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

Yooo Hoooo

Wow, where has the year gone already? Is it flying for you too??

January and February was spent developing, designing and finalising the details for the many many new products we had to get ready for the UK Craft Trade show that we, in the Craft Sector all call 'Stitches' (that's the place where all the shops we supply come to find out what is new for the year ahead).

Here is what our tradeshow stand looked like, and a quickie tour of some of the new stuff we have developed for 2011.



So, if you don't want to watch the video, we have

• New Hot Picks Stamps: HP1102, HP1103, HP1104 (due out April), HP1105 (due out May), Moth Stamp and Die Set HPSD01 , HPXT05
• New dies: Oak leaves (sml, med large), hardware, Small birdcage, Small songbird, Tall Heart, Full Heart
• PaperArtsy Metal Card:  aluminium bonded to metal. Available in 12x12" (2 pack), or 5x7" (4pack)
• Flexi Blocks: Thin Acrylic Blocks , pack of 4
• Fresco Finish Acrylic Paints: 19 chalk finish colours (including Black and White), 2 metallic shades, and 3 glazes (satin, crackle and metallic)

Just a few days after the show, LB Lin and I hosted a special ArtsyCrafts event with Tim Holtz as a guest tutor. What a blast that was! Would love to show you photos, but silly me just lost her Iphone 2 days ago, but I am sure you have all seen a zillion photos on a zillion other blogs already...I am the tail end charlie in blog land these days! Suffice to say we all had a wonderful 2 days, and the whole event ran super smoothly.

Since then, the elves and staff at PA HQ have been working crazy hours to bring all our new products to market as soon as possible. Last week we installed a whole new bottling system after deciding the first system was too slow, and we moved to a new labelling system too....so paints will be shipping from mid April, but you can pre-order online now.

 These last few days we have been exhibiting at the NEC HobbyCrafts show. It's the last day of the show tomorrow, and we are on stand F01 which isn't too far from the main entrance, so hope to see you there if you can make it.

 Come by and see Leandra demo the new paints, dies, metal card and more!

We only have Monday and Tuesday back at PA HQ to quickly re-price all our stock into Euro prices, then on Wednesday we are off to Paris!! Woohoooo....no it's not a holiday, we are off to exhibit at Version Scrap. A gorgeous scrapbooking show that i have been at for the last 4 years. This time my partner in crime, LB Lin is coming to demo on our stand for us, and I will be teaching a class, and we will have a Make and takes going all show long too. StampSally will also be helping us out, and Dounia who I met last year will be there to help too. I am really looking forward to it.

So PaperArtsy HQ in the UK is closed until April 5th, so don't expect us to ship out orders until after that date if you have placed one online! We will be working through them as soon as we can on our return.

Nice to catch up with you all, enjoy the rest of your weekend!
Leandra

A {countdown} lucky for someone!!

Excited??? OH YES WE ARE !!!!

Tim and Mario's amazing hard work they put into their kits was astonishing to watch via twitter. Did you see any of Mario's pics? Here's a summary..

 All the die cut goodies and bits and bobs getting collated

 Michelle hard at work bagging up at the final stages of this mega task! Always smiling!

 All this tissue tape just for you to use in class!!

 Ohh, there's a good sneaky peeky.....

 And trinkets, charms, games pieces, flowers....so much goodness from Tim's ideology range

It seemed to take them about 4 weeks plodding away, scoring, cutting, assembling, die-cutting and getting together LOADS of charms.

 

In Tim's words, 'this kick-ass class is the most loaded kit I have ever put together'! Well yes we are worthy as the UK have never been treated to a Tim class as awesome as this before!! We have waited for AGES for this and we can't wait!!

The organisation that has gone into this event from the USA crew, and our UK crew is immense. And you are going to have such a fab day with Tim,Lin and Leandra, that's it's certainly one you won't forget in a looong time!!

Here at the UK end we have got all the massive amount of stock priced up ready for the event, yummy ideology, Ranger products galore, and the PaperArtsy Elves have started pressing rubber flat out too this weekend.

Lin, Karen and Linda E have started the kitting up.New papers from PaperArtsy get chopped to size...Nearly 2000 pieces in total....

 Yummy ideology embellishments for our project.

One Sunday recently we taught our able helpers our project....they likey! Thank goodness for that....which means you should likely too as they can be very critical and very fussy - in the nicest possible way!!

Just in case you can't recognise them as it was bleary o'clock when we all got up for this day...Linda E, Essex Lynne (aka Cheryl {Cole}), Karen and Jo... of course Lin and I had the good sense to stay the other side of the camera on this occasion.

And here is one side of the ticket....

...and here's a surprise.....

We have got 5 tickets that were returned this week from 5 very sad ladies. Due to circumstances beyond their control they have all had to very reluctantly hand back their tickets so that some other lucky person can go instead.

I have listed them back on the PaperArtsy website here

http://shop.paperartsy.co.uk/a-workshop-with-tim-holtz-146-c.asp

There is:

1 space on Thursday 24th Feb 8.30 - 5pm class, and 

4 spaces on the Friday 25th Feb Class 8.30 - 5pm

If this is something you would like to come to, you will need to also buy yourself a lunch option at the same time as getting the ticket.

Good luck, and if we have more returns I will add them to the shopping cart, so keep checking back.

Have a fantastic week

Leandra

PS We had a very exciting day yesterday....we have several new products releasing at the trade show here in the UK mid February, and yesterday we gave the go-ahead for something to be made just for us. No one has anything like it anywhere!! Soz can't tell you yet....first peeps to see are those booked onto my workshops at Stitches...until then SCHTUMMM

.....so so so so so so so so excited...and then some!!!

An {awesome} year ahead

Here in the wonderful world of PaperArtsy we are buzzing with excitement of the year ahead!

December was fabulous, even tho we were a couple of family members down....here is Courtney and Hugo on skype to us saying Hi on Christmas day!

And their newest cousin baby Jack who got dressed up especially for the occasion! 

And I made a wreath whihc amde it onto the front cover of Craft Stamper Magazine....kind of like being Xmas number 1, except in Crafting Lingo! LOL

And while they were away we had an interesting day out with Ella at the London Britains Got talent prelim auditions before Christmas 

Here's a couple of the girls from the choir... they sang well...but we won't know until February if they get thru to the next round.... but i reckon these guys will...some kind of james Bond act...the little no-neck dude was really short compared to the others...they caused a bit of a ripple whewrever they went! You saw it here first guys!!

Anyway the muchkins had a fabulous month in NEw Zealand with all the family, and here they are the evening of Day 1 home, snuggled up with siblings - 2 white and 2 brown kids (L-R: Hugo, Ella, Corky and Millie)

And as you know if you are in the UK, while they were away, we had a LOT of snow late December!

Those crazy icicles kept growing so long - beautiful! This is alongside the PA workshop.

And my fave new tipple was Winter Pimms...warmed with apple juice.

So the week before Christmas, and the day BEFORE Heathrow closed for the snow, we received this lot from Ranger..I know..good planning on our part....

But MAN was it COLD the day Jo Firth-Young, Mark and I checked it all off! And it's not all here yet...we are still waiting for the goodie lovelies class kits bits from TIm and Mario to arrive!

If you don't know what I am referring to...of course we have only got the Tim Holtz coming to teach for a VERY special ArtsyCrafts event on Feb 24th and 25th at the deVere harben House, near Milton Keynes.

How excited are we on a scale of 1-10 .... only about 1 zillion!

So the week after Christmas I was busy sending out tickets on the one day that the post office was (a) open and (b) accessible!

And Sunday (just been) Lin and I taught the project we are also teaching at the same event to our talented assistants...looking a bit less than glamorous after a very early start....

So to the year ahead...well my lips are sealed at the moment...but January is filled with us designing loads of new products to be released at the Stitches trade show Mid February, and we will continue with the release of more Hot Picks and dies...

Here's a sneaky peek of one new design HP1102 that will be hitting stores very soon. I LOVE the new flower stamp which matches the already existing scallop flower die. The scallop has a very pretty edge and can also be used to make layered flowers. I often like to use a small clock face for the centre.


It's a busy place here at PaperArtsy World HQ, and 2011 is going to be so awesome I can't wait!

Leandra 

EDIT: If you are interested in attending the ArtsyCrafts Tim Holtz event, do email me sales@paperartsy.co.uk to go on the waiting list. We have had a few unexpected cancellations of late due to health/ surgery etc , so the wait list has spaces!

I know, I know {stop telling me}

Yes I have been a bad blogger, I know I know. Be quiet already. I decided that people getting their orders had to be placed a bit higher up the list of priorities than blogging. When I figure out how to morph into an octopus with three heads, life will be so much easier!

As I keep saying, if you miss me that much, get on your iphone (if you haven't got one yet you *need* one from Santa!) and follow me on twitter @paperartsy for daily updates from the mad life of PA world HQ, plus you can laugh at all the goings on of family, work and the latest TV excitement on Saturday evenings. For example, you may have found it interesting to know that Miss Millie (12 yr old baker and chef extraordinaire) 

 threw the whole house into crisis when she broke the rules by wearing her roller blades indoors, fell over and almost broke her arm! Due to a very bad sprain, we have suffered deeply without freshly baked cookies, brownies or red-wine casseroles! What a nightmare! So if you followed me on twitter you would know a lot more of our behind the scenes life, and boy did we get up to some stuff when Mark went off to the rugby recently...it's not often he goes away leaving me at home, so while the cat's away.....


Anyway, even if I am a bad blogger, I am a very competent twit. Nuff said.

So in the last couple of months I have only been home about 2 weekends (the last 2 actually)


....it all started back in October.....The Artisan  Show:

Love that show. We were flat out. Missy Jo Firth-Young had a lovely make and take going down with constant queues of people waiting to play with her lovely self. We had fun with flowers (above) and mini books (below)

I demoed on the stand, and found time to fit in a workshop which was full of lovely ladies who made fabulous double icon frames decorated with Hot Picks stamps and copper metal. They were brilliant. Like I said, love that show. Mark Sept 30 and Oct 1st in your 2011 calendar now!


Next up we had ArtsyCrafts: 
2 weekends of utterly fabulous creativity at Newport Pagnell and Warrington. I have to say, for me this was my favourite AC so far. I was really looking forward to it because I really, really loved each of the projects so much. And we seemed to get the timing spot on this time for every single class - the majority of people went home with 3 totally finished projects. The pace was nice, we oozed through comfortably.  And the ladies were so lovely who we got to spend the weekends with! Perfick!

There were lots of beginners who totally coped magnificently well with all our weirdo terminology, and many, many repeat customers who consistently call our events 'second to none' which gives us the uber warm fuzzies, because we really do put hours and hours (and hours and hours....) of work into these events. Not just Lin and me, all the team has a special part to play in bringing these special weekend retreats to you all...

so in October 2010 this was what we all had great enjoyment making....

  

 The owl from HP1011 proved very popular sitting inside his niche which was covered with the new PaperArtsy 12x12 Thordon Hall scrapbooking papers. The paper is from Italy (swoon now), and is printed locally to us. I had a big looong list of how I needed the papers to be...I think the printers thought I was asking a bit much, but they searched high and low, and found the most high quality , gorgeous paper, we are so totally over the moon. And they work out at just 62p ea for a double sided 12x12, so didn't we do well!!! You can get packs of 24 sheets (4 of each design) for £14.99 Did I mention they are so smooth that they stamp up beautifully, and we love to alter the colour with a wash of gesso, then ink or paint. So much fun to do! Go ask Santa for some! You know you've been good!

This metal frame decorating the front of one of the projects is made from a grid pattern from a kabuka mould. We run it through the big shot to be embossed, then flatten the metal between the acrylic plates. Its a great technique for all kinds of cool embellishments, and used to great effect to frame this lovely collage stamp HP1006 (above)

I adore this stunning frame project. It was a whole day class. We created the background from heavy duty corrugated card, then painted, embossed with metallic powders, and embellished with the PaperArtsy flower stamps - we needed those PaperArtsy dies quite a bit for this... and the odd hint of metal was fabulous. How lucky were we that the border from the kabuka mould fit perfectly across the bottom of the frame!

 Nice texture from the ribbed paper under the metal-flower top layer.

 And this little frame of layers was so much fun to make too. It uses the new door stamp from HP1011, the frame was covered with canvas and painted.


If you want to come to ArtsyCrafts next year, the dates will be announced very soon, we are looking at late May - mid June 2011, and mid to late October 2011, and as usual, there will be a weekend of the same curriculum on offer at Newport Pagnell (nr Milton Keynes), or Warrington (nr Manchester). The classes are developed by me, Leandra from PaperArtsy, and the fabulously talented Lin from LB Crafts. We are 2 separate companies, and ArtsyCrafts is our joint venture where we share all our ideas of how to use paints, stamps, metal, papers and all kinds of other goodness in a hole weekend of creative joy. You really should come along, 2011 is our 4th year of AC events!

Timmy update:

Oh and we have the uber-talented, product-designer extraordinaire, the one and only Tim Holtz coming over to teach a very special in-depth mixed media mega super duper class with us for a special event in Feb 2011....If you booked a place, watch your email for a 'despatched' notification soon.... because tickets will be landing early December, just in time for those Xmas stockings!!!  (squealing with excitement!!!)

OK, so that is October updated, watch this space for what happened next to Leandra in November!!!

Another fabulous month of excitement!!!