» Listings for 2013

1. Don't adjust your colour!!

   Posted on 8:32am Wednesday 29th May 2013

   I'd like to say a huge thank you to everyone who who sent lovely emails and comments on Facebook about yesterday's Create and Craft show, it is very much appreciated!  There is a lot of hard work that goes into a show even if it's only on screen for an hour,  and it means a lot to me that there are so many people still enjoying the shows and a lot of new people still discovering us.  Welcome to all the newbies who have found us lately I hope you like us and stick with us.

   Some of you may have noticed the orange glow that I seemed to be emitting yesterday, don't adjust your TV, it was the result of a fake tan fiasco!  When I've watched the shows back in the past I'm always aware of how pale and pasty my face looks, since I was on with Dawn who always looks lovely and brown I thought I'd try and make myself look as if I'd had time to enjoy a little of the bank holiday sunshine, rather than squirrelling away in my craft room.  The result? - a rather vivid shade of orange which no amount of scrubbing would remove!! My hands looked as if I'd been Tango'd and after ten minutes of attention with bleach and a scouring pad it was obvious that they were going to stay that way!  Oh well at least I can laugh at myself and please be assured normal service will be resumed for next time, no more experimenting with fake tan for me.  I am after all plenty old enough to know better.

   The show went well I think, and I actually managed to enjoy it this time, although as usual we were pushed for time and didn't get as many demos in as I would have liked.  How does Ali Reeve do it? Four or five demos in one show just seems to be beyond me!  Still the ones that I managed to do didm't seem to have any of my now legendary mistakes, I didn't drop a stamp or glue card to Dawn's arm this time thank goodness.  Perhaps one day I will actully mange to be the consummate professional that I'm supposed to be.  Oh well until then I'll struggle on and hope that you lot come with me and continue to enjoy your stamping as much as I do.

   Sarah x

2. Tell us what you'd like?

   Posted on 9:51pm Friday 3rd May 2013

   I'm in the process of designing some smaller stamp sets - approx 3 x 4 inches, one lot of eight designs nearly ready to go, but not sure where to go with this next, if any of you have ideas as to what you think might be useful then please let me know. Would you like to see more sentiments or verses perhaps? I've shied away from these a little in the past assuming that you already have them but I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the matter.  Whilst I can't guarantee your ideas will actually become stamps, simply because everyone has such different ideas,  I will try my best to accomodate everyone and consider them all.  I really do appreciate your input x

3. Inky Doodles versus the Melt Pot

   Posted on 2:50pm Friday 19th Apr 2013

   Ok - so a whole lot of flying embossing powder and several burnt fingers later - I will post my findings re UTEE and Inky doodles stamps! Firstly I melted my UTEE in a foil tray and not a melt pot so not sure how the temperature compares, but it was completely liquid and very, very hot. I used a versamark inkpad as a release agent on the stamp before pouring the moulten UTEE over it. I left it for about 5 minutes to cool and set, and then peeled it away from the stamp. The stamp was absolutely fine but there was still some UTEE stuck to it, whether I didn't use enough Versamark or this is all part and parcel of doing this technique I don't know. It was quite laborious to pick all these little bits off but a good rinse under a hot tap helped. The stamp has suffered no ill effects, unlike me with burnt fingers, but to be honest I struggled to find a suitable Inky Doodles design that would really lend itself to this technique, if anyone has any suggestions then let me know. So to sum up, it works, it does no lasting damage to your stamps, although clean up is a bit of pain, but it's not something I will be doing more of in the short term as I don't really think my designs lend themselves particularly well to the technique. Hope this helps!