Paint charts, punches and paper piecing...

Looks like we are all ready for February 14th after last week's workshop! Lots of hearts in various styles. Here are the paint chart hearts using shades of the same colour tone.

And a couple of mosaic style hearts...

And a couple of cards exploring colour/tone in a different way...

The paper piecing demo explored the use of pattern as well as colour...first up paper strips, with a few hearts creeping in though!

Paper weaving...

And moving away from paper strips to incorporating torn paper, matting and layering and other shapes, oh and a few hearts!

New Year, New Ideas...

Hello and Happy New Year to you all! It's been a while but the crafting hasn't stopped even if the blogging has halted for a while! Michelle and I have been busy sorting out the schedule for the year ahead. We have had ideas and input from some of you and hopefully will manage to incorporate most of your requests into the forthcoming year's schedule. But it's not too late if you have a burning desire to revisit a technique or try something new, so please do bring any further ideas with you on Wednesday.

And talking of Wednesday...

... the focus will be "Envelopes". We always find we have lots left over with no card blanks and spares on top of that too. So we thought we would look at envelopes in general. Your choice of projects for Wednesday evening will be:

• Create a crimped envelope and notecard (a useful project to recycle envelopes that have sealed themselves!)
• Create a coordinated envelope and card (and even go back to basics creating your own card blank too)
• Make heart shaped gift bags and envelopes
• Create your own envelopes from scratch using templates and your own choice of patterned paper
• Begin your first challenge of 2013...more details on Wednesday!

We also have new ideas regarding membership and competitions, and rather than a membership pack this year, you will get a "Project kit" that you can work on throughout the year. You will then be able to enter your finished work of art into our competition at Christmas. We will still run the Summer competition too, although it will obviously not be a membership pack competition this year. 

Don't forget to bring your Membership subscription money this month too if your membership is due to run out. 

And finally just to let you know that Kay is now online too. She has recently started her own blog to share some of her ideas and tips. You can link to it here and on the side bar - it is called Ink, Paint and Me. Check it out - she has only just launched but already has three posts and several crafty photos on there.

First workshop of the year...

...and we have gone all romantic! Guess what the theme is for Wednesday?!! We have sifted through the questionnaires we have had returned so far and totted up your votes for the various themes. From that we have drawn up a draft schedule of the most popular themes (it is only draft at this stage as we have not had input from everyone yet.) After this week we should be able to finalise it and then let you know our plans for the year ahead.

So we are starting the year with a Love and Romance theme in time for Valentine's Day, but for those who don't celebrate it there will be a few wedding/engagement themed resources too. We will be making use of our 'Hearts' range of stamps - see catalogue link for details. Michelle is going to be using Nestabilities to demonstrate her 'stamping out of the box' (or heart!) technique and I will be focusing on creating shaped cards from regular card blanks, like the heart 'spring card' below.

We know some of you prefer to do your own thing sometimes, so we will have a 'free love' table too!! We have sorted out some decoupage, dies and embellishments on a Love and Romance theme, which will be available on this table. And obviously if you want to bring your own resources or projects, then please feel free to bring them along.

Don't forget to bring your membership renewal money if your membership is due in January and more importantly don't forget to come to St Michael's at the later time of 8pm!! The car park is behind the church - entry off The Marld and we will be in the Church Hall - through the double doors off the car park.

See you there.