CHRISTMAS SALE

All my christmas items are now HALF PRICE in my Etsy shop here.

All cards are now £1.25, shop extra early for next year.

★ Canvas competition ★

I recently visited the Year nine GCSE Textiles pupils of Walkden High School in Salford, Manchester to give a careers talk.  I showcased my University Textiles work, images and samples of my greetings cards from Hallmark cards and some imagery and produced canvas designs from my current job as a Wall art designer.  I hope they found it inspiring, I tried to make the talk as inspiring and visually stimulating as possible with plenty of work to look at and pass around alongside an indepth powerpoint presentation...

I also set a Canvas design competition.  The pupils had to design and create a canvas which included a word, a pattern, a stitch and an object.  The winners would then receive their design printed on to a canvas to keep (3rd - 20x20cm, 2nd - 30x30cm & 1st - 40x40cm)

After working on the canvasses for a couple of months it came to judging time for me and Miss Quinlan (the Textiles teacher).  We were both very impressed with the standard and variety of designs, soooo here goes...

THIRD PLACE...

Georgia

SECOND PLACE...

Grace

AND THE WINNER IS...

Lauren

As I didn't have my blog this time last year I thought I would also show you the canvas competition winners from last year.  The competition was held for three classes so there was a first prize for each class...

Georgia

Holly

Nicole

Out n about in Ramsbottom

Went for a little breezy walk around Ramsbottom yesterday, I would definately recommend visiting the Atelier Rose & Gray Gallery (opposite the urn) It is full of beautiful contemporary prints, original works and cards and gifts.  Featuring the work of local and well known artists including Peter Blake (sgt. pepper album cover)

Peter Blake prints

The lovely window display...

The Gallery staff were very friendly and I received a complimentary glass of mulled wine to warm me up while browsing. 

You can visit the Atelier Rose & Gray Blog and online shop here

I also visited my favourite shop Memories Antiques which is a huge antique shop spread over two floors packed with lots of weird and wonderful treasures

A few things I have bought recently from Memories include...

Fun at the Fair

We had a stall at a local craft fair this weekend, due to bad weather we didn't do as well as expected but was fun anyway and the mulled wine was flowing nicely...

I will be placing leftover items in my NEW ETSY SHOP soon so take a look in the next few days.

instagram Faves

Latest instagram faves...

Latest Instagram Likes

Am going to make a regular feature of my Instagram "likes".  Instagram is a phone app where people from all over the world post their beautiful photos, there are options to use various filters, frames and effects too.

Christmas Craft Fair

I am busy beavering away, preparing for next weekends Christmas Craft Fair in a little village called Grindleton, near Clitheroe in Lancashire.  On our stall we will be selling cards, christmas decorations, pictures, cushions, gifts and stocking fillers.

Come along and say "hello" if you are in the area.

Here are some pictures of my "work in progress"...

I have also opened an Etsy shop called Rankidoodle, I will start selling my cards and gifts after the fair so if you see anything you fancy pop in my shop in a couple of weeks!

Instagram Addict

Instagram is a fab new app which allows you to put nice, vintage effects and frames onto your smartphone photos.  You can then share your photos with other Instagram users or keep them private.  It is a vast and friendly community from all over the world.

Here are some piccys I have given the instagram treatment...

I also use an app called pic frame (69p - only available on iphone, ipad & ipod touch) to create multi images like these...

You can have followers and follow people you like and you can keep a file of images you "like"  here are a couple of pages of images I have "liked"...

If you would like to follow me on instagram my user name is rankidoodle