Gorgeous paints and glittering things . . . !

Another Place - installation by Antony Gormley on Crosby Beach

The Liverpool show was great fun and I enjoyed meeting up with those of you who came and said hello! Being in Liverpool was a great opportunity to spend more time at one of my favourite places - Crosby Beach. Wendy Dolan and her husband Rob were at the show as well so we spent a evening on the beach together. It has been wonderful to see Wendy so often this year, we are going to make time to see each other more often rather than just seeing each other a shows. My good friend Brenda Killigrew was also doing the show promoting our courses for Castanea www.castaneacraftcourses.com and she joined us at the beach.

 Brenda nearly being blown away (she's only little) - making contact with one of the sculptures






amazing jellyfish washed up on the beach

When we all arrived on the beach we very soon became aware of hundreds of jellyfish that had been washed up on the beach, I have never seen so many of these creatures all at once - even in Greece. There were some amazing natural designs. We all took loads of photos with great ideas of developing them into designs 'one day'!

Wendy taking her umpteenth photo, every shot you took you thought was fantastic - until you saw the next jellyfish, we were like a load of kids, mucking about and screaming, great fun!!!! 

While I was at the show I took the opportunity of a relatively clear table (so rare in my life) and some spare time to make up some new samples for upcoming workshops. I don't often promote other companies and their products but I am so excited about these I am going to break my own rules. You may be aware of Sarah Lawrence and her mail order company Craftynotions. www.craftynotions.com Sarah has been developing some new paints that are water soluble, don't give off fumes and when you heat them and iron fix they are permanent on fabric. They are also beautiful on card and paper.

These are my favourite colours but there are many more -

These paints are high metallic and need to be watered down to paint Tyvek and Bondaweb so they go a long way. I won't be using anything else now - I have finally found the paints I have been searching for. Sarah has also produced some fabulous glittery embellishments which work well with painted Bondaweb. As you know I don't really like using glitter and sparkle on my work - much!!!!!! These are just wonderful.
On the left is a pile of Colourful Thoughts Dot Jewels in mixed metallic colours

The the pile in the middle and on the right are Gilding Flakes, they are GORGEOUS!!!!

this newspaper sample has been embellished with Gilding Flake and is now ready to stitch

this newspaper sample has been embellished with the Dot Jewels

I am now sorting out images for my own website. My wonderful friend Jayne Routley is coming round tomorrow to put the finishing touches to it. The new look website should be launched over the weekend. It has been a long time coming, it is looking very dated. Jayne is a great help and very patient, she knows me very well and helps me think!!!!! 

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I shall be stewarding all weekend at the Pink Birdhouse for the last weekend of the Brighton Open Houses. Maybe see you there - if you do - I will be stitching on the newspaper samples pictured above.

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Denman College next week to teach a 4 day course - I had better start thinking about what I am going to need . . . 

Have a great week end

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