My first crop!

Ha! I had the most amazing day - I have to say I was a tinny tiny bit worried about going on my own, but I can hold a conversation and I'm not bad company - I think? I met some lovely ladies who had come on their own so we budded up for the first class which was with Lin and Leandra from Paper Artsy to make a project which meant getting inky and messy, I realise now that I am more of a clean grunge sort of crafter as you can tell from the tags in my last post I need to get more dirty hehe!!!

Well I wanted to learn new techniques and I wasn't disappointed I learnt how to metal work, use acrylic paint and the mists at last!  I have conquered my fear of them not sure really why I was so worried about the misting but I'm hooked and brought myself a little collection to use at home. The girls where amazing at the class even though we had instructions printed they went through every stage with us and told us loads about each product we where using which is probably the direction I needed.  I kept my notes as I will use them as reference again.

Here is my completed project, I love the way it turned out and the colour combination. It's made with mount board frame, card stock, ranger mists, acrylic paint, metal sheet,  Tim Holtz embellishments and tissue tape.

I am very proud of my inky fingers!

Well after lunch I did a spot of shopping and was almost late for the start of Tim's class but I got separated from my new buddies and sat at a different table which fate having a hand in sat me next to Nicky who I got my inspiration from to make the tags.  That made my day as I had been looking out for her but hadn't been able to spot her so I got to swap tags with her which was great.  I took a picture but as usual I closed my eyes!

Tim thoroughly spoilt us! We got given tons of goodies and got to use products that haven't even been released yet how great is that?  Alain from Ranger was also there overseeing everything, it was nice to meet him as well, I'm really pleased I got a picture with Tim he is such a lovely man, charming, funny and inspirational and had time for everyone and there was a lot of laughing. We made a configuration box but mine is nowhere near finished but I think I'm going to give it to Damon for his 40th as I was making it it took on elements of him - such as the electrician description on the text paper as this involves his work and there's a bit of a love theme, I'm sorry the picture is a bit blurred - too much excitement on my part...

Some of the goodies given to us, the tissue tape you can see in the background we all got to keep two rolls each after the class!

My box taking shape.

OMG! I nearly pee'ed my pants when we got to tip out the bags of this stuff!  We came back from our tea break - Tim says he finds this hilarious that we Brits need afternoon tea, what can I say you can't beat a cuppa in the afternoon it's the perfect pick me up!

This is as far as I got but I'm pleased with it so far.  You can see three inchies I made, originally I was going to swap these but I ended up making tags instead, part of the threads before the event was to make an inchie for Tim and to put them all in a book to be presented to him at the end of the class on Friday, we were the last class, we got to be part of that.  The inchie on the right is the inchie I made for him.  When he was presented with the booked he was really touched and said that he rarely gets given handmade present these days as people feel the art wouldn't be good enough and at one point he couldn't speak as he was looking through all the messages we had written - that was a good feeling to have been part of that........

The lovely, amazing people that made this an inspiring and memorable day for me.  I feel really blessed to have this hobby that I love so much and I am in constant awe of what my hands can create with all the wonderful products that are out there and how inspired I am by other people's talent......