Crafting at Ally Pally 8-9 April

Good morning! Sue here with a quick post to let you know about our upcoming exciting weekend at Alexandra Palace, London. 

Harvey and I are heading to London this morning, because tomorrow I shall be demoing on the BJ Crafts stand and on Sunday morning, at 10am, I will be broadcasting live from the show for Hochanda. ​​​​​​​

I enjoy demoing at Ally Pally, it's always great fun and lovely to meet so many enthusiastic crafters. BJ Crafts are our main stockists and they will have their stand filled with lots of our products, including some new ones...... 

Jean of BJ Crafts will be demoing too and we're hoping for a fantastic weekend.​​​​​​​

For my Hochanda programme on Sunday morning, we will have a selection of new products including some new Art stencils; Ink Blot Butterflies and Mixed Media Script. The images in this newsletter give you an idea as to how beautiful these stencils are. I know I always say it, but I think they're going to be popular, so if you like them order them quickly from Hochanda on Sunday morning, either by 'phone or online.​​​​​​​

As well as the stencils, there will be new stamps, new Starlight Waxes, Mixed Media Ink Sprays AND a NEW Shake and Gilt! The Silver Shake And Gilt sold out in what seemed like minutes when it was launched on Hochanda and I have a feeling this new one will go the same way..........

I hope all of that has sparked your interest. If you're coming to the Crafting at Ally Pally show tomorrow or Sunday please visit the BJ Crafts stand and say hello, we'd love to see you. And if you're home on Sunday morning at 10am, then why not tune in to Hochanda? I will squeeze as many demos in to the hour as I can and try to give you lots of crafting inspiration.

Enjoy the rest of your week and thank you for your support. 

Sue and all at Imagination Crafts

Watch Hochanda on Freeview channel 85, Sky channel 663, Freesat 817 and live at www.hochanda.com

Journal Pages by Margaret Brackenbury

Hi crafters, Margaret here, I have been working hard on my Planner/Journal, I have decided to make mine an Imagination Techniques Journal. Every time I do something a bit different I am adding it to my journal. I have made several dividers for each product; the Mixed Media Ink Sprays, Sparkle Medium, paints, structure paste, waxes etc.

For the cover I used Mixed Media Sprays and then Sparkle Medium through the 

Modern Flowers stencil. I also added an acetate cover using Arctic White Sparkle Medium and the Butterfly Spring stencil. My back cover is similar, but when I used the Arctic a White on top of the sprayed background the white did not stand out as much but I really love the effect. As my journal is now getting a bit fat so I added ribbons to hold it in place and add a touch of glamour.

Now a divider page............

 

            

       

Hope I have given you some inspiration and a different idea for your Journal. Enjoy your crafting with Imagination Crafts' products.

Tuesday Tutorial - Sugar Skull Canvas by Kirsten Sheridan

Good morning, happy April. I hope you had a nice weekend. I've got an 8"x10" canvas board to show you today. I love Day of the Dead imagery, so when Imagination released the new Sugar Skull stencil recently I knew immediately what I wanted to create with it................

I painted the canvas first with black gesso & when that was dry I applied Bronze & White Gold Starlights through the Art Stencil MA25 (back in stock soon)............

The next step was to take some flower stencils, including:

Summer Blossom

Flower Bunch

Poinsettia Large

and mask off all but one flower from each.....................

I gathered a selection of Chalk Paints, including Cornflower, Clover & Limestone, as well as some from my stash & began applying them through the stencils, layering up colours until I was happy.............

The Chalk paints dry very quickly, so I was able to start on the skull images immediately.

The crown & lower jaw of the skull are very close to the top & bottom edges of the stencil so I used Repositionable Tape to secure scrap pieces of card on the reverse. That protected the canvas from getting marked with Structure Paste...............

 

I applied the Structure Paste through the stencil & set the canvas aside to dry. Normally, Imagination Crafts' Structure Paste dries in about 15 minutes, but I'd applied a fairly thick layer, so I left it for an hour.....................

Now for the fun part; painting the skulls. I painted them with Pearl Starlights first, then began adding other colours. I used:

 Blue

Green

Apple Green

Lilac Mist

Amethyst

I used the tiny swirls on the Flower Bunch stencil to add detail to the cheeks & lower jaw bone & added dots of Pearl Starlights to the rest of the canvas.........

Finally, I filled in the open areas of the skulls & painted around the outside of them with black gesso. 

That's it!

             

                              

Thank you for visiting the Imagination Crafts' blog today. See you next time.

Kirsten