Darcy, Lin and Jo teaching at SummerFest {for Birds In The Barn}

Hi everyone, Darcy here. We are delighted to bring you details of a fantastic craft event taking place very soon. SummerFest is a four day event and is hosted by the lovely Janet from Birds In The Barn

Here is an introduction from Janet, to tell you all about this exciting event. 

"We listened to you, all our customers who wanted some day workshops with some of your special tutors and Summer Fest was borne. This will run on 10th,11th ,12th, 13th July 2014.

We have some of your favourite tutors, some who you may have seen onT.V. and at many of the craft shows around the country. All the workshops will run from 9.30am to 4.30pm with a lovely hot and cold buffet lunch, tea and coffee morning and afternoon included for the price of £85 for the day. So treat yourself to a great day and phone the shop on 01206 211099 to book .We will have a retail shop on site so you can top up your stash, with general supplies, favourites and new things too.

We are very honoured to have Darcy UK taking a workshop as she does not get down to the south very often and is mostly found demonstrating for PaperArtsy so check her out on her blog. Likewise with Lin Brown so it will be great to have them with us for our Summer Fest. Jo Firth-Young, a familiar face to our customers will also be teaching too, along with Julie Hickey, Clare Charvill and Hels Sheridan." 

So, as you can see, there are 3 PaperArtsy designers teaching at this event in Essex, a great opportunity for you! More info from Birds in the Barn follows below:

The Schedule:

• Thursday 10th July: Lin Brown who is a designer for PaperArtsy will be using a 8" x 8" canvas, PaperArtsy paints, metal, her own design die cuts, stamps and much more to create a stunning masterpiece for your wall (picture below) .
• Thursday 10th July: Darcy who is also a designer with PaperArtsy will be creating a small album called 'Dreamy Bird in a Doughnut Tree' with her range of stamps and Paper Artsy products and I know Darcy has some exciting ideas to make your book funky. (pictures below)
• Friday 11th July: Julie Hickey from Craftwork Cards will split her day into two projects,In the morning she will be sharing some of her ideas as you make cards and in the afternoon you will try out a 3D project using the new papers from Craftwork Cards.
• Friday 11th  July: Jo Firth-Young our third designer from Paper Artsy will be making a working MDF clock from Candy Box with her lovely floral stamps, paints and much more I am sure. (Picture below)
• Saturday 12th July: Clare Charvill will be showing you how to make a super little album with lots of pockets, tags, and hiding places (we have posted a sneak peek on Birds in the Barn blog) using the By The Sea 8'' x 8'' papers from Graphic 45.
• Sunday 13th July: Clare Charvill making a lovely handbag from Candy Box with a book inside she will be using the fantastic new papers Come Away with Me from Graphic 45.
• Sunday 13th July: Hels Sheridan will be using canvas to make a cover for your journal using stamps, paints, Distress inks, Grunge paste and much more . I am sure there will be a flower or two too.

We are thrilled to be hosting this event at 

The Marks Tey Hotel, near Colchester, Essex

There are still some spaces left, so please call the shop on 01206 211099 to book aplace. We are so excited to be organizing what promises to be a great event and we would love to have you join us. 

Janet.  Birds in The Barn

  

How exciting is that? So what can you expect from the PaperArtsy girls? Well here are some sneaks of our projects. 

Thursday 10th July: Lin Brown 
This is going to be a fun class using all my favourite things. Fresco Finish paint, my stencils, some of my stamps, die cuts, Treasure Gold and metal. I would be delighted if you could join me so that I can teach you some of my all time favourite techniques.

Thursday 10th July: Darcy 

Hi there, if you would like to join me we will create a small book containing spaces for 10 tags. The project is entitled 'Dreamy Bird and The Doughnut Tree' The surprise element is that there is a bit of 'real' tree involved. We will be using a combination of my stamps, Jo's stamps and Lin's stencils. 

Friday 11th  July: Jo Firth-Young
Hi everyone. I regularly teach at Birds in the Barn and its always a pleasure, and I am thrilled to be part of the SummerFest - its going to be a fantastic, creative 4 days.
The project I've designed is a large pocket watch using my stamps, Lin's and my stencils and the fabulous Fresco Finish paints.
I hope you can join me for the class - its going to be a fun inky painty day!!

We would love to see some of our fabulous #patwits and PaperArtsy customers at the event, book now to secure your place. Call Janet on 01206 211099 

Crafty weekend in {Ireland}

I'm not the best when an early start is required, but last Friday was a fun early start. Off for a few days with Lin Brown to take a class with Anna Dabrowska in cork, Ireland. Mark stumbled across Anna's site when we were considering exhibiting at Scraptastic a few months back, and then, a few weeks later, Lin heard about Anna teaching in Ireland, and asked me if I wanted to go. Without thinking I said yes and we booked.

So glad we did. Not only did we get to hop on a few buses and see a bit of the countryside, but we also stayed in a great, nicely priced hotel, and of course did some shopping, and topped it all off with 2 awesome classes with Anna.

Breakfast table

I don't really want to sound like a hotel advert, but I seem to be getting fussy when it comes to hotels, and this one ticked all the boxes and more.

Crazy toilet door...same inside and out!

Crazy toilet decor

Modern, kind of quirky with some fun decor ideas (yes the loos were weird, but fabulous compared to the portaloos as V Festival last weekend!) Comfortable, great, reasonably priced food. So, I can recommend the Cork international airport hotel which is directly across from the airport, and only a 5 min walk across the car park to get to it. There is a shuttle bus service too if your bags are too many to carry.

All checked in and we headed off to Cork to suss out the town centre. Not only did we find a super coffee shop with a huge selection of tea, hot chocolate and coffee. As it was a bit wet and cold out, we opted for the hot choc option, and it was amazing!

Another lovely sight was this display of bottles collaboratively made, painted and displayed, these guys gave me their flyer, but i must have left it in the hotel. They said there was a video on YouTube showing how to make them. It was fantastic to see!

Our taxi driver suggested we take a look at the undercover food market, called the English Market. The fish displays were stunning, and I felt a bit sorry for leaving Mark at home who has been trying to get beautiful fresh fish to smoke for a few weeks, he would have been sorted here. Several amazing fishmongers to choose from. When we were in Weymouth last week, he planned to get some on the last morning to bring back to smoke, but we were told by local fishermen they had been prevented for going out to fish during the Olympics for security reasons, and so all the fish for weymouth at that time was coming in from London!

The next day we took the bus to Kinsale, and it was a beautiful coastal spot. Again, slightly dodgy weather, but it did improve as the day wore on, and the streets were so colourful and fun to explore, plus lots of fab art galleries, so we were happy bunnies.

We had amazing, and not expensive food the whole trip, nothing fancy schmancy, but fresh, well presented and very tasty! Here again in Kinsale we found a tea shop with amazing cake and huge cups of tea.

I think we will both be making trips back with family in the future!

So to the class itself. Lin and I were first to arrive and we immediately were rewarded with a goodie bag for being early! A great start.

Anna launched into class and kept the pace galloping along at breakneck speed, demoing each step and giving us what seemed like half the necessary time to get it all done, somehow, we managed to almost complete each stage by the next demo, and before we knew it the class was over. Here are a couple of the pieces she had on display.

I love how she can do OTT crazy loaded with bellies and colour, or minimalist and a splash of colour. It really is my cup of tea and I took to the process like a duck to water. I was in heaven!

Her style is very unique, but uses all the products you probably have in your stash. In effect she builds a grungy base from 12x12, adds strips of card for texture, then photos, washi tape, and finally flowers or other embellishments. We learned how to develop the structure of the peice with colour, positioning and stamped, embossed images as a resist, and how to place bellies and and add colour to many other elements.

This was my project from the first class, a picture of Miss 18 doing one of her trout pouts -I find this kind of pic on my iPad regularly. Kids eh.

This class was a bit 'flat' in the embellishment department compared to the next one which is mega lumpy.

It was a great intro to colour, sprays and structure of a layout. Not being a scrap booker, I did find the hardest bit was getting the photo in the right place onto the other layers. I never work with photos, but I get why people do!

This second class I used a picture of Ella also practising the Essex faved-by-teens trout pout. Again, found it on the iPad. Do they think I won't check my photo file?

The close ups show you the height involved here. It really was interesting getting everything to stay stuck and of course lots of the elements wer soggy from the spray too.

And here you can see a bit better the detail in some of the edges- punched layered and distressed.

So I'm itching to have a go at more of this concept, I have loads and loads of bellies that will work nicely.

If you get a chance to go to one of Anna's classes you must. If not in Ireland again next weekend, then try scraptastic in Belgium this October or check out her upcoming schedule!

 

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Hip Hip {Ho Ho}

Festive Greetings to one and all!

 

We haven't seen any of this white stuff this year down here (yet).

 

Despite no snow- it's been a fab Xmas season here.

All children present and accounted for. Millie and Ella were hoping to go to NZ this year, but due to GCSE exam commitments that was a no go, I think they have enjoyed snuggling up with Ma and Pa bear and siblings this year. 

This is our new gingerbread PaperArtsy HQ for the festive season!

 

The house is full of Christmas baking aromas. It all started pre-Xmas with the gingerbread house. Miss Millie designed the plan, we found a recipe, and the rest was just a matter of gluing together and decorating with royal icing. Our piping skills are not so great, but we had a lot of fun doing it.  We have decided that dismantling will commence on New Year's Eve. Might need a hammer -that icing has dried rock hard!

 

In mid November I had kids home unwell, so I distracted them from headaches and runny noses by getting them a busy making tags to go on a few presents to match the gold wrapping papers under the tree. Manila tags, fresco paints and archival black ink was all it took. The stamps were all from Ink & the Dog Noel Plate 4 

 

We all headed up to the stunning Cambridge just before Xmas. Mark recently found this snapseed app that does a wicked blurry effect, so now we have a bunch of blurry pics.

 

My sister Emma, has recently moved from NZ with her boyfriend Nic to Cambridge to do some post grad study. I booked an apartment at the end of their street for us to stay in.

 

Kids were a bit gob smacked with the decor- as were we! 

Very rich colours. We loved it, seemed very opulent.

 

Check out the red and gold lounge - Hugo didn't take long to settle in, chuck his coat about and find a remote or some other device.

 

This was the other bedroom in rich blues.

Courtney choreographed this picture of the munchkins in the phone boxes just off the central town square  L-R:Hugo (11), Millie (13), Ella (15), Courtney (17)

Emma organised for us all to go to see the local panto. With the flat in such a central location within 5 min walk of everything it was fantastic to be able to access everything so easily. Cambridge really is a beautiful place to be and there are lots of interesting quirky independent retailers.

 

And while we're doing family pics,who can forget the day the awesome All Blacks won the rugby world cup! Just thought I'd drop that in there - lest we forget... This was Mr PaperArtsy and moi on the morning of the big final. Nervously trying to eat breakfast at the autumn ArtsyCrafts event in our AB supporter strips. Course we are thrilled to finally be world rugby champs!!

 

Millie and I (on our baking mission) tackled macaroons yesterday. Pistachio green and flavoured. Something she has been wanting to do since Ed Kimber won the first Great British Bake Off. They taste great. I think she would have entered the GB junior bake off, but just as the auditions was announced she turned 13 and the max age is 12. Never mind, we are constantly on the receiving end of her experiments...usually all good.

Here's a sight you don't expect to see in London in December

On the first 3 days of Christmas week, Ella and I went up to London to a method acting drama course she had booked for. This meant I took a different buddie with me days 1 and 2 (Millie and Mark), and boy did we walk all over London.

 

We walked miles and miles and miles and miles....But it was so lovely to have a good look around with no fixed agenda. Loved borough market, in fact got our Xmas dinner there - a chicken stuffed with a pheasant with almond/apricot stuffing ... It was perfect on the day too.Enjoyed a glass of mulled wine from the south bank Xmas market, and the antiques at Coventry garden, and Camden Passage were interesting as ever.

 

I've also had a few days over the last few weeks to plan some classes that I'll be teaching at Version Scrap. It is a wonderful show in Paris in Spring. Lots of classes and scrummy exhibitors that are so different to anything you see in England. Last year the attendees were keen to see more about using metal, and as it's a scrapbooking show, I have reflected that in this particular project. I'll be teaching 2 classes, this is one of them, a layout framed by a metal niche. Papers, paints, embellishments new, made and found. Lots to learn in this 3 hour class. 

 

The other is a re-vamped ArtsyCrafts class with layered grungeboard letters and die cut shapes, over-painted and wiped back with our gorgeous Fresco Chalk finish paints - and I mean lots of layers and layers of acrylic paints  I loved that class this year, one of my faves. We embellish with ideology and found objects. This looks wonderful on the wall in my lounge - it gets loads of comments.

 

I think booking goes live in the New Year. The show is the first weekend in April (March 30th - April 1st, 2012)

 

The PaperArtsy stand got pretty busy last year! Here you can see Mark and (stamp) Sally almost finished the set up 

 

And this was how it looked later in the show.

 

And I managed to get a pic of Lin chatting and demoing too. The ladies were fascinated with what we demo.

So that's my news update. Always guaranteed to be an epic tale. And so much I left out!

Wishing you all a safe and celebratory end to 2011. Thank you so much for your friendship, custom, shared laughs and your presence at shows and ArtsyCrafts events this year. We love to get out and about to see you in person, online or passing through the online shop. I'll be back in the New Year to keep you in the loop. If you fancy a chat, then see you on twitter, I usually check in late in the evenings.

Leandra & Mark

ArtsyCrafts in Spring is only 6 weeks away !!!

Lin and I spent most of last week together planning the 2 Spring ArtsyCrafts weekend events which are only just around the corner you know! Usually we would have this info ready a lot earlier in the year, but we have both been a tad busy to say the least!

So the good news is this time we have delightful snippetty pics of the actual projects for you to  decipher and interpret. The theme is Fresco Lifestyle, and that is  big clue that we could possibly be using our new Fresco Chalk Acrylic paint line........well..... quite a bit!

We are thrilled with this line of paints, they are totally unique, unlike any other paint out there. A chalk finish means they are perfect to stamp on with all inks because they are extremely matte. They do not need a primer or undercoat on any surface (including usually hard to paint surfaces like glass, ceramic, metal and wood etc), and they are good for indoor and outdoor use. So Lin and I really can't wait to show you some of the cool stuff we have been up to with them for Spring AC!

To find out all you need to about the events, go to the homepage of our retail website here and in the 'events' section down the Left hand side of the page, you will find links to the Newport Pagnell (May 28/29, 2011) booking form, and also to the Warrnington (June 18/19, 2011) Booking Form.

The DeVere harben House Venue at Newport Pagnell is close to Luton International Airport, and the DeVere Daresbury Park, near Warrington is the same distance from either Manchester airport,  or John Lennon Airport in Liverpool. So both have access for international crafters, and of course both are not far from major motorways either.

So I guess you would love to see some sneaky peekys of the projects.

Working with texture is going to be quite a big theme this Spring. Colour will be more subdued than we have done in the past, but of course there is always the opportunity to boost it up if you prefer. It's going to look stunning either way!

You will also figure out how easy it is to paint glass!

And we will even be working with a completely new product which can be great experimental fun  along the way....we think its going to be an awesome result.

So we are really looking forward to seeing you at one of the 2 venues, for yet another fabulous round of ArtsyCrafts creativity, and of course it will be a great time to spend with your old and new ArtsyCrafty friends.

This year we are also including in the price an evening meal on the Saturday night (in addition to lunches both days) so you can relax and enjoy getting to know each other over a bite to eat.

Remember if you are staying in the venue, you will need to book your accommodation direct with them. Details are on the forms.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Leandra