Two Years of 'Out of the Blue' Craft Group! - Friday 9th May 2014

Hello Friends,

Well it doesn't seem like two years, but it has been! Yes, two years ago this month Out of the Blue Craft Group was launched and I joined Amy to deliver these workshops. We started off with the group meeting once a month, but it wasn't long before we had a 'waiting' list, so we decided to repeat the class a second time during the month. We have two different groups of lovely crafters coming along - some have been with us since the beginning, some have joined along the way and we still have new people joining. From those who have come along, good friendships have been made amongst them too, which is fabulous.

I have loved joining Amy to deliver these workshops  and long may we continue! Last night, in the first of our two celebration meetings,  Amy provided some prizes for a raffle and instead of a card, we decided to make chocolate bar wrappers, so that each member would take away a bar of chocolate!

These wrappers are such fun to make: I first saw one on Christine Emberson's blog over a year ago (probably two) and have been making them since for Christmas & Easter 'table' gifts etc. They are fun and make a simple chocolate bar very special..they can also be used as wrapping for  other items, such as books, DVDs etc.

In preparation I made a lot...I got carried away! However it has been such a busy week that as yet I haven't photographed them properly, so I will share mine over the coming week...these are the fabulous creations the ladies on my group made last night..every one  of them different and delightful!

Don't forget that if you live in the Bristol area (or know a Crafter who does), Julia Watts will be demoing for a full day in Chipping Sodbury on Saturday 7th June. Tickets for the demos are just £5 and sessions are available throughout the day. For contact details see the button featuring Julia on my sidebar.

Thank you so much for stopping by and have a fab Friday!

Love and Hugs,

Carole X

Workshop Photos - Friday 11th October

Hello Friends!

Last night was our regular Out of the Blue craft group workshop and for October, Amy and I decided to use a Christmas design by Linda Warmsley for Indigo Blu. The card is an 8x8, the first time we have made a large card and uses two Indigo Blu stamps - Stag on a Cliff and Baubles Flourish.

These are photos of the cards made by my group, unfortunately the light in the room isn't great for photos:

I made a simple card using this stamp and masking technique and posted it here back in August, but it is great fun to do. Linda's original card can be found here

There were three new ladies on my group last night, from talking to them after it seemed they really enjoyed it, so I hope that we see them again in the new year.

This card actually looks really difficult, but is actually quite easy and everyone finished in plenty of time, whereas we nearly always run over time (not that that matters when you're having a good time!)!

We are back with the second group to make this card next Thursday as well.

Thank you so much for stopping by, glad you liked the photo of Bella and the grapes yesterday. After the lovely summer we had, the hens are definitely not liking the sudden turn to such chilly days and nights..and I'm with them there, especially when I look at my fading tan!

Have a great crafty Friday all,

Love and Hugs,

Carole X

Workshop photos - 9th August

Hello Friends,

Thank you for visiting my little corner of blogland and for leaving your comments..please do if you have time,  I love to read them.

Thanks for your best wishes for our big bundle of feathers, Penny....she is doing well and currently out in the garden with our other girls. We (or rather Tom and his brother) had to dust off and clean out our old coop last night so we could attach the temporary run to it and keep her separate in case they started pecking  at her wound. I've washed and dried her this morning and they aren't bothering her at all..more to the point the other three have a fascination with the temporary run and coop and are all inside rearranging it

I am still annoyed by the what the girl at the surgery said to me on the phone..you know I have spent my whole life around animals; during my childhood and teenage years you would most likely find me at the local stables mucking out in exchange for rides or volunteering with Riding for the Disabled and had I had one iota of scientific 'talent' I would have trained as a vet..but all the sciences, including maths may as well be ancient Greek to me and I was always destined along the arty path (not that I'm complaining). so fortunately I have learned quite a lot about chickens and their potential health problems, so I knew there was a chance of helping her..but what if I hadn't had a clue? Well I would still never condemn an animal without the vet looking at her first!

Anyway, Penny thanks you for your concern :) X

Now on to last night's workshop... we had to use a smaller room because there was a town meeting in ours, so it was a bit cramped...fortunately because of holidays and that we are running the same class twice, there were  fewer members, but we still all had a super time..it was a busy night, so I only have a few photos but as usual the ladies did a brilliant job with their cards, although some of them didn't get them finished and took them home for 'homework' !

Thanks for visiting!

Love,

Carole X

A Touch of Spring & Craft Group Photos - Friday 8th March

Good Morning Friends,

I want to get quite a few 'snippets' in this post today, so please forgive for skimping on the card construction details! First of all, welcome to  my new follower, it's great to have you along! To those of you who joined me this week, I haven't forgotten and will check out your blogs, I just need to get tomorrow's Craft Fair over with!

Last night was our regular 'Out of the Blue' craft group evening and this is the card I designed for my group of ladies to make..

Amy and I use the same general idea - stamps and dies, but each make a card for our group: the theme this week was Spring/Easter and I deliberately left it sentiment 'free' so that it can be used for various occasions - I will be blogging with this stamp/die set again because I made a few demo samples but I won't bombard you with them all at once!

The stamp used is 'Garden Bunnies' by Wild Rose Studio and the main idea behind the workshop was colouring with Promarkers...and everyone did brilliantly. Last night we had some new ladies and they had never used these pens before, but were thrilled with how soon you can get excellent results with them after a brief tutorial!

Now for some other news...

Hat's off to Creative Expressions...

Do you remember my problem a few weeks ago with the new Creative Expressions glue top, where it shot off across my desk, ruining a card? After I blogged that, quite a few of you said they had a similar problem. I decided to send them a quick email, just to say I had the problem and didn't seem to be the only one...well almost straightaway I got a lovely email back from them... it looks like  more people had been in touch because they explained that the bottle is being changed back to the original...and they sent me 2 bottles and their latest book! So thank you CE, excellent Customer Service!

Thank's Christine

I also want to say a big thank you to Christine Emberson, who is the UK member of the Spellbinders Design Team and a big inspiration to my paper craft. Some of you will remember that after Christmas my faithful old Grand Calibur started chugging along and rattling inside. I contacted Spellbinders in the US and they were brilliant - repair is free, but as it was out of warranty, I would pay postage to get it to the UK repair man. I explained my GC symptoms to him, but he said I'd have to send it to him and he couldn't guarantee repair, so I was in a quandary as it's quite a heavy item to pack and post safely. In the end I decided to have a new one for my birthday later this month (although I already have it and use it!). However, I didn't want to give up on my original, so I asked Christine's opinion. As it was one of the original GC's there was a 'design fault' which can cause the screws behind the handle to work loose and Christine said this is what might have happened - and told me how to take it apart. Some of you will have seen my photo last week of the 'exposed' GC! Well I'm happy to report that it is all back in one piece now and was used at last night's workshop...whooopeee! So a big thanks to Christine for her help.

Sorry this post has been so long...I am off now to get everything packed up for tomorrow's craft fair...happy Friday all!

Hugs,
Carole X

Events, Workshops, Craft Fairs - Sunday 28th October

Good Afternoon my wonderful blog friends! I'm back!

Yes I've been 'missing' for a few days, but doing lots of crafty things, so it's time to give you a quick update....

First of all there was the 'Discover a new Hobby' event at Yate Library...we put on a similar event last year and it went incredibly well, so we were hoping for the same...well it was even better! 

   I got there at mid-day to help set up the tables and we started at 2pm. Between then and 8pm, when we finished, 230 people (adults and children) came through the door and tried out one or several of about 20 different hobbies and crafts, from photography to quilting to basket weaving and sugar craft: it was amazing! 

   I made up 35 card kits of this little patchwork dove. Not quite the same card, one a little bit easier, figuring on having 2 people at at time at my table with some packs to spare...well at times there were queues! It was so much fun! My friend Amy, who I teach the workshops with, came along and helped when she had finished at her shop and in the end more than 25 people made a Christmas card. Many had never made a card before, some were children or had disabilities and every card was magic! I was so busy, I didn't even take a photo (I know, shame on me!). The look on all their faces when then took away their finished card, just made me so happy, especially one little 8 year old girl, who made one for her grandparents and then borrowed my gold pen to write it there and then!

Thursday night it was our last workshop of the year, so lots of planning ahead for next year now..we had 14 people booked into the class and this time we made cards using a Dreamweaver Christmas tree stencil, dreamweaver paste and micas..we also used glitters on a second project.

I didn't get the stencil until the previous weekend because we were waiting delivery and with everything going on, didn't get to even try it until one evening last week, so thanks to Amy for finding the time to actually make the card for the class this time. I will feature the technique on a future blog, when I have had time to actually make some cards..promise!

Meanwhile and again it was last minute, I did take a some photos of a few of some of my group with their cards...

Click to enlarge and see the cards better!

one of the HM cards I didn't want to part with!

Finally to yesterday's Craft Fair in aid of a local Hospice. I don't do craft fairs much any more, I used to, but when we were looking after my Mum it got harder until something just had to 'give' and by then my commissions had really taken off, so it was better to concentrate on them. However, I have discovered that, especially if you make cards, once you are out of the circuit it is hard to get back in...but I did keep going to this fair, to support the Cause and I still enjoy it very much. 

  The sunshine and farmers market brought a decent amount of people in and the organiser always ensures a varied number of crafts are represented. I did very well (phew!) and can report, if you are interested, that my LOTV Christmas and Pirate cards were the best sellers, along with House Mouse! I took along 2 large HM cards that I didn't really want to part with (but knew it was daft to hold on to them). I had to price them high as there was a lot of work in them...and they both sold!

It's always lovely when  people buy your own art work too and I managed to get a few cards made using my snowman image, which I had on this blog last week - and they sold.

Tom keeps telling my I need to make more male cards and he is right, but aside from Steampunk (which never sells sadly), I just get no pleasure from  making mens cards at all, so sales or not, I think his advice is going on deaf ears at the moment :)

One funny thing though...I'm no sales person: there are one or two other stallholders who are really up for the hard sell and I just don't have it in me;  but what I do like to do at a fair is craft. It's not as easy with paper craft as with sewing or knitting, but I will maybe take some tags, stamps and inks to make a few things. Yesterday, I took along the 8 kits I had left over from Wednesday - they were easy to make, just cutting and sticking. I had decided that this card, would make up some of my own cards to send at Christmas. People were really interested and wanted to buy them as I was making them! So my 8 cards for my own box, has dwindled to two left...gotta start again!!

It has given me an idea for the pre-Easter craft fair though, saying no more at the moment as I need to run it by the organiser :)

Well that's me done for today, I have managed to do some catching up on all your blogs and you have been making some wonderful cards! I had really missed catching up with you all!

I'll be back tomorrow with my new design team card for the current Emergency Crafters challenge,

Thank you so much for stopping by!

Carole X

Workshop photos - Sunday 14th October

Hello Blog Friends,

I hope you are having a super weekend everyone! Thanks for your comments on my sporadic posts this week, which has been a particularly busy one - but I did manage to get around most of your blogs and see all your lovely creations..apologise if in my rather too hurried blog hops, I left anyone out!

No card as such today, we had a workshop on Thursday and I had already posted the card we made..so apologies for a bit of repetition. Three ladies who normally come together, couldn't make it at the last minute and they were from my group, so I only had a small group this time - however, two of the ladies  were first timers and had never paper crafted before, so it worked out okay for them!

The card they made is this paper pieced NOEL card, using a stamp by Woodware.

It's not a difficult card, just a lot of cutting out and measuring for the matting and layering, but all the ladies made lovely cards and I think our first time crafters were very pleased with the results. The Dove paper pieced card is going to be used in a few weeks time  for a demo day we are doing at the Library where I work. Our local Council is dedicating a month to encouraging people to take up new activities (Myself and my volunteers had a very successful day encouraging new volunteers this week!) .The library is organising a Hobbies and craft day and we will be giving people the chance to make a card. We also did this last year and it was very successful.

Amy and I have one more class this year, in a few weeks time when will be making a card with Dreamweaver stencils. Then we will be taking  break until January, although we have next year's classes to plan of course!

Not so many photos this time, for some reason the rest of them didn't come out too well...I probably wasn't concentrating!

I still have more commissions to fulfil, but hopefully I'll get something made that I can post tomorrow. I'm awaiting the go ahead to post my next Fantastic Ribbons DT project (which I am really pleased with!) and keep watching because in the next few days I will be posting a photo of the candy I have gathered so far, to send to one of you lovely crafters when I get to 50 followers!

Thanks for stopping by,

Carole X