the room tidied.  I may be some time …

Getting to know …

… my copic markers.

I’ve worked with alchohol based markers before (Tria amongst others) and I have often thought that they can be a little tricky sometimes, especially on plastics, glass and other non absorbent surfaces where they can give a streaky look if you’re not careful.  On matte card, they have a tendency to feather if the cardstock or paper is too absorbent, so getting the right base to work on is important.

Markers of any kind are not as forgiving as pencils.  Once you have commited that line to paper, you are pretty much stuck with it.  Yes there are blender pens, but they will only do so much.  The trick is to realise that unlike pencils, the pressure you apply has little to do with the resulting depth of colour, so you need to think differently about how you build up tone and shade without getting harsh lines everywhere or scrubbing your paper into pieces.

At the moment, I am working with my new Copic markers on the white glossy cardstock that we sell over at Graphicus.  The gloss coating allows for plenty of layers without the surface ‘pilling’ and the markers go on nice and smoothly.

One of the key differences between water based markers on the glossy and solvent based is that the water based often leave a dark mark where you lift your pen.  Solvent markers don’t tend to do that as you don’t leave a puddle of ink behind when you lift your pen – it dries instantly.

In the card above, I have used the copic markers to colour in the lilly image which was stamped with black archival ink.  I have heard other people complain that copics lift the black, and yes it can.  However, I have found that if you have left the image to dry long enough (overnight in this case) and you are careful with the pen, there isn’t a too much of a problem.  You can even use it to your advantage to create areas of shadow.

The colours are certainly vibrant – these lillies just pop off the page.  I added some cool grey shadows around the edge and some sketchy sweeps of the blender pen’s chisel edge have added some green around the base of the plant.

I’m still learning, but I’m quite pleased with the start I’ve made.