The ferry, Port Sunlight, the stamps, the friends and a card!

Last Thursday we travelled up from the south coast to the Wirral, four and a half hours or so up north so I could demo Stampotique and Paperbag Studios stamps (links on the right)on the Happy Daze stand at the Happy Stampers show at Port Sunlight.



On the Friday morning (whilst all the merchandise was in transit from Yorkshire) my husband, little lad and I went on a FERRRRRRRR-RYYYYYYYY 'CROSS THE MERRRRR-SEEEEEEYYY.
Had to be done.
Can't travel for hours and not do the touristy stuff lol.



It was a tad nippy with a fair ol' fresh breeze (read "blinkin freezin" as I've become a softy southerner when it comes to weather having lived there for the last 25 years).

The afternoon was spent unpacking a huge amount of stock and then looking at the available space...and our stand looked like we'd been raided by the Tazmanian Devil at the end of the session and we left exhausted.

On the day of the show (the Saturday), Joanne Wardle, Karen Cass and Julie Dandy joined Moira, Claire and I for a 'frenzied finish presenting and reshuffling the stock' session at 8am and then we were ready!

Here's Joanne Wardle (standing) and lil ol' me before the mad rush began. Joanne and I have known each other online for about 8 years and this was the first time we had met in real life. This was a bit of a 'ohhhhhhhh nooooooooo' in a Zilly voice from Stop The Pigeon moment as it was taken minutes before the show started.



Here's Karen and Julie...



Joanne at the helm!



And off we go....










I managed to only take a few photos at the beginning as after then it was soooooooooooo busy!!!!!!! My husband took quite a few of these (thank yooou) when dropping in before the doors opened which was lucky. Wish I'd have managed to get photos of all the people that stopped by to say hello that I know online. Here I managed to capture Ann chatting to Happy Daze owner Moira(dressed in teal) in the distance, Claire at the till and that might be Mel on the left? Difficult to tell. Please let me know if you recognise yourself or anyone.
Hi to Chris, Sheila (She), Judith (PoppyCottage), Sid, Kath, Vix, Ann, Corina (travelled from The Netherlands!)Lorraine, and all those people I chatted with on the stands that I'd known for ages or just met and on my breaks. Thanks too for the wonderful artwork from Mary and Karen.

Here's Joanne in full swing. The crowd was so big I had weave my way back through and hold my camera forward in the air to take a photo.



It was an exhausting day. I've certainly never made that many cards and tags in one day in my stamping career. They were quickmakes, very quickmakes, but lots of fun. Everyone was so friendly it was great!

Thanks goes most of all from me to my husband Dave for driving for 10 hours in total so I could do the show and coping with the nightmare of the rear tyre blowing out on us on the central reservation on the motorway on the way home. eeeek!, and to my boys.

*If anyone ever fancies a card swap I have lots of more detailed work that I've made in the past and I'm happy to exchange. I would love to hear from you if you the idea. My work just sits in a box going no where mostly, and I would be great to receive a card or whatever you may fancy swapping in exchange.

Whilst I was at the show I managed to grab a bit of spending time and headed off to the Stamp Camp to track down a stamp I used to own (can't find it anywhere, you know how it goes) and it never reappeared after we moved house. Stamp Camp had travelled all the way from the States and I was hoping THE stamp had travelled with them. YEP!!! THERE SHE WAS!! The little girl in the hat watching the sunset aka #SD103 Beach Girl. So pleased I have her again. She reminds me of my childhood. A real chillout stamp image. Very relaxing to stamp with at the moment.I paired it up with #SD117 'One must Live'.




As it happens the The Cheerful Stamp Pad challenge this week is COLOUR MY WORLD and so this I feel fits in rather well I think :0) . I used a combination of Jenni Bowlin ink pads (the ones I demoed with on the stand )and coloured pencils to colour this one layer card.

Finally, you may have noticed the righthand side of my blog is looking a little less crowded. I've decided that now is perhaps a good time to concentrate on artwork for myself and for publishing (magazine and my book which is almost done) so needed to step away from the regular commitment of the design teams I belonged to (will miss chatting with the girls on the teams!), but it's not to say I won't be still working with all those fabulous images of course!!

Watch this space!!!

RECYCLED Stampotique

The theme for the latest challenge at Stampotique is RECYCLED, brought to us by Valerie H Wilson. A good theme for me as I harbour so much 'junk' at home in the hope of transforming it all into something a bit different I was spoilt for choice over which bit of 'rubbish' to work with. I opted for this- a corned beef tin lid. One of those new pull ones.

I painted and heat embossed the majority of it, using a Prima mask and a bit of finger painting, then added my image and wording, attaching a bath plug chain to hang it up with.



This little guy from Stampotique, SMILE, was the perfect size.



...and with his MEDIUM BEE wings and the word angel from YOU ARE AN ANGEL , looks a real cutie. I drew his halo with white pen.

I hope you like it and are able to join in with ANY STAMPS (as its an any stamp week) but if you have Stampotiques in your collection it would be great to see those too obviously). Any entries to the challenge are in with a chance to be randomly drawn to win a $30 gift certificate. Only one entry per artist please as its such a large gift cert on offer.



Stampotique stamps are available from Stampotique directly (in the USA) or many outlets in the UK, one of which is HAPPY DAZE.

Talking of Happy Daze.....we are now on a different stand as previously mentioned at Port Sunlight and if you have a ticket to the show you will spot us immediately as you walk in to the large hall where I shall be demoing Stampotique Originals stamps. During my breaks, Joanne Wardle (another Stampotique DT member as it happens) will also be leaping into the demo seat.

Show Us Your Style...

The theme over on PaperPlay Challenges is SHOW US YOUR STYLE.

This is the 'look' that I do 'naturally ' I suppose. Give me ink pads and stamps and I lean towards this.... a bit messy (only because its incredibly tricky doing neat lol), inky layering, a main image, some form of background stamp, and a word or two.
I used Paperbag Studios stamps for all three of these tags.







These are also three more samples for my demo day at the Port Sunlight show on Saturday. OOOOOOOOOOOOOo not long now! Very excited!!

Hope you have a good week!

PORT SUNLIGHT DEMO SNEAK PEEKS 2011 (and some new artwork)

Well this time next week I would have just finished a day of stamping away like a woman possessed at the HAPPY STAMPERS stamp festival in Port Sunlight on the Wirral.

I shall be on STAND 32- HAPPY DAZE, demoing MY RANGE of stamps with STAMPOTIQUE along with other STAMPOTIQUE and PAPERBAG STUDIOS stamps.(All links are on the right of my blog)

When I take a break or two (and do a bit of shopping!), JOANNE WARDLE will be tag teaming me and demoing her gorgeous FLOATING CARDS as seen recently in CRAFT STAMPER.


I shall be making all sorts of things...

...various tags....(this one is using stamps by Stampotique)



lots of different cards (the stamps used here are by Paperbag Studios),



'simple makes' similar to the one I made the other week ...



wooden arches ...




perhaps some postcards...




infact whatever takes my fancy I think...I'll just go with the flow :0)

The show is totally sold out, but if you already have tickets, please make sure you stop by and introduce yourself as I'd love to meet you in real life! I shall be making and giving away samples all day and answering any questions anyone may have (stamping related questions are probably best lol).

Really looking forward to it!

Let me know if you are going!

Free as a Bird

May's challenge over on Crafty Individuals is set by Is Norris, one of my old partners in crime way back when lol (ok it was only five or so years ago I guess when we managed to pull together an article for an overseas publication by email having never met but it was fun, albeit a little hectic!).
Is has come up with the theme Free as a Bird. I made this card for the challenge. Looks like a tag doesn't it , but with a bit of smoke and mirror trickery (and a spare bit of card!), but I put a back on it so it will stand upright. I used the main NEW image of CI-309 and one of my favourite Crafty Individuals Craft Elements plates CI-287 .

I initially started off with CI-309...



...then added odd birds and built on until I felt the balance was right. The main stamp has music notes and a song but I substituted these song words with one of the sayings from the CI-287 plate. Finished off with some fine liner pen stitchy lines.

Its a simple make, lifes hectic, whats new lol.

There are prizes to be had over on Jean's 'Crafty Individuals' blog for lucky participants. Please take a look over there for all the details and ideas from the 'team'.

There is light on the horizon.... its back to 'normal' day tomorrow!! All back to school...yeah! I won't be exactly as free as a bird, but I'll have a bit of time to get round Tescos lol

Have a great May Day holiday if you are in the UK.
Not long to go now until the Port Sunlight show, where Crafty Individuals will have a stand and I'll finally get to say 'Hi' to Jean and Malcolm after all these years (I have some Crafty Individuals stamps so old they are wooden backed) as I'm working there too for another company.