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!

Introducing New Gansai Tambi Pearl Colors  

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

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

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

Parchment Lace - Design Team

Hi,

In following Wightcat Crafts pursuits to encourage and promote Parchment Craft, my latest news is that I am thrilled to be on the Design Team for the Parchment Lace Magazine.

Not only that, I have been invited to be the Resident Parchment Expert and have a Question and Answer Page in the latest magazine, so if you have any questions that you would like answered in the magazine please let me know.

Have you seen the latest issue?  It has been completely re-vamped and is looking really good.  There are some fabulous designs in this issue.

    

You also get a free grid on the cover and the card below is the project I designed with the new grid (included with the magazine)

Along with other popular publications, Wightcat Crafts stocks Parchment Lace Magazine

Please add any comments below or questions you would like answered in the magazine

Thanks and have a great weekend

Hilary x

What do you use for your Colouring?

We have a selection of colouring markers for you to choose from, and they all work brilliantly on all your card making and parchment as well

Not only that, but we sell them most of them individually so you can try a few first and then add to your collection whenever you like.

Tim Holtz - DistressMarkers

These are water based and double ended, with a brush tip one end and a fine point the other end.

Kuretake Clean Colors

There's about 80 different colours of these lovely 'Real Brush' pens. They are water based and actually have a proper paintbrush so you can blend these colours beautifully. Again sold individually so you can try just a few of these wonderful colours.

FaberCastellPolychromos Pencils

Of course, I can't do an article about colouring without mentioning one of our favourites for colouring. These Polychromos pencils are the BEST, they are artist quality oil based pencils, they blend well together and you can blend them with oil to make fabulous backgrounds as well.  Again we sell them individually so you can try a few first. We also sell them in sets.

Pergamano PergaColours

These are water based and double ended, with a bullet tip one end and a fine point the other end. They come in a box of 30 lovely colours.

Happy Crafting

Hilary x

Easy Emboss Stained Glass Templates

Thought I'd show you a few examples of the lovely Stained Glass EasyEmboss Templates from PCA. Like all the templates they are really versatile and you can infill them and just use parts of them, mixing and matching as you go.

What a great way to do your parchment!  You can find them all here on our website



So here's the Daisies template, the first picture is just how it looks when you have used the template to make your outline on your parchment paper, and the second picture is coloured using FaberCastell Polychromos pencils, some have been blended on the back with Dorso oil and then the colour has been enhanced on the front.

Here are some more examples of some of the other templates



So many different ways of using these templates

   

Here are 2 examples of the same template, completely different styles. These two butterfly cards were made by Karen from our design team. The card on the left had been infilled with traditional gridwork and the butterflies have been worked separately and layered as 3D

There are more templates available here if you make any cards from them, please send us a picture we would love to see it :)

Happy Crafting

Hilary x

My Favourite Things.....

I'm humming the tune as I'm typing (yes, I really do love my work)

Raindrops on Roses

Whiskers on Kittens

Brown paper packages tied up with strings

These are a few of my favourite things......

With that in mind I thought I'd write about some of my favourite crafting 'things', I'm sure we all have them and I'd be really interested to know what you love using the most and what you can't do without when it comes to our crafting

As you all know, Parchment Craft is one of my all time favourites, it's something I can sit down to and just forget about everything else that's happening around me, mostly for the good but sometimes not so good because I really should be doing something else......that's what happens when you own a craft shop

Of course, I can't do anything without our lovely Wightcat own brand Parchment paper so I guess I should mention that first, at 140gsm it is great to work with, I use it in all my classes as well and at half the price of well known brands, I'm sure you will like it too.

.....another one of my really can't do 'withouts' (is that a word?) is my Parchment Protector, of course you could just use a piece of kitchen paper but apart from keeping any marks off my parchment as I work, it also keeps it nice and flat and stops it getting any dents, it also has a nice semi circle taken out of it and when I'm perforating I keep it over where I'm working and it holds my work beautifully so I can get the tools 'in and out' easily. You can just about see it in the picture.

Whilst I'm talking about my Parchment Protector, have you seen the new templates from PCA. Some Wedding ones and some for men's cards, they are lovely and so easy to use.

Oh gosh, now I've started I can think of a whole host of things I love using, and I shall mention just one more before I get carried away

.....my one needle tool (that's in the picture too).....this gets used for so many things including the placing of sticky gems, even unbunging bottles, apart from perforating my parchment and grid work, although I do keep a separate one especially for this :)

More next time......

until then, Happy Crafting and please add a comment with some of the things you love using or couldn't do without

Competition Winner

We are pleased to announce the lucky winner of our December competition is Julie Smy, she will be receiving a whole load of parchment goodies worth over £50.  We will be doing more competitions in the new year so watch out for them and don't forget to like our Facebook page

Perforating Grids, Multi Grids & Siesta Grids Guide

As the title suggests, there are a few different grid variations to choose from.

Generally, if you are talking about a grid for parchment craft then you would be talking about a Straight Grid. This is a grid with holes all the way over it, all at equal distances from each other in vertical/horizontal lines.

There are 2 versions, fine and bold and they have different names depending on the brand of the grid. 

The only difference between the fine and the bold grids are the size of the holes, the needle you use should fit the hole nicely so when you pierce the parchment through the hole and make a perforation, it becomes a nice round perforation and every hole you make will be the same. So, if you were to use the bold grid then you will need a slightly thicker needle than the fine grid.

You will also see on the market the older type mesh grids, that are perfectly good to use although it’s more difficult to get uniform perforations because of the ‘movement’ in the mesh.

How to use a plain Grid

As you can see from the picture below, you can use a grid to make perforations in your parchment and also to emboss dots and it is exactly the same whichever grid you use. 

 If you have ever done cross stitch, counting across your pattern to work your stitches on open weave embroidery material, then you have a slight advantage for using grids as a counting method is used to transfer your pattern to your parchment exactly the same way as in cross stitch.  Saying that, it is not difficult and with a little practice you will be on your way.

To way to use a plain or diagonal grid place your parchment on the top of the grid and tape it down. Put your pattern to the side of your work so you can count the holes according to the pattern and perforate using a single needle tool .

In the following example the black dots (Fig 1) are perforations on the front of the parchment, (the white holes are just the background holes of the grid)

(Fig 2) shows where you would emboss with the PCA sun tool (Pergamano star tool) to make the circular embossed dots (on the back of the parchment) and then where you cut with the scissors to make the octagonal shaped holes shown in (Fig 3)

Then are also a multitude of various ‘fancy grids’ like the Pergamano multigrids and Siesta Grids. These are much simpler to use as they already have patterns and borders on them, eliminating the need for counting.

How to use a Multi Grid

Place your parchment on top of your grid and tape it down.

First of all you emboss the sections you would like to emboss and then turn the grid over leaving the parchment in place and perforate through the holes according to the pattern.

The example below is of Pergamano multigrid 21, available from Wightcat Crafts www.wightcat.com

It is a sampler made from the complete grid, made by my friend Maggie Byford, this is to show how the whole grid would look but also, to show how you can take parts of it for your own parchment work, not forgetting that you can make extra layers for a 3D look.

Extra samples below are from the girls in my classes, one of them used the grid to make segments to cover a box which looks fantastic. There are also a couple of cards to show how you can use it to make your own cards as well by adding glitz and glitter to give that extra bit of sparkle.

Paper Folding with Pretty Papers

I love pretty papers, and we have so many pretty papers, including parchment papers and vellums, in the shop that I thought I'd play around a do some paper folding which seems to be in my mind at the moment. I happened to be surfing around the Internet...as you do....and saw something like this on my travels so thought I'd have a go with some pretty pink flower fairies vellums. I used A4 papers for the back so its actually quite large, measuring about 50cm in diameter, but of course it can be made a lot smaller and I thnk a teeny weeny one would make a great embellishment for a scrapbook page or a card, but this one is perfect to hang in the shop window.

Things that make me go 'yum'

Sorry folks, this was Saturday's post from the shop that got missed.

Really, I wanted to share with you our display of new Parchment products. The first lot came in and whizzed out again for pre-orders, but there are some on the shelves now.

I don't really do parchment (well, ok, I don't do parchment at all). But the vellums and papers really caught my eye, and the stamps are also delicious. Can I say 'delicious' to describe stamps? They totally make me go 'yum'.

In other news, Hilary and Steve have recently been visiting trade shows and looking at new products. Crafting has changed a lot over the last few years, especially as the economy has tightened and everyone is feeling the pinch. I think we are all looking for the best value for our money, getting the best products we can as well as ways to stretch our crafting supplies. The good news is that there has been lots to see at the show, and I think our ranges in the shop will start reflecting some of these new trends and techniques - and always with an emphasis on value.

Speaking of shows, of course, we go to the trade shows as attendees because we're retailers. But if you are coming to Bristol or Harrogate (more details on our home page ) then we will be there complete with shop.

We spent this evening choosing colours for a new range of 12x12 cardstock. It's been a while since we updated and there are some fantastic tones out there. I am really excited to get my little hands on it for some scrapbook pages. Things that make me go 'yum', indeed!

PCA Sale

SALE!

10% off selected PCA tools

Limited time

Click Here

Introducing WightKitten

We are very excited here at Wightcat Crafts & Wools. Hilary & Kate have been busy designing...look what they've come up with! Its called Christmas Collection 1 by WightKitten. Its very nice!

Click here to go & buy the pattern

A perfectly finished piece

Most parchment work that Mum (that's Hilary) does is on cards or ATCs...running several workshops each month doesn't leave much time for creating anything else. So it's a change to see her making something that looks just perfect in a frame.

This lovely lady is full of delicate details and gorgeous 3-d flowers.

The frame is deep enough to let the piece sit perfectly without being squashed, but not so deep that you can't see the details. Beautiful!

~ k ~

Work in progress

I'm not sure where August went?

Things have been pretty busy in the world of Wightcat...but now the weather is cooling and it suddenly seems like the perfect time to start some serious crafting again.

This is a work-in-progress, and it's from this book. We're even running a competition for you to win a copy - just make a card and send it to us, and every entry will be put a draw for a copy of the book. After the competition, the cards will be sold for charity, so please remember to include a blank envelope with it!

All styles and skill levels welcome - go on, give it a try!

kate x

P.S. I couldn't possibly take credit for the beautiful parchment work - as always, it's done by Hilary.

Tip of the week

If you are embossing a straight line against a ruler it’s very easy using a Pergamano shader tool or PCA shader (holding it vertical), if you use a ball tool it can slip underneath the ruler if you are not careful.

Do you have any Crafting tips???

Send them in to us so we can share them we everyone, for every tip that we use, we will send you discount voucher for your next order when you shop with us (online or instore).

crafts@wightcat.com

A parchment peek...

Hilary has been hard at work on the sample card for this week's parchment workshop.

I wish I had her patience!

New Siesta Grids

Check out the latest Ruler Grids from Siesta

ideal for dry embossing or Parchment Craft

15 different dessigns to choose from

http://www.wightcat.com/crafts/siestagrids.htm

Also New 2009 Christmas Grids

now in stock

http://www.wightcat.com/crafts/siestagrids.htm