Trip To GNPE at Harrogate

On Sunday I went to the GNPE at Harrogate.
We had to make an early start as my friend and I were booked into one of the breakfast workshops with the lovely Barbara Gray!. So at 4.45 my alarm went off but unlike an early start in the week for work I was eager to jump out of bed and get ready.
It was a miserable morning, wet cold and obviously still dark but I decided on what to wear then got ready!
Having had breakfast and seen the dog out I just had to wait for my friend to arrive ...but I didn't have to wait long!
We loaded the car up with our empty bags and then Colin at the wheel we set off! ( He makes an excellent chauffeur!)


We got onto the motorway and the excitement began to build with every mile we travelled! Then we saw the sign....motorway closed junction 27-28.....oh no that's before we needed to get off....


At the next services we pulled in for pit stop and Colin being the cautious type bought a map of the Leeds Area just in case we needed it!!! He should have been a scout!


Then as we set off there was another sign saying that it was a night closure! So we may be OK!


We reached junction 27 and it had just reopened....Thankfully!
The extensive roadworks on the motorway though with a 50MPH had set us back a bit so we were glad we had set off early.

We got to Harrogate for 8.30 and Colin dropped us off at the door and said to phone him when we were ready! And the weather was brightening up for him to walk round Harrogate!


We were shown to where the workshops were taking place and got our seats. With coffee and muffins to welcome us too it was now turning out to be a lovely day.


Barbara welcomed us all and what a marvellous teacher she is. She talked and showed us through making a brayered picture. ....also making me want the stamps we were using!
Here is the picture we did. 

We finished the workshop at just about 10am when the show was opening and then we had the show to look round.

Barbara had given all the people doing the workshop a £5 voucher to spend on the Clarity stand so that was our first port of call!

Maria Simms had been helping with the workshop and from that went straight on to the Clarity Stand to do a demo. We watched her do a fantastic demo using angel film and fibres and a craft iron. Then we got a basket and proceeded to fill it with clarity crafty goodies.

Here is what I bought from Clarity

 After Clarity had been raided the rest of the show was looked round! I had no list and was not really there to buy much....but it would be rude not to buy some things

Some lovely dies! 

 Mica Powders and some Wow embossing powders.

IndigoBlu Flitterglue starter kit! 

Two lovely stamps!

So all in all I had a great day. And we found time to sit and have our sandwiches!.

After we had been rond the show twice...just to make sure there was nothing else we wanted we went back to Clarity to say bye to Barbara and everyone else! Barbara did us a demo using gilding flakes which was so good!

So at 1.30 we had spent all we wanted if you could ever do that at a craft show....I could have spent loads more if I didn't have to worry about it!

I phoned Colin and said we would meet him outside. And as we got to the door he was there! Little love!

Heads buzzing with ideas from the demo's we had seen we went home.

What a thrilling day! 

During the day I had met some of my Facebook friends who are all lovely people and hopefully I will be seeing them again soon! Rae, Carol, Lynne and Linda, it was fab to meet you face to face!

Here's everything I bought in one place...quite a lot I think!

Hope you are having a crafty day

Jane xx

Barbara's Card

I just had to send Barbara Gray a card to say happy birthday!!! And what better excuse to make a card that for me is a bit more challenging.
I used the Clarity Mandarin Duck stamp and stamped it onto the double sided adhesive sheets. I then covered it in acetate before removing the back of the adhesive sheet. I then used the copper gilding flakes to put behind the image. There are some lovely colours in that flake and I used my tweezers to pick out colours to go on the area where the duck was. Then I filled in the rest of the area before mounting it on to a piece of card.
The background on the card was done by stamping a Lavinia stamp with versamark onto black card stock then using mica powders to colour it.

And there you can see it.


Hope you are having a good day and please let me know what you think of my card for Barbara!


Jane xx

Red Roses

With Paint Fusion and all I have been painting allsorts of things but always sticking to pastel shades of flowers especially on the roses. I have done some delicate lemon and pink roses where the pink or the yellow has been mixed in with white to give the light and shade in the rose.
I wanted to have a go at painting red roses. So how hard could it be. I mean red roses are red! So I got the paint out and selected my red paint....then I stopped. How was I going to get the shading. If I put white with the red they would be pink roses. So I looked at my paints and I had 3 shades of red...a scarlet, one called rouge and a burgundy. I thought if I put the burgundy on one edge of the brush and the rouge on the other that would give me the shade I needed to have some contrast in the rose. So off I went and painted the rose...It was OK but not what I wanted really. I debated other colours I could use as my dark until I picked up the black.....I wonder what that would look like. I painted a second rose using the rouge and black and on the rouge edge I dipped a bit of scarlet to really make the edges bright! and yes that was what I wanted. Here is the trial piece I did to get my final red rose!!!

The bottom rose is the one with the black and I think you will agree it is the better one. I had a practice at doing the leaves too!

Then I painted a single red rose. I think this would make a lovely anniversary card.

Then finally I got my candle out to paint. I got this one from Lidl at just over £1 and its scented! so now it smells nice as well as looking quite pleasing!

So there it is....my attempt at painting red roses.

I hope your weekend has been nice and crafty. 

Jane





Card for James

It has been my nephews 5th birthday this week so I decided to make him a Tatty Teddy card. I used the docrafts CD rom to do it. Here it is. 

I put glaze on the number and on his nose just to make it shiny.

Hope you have had a nice crafty day!

Jane xx

Grain of sand!

I have had a play last night with some clarity stamps and a brayer. I saw Barbara Gray use this technique on Sunday afternoon on Create and Craft and loved it. I haven't got the stamps she used....well the quote is the same!

The backing paper I made by stamping the grasses stamp over and over again in a random pattern and not re-inking the stamp each time. I used a Big and Juicy ink pad...the colour is called Waterfall. I just love the blue and green it gives you.

The strip is a new spellbinders set....Damask Accents and the flower is the Persian Motifs set.

I do like this technique and how the panels pop out at you yet they are all actually flat!!!

Hope you are all OK

Jane xx

Mandarin Duck

Here is the card I did for the Clarity Challenge last month. I didn't win but I do enjoy entering the challenges.

I do love the clarity Stamps 


Hope you are all enjoying the weekend

Jane xx