Wednesday 24 February 2016

'I LOVE CRAFT' Demo Day....


Photograph World© Geoff Wilkinson 

Thank you to everybody that attended our 'I Love Craft' Demo Day on the 14th of February. We had a great time demonstrating some hot foil techniques as well as some heat embossing techniques, the PaperArtsy paint brayer technique and stamping and colouring on wood using Crafter's Companion Spectrum Noir pencils and pens, as you can see in the pictures. As it was Valentine's Day, there was lots of chocolate to eat as well!

Lyn and Dan
x

Photograph World© Geoff Wilkinson
Photograph World© Geoff Wilkinson 

Tuesday 23 February 2016

First Craft Workshop of 2016.... Making Your Mark!



Photograph World© Geoff Wilkinson 


Our first workshop of the year was held at the shop on Wednesday the 27th of January. It was an evening workshop and everybody said they had a great time. It was an evening dedicated to making Crafty Bookmarks and the end results from everybody were beautiful as you can see in the picture above and those below. We wanted to say a big thank you to everybody that came on the night, we had a great time too.

Lyn and Dan


x

So what products did we use? Well the rubber stamps were all from PaperArtsy designed by Jo Firth-Young and Lin Brown to name a few designers and also from Indigoblu. The backgrounds were created using Tim Holtz Distress Inks and the stamped images were coloured in using a combination of PaperArtsy paints and Crafter's Companion Spectrum Noir Pens



Photograph World© Geoff Wilkinson 

Photograph World© Geoff Wilkinson 

Friday 5 February 2016

Look What's Back In Stock....

Exciting News! We have had two big boxes delivered to the shop this week containing lots of great new craft products and some that we were simply out of stock on in the shop.

So below are some of what is back in stock. Look out for new products that we will post over the next couple of weeks. If you are coming along to our 'I Love Craft' Free Craft Demo Day on Sunday February the 14th, you will have a sneak peek at them and also see them in action!

A set of two Spray Bottles, ideal to use for mixing paint with water and mica powders with water. Perfect to use on mixed media projects and to create different types of backgrounds.
Set of four Mist-Its, again ideal for mixing paint or mica powders with water. Mist-Its have a finer spray than Spray Bottles.
Magic Anit-Static Pad, this is a must have for heat embossing projects. 

Use to eliminate static that causes smudges and fingerprints on your work.
 
You simply wipe it across the surface with the anti-static bag before stamping and embossing.








And finally a round Blend-It Tool from Woodware. They also do packs of the Blending Tool Refills, which we think are fab to use with Tim Holtz Distress Inks.

Wednesday 3 February 2016

Look What We Did On 'The Magic of Mixed Media!' Craft Demo Day....



We had a very creative afternoon on Sunday the 24th of January when we held a Craft Demo Day at the shop, the theme was 'The Magic of Mixed Media!'. It was the first time we had held a demo day of this type and it was a great excuse to experiment with lots of different types of products. 

The pictures below show some of what we demonstrated on the day, along with details of some of the products we used to create the effects.  We hope you enjoy!

There are a few products that we used on most of the examples below. Pebeo Studio 3D Texture Paste was used through stencils from Tim Holtz, PaperArtsy and Dutch Doobadoo to form the textured backgrounds. A combination of Indigoblu 'Goldfinger' paint mixed in water and Treasure Gold Metallic Gilding Wax in 'Classic Gold' created all the gold effects you can see. Each of the examples could be further enhanced by using more fab mixed media embellishments!



PaperArtsy 'Little Black Dress' paint mixed with water and sprayed through a spray bottle and Creative Expressions Phill Martin Cosmic Shimmer Mister in 'Vintage Lavender' were used to create the background. 'Little Black Dress' was sprayed first all over the background and 'Vintage Lavender' was used over some of it to create the contrast.


PaperArtsy 'London Bus' and 'Plum' paints mixed with water and sprayed with a spray bottle were used to create the background above. We sprayed 'London Bus' all over the background to start with and used the 'Plum' on some of the sections. The flowers are 'Petaloo Color Me Crazy' sprayed with both paints and then edged in gold gilding wax.


A combination of three paints were used to create this background. All mixed with water and sprayed with a spray bottle. First, PaperArtsy ‘Hyde Park’ was used to cover the whole background, then Cosmic Shimmer Paint in ‘Malachite’ to add some depth and lastly PaperArtsy ‘Guacamole’ on some of the sections to lighten it up. The wording is from a PaperArtsy rubber stamp set and was stamped using a Ranger Archival Ink Pad ‘Black Onyx’.


PaperArtsy 'Little Black Dress' paint mixed with water and sprayed through a spray bottle and Creative Expressions Phill Martin Cosmic Shimmer Mister in 'Vintage Lavender' were used to create the background. 'Little Black Dress' was sprayed first all over the background and 'Vintage Lavender' was used over some of it to create the contrast. The Prima paper flowers were sprayed 'Vintage Lavender' to match and highlighted with the Indigoblu 'Goldfinger' paint.


And for something a bit different the background in the picture above was created using torn strips of masking tape, stuck down so that they overlapped. Tim Holtz Distress Ink Pads were used to create the coloured background over the masking tape using the Tim Holtz Round Blending Tool. Onyxite coloured gilding wax was used around the edges and over other parts of the background to create a contrast against the bright colours of the various Distress Inks.