Shopping sprees galore

Heck. I need another (expensive) hobby like a hole in the head. But the jewellery making classes have been such fun. A pity it's only for five weeks and next week is the last week, sob.

It's a beginners class, so only pretty simple stuff, but all so effective! Anyhow, as well as the specialist beading shop in town I did a trip to Hobbycraft (the local shop didn't have any crimping pliers) and me and Mum went to town on filling the basket with beadie goodies which are all now awaiting to be strung up. I was tempted to buy a beading book but held back and got a couple from the library (all they had) plus I am sure there must be just STACKS of inspiring ideas out there on the www too.

Off soon to see my Dad to give him his birthday card and pressie. Inspired, as ever, by the incredibly talented Jennifer McGuire, I played with some new Hero Arts stamps (from my blog prize win). I used the design block dots and flowers together with distress inks and a clear embossing resist technique (as featured over on two peas in a bucket fall stamp camp week 2 class).

The distress inks I used were faded jeans, peeled paint and frayed burlap. Because these are the only three colours I have LOL! I then stamped on the chipboard letters using the woodgrain stamp. I didn't quite dry the initial inked layer very well which resulted in the embossing powder taking over at the edges, I quite like the way this adds an even more distressed effect though. Love happy accidents :)




Other great finds this week .... found out the wonderful revamped village chippie does gluten free frying. Yippee! (also vegetarian frying for those that are interested). So anyone travelling along the A6 in Derbyshire look out for the Ambergate chippie!

And a new local scrapbook supply shop in Hulland Ward. A bit on the expensive side, but it is stocking the lush Bo Bunny ranges (amongst others) and it is so nice to see things in the flesh so to speak. I bought some of the Tis The Season and Kitchen Spice ranges plus added another couple of papers to the Flutter Butter pile already in my scrap room. Nice to support local enterprise, eh?!