My day at Clarity Cumbria

Hello there! How are you? I hope you are well. I am good apart from a sore leg - I think I did something whilst running Sunday morning - decided to rest my leg today so hopefully that will help! That and my foam roller!!!

I've got my makes from Clarity Cumbria to share with you today. Its was a lovely day - we all had lots of fun!

Here's my notebook I made - really had lots of fun doing this! The colours all came from indigoblu luscious powders plus a little gilding wax.

The stencils I used were a combination of Tim Holtz and Clarity. Many of the bits and bobs were from prima, some Tim Holtz plus a couple of shapes from NZ!

This was a lovely card to make - i first randomly gessoed on kraft card then when it was dry I used stencils and distress inks to complete the background - plus a posca pen. The butterfly is from Clarity as is the friendship stamp!

A lovely day was had by all. Sunday was good too. Penny had her first gymnastics competition - she did really well - sadly not good enough to get a podium place but I think she was brilliant! Her best friend came first - that could be a bit tricky!!! Seriously though she was very pleased that her friend did so well!

Have a great Monday!

Hugs

Rachel x

A day out and a play

Hello lovelies! How are you? Did you have a good weekend? We certainly did! Busy but lots of fun! We were in a play Friday night and Saturday night - more of that later ..... but on Saturday we went to Clarity Cumbria and made a canvas. It was such a lovely relaxing class - a real tonic! Jo Rice is such a lovely lady! Here's my make! I love it!

We used so many techniques on this one but the basic idea was acrylic paint on a canvas, a sheet of card made up using distress oxides and then stamped on and flowers and leaves fussy cut. Ripped pieces of paper were added to the canvas and the colour was knocked back with gesso. When dry stencilling happened with ink, then stencilling with grungepaste. Then there was a bit of tissue technique and assembly! Lots of fun!

Here's the centre ....

lhs ....

and the rhs!!!! 

Thanks Jo for a lovely day!

Back to the play!

Lucy and Penny were in a play called 'Goodnight Mr Hitler'. A play by Sid Rivers. Meet Lucy the billeting Officer.

And Farmer Crabbie!!!!

They were both brilliant!

And I had my acting debut too.... I was the narrator/prompt in Sherlock Holmes and the mystery of the Aquilla Diamond.

Here are most of the cast from my play! - plus Elaine the director! 

We had such fun and really enjoyed it!!!!

Hope you have a great day!

Big hugs

Rachel x

Back to Clarity Cumbria

Hello lovelies! Well I hope this post will mark a return to normal blogging life for me! My jetlag has been bad but I feel I've now turned a bit of a corner. I managed to sleep until 5.50am today so its all good!!!
I think our visit yesterday to Clarity Cumbria may well have had a pivotal role in the recovery of normality! We had a lovely day - playing with some fabulous stamps. Here's what I made.

I really like this one - it was a good start to the day!

This one involved a bokeh technique which I struggled with .... but I quite like the look on this picture!

I went a bit freestyle on this one but I do like the result!

my final picture is a bit odd - not sure where that shadow comes from! Nevermind - you get the idea! This one showed me how tired I was - my sun slipped in front of my mountains so I added my sticker to cover the error!!!

It was a lovely day and lovely to see just how busy the class has become over the years. No wonder as Jo Rice is such a superstar!!!

Big hugs

Rachel x

Clarity Cumbria makes from Saturday.

Hello lovelies! I have lots of lovely makes to share with you today from the fabulous workshop me and my girls and mum attended at Lindale on Saturday - Clarity Cumbria. We all had a fabulous time and managed to make a good job of the samples that Jo brought - but we all used different stamps from Jo - just the ideas. Penny even drew her own!

Here are my makes ....

4 Cards I am very happy with ....

This is my fave - a great good luck in your exams card I think!

Here are Lucy's makes ... I think she did brilliantly - the peacock card is my favourite and I think is the best card she has ever made!

Here are Penny's cards - she was having a penguin day! Bless her! 

I think we had lots of fun and made lots of great cards!

Have a fabulous day. Its a special day for me today - it would have been mine and Shauns wedding anniversary - I wish he had been spared so we could have shared more. I still miss him every day and always will. He was a very special man. 

Big hugs

Rachel xx

Clarity Cumbria day

Hello lovelies - how are you? Sorry its been a while - I have been trying to get my craft room organised having bought yet more units for storage ...and trying to keep on top of my exercise regime too! Its all taking time but the craft room is getting there - I am hoping I might find my desk tomorrow! Lol!!!!

Today I did my crafting at Lindale - at Jo Rice's Clarity Cumbria. We all had a wonderful time using Barbara's paper pad - Northern lights - the samples Jo had prepared were all fashion oriented but I went a little off piste as it was the only chance I was going to get to enter the Clarity challenge this month - so I used the cards of Jo's as inspiration and did my own thing!

Here's all four makes - they are so colourful - for someone who doesn't really use papers I really enjoyed myself - the papers are stunning - but you can see that for yourself!

I paperpieced the toucans on this one ....

and the rooster on this one .... and used the windy day stencil.

This one the dolphin is also paperpieced...

In this one the tree and houses and bushed are paperpieced. As soon as I saw this paper it screamed snowy landscape to me....

I am entering these into the clarity challenge which is now on facebook!

Thanks to Jo Rice for a lovely day!

Big hugs

Rachel xx

Clarity Cumbria October workshop

Good Morning! How are you? I hope you are doing well. We had a relaxed night last night - it was brilliant - I got some DT work done and had a bath - the girls both enjoyed being at home for a change...and not doing their swimming lessons! I think things are catching us up - good job half term starts Thursday teatime!!!

I wanted to share my makes from Clarity Cumbria on Saturday with you today - beautiful makes I think - I adore these Jane Nestorenko stamps.

On this one we painted onto black card using Inka Gold.

This one used a book page rolled into a scroll - coloured with pencils.

This one used distress inks to make a blended band then I stamped the agapanthus on top.

This one is probably my favourite. I love this blocked stamp. Thanks to Jo Rice for wonderful company and great designs xx

Hope you have a great Tuesday!

Big hugs

Rachel xx

saturdays visit to Clarity Cumbria

Good Morning! How are you? I hope you are doing well. It was a good weekend for me - we all went to Clarity Cumbria on Saturday and then on Sunday I did my second triathalon - and managed to take 17 mins off my time from April on the same course - its amazing what you can do when you go the right way lol!!! Anyway I am chuffed!

So today I would like to share my makes from Jo Rice's workshop with you. I love the two with the boy on - such lovely designs!

I think they are lovely! If you live anywhere near Lindale in the North west you should come along to the next one - you'll have fun!!

Another busy day today - I'm in charge at coffee pot - we're playing with distress crayons today - I will show you what we do tomorrow! 

Look forward to seeing you soon!

Big hugs

Rachel x

Clarity cumbria May

Hello lovelies! How are you today? I am good and my girlies are good too - they graded successfully for their brown belts in jujitsu yesterday ...




so proud of them - my clever little ones - its good to see them learning how to defend themselves - and a little anatomy and japanese too! Its all good!

Today I want to share my makes from Clarity cumbria on Saturday - as always Jo Rice gave us plenty of inspiration and we did a few techniques - some familiar - others less so. Here are my makes:
The class stamps were the wee farm animals and wee farm buildings.

To make this one we did water colouring with spectrum aqua markers and stamped using the class stamps plus wee foliage and wee trees sets.

This one was made using an ATC size of stampbord - we started by using shaving foam technique on the stampbord and then stamped and scraped according to what we saw...

This was a quick and simple one using a stencil and stencil brushes and adirondack inks.

Finally a cute tag - we used distress on the background and spritzed through a stencil to form a ghost pattern. great technique. I added white dots using a posca pen to highlight the pattern - love doing this!

So there we have it! A brilliant day and fabulous inspiration from Jo. 

Big hugs

Rachel x

my Clarity Cumbria day

Hello there! How are you? I hope you are well. If not sending hugs to you! You would have chuckled if you had been at the swimming pool with my and my girls Monday night - it was their swimming lessons and they were having a fun 'lesson' - lots of jumping in and games and races ..... Penny managed to lose one of her teeth - honestly - you wouldn't believe it - but it happened!!! So of course the tooth fairy had to be booked for a visit!

Today I would like to share with you my makes from Clarity Cumbria on Saturday. Jo Rice was our host and as always we had a lovely time.

This is my first full make - we did some utee on the main image so it looks like a tile.

Next we made a hook plaque.

We used stencils, stamps and grunge paste, paints and ink.

I love the Einstein quote - fabulous!!!

Finally we used acetate to add smooshed distress in a controlled way.

love this - definitely my favourite make!!!!

Hope you have a great Wednesday! Enjoy!

Hugs

Rachel x

A most wonderful day ....

Hello all! How are you? I hope you've survived the weather. It really has been incredibly windy up here - hope all is okay where you are.

On Saturday I had the most wonderful day at a workshop at Clarity Cumbria with the wonderful Jo Rice. We all spent the day decorating letters spelling a 5 letter word. I chose the word Dream and these are my results:



I used a different technique on each letter but in all cases started with gesso then worked throughout with paperartsy paints. On the D I used the Tim Holtz paper distress mosaic kit. I made the papers up using distress inks (thanks Babs) and an Indigo blu stamp. On the R I used a clarity stencil and grunge paste and after painting added glass beads. The E was first painted a purple colour then paperartsy crackle glaze was added before overpainting in pink. Once dry I stamped with a clarity stamp. The A was painted then stamped in versa mark with the clarity snowflake stamps and white embossing powder was added. I also added some blue dots that I later topped with glossy accents. The M had Jo's bubbles added in Wendy Vecchi crackle paste and when dry was painted. Next I added flitterglu and flake using an indigoblu stamp.  Finally I added glossy accents to the blobs too.

A really fun day - we had a christmas buffet :



which was wonderful ... and plenty of time to be nosy!

So a wonderful day all in all!

I can't believe we're into December tomorrow - where does the time go?

Have a lovely day!

Rachel xx

Clarity Cumbria day

Good Morning Lovelies!!! Well I had a cracking day yesterday at Clarity Cumbria - but first I must say thankyou to my lovely mum and dad for looking after my girls - thanks mum - couldn't do it without you!!!

Onto my day - and makes - Jo Rice was full of inspiration as always - we had stencil fun and also made a puzzle!!!

These are the four makes of the day for me together.

This is the first one i made - I adore this stamp - love the colours too - I used DI mustard seed, carved pumpkin and ripe persimmon. The stamp was stamped with black archival.

This one I used an aperture stencil and the heart stencil plus the fence stencil - colourwise I used carved pumpkin, ripe persimmon and the cockeral stamp that i coloured with spectrum noir pencils.

This puzzle I created just using torn paper and masks plus DI dusty concorde and wilted violet.

This final one I felt was reminiscent of a thistle - hence the colours I chose!!!

Definitely a fun day

I hope today is good too - we're planning a relaxing day - and Bez is coming up to stay with us for a week too!!!

Big hugs

Rachel xx

Clairty cumbria step by step and other makes.

Hello lovelies - how are you this fine morning? I hope you are well and happy. We are good and looking forward to a short trip to Nottingham to take Bez home. We've not been to Nottingham for over a year - since before Shaun had his heart attack. It will be good to be there again and the girls will enjoy catching up with their cousins.  Fingers crossed it will be fun.

I did have fun yesterday - it was Clarity Cumbria August and we did a mixed media thermometer house - here's the steps:

To start with we masked off the thermometer then used whichever stencils we wanted to use with grunge paste - I used grunge paste for the non circles and wendy vecchi crackle paste for the jo's bubbles stencil. we left this to dry.

Next we added embellishments I chose to add some Tim Holtz diecuts - the dragonfly and garden greens. Also some wooden flowers.

Next it was time to cover entirely in black gesso and leave to dry.

Finally I added a variety of colours of inka gold to highlight the different areas and added two Tim Holtz diecut words.

I hope you like this make - I certainly do and would like to enter it into the following challenges:

vintagejourney things-with-wings

mixed-media-monthly-challenge-15-get texty

I also made a few tags and a card whilst waiting for the drying processes:

I had a great day and thanks to Jo for all your hard work!  Thanks to all the lovely ladies who came along and brought cake too! 

Have a great Sunday!

Hugs

Rachel xx