A very {PaperArtsy} summer

What a whirlwind this summer has been. In a nutshell so you don't feel you have missed out on the behind the scenes here at PaperArtsy here's the summary....

We had an early harvest, this was taken from the house looking out at the fields right in front of us...THis is also the view from our World HQ workshop next door...we love it here!

After which they flicked poo over all the fields and we gagged ...for days! uggg

We planted a vege garden...very late but we did it....and now have  lots of lettuce, carrots, courgettes, beans, peas and caterpillers

Then we had lots of parties...Hugo (10th), 

a week after that my 40-something...I forget which one it was...must be an odd cos everyone else is even, I'm thinking I must be 43 this year...then a week after that Courtney's 16th

and we were very brave parents and let her have about 40 kids over for a party one night in the garden...it went very well, much better than I ever thought possible...maybe we were just worse when we were that age....hmmmm

Then Miss 16 went off to V festival just up the road in Chelmsford....I want to go next year!!! (L-R: Annabel, Courtney, Nicole, Megan) Despite bad forecasts, it never rained till the evening of the last night, and then not as bad as predicted, but enough for them to come home muddy and with the muddy wellies (we call the gumboots in NZ BTW!)


Meanwhile....I got to spend a few days with my partner in crime Lin from LB Crafts fine tuning our October ArtsyCrafts projects....shhh can I show some sneaks???? She's away for a few days and might not notice...shhhh. Oh she's such a good blogger maybe she already showed you and I never noticed....??
Oh well, from my camera....here are a few snippety bits...

This class will be called book book of wisdom....and the papers will likely be a bit different to what you see there...because Lin and I cooked up a set of papers...so the royal WE (Lin et moi) will have some of our very own papers coming out later in the year and we will use those at AC...they will be soooo goooood...Lin and I had lots of fun dreaming them up together, we wrote them down, drew piccies.... chose the colours...now my Mark has to just read our minds and scribblings and it will be job done...no problem...no problem at all.....he can do that...course he can....anyway you heard it here first...that was a world exclusive.....so now he just has to do it! And they will be totally stunning!

Ohhh now this class is lovely, very elegant and scrummy with lots of layers...as you can sort of see....it looks stunning in cream, but of course at ArtsyCrafts we have 8-10 different tables of colour for you to work with...so it could look amazing in any one of those combos....

Now this doesn't exactly show you a whole lot, but you can see that we will be having some flower fun, and this was just a bunch of stuff chucked in a pile...waiting for....the right place to be put....but you will LOVE what we do with it all...maybe this will whet your appetite, its a bit more...ummm...finished....but there's lots you can't see.....*squeals*

So how do you get to make these???? well, you are too late for ArtsyCrafts at Newport Pagnell - it's sold out, but I believe there are still some places left at Warrington October 30/31. It's a lovely venue DeVere Daresbury Park, and great public transport access, and 2 airports nearby, John Lennon or Manchester...so check out this link and come join us for the creative fun...broomsticks are allowed BTW!


What else..OMG we have done so much...we are up to Hot Pick 1009 (the September release)

Fresh in from the printers less than a week ago all the Hot Picks are on New Index sheets...and I'm sure we have already gone thru a few boxes of them!This is what to look for now in the shops.


And we have Hot Pick Xtras....if you haven't seem HPXT02 where have you been??? (don't tell me on holiday....I'm not listening...no excuses in this day and age of technology)

Go see it here HPXT02...and we have 01 and 03 available in November...unless you go to the Artisan show on October 1&2 where Traplet will be selling them as a PaperArtsy show only Craft Stamper subscription offer...yup that is TRUE, and the Lovely Katy Fox and Helen Chilton are already playing with them and cooking up great demos for you...and no I'm not showing you them NOW..I'm not sure I'm allowed....but they are wicked! And yes, PaperArtsy will have a stand at the show, and we also have a Make and Take booth where you can do a gorgeous thing or 2 with the very talented Jo Firth-Young....so of course you want to go to the show! It's going to be even better than last year!


And today...now this is super shhhh...I snuck some pics from 2 of the new Xmas plates Mark will be making next week.....I am such a rebel...he may be a bit cross that i'm showing you...but I love what he did...he's calling it an Authentic PaperArtsy Christmas...

So watch out for these next week too.


Yesterday was Ella's Birthday (Miss 14), so we went and watched the A-Team...brought back memories of the old TV series, and we all loved it, and today, Miss Millie came home and made brownies for us all, and then helped out peeling and sticking Hot Picks...here she is....

everybody needs a Millie. She is multi-talented, and saving up for a laptop!!


I know it's hard to believe...but I still haven't told you all the good news of the week...we still have some more stamps to show you...but I think that is enough for one day!

Oh and lots of you have been asking how my Dad and his wife are doing in Christchurch, New Zealand after the earthquake. They are absolutely fine. The house suffered substantial damage to the chimneys and roof, which my 72 yr old father has been trying to fix himself...up on the roof....thankfully he has got it to a waterproof state without falling off, or getting bumped off in an aftershock...until more permanent repairs can be made....They were miffed at the timing as they just had new carpet put down in the lounge the day before the quake, and they had a new couch delivered the day of the quake, and due to the rubble and soot coming down the chimney, everything is black, not white...so they were pretty disappointed about that, but in the scheme of things, they are very lucky that the house structure is intact and habitable. There are many many people who have had to walk away from their homes. We are lucky that in New Zealand the earthquake commission was set up with the financial resources in place to help communities in events such as this. 

Christchurch has a lot of work to do to get the infrastructure back to normal, but the kiwi spirit is well suited to situations like this, everyone pulls together and gets stuck in. Go check out piccies here and you soon see how bad it actually was from http://tvnz.co.nz/ No one can understand how it is that no lives were lost when nearly every home in a city of 300 000 people has suffered damage. They are very very lucky. And i hope they can get back to normal as soon as possible.


Sweet PaperArtsy dreams


Leandra