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It's all going on here!

bloga@paperartsy.co.uk (The Crafty Chick) — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 11:57:00 +0000

Well we are almost ready for Version Scrap, the show which is in Paris this coming weekend April 9,10,11. We shall depart in the wee hours of Thurs am to head for Paris. We have all day to set up and the show opens that very evening to VIP peeps- who they are and how they get in I have no idea, but I'm just praying we arrive and get set up in time for doors opening at 6.30 pm. The show then continues for 3 days 9am to 7pm, those Europeans really work us hard! Breakdown is until midnight Sunday, and then we come straight back through the chunnel on a nocturnal crossing, we just have to make sure we are back in time to pick up Mark's parents from Heathrow at 6am Monday!! They fly in from New Zealand to stay with us for a month. I am pretty sure that the house will be in no fit state to receive them so I am praying for a miracle that I have the energy to clean up and re-organise for them on our return from Paris - that gives me about 3 hours! LOL. We do have to co-ordinate a major room shift about with the kids as Courtney needs her own room with GCSE's looming, so she'll move into Hugo's room, Hugo will share with Millie and Ella who have a large room, and the in laws get Courtney's room. Oh boy, its not a simple as just making the bed up! Lets hope they are too jet-lagged to notice too much of the chaos they will meet! Day 2 of them being here is FIL's 70th birthday, and I haven't even thought about that!!! Blimey. It's going to require all of my organisational and bossy skills to get the troops focussed for this effort. Anyway I am not thinking about all that until Monday!

For now we have some fab stuff to share with you. HUGE excitement here!!! Developed for release at the Version Scrap show we have dies to match our new Hot Pick stamps that were officially released on April 1st. Yes you are not seeing things...dies!

Use this stamp set HP1004

and you can stamp the large flower and leaf image onto the flower die PAD-GF. This is the larger of the grungy-collage style, steampunky image (top right) that Mark created and is causing such a buzz stamped as a metal rose. And you can see why... here it is all in one colour of metal, but it looks fab with different colours layered up too!!

PAD-GF

OMG think of the possibilities, that you can even die cut your metal to make a metal rose it fab-u-lous. Samples like this were a magpie magnet on my demo table at the NEC! Everyone wanted to do the metal rose thing, and its so much easier than grungepaper as the metal holds its form...although I do admit to totally loving those grunge ones too!! Anyway we are filming a you-tube of the metal rose technique so stay tuned, we just have to fit in in with the show, room re-organisation and in laws! LOL

Oh but it doesn't stop there! As if!!

We also have the birdcage as a die

PAD-BC

Here is the birdcage stamped onto acetate, I then painted bits with gold precious metal colour, and once that was dry, added some acrylic paints ...that's why its is the reverse... paint acrylics over the stazon on the stamped side, then flip the acetate over. Start with a Die cut acetate shape, stamp on it and go to it!!

The Moth

PAD-M

And to go with this set HP1005 we have

The bird

PAD-SB

And the tag base for the filmstrip

PAD-PF

And for the smaller flowers from the Squiggly Ink Flora and Fauna set

We also have another flower die to match the scallop edges of the larger flower from plate SIFF5

And to match the Tops and Tails plate 3 (SITT3) dragonflies we have these two. I love dragonflies as bellies on cards, they are so easy and very effective, especially in metal!

All these are available to order on-line now. We will try to get orders out before we go to Paris, but if your order doesn't arrive by Thursday, then it will be shipped after Tues 13th April once we are back from the show! At least you know you will be top of the queue if you place an order now!!

Oh and I forgot to tell you, last week (before Easter) I spent 3 days with Lin putting the final touches to the May ArtsyCrafts weekends. We are really pleased with how the classes have all turned out, suffice to say birds abound with many techniques. Its going to be fab fab fab!!!

Here's a few sneaky peeks

I think both weekends have sold out, but if you still want a place call Karen on 01234 714848 to go on the waiting list.
Here is the state of Lin's workroom on Day 3!! And we thought we tidied up the night before! Oops

HobbyCrafts, Version Scrap and new {rubber stamps}

bloga@paperartsy.co.uk (The Crafty Chick) — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 13:25:00 +0000

After so many positive comments about us exhibiting at the NEC late last year, we decided to do it all again for the show this coming week.

NEC HobbyCrafts is on for 4 days in Birmingham, UK from Thursday 25th to Sun 28th March. 4 days of demos, new products and new stamps. Our stand is F02. Write it down as I'm not sure if we made the showguide but we are near the demonstration forum. Come in the main entrance and turn left. Go towards the end/ demo area and you will see Once upon a stamp on your left. Turn right into the aisle (second to last aisle) and we are in the first block on the right opposite Craft Superstore.

2 weeks after that we will be in Paris for Version Scrap. April 9,10,11. This is a show I have attended for the last 3 years to teach classes and make and takes. This time we shall exhibit with our own stand. If you are looking for an excuse to have a weekend in Paris this is it! It is a fabulous show. They have many great teachers such as France's own many stars like Celine Navarro, Manuela Jamet and Karine, or les Americans also put in an appearance such as Teresa Collins, Debbie Schuh, Donna Downey.

As well as great teachers, there are also many exhibitors, and with some really interesting and different products. Then when its time for lunch, you sit down for a quiche or crepe with a glass of wine or a beer! Fabulous daaaahling!!

The Version Scrap venue is in the midst of Parc Floral which is most beautiful at this spring time of year, and has easy metro access. Take the yellow line (number 1) and get off at the last stop, Chateau de Vincennes, there is then the cutest little trains (les Navettes) take you direct to the venue or you can have a lovely 15 min walk thru the park if you prefer. Beautiful way to start the day.

So what have we got lined up for you at these wonderful shows? Lots of new stuff !!

Lots of Viva paint,

new ranger distress inks,

And we will have a selection of new products from Crafty Notions too (opaque dye sprays, masks and stencils plus more!

fantastic wood substrates,

chipboard and canvas products,

brand new Ten Seconds Studio metals in new metal packs (we put 3 colours in a pack for £5),

New TSS moulds and of course

new rubber stamps!

This one is HP1004 -

Hot Picks are A5 stamp sets and will sell for £14.99 UM or £19.99 on EZ

We are releasing a new one each month

This one is HP1005

We also have 6 new stamp sets for Squiggly Ink called Flora and Fauna

These are SIFF1 and SIFF2 to give you an idea

Here are all 6

So we hope to see you at one of these shows, if you can't make it, you can buy all this on-line from April 1st from us at PaperArtsy or at your local stamp store now.

I will be demoing my socks off to show you the versatility of all these products. It's going to be so much fun so do drop by and say hi. Free gift with every purchase.

Have a great week and follow me live at both these shows via twitter www.twitter.com/paperartsy

Leandra

Warrington ArtsyCrafts {we loved it } !!

bloga@paperartsy.co.uk (The Crafty Chick) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 22:17:00 +0000

Another fun filled ArtsyCrafts weekend to remember has gone all too fast. Lin and I thoroughly enjoyed every single minute. They are hilarious events, lots of fun, laughter, and learning. This time I tweeted (follow me here) all the way through the weekend and it was fun to get feedback from peeps all over the world following us as we worked. Twitter is like a mini blog, and I love commenting during the day on what we are up to and putting photos up on twitpic.

A lot of hard work happens behind the scenes in the lead up to ArtsyCrafts. A big thanks to Karen for kitting up perfectly again. How could we do it without her? She is a true gem. Lin and I can hardly call our play days together designing classes work now can we?? It all comes together when we start setting up the tables. Lots of space for everyone and a huge box of supplies to use!! Plus each peep gets their own meal tool kit for the whole weekend.

This time every person finished every project, and the extra time to embellish the arches paid off with gorgeous copper accents adding a new dimension to the finished pieces. The time theme was perfect for the arch, there was a lot of happy peeps so excited about the pieces they made. We liked the venue a lot and we will certainly be considering another event there in the Autumn. Some of the goodies we had for sale including all Tim's newest inks and other relevant toys!

Lin's daughter Sarah gets married in a couple of weeks (big excitement in the Brown household) and so once Lin has recovered we shall be putting the finishing touches to the May ArtsyCrafts events. I am so looking forward to the bird theme. It will be stunning.

BTW This is how the new mini packaging looks (below). We are gradually getting all the stock switched over.

I think there are only 1 or 2 places left on the first weekend of May ArtsyCrafts, week 2 is fully booked. If you want to go on the waiting list you can as we occasionally have the odd last minute cancellation due to unforeseen circumstances. I am really looking forward to this one. The theme is Flights of Fancy, and we have some fabulous new stamps to incorporate into the projects. Simply can not wait. They will be available from April 1st online. Here is a sneak peek of the Squigglies, there are also some cool A5 new Ink and the Dog stamps called 'Hot Picks'. I'll save those for another day.

So here follows some weekend piccies, stamping on fabric.

embossing metal with scootchy tools

using moulds and pieces the metal around the frame

new Ten Seconds Moulds with a time theme (handy!)

adding some copper trim

beginning to paint distress - putting the paint on...then we take it off again!

adding paint to a terra-stamped slide-mailer

how amazing is this? LOVE it! We added stamped metal bellies to this project

In the evening we came back for a chilled session to sew the embellishments like tiny seed beads onto the stamped and coloured fabric. Not everyone's favourite task, but as an incentive we offered a secret project if they did speed sewing in 30 mins.

Each group was given a baggie of bits, and they had to make a card from their bits. My favourite bellie was these gorgeous tags stamped with the Urban Snapshots tree from Plate 3. Adore this effect!!

If you were in Kay's group it was the hardest 30 mins of the weekend while she worked her team into a creative frenzy - drill sergeant major styley. Lin and I fell about laughing watching her competitive streak shine through but it all paid off as the whole group voted their team as the favourite card of the evening.... I think we were all impressed by the sheer number of products and techniques they squeezed in!!

Start of Sunday and we were straight into the 'Leandra beads' to embellish the bottom of the arches. Wooden painted beads dipped into UTEE, and perfect pearls worked perfectly as the finishing touch. Everyone managed these perfectly.

Those who didn't mica dip still had sparkly beads from the gorgeous Precious metal colour paints on the wooden bead base.

With the afternoon looming we started on stamped bellies for the arch. The 6 petal rose (SIEN10) worked a treat for this creation of Kay's and generated lots of oohs and ahhs. She made a tape sandwich and said the rose held in position so easily, and even found this metal version easier than grunge-paper roses! I can't wait to have a go myself! Love it when people do their own thing in class, we were all inspired by the individuality expressed on each arch at this stage.

Amy also did a rose with the same stamp, and she ran hers thru the bug with quite different results. We all totally loved this too, so now we have another version to try out....so very awesome!!

But there were other gorgeous flower creations going on around the room too. These ones are from SIEN4 which is a fabulous plate. You can make diddy flowers for the centre with shrink plastic!

How about a crown or Fleur de Lis?

And this gets the genius award....metal buttons!!! How cool, and with thread. I tell you...these guys may have been metal beginners..but boy were they good!!

How about this arty idea from Mell - love how the copper is positioned at the foot of the frame with the contrast of the eyelets!

Alice was totally chuffed with how hers turned out.

My Auntie Alice (left) dropped in to have a catch up at lunch with me and stayed to see what the ladies had been up to. She was fascinated with everything they had achieved over the weekend.

And after lunch the last session. A new take on the platter we made in a previous AC. This time a tiny tray was painted and the metal embossed and sanded. All the colours made for such different results.

Mell did pink

This blue and brown combo was very modern (here the pieces are just being loosely fitted.

And the greens also looked amazing....

And how about this chocolate - denim one!! How can you ever choose a favourite! They all were absolutely wonderful!

Well I think all that gives you a brilliant flavour of our fantabulous ArtsyCrafts weekend in Warrington. Yes you should have come! So don't miss the next one. There are only a few places left on the first May weekend (8th & 9th). Don't miss it!! All new classes and lots of new products to play with!!

Thanks ladies, you were wonderful. Sorry this isn't the best photo and this was before you were holding the arches....

oh and who can forget the lunchtime bunny! That's his paw behind my head. Cheeky bunny!

Pinch and a Punch {very gently of course}

bloga@paperartsy.co.uk (The Crafty Chick) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:36:00 +0000

Blimey, it's March already and I am very excited. SO much going on this month, new stamps out soon, March ArtsyCrafts is in the new Warrington venue, and a show at the end of the month.

But first up this month is Craft Stamper catching us on the hop again. We have had emails this morning from people wanting to buy the stamps on offer for the article I wrote for the April issue out today. I haven't even got a copy yet, but some of you out there have!! So i just managed to upload the offers , check out this link http://shop.paperartsy.co.uk/craft-stamper-april10-253-c.asp and you can get your hot little hands on all you need to make this fun project.

The birds are stamped on pearl metal but this whole thing would look cool done with Rum and Raisin papers too if you're not into paint.

Try it in your fave colours. How cool does it look in pink and brown...this one by Jo Firth-Young ...here's the back

and the front.

The project is a collaboration by Lin at LB Crafts and me, it's one of the classes we taught at the October ArtsyCrafts last year. All the peeps loved this as it's a fair dinkum proper stamping project. Looks simple, but actually there are quite a few tricky dickie techniques in there that many of us haven't used for year and years. So something nice to get your teeth stuck into. In class we were surprised at how many peeps didn't realise you could actually stamp on top of paint so easily and with such sharp results - well you can with kaiser colour paints as they produce an extremely matt and chalky surface that accepts ink beautifully.

All the stamps used for this are from the ever-so-quirky Ding and Dong family of Squiggly Ink stamps, and don;t forget to check out the matching minis. These are time themed bird stamps-very cool.

Have a great day, and if you made this at AC post the link to your blog to show the world!! Don't be shy!

Leandra
PS be a twit with me: twitter.com/PaperArtsy it's not hard!

Good Times {Leandra's World}

bloga@paperartsy.co.uk (The Crafty Chick) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 18:11:00 +0000

Yoo hooo...yes I'm here...I know its been a while, and there was me thinking how organised I have been! Maybe I was a tad delusional about that....??? My attempts to blog have been scuppered of late. So now that the laptop is temporarily resurrected after a 3 day near-death experience, the kids are away at school so I can actually access a computer, and I have a break in the rubber pressing schedule, I can take a breather and fill you in on the latest goings on here, cos when i write it all down there has been quite a lot on!

New You Tube Project
Half term holiday I had a great day with Millie, Ella and Mill's friend Marie making this little trinket box. It is such an easy project. The boxes are here, and they make the most beautiful little gift for anyone. The kids had no problems making this at all. And you can see us all playing and sharing nicely together here on this new PaperArtsy technique video. Don't forget to subscribe to the PaperArtsy Youtube channel so you can see more demos like this.

A project like the teeny box is an awesome idea for a kids party. 3 of our kids have birthdays in Summer here in the UK, so 'Art & BBQ Parties' are all the rage. We make some stuff, have a paddle in the in the temporary pool, finish making the stuff, have a BBQ...and just oooze thru the day. It's easy to host because the kids are entertained the whole time! All the other Mums are really impressed because its something different and no one does old-fashioned home based parties any more so you become an art goddess/ cool mum overnight. Because we have 3 birthdays in 4 weeks here I also like that these events turns out to be a really affordable way to have a bunch of kids over. Even Miss 16yr old thinks this is an acceptable activity to have friends over for! Tip: for impeccable behaviour infer you might video bits for youtube! LOL

Play Day with Jo and Lynne
What else have I been up to? Had a great day with Lynne Howe and Jo Firth-Young getting some new Arch samples made for the March ArtsyCarfts weekend in Warrington.

This is a new idea I had with 2 of the brand new Ten Seconds moulds that will be available any day now. I am sure Cheryl from TSS planned for the moulds to be used this way, but I felt pretty chuffed to work this out myself! LOL I fitted bits from new moulds into the frames made by another. These should all be in stock soon, along with the new colours of metal. mmmmmmmm

Here is Jo meticulously painting her balls to be used as the base of the Leandra Bead, She discovered a new way to drip them so they look like the shape of a Xmas ornament. We liked the Jo FY variation - a lot.

And because we call Jo the queen of the cuttlebug, she duly lived up to her reputation, and worked out how we can do the Split cuttlebug technique Lin and I developed for the arch frame using an embossing folder that I thought wouldn't work because of its orientation...if that doesn't make sense then you'll have to wait to the retreat to find out how that works! LOL Needless to say she is one clever bunny and Lynne and I have booked her to come and show us more bug ideas for a whole day!! (exciting - cos I have a few ideas of my own to try)

ArtsyCrafts in March
If you want to join us for ArtsyCrafts in Warrington mid-March, there are are still some places available. Personally, the arch is my most fave class because it incorporates everything I love the most: fabric stamping, metal working and UTEE. All great techniques, plus we have 2 other classes, 1 of which is totally new allbeit an adaption of a previous concept. Booking information is here, and you should check out the youtube video with samples and other info too.

Stitches Trade Show
This weekend just been we had a lovely time at the Stitches trade show in Birmingham. This is a show just for retailers where all the latest products for the year are released. The hard part is working out what you *need* and what you can't live without, and trying to find something that no one else has spotted! LOL

Our 2 May ArtsyCrafts retreats have a 'flights of fancy' theme, so Lin and I were eyes peeled for trinkets and products to squeeze into the schedule. Like this - adorable little tweeter box. Just love it, but it's not available yet. Soon.

The drive up we had a lot of snow, at one point we followed a snow plough pushing snow off the road on the M6! The good thing was the roads were pretty quiet, so we still made good time. It seemed the aisles were pretty quiet early on, so I had a lovely chat catching up with Rachel Greig from Darkroom Door while she was starting off her demos for the morning. Lin and I went out for a lovely meal with Rachel at CHA last year, so it was great to see her again. At the same time we then got nabbed by Claudine Hellmuth and Mario (that's Claudines golden locks front right!) so we all chin wagged for a while, and Rachel showed her the crayon resist technique on the gorgeous rose stamp she has.

We were all stunned to see Mario (Tim's right hand man) in jeans, this never happens, even in a blizzard he is known to stick to shorts. I tweeted this pic to see if anyone could guess who it was. Teresa from Ranger clocked him within minutes. LOL

Flicked over to the other side of the booth to watch Suze demo the meltpot for a while. Lots of peeps watching had been in Ranger classes the day before and were loving all the great things she so effortlessly makes. Here I got a quick shot of Suze's stuff on one of the stands at the show, with Suze!

Every year I get to see Suze on at least a few occasions at various trade shows, and Mark and I had a great afternoon walking the show with her while she was on a break. It's like escorting a royal comedian/phtographer around the show! We had a lot of laughs and spotted a lot of demos and products and people who we all knew. She goes click, click click with the camera non stop to document every step of the way. She is such a great blogger. Check our Suze's blog for a day by day blow of the show and her exciting time here in England and at QVC this week. She is back in June so maybe you can catch her for a class at the Craft Barn. I'll be demoing there too in June for the bi-annual demo day - great weekend, and Lingfield is a typically English, very pretty village.

Suze and I were very excited to see Michael de Mengs newest book on one of the stands. Love his work.

Tim was in fine form as usual sharing all his tips and tricks with his latest products. He has new inks (which we will have available to use and buy at ArtsyCrafts in a couple of weeks...they are already here ready packed in the class kits...every new colour!!) Also his new book is jam packed with step outs of all the techniques he has been teaching for years, and showcasing how they fit in with his various product lines. A great reference. I can't wait for his new sizzix line to ship. I am not much of a die cutting girl, but have seen how tim uses them a lot over the last couple of years, and I guess this means I will need to get a big shot. Can my green bug do it all? I am not very up with the play on all things die.

I loved this antique expandable box he keeps all his 'bits' in. Here's a close up. Bet airport security love that!

And waiting in the wings, ever so excited to meet Tim was the lovely and very talented Linda Elbourne. She is such a Tim fan...well stalker is probably the word really...LOL...and she was so in awe she was pretty much struck dumb in his presence. I think if Wendy Vecchi was there too (her other idol) she probably would have passed out in the booth. Tim made a gorgeous sample for her, and she was holding it like the most precious relic in the world. If you could get her to part with it for a peek then you were doing well!! He signed it and she managed to pull herself together to pose for a piccie!

This is the second photo, still a bit blurry, sorry Linda.... must practise with my iphone, I'm good at close up product shots, not so good with peoples!!

Mark and I had a really nice lunch with the Ranger family before heading home. We usually catch up with these guys for a couple of weeks every year at EU and USA trade shows, so it's always nice to hang out and talk about non work stuff.

This year it was an iphone convention. Suze and Alain were on blackberry's but the rest of us were comparing iphone apps, flicking photos about, 'bumping' details, acquiring new apps.... have you got this/ that etc. I was the saddo, my apps are practical things like biz calculator (takes off and adds on VAT, or works out the margin of profit!), weather watch, or flashlight, or the jamie oliver app for peeps in a rush! At least I actually had apps, Dy had none until she got Carl! ROFLOL. Guess she and I don't require these time waster gizmos cos we don't have as many hours to fill on planes as Tim and Mario! Anyway we got shown Talking Carl (the only app Dy now has), and now that I know my account password (Mark takes care of all things techno for me) I also have rat on a scooter too! Small things, but very funny. Hugo now knows how to hold Carl's mouth open and he growls for ages, and if you have a Carl on 2 phones and get them talking to each other they get higher and higher pitched until you think the phone is going to explode! So now we have a new child consequence- 'if you keep doing that you can't talk to Carl today kiddo!' Love that!

If you are not an iphone peep, that last bit probs made no sense at all.

Craft Stamper Mag
In the current Craft Stamper Magazine (March issue) we have some gorgeous samples from our very talented and able Design Team using our newest stamps which are of a time theme.(Clocks Ink and the Dog Stamps) You will see these stamps popping up in the mag a couple more times in imminent issues, so there should be plenty of ideas to fuel your muse.

Featured in Stamping Contrasts was this image (Clocks plate 1) skillfully used very creatively by Jo Capper-Sandon, Jo Firth-Young, Lin Brown and myself to create a variety of different samples. A big shout-out to them all for playing along with us, and wow have they made some beautiful items! Check out the magazine or their blogs to see snippets of their beautiful pieces.

This is one of the samples I made based on the easel card concept with a see through acetate panel. The background is Rum and Raisin papers washed with gesso. Love those papers, and of the 14 designs, only 3 are Christmas, so the colours and patterns are year-round useful - gotta love that. {BTW these are on sale at only £2.50 per pack for 28 sheets of A5 double sided paper!!}

The full clock collage was stamped on the paper, the clock face masked and purple inks sponged around the edges of the clock. This was laid up to Periwinkle metal and black card positioned on and behind the acetate. (check me-PURPLE!)

Stamped on the front of the acetate is the large grid image from Clocks Plate 2. I then cut out the inner part of the grid to leave a frame. On the back of the frame I painted in Viva Precious Metal Colour (gold) a few elements, then over-painted that with white Kaiser paint. Love this idea and haven't done it for many years. It creates a great window to feature the image behind.

The second sample was only shown front on in the magazine which really doesn't show the depth of the piece. Hopefully you'll get a better idea with these pics.

First off the background is periwinkle metal formed on a diamond mould and attached to a circle of chipboard. Some of the diamonds are scribbled on and distressed with white paint, and a few diamonds are decorated with Rum and Raisin papers.

A second chipboard circle is cut to make a frame which is textured with terra and stamped into, then distressed with paint and glimmers. Behind this a piece of acetate stamped with clocks plate 1 is secured. The acetate has the key and postmark painted from the back with gold viva precious metal colour. Use puff pads to lay up the 2 layers of chipboard, and on top of the acetate, the clock is stamped on pearl metal, puffed out, filled from the back and placed in position.

This was quite a complicated piece, but I really enjoyed making it,and the colours are so NOT me but I did enjoy the end result. Maybe I'm going to be a pastel-purple girl this year!

Right well that is my marathon catch-up post done. Next big job here is to file a whole heap of photos so that we can have a new PaperArtsy Catalogue online for you to see with beautiful artwork from the Design Team. I'll make sure to blog piccies in much shorter posts of the coming days!

Don't forget you can follow me on twitter @paperartsy . I'm a better twit than blogger! LOL

Love to see your comments so don't be shy !

Leandra

ArtsyCrafts sneaky Peeks - March 2010

bloga@paperartsy.co.uk (The Crafty Chick) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 20:51:00 +0000

March 13 and 14 are the dates for our first northern ArtsyCrafts events. If you live in the North of England, then we have organised this event just for those of you who asked us to! DeVere Daresbury park is a wonderful venue located near Warrington, and centrally in between John Lennon and Manchester airports (only 20 mins to either airport).

The main project at Warrington will be the Gothic Arch. A beautiful wooden frame covered in metal embossed with many diffferent techniques. Inside the frame is stamped, bead embellished fabric, lightly quilted. Hanging from the base of the frame is a row of "Leandra Beads" made with UTEE (Ultra thick embosing enamel)

To see sneaky peeks of the arch and other class samples and for more information about the event check out this video. We'd love to have you join us!

UTEE {Birdcage} ...yes it's possible!

bloga@paperartsy.co.uk (The Crafty Chick) — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 13:20:00 +0000

Late last year Ranger contacted me to ask if I would submit a piece for their designer wall at the CHA show in Anaheim, LA. (it's on right now as we speak in) Oh I don't know...let me think about it.... well duh... of course I would do something.

What an honour to follow in the footsteps of so many great names who have appeared on that wall in recent years!! And "UTEE: the hottest ticket" as a theme was right up my street, so I was buzzing, excited, flattered and totally itching to get going with all Suze's Melt Art goodies.

What to do...... hmmmmm.......... hmmmmm.... well its more like what NOT to do in a case like this, I mean we have beeswax (I love), Coloured & Metallic UTEE (I adore), Clear UTEE with to Dye for inks (I can't live without).....then of course what about all of Ranger's other cool stuff that it's impossible to keep my hands off like Perfect Pearls, Claudine's Paints, Paint Dabbers, Archival Ink, Distress Ink, Memory Frames & glass.......matte medium, glossy accents.....you know what a Ranger addict I have been for like my whole life.....so it soon became apparant that I needed to be mega restrictive with what I used. I didn't want to overcook the whole thing with too much Ranger....is there such a thing??? LOL But I also wanted some of those Leandra Beads on there too....and I a bird cage.....hmmmmmm

So I started by sketching out some ideas in my book. The background was easy. We had a large square piece of wood, and a ticket shaped item, also wood. I started with the ticket, did Claudines peeled paper, then proceeded to cover it all up with paint, about 20 layers until I had it the right shade. Lots of black, pool, espresso, sandal, pebble, white, mushroom, pool....over and over... and over

I also was clear about what I wanted the square wooden background to look like. Embossed metal at the edges, blue and red paints in the dips of the texture, and then blacken it all up to look quite dark to enable the 'glass' birdcage to 'pop' as the feature. It's just a background right?... so it didn't need it to be too busy or dominant....I laid out the bits I had done so far to get an idea of where to put the metal. And then got started on that.

Stuck the metal down - it was embossed on a Ten Seconds grid...not embossing the whole pattern just some of them...then stamped into some texture (to disguise the metal joins) And let that dry. Next step paint.

Starting with pool and red pepper in the dips, and then adding white over the top...hmmm...liking it pale like this with the white-mushroom dabbers on the top layers...but I knew it needed to be blacker...so hard as it was to do I kept adding more and more black until it got it darker. You can see here how it ended here below with the addition of a few stamped PaperArtsy flowers and ideaology bellies. I like how the pool and red pepper paints just peek through.

OK now my Big challenge. UTEE on the cage. I still wasn't sure how to do it. I mean UTEE on a wire frame..had it been done before? If so how? I wanted to UTEE a wire bird cage....where did that come from...I don't know.... but how the heck to UTEE it????

More Hmmmmmmmm's..... for days.........wire...Runny UTEE.....??? Dip??? Mold and Pour??? ....hmmmmmm...heat gun??? Heat proof gloves????

Several more days of trying to figure it out......Xmas looming....mother coming from New Zealand ...still ......hmmmmmm....... so I spoke to Lin about it Lin Brown from LB Crafts...and of course she said you want to do WHAT??? and how the heck will you do that???? And how will it get there without breaking???? And do you know what day it is already????

You are bonkers....mad.....stuff like that.....and then she suggested 'Maybe you'd better make a spare for me to take with me just in case' ...and proceeded to churn her item out in less than 24 hrs and sent me quicksie kind of blurry pics........hmmmmmmmmm......and of course hers was to die for even though I couldn't see too much detail in her late night pics. But yesterday people at CHA saw it and started raving about it so this is the best pic I found thanks to Dy who blogged it at CHA. Fabulous isn't it!

It includes loads of really great ideas...spoons filled with UTEE, embossed metal, painted texture and of course in her signature colour scheme. She also used beeswax, and 2 of her superb UTEE techniques she developed this year...UTEE poured on Ten Seconds molds, (that was a "ka-ching" moment after Suze and Lin had a play day in Lin's shop last year) and she has demoed it around the UK at shows this last year. Fab idea. She also figured out a twist on Suze's cookie cutter technique. Lin pours clear UTEE over a piece of stamped and puffed metal..see the diamond bellie top left...(BTW we taught both these fun ideas at our October 2009 ArtsyCrafts weekend event last year) Lin is amazing. Everything she does is beautiful, well thought out and executed.......so while her piece was winging its way in a timely manner over to the USA.... no pressure ..... I still hadn't figured out...... how to UTEE over wire....

Let's just start with the Leandra beads and see what happens. So a couple of years back I figured out how to make beads by dipping wire into UTEE, fondue styley. You can read the original post here with step outs. Sometimes I use paper as a base, other times existing beads or sequins. For this project I picked up the blue from the background, painted wooden beads and dipped them into clear, wrapped with wire and dipped again. The beads are attached to the bottom of the cage in the holes created around the cage base. They also look great with perfect pearls trapped in the layers too.

That just left the cage and it's birdie to go on the perch. I started with some mold and pour pressed on the inside.

And then started with the UTEE on the outside. I found that perfect pearls can change the effect too, so some sections are totally clear (no perfect pearls) and others have a dusting of PP to make it more opaque and shimmer. You prolly need to see it IRL to get that bit.

After all the hmmmmm's , it wasn't that hard after all! LOL I was sweating it though....as I had no plan B if it failed! LOL

In the back of the cage the little metal embossed tweeter is very happy on his perch. And I hope he has been well behaved while all those CHA people are peeking at him throughout the show.

So here it is the whole piece finished.

Glad to be able to share this with you all, and don't forget the PaperArtsy January sale finished soon. Check it out. We added a Bargain Bin this weekend with lots of end of line goodies in it and more are being added daily.

I'll catch you later in the week with some fabulous 'Clock themed' items from our design team.
Take care

Leandra

Good Times {JANUARY SALE NOW ON} at PaperArtsy

bloga@paperartsy.co.uk (The Crafty Chick) — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 20:27:00 +0000

It only happens once a year and it starts now, the {BIG} SALE is on now, here at PaperArtsy. So bag a bargain while stocks last.

We are always well stocked with rubber, after all we do manufacture all our stamps on site here at PaperArtsy World HQ, so if you need rubber we make it!!! That will not run out! However for supplies of omther items such a paints, texture paste, papers, wood, metal, chipboard or canvas etc we rely on other suppliers, so those products may go out of stock, but we will do our best to re-order popular items ASAP.

To be sure you get what you want, it would be smart to order now. We will be busy little bunnies getting your orders out as fast as we can, and remember every order gets a freebie gift!

Spend over £30 and get 10% off

Spend over £60.00 and get 20% off

Spend over £100.00 and get 30% off

on top of that, use your Voucher code from issue 117 out now from Craft Stamper magazine and all UK customers will also get free shipping!

Coming up this month are ideas with the new Ink and the Dog Clocks stamps from our Design Team - and more Youtube videos from Leandra! Stay tuned!

Wishing you all a healthy and very happy 2010

Mark andLeandra

New coolio things to {play} with

bloga@paperartsy.co.uk (The Crafty Chick) — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 18:07:00 +0000

We had a fabulous Christmas this year, the snow, albeit a few days early was magical, and all the trees looks just like a scene from Narnia! We had people over for snowmen competitions and lots of soup and bread was consumed to warm up those cold fingers! Our 3 bird roast was superb on the day, and is extremely tasty on sandwiches too!! (Chicken, Duck and Pheasant with 2 stuffings in between)

Courtney's GCSE mock exams are over so she is more relaxed, and my mother is here to visit from New Zealand too, so she is enjoyed catching up with the kids (and all her many rellies up north) after a couple of years.

I look forward to the week between Christmas and New Year being a great time to play with arty things and ideas. This creative time often continues well into January once life settles back down after the hustle and bustle of Christmas.

Mark was a busy bee putting some new goodies on the site recently, so I thought I should let you know what is there, I am itching to play with many of these bits too!!!

This little 'jewellery' box caught my eye as a nice thing to alter. I would look superb with some metal or paint on it, but it has a clever insert to accommodate a necklace or earrings, so if you make jewellery for gifts, then this is a must for you and at £1.08 (GBP - pounds sterling)

We also have a pair of papier mache suitcases; these are the best and would look great on display in a room. £2.84 for both suitcases before VAT.

The small notebooks are a reasonable price too. The ones with the window niche have graph paper, just pale grey squares, so not too dominant, but I totally love that niche in the front. The plain covered books have regular lines, and again, books like this work well with a metal cover to jazz them up. 10x10cm are 51p, 14x14cm are .83p (before VAT)

A simple idea to cover the notebooks would be this. Put humungo tape over the entire cover. Run some strips of metal through the cuttle-bug then arrange them on the sticky tape. Where 2 pieces of metal meet each other, it’s a good idea to run a texture wheel (fine dot, or diagonal are good) along the join to ensure the metal has good contact with the humungo tape. Don’t scrimp on the tape, I know it’s expensive, but you need a super strong tape like humungo to do this job or the metal will fall off the book cover before too long.

Next up, the micro canvases. I have been doing all kind of projects on these for a couple of years now and they are so cute. We have 2 sizes, and you get one of each size for .85p I am quite partial to the idea of making these into little houses, with some metal rooves!!

We also have 3 sizes of square canvases (those flat hard backed ones) which fit into a wooden frame. Use them together or separately. Prices from .69p to £1.51 (before VAT)

Loving these wooden ‘icon’ frames, both as a double (£1.05 ex VAT) or triple (£1.56 ex VAT) hinged pieces, they are beautiful to alter and of course, being solid wood, they take metal very well.

Lastly the 3 in a row small frames and the pencil cases are back in stock, these are always popular items. Leandra had a project with the frames in one of the pre-Christmas issues of Craft Stamper magazine.

And a paint palette may come in handy if you plan on using those Viva paints! You will find all the terra, ferro, croco and Viva precious metal colour paints are back in stock so if you were gifted some money to spend over Christmas, those are very versatile products to play a round with for sure!!

Yes we are open this week, and we will be shipping out orders super quick, so if you need stuff either call us on 01277 212911 or place an order online.

Have a great week, we are nearly at 2010!!!! The millenium celebrations don't seem like 10 years ago!!! Yikes! Keep safe.

Leandra

Weeks whizzing by

bloga@paperartsy.co.uk (The Crafty Chick) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 09:25:00 +0000

Yesterday we had snow, and this afternoon and tonight it's going to snow heavily down here in Essex, and the East of England, so I think this morning is my last chance before school ends to get those last few presents sorted out. You think you have it all done, and then you think of another 6 things you forgot about. So just thought I'd get a note out to you all before I hit the panic button.

My mother is here from New Zealand this year, she has just spent the last couple of weeks up in Lancashire for a family wedding, and catching up with some old school friends, then on Monday she will come down to us. We have lots of evening parties planned next week, so I think by the time Christmas eve arrives we will enjoy a day on the couches watching the tele!!

We launched a PaperArtsy Youtube channel last week and I have put a couple of videos up relevant to recent blog posts.

Firstly stamping into texture. In this video I used Terra and Ferro, but you don't have to use both on the same project, you could use one or the other. I put a couple of dark colours into the dips, but you can put light in the dips, or leave as is and put darker colours on top. It really is a lot of fun, and great for onto wooden frames or surfaces as well as papier mache or chipboard.

I am expecting a delivery of Terra and Ferro today, so there will be plenty of choice in the shop, plus we have a whole lot of new wooden items to put online too, so get your orders in now ready for that wonderful week between Christmas and New year whihc is a great art-play time!

The second video is the technique of 'puffing' metal. For this you can stamp an image and puff out sections of it. The image might be a bird cage, the castle turrets, birds on a wire, or in the case of the video, a simple flower which makes a beautiful card or scrapbook embellishment. But I also added a simple frame to it.

We will continue to add more videos to the PaperArtsy channel so you can see first hand how to use products that we stock. If you have any specific request, then let us know.

Wishing you all a totally fabulous Christmas and a wonderful New Year.

Leandra & Mark.

Official {ARTSYCRAFTS} dates for 2010

bloga@paperartsy.co.uk (The Crafty Chick) — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 23:18:00 +0000

Here it is...the waiting is over......

we have been getting loads of phone calls, emails and enquiries...every day for a few weeks from keen peeps wanting to book.....and now all the info for

THREE NEW ARTSYCRAFTS DATES

is online ready for you!!

Bookings open Monday 14th December 10am.

We have had to make some changes to our original March plans as .....big news..... Lin's daughter has set her wedding date for the end of March (much excitement) so here is the new plan.

We have 3 events scheduled for the first half of 2010

Event Dates

March 13/14, 2010 at DeVere Daresbury Park, Warrington (nr Manchester).
This is a one weekend only "Best of" ArtsyCrafts event). This will include the fabulous Gothic Arch with a new twist, plus the most popular classes from our 2008 ArtsyCrafts events.

The March event is going to be perfect for people who missed our first ever AC classes in 2008, or for those who have never attended an AC event before and of course for ArtsyCrafts addicts who need a hit of inspiration during the winter months. PLUS it's happening in the North of England, so those of you living up that way won't have so far to travel! The venue offers superb, 4 star accommodation, has a healthy food restaurant, wireless internet throughout and a really nice large room to work in, easy access from the motorway, and only 20 mins from both Manchester Airport and Liverpool's John Lennon airport.

None of the classes will be exactly the same as previously taught, so even though the event is based on prior classes, all of the projects will involve different stamps and twists on techniques to keep it fresh.

Techniques you will learn:

metal embossing (cuttle bug and moulds)
stamping on metal
sanding metal
tape sandwiches
adhesive metal
alcohol inks on metal
making a metal frame from a wooden substrate
stamping/colouring fabric
embellishing stamped fabric
Terra texture with kaiser-colour paint
the Leandra bead from UTEE (ultra thick embossing enamel)
working with PaperArtsy papers and Stamps

May 8/9, 2010 or May 22/23, 2010 " Flights of Fancy" at DeVere Harben House, Newport Pagnell (nr Milton Keynes)

new curriculum based on the theme "Flights of Fancy" developed by Linda Brown (LB Crafts) and Leandra Franich (PaperArtsy)
plenty of innovative techniques to learn in every session using metal, stamps, paints etc.

The Price for every weekend is £275.00. This includes

use of plentiful class supplies (stamps, inks, paints etc)
prepared class project kits (items to make your projects)
full colour step by step notes for each project
innovative, technique-loaded class projects over 8 sessions using a wide variety of current products
personal metal working tool kit (on loan for the duration of the weekend)
tea/coffee cold drinks and snacks on tap
beautiful lunches in the restaurant Saturday (buffet of many choices) and Sunday (carvery)
spacious venue workroom: beautiful large working area with plenty of space and easy access
Well known craft teachers Lin and Leandra facilitating the weekend with their additional experienced staff on hand to assist

Earlybird booking price: £250.00 valid until 31 January 2010

The Accommodation

Accomodation on site is available at both venues if you require it. You will need to book this directly yourself, or elsewhere nearby if you prefer.

DeVere Daresbury: £50.00 incl VAT for bed and breakfast choice of twin or double bedrooms
DeVere Newport Pagnell: £39.00 ex VAT for bed and breakfast. Double rooms only available so not suitable for friend share.

Evening Meals

We leave you free to organise your own evening meal on Saturday in case you prefer to eat elsewhere locally for a change of scenery.

Transport Links

DeVere Daresbury Park, Warrington. You can fly either to John Lennon Airport, Liverpool, or Manchester. From Manchester take the train to Warrington, then catch a taxi to the venue (5mins). From John Lennon its a 20 min taxi drive to the venue.

DeVere Harben House, Newport Pagnell. Closest airport is Luton (40min taxi drive). Or take the bus to Milton Keynes, then another to Newport Pagnell. You may need to consider arriving Friday night and leaving Monday morning for easier transport options.

If you want to read more about our most recent ArtsyCrafts event which was held in October 2009, then red about it here on Leandra's blog, or here on Linda's blog. Many previous attendees have left comments or links back to their blogs too. It's a great way to get a feel to see if this might be an event you would like to attend.

To Book you need to follow this link to the ArtsyCrafts Web Page.

DeVere Daresbury Park, Nr Warrington:March 13, 14, 2010 booking form here

DeVere Harben House, Newport Pagnell:May 8,9 or May 22,23, 2010 booking form here

How to book?
1. Download the relevant booking form for the weekend you wish to attend.

2. Fill it out, and send it with payment to:
    LB Crafts Ltd ArtsyCrafts
    6 Rose Court
    Market Place
    Olney
    MK46 4BY
    England

3. Pay. Either send a cheque in the post to LB Crafts Ltd ArtsyCrafts, or if you want to pay via Credit Card, then send your form, and once it arrives we will call you for payment. (for card security we do not want you to send card details in the post, nor can we keep a written record in the shop)

4. Bookings will be processed strictly on a first come basis, and no bookings are final until the completed form and payment are both received.

Any queries please phone LB Crafts on +44 (0)1234 714 848 or PaperArtsy on +44 (0)1277 212 911

A day of {cheers} at PA world HQ

bloga@paperartsy.co.uk (The Crafty Chick) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:19:00 +0000

PaperArtsy stamps in Stampington's Stampers' Sampler (try saying that 3 times in a row!)

Over the weekend an American retailer we supply emailed to say that some of our stamps were being used in the newest issue of Stampers Sampler that she had just got in the post. I hot footed it over to the Stampington website hoping to see some sneak peeks from inside the issue so I could identify the stamps that had been used.... but the new issue wasn't online yet. The today our rep Kay phoned to say that the artwork was on the front cover. Hooray we said, and went back to Stampington to see this.

And here's the sneaky peeks of inside the mag. Some of our stamps nestled in among gorgeous hand drawn images by the author, who we are told is Anie Frazer so hope that information is right....well done, we love what you did!

So go get your copy now and then come to PaperArtsy to get the stamps. The image on the left is from SILK1, the arch shaped house. NExt is SIEN1 (xmas trees) with the tall house from SIBM3. The tiny little house nestled in on the flower is also from SIBM3 and Love you more is from SILK1. Then the row of houses under the flowers on the far right sample is from SIBM2.

I love the combination of stamps surrounded by easily created hand drawn images. And colouring in like this ...lots of fun whether you use waxy pencils, watercolour pencils and of course copics.

Enjoy

Leandra

Ohhhh { Love these metal birds}

bloga@paperartsy.co.uk (The Crafty Chick) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:14:00 +0000

Before we start...A few words on the rugby...

If you were following me on twitter (@paperartsy) the other weekend you would have seen my blow by blow account of the New Zealand All Blacks playing the English. Yay to the AB's. and yay that Mark and I were able to go along to watch with some other kiwi friends. Getting tickets to go to Twickenham is never easy for games like this, so we got them through the New Zealand Rugby Union verified by our kiwi passports. A great method as the section of the stadium we were in was all black too, so that made it even more fun! Plus a try that was scored (AB's) happened in the corner right in front of where we sat, so we were up and out of our seats with excitement!. We had a great spot: the higher stands protected us from the wind and rain, and the corporate "boxes" we just behind us, so we had the same view as them but way more fun! And of course the icing on the cake was the win.

The best part of rugby is the freindly atmosphere. When the poms scored we clapped, and when we scored they clapped...very sporting of us all and exactly how it should be....oh and the TV ref comes in very handy too!! Fair play all round makes for a great event. Had a few laughs on the train on the way back with other supporters from both sides. Very very enjoyable.

Spinach Pie Success...

Oh and Patricia emailed me last weekend to say she tried my Spinach pie recipe, and her family loved it...that was funny...I know I put the recipes up there for people to try, but didn't think you actually would! SO I may have to put something else up there soon if you are liking that additional feature! lol Really tickled me that.3 bird roast for Xmas coming soon!!

Gift Certificates......

Mark has spent some time crating a series of VERY cool looking gift certificates. These are perfect for you to give firends or family vouchers that can be redeemed online, over the phone or as a postal order. Check them out here.

Back to the metal working....

After being out and about at a few shows in the last couple of months, I seem to get loads of emails from peeps asking me how I did this that or whatever, or how do they get started, usually that they don't remember a thing of what I demoed and want a blow by blow summary. lol. The shows over here like the NEC are absolutely massive. You are doing well to get around all the stands in a day, and you see soooo much thatit can be a bit of a brain drain. So thanks for taking the time to email and ask for help or inspirational ideas and reminders.

This blog is your first port of call. I do try to put up online the samples I made at the shows and give instructions of how they were made. That way, if you were stood watching, you can remember more easily how it was made. This works well until stuff "walks" off the desk....or people poke your samples so the metal gets crushed before the glue supporting it has set.

Often I come up with new ideas while demoing, and this time, I had a great idea with some of the bird stamps and the little chipboard arches, and it was all looking awesome, but before the filler had set up, nearly every time I would go to show the sample to the next bunch of people watching, and bang, the blimmin thing was all mangled. So on the last day of the show i tried to make some samples and hid them so i could blog un-poked items. :-)

I am pretty forgiving - poking raised metal is probably something even I would do lol... I guess we must all have some innate desire to have to just test to see if the metal is supported/strong. And people stood there aren't to know that it's not set hard. The drying process for fillers can be 24 hours, so usually the stuff on my desk is at some stage of drying out, but it certainly isn't fully set.

So let me show you what I was up to. If people are interested in how to stretch metal, then the samples above (fleur de lis) is a classic I do a lot, or maybe I might use a small flower, and stamp with a section that would look good puffed out will work, start with a simple design.

The process is the same. Here is the same idea using the row of birds from SITT2...love that stamp(above) Or with a dragonfly stamp...this one is from the Squiggly Mini #13 .

Substrate. Choose a substrate to work on (this is a mini chipboard arch -we have several new chipboard shapes going online this week) and trace the outline onto a piece of metal and cut out.
Stamp. Stamp the image onto silver, copper or coloured metal in the position you want with stazOn black ink and dry.
Outline. Use a teflon pointed tool to gently outline the stamped design on the front. Lean on a wad of paper for this.
Puff with paperstump. Flip the metal over, and on the back you will clearly see the outlined shapes. Put the metal onto a soft mat, and use a small paper stump in a circular motion to start puffing the metal inside the design lines. You might find the metal is resistant to you initially, then suddenly the warmth from the friction kicks in and you will feel the metal much more willing to oblige. Don't stop, keep puffing - you need to gradually stretch the metal.
Refine on acrylic mat. Once you have the image puffed out to the depth you like, flip the metal over (puffy side up) and place it on an ACRYLIC MAT. People forget this bit and its the most important. You need to tidy up all the other bits of metal surrounding the puffed design that got mangled or stretched in the process. Use a large paper stump to gently flatten all the areas up to the edges of the stamped design. Don't press hard. Gradually encourage it to do what you want and again it will eventually play ball. At this point you can also place your refine metal back onto a wad of paper, and gently use a small fine perforated dot tool to outline the birds.
Filling Metal. Now you need to fill the metal to support the puffed section. You need a product that will set up hard. Not silicone glue which is a soft flexible glue, even when dry. You need to use either a glue or a poyfiller type product that will set hard. I use glossy accents for small areas, or polyfilla (plaster-like) for larger areas. There are many polyfillers out there, and some are more lightweight than others...which is good for cards that get posted...so muck about and do some tests to see which products you like the best. Apply the product to the recess and let set overnight. Cut a piece of humungo the same size as the metal. Stick the humungo tape to the substrate, then stick the metal to the humungo. Run a patterned wheel around the edge like a herringbone wheel to finish the edge nicely.
Stamp again. You can add more flourishes, words etc to your piece, and use texture wheels around the edge.

These simple tag-shaped pieces make great tags for presents, and of course you can write a message on the back...do that before you stick the metal down for ease, or if you forget, then place metal side down on a soft mat and then do your writing! The backs would look great with some rum and raisin papers on them!!

Oops...here's a poked one! grrrr...

...and a few more samples so you get the idea...note how once the metal is on the chipboard base, you can still outline the stamped lines as the chipboard with humungo tape is soft enough to accept lines made with a teflon pointy tool.

Love this sample below where part of a flower from SIEN2 or use SIEN4 for a larger one.

Here's one with a difference for those of you who want more of a challenge! Love the added colour which comes from the glimmer mists with a dab of paint underneath.

Outline. Trace around the tag chipboard shape onto a sheet of silver metal with your pointy tool. Cut out
Sand. Use your sanding block to sand the metal in both directions (horizontal and vertical) This will give the metal a stainless steel effect, and adds some 'tooth' to the shiny surface....love doing this before stamping in general...but don't do it to coloured metal ..all you will do is sand off the colour! LOL (you knew that already didn't you!!)
Paint. Apply paint to the surface...if you want the glimmer colours to be rally strong, then use a pale kaisercolour like white, eggshell, antique white, blossom, coastal blue, or one of those really ligfht shades. Swipe a very small amount of paint on with Cut and Dry foam, and then wipe off the excess with a paper towel. You still want to see the shine of the metal.
Glimmer. Paint and sanding the metal gives 'tooth' so that Glimmer mists can stick to the metal. So now you can choose 2 colours of glimmer to use on the metal. Spray Patina onto part of the metal and then dry. Next spray khaki on the remaining area and dry. If you spray loads, you will get 'watermark' type effects. It's a good idea to heat the metal with your heat gun first, and then spray while its hot, this helps the glimmer to dry faster.
Stamp. Now stamp your birdcage image from SINM6 in archival jet black ink on top....DON'T use stazon....why? Because stazon is used onto smooth and shiny NON-POROUS surfaces (eg. metal, acetate, acrylic). We just added paint, and glimmer to the metal, so now you want to use Ranger's archival jet black ink or a black pigment like brilliance would also work. These will give a much better black colour onto the painted, glimmered surface.
Emboss the image. Puff out the image as before, so outline the image from the front with a pointy tool, then flip onto the soft mat and puff out the birdcage from behind with a paper stump, or for a lage area like this the round teflon tool is perfect!. Carefully refine on an acrylic mat to flaten the surrounding areas, and to finish, use a fine dot perforated wheel around the edge of the birdcage if you wish.
Fill the metal. OPTION A: Fill the recess with glossy accents. You can also apply glossy accents to the rest of the metal, but only a small amount, and you need to smooch it about with your finger so you have a thin even layer. now stick the metal directly to the chipboard. OPTION B: Fill the recess with polyfiller. Let dry overnight. Cut humungo to fit the substrate and stick to the substrate. Stick the metal to the humungo.
Stamp. Add more stamping to the edges of the piece or words like those from SINM6. Also edge the metal with a decorative wheel, like the diagonal. You can also sand the edges of the metal after using the wheel to make a nice frame.

OK so that's your lot for today ..plenty to be going on with... we are mega fast on shipping at the moment, everything is going out within 24 hours, so what are you waiting for!!!

Don't forget that Tim has started his 12 days of Xmas tags today too, so many ideas and techniques to look forward to. I loved his iwred ribbon idea on Tag 1..I'm off to do that with paper!

And please leave a comment with your thoughts on what you will do with these ideas! I love hearing about what you are up to!

Your Patience Rewarded!

bloga@paperartsy.co.uk (The Crafty Chick) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:34:00 +0000

Loved being at the NEC (National Exhibition Centre), Birmingham this last weekend for the HobbyCrafts show. This is one of the Uk largest retail craft shows with thousands of people coming through every day to see all the stands. The show was different this year as it was relocated into hall 20, but very enjoyable with all the shows being in the one place. I thought it was a lot cooler as the space was bigger, all the different shows (Hobbycrafts, Art Materials and Christmas Gifts) were in the same hall, so it was easier to see them all. This meant there was more space, the aisles were wider. It was a new layout, so it took a while to get your bearings and work out where your fave sellers were, and there were not enough toilets, so many desperate ladies found the mens loos a better option!

Here is part of our stand, you can see the paints and glimmers on the shelves, and the demo desk to the right.

Our stand was in the row which was half Hobbycrafts and half Art Materials, which fitted us as that was exactly the type of stuff on our booth! here is part of the top of my demo area...lots of stuff to hand to play with: glimmers, vivas, kaisers and textures.

People seemed fascinated with the textures I was creating onto chipboard or wood substrates like this one below which has been embellished with a piece of silver metal shaped to a mould and painted with black paint.

We demoed a variety of ideas. Stamping on metal, embossing metal on moulds, stamping an image and puffing out (embossing) the metal in specific areas of the stamped image (as above). We also tried altering metal before stamping (with paint and glimmer mists), as well as altering the metal after stamping and embossing.

Here is one of the moulds done with a coloured metal. Position a strip of coloured metal onto the mould and rub over with a paper stump. Start with a fat stump, and move to a thinner one to accentuate finer detail. Next work wround the mould with a rounded teflon tool then finally use a fine teflon tipped pointy tool to outline the detail in a sharp refined manner. Sand the raised parts of the mould with a sanding block. Fill the back of the embossed area with a polyfiller, then fix to humungo tape and cardstock, and add a border with a diagonal texture wheel. I used this to accent one of the door hangers which I had coloured in Pinks and oranges.

We also demoed textured backgrounds made with pastes, stamps, paints, and altered with paints (kasier colour or Viva Decor) and glimmer mists.

Texture Products

So let me show you in more detail the texture technique that caused such a buzz over the weekend. Everyone was loving this idea with either Terra or Ferro as a base. If you are going to paint over the top with either kaiser colour acrylics or with Viva metallics, it doesn't matter which base product you use or the colour of it, particularly if you are going to paint over the top. Terra is slightly thicker, it is an earthen-looking texture (think clay or terracotta) with a creamy-gritty texture. Ferro is a slightly softer texture, it's sparkly and rusty, so all the colours of that collection are very metallic-rusty looking.

How to use texture

You can stamp into both these products, but make sure to wet your stamp first. If it's damp it will release more easily from the texture.

Apply your chosen product to the surface with a spatula, its nice to have some thick and some thin areas. Stamp into it. Set aside to dry (10 to 15 mins)

If you don't like the image created, smooth over and re-stamp with a different image, or add more product if the texture is too thin. If the texture is too thick, thin it down a little with your spatula.

Using Paint on top of Texture

If you want a matte finish, then Kaiser colour acrylic Paints are the ones. These are a basic crafting acrylic, with a superb colour range. KaiserCraft (an Australian company) release paints regularly to match up with their scrapping papers, so the colours are on trend and the very matt finish is perfect for stamping on top of.

When using kaisercolours I choose a couple of light shades and a couple of darker shades. Eg Turquoise, coastal blue, Olive and Pistachio. Onto that was sprayed iridescent gold glimmer which has warmed it up and added some sparkle.

Other colours I like are in the dips Red and Tropical Waters and lighter on top with dusky pink , Coastal blue and white.

For autumnals, how about Raw Umber, raw sienna, terracotta , soft moss, olive and antique white. You can really use any colours, just make sure that they contrast with each other.

For the brights I adore Hot Pink, candy, Orange and Mango. White also looks great on top of this as do glimmer mists.

So now you have seen some colour ideas, how do we do it?

First you want to paint the dips (the crevices created by stamping into the texture - see above). You can either put light or the dark colours into the dips. Use about 3-4 different colours randomly applied one at a time around pushed into the texture using the paint applied to cut and dry foam. Dry after painting each colour.

Now you can bring a contrasting colour over the top. This colour need to be different to all those in the dips. If you have used a light shade in the dips, then put a darker shade on the riased areas, or if you have dark colours in the dips, then use a light colour on top.

If you have a couple of colours on top then you start to add more interest to the piece. Below I have used Mocha and Coastal blue on the top, but in the dips was Raw umber and turquoise (the turquoise looks paler because it was sprayed with patina glimmer mist later whihc lightened it a little). How cool does that clock stamp look!! See it here. The script in Mini 44. A fave of mine!

To finish you can add some glimmer mists for a touch of sparkle, or you can add sparkle with Viva decor Precious metal colour paints. Shake the bottle, open and dip your finger into the lid, then rub the paint over a few raised sections of your textured background. This sample below has Moroccan Brown terra as the base, then in the 'dips' are Olive and Raw sienna Kaiser colour. Also we have Antique white to lighten and add contrast to the dips. You can see a little Viva Gold is rubbed over some of the bumpy areas on top too.

So there you have it for now. I'll post some more later this week about other techniques I demoed at the NEC. Have a great week!!

Leandra

NEC Day 1

bloga@paperartsy.co.uk (The Crafty Chick) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:45:00 +0000

Fantastic day. It's the best bit demoing on the stand. All the planning and organisation reaches the point of the whole process.

Lots of freindly faces, new and old, came by. For some people they found us later in the day (because of our slightly unusual location where Art Materials meets the hobbycrafts section of the show, but I think its the perfect spot for us, as most of what I am demoing is paints (kaiser and viva) with the texture pastes, so a lot of the tradition "fine art" people enjoyed taking a look too.

I took lots of photos of today's samples, but can you believe it, both Mark and I left our camera-to-laptop cables behind, so I shall have to figure that problem out tomorrow!

Suffice to say, some stuff with Archie..yes he can be bought now! Also did a few bits with the marhsmellow glimmer mist...nice!!! And i love sanding the silver metal before painting, glimmering and then stamping on it...

The bargain bit got a good workout today, and the mixed metal pack of coloured metals are something people are enjoying as a starter taster pack.

Plus we have the 2 new colours of metal, a nice olive green, and autumnal orange...very very nice. Might play some more with those tomorrow!!

Really wishing i could show you the large tag in blues and reds with a metal embossed mould strip across the bottom...oh well guess you'll just have to wait!

Fingers crossed i can find a camera cable tomorrow!

Hope to see you on our stand AM06 over the next few days!

Leandra

Best ever Spinach Pie-Quichey thing

bloga@paperartsy.co.uk (The Crafty Chick) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:00:00 +0000

I know this is completely off topic, but winter makes me into a homebody be it pies, soups or baking. So I thought I'd share a few fridge-empty-ing tactics that are family faves, and perfect for lazy Sunday lunches in winter. Kids who don't eat spinach, usually will eat it this way! I have to think up lots of cunning plans to get green veges into the kids; pie and soup are my 2 most successful ways to input green veges into those relucatant mouths!

I actually don't really use recipes, I just chuck stuff in as I go along based on what is in the fridge, but I concentrated hard this time so I could report back to you!! Last night we had this with a green salad with tomatoes, cucumbers, red peppers, chives and Miss Millie knocked up a blue cheese dressing (recipe below).

Leandra' Spinach Pie

Ingredients

50g butter

1small onion

1 clove garlic

1 bag spinach leaves (can also use silverbeet - common downunder - but cut out the white stalks)

6 eggs

1 tub of ricotta cheese

1 pkt feta cheese (200g??)

2 cups of grated cheese (tasty/ medium..whatever cheddar you have to hand)

150ml cream (double in the UK, single downunder...can use the whole pot if you wish)

salt and pepper to season

1 packet of puff pastry.

Put the butter to melt on medium heat in the frypan, and while melting finely chop the onion and garlic and add to the butter. Stir until soft, but you want this to happen slowly, no browning.

Wash the spinach and drain a little, then add the the onion mix, stir around until JUST wilted, and turn off the element, set aside to cool.

Take the puff pastry out of the packet, roll in the lengthwise direction until the rectangle is longer, then cut into 2 pieces: make one portion 2/3rd (base) and the other 1/3 (for the lid).Roll out the base and place into a butter-greased dish.

Note: I use a really large rectangular ceramic dish that takes up most of the over (like a lasagne dish) , but also a roasting tray would do...this makes a large pie about 2 inches high which is enough for us (family of 6) to have 2 meals, evening then lunch the next day. But you can also freeze the leftovers for another day, or you can bak in a smaller dish, and make a much taller pie, up to 4" tall is also a nice way to go.

In a large bowl crack the 6 eggs, the tub of ricotta, the feta (crumbled), the grated cheese and the cream. Whisk with a fork until the eggs are just broken up, don't over-mix its nice to have feta and ricotta lumps. Add to this the cooled spinach mix, salt and pepper seasoning, and with your fork gently mix through again. Pour this onto the pastry base.

Roll out the pastry for the lid. Fold the base flaps/ edges to lie on top of the mix, brush with egg, then put the lid on top, brush with egg and bake at 180 degrees Celcius (375F). When you can smell the pie, and the pastry in brown on the top it is usually done, but check with a sharp knife pushed into the centre of the pie that it comes out clean.

I guess this is a bit like a quiche with a lid, and you can also add cooked chopped bacon, grated courgette, lightly steamed broccolli and other green veges into the mix before baking. Its one of those things that is also nice cold the next day (or warm!). Our kids sometimes add tomato sauce on top, but if that's what it takes to get them to eat greens, then so be it! I wish I'd take a photo of this last night now!!!

Millie's 1 minute salad dressing

Basic Viniagrette

equal amountds of olive oil and white wine vinegar (3T each??), salt, pepper, 1/2t dijon mustard and shake and serve.

T= tablespoon

t= teaspoon

To make this into a blue cheese dressing, add a dollop of sour cream or plain unsweetened yoghurt, and crumble 1 t of blue cheese into the dressing shaker. Put on the lid and shake. keeps in the fridge for a few days, but the oil may need to come to room temp if you store it in the fridge. We just make what we need fresh each day.

Franich Green Soup

Again this recipe can be adapted to what is in the fridge, but blended, creamy soups are a great way to trick kids into eating their veges.

Ingredients

2 onions

2 cloves garlic

5 stalks celery

1 large leek

2 large courgettes

5 potatoes

1 head broccoli

chicken stock (4 OXO cubes, 2 litres water)

Turn a huge soup pot onto medium heat, and put 50g butter in to slowly melt. Add all the ingredients as they are prepared.

FInely diced onion and garlic, diced celery, chopped leek, courgettes grated, potaotes peeled and diced, brocoli chopped. Keep stirring, but don;t allow to brown, this should soften.

Pour enough water on the veges until the are just covered. Crumble in the 4 stock cubes, bring to the boil slowly, then turn down to a slow simmer until the veges are soft (40 mins)

Blend soup with a blending gizmo gadget (the one that goes zzzzzzzz). Just before serving add half to 1 pot of cream and season with salt, pepper.

Optional : you can also add spinach to this, or just use broccoli on its own...or just leek and potato..there are loads of options to the basic concept.

I make this with an easy peasy homemade bread recipe that is also never fail and no-kneading required! this makes a massive batch of soup (like 3-4 litres) but eat some and freeze the rest. Be careful when reheating if it has cream in it.

Easy Peasy Bread

4 cups strong white flour

1-2 cups wholemeal flour

1T salt

sugar

2 packets of yeast ( or about 1 Tablespoon loose granules)

1.5 C boiling water

1.5C cold milk from fridge

herbs, salt/pepper, olive oil

Put the flours in a large mixing bowl, add 1 tablespoon salt, dried herbs (dill is nice). Stir to combine.

In a 1 litre jug, pour 1.5C of boiling water. To this add 1T of sugar and stir until sugar is dissolved. Now add the cold milk from the fridge. This makes the temperature of the liquid lukewarm. Now add the yeast to this sprinkled on the top. Set aside for 5 minutes until it is good and frothy. Add a good glug of oil to this miz (about 3-5T)

Here is the trick to mixing the bread. Get a rubber spatula, and while evenly pouring the fluid into the flour, keep lifting the flour with the spatula from the bottom of the bowl to the top in a cutting motion so that the liquid evenly gets the dry ingredients wet. Do this fast, but DO NOT OVERMIX. Once you have all the fluid poured into the dry, the contents of the bowl will probably be still a bit dry. Don't mix any more, tip contents out onto a floured worktop, and with your hands gently pull all the inredients together until they are mixed. The mixture should feel soft. Again, do not overwork this, just keep flopping the mix over until it all comes together. If the mix is too wet, then add more flour from the work top while kneading until it is not sticky. Place into a warm, well oiled bowl, and leave for 20-30 mins to rise.

Once the dough has risen to the top of the large bowl, tip out and re-knead for a minute or 2 until it is back to normal size and nice and soft and oily.

I bake this in a roasting dish lined with a craft sheet that I use for baking, pizzas and bread (not crafting!!). The craft sheet fits in my roasting dish enough to line 2 sides and the base. The 2 ends that are not lined I rub with oil.

Press the dough into the baking tray, encouraging it to go into all the corners. use your knuckles to make dimples all over, then grate/sprinkle rock salt generously all over, and drip some olive oil all over the top. Sprinkle fresh herbs on (rosemary or whatever you have). Set aside to rise again until it has doubled in size. (10-15 mins). Turn the oven onto 180 degrees celcius to pre-heat.

Bake the bread in the centre of the oven for 20-25 mins. Usually its close to ready when you can smell it, but test that a knife comes out clean. Remove from the roasting tin fast so that it doesn't sweat and place on a rack to cool. the bottom should be hollow sounding, and browned like the top. If the bottom is pale, then it's probably still gluggy inside the loaf too and not quite done.

This basic bread recipe can also be used for pizza bases (we make alrge rectanguar ones on a baking tray), small muffin-sized rolls, or if you let it rise on a round, no-hole pizza tray, it is idea for making large round sandwiches for parties or entertaining. I fill mine with ham, avocado, letuce and tomoato and cut into wedges for people to help themselves. Delicious.

So there you have it, the Leandra cookery corner! LOL

NEC - Our location at the show...important

bloga@paperartsy.co.uk (The Crafty Chick) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:59:00 +0000

Being a bit blonde, as you all know, I only just figured out yesterday that our booth at the NEC is in the Art materials section of the show. All the sections (art materials, hobbycrafts, Xmas gifts etc) all blend into one this year, so you will probably end up walking all the aisles anyway, and the nice coffee place is down in the art section...and the loos!!!

So if you are looking for PaperArtsy the stand number is AM06.

All the show is in a different place/ hall this year, you will be in for the long walk to Hall 20 rom the main entrance where the buses drop you off. Probably faster and closer to walk from the North carparks!!!

Our booth row is the very first row of the Art Materials section, and our information is listed in the guide unders the "art materials" section too, so if you are looking us up under "Hobbycrafts" you won't see our name.

The stand looks fab, we are just off to do the final touches now, so see you there. I'll tweet a piccie before the show opens, so follow me on @paperartsy to get show updates live!!

Come by and say Hi over the ext 4 days!! Lots of yummy stuff to play wiht on our booth!

Leandra

We're going to be at the NEC

bloga@paperartsy.co.uk (The Crafty Chick) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 08:00:00 +0000

We have decided very last minute to book a stand at the NEC. After doing the Artisan show a few weeks back, we kind of got the bug to maybe try a few shows again. I wanted to see if we had enough energy after all the ArtsyCrafts and other events we have done of late, and we are feeling up for it!! I used to go and demo for companies at the NEC in the past, but this time we shall take our own stand, we are quite excited!!!

We shall ahve all the full collections of PaperArtsy stamps (Ink and the Dog, Urban Snapshots, Squiggly Ink) plus our own Rum and Raisin papers. Come by to see the new Clock stamps and how to make those crazy Ding and Dong birds.

Plus we will have Viva Decor products, paints, texture pastes, and the Kaisercolour acrylic paints to create effects like this.

We have plenty of wooden and chipboard substrates, plus all the metalworking tools and products we sell such as inidividual wheels, pointy tools, sheets of aluminium metal and moulds. These are all very reasonably priced items, and you must drop by our stand to get some great ideas of how to use these items.

Also you will be able to see the latest samples from our recent ArtsyCrafts event, and the techniques we used to get those effects.

Plus we will have some of the newest glimmer mist colours including the amazing Marshmellow which is opaque and creates some VERY cool results!!!

So come by our stand, we are in the HobbyCrafts section of the show close to the Art Materials Section.

Leandra

ArtsyCrafts - 2 fabulous weekends

bloga@paperartsy.co.uk (The Crafty Chick) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 13:11:00 +0000

What can I say? Lin and I are both totally overwhelmed with the wonderful feedback from the delegates who attended both of these events. We think we have now found a format that works really well, operates at a nice pace, and creates a warm friendly and supportive environment suitable for newbies and experienced alike.

So many people told us in their evaluations that this altered art weekend was the best they had ever attended, which was the biggest compliment to us we could ever hope to receive. So take a look at the pictures below from the event, because maybe this kind of thing is somrthing you might like to attend in the future. We had people in the last 2 weeks travel from as far away as Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Devon, and even some international,"across the ditch" people came from France, Holland, and Norway. So if you live in England, the location near Milton Keynes is very central, and close to Luton airport. So don't try telling us it's too far away, we won't believe you!!! LOL

We provice everything for the weekend that you need. In fact if all you arrived with was a pair of Tim Holtz scissors, you would be set to go! Here is the table set for the first class, with step out colour notes, the class kits, and lots of goodies on the table to work with. We issue each person for the whole weekend with a metal working kit, so you have a basic tool set with paper stumps, a mat set, sanding block, glues etc for you to use whenever you wish.

Each table also had one of these samples to refer to so you could see how the colours might work together.

We were very pleased that just about everyone got all their projects finished at the event, so the timings were pretty much on the button for all the classes. People seemed to enjoy all the projects and techniques we taught, and everyone met new people and made fantastic new friendships.

Here are some of the projects we made in various colour groups. Below is French Maison (blue and beige), Autumn Days (warm tones of rust, olive and brown), and English Rose (soft pink and cream). We also had Peacock (rich greens, blues and chocolate with gold and copper highlights), Cappucino (coffee coloured shades of brown), and Country Charm (pale soft shade of duck egg blue and pistachio green with silver highlights.

Within the groups there was the opportunity to ramp up the colours or tone them down based on your personal preference. So it was fascinating how a table could have huge variations by only using some of the colours, eg just using green instead of blue and green, or by creating the project rich instead of pale with cream or white base.

The rooms were quite spacious, with an area for the shop at one end of the room. With 5 people per table, and supplies in the centre, there is plenty of room to flap your wings, and yet you can still reach what you need.

As you have probably gatheredhe theme was "time" and the main project was a large clock which we created over 3 sessions. We also made a mini box decorated inside and out, a small arch shaped concertina book and a UTEE metal clock embossed embellishment with grunge wings, perfect to decorate a diary or journal cover.

The techniques and products we focussed on were viva Decor Terra texture paste, Kaisercolour paints, and Viva Decor precious metal colour paints. Our aim during the weekend is to use most of these products a few times in different ways so that people grow in their confidence with those products, and understand the versatility of how to work with them in a variety of situations. Each event we also try to incorporate an item with UTEE, and so we had a session with the melt pots too. Melt pots are always a new thing for some of the delegates, but it's nice to show how versatile they are. And of course the glue of all these sessions are Lin and my specialty areas; Metal and Stamps. We incorporate new techniques and ideas with Metal and stamps in all the sessions so that people learn many ways to use these products together.

If one thing came through in the evaluations forms is that it is very evident to the delegates at ArtsyCrafts events how much preparation Lin and I put in. It is very important to us that people go home with full colour step-by-step notes for each session. We impart so much information, that it's nice to have a professional resource to refer back to when you are at home and wondering "how the heck did i do that?" 6 months later!

"A bit of me time" Mini Box.

This was a cute little box which we painted, decorated with stamped/ coloured papers, and then adorned the inside with metal embellishments.The outside has a fob watch with a cracked face on the cover. The sides of the box had cuttlebugged metal on them.

"Storytime" Arch concertina book

The cover chipboard and pages were all painted with Kaisercolour paints, stamped, and we did some masking, adding more paint for depth, and decorating insdie the arch with metal birds on pearl metal.

"Time Flies" UTEE Embellishment

The clock with wings was our UTEE class. Lin worked out that using UTEE on top of embossed metal is a great way to support the metal instead of using a polyfiller type product from behind. So we stamped an image onto pearl metal, embossed (puffed out) the metal, then glimmered it and finally added a layer of clear UTEE. this was cut out with a cookie cutter. To this we attached wings made from painted and stamped grungepaper.

"Tick Tock"

So to our big project, the clock. We taught this over 3 sessions. The face of the clock was textured with Terra which we stamped into. Once dry we painted it with acrylic paints, and sprayed with glimmer mist, and added some Viva Precious metal colour accents to the high points.

We also painted some metal to match the colour of the clock face so that we could stamp on this surface for embellishments on the canvas, however, some people opted to do these directly onto the copper painted metal.

The base that the clock rests on is a large rectangular canvas. This was painted, and stamped. with pale colours. Then overstamped with Viva preciuos metal colour.

Then we added quotes in black, and together with the metal panels and painted embellishments, plus the clock numbers it all starts to come together.

The 4 metal panels to go on the canvas had been embossed on the Ten Seconds Studio moulds.

The panels were painted and perhaps glimmered to antique them.

We also created some other clock metal embellishments (the painted/stamped pieces mentioned before), and of course the numbers for the clock were also stamped onto metal.

It was wonderful to look at all the artwork that was displayed around the room as each person developed their own version of each project. We were amazed how the artwork different even within a table.

Here is a group photo of weekend number 2, we never got a piccie from the First weekend, but we'll make sure to do this at future events!

Colours choices at ArtsyCrafts events

When people register with us to attend the event, they indicate their colour preferences from a list of up to 10 options. We count up everyone's first choices, and this determines the colours available at the event. For this event, 'French Maison' was so popular we had 3 tables of that colur scheme (soft blue and beige) and we were thrilled that practically everyone at the event got their first available colour choice to make the main project (clock).

When making other projects over the weekend we allow a free choice system so that delegates can have a go at a different colour, which means there are about 2-3 opportunities to try something different. This system also means that you don't know who you will sit with until you arrive, and at the end of the weekend you have met so many new people, that even those who came with friends were happy to have made many new ones too.

Lastly can I say a huge thankyou to all who came and made the event such a success and so enjoyable. Both groups each weekend were so lovely to teach. Even those who were out of their comfort zone jumped in boots and all to give every project 100% effort and it really showed in the results. We were in awe of the wonderful and inidividual ways you all expressed yourselves. And of course Lin and I couldn't do it without our fabulous helpers. Here we all are in the picture, from the left Jo, Lynne H, Lin, Karen and Leandra.

This was the 5th ArstyCrafts event we have offered, and with so many new people and committed fans who have attended every single event, we anticipate the march 2010 weekends will sell out fast. The popularity and high quality of these events have created a demand point where we could probably offer 3 weekends, but we cannot fit this into our schedules. So with this in mind, we expect it's likely to be a bit of a rush to book places. To be fair to everyone, we will be announcing the details in full for a few weeks before the booking date commences. If you are on either the LB Crafts or PaperArtsy mailing lists, you will get an email, otherwise sign up to this blog or Lin's blog (LB Crafts) where the same info will also be made public. Start saving now, we have a fabulous theme lined up and Lin and I have already had a meeting where we have sketched out some potential class ideas! I think you will love it...we are buzzing about it !!

If you attended one of these events, please can I ask you to leave a comment on this blog post and a link back to your blog post about the weekend so that people can come and take a look now and in the future your opinions of ArtsyCrafts weekends and the items you made.

Have a great weekend, now that the rough winter weather has arrived, it's perfect to start thinking about Xmas cards and gifts...maybe you could make small clocks for gifts???

Leandra

Taking a Breath before the next weekend....

bloga@paperartsy.co.uk (The Crafty Chick) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 22:52:00 +0000

Nearly time for ArtsyCrafts Number 2. Busy little beavers we have been here at PA world HQ all week to get ready for another round. Lin and the LB Crafts team has been flat our re-ordering stuff that we *need* to have for you, and it's all arrived from the USA in less than 4 days! She pulled some strings!

Tonight another 50 people are packing their bags and making their way to Newport Pagnell, near Milton Keynes. Everyone will be arriving tomorrow eve and Saturday morning for a fun filled weekend of techniques, ideas, new products and the chance to make new friends, and for some of you an opportunity to hook up with some older ones.

Last weekend I was struck by how friendly, warm and supportive the atmosphere is at ArtsyCrafts events. Naturally this is how we hope every event we organise could be, and it was such a joy to realise within every group throughout last weekend there was such a wonderful creative vibe of enthusiasm, enjoyment and encouragement of each other - it was a delightful, extremely supportive learning environment, and made our job as teachers a very smooth path, and an extremely enjoyable experience. Thank you to all who came and contributed to it being such a success. I hope you learned lots of new ideas, and will put them all to good use.

Now I really can't wait for this weekend to do it all again!

The way Lin and I decided to organise ArtsyCrafts events is a little unusal compared to other weekend events that I have taught at in the past. Because we let people indicate their colour preferences, we aim to provide an opportunity for you to use your preferred colours, plus you get the chance to try others combinations that might be new to you. This system means you can work within or beyond your comfort zone, but best of all, it provides plenty of opportunities to make new friends, and by the end of an AC weekend there are many people who have swapped email, blog and facebook details. I am sure this style of organisation is at the core of ArtsyCrafts events being such warm and freindly ones.

You can see here some of the lovely colour schemes we have generated for this event with these table samples we use to indicate the kinds of effects you can create.

Here are the class notes and kits ready to hand out.

So what is in store for you this coming weekend if you are about to join us in another weekend of learning?

A few snippets from last weekend might whet your appetite, although I'm sure you are very excited already!

There are many people already asking when are the next ArtsyCrafts events? Well I am happy to let you know that we have booked the last 2 weekends of March 2010, so you can start putting the pennies in the piggybank ready for that. We will announce booking information shortly. Usually there is a priority booking system for recent AC delegates, followed by a month of early bird pricing available for everyone.

Lastly, on a personal note, my Dad and his wife Sue (behind Hugo in the piccie below) were here in the UK for a fleeting visit from New Zealand this last week. We caught up with them for a couple of meals, one of which was Monday night after ArtsyCrafts. Mark took this piccie, which is a nice one of us all (except Mark, of course). The only reason I am taller than Courtney is because I had on higher heels! But you have (L-R) Dad aka Roy, Leandra, Courtney (15), Sue with Hugo (9) in front, Millie (11) and Ella (13).

We had a really lovely evening with lots of laughs, good food and wine, and we all slept through the alarm the next morning...Kids got up and out the door in 20 minutes !!! Who knew that was possible, a big improvement on the usual 90 minutes!!!

So for those of you coming to ArtsyCrafts on Friday night, let's meet up in the bar at 8pm for a relaxed chat before the event begins!

See you there!!

Leandra

3 more sleeps...till ArtsyCrafts

bloga@paperartsy.co.uk (The Crafty Chick) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:33:00 +0000

Yes we are very nearly ready for 2 jam packed weekends of creativity.

All the organisation, the planning, kitting up, preparation of class notes, photocopying, ordering of stock, getting together prizes, name tags, figuring out colour combinations, booking venues, accomodation, packing the suitcase...it's all nearly done.

We just have to put all the stuff in the cars and drive...tomorrow is the last day of getting ready...

So just a few more sneaky snippits of what you might make.....only teeny tiny snippets.....

metal

new stamps

a beak...

See you there.....just 3 more sleeps until it all kicks off Saturday morning need to be in your seat by 8.30 am...don't sleep in!!!

It's going to be uber fabulous...mega

I'm talking about ArtsyCrafts organised by Lin of LB Crafts, and me from PaperArtsy.

We LOVE it!!!

Teaching it is the best bit...can't wait to see what you think of all the classes....

See you there!!!

Leandra

(PS. I literally couldn't sleep last night I am so ready for this to happen)

Part 4 - Viva Decor Paint Effects

bloga@paperartsy.co.uk (The Crafty Chick) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 23:16:00 +0000

The backgrounds I used on lots of the samples I have been showing you over the last few posts are all using Viva Decor Products.

This silver metal sample is done with a base coat of Graphite Ferro into which I stamped with a really fine script stamp from Clocks Plate 1 . I quite like the graphite colour because when you paint over it you can see the nice black texture being accented by the Metallic Paints (precious Metal Colour) over the top.

People often ask me how to choose which colours to work with.

First you want to identify what colours you most often use and are drawn to, are they soft muted tones, or bright and vibrant? When you shop for clothes, are there particular shades you are drawn to all the time? Generally the colours that automatically come to mind for you are your starting point.

Lets say you pick Pink as you fave colour, next look at the range of colours in Viva, and pick another colour either lighter or darker...so perhaps Blackberry. Now you want to choose something contrasting, green is often partnered with plum shades (so check out Olive, Golden Green or Emerald Green). In this sampleI used Olive.

I often finish with the tiniest touch of another contrsting colour on top, in this sample I went lighter to Mother of Pearl. But the colour I opt for most for this job is gold because it goes with everything beautifully, one of those 'must have' colours. Below is the same colour combo, but this time with Gold on the top..see how it warms it up, and add another striking contrast.

Nearly always when working with these combinations I will also use what I call a standard metallic: gold, copper, silver etc.. on the very top layer, it just adds a bit of sparkle.

Now this sample above is interesting. On top of the graphite Ferro I started with a Turquoise Kaisercolour acrylic paint. Using Cut and Dry foam, this beautiful paint was pushed right down into the recesses of the stamped ferro , particularly on the right hand side of the background, the left side was left with the black peeking through. On top of that I brought the contrasting colour of Olive kaiser colour. I found if you add 2 thins coats you get a deeper version of the same colour highlighted. When applying the Olive, just drag it across the Turquoise, and the stamped texture pops. The last step here was to add the Gold Viva Precious Metal Colour. It really lifts a piece in a way that a picture just can't capture.

Here is another close up. This one is in really pale shades. Pistachio, Silver gold, and Ice blue on top of a black background make a nice modern metallic palette.

Remember to spray your rubber stamp with water before you press it into the Ferro. The water acts as a release agent.You can really see what a great result such a fine detail stamp gives.

Yes the effects are awesome, but now that you can see them close up like this you get a better idea of how beautiful they really are!

All these productds are available online in our shop www.paperartsy.co.uk

The countdown is on to ArtsyCrafts. Only 5 sleeps to go!!! Lin and I are putting the final touches to kits, notes, table products and my Mark is pressing rubber for everyone to use!

Tomorrow Lynne and Jo come to me for our fianl day of prep together. It's going to be a great couple of weekends to come and I am very excited to see what you all think of the several classes we have planned.

Leandra

Part 3 - squishy moulds

bloga@paperartsy.co.uk (The Crafty Chick) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 14:05:00 +0000

Have you noticed how in interior design trends, embossed metal is really huge these days? I have seen Laura Ashley selling metal embossed lamp bases, furniture and candle sticks, and metallic things have been huge as accents for the home for a couple of years.

A couple of years back, metallic accents for the home started out gold and silver, and now we are moving to softer metallics like Champagne and Platinum shades which work beautifully with deep wintery shades of chocolate, plum, aubergine, burgundy but platinum and champagne. Soft metallics go equally well with pale modern colours like duck egg blue, latte, sage or pistachio, through to coral, salmon pinks or lilac.

You don't have to pay a fortune to get these effects. With metal, moulds and a few metal working tools, you can easily create your own pieces for the home. Maybe start with something simple like a picture frame, or chipboard shape, mini book to practise your ideas then move onto covering a box or a wooden or paper mache shape before takling something huge like a chest of drawer! The principles are the same though, just on a different scale.

Recently we have aded some moulds to our website. Moulds can be a bit like tummy buttons: innies or outies! and which side of the metal is the finished side? It's up to you if you have the innie up or down, or the outie up or down. These options can make moulds look so different.

Lin Brown from LB crafts taught me how to make the diamond mould have a greater variety of uses by pushing the rainsed portions back down again. On this mould there are 'up' diamonds and 'down' diamonds which form the mould pattern, but you can press all the raised ones down to make ridges to separate all the flat diamond areas. Like this.

To do this effect try the following

cut a piece of metal to fit the wooden or chipboard shape you are using as your substrate. Trace around the metal with your teflon tool. Cut out.
Use 1 or 2 small pieces of masking tape to hold the metal on the diamond mould. Emboss some of the diamonds onto the metal.No need to do the whole piece, maybe a few at the top or bottom.
First use the paper stump to follow the pattern, follow this with the round teflon tool, then the pointed teflon tool to sharply define the mould. Remove metal from the mould.
place the metal on your acrylic mat, and use the paper stump to flatten all the un moulded parts. This is a tidy up.
Now use the paper stump to gently squash down any of the raised diamonds. this will naturally form a ridge as you start in the centre of the diamond and gradually flatten to the edge. Again refine with the rounded the pointed teflon tools.
Repeat for all the raised diamonds until you have a pattern of ridges as per the sample above.

Use humungo adhesive to stick the metal onto the substrate. Now you are ready to distress. This may be with ferro, terra, black acrylic paint, coloured acrylic paints and glimmer mists. These products will all create different effects.

On the sample above, I further added to each diamond with scribbled patterns, texture wheels etc to add more interest. Then I used black kaisercolour acrylic paint to antique the metal followed by glimmer mists.

Then I further embellished with a clock and a row of ball and cups.

You can also try this idea on the Kabuka grid mould found here, or the other big daddy mould 1 which gives this effect.

This sample also has terra texture paste which has been stamped into, and coloured with kaiser colour paints, with accents of viva precious metallic colour paints.

Here is another sample, this time with ferro and viva and precious metal colour paints all over the top of the metal. (yes those paints stick to anything!!!)

This is a close up of the mould bit. i think next time I will take the ferro right up to the edges of the mould.

So there you have it, the 3rd tutorial from more of last weekend's samples made in demos at the Artisan show. You don't have to use these moulds which you squish down, you can do the same idea with any other mould too, and leave it raised up, paint it then use the paints etc...I'm sure you can figure out lots of other ways to run with this idea!! Have some fun.

Leandra

Metal Working Ideas Part 2 - Puffing out stamped images

bloga@paperartsy.co.uk (The Crafty Chick) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 22:49:00 +0000

So once you have mastered the tape sandwich technique on copper featured yesterday, why not try adding some glimmer mist? This sample left is patina blue, and Garden Fairy green on Copper metal. I was heading for a verdigris effect. The stamp is the fleur de Lys from Crowns and Castles Plate 8.

Of course you can also stamp on coloured metal like appletini, periwinkle, Kiss me Pink or my particular favourite, pearl. I find pearl one of the most versatile colours of metal, because it's so pale and has a very matte finish, which makes it easy to change the tone with glimmer mists to suit the colour of the project you are working on.

Today we're going to take a look at one of the other techniques I demoed at the Artisan exhibition this weekend just been, and that's how to puff out a stamped image. Of course, clocks are well suited to this idea! And we have lots of scrummy new clocks.

So how is it done?

stamp the image in stazon onto the metal of your choice.
outline the part of the design you wish to 'puff' with a pointed teflon tool.
Flip the metal over (wrong side up) onto the deepest mat of the mat set, and with a paper stump, gradually rub the metal until it starts to give. This is an odd process, because the friction and gradual stretching of the metal means you will feel it suddenly 'give' and become easier to work. No need to press really hard, just go for a gradual stretch.
Once you are satisfied with the deepness of the embossing you have achieved, flip the metal over to right side up, and place it on the acrylic mat from the mat set. Use the paper stump again to flatten the surrounding areas inside and outside of the puffed section. This is called refining, and it helps tomake the popped section stand out, and it also helps to keep the surrounding metal flat and tidy.
Working on a wad of paper from the front, use the perforation wheel to outline the clock face either side of the puffed section.
Use a course dot wheel on the black section around the edge of the clock face
Use a teflon tool to add random dots to the centre of the clock face.
Now we need to support the puffed section. You can use a lightweight polyfiller from the hardware store, but i prefer to use glossy accents. This is a hard-drying glue, and serves the purpose of filling AND sticking card to the back of the metal at the same time. Fill the recess, then add extra glue around the flat section, use your finger to smooth out the glue on the fla sections, then press card onto the back fo the clock.
Fip over, and ensure the metal is pressed onto the backing card. It will grab within a minute, and then you can trim out the metal and continue to work with your embellishment. The glue will set up overnight.
The card backing allows you to secure the metal embellishment to your project easily.

Here is a closeup so you get a better idea of the texture.

Here is the pearl metal. Stamp the flower (egg and Nog Plate 4) onto pearl metal. Outline from the front, flip onto fat mat and puff with a paper stump from the back. Flip back to front, and on acrylic mat, flatten surrounding areas and centre of flower. Fill with glossy, secure to card. Use the edge of your acrylic mat to draw a frame around the flower. Edge the frame with the diagonal wheel (set C) , draw another line with the teflon tool outside the diagonal, and then draw random squiggles inside the frame with the teflon tool. Apply black kaisercolour paint with a piece of Cut n Dry foam to the pearl metal and cover the entire piece. Take a piece of paper towel, and gently rub away the excess paint...I said gently! Do this before the paint dries. Note how the paint accents all the recessed areas. Now you can spray with glimmer here I used Creme de Rouge and Walnut Gold.

So that's today's tutorial. Can't promise the next installment in this series tomorrow as it's Mark's birthday (I am really bad at remembering birthdays!) so tomorrow i am going to make up for the last 2 years of forgettery and treat us all to an evening out for some shopping for a few bits and a meal. I am looking forward to it immensely.

In the meantime a treat...Ding and Dong are now online!