I Love Bank holidays

Don't you just love holiday weekends.....no alarm clocks......staying up late watching a few episodes of house....eating chocolate and playing. The fun started yesterday when the lovely Karen and I set off for Hatfield to go to a bead show......we are both suckers when it comes to beads.....just can't resist! So after a small magical mystery tour as stupid Tom Tom needs an upgrade and doesn't know where all the new roads are yet, we arrived at the venue for a fun morning of bead shopping, one of my most favourite pastimes. We both managed to find some real beauties and today I have spent a fun few hours in my new studio playing with some of my new stash. I am really pleased with this first set of jewellery, a complete set.....necklace, bracelet and earrings. Quite often when I buy sets of beads there isn't quite enough to make all three items so I was extra pleased to find out that this time I did!

The dark beads are really unusual, they are navy blue and opaque, I have never seen glass like this before, here's a close up for you.

My second necklace uses my splurge purchase from the bead show. It is made by a very talented lampwork artist by the name of Sarah Downton, Karen and I actually drove down to her home last year to take a lesson from her in the art of lampwork, I just hope that one day I'll be able to make something that resembles a bead rather than a lemon.

Wait til you see the close up of this little beauty..... It's absolutely gorgeous!!

And now with my inky/painty hat on, I'd like to share a few samples that I have been working on this week. It's not long now until the show at Ally Pally (24th & 25th September) and we are busy beavers behind the scenes in preparation for the event. Lots of ordering going on, planning of demos....well actually , that's not strictly true as I usually make up the demos as I go along but as you can imagine, a lot of work goes into the prep for a show of that size so here are some of the card samples that will be on display at the show.

Sample 1
All images are Paperartsy, the focal images are from HP 1109 and HP1110. Loving those bottles!!

Sample 2
Main images are from HP1109, verse is from HP1008

Sample 3
Car image is from HP1106, background images - houses are on HP1110, small newsprint HP1108, map HPXT01 and script Mini 61

Sample 4
I think I need a lesson in learning how to crop my pictures.....you'll have to excuse my grey background!
The nice young man is from HP1108, the compass is from HP1110 and the pointy finger is from HP1102.

Sample 5
Flowers - HP1111, dragonfly - HP1109

Sample 6
Last but by no means least a mix of Paperartsy, Dina Wakely stamps and stencils
Dina's stamps are Lonely Girl and Script Heart, Paperartsy Mini 61 script.

I have used Pan Pastels on all of the above samples, if you are not familiar with Pan Pastels and are coming to Ally Pally, stop by our booth, I'll be happy to show you.

All images are available for purchase on line at www.lbcrafts.com or you can call the shop on 01234 714848

Okey dokey, that's me for today....I'm off to tend my roast chicken and pack my overnight bag as I'm heading off to Paperartsy HQ tomorrow for some more Artsycrafts prep.

Enjoy the rest of the holiday.
Lin