Stitches Trade Show

Hi everyone,

Last weekend was the craft industry's UK trade show at the NEC in Birmingham, and I was asked to go and help set up, and work on the PaperArtsy stand.

The show isn't open to the general public, but is instead a chance for manufacturers and distributors to show to retailers what they have in yummy new products.    

Of course, everyone thought they knew everything that PaperArtsy had released ... but we managed to keep a few things secret until the big day... four new JOFY stamp sets and two new Eclectica stamp sets designed by Lin Brown.

          

           

Aren't they fab?   And they're available now ... just click on the pictures.

So here are some behind the scenes photos (though I didn't take anywhere near as many as I would have liked).

The stand ... with Mark, Leandra, Darcy and Lin 

The display of my stamps and stencils

My visitors badge ... note Leandra's sense of humour when it comes to job titles!

On Monday and Tuesday I got to demo my new stamps and stencils ... each day I made a 12x12 project life type layout ... and I also made a mini album (but more of that another day)...

Monday's Demo (sorry it's in the page protector!)

Tuesday's Demo (loving the bright colours)

And I remembered to take close-ups...

4x6 Journal Card Close Up

3x4 Journal Card Close Up

3x4 Journal Card Close Up

Enjoy!

PaperArtsy Paint Storage

Hi everyone,

Just a quick post to show you how I now store my PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylic paints.

I used to have them in a drawer, but unfortunately that was just slightly too shallow and made pulling the drawer in and out a hassle, and it also destroyed my painted dots that I had put on the lids.

I really wasn't sure how to solve this problem ... but thought a trip to IKEA would be a good start.

And that is where I found these Tjena boxes for just £3 each...

They are fairly sturdy, and each section holds up to 5 bottles (though I personally like to keep the paint colours in their groups of four).   Each box has 12 sections so can potentially hold up to 60 bottles of paint.

The boxes now sit on a corner of my desk ... and to make selection really easy, I have painted some small white circle stickers with each colour, and then written on the circles whether the paint is Translucent, Semi-Opaque or Opaque.   Any discontinued colours have a line through the centre.   And the Limited Edition colours are also marked.

What do you think?   How do you store your Fresco paints?

February Workshop #2

February Workshop #1

New Stamp Designs ... Projects & Ideas

Hi everyone,

Over on the PaperArtsy blog tonight it is the official release of my new stamp range!!   There is a blog post with projects and lots of ideas on how you could use the stamps.   PLUS Leandra has made a video showing them to you in the flesh!

Here are just some of the projects that me (and my fabulous helpers) have made...

(Emma Godfrey)

(Helen Chilton)

(Nina Burgess)

(Emma Humphreys)

(Keren Baker)

(Lythan Nevard)

(Lythan Nevard)

(Pam Thorburn)

(Pam Thorburn)

(Theresa Goulder)

I hope these get your creative juices going!

We will have the stamps and (hopefully) stencils at our next Crop & Shop in Upminster on 21 February ... or you can find them here.

New Stamp Designs

Woo hoo!   I can finally share the details of my new stamp and stencil designs with PaperArtsy!   Are you ready??

Here are the stamps ...

 

 

 

Leandra asked me to design stamps with pocket scrapbooking in mind ... but I also wanted to keep them versatile so I (and of course you!) can use them for scrapbooking, cards, mini albums, smash and journaling as well.

The sets are a mixture of words (I {love} the outline words in particular) and some hand doodled patterns and shapes.

The patterns in the sets can be used either on their own, or with the solid and outline shapes layered up ... giving you lots of options.    

Each set has a doodled journal card which will sit nicely on a 3"x4" card.


And the stencils...

 

 

 

The stencils are designed to co-ordinate with the stamps, and being greedy I wanted more than one pattern on each stencil.    I tend to use bits of a stencil rather than a whole big design ... so having more than one pattern gives me a lot more choice.    

All of the patterns are hand drawn, so they are not perfect ... you can tell that especially on the chevron on ps017!  Lol.   

The star and the flower on PS020, co-ordinate with the Sara Naumann stamps (ESN13 and ESN14)

To see all of these in more detail, check out the PaperArtsy blog at 7.15pm on Thursday 5th February.   Leandra will show you everything on a video (including some projects that have been made with the products), and there will be a blog post with step-by-step instructions on how to make some of the projects.   

And if you can't wait to get your hands on a set or two ... just click here!   The stamps are ready to go ... the stencils are expected the middle of February.

I do hope you like them ... and I really look forward to seeing what you make with them...