Monday, June 26, 2017

Starry Starry Night Paint Your Palette Pink & Blue

Hi all,

As I was typing the title I couldn't resist changing the words of a well known song....now I'm showing my age!





Anyway, back to the subject in hand. I had a little play with the lovely new Gansai Tambi Pearl Colors.  These are the new sister pack to the beautiful set of Starry Colors that I am already very fond of, yes, I have to say.....I love these colors (I'm spelling in the American way as that's what they are called)

I have found that adding a few drops of water into the palette first, helps to soften the paint.  You can use it at any consistency, for the BrushLettering above I made the palette thinner than when I paint on parchment. (You can even thin it with water to use with a dip pen)



Here's a sample of the Pearl Colors: 

Bottom is on black cardstock
Middle is on Black Parchment (150gsm)
Far Right is Clear Parchment (I'm using our new 230gsm parchment here but I have used the 140 & 160gsm too)
   


Here's a sample of the Original Starry Colors: 

Far Left is Clear Parchment (I'm using our new 230gsm parchment here but I have used the 140 & 160gsm too)
Middle is on Black Parchment (150gsm)
Right is on black cardstock

As quite often in my 'test' pieces I have used Butterflies....they just seem to lend themselves to blending colours and we all love Butterflies don't we!!

If you have received one of our business cards, you will already know that it has a butterfly on it, left purposely as an outline so you can use it in your crafting, so this is what I used for some of my test pieces.


Parchment doesn't like very much water very much, so go carefully, with very thin layers. Make sure your paint dries in between layers.


This was using the Pearl Scarlet, Red Gold and Champagne Gold


Here are a few more samples...I hope you can see the shine on them

You will find the palettes of Starry Colors here

All for now

Hilary xx



Monday, May 29, 2017

A Good Time Was Had By All

A week ago, we travelled to Bristol to our Annual Parchment Reunion at the Bristol Parchment Craft Exhibition.

What a lovely weekend!

Amanda our youngest came with us to support us along with her partner, Matt.  They did us proud, Amanda was a tremendous support to us all, helping at the till plus keeping an eye on Mother-In-Law who had to come with us and Matt, not even knowing anything about Parchment, let alone Crafting, took to it like a duck on water, helped us set up in record time and did a great job on the till too. We are so very lucky to have such a wonderful, supportive family and we make a brilliant team together.


Our other daughter, Kate, helped too by keeping an eye on Amanda & Matt's fur babies which was a very important job. I have to show you a picture because they are just the cutest ......


We met all our lovely friends and had a real catch up with everyone, a super exhibition and such inspiration, there were some amazing Parchment exhibits! 

Exciting news....that we will have some new pattern packs on the website soon so watch this space!

All for now
Hilary xx

Monday, April 03, 2017

We do Relax Sometimes!

Hello,

Just we would share some of our pictures with you!

We've had the first really sunny weekend of the year and as we had the afternoon out in the sunshine we thought we'd share a couple of our pictures, just to show that we do have a break sometimes and we hope you had a lovely weekend too


We went to Cowes, one of our many favourite places on the Island, it's overlooking the Solent and you can just see Fawley in the distance, the entrance to Southampton Water just out of the picture on the right. As you can imagine, there are always plenty of boats on this stretch of water and we like to watch all the activity.

I love living so close to the sea, I grew up by the sea and it's always been a part of my life and even though we have a longer journey to cross that stretch of water so many times in the year when we go all our shows, knowing that we will be back on the Island afterwards makes it all worth while

it's our sanctuary, our haven.

This time of year when the weather starts to brighten and there are very few tourists, it's as though we can be the tourists ourselves and this afternoon we had our daughter's lovely company and bought fish and chips to eat whilst watching the world go by. 

It's very peaceful watching the water and listening to the sea.


Here we are, back in the car refreshed, if a little windswept!

Now I'm going to add some new templates and a lovely new book by Clarity to our website, the artwork has been designed by Tina Cox so I know it's going to be a 'best seller'!

Thank you for reading this, have a great week!

Hilary xx



Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Even Storm Doris Didn't stop the Show!

A little update on last weeks adventures, it's been quite a whirlwind....literally!

All set for the 'Make It' show in Farnborough, an early ferry at the crack of dawn with forecasts of storm Doris heading our way but the boat trip across the Solent was calm.... I guess you could say the calm before the storm!

We arrived nice and early for a steady set up day, an extra pair of hands with us as my back is playing up big time but we had plenty of time, or so we thought!  Let me put you in the picture, the show is held in a temporary structure that has been in place for years but it's like an enormous marquee that is made to move when the wind blows ( it's a bit like being on a boat)




The wind howled, the girders creaked and the lights swayed....no kidding.... and then the powers that be, had a conflab and decided to evacuate the building until the wind had calmed down with the instructions 'no entry until at least 3pm'. Great! Okay, let's go for a pizza! But oh no! all the restaurants are in a complex with a multi-storey car park and the entrance too low for the van so we ended up eating chips and baked beans in Tesco.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, we were back in by 5pm and out again by 10pm all set up and ready to go!

             









               ......and a few hours later........


What a fabulous show too! 

Lovely to see so many customers and friends and so many birthday wishes too....I feel very blessed.  Then I saw Mags with Dawn and Ellie, and even though she felt so poorly she'd even stayed up late to make me a birthday card. Of course, we had to take a selfie so here we all are (even though I think I look a bit the worse for wear after the previous days fiasco!) 

It was so good to see everyone.


For those of you who didn't make it to the show, for all orders over £20 we'll include a FREE Pergamano 'M' Pattern (worth £6.50) - Enter Code 'MakeIt2017'
(this applies until the weekend midnight Sunday)

Don't forget to take a look www.wightcat.com to place your order

All for now

Hilary x

Monday, February 20, 2017

Everything Happens for a Reason



What a weekend it's been! ....Well, actually what a week!



3 days in the West Country at Craft4Crafters and we saw so many friends and regulars at the show, what a great time! Thank you all for coming to see us and buying your crafting goodies.




My back finally gave in and Steve, bless him, pushed me round in a wheelchair for most of the time but we managed and we had some lovely new products that I was demonstrating and we had a complete sell out of the Gansai Tambi Starry Colours and the Wink of Stella.  Don't worry though,  as soon as they are back in stock I will let you all know, along with some brand new items too.




No time to go home, we ploughed on up to the NEC in our van for the only UK trade show of the year. We had a very important connection to make and I'm so pleased we managed to get there.




You already know Barbara Gray (Clarity Stamps) has done such a marvelous job expanding the parchment world with her Groovi Plate System, and maybe you didn't know that she now also owns Pergamano.... what a match!  So, for us as leading parchment specialists it was really important that we made a connection so we can all work together and help bring the parchment world  even closer.




What a lovely, generous lady and a such great team too, we sat together and chatted over coffee and laughed just like old friends. We are so looking forward to this venture with Barbara and her team and they have made us feel so welcome......watch this space!



We are home now, there's nothing quite like your own bed is there!

All for now

Hilary x


Friday, February 03, 2017

Welcome to February!

Where does the time go?  We have started our new round of shows for this year and it's always so good to see all our friends and have a catch up with all things crafting!

Parchment Lace Magazine no 6 is being launched today and we have already got them in the shop, so all pre-orders have already gone out....thank you so much  to everyone who ordered one from us, it all helps to keep the 'wheels turning' :) we have a new batch already on their way and should be in the shop at Wightcat Crafts early next week.

I'm thrilled to be included in the magazine again and apart from being the Parchment Expert and having a "Q & A" page I also have a couple of cards in the magazine so that's really exciting

Here's a peak at what's in store


Plus a couple of the cards 

My own design, I hope you enjoy making this

This one I have designed using the Free Grid that comes with the magazine

If you have any questions you would like me to answer in the magazine, don't forget to email me and of course don't forget to get a copy of the latest magazine from Wightcat Crafts, there are some lovely designs in it

All for now,

Hilary x





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