Creativity is a Journey

Good morning! It's just a quick post from me today as I have a busy busy day ahead. It's half term here and while I am fortunate enough to have the week off, so no childminded children to entertain, my daughter has a friend coming to stay and we are off out later to go swimming, then have to get a yummy picnic prepped for a day at the zoo tomorrow. Should be fun!

This week I have been pondering my crafting journey a lot. I remember vividly around ten years ago, deciding that I wanted to try my hand at making a card for a little boy I looked after. I went to Hobbycraft, excited to be purchasing my very first card making supplies. I came out feeling totally overwhelmed by all the different products on display and pretty clueless as to what to do with them all. I didn't want to ask the assistant and appear stupid so browsed while attempting to look like I knew what I was doing, for ages.  I did manage to find a basic kit pack, so bought that in the end and took it home, praying it had everything in it that I needed. Fortunately it did, and a simple card with a little sparkly fish on it was made. Amazingly I have managed to find a picture of it lurking on my computer so here goes....

As traumatic as I found the whole craft shopping experience then, I am not a woman to be deterred and I decided I needed to learn more. Something about that little fishy card had really sparked my interest in paper craft. I started buying card making magazines, which were great for not only giving me tips and techniques, but also starting to build my stash as they came with free stamps and dies. I very quickly realised I needed a die cutter to use with these wondrous little pieces of metal, and dropped enough hints that my husband offered to buy me a Cuttlebug. Once that arrived I was well and truly hooked!

My first card using die cuts

Over time, and as part of my learning to master this new craft, I began to use social media as a research tool, joining card making groups on Facebook, and following crafters on Pinterest.  Like many crafters I was ( and still am)  my own worst critic, and would post my work on groups to ask for tips to improve etc. I was blown away by the support, and gradually started to believe in my abilities thanks to them. I also made some incredibly good friends along the way. 

I developed an interest in colouring and digital stamps, and through sharing my work online, I ended up being invited to apply for design teams. Well that just blew my mind! Little Miss Overwhelmed By A Craft Store was now considered good enough to apply for a DT!! Nervously I applied, and was staggered when I started getting accepted onto teams. It was so much fun. It also gave me confidence to keep pushing myself and learning more. So I started to attend some mixed media workshops and really never looked back. 

An early card with a digital stamp

So, skip forward to today, and now as you know if you have been following the blog, I am currently serving on Samantha K and Polly Allsorts , and Creative Artiste Mixed Media Challenge Blog design teams,  and this week I have joined another and can announce I am very excited to be working with Luv Crafts and their fabulous products too. I can't quite  believe that these amazing organisations want l'il old me to produce art for them. What a total honour it is. 

Stalking the postman who was carrying my new DT pack

I guess what I am trying to say with this post is that wherever you are in your own creative journey, and whatever your ability now, never give up on it of it's something you enjoy. It can be overwhelming at times, especially when you see so much amazing art on social media, and vast products ranges in stores, but just have fun with what you do in your own way and who knows where it could lead you. I'm still pinching myself as to where it's taken me that's for sure. 

Now I must dash as my quick post became rather long after all!

Have a great week.

Lynda

x

Catching up after Create It Kent

Catch up time again,

As Lynda updated in her last post it was the Create It show last weekend and so lovely to catch up with everyone exhibiting and visiting over the weekend.
Friday was set up day so I was there to help Angela, Polly Allsorts.
What gorgeous weather we had for the weekend too and a Royal Wedding thrown in for good measure!
It was very busy with the Make and Takes on Saturday and again Sunday and so many lovely crafter's stopped by to join in and also pop along to say "Hi."
I know there was no real time to chat as it was so busy but lovely to see you all and thank you so much for visiting.
On Sunday Angela's Son and his friend arrived to help so I had a bit of a chance to look around the show.
It was great to see Lynda and meet Erika and catch up with Sam and Denyse over on Samantha K.

I thought I'd share what we did for the M&T's and some gorgeous Story Books created in the workshop.
We made tags on Saturday and decorated the wooden doors on Sunday and everyone was very happy with the results, we thought they were all stunning!
Angela is away having a well earned break at the moment but I'm sure she will be sharing lots of photo's when she returns.
Before we knew it the show was over and it was time to pack up.

Here's some of the samples created for the day...

Have a lovely Bank Holiday weekend whatever you are doing...x

Some gorgeous Story Books created in the workshop

Visiting Create It and Catching Up With Friends

Well, it’s Tuesday again so here I am with my weekly update, and what a busy week it has been for me- well the last few days anyway. 

At the start of the week I was eagerly awaiting my latest design team pack from Samantha K. Frustratingly I was out when it arrived, so I was delayed for 24 hours in getting my sticky mitts on it, but boy was it worth the wait! Much of it was to create samples with for Sam’s  June  show on Hochanda, so I can’t show you yet, but suffice to say that knowing that I had Saturday free , I warned my family I would mostly be ignoring them for the day while I set to work.  That’s exactly what I did, from around 7am, while binge watching The Gilmore Girls on Netflix ( with a short break to watch the Royal wedding). Every so often my husband Chris would tiptoe in with a coffee for me and toss me the odd cookie to keep me going- what a star! When I finally stopped we did enjoy some time in the garden with a bottle of bubbly so he didn't feel totally abandoned. Oooh and I also discovered I have won a prize via a Facebook competition from Luv Crafts so that really brightened my week. I'll share my prize next week as it hasn't yet arrived. 

I was very chuffed to have got pretty much all my samples made in a day, even though it was intensive, because that meant that I was able to hand deliver them on Sunday at the Hochanda Create It Event at Detling Showground in Kent, where Samantha was holding a stall and doing a live show.

I picked my good friend and fellow crafter Erika up from Basingstoke at 8.15am and we made the drive to Maidstone to meet up with my sister Laura. It’s such a familiar route to me as I grew up there and both Laura and my mum live a few minutes from the showground. I always like driving back ‘home’.

Sisters- can you tell?!

The day promised to be full of fun, crafty chat and laughter, and of course shopping, and it didn’t disappoint.  Our first stop was to visit the Samantha K stand, and hand over my work, and say hello to the team.  The ladies doing the make and take looked like they were having a ball. My friend and team mate Denyse did a great job organising it and the projects I saw were stunning.  I have to say too, that the DT samples on display were all so eye catching. They were commented on by so many visitors while I was there, and I believe all weekend, and it gave me a real buzz seeing my work up there being admired and talked about.  Like many crafters I often doubt my own abilities as there is so much talent out there that I am in awe of, so it was such a huge compliment.

The make and take ladies getting busy

With my bag relieved of samples, that meant I had plenty of room for the important bit- shopping!  I bought some amazing goodies as you can see and I can’t wait to get the time to play with them.

New toys!!

All of the stands were fabulous and inspiring, but I have to say I was blown away with Sandra Rushton's stand with her colouring art books. They were incredible and really appealed to both  Laura and I,and we had to indulge in some. I have never seen samples like the ones on display on her walls. Dragons, steampunk , gothic and floral- all so beautiful and to my personal taste. I’m not convinced I can produce anything like them but I do know I will have fun trying in my books and that’s what really counts.

The most gorgeous colouring books I now own

Sandra's stunning art

We only did one make and take, and that was trying our hand at block printing on fabric on the Colouricious stand. I’d never done this before and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was so therapeutic and simple to do yet so effective. The array of hand carved Indian printing blocks they had for sale were exquisite. We commented on how they could even sit on a mantle as stand alone pieces of art. In fact Erika bought an elephant to do just that. They really were beautiful.

My block printing

Erika loved it too!

I had another very important mission, and that was to meet  up with my fellow crafty bloggers Angela and Karen on the Polly Allsorts stand.  As with Sam’s stand, the make and take participants were all focusing hard and having a great time when I was there. Their projects were so pretty and magical. It was great to finally meet Angela too, having only chatted online since I became a member of her design team.  I have known Karen personally for several years so it was lovely to catch up with her properly too of course.

The whimsical world of Polly Allsorts

After a full day at the event, we made a quick pit stop at my mums house for cuppa and a slice of delicious home made carrot cake. That alone was worth driving 100 miles for, not to mention busting the diet! Yummy and the perfect end to a perfect couple of days. 

I hope you had a good weekend too, whatever you were up to.

See you next week

Lynda

x

When Life Gets In The Way- Shop!

Wow, I can’t quite believe it’s been a week already since my last post.  I’d like to say the week has flown by because I have been so busy crafting, but sadly that’s not the case. Boohoo!  Instead my week has been taken up with family stuff and work and other than a teeny half hour of snatched time with some cross stitch I haven’t managed anything creative. Shocking I know. And yes, I do have withdrawal symptoms!

However, all is not totally lost. Yes I have been busy working, but as that helps pay for my craft shopping habit I guess that’s ok.  And I have managed a little retail therapy this week which has scratched my crafty itch a bit.  I treated myself to the latest set of magical fairy stamps from Donna Ratcliff for Crafters Companion, and some of the brand new release stamps and stencils from Visible Image. All I need now is time to play with them.  Fortunately it’s our local fortnightly craft club on Thursday so that gives me the perfect excuse.  Hopefully I will be able to show you some makes with them soon, but until then just look at them- aren’t they awesome?

Yummy stamps and stencils by Visible Image

Fairies are my favourite thing!

 I’ll be scratching that crafty itch again on Sunday as I am off to Kent for Hochanda’s Create It event. I can’t wait as not only will I be sharing the day oohing and ahhing over all the lush goodies available (and no doubt filling my shopping bag) with my sister Laura, who I rarely see, and my good friend Erika, but I will also be catching up with fellow Crafty Bloggers Karen Clare and Angela Maree Dearlove, and seeing some of my recent design team work for Polly Allsorts and Samantha K on display there. What a fabulous day it promises to be.  

Whimsical Flora Cottage Sample for Polly Allsorts 

 

Steampunk Butterfly Sample for Samantha K

Card Sample for Polly Allsorts

Wishing on A Star Plaque for Samantha K 

I’ll let you know how I get on next week. If you are going too than have a great time and look out for me. I’ll be the one with the empty purse,  overflowing bag and a slightly manic grin on my face.

Bye for now

Lynda

x

Playing , Poppies and a Big Hello from Lynda

Hello there! I am so thrilled to have been invited to be a part of the Craft Show Crafty Bloggers team and am delighted to be sharing my first post with you all.

If you’ve read my little biography on here you will know that I craft as a hobby rather than professionally as a business. I love my quiet moments spent at my craft table, which resides in the corner of my work playroom.  It is by far my favourite room in our usually hectic  home- a place of fun for the children that  I childmind by day, and for me a little haven of crafty heaven where I too can lose myself and ‘play’ during the evenings and weekends, splashing paint about on mixed media work, making cards, scrapbooking or doing whatever else takes my fancy.  I’m very much looking forward to sharing the products of my play sessions and some general crafty chat with you in the coming weeks and hope you enjoy it too.  I have no doubt I will also be sharing some of my young buddies creative exploits as well as they also love my little corner and raiding all my stash and it makes me so happy to see the next generation of crafters in the making .

My little crafty corner

With that in mind,  I thought I would kick start my time as a Crafty Blogger  by telling you about a great crafting session I had with some local kids last week. I was invited to share my creative know how with my daughters scout troop and teach them how to make poppies from recycled bottles to contribute towards the upcoming WW1 Centenary commemorations.  Kids and craft- my two favourite things so I couldn’t refuse now could I?

I was working with around 16 energetic youngsters and they worked so hard and made some amazing poppies. I never expected so many to emerge in the hour or so we had but they were on a serious mission! It was so lovely to see them working together ,enjoying being creative and contributing to such an important occasion.

 The technique was simple if you fancy having a go too.  Simply cut the base off of clear bottles and form a rough  flower shape.  Colour with permanent markers ( sharpies are best. I didn’t have many to hand though and so we used my promarkers, which did the job a treat but took longer to dry- and I cannot lie, yes, I was very nervous handing over my precious, expensive,  colouring pens to a group of exuberant kids. They were however  very respectful of them and every pen survived to colour another day thankfully. Phew!  ) . Then comes the fun part and the bit the scouts loved the best- melting the petals! Hold the flower over a tea light and gently melt around the edges to soften the plastic and shape the petals.  I advise opening a window, especially if doing them in the quantity that we did as it can get a little potent smelling. 

It was a brilliant evening and we had so much fun.  I think they would look just as good in an array of colours for a Spring/Summer display too. I think that may well be a future project for the children I care for . It would really brighten up our playroom if we hang them in the windows as sun catchers don’t you think?

And just before I go, I will share a little inky poppy project of my own that I made recently using Distress Oxides and stamps.  I hope you like it.

Have a great week. 

Bye for now.

Lynda 

x