Short break in France

We've taken the opportunity to hook up with family from New Zealand and pop over to France for a week.

We are in La Turbie, which isn't far from Nice and kind of overlooking Monaco from up the sheer hill/ mountain.

This afternoon we had a quick squiz around this gorgeous very old village. Even the roman ruins are stunning!

With the teeny tiny streets and picturesque outlook it really is quite breathtaking.

The cemetery's top the hill is a riot of colour; the end of October is traditionally when you visit the resting places of the deceased to pay your respects and leave flowers - often chrysanthemums.

Inside the church which looks very plain from the outside we're plenty of beautiful altars to various important saints

Stunning portraits....

and .....a skull in a box...... LOL not quite what I expected.....

But I was particularly fascinated buy this gilt assemblage - the detail was so intricate. We were lucky to find the light switch, and no one was in there, so we got some beaut pics.

And from the village the view down to the Mediterreanean is stunning, particularly at dusk with the sun catching the clouds.

No idea what we will do tomorrow, but I need to get some rest so I can face the drive! The roads here are pretty hairy! The car we are in often hardly fits the gaps, and ridiculously steep hairpin corners the likes of which I have never encountered before in my life! Even the kids are pooping themselves in the back!

But its worth it for the stunning views.

Hope your week is going well

Leandra

 

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Gorgeous new {Lynne Perrella} Christmas stamps

Well this Is exciting! Well before i start I just wanted to show you this fantastic piece by Lin Brown here that i spotted on google images that she blogged about early September...utterly gorgeous.... read about it or also see here for other equally fabulous ideas!

Lynne Perrella brings us Christmas rubber

But We absolutely adore these new winter-christmas images that are now available in the online shop. Lynne creates such gorgeous collage stamp images, and these are not so much Christmas as wintery. This makes them versatile for year round, but they are of course really great for Christmas.

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This woman reminds me of the dowager role Maggie Smith plays as the senior Matriarch on Downton Abbey - another period drama from ITV which they are are so excellent at making. This imposing woman has fabulous twiggy-snowflakes trailing down her back, and I just love the idea of the Russian stackable dolls!

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The image top left with the face inside the sheriff-style-star I have big plans for! That star thingy would look awesome all metallic from Treasure Gold wax!! While demoing with Treasure Gold I have figured out a fab way to Crete a multi-coloured background, and then stamp the image on top of the wax! I can wait to do that with this new image, so I shall try to make a video while we are at the NEC in 10 days time! And I adore the tag on this plate - how great would that be on presents under the tree!

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The show stopper on this plate is the gorgeous vintage hot air balloon with the dangling doll. It is the full height of an A5 plate - so a lovely big image. The detail is stunning.

Using large stamps: tips

It's a really good idea to use large stamps with a set of flexi acrylic blocks for two reasons

1. A5 size is big enough to fit big your bigger stamps on
2. a thin block with 'flex' allows you to apply pressure in the centre of the image which means the ink gets pressed/transferred nicely onto the receiving surface

NB: any image larger than credit card size we suggest you should always put the rubber onto EZ mount foam. This also helps to ensure the ink transfers evenly from the rubber to the paper. If you. Us uncounted stamps, our expectation is that you will still mount the rubber onto EZ mount foam. This enables the even transfer of ink to paper. If you don't use foam you will not get the detail from the image and you might not get the entire image to stamp out properly.

We recommend with Lynne Perrella stamps you use Versafine Ink by Tsukineko. It has the right consistency to ink up the stamp nicely, it's really black, and it lasts for ages, so a reinker is not really required. I have had mine for over 10 years!

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The carousel horse on this also is reminiscent of a bygone steam-powered era. It reminds me of a trip to Strasbourg we had late autumn one year, and there was the most stunning gilt carousel all lit up on the winter evenings in the lead up to Christmas. It was such a beautiful sight loaded with lots of happy rosey faces.

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The last of the new wintery plates, this one has the fantastic 'joy' plaque loaded with intricate details. And I love the jester's stick and cherub too. I think this is going to be one of my faves.

I think these stamps are really different for Christmas, but reminiscent of days gone by; a theme that always is a really good fit for December.

These are all online and ready for ordering now from PaperArtsy here. Have a great week ahead!

Leandra

 

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A bit of {Stamp Magic} tomorrow

Tomorrow we are off to Doncaster. It's the Stamp Magic show at the Dome. The van is packed and we have more new stuff that has arrived in this week to PAHQ

First up we have every single colour of Liquid Leaf highly metallic paint and Treasure Gold highly metallic wax. So even more to choose from than we had at Ally Pally and Harrogate! And this picture still doesn't show them all!

The paint is great for changing the colour of paper flowers like these

Into this, or look at the die cut crunchy songbird that was embossed, then painted with brass liquid leaf. So easy and very effective.

We also have a whole lot of prima flowers on the racks this weekend. I can't pick my faves, so not sure how you will!

And check out these 7 gypsies knobs! Quite like the idea of putting them on the front of a wooden icon, but I can think of so many places these would look fabulous!

We picked up a couple of new elves this week! (Dad Roy, and his wife Sue) Took them a while to get the hang of bagging stamps the right way up in a bag (these elves are from down under though so that might explain it) they did quite like pricing up and hanging stock! But sadly they depart for France tomorrow, so we didn't get to keep them for very long!

What else is new this weekend? I am Very excited about a whole bunch on new resin and metal embellishments from Melissa France's and Prima. These are going to be awesome with the treasure gold on top! This is just a few of what we have on the stand tomorrow.

Amazing metal bellies.

And lots of amazing prima goodies like these bonkers embellishments!

So, a late blog post, but we do hope to see you there if you can make it at the dome to the stamp magic show!

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Coming to a town near you!

If you have been following us on the blog recently, you will have figured out that Autumn is Craft show season here in the UK, and of all the months in the year, October has the most events on offer for your enjoyment here in the UK. 

If you popped by our stand this is what your would have seen at Harrogate.

Heading to a show is a great chance to go and suss out some new ideas and to get ahead on your 'to-do' list before the silly season of chrimbo is well and truly upon us. You can see many retailers in the one place, we all usually have quite different products to sell, so there is always a big variety to see. Demonstrators are plentiful, and are happy to be quizzed on products, techniques and so you can see for yourself how to use new products.

We have noticed wood is very popular at the moment, which makes sense, particularly if you are handy with a paint brush and a bottle of Fresco Finish, or try some crackle for a great wintery effect. Wood can be painted, papered, stencilled, or why not rust it? We have been adding puff paint to it then embossing the bumps with gold EP, we have also been rubbing treasure gold directly onto the wood, or making it look like metal with Liquid Leaf. Plenty of gift ideas on our bookcase stacked with new stuff, or cool stocking-filler goodies.

So we've been everywhere man (you need to sing that bit)...Harrogate last weekend was a lovely town to visit, we ate well, slept well, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves meeting new exhibitors and customers alike.

The treasure gold and Liquid Leaf is flying off the stand at shows. Its a real 'Oooohhhhh' product. We have even more colours arrived in today, and you can order online now, so get it while we have it!

Jo Firth-Young's Christmas stamps are causing a real buzz. People can immediately see what they would do with them. I loved stamping the minis onto fabric JM02 left, JM01 right and painting soft touches of colour. Only takes a minute, so a really nice way to do loads of cards.

Here are a few samples of what she's has been doing with them:

A fabulous wreath using stars from JOFY08 She randomly painted Smoothy card with Fresco acrylic paints (beach hut and guacamole), then stamped the stars on the BG, and jazzed them up with buttons, bling and a bit of sparkle.

Here is JM02 (a mini) coloured with Distress Markers.

I love how Jo uses brown Kraft card so effectively. She stamped the bunting onto scrapbook paper, then cut out and laid over the JOFY07 image stamped in black directly onto the brown card.

 And more kraft-cards using other  minis, JM01, JM02, JM03 in a similar manner

The wreath stamp on JOFY04 is a stunner, and such a fun stamp to play about with. Glitter pens are deffo allowed on this little number! Or what about liquid leaf or treasure gold??

Here is the same stamp, but with stamped stars layered up from the wreath scraps of painted card!

And lastly, we love this big stamp from JOFY05 Jo designed it so that you can pick out words of your preference to highlight and make up your own greeting. How clever is she!Either mask off words, or bleach back with ...yes...bleach.

 So the show we are doing this weekend is the Big Stamping and Scrapbooking Show (East Midlands). It will be held at the Kettering Conference Centre. Kettering is not far from where the A14 joins the M1/ M6 motorways, so quite easy to find! The train station is not a long walk either, so what are you waiting for? Book your tickets online and come and see us.

New in this week, I have added even more colours of Liquid Leaf and Treasure Gold to the stash on the stand (drooling), and we have new papier mache items in, perfect for Christmas altering ideas. I also have some amazing canvases. They are ridiculously cheap £2-£6 and are the extra chunky ones, square or oblong and you will love them too I am sure! Plus we have texture paste and puff paint that I am very excited about using through stencils with Liquid Leaf on top....

And lastly, went to a pub for lunch with Mr PaperArtsy on Monday, and this was on the wall. LOL

We'll catch up with you next week, in the meantime, I have a load of rubber to get trimming...and orders to send out...

Take care

Leandra