It's been a while!!!

I know, I know, it's been over two weeks since I last posted anything on my blog. It has been quite a hectic two weeks really. I went off to Coleman's Craft Warehouse for a fun day of demonstrating and I promised to show you pictures of the samples that I made there, but.....you knew there was going to be a but didn't you? I didn't take any pictures at all and I left all the samples (except one) with the lovely people at Coleman's for their display boards. So here is the only one I can share with you.

My demo was all about Fresco Finish Paint and the many ways that I like to use them. The background was made with Mermaid and Guacamole, blended together. When dry I used a Dylusions stencil and the Harlequin stencil by Crafters Workshop to add some depth to the background. I'm still using that bumping technique that Lynne Perrella taught me....I still love it!!

The bird and the branches are dies cuts by Memory Box which were also painted with Fresco, the branches were Hey Pesto and the Bird is a mix of Chocolate and Little Black Dress. A touch of Spanish Copper Treasure Gold really adds that finishing touch.

Then I made a Grunge Flower using Paperartsy Grunge Flower Dies and these were cut from Paperartsy's Crunchy Paper which, after scrunching up the flowers,  I painted with my Chocolate/Little Black Dress mix and Mermaid. After drying a touch more Treasure Gold to highlight the creases in the paper.

I then tore a tag in half, gave it the paint treatment and stamped my message from HP1004. After distressing the edges of the tag, I scrubbed some Treasure Gold into the edges to make it stand out from the background. Added a few flowers and Bob's your uncle!!

So now I would love to thank those lovely people who have been worried about me and to say how touched I was that you missed me and thought something was wrong, you guys know who you are!!! I really am absolutely fine, just coming to the end of my collage course (only two weeks left!) and I have to produce five final pieces of work. I have three finished now but I still have my Shibori piece and a collage piece to finish. It has been a lot of work but it has also been one of the best things I have ever done. I can't tell you how much I have learnt over the past ten weeks. It also helps that my tutor Jane is just lovely and so helpful. So if you are at all interested, I would highly recommend doing this course and here are a few pics of what I have been up to.

Silk Painting.

Marbling

 Batik

Hand Craved Stamps

A little bit of hand felting, combined with batik and fabric stamping all together to produce a final piece, which is actually hard to photograph in one go as it is quite wide!!!

Oh look, there's my foot!!!

Today I found out the details of Level 2 of this course and I can't begin to tell you how excited I am at the thought of all the things that we will be doing that I have never tried before. Different types of fabric dying, new twists on the Shibori techniques, screen printing. Dying silk as well as a whole load of other stuff so I am off to book my place right now.

Take care, Lin