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.

Happy New Year!

Hope you have all had a wonderful festive break and that Santa brought you lots of crafting goodies for Christmas! Thank you all again for our poinsettias and Debenhams vouchers - looking forward to spending them!!

Just a quick update on the Christmas raffle from our November workshop - we raised £63, so a big thank you to you all for your donations and for buying tickets. Three charities were suggested, so the money will be split equally between Epilepsy Action, Breast Cancer and Help for Heroes.

Don't forget that New Year also brings a New Venue for ACMC. We are moving down the road to St Michael's Church.

Click here for a map of the location of St Michael's Church.

It has its own free car park. Entry into the hall is through the double doors off the car park. Workshops will now start at 8pm and finish at 10pm, as the hall is used by another group before us - karate apparently so watch out for those black belts!! Most memberships come up for renewal in January and the good news is the price will stay the same (£15 membership then £4 for each workshop, or £5 for each workshop for non members)

Please note that new dates have been added for 2011, both for Ashtead and for Tadworth. If you haven't already filled in a questionnaire, you should have received one by email. We are planning themed workshops this year incorporating different craft techniques into each workshop, so please bring your completed questionnaire to the next workshop (Wed Jan 26th) if you haven't already completed one. We have started to draft a provisional schedule based on feedback from questionnaires so far - more details on the first workshop of the year will be given in the next blog post...

And finally...in case you hadn't spotted the other changes to the blog, we have a new slideshow and a link to Louise's fantastic stamp catalogue. Well done Louise - we should be able to start to make good use of that this year.

Here's to a productive 2011 for ACMC!!

Charms, candles and calendars...

...oh and of course Christmas Card Competition! Just a few of the things going on at our Wednesday workshop this week.

Our last workshop of the year is traditionally one where we present prizes to our card competition winners (and maybe a few other awards too - although no mice this year we promise!)

We also have the Charity raffle, so don't forget to bring your prize donations and some money to spend on tickets.

As well as all this we hope to make some time for quick demos on how to make your own calendars, wine charms and decorated candles. Some of you may have done the charms and candles before, but they proved to be popular so we are including them again. For those of you who want something different, Marilyn will be on hand to demonstrate how to make a calendar for 2011.

Finally, we will be giving out questionnaires for you to fill in for next year's workshops. For those of you that were not at the last meeting, we are changing venue next year, since the Peace Memorial Hall could not accommodate us on our regular last Wednesday of the month slot. We are only moving down the road to St Michael's Church Hall - thanks to Jan for arranging the bookings - but it does mean we can keep our last Wednesday of the month slot and it has its own car park, cups and dishwasher!! Dates and times will be confirmed in the New Year, but we would like your input as usual on workshop themes so please take the time to fill in the questionnaires.

See you on Wednesday.

Tags, Bags, Boxes and More

Christmas workshops are coming around thick and fast at the moment! No sooner have we finished one then another comes along i.e. next week! Our traditional two November workshops this year fall on Wed 10th and Wed 24th and we will also be celebrating our 4th birthday this month - Happy Birthday ACMC!! Having two workshops in November allows everyone the chance to go to their various work/family Christmas dos in December. And also it means we can fit in a Card Club Christmas party in December - date and venue currently under discussion, but likely to be a meal out similar to last year. Will let you know soon, so you can book the date in and choose your glad rags!!

Since we concentrated on getting up to date with our Christmas card making at last month's workshop, we thought we would do something a little bit different on Wednesday 10th. So we will be making our own gift tags, gift bags and/or gift boxes and embellishing them too. Karen W will be bringing her Cricut Expression machine and "Tags, Bags, Boxes and More" cartridge and there will also be opportunities to create your own tags, bags and boxes using our die cuts, templates and folding techniques.

Christmas Card competition entries need to be in by next week too, so please remember to bring them on Wednesday 10th. See the blog entry for October if you need a reminder of the theme.

Christmas Stamping Masterclass

Well another month has gone by and Michelle and I still feel we are behind on the Christmas card making. So we thought that this month we would give everyone a chance to get ahead by having a rubber stamping masterclass. We have lots of Christmas rubber stamps available for you to use. There will be opportunities to review basic stamping, embossing and colouring techniques or simply to stamp a load of different images ready to colour at home, plus a few different ways of using your stamps that you may not have tried before.

Should be a very productive evening!



Also just to remind you of this year's Christmas card competition theme - set this year by Pat T who was our winner last year. Pat has chosen a "Looking in, looking out" theme and made a sample card (outside and inside shown above) The idea is that you create a window card and either create an indoor scene looking out on to an outdoor Christmas scene (like Pat's example above) or vice versa. Pat said she would be on hand to give advice if anyone needed it, so if you are stuck for inspiration make sure you catch up with her. We will need your entries in by the first of our November workshops (10th) so that prizes can be awarded at the second November workshop (24th).

Clearly Christmas

Just a reminder that it is our September workshop this week (Wed 29th). We will be looking at lots of ways of using clear acetate on your Christmas cards (since there are now only 88 days till Christmas!) Come along and have a go at Cuttlebug embossing, stamping, alcohol inking, crystal lacquering and tissue papering on acetate!!

Also you might be interested to know that it is World Cardmaking Day on Saturday 2nd October so we thought that we would link our challenge to that this month.

Find out more on Wednesday!

See you then.

Altered Art Images

Well the creative juices were really flowing at the Altered Art workshop on Saturday 11th September. Kay led the demo and inspired everyone to create wonderful pieces of art - from canvases and coasters to photo albums, frames and mirrors. All were very different. I will let the photos speak for themselves this month!!

Kay's canvas

Elise's canvas

Sarah M's photo album

Ollie's photo album sampler pages

Natalie and Gill's holiday souvenir mirrors

Linda's autumnal coaster

Claire's coaster mini scrapbook

At our next Wednesday evening workshop (Sept 29th) we will be well and truly getting into Christmas using acetate with rubber stamps, to create cards and embellishments. Michelle has already been getting into the Christmas spirit with the new PartiCraft Christmas stamp sets as she prepares for Ally Pally next weekend (Sept 25th - 26th). She will be bringing the new stamp sets to our September workshop too.

Only 96 days till Christmas - apparently!!