Crafty thoughts!

I met my friend Kathy yesterday at the tollgate tea rooms, which is a lovely little place serving enormous tea cakes, real tea with proper tea leaves, excellent if you like the taste of tea and a snug, cosy feel to it, even if the wood panelling did attack my ankle as I opened the front door, and the lights went out and the parking spaces were quite limited as it was busy! Anyway, catching up with Kathy was lovely and I thoroughly enjoyed our natter about the important things in life like stash, what you use most, haven't touched for years and the shocking truth you are faced with once you look at how much of it you have! Kathy told me about the summer club she had been involved with and told me that she had loads of patterend paper that she hadn't used and some things she had given to a friend as she no longer used which included peel offs. She also talked of being liberated to paint....this set me thinking once I got home. I too have loads of stash...I NEED it all you understand, but some of it has been very neglected and at the time cost a fair bit of money. I looked through my colouring mediums and discovered some LYRA aquacolour crayons. I dusted them off and thought to myself I wonder! "Liberation " ran through my ears and brain!!

I spritzed the back of this stamp with water and scribbled........yes SCRIBBLED three colours on to the back of it I then pressed down..........oh............not a very crisp outline and a bit splodgy. In temper I stamped it again, trying to remove the colour and low and behold my second print was much better. Rightly or wrongly I then got hold of a black fine liner and thought I'd try to define the image... Ok , it's not perfect and a wee bit clunky, but I think I might try this again with a different stamp as I quite like the effect it gives. It's sooooo different from my normal work and is VERY CAS for me! It's better from a slight distance than close up, but for quickness and easiness, I think it's great!

 

Then I thought about the peel offs that Kathy had talked about. I have loads of them and I do use the fine lined ones but can't remember the last time I used the more solid ones.  I dug out my promarkers this time and I haven't used them for ages either, some of them were not in a good way! I also dug out my buttons and I realised I do have a button addiction, but they don't get used! I quite like this for quickness and simplicity too.

It's amazing when I look back at old cards that I made using the same ingredients, how much more stylish the results are. I thought this would make a lovely little notelet to send .

 

So thanks Kathy, our trip out was very productive. Next weekend I'm going to dig out some more " old stash" and I'm going to enjoy using it in new ways!