School's Out for Summer...

...and so the blog post is a late night one due to having to share the PC with the children!!  It's been a long time since the last workshop, as this month's workshop is on the very last day of the month. Where has July gone to? Loving the sunshine though! Our latest challenge must have really worked - all that creative thought you have been putting into your sunshine cards must have convinced the sun to come back and shine!! Don't forget to bring them on Wednesday to keep the rain away and for a chance of winning a free workshop.

Our techniques this month involve working with acrylic paints and the Cuttlebug. I will be showing you how to cut out chipboard embellishments and decorate them with acrylic paints and PVA glue to create a crackle effect.

Michelle will be using acrylic paints with Cuttlebug embossing folders to create textured paint backgrounds.

Another chance to get colourful hands!

See you on Wednesday.

Mirrors, mosaics and more!

Our second workshop for this week was our first Saturday workshop of the year! (It does make sense if you think about it!) At our Saturday workshops we can get stuck in to more in depth crafty projects as we have longer - all day if you so choose!! So for this workshop we chose mosaics and altered mirrors/boxes etc using bitumen and paint. See below for the results.

We had two groups of people for the mosaic workshop - a morning session and an afternoon session. As it is important that the tile adhesive dries, the pictures below are pre-grouting. We look forward to seeing photos of the finished items as the range of designs was amazing!

Our other workshop on Saturday was the bitumen technique, for producing an aged design, suitable for most wooden items with a reasonable flat surface area to work on. So mirrors, wooden boxes (including Turkish Delight boxes!) etc. Again some very impressive results.

Well done to you all and thank you to Kay and Michelle for the demos.

Distress Inks Mastered!

Well done to all our new recruits on Wednesday night. You did a great job on your first Distress Ink cards. And here are the photos to prove it! 

Thank you to Kay for her beginner's demo - exploring stamping, distressing edges and the basics of matting and layering.

Michelle demonstrated a double resist technique, first stamping and embossing plain card. Then adding colour distress ink. Then stamping and embossing again, before finally adding a dark colour distress ink. Very effective results! Click here for a tutorial.

And finally the distress inks and water demo. We looked at three techniques with water :

• stamping an image with distress inks and either spritzing or blending the colour with a wet paintbrush

• inking up an acrylic block then spritzing the block with water and stamping

• inking up card with distress inks then spritzing a stamp with water and stamping to create a watermark image (didn't get any piccies!)

 Click here for 'How to guide' for each water technique.

Distress Ink Masterclass

Our next workshop will be a Distress Ink Masterclass ("In a change to the published programme...!") We have decided to bring it forward as we have had a couple of enquiries about techniques. So on offer will be a Beginner's Intro, Distress Ink resist techniques and using Distress Inks with water .

Prepare to get messy fingers! See you on Wednesday.

Village Day and other news

The sun shone on Village Day and we had a much better pitch this year. We sold lots of cup cakes, cards, jewellery and sweetie gifts and met several more crafty people, who we hope will join us for future workshops. Looking forward to meeting you again.

Our Card competition was judged this year by David Gillott of Four Gables Food Academy in Ashtead, who was running his own demonstrations and baking competitions on the day. We will reveal the result at the next workshop and pass on his complimentary feedback too! Thank you very much to David for doing this for us - very much appreciated.

The crafting doesn't stop there! Michelle and I were up at Tadworth today running our regular second Monday of the month workshop. They all enjoyed having a go at the glitter paste and stencil technique, with some excellent results. Check out some of the new designs below.

Wednesday 26th June will be our next evening workshop in Ashtead at St Michael's Church Hall. In a change to our original schedule we will be covering Distress Ink techniques - check the blog the weekend before for further details on this one.

On Sat. 29th June we will be running another all-day crafting workshop at the Scout Hut in Ashtead. Techniques on offer include basic Mosaic projects, Decopatch projects and Altering items using a technique with bitumen (see mirror picture below)

We offer half or full days for the Mosaics and Decopatch, but the bitumen technique really needs a full day .

Workshop Costs:

Half Day (10am-1pm or 1pm-4pm) - £6 Members, £7 Non-Members

Full Day (10am-4pm) - £10 Members, £12 Non-members

You may bring your own items to Mosaic/Decopatch or alter or we will have items available to buy on the day too. Children (age 7+) are welcome, with a supervising adult for the half day afternoon session for mosaics and Decopatch projects.

Please contact us to book or if you would like further details.