Double demo post...

Been a busy half term, so am combining the post-January workshop post with the pre-February post if that makes any sense at all! So without further ado, here are some of the piccies from the January die cut and die cut negative workshop. Thanks to Kay and Michelle for their demos.

This month our theme is "Book Page projects". We will be using pages from second hand books, dictionaries etc as backgrounds or to create embellishments. Here is a little taster.

Also your challenge - due in for the March workshop is to create a book page journal page (see sidebar and Pinterest for more details). You can have a go at the workshop or tear out a page to take home with you. Here's a couple I made earlier - quite enjoyed the doodling and poetry. See if you can guess the books they are taken from!! (If you look closely you should see big clues!)

Dictionary or Encyclopedia page

Book page poetry

For further details of all the journal challenges click here or on the sidebar for the instruction page.

Die cuts and Die cut negatives

A very Happy New Year to you all! And a big well done and thank you to those of you who have pinned to our "Ideas for 2014" board or given us ideas for our workshop schedule for the year ahead. We now have most of our workshops mapped out for the year, as well as ideas for our Membership challenge and bi-monthly challenges. However it is not too late to contribute your ideas if you still have some, as we can always make adjustments to our schedule. 

We like to start the year with a relatively straightforward technique to set us up for the year, but as ever there is a new slant to it. So this month's workshop will be die cutting. The new twists though will be Michelle demoing how to create cards using the negative space from your die cuts (as well as the die cut itself of course - never waste anything!) 

Kay will be creating cards with colour strip backgrounds and overlaying white die cut pieces - very effective and great for using up scraps and practising your skills at mixing and matching colour tones. 

I will not be at the workshop this month but look forward to seeing your creations and posting them on the blog. Don't forget that January is membership renewal month for all of you now. Membership remains at £15 for the year with each workshop costing £5 thereafter. For non-members the workshop cost is £6.50. Michelle will be giving you details of our new Membership Challenge for the year and you will be receiving a pack to start you off. As last year we will give you all year to design and create your masterpiece, and judging will take place in November. We still plan to have a card competition judged at Village Day too. Details on that to follow. Please note the Workshop dates in your diaries - on the side bar - and also Village Day this year is 14th June.

Enjoy yourselves on Wednesday and will catch up with you all in February.

Last workshop photos for 2013

Slightly belated post this time as we had to wait until our final Award was presented. But on to that in a minute. I have lots of photos to post so will start with some of your creations from the last Ashtead workshop. Lots of decorated mini choc bars, rosettes, cards and gift boxes were made in final preparation for a crafty Christmas.

And now over to Claire and Michelle, in silly Santa hats again, to announce the winners of the Altered Mirror competition!

In third place, Mandy with her autumnal dog walk themed mirror. Good use of texture, techniques and colour.

In second place, Sue with her pastel floral themed mirror. Again good use of colour and a well balanced arrangement of embellishments.

And in first place, Linda with her collage of techniques. Linda put a lot of work into her mirror and used a whole range of techniques. Lots of different colours but carefully chosen to complement one another.

Well done to you all and enjoy spending your vouchers Linda and hope you all enjoy decorating your next mirror!

And now on to the awards. This year our theme was inspired by the "Juan Sheet" technique and members were all presented with our equivalent of advertising Oscars - the Juans!! Each award was based on a different advertising slogan, carefully selected to sum up what the award was for!!

Brenda - The "Duracell" award for Loyalty and Attendance. ("Still going!")

Rachael - The "Nokia" award for Social Networking and bringing new members to the Club. ("Connecting People")

Sheila - The "Esure" award for Patience and Perseverance. (Calm down dear it's only a ...craft project!")

Carol - The "Mr Kipling" award for "Exceedingly Good...Cards!

Karen - The "Milk's Gotta Lotta Bottle" award for Active Support and being Milk Monitor.

Linda - The "Tesco" award for Active Support and sweetie monitor. (Every Little Helps)

Kay - The "Apple" award for Active Support and creative input (Think Different)

And finally, the winner of our "Juan Sheet" Juan award was Billy-Jane for Best Newcomer. 

Billy was presented with her award on Monday at Tadworth, which sadly was also our last meeting there. Our members there had a little surprise up their sleeves for us too. We each received a tub of chocolates and a lovely basket of flowers with a personalised tag made by Billy. (see below)

Thank you very much to everyone at Tadworth and a special thank you to Billy-Jane for our lovely tags and for organising swapping email addresses. We hope to see some of our Tadworth members at some of our Ashtead meetings next year. Keep in touch!

Christmas Wrapping

Our final workshop for 2013 will be on Wednesday this week. So as usual we will have our Charity Raffle, our Annual Awards and we will announce the winners of the Altered Mirror competition. As well as all that we have our Christmas decoration swap and of course we usually manage to fit in some crafting and mince pies somehow!! 

Short demos will be given on decorating mini chocolate bars ~ (see above - mini choc bars available on the night but you can always scale the ideas up to bigger choc bars at home). You can also have a go at making your own Christmas bows and tags.

And your "Don't Forget" list for the evening is as follows:

• Prizes to donate for the Charity raffle
• Decoration to swap with someone on the night
• £5 deposit for the Christmas meal (if you haven't paid already)
• Ideas for workshops next year

Quilled, folded and reflected...

...pictures from last week.

Quilled: For further information on creating different shapes with open coils click here.

Folded: Kay has instructions for how to make these cards on her blog. Click here to find out more.

Reflected: And one more important set of photos - your fabulous Competition mirrors! We spent lots of time checking they met the criteria of two or more techniques covered this year and also deliberating over our choice of 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Results will be announced at the next workshop - November 27th.