Resistance is Futile …

I have to apologise – I am WAY behind on processing challenges.  I didn’t realise just how behind I had got, so I’m having a blitz and getting caught up.  That means there are going to be some lucky people getting their long overdue prizes very soon.  The winners for July and August have been announced – check out the Winners page to see if it’s you!  September and October will follow once we make sure we have any postal entries photographed.

November’s challenge is up now – it’s a technique challenge this month, resist techniques!  And I promise I’ll get the winner announced before Christmas!

Christmas Party – Save the Date

Did you know that we have a “What’s On” page here on this blog?  It’s just one of the ways we try to keep you informed about what’s going on in the shop, but by far the best way to stay up to date is to sign up to our email newsletter.

You can find a sign up box on the Graphicus website near the top left of the screen.  We often include in-store vouchers or special offers in our emails, so don’t miss out!

Anyway, in case you missed the update to the What’s On page, I’ve repeated it here as we are all getting rather excited about our Graphicus Christmas party and think that it’s going to be a pretty special one.

Friday 4th and Saturday 5th December 2009 – Graphicus Christmas Party

Come and join in our Christmas crafting celebrations. As well as the usual suspects, we will be joined by Joanna Sheen who will be demonstrating her latest CDs including Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady and the Royal Horticultural Society Collection. We’ve had a sneak peek of some of the newer designs and there are some lovely images which will complement some of our floral and botanical stamps very well. Joanna is a lovely person, an entertaining demonstrator and we are thrilled to have her coming to Graphicus.

Lynn, Lesley, Annette and I will be mixing it up with stamps from Clarity Stamps, Crafty Individuals, Tim Holtz, Studio 40, Inkadinkado and of course our own Elusive Images stamps, including a special preview launch of some brand new designs from our Spring 2010 collection. And that’s just the stamps! Throw in inks, paints, glitters, flowers, ribbons, punches, the Cuttlebug and Cricut, some brand new papers and several large dollops of creativity and you’re sure to find something to inspire you during the day.

We will have ideas for those last minute Christmas cards, ideas for hand made Christmas gifts and some lovely ideas to make your mantlepiece or Christmas table look beautiful.

And I haven’t even mentioned David’s Christmas buffet lunch yet …

The event is free and you don’t have to book, though we may need to take bookings for lunch to help David with his planning. You can leave a comment here or ring Judith to book lunch – call 01833 695958 during office hours.

Look forward to seeing you there!

October Challenge – Gothic Glory

This month’s challenge is GOTHIC GLORY

This month’s colour scheme is BLACK PLUS ONE OTHER COLOUR

With Halloween becoming more popular amongst crafters, we have set a challenge theme this month that can be interpreted in a delightfully spooky way.  If you’re not into that kind of thing, then the theme will also cover architecture, history, or even making your project in the shape of a Gothic arch.  As always, we look forward to seeing what you come up with, and if you are posting ATCs for the Graphicus Guild swap, please remember to keep it flat or include extra postage.

I don’t know why, but Lynn and I have both been drawn to Halloween this year and I really enjoyed making my Basement Cat album for Basil which has a definite Halloween flavour.  I have also made a Spooky canvas which is in this month’s Guild newsletter.

Have fun with this one.

Retreat Sold Out

Thank you to everyone who has booked – the November Paradise Weekend Retreat is now completely sold out.

Don’t worry, we have another one planned for April next year – we don’t have the final date yet, but it’s looking like the weekend of the 9th or 16th of April 2010.  You can register your interest with Judith now and you will be the first to get the info when that one is finalised.  Please put APRIL RETREAT in the subject line of your email or it may go into her junk mail folder and she won’t see it.

Don’t forget, it’s the Graphicus Open Days this weekend – two days packed full of demonstrators, five of us altogether working with a huge range of products, including.

• Melt Pot
• Artylicious CDs
• Clarity stamps
• Cuttlebug
• new Pendant dies from Spellbinders
• Cricut
• Tim Holtz stamps and products
• Grungeboard and Grungepaper
• Studio 490 stamps by Wendy Vecchi
• Elusive Images Christmas stamps
• Crafty Individuals stamps (brand new in stock)
• Glimmer Mists

We have lots of new stock, including Martha Stewart punches, EK Success punches, Floradoodle and Prima flowers including the most divine sets called gallery roses.  There’s also a couple of different packs of plain white flowers which are perfect for colouring with Glimmer Mists, Shimmerz, etc.  Then there’s the new ribbon assortment – one of the treats of visiting the shop in person is the ability to buy ribbon by the metre and I can pretty much guarantee there’ll be at least a metre missing from each roll by the time it makes it into the shop …

For all of you who can’t make it to our shop, we really do try our hardest to get all these exciting new products onto our website as soon as we can, so do keep checking.  You can keep up to date with what is new on the Graphicus Blog – there’s a ‘What’s New‘ page which Carrie uses to let you know what things have been added recently.

So hope to see you on Friday or Saturday!

Paradise Weekend Retreat

At last, all the details of our weekend retreat are online – see the tabs at the top – just click on the one that says Retreat and you will find all the info, costs, how to book etc.

Spaces are going fast though ….

Melt Pot workshop

I was lucky enough to take part in Judith’s Melt Pot workshop on Saturday – and look at all the fabulous jewellery we created! Click on each image for a larger version.

If you attended the workshop and have your own blog with more pictures of the items you created, please leave a message with a link to your blog so we can all see your items. (I’ll be posting up my other beads later this evening – there’s a link on the right hand side to my blog).

If you missed this one, then we have plenty more workshops for you to come along to, a full list is on the Graphicus workshops page. We hope to see you soon!

August Challenge Card

Am I allowed to enter my own challenge?  Because this card fits the bill for the August colour challenge – complimentary or opposite colours, in this case blue and orange.  The flower has been coloured with Copic markers and it’s just one layer.  The shading makes it look almost like the yellow is a separate decoupaged layer.  There’s a touch of orange stickles in the middle and it’s been mounted onto card that has been brayered with a Big ‘n’ Juicy inkpad, then spritzed with water.  The greeting is actually a sticker which I have edged with the chisel end of a Copic marker to tie it in with the colourscheme.

There’s still plenty of time to enter the August challenge and it could be your lucky month – remember there’s a gift voucher up for grabs each month.  The other challenge theme this month is Christmas and if you’re wondering what to use for your hand made cards this year, you must take a look over on the Elusive Images blog – too much gorgeousness to choose from …

June Winner

Congratulations to Julie – winner of our June Challenge.  Boy was this a tough one, I was really torn between several and the standard is just way up there in the stratosphere.  In the end though, Julie’s shrink plastic necklace and box earned her the winning place.  Well done Julie, I’ve emailed you already.

Don’t forget to visit the Challenge pages to see previous winning entries and this month’s challenge.

Christmas is coming … you’re invited!

On August 19th, 5.30pm – 8.00pm, we are inviting you to come along to an exclusive launch event of the new Elusive Images Christmas stamps.  We have the lovely David providing refreshments and myself and Lynn will be demonstrating with the new stamps.  We have got some really lovely designs this year, I’m sure there will be something to tempt you.

This is a ticket only event, with tickets costing £5.00 each.  However, you will probably get all of that back and then some, as all visitors will receive a discount voucher to spend in the shop on that evening, plus you will be able to take advantage of some very special introductory pricing on the new stamps.

If you would like to attend, please contact Judith during office hours on 01833 695958 and she will be able to book your place for you.  I hope we see you there!

Colour theory

The July and August challenge colour schemes are not specific colours this time, but are based on colour theory.

July’s Colour Scheme is TWO COLOUR HARMONY and August’s scheme is TWO COMPLEMENTARY COLOURS.

I am often asked about colour and how I put things together and I responded to the questions by writing an article on colour theory for the Graphicus Guild Newsletter last year.  It is one of the most frequently requested back issues and it’s obvious that there are a lot of people who struggle with putting colours together.

Well I have decided to make the article available as a free download for you in the hope that it will help make the world a more colourful place.

Please don’t distribute or reproduce this copyrighted document.  Teachers, etc, please don’t use it in classes, articles, blog posts, etc – this is  for your personal use.  Feel free to direct people back here to this  blog so they can download it themselves.  If you want to link to this article on your blog, the link you need is
http://graphicus.wordpress.com/2009/07/02/colour-theory/
You will need Adobe Reader version 8 or later to be able to read the file.  If you click on the link below, your browser may open it, or you may be prompted to save it first.

COLOUR THEORY BY GLENDA WATERWORTH

I hope this inspires you to have a go at the challenges over the next two months.

Two Colour Harmony involves choosing two colours that are close together on the colour wheel.  This could be red and orange, blue and turqoise or even two shades of the same colour.

Two Complementary colours requires you to choose two colours that are opposites on the colour wheel.  The possibilities are varied as blue and orange could be a duck egg blue and a rich terracotta, or it could be a bright turquoise blue with metallic copper.

Have fun with the colours and don’t forget the other challenge themes too – INSPIRED BY THE SEA this month and thinking ahead, next month it’s CHRISTMAS (red and green are complementary colours you know!).

If you want to take part in any of our challenges, you can click on the Challenges tab at the top of the page or click here to go straight to July’s challenge.