What a wonderful weekend!

It's only just over an hour for me to get the the Craft Barn, so its quite a nice trip (as long as the Dartford Crossing is clear) . I really enjoy these events, it's a real joy to demo. Plus, we each get a huge trestle table to spread out on, so of course I can demo about 20 different things instead of 3...a bit of a treat I must say.

Now that I have my snazzy camera, I can show you the sorts of things I was demoing. These are ideas that are not just mine, some are from Lin Brown, some Suze Weinburg, some are mine, and then there are twists on all of those ideas as they evolve.  Some of these techniques Lin and I developed specifically for Artsy Crafts retreats. 

You often feel like you are chasing your tail in a demo doing the same thing over, but it seems from the pics below, I jump from one thing to the next depending on what people ask for.

I have given Sandy some clearer instructions for a few of these ideas for her to blog proejcts over at the Craft Barn. So be patient and you'll get a more detailed breakdown with some new samples that I left with her via their blog.

On the first day I managed to get over to the other hall for a quick look while I took a break, but it was hard to get any pictures as everyone was so busy. I nabbed Sue and Isa while there was a gap in the crowds.

Here is Isabelle Norris who was demoing clay beads - marbled, using clay from Viva Decor. Never got to see how she was doing it but she was using those roller things which make the shape consistent each time.

Sue Roddis was doing a technique with alcohol inks over white pigment ink. She has a cool hanging tree with the samples  - looked lovely! She was using Katzelcraft stamps. And she had her scrummy new book on display.

And I met Jane Bentley (Colour my World) for the first time who has many plasma templates which you can trace around onto card or paper, and make up the samples like these shown. She is the queen of cutting out!

I didn't get an opportunity to take more piccies of the other demonstrators, but they were all doing great stuff. 

Christine next to me was doing amazing watercolours with her stuning designs and distress inks, so beautiful. Sandra showed her Kadoodle designs, Jane Bentley (as above) Paula Pascual was there with her Craftwork Card ideas, and Jean and Malcolm from Crafty Individuals had a beautiful display too. Kaz and Lexie used pencils and copics respectively...and that was just our hall!!! 

There were another 8 or so demonstrators in the other hall, like Kay Carley, all the Craft barn "Carols"...does anyone know how many there are! I couldn't get close to "metal" Carol as she was so busy. Beatrice from Katzelcraft of course, plus Isa and Sue...oh I have probably forgotton someone or two, I only briefly stuck my head in the door for a few minutes.

This weekend for me it was time to show the new PaperArtsy Nut and Meg stamps and papers. The snowman and fairy seem very popular selections for people.

I also demoed lots of stamping ideas, here's a few pics.

On Saturday I did quite a lot with the melt pot. Like turning this metal embossed snowman into an UTEE charm or card motif.

 

So he would end up something like these

 

And then I used clay as a base instead of metal to get these guys.

We cooked the clay in an empty melt pot, and it only took a couple of minutes.

Suze Winburg's UTEE into Memory frames idea went down a storm. How easy is this?? We used the metal xtra stamps, put the memory frame on top of the rubber, and poured UTEE in the frame. Suze taught me this at SMAC earlier this year, and its so much fun, you can add colour with paints or glimmer mists, alcohol inks, glitter, and you can wear it either way around. 

Can you see how transparent this is??

 

Linda Brown demoed her take on this at Ally Pally last year which looks like this (below)...she also used the PaperArtsy Metal Xtra stamps, but obviously no frame to restrict the flow - nice for an embellishment. Here you can see Viva Decor Paint on top of these samples. 

Mini Competition: Name any 2 Metal Xtra stamps these samples come from. We need the correct codes please.  Leave your answer in the comments and we'll draw 2 names (who give correct answers) to each win 2 unmounted metal Xtra stamps so you too can have a go at this technique! Offer ends midnight GMT 15 Sept!

This is how you can use those UTEE bits (below). Lin used one as an embellishment and made this for me at Ally Pally (thanks to Lin Brown for this sample)

So on Sunday I did more stuff with the new Rum and Raisin Papers

And metal flowers make great embellishments for the papers!

  

These are Cuttlebug metal-canvas flowers. That's Claudine Hellmuth canvas painted with viva paints on the back, and stamped metal on the front, run through the bug and cut out.

We did tape-sandwich metal, stamped and outlined with the teflon tool, distressed with paint and or glimmer onto all the different colours of metal.

and embossed (puffed out) metal with stamped images made into motifs with the soft mat and  a paper stump, then refining on the acrylic mat. I love doing this...very relaxing, and you can distress with paint and glimmer too if you like.

And lots of people love the texture you get from Viva products using stamps and Precious Metal Colour Paints. These make great bases for metal embellishments like this

 

or maybe this

So I had a nice weekend how about you?

Tomorrow is the last day of the Christmas Blog...can you believe its nearly over??

Leandra