CANDY WINNERS, AND MORE PRETTIES.....

Hello Lovelies

We do have two candy winners today!  The first two random numbers out of the bag are nos 12, Jane Willis, and 32, Crafty Di.  Would you please email us as soon as you can at: info@craftyindividuals.co.uk  with your addresses, and we will post off your 3 adorable birdie stamps, so you can start playing very soon.  Thanks to all 42 of you who took the time to leave a nice comment, I wish we could reward you all.  We do appreciate you all though, and thanks for the good wishes, and if you ordered the new stamps, we hope you have great inky fun times with them.  Also I'd just like to say to Angelnorth that you may well get your wish in the not too distant future! Ha ha.

Now for a little more birdie inspiration we have this beautiful heart shaped wreath by lovely Helen Chilton - gorgeous, I really love this beauty Helen!

Next is this so detailed and amazing robin by teamie Sarah.  Beautifully stitched and in a beautiful tin (must find the photo of the pretty tin from the outside too!) ....

Great quote as well!

Then what about this stunning card by Sylvie.....

Who says a bluetit has to be blue - he looks adorable in red and yellow too!

On the same show that the new birds were released lovely Lesley created this image in front of your eyes in black and white!  Stunning!...

..... As well as these two simple 'prints' for framing....

Creativity doesn't necessarily have to be complicated you know!

My final image today is by one of our lovely customers called Eriko Yoshitake who used Maria's drawing of a crow in her atmospheric creation...

Oh no did someone mention Halloween?

Hopefully not as I am really looking forward to Spring and Summer first, and it feels very Springlike today - yay - and the snowdrops and daffodils are looking wonderful, and I have some tiny irises in my front garden - yay some more.  What a stunning blue/purple and yellow they are!

Bye for now,
Back soon,
Jean x

A FEW THINGS TO BLOG ABOUT, AND SOME BLOG CANDY TO WIN ...

I do have a few things to mention today.  Firstly, as you will know if you receive our Newsletters, we have some new stamps available now on the CI website.  The stamp images were beautifully drawn by a new artist for us, Maria Kitano, from Belgium.  Here they are (just in case you haven't seen the latest CI Newsletter)....

From the top we have CI-505, Bluebird with Branch and Berries, CI-506, Little Bluebird amongst Blossoms, and CI-507, Perching Bird.  We love them and it seems you do too.  First released on Hochanda recently, we had a very busy couple of shows there, and now released on our website, you have been loving them on there too I'm pleased to say.  All three are great to stamp and then colour with various colouring techniques.  The process is both relaxing and therapeutic, as well as rewarding.  The shading is already there, so you just need to add some colour.

You may be interested to learn some more about our artist Maria, so I have some links for you:

Blog https://mariakitanoart.wordpress.com/
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjoKtAfDeM7jzUaJhU0MNKw
Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com/abstractartm/

We hope to turn lots more of Maria's images into stamps in the future!
  

It's probably worth mentioning at this point that all the stamps on our website are sold unmounted, as probably are all the stamps of ours that you may see on other websites, or in art/craft shops around the world.  This means that you simply get just the red rubber image.  You can mount them in what ever way you choose, or prefer.  On Hochanda we are currently selling all our stamps ready mounted on Stix2 mounting foam.  This foam self clings to an acrylic block and helps you to get a good printed image.  We also sell A4 sheets of Stix2 foam on our website separately if you choose to mount your stamps on the foam.

I now have a few images of makes by the CI teamies with the above stamps, with lots more to follow in other posts by other teamies.  You will find the actual stamps for sale on the CI site HERE...

First though I have two makes by Maria herself with two of the birds stamps she created..

 Makes by Sylvie..

Now one by Flo..

 .... and one by Sandra - I can make the one above and below nice and big...

How cool are they?!

If you would like to win one of two sets of the new stamps we have available, please leave a kind comment at the end of this post.  We will randomly pick two comment owners to win all three new bird stamps one day next week.

The other subject I would like to bring up tonight is about Hochanda itself.  If you follow craft on UK TV on the craft channels you may have realised there is currently something going on.  Lesley Wharton (Chocolate Baroque) has made a statement on Facebook which I will copy and paste below.  We support Hochanda, as does Lesley, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future....

In Lesley's own words - 'Ok, so there has been a lot of rumours and stuff flying around the last few days and we just want to say that Chocolate Baroque is staying put and we will continue to support #Hochanda. After all just over two years ago, when we were a big casualty of the Craft Channel's demise, Hochanda took us under their wing and helped us to get by in those early months when we could easily have gone under. And we have to remember how privileged we are to be invited into your home every month, Hochanda provide the platform for that and, thankfully, you turn on your tv and watch us.

I kind of think we have a three way partnership going on here; our lovely customers, Hochanda and us. I know they say three's a crowd but not in this relationship, we all need each other to be able to do what we do. So all I will say is this, we thank you for your continued support in watching our shows and buying from them, in producing fabulous artwork with the stamps and products we bring you and thank you to everyone in Hochanda for making me, and all your other suppliers, look good on the telly. I think we ALL rock, don't you!'

Enough said I think.

So finally please don't forget to leave a comment to be in with a chance of winning our 3 brand new (unmounted) bird themed red rubber stamps.

Bye for now,
Back soon,

Jean x

p.s.  Oooops links didn't work.  Think I've managed to re-link now, fingers crossed!

JUST FOR FUN.....

Did you see our shows on Hochanda on Monday and Tuesday?  Lots of you did and we had a fabulous and very busy time indeed.  We released 3 brand new stamps by a new artist for us called Maria Kitano, and hopefully we will get the new stamps up on the CI website towards the end of next week.  Malcolm is very busy cooking that rubber, but we managed to steal a day off today, as we heard it was a Steampunk weekend over in lovely Whitby.  So just for fun this post features images taken by Malcolm of some of the Steampunk party participants, followed by some recent atmospheric local seaside photos also by Malcolm....

 .......

    
A change is as good as a rest - so the saying goes!

Thanks for taking a peek,

Back soon,
Jean x

COOL MAKES BY FLO, AND ANOTHER SNEAKY PEEK COMING YOUR WAY...

I re-found these beauties by teamie Flo the other day, and I am delighted to be able to show you them tonight. Made for our last shows on Hochanda, and using CI-296, CI-302, CI-386,  and CI-310, they are delicious....

Thanks Flo.

......And here is the sneaky peek for tonight (from a creation by teamie Sylvie).  As you may have already heard - lol - we have live CI selling shows on Hochanda at 4pm on Monday (4th) and 10am on Tuesday (5th) featuring some fabulous goodies including some new stamps (all already mounted on cling) by a recently new artist for us - Maria Kitano, from Belgium.  We are sure you are going to love her latest illustrations!

We do hope YOU will be watching the CI demos by Lesley and myself..

See you on Monday,
Back soon,
Hugs,
Jean x

p.s. Lesley and Judith also have CB shows at 2pm on Monday and 8am on Tuesday, so we have a very exciting couple of days ahead for all you dedicated crafters out there!  The excitement is certainly building now in CI and CB headquarters, oh yes it is! ............................