A rare occurance ...... playtime!

Hi lovely visitors,

I hope you've all had the lovely autumnal weather we've had here in the Midlands today.  The wind was a bit 'fresh' but lots of sunshine which  made the golden trees look gorgeous.  A week ago only a few of the trees around here were starting to turn and yet today there were loads as well as lots of leaves on the ground.  I wish I'd taken my camera out with me. 

My Hubby and I decided to try a new carvery restaurant (well new to us anyway, lol) and for anyone who lives nearby I would certainly recommend it.  The carvery was pretty good but the starters and desserts were to die for ;0)  For anyone who lives in North Notts this is the web link  www.blackburn-house.co.uk.  It's a converted 107 yr old pumping station and Grade II listed so has lots of history too.

I've actually had a brilliant weekend altogether because yesterday I went to the new Big Stamping and Scrapbooking Show at Kettering Conference Centre with two of my crafting buddies, Jo and Judith.  Our other partner in crime, Elaine couldn't be with us and we did miss her but it was still a great show.  As you would expect very like the Ally Pally show but obviously without the atmosphere of Alexandra Palace.  The Conference Centre was really nice though and very light and spacious with lots of room between stands nice reasonably priced food and a lovely area to eat it in or just to sit for a chat and a drink and best of all it was easily do-able there and back in one day.  Ally Pally is lovely but I always feel the distance warrants an overnight stay which makes it expensive.  There were a few of the usual exhibitors missing but there are so many shows on this month it's not surprising but I was a happy bunny because most of my favourites were there.  My lovely 'Bosses', ;D, Don and Val from Snazzys were there and also two of my Snazzy team mates, Gillian and Hels were both demoing on the Creative Expressions stand.  I also got to watch the fabulously talented Leandra (Mrs PaperArtsy) producing wonderful little pieces of art.  I could have stood there all day! Two other lovely and very talented ladies I got to watch and chat to were Sue Wilson (on the Rubbernecker stand) and Claire Charvil (on the Ali-Craft stand).  All in all a day in my crafting heaven!  Er, I didn't tell you I spent loads of dosh did I!  Good job it's only the second show I've been to this year, lol!  I do hope this show takes off as people get to know about it as there was such a good mix of exhibitors and it's nice to have a show of this calibre for us Midland Crafters.

Anyway, in my last post I showed you two background pieces of card I'd made playing with my new Metallic Distress Stains and I actually got a bit more playtime before going to the show and turned the tag background into this .........(this pic shows the truest colours)

Sorry the pics aren't too great but I took them in a hurry before taking the tag with me to give to Snazzys at the show.  The background was made by putting pools of two Distress Stain colours and the Gold Distress Stain onto my craftsheet and then spritzing with water before swiping my tag through the puddles.  I did this several times, drying with the heat gun between layers, until I was happy.  I also flicked some spots of water onto the surface and then dabbed off with paper towel.

I stamped various images with Distress Inks from different sets of Tim Holtz stamps most notably the skull from Halloween Blueprints and then shadow stamped this image with the Gold Metallic Distress Stain.  The last bit of stamping was the random flourish stamped in Black Archival Ink.

I die cut three of the Alterations/Sizzix tattered pine cones and made them into roses dabbing the edges with the gold Distress Stain and filling the centres with black Stickles.  I then cut several of the pine leaves on the same die and dabbed these with the gold also before arranging all these on the tag.  I changed the colour of a silver skull charm using peel off pens and added a touch of the gold Distress Stain and added this to the tag together with a little spider sticker from the Carta Bella All Hallow's Eve collection.  Everything I used to make this tag, except the pine cone die,  can be purchased from the lovely Snazzys shop.

Well, that's it from me today.  I hope you didn't mind my chat at the beginning of the post but for anyone living fairly close to me I thought the restaurant and the Kettering show might be of interest.  I hope to be back later this week if I get chance to play with some of my new goodies.  Till then have a lovely week everyone and take care.

Hugs
Lesley  Xx