Groovi card & tag - Designer day at W.I. Denman

Hello friends,

I thought I'd share a card with you today that I had the pleasure of making with 24 ladies, all from the East Sussex Federation of the W.I., a couple of weeks ago at Denman college.  I was standing in again for the lovely and very talented Parchment tutor, who was unwell and unable to show the ladies the traditional way of Parching ;)!

I had two groups of 12 ladies for a couple of hours each.  They worked in pairs, whilst one lady got into the groove with the Groovi Plate Mate and Groovi Meadow Grasses plate, her partner was having a play with the Groovi Diagonal Grid plate.  Both sessions were fun but crazy, I guess being a new/stand-in tutor it will take me a while to work out exactly how long it takes to teach 12 ladies something totally new - and a few of the ladies hadn't really crafted before either - I wasn't expecting that!  At least the ladies seemed really pleased with the cards they'd made, which makes me smile as I type this, thinking back :)!

Check back tomorrow if you'd like to see the tag they made using the Groovi Diagonal Grid.

Thanks for popping by again today.

Happy crafting.

Carole x

Groovi & Silhouette Cameo - a perfect match!

Hello Crafty Friends,

I'm back today to share a card I made for a friends husband, he celebrated a special birthday yesterday.

I've been playing around with ways to attach my Groovi Parchment designs to the fronts of cards.  This is one of the most simple ways I found, using my Silhouette Cameo.  I first designed the Groovi Parchment section, measured it and made a perfect frame for it!  It really couldn't be easier to attach a vellum design to a card without any adhesive showing :)!

For the card I used my Groovi Plate Mate for the letter blocks and letters, one of the Groovi background plates and one of the Groovi border plates.  I used Stampin' Up card stock, ink and stamp set for the rest of the card.

Thanks for stopping by today and happy crafting.

Carole x

Groovi card using Groovi plates, grids & Stamps by Tina Cox

Hello crafty friends,

I've had a little bloggy break!  I can't believe it's been more than a couple of months since I posted but I'm back with you all now, which is all that matters, if you're looking for Groovi inspiration.

I really enjoyed a day out all by myself last Sunday, I went by train to the Parchment Guild exhibition in Bristol, it was totally inspiring.  I met so many very talented parchment professionals exhibiting and sharing their hints and tips there.

One of the ladies I met was Tina Cox, she designs wonderful patterns and cards for the Parchment Craft industry.  She has recently designed a new set of stamps purposely to use with Parchment craft work.  The set is called Butterflies and Flowers....here's my first card using them...

I used my Groovi square plate to make the simple frame, my Groovi grid to embellish the corners and my Perga Cutters to make the crosses in the corners - don't look too closely at those little crosses - I messed one up!

I used the 'rock'n roll' stamping method on to the front of the Parchment for the sunshine.  The Stampin' Up ink colours I chose were So Saffron & Crisp Cantaloupe.  The flower heads, leaves and stems were also stamped on to the front using Crushed Curry & Old Olive.  I embossed from behind giving them dimension using a fine stylus tool.

I hope you like my card, thanks for popping by.

Happy crafting.

Carole x

Crafting with Clarity & Groovi!

Hello Friends,

It seems that I lost my aim/direction for a while.  My life changed, I retired from all my crafting commitments and expected to be able to carry on crafting like before, only with no deadlines or thoughts about what "my ladies" wanted, I thought I'd be able to craft for myself!  I expected to get messy with some Art Journalling, I have all the gear ;) and I'm sure I want to do it!  I also expected that I'd be happy without the stresses that came with teaching and the planning of events and classes.

The truth though, was totally different.  I couldn't craft, I couldn't think about crafting, I didn't want to get messy with Art Journalling, I even felt it hard to make cards for friends and family for occasions that required cards!

I definitely needed a focus, I realised that, when I attended Stitches, the UK crafting Trade show.  I'm not used to crafting for me, I'm a crafter who wants to inspire other crafters and after teaching for more than 14 years, I suppose it wasn't ever going to be easy for me to retire from all of that.

Teaching at the W. I. Denman, (see my last post) was a blessing, totally out of the blue, as I'd never expected to be filling in for a sick tutor, but it turns out it was an absolute blessing.  I had such wonderful feedback from the ladies who attended the course I filled in for, and now Denman has asked me to fill in again in April, I'm really happy that I was "good enough" to be asked again.   Denman have also invited me to run some of my own courses, which will start in the Autumn.  My purpose is back and so is my will to craft.

Preparing for the Parchment course at Denman, really did inspire me again, to go back to Parching!  I'd been watching Barbara from Clarity on the t.v. with her new Groovi system since it was launched, it looked great and I certainly was kicking myself that I hadn't invested in it earlier!

So with the news and offer for filling in again for another Parchment class at Denman, I decided to send for some Groovi stash!  I didn't hold back, I bought all I "needed"!  My thoughts were that if I were going to introduce this system or even mention it, in a Parchment class, I'd need to give it a trial!  I'd need to give it a "semi-professional""okay", if you see what I mean!

Well, I love it!  Like everything though that I love and teach, I know I need to practice, practice, practice!  I need to remember all I learned from all those years ago when I was first taught all the basics and I need to put what I learned then and what Barbara at Clarity is teaching us now, on the t.v., into practice.  I think baby steps is the right way to go with this, I'm not trying to rush a card or rush anything, I'm taking lots of time to learn and practice again properly, I need to do things as best and as properly as I can, I'm such a perfectionist!

Here are a couple of cards I've made using the Groovi system.....

...this first one is a little bit messy!  The colouring isn't perfect, you can see the smudges and the Picot edging has much to be desired...but I don't have the right parchment grid for the right spacing for the Picot edge cutting and my eczema isn't good at the moment - I can hardly hold a pair of scissors!  I also wish I'd used a capital "J" for "Jimmy" on this card!

I'm much happier with this second card, it still wouldn't win any awards, but I'm fairly happy how it turned out!

Check out the white work on these flowers!  Barbara reminded me on Sunday to do white work by gently embossing in short strokes and long strokes!  The mat I have is old, very old and I found it easier to put a layer of dark card on top of my mat and emboss on that, it stopped me from going through the Parchment.  I taught that trick to the ladies that I taught at Denman, it was a trick I never did forget!

On the first card above, I coloured in using my ancient Parchment crayons and used an old technique of dipping a tightly folded piece of kitchen towel into a drop of blending solution to blend the colouring strokes but it turned out messy!  On the second card I used markers, they were so much cleaner!  I never remembered using markers - back in the my day ;)!  Oh times have changed and I'm happy that they have, especially with the new Clarity Groovi system!

Thanks for popping by, I hope you feel inspired to try this system - get into the groove, it's satisfying - yes totally satisfying!

Happy crafting.

Carole x

Parchment craft at the W. I. Denman

Hello friends,

I promised you a little while ago that I'd share with you some pictures of the Parchment craft course I taught at the end of January, as a stand in tutor, at the W. I. Denman college, very close to where I live, in Oxfordshire.

Here are just a few photos that I took, you'll be able to find many more pictures, taken by the college on their Facebook page just scroll down until you get to 2nd Feb :)!

This was my classroom for the 4 days....

The classroom was very high tech, check out all those lights, tv and camera so I could demo and my ladies could watch what I was doing on the tv!

This is Jane, she'd only ever been to one beginner Parchment craft course before, but her work was stunning and looked very professional!

This is Elvina,  her work was fabulous too!

Here is Elvina again with her friend Maureen, they were gorgeous, very supportive of their new 'stand in' tutor!  They were both seasoned Parchers and great at it.  They run a little Parchment Craft group in Jersey.

You can see Jean, Mary, Yvonne and Joan here.  They were all friends who meet together at Denman, they come from all over the country and were huge supporters of the regular Parchment tutor.  They were seasoned Parchment crafters who had all the gear and qualifications, I didn't know existed ;)! 

 On these next two pictures you can see Pat (also from Jersey), Margaret, Valerie & Sylvia, this was definitely my "quiet table".  These ladies were also regulars and huge supporters of the usual tutor too and very professional in their work and fast with it!  It's always the quiet ones that get the most done -I expect that's why I never get much done when I'm crafting in a group!

Here I think, are most of the projects finished by one of the ladies, apologies ladies, I can't remember who did all this gorgeous work, but nearly everyones looked the same ;)!

Here is a close up of the most difficult project we tackled, lots of pricking and embossing on the diagonal grid for this one!

and finally, a table I filled with other projects I'd made, hoping it would put the ladies at ease when they met me, hoping to show that I was a "good enough" teacher to be standing in for their course ;)!

I absolutely loved teaching these ladies at Denman, I am smiling as I type because I've got more dates for more courses I'll be running there, this coming autumn and winter!  It really is the most wonderful place to be!

Hope you've enjoyed looking at the pictures.

Happy crafting.

Carole x