Back !!!

Well I got home on Wednesday evening, but have been busy sorting out laundry and other mundane tasks that are the aftermath of a holiday. Done some catching up with freinds too, and needless to say catching up with blog posts. Had fabulous time down at Graphicus over last weekend - I did 2 workshops. The first was "An Elusive Images Christmas" with Glenda Waterworth and Lynn Robinson-Hunter teaching.... WOW WOW WOW!!!

On the Friday morning we made a gorgeous Christmas Organiser Book using the Bind It All with Lynn, and in the afternoon we made 3 lovely Christmas Cards with Glenda using the new Elusive Images stamps. I learned a really neat stitching method from Glenda which we used on one of the cards - it's a Japanese Stab Stiched binding which is an ancient japanese book binding technique.

Both ladies had packed so much into their classes that my BIA book still needs the final trimmings to be attached and 2 of my cards still need to be assembled - errrr I am rather a slow crafter but boy did I have fun. Once everything is finished I will post pics and details of what materials we were using.

On Saturday did an Advanced Metal Art class with Lynn and made, or at least started to make my first ever canvas. To be honest it's not close to being finished really - I was getting kind of stuck as this was something I had never done before and when I am faced with new things I often need time to just walk away from the project and think some about it. Also, at times it did need to dry a bit before I added anything else - after we came back from lunch I found the inks and sprays I had been using had dried and the colours had softened, something I was not expecting, but which looked even better than it had when it was wet! However that also made me need to think some more about what I would do next. I hope I can finish it myself now I home even though I don't have a fraction of all the lovely inks and paints and stuff that was available for us to use at Graphicus. Anyhow even if I can't quite make this one turn out the way I want it has been a really fun learning process and I will certainly try making some more canvases in the future as I am sure I can only get better with experience and this first one has been such fun to do so far.

If you are able to get to Graphicus, which is located in Barnard Castle in the North East of England then I can recommend the workshops they run. Both Glenda and Lynn are not only enormously talented crafters, but also gifted teachers who are passionate about sharing their skills with others..... thank you both because you made my weekend so much fun and I learned heaps.