Was Your Weekend as Great as Ours?

Because ours that we shared with 32 lovely ladies was full of conversation, creativity and pleasure.
If you've ever wondered how much noise 32 women in a room can make, then you really should drop into one of our Mega Crop Weekends. Heads are down creating and there's not much noise.  That doesn't mean there's none, because a lot of laughter can be heard, as well as social interaction, but believe me it's quiet.

All the planning that went in to the event paid off and we sailed along smoothly, in the classroom main hall and kitchen too.  The menu's were well received and no-one went hungry either.

The pages and cards that were turned out were just beautiful, though we failed at the end to take some photos.  Can you imagine I asked the ladies to hold out their pages so that we could take photos after announcing the winners, then totally gapped on that!  We do have some photos to share though over the next couple of weeks.


Here's the sketch sample that Linda created for everyone to see and follow with their own interpretation.
Some of the ladies even used different sized photos while still following the overall sketch.

And this was the page that was voted to win, created by Suzanne.




With the bold choice of colours and beautiful photos, you can see why her peers liked it.

Not everyone that attended the Mega Crop was an experienced paper crafter.  We had a couple of ladies that were quite new to the craft.  That's where the "make and takes" that we prepare can be useful to them.

This is an opportunity for them to learn a couple of techniques, going on to use those techniques on a page or a card.

What we showed them this time was a how to stamp using some easily obtained, but unusual product as the stamp.
Also how folding your paper in an origami type fold, can create an interesting embellishment to your page, as well as simple scoring and folding to create a ribbon like border.  

Though they didn't actually make it, we showed them the technique of taking a scalloped circle, cutting a spiral into it resulting in a handmade flower.

To the top right of this sample, you will see how circles were created using distress ink, the inside of a toilet roll or paper towel roll along with a smaller bead vial.  These were dipped into Distress Ink and then stamped onto the page.  
The lower right shows lovely uniform dots in two colours.  This was achieved using a metallic ribbon product called Puncinello.  Placing the puncinello ribbon over the cardstock and using a foam dauber and two colours of ink this pattern was created.
Starting with a square piece of patterned paper and folding the sides in, the square took on a different shape. Do this thirteen times and you too will have an embellishment that looks like ours did on the left of the page.
The ribbon like embellishment down the centre came about after scoring and folding two lengths of cardstock and gluing it down.  This was more challenging as of course the scoring wanted to spring back up.


Here's a close up of the page and the various elements.
See the scalloped purple flower that was created from a Spellbinder die with the spiral cut through into the middle.



Here's Linda's sample page for the Embellishment challenge, using some of these techniques.
Anyone who entered this challenge was required to have stitching in their title, a handmade flower, a frame and an altered pearl or bling embellishment. Linda altered the centre pearls of her flowers using a Permanent Sharpie marker.

If you look at the dotted paper in the top half of this sample, you will see that Linda used the metallic ribbon to create her own paper strips. 
Wanting to add journaling in a wave was a challenge in itself as neither one of us was sure how to create it.  That was a learning curve (no pun intended) as Linda learned about "paths" within her publishing program.
Certainly added a nice effect to the page though didn't it.

Lots of mini lessons were given throughout the weekend as Silhouette owners found out how much more their machines could do for them.
Not only owners either. Marta loved that Linda created an eagle for one of her pages, and lots of palm trees too.


By going out on the Internet, finding some clip art of an eagle and palm tree in a very short time Linda created cut files for both of these embellishments.

I created a cut file for Carrie by using a single flourish multiplying and welding it so that she could use it as a background on one of her cards. By simply emailing this to Carrie once it was created, she now has it stored in her library of Silhouette files.

Hop on over to our Facebook page to see one of the class pages that twenty of the ladies made.

And now for the ladies that aren't into the paper crafting here's something that may interest you.

Linda had the pleasure of some "show and tell" in the store last week.  
One of our customers, Margaret, brought some really lovely cross stitching in to show us.
Worked on perforated paper, so that's pretty fine work and then mounted into small wooden sleighs they make a lovely little wall hanging.

Margaret sells these at the Bala craft sale, so if you happen to be there during the sale time, look out for these.  At only ten dollars, they really are a steal.


I found this lovely Easter cross stitch. Though it's only small I'd be pretty amazed if you could get it worked for this Easter.  




You can go here to get the design and colour chart for your personal use.
If you scroll down the left side of her blog, she also offers a number of other designs for you to pick up.






Are you a knitter and a little confused on how to increase?  There are a number of ways to increase stitches.
Some are decorative leaving a hole perhaps and others simply to widen your work and you don't want to leave a hole there.

Here's a great resource to help you figure it out.
They also have a link where they show you how to decrease too.  
Well worth a moment of a knitters time.

That's all for this week folks.  Don't forget to hop over to our Facebook
page to see one of the class samples.

Are you one of those people that likes to feel organised, knowing where you're heading, the time frame you have planned?
Perhaps planning for the week, month or even year ahead and then, .....suddenly life throws a curve ball at your plans.

This week's words are chosen for all of you that life has thrown a curve ball at.

Let go of your plans, and follow these words.




Until Later....Happy Crafting

Lilian