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

I just wanted to show you a few things that are making me say "be still my beating heart"...

First one of my faves the wonderful Orla Kiely, with some of her latest designs.

And although I'm not a girly girl, the Oscars had a few beauties... Helena Bonham Carter (always my lady crush) wore a black corset dress by costume designer Colleen Atwood, who went on to win Best Costume Design for Alice in Wonderland; telling reporters, "[I] thought it would be nice to celebrate film rather than fashion"

Helen Mirren flew the British flag by wearing Vivienne Westwood

As did Anne Hathaway

 I downloaded a fabby free e book from the fabby people over at  http://www.clothpaperscissors.com/  which has some cool techniques for Art Journallers.

The Ranger blog
http://blog.rangerink.com/blog/2011/02/video-dyans-perfect-pearls-technique/comments/page/2/#comments


Has featured my frame from the Designer Challenge, and my demo video from CHA2010, and I am bowled over by the lovely comments people have left. Thankyou. xx

Over at Elsies blog she has been showcasing the new dresses available on her website. Each dress has been photographed with three different looks and this one is just soooooooo me. I would definitely wear this with the baggy cardi, and I have spent months trying to track down some vintage Dr Martens in leopard. Mind you I think the headband is over the top even for me, lol.

Love this picture of my old pal Jane as she discovers her article in the latest issue of Somerset Studio Digital

When I lose all my unwanted weight I just might treat myself to this beauty from Vivienne of Holloway

From Schuh these Irregular Choice shoes really float my boat, loving the bow at the back.

This quote

"Because you're fat and hes thin and you're both f**king ugly".......

Oh yes The Full Monty is on TV, so I am making an exception and watching it again even though I know it word for word....

And I will leave you with this You tube clip which quite frankly is frikkin hilarious. He's my kind of babe....

Enjoy xx

Tickets on the move...

Hi everyone, sorry for the delay in posting the winners, been up to my eyes in it as per usual. Just finished teaching the fabulous Ranger 3 weekend to a brilliant bunch. Barbara you were missed muchly, and big hugs to Sue for Wednesday.

Here are three of the winners pulled at random

Anjas-Artefaktotum said..


Every time your blog full of creative vibrant incredible fantastic art works is a great inspiration to me! Thanks so much.

Hugs Anja

Congrats Anja you get Beachcomber Tim...

Chris said...
oooh caramel chocolate and journalling...fab mix :D
Love the pages especially the second one.
Hope you feel better soon (((sick busting hugs)))
Chris xx

Congratulations Chris you get Rocker Tim.

                                                  


Rhayne said...
Love seeing your pages in progress... really helps a nub art journaler like me understand more about all the layers :o) You are truly inspiring every day!

Congratulations Rhayne you get Aristocrat Tim...

Can you please email me your addresses to dyan@afth.co.uk and I will get them in the post to you. I will be picking more tomorrow so please leave a comment on this post to be in with a chance.

I met 2 lovely chickies whilst at Stitches, Moira and Margaret. They were extremely giddy and said they had had the best time ever. They were made up because they managed to get photos with us.

Here they are with me, complete with my suddenly see through dress!!!!


With Tim

and with the person who really made their day

Ha ha yes we were upstaged by Mr Cocoa Bean from Cadbury's World...!!!

And I keep forgetting to show you this. The lovely Darcy made this lovely book to showcase all the colours of my Dylusions inks. Nice one girlie. xx

Enjoy xx

Fed up of this sickie malarkie already...

Just sending out some bloggy love

First of all we have  dinkys-world.blogspot.com which is a blog by8 yr old Charlotte. Yes you heard me correctly.!! 8 yrs old, with a blog full of fabulous things she has made.

In the last post I wrote about Kelvin...well his lovely wife Sarah has written all about our meeting HERE.http://notquitemarthastewart.blogspot.com/ And it seems as though my new name " The Dark Northern Temptress " is catching on fast...thanks Mr Macari for that one, lol.

Giddy Karen has a lovely write up on her rather fabby blog, and she is even giddier as she is on her way to a workshop with Tim.http://timholtz.typepad.com/my_weblog/

One of my fave blogs to visit is Alisa Burke and this post is so simple yet effective. It makes me want to jump out of bed and raid all my red paints.

I had a long sleep earlier which was good, but am now wide awake which is not so good, lol. Am going to embark on a marathon cutting out session, in between, runny nose, hacking cough, banging head etc. It's at times like this I am soooooo glad I am single, lol. I've got salmon fillets poaching in the oven and fruity couscous and edename beans courtesy of M & S. How healthy is that for a midnight snack..??? So healthy in fact that I've got Cadbury's Caramel chocolate (large bar) and an 8 pack of Diet Cherry Coke. Tee hee.

Most of my demoing at the show was done in my mahoosive beloved ledger journal. Will seriously cry when this journal is full and am having mild panic attacks already at the thought.!!! If any of you have one hanging around, that you don't want, as if!!!, then you know where to donate it. I will look after it very well, pinky promise.!!!

Here are the pages I was working on...all in various stages of unfinishedness, lol. The backgrounds were all made with a combination of Adirondack Colourwashes (am sooooo in love again), Adirondack Paint Dabbers ( always been in love with these, but heart, heart, heart, the new bottles ) and my new "be still my beating heart" faves, The new Distress stains. Who knew, girlies, who knew.??? And of course my Dylusions stamps, doing what they do best... And for those of you who keep asking me where you can purchase them from....

Here are the wholesalers

UK Personal Impressions
USA Stampers Anonymous and Ranger

If you are a retailer who has recieved delivery of my stamps, let me know and I will link you. And don't forget I just love to see what you do with them.

And I thought I would do a little give away. You remember the artwork, that I made into a commemorative ticket for Tim's visit..??  Well I had a few extra printed just in case of any mishaps etc..and so I thought I would give one away each day until they are gone. I have defaced Tim's face on all of them, lol. He is hilariuous as Elvis and even funnier with a Bob Ross afro..!!! If you fancy owning one you just need to leave me a comment on each days post. At the end of every day I will pick a winner and post it out to you.

All of you going to a workshop with Tim at the Artsy Crafty Event, you are in for a fabulous time. Enjoy yourselves very muchly and remember to breathe..!!

Enjoy xx

news from the sick bed.....

Yup I have the lurgy...obviously nowhere near as bad as the dreaded man flu...but enough to send me to my bed. Under great sufferance of course.!!! but I know its for my own good so am behaving myself, lol.

Here's the rest of the photos from Stitches.

We started off Saturday with the first of our Retailer workshops. We even had Mario crafting at one point and here's the piccies to prove it.

Everyone hard at work on their canvas's.

                                         

The lovely Jayne from Personal Impressions joining in the fun.

I taught the second canvas

Tim taught Canvas 1 & 3. Here's all 3 of them together.

We even made Alain join in.

He's quite good really, he even made fancy patterns with the tiny attacher...!!!

We taught over 120 retailers and had a fabby time. It was lovely meeting you all.

We then whizzed round to the stand to help them set up.

Well they set up and I did my usual.....Art Journaled....lol...

Sunday was the first day of the show, and we set off on out marathon demoing sessions.

Tim and I had a lot of swapping stations around, and every time he came onto mine I had sprayed everything with Colourwash, and I mean EVERYTHING, LOl

Right at the end here is the wonderfully giddy Karen, from Kazzelcrafts, on a first time visit. Ahhh remember the days..???

And my biggest achievement of the weekend was converting the lovely Kelvin . He was a disbeliever of the highest order, dragged around the trade show by his wife Sarah under much sufferance. He didn't seem to understand all this messy, painty, inky malarky till he landed in front of my lair ( oops sorry , demo stand). Well, I started to demo and explain, and he started to splutter out his objections, when all of a sudden the light went on in his eyes and BINGO !!!! he was hooked. He understood and quizzed me on everything to do with journaling. Yayy, love it when that happens.

They only live 40 Min's away from me so hoping to see him on a class shortly. You hear that Kelvin..????

Monday was sad goodbyes, as the lads headed off up to QVC for the TSV. Did you get yours??

Here's some behind the scenes for you...

 Here's the little beauty. Hope you got yours, as it was limited edition and exclusive to QVC UK...!!!

As you well know, the boys all blame me for any tomfoolery and mucking around. So whats their excuse here then, seen as I was over 200 miles away.??

Ben and I came home on the train, which was soooo relaxing. I journaled all the way as usual!! and yesterday was straight back into it, teaching kiddies all day and tackling the mountains of paperwork we had managed to accumulate.. No rest for the wicked.

But today I have gracefully admitted  defeat. I had to nip into town on the way home for some things for the weekends Ranger 3 workshop and just sort of fell into W H Smiths, by accident, of course.!!! And there just happened to be all the new additions of the high end glossies I use in my work. And they just happened to , sort of, follow me home and are now residing on my bed, next to me, ready for perusal and cutting out. Well if I'm going to behave I have to have something to do , don't I.??

Enjoy xx