Tim Holtz Workshop Adventure

The adventure started back in June when Tim's blog post popped up announcing the UK Workshop hosted by Personal Impressions! The line would be open on 1st July and after repeatedly trying from 9am I finally got through at 1pm! PHEW!

All booked now just the long wait. I suggested my husband take the day off work to drive me from down here in Surrey, up to Coventry and then he could do his beloved cycling whilst I swooned over all things crafty, he jumped at the thought of the former - LOL.

The day dawned quite a few times for me as I just couldn't sleep and soon we were on our way.

Thanks to WOYWW one kind lady called Kay (known on-line as Incy) offered to meet up with me there along with 4 of her friends. It was a pleasure to meet them, all lovely ladies, we had a blast.







I got a photo with Mario first, soon followed by Tim himself and then Dyan, who was also there. I got my Book I and apron signed and soon it was down to business.


What a roller coaster, all that inking and stencilling and adorning of the tag pages with loads of ideaology products to make a super little tag book bound with the new ruler, nuts and bolts kit.





Must admit I was flagging towards the end of the 3 1/2 hours, I had an almighty headache and one of the organisers, Jayne, found me a "4head" to use and that eased it, I am indebt to her.










Soon it was time to leave and not only did we get the apron, but Book II all signed plus all the products on the table, including a distress pad, stain, paint, 3 pens (my first ever), 8 tiny stamps and acrylic block, a stencil, chit-chat, glossy accents, and 2 tissue tape reels. And then a workshop only messenger bag to put it all in. How brilliant was that?











Personal Impressions even gave us a Craft Scrubbie too as our fingers were in a right state by the end - LOL.

A great day was had by all and thanks to Tim, Mario, Dyan and the gang and to Jayne and her gang for organising such a wonderful event. Also to Kay and her friends for being so inviting.

Hoping Tim's first venture into international workshops has encouraged him to have more,

let's hope, let's dream, let's imagine.

WOYWW #221 - What is Geocaching?

For my desk this week, I have been playing around with a few techniques from the 12 Months challenge and have done a couple of journal pages.


I finished the little mini album of my friend's little girl's first year this week too.











Here's my monthly photo pages for the Summer season. My Summer pockets/tags are on my desk pending a page too.



We have still been keeping up with the one cache a day challenge, 31 in 31 for August. So thought you might like to see what this Geocaching malarkey is all about as I have mentioned it a few times recently. They have just released this YouTube video as an intro, check it out.

And this is the first time I have loaded a video onto my blog - wonders will never cease.

Come and join the WOYWW fun mega desk hop at Julia's.

And last but not least, it is Tim Holtz's Workshop TOMORROW!

I can hardly contain myself.

12 Months August Art Challenge

The Challenge this month was to use a technique we liked from the past 6 months of doing this challenge.

My favourite by far was June's Distress Colour Blocking. I used 4 colours for that one and have chosen to use only 3 this time around.


Going by the quote Bernice asked us to include I went with blues, greens and purples for the sky, grass and water.

I did the colour blocking last night and finished it off today (son gone to scout camp for the week so lots of crafting time - yippee).

After I finished the page in my journal I realised I needed to do a page in a round robin journal too so I did another one with a different quote.

Wondering if mine could do with a couple more clouds at the bottom? Hmmm?

Just added 2.....

12 Months Technique Revisited

Not happy with the results of my first attempt at the Rubber Band Embossing Technique from the 12 Months Challenge site, I decided to have another go.

Thought I'd do an A4 piece of card so I could use it for a few projects. Not the best move with respects to the embossing powder going everywhere from such a large surface but the resultant card was good.








Here are a couple of photos having done the embossing in each direction. I used a piece to make the baby card for a swap on my craft group UKPC. So yes I left the inking stage until I need it.







I also had a go with the rubber banded brayer using just inks. I softened the lines with rubbing with my cut and dry foam over the lines before the ink was completely dry. Yes I like this technique.

WOYWW #220 - Oops a bit late this week!

Oh my goodness forgot what day it was, had put this on my list for tomorrow!! You can get lost in these Summer holidays especially with all the super sunshine and all the geocaching and a bit of craft too.

Yes I'm doing a little 6x6 album for a friend of her daughter's first year. Can't show you the actual pages as I don't put other people's photos on my blog especially kiddies, unless they don't mind of course.

Anyway here is my desk before I tidied for the evening. Got all the big pink tools out as you can see. Sorry I'm so late, check out Julia's place for all the other desks.

Alpha Challenge #17 - Oranges and Lemons Day

Here we are on the 17th letter of the Alpha Challenge hosted by The Craft Barn Blog. The letter this time is "O".

Some may think my personal theme is nursery rhymes or even fruit like Karen but no, it is special days!

Little did I know, in the playground as a child, that the Oranges and Lemons nursery rhyme/singing game is actually celebrated as a special day on the 3rd Thursday in March each year!

Apparently when the Thames was wider, the wharf where the citrus fruit cargoes from the Mediterranean were delivered lay just across the street from the church and their bells pealed when a cargo arrived.



St Clement Danes church, holds an annual service commemorate this. The children from the local Primary School attend a special service and at the end the fruit is given out.

A carillon plays the Oranges and Lemons tune at St Clements every day at 9am, noon, 3pm and 6pm.




For my page I made a couple of stamps for the oranges and lemons which I stamped and clear embossed around the border. I inked over it all with green. I got the picture and rhyme from the internet.

12 Months - Technique

On 12 Months in View this month we were tasked to recycle old maps and there was also a technique called Rubber Band Embossing.

I attempted to combine the two on a page in my journal and just the technique on my August tag. Both pieces left much to be desired.

I used distress embossing powder on the tag version and now know this was a bad idea. In fact I don't really like distress embossing powders at all! I sanded down the embossing powder before I inked and painted this tag with the Geocaching logo as we are doing the 31 in 31 challenge this month.

On my page I used an old map of the Gower Peninsular as that was where we went at the end of July. I stuck it on and covered with a thin layer of gesso. Then I had a go at the Rubber Band Embossing. Shame that the sticking and gesso had made my page all bumpy, which in turn made the Versamark cover other areas not just the rubber band lines from the brayer!

I inked the resultant page (blue and green) to emphasise the original map which was by now sort of obliterated! Still it was a mess. I added place names of where we went. Still a mess. Then I remembered a seaside patterned paper I bought about 8yrs ago when I first started scrapping and cut out the elements to compliment our holiday. I guess the end page isn't that bad now.

WOYWW #219 - Scraptastic

Hi folks, yes finished my 9th scrapbook album as mentioned last week and have also done the first 5 pages in my 10th album.

Made a 102 print order for more photos yesterday too.

I am certainly on a scraptastic roll.


The last 3 pages are on my desk, the guys doing our new fence and the before/after pages of the fence, also to the right.

There is the page from last week finished plus the first two of my new album.

But I guess the main focus of the week has been away from my desk as we as a family (me, hubby and son) have taken up the geocaching challenge of 31 in 31. If you have no idea what I mean you best have a look at the geocaching site it is a global real life treasure hunt. Takes you to places you would never otherwise go and gets you out of the house for sure.


This particular challenge is to make at least one find each day in August. Added to this we have also set a new cache ourselves and I am pondering another too.

Oh and why am I telling you all this today of all days? Well it is Wednesday where all crafters around the world unite in the mega blog hop hosted by Julia over at the Stamping Ground, so pop on over and join the fun.



And last but not least, I got new school shoes for my son yesterday. He wouldn't wear them around the house unless we got the ball we were playing with in them! I tried without success then positioned them at the bottom of the stairs and he launched the ball from the top of the stairs and WHAM straight in the shoe! I just had to take a picture, you can see me in the reflection if you look real hard too!

12 Months Calendar, Tag & Garden

In my 12 Months in View Journal I have added the giveaway sunflower picture to my calendar pages and had to darken the backing to make it show up better. I had to cut and rearrange parts of the image to make it fit my space.

I also made up the pocket with the smaller sunflower image and popped the tag panel onto the back of my tag.












I have taken a few pictures of the pots which have run wild in my garden. I have a big dandelion, 3 tomato plants and a sunflower, all just appeared.




Not sure what the tallest plant is, kale perhaps? We had wheat last year! The baby oak tree seeded itself a few years back. The silver birch I now have in the garden was also found in a pot many years ago.



Still can't believe we have tomatoes forming on the plants. I tried to grow them quite some years ago and they got black spot so I didn't bother ever again. Shame I don't really like tomatoes.




I can't remember now but someone was asking about ladybirds this week and whether we'd seen any here in the UK this Summer. I had seen one in next door's compost bin earlier in the week so hoped there would be more and sure enough I saw another just now and grabbed a photo.

WOYWW #218 - Scrapping

I seem to have been on a scrapping roll since last week. Nearing the end of my current 60 page album just the last page to go, sitting on my desk needing sticking. That will make 8 pages in a week. I already have 5 planned for my next album and then it will be another big photo order.
















Other things done this week are, my Timmy August Tag, my Alpha Challenge "D" page, and some crackle/micro beads at craft club. There is also my August calendar page on my desk too.




To join in the big desk hop, pop over to Julia's Stamping Ground.