Hi there

Thanks for popping in. New year, new gear! I thought I’d talk about our Groovi system today. Can you believe it’s been nearly 9 years since we introduced Groovi to the world of parchment? June 2015!! Where does the time go? Linda Williams quickly saw that our Groovi system would breathe new life into parchment craft, something she cherishes and prizes above all else. She has been helping us, advising us, designing and creating for us since those early days. And actually, one of the best things to come out of Groovi for me personally has been the friendship she and I enjoy now. She is a fabulous woman and a great friend. I am very lucky to have her in my life.

Linda developed a range of 1-2-3 plates, to help those of us starting out improve our parching skills, like whitework and colouring. You start on the smaller image, gain in confidence, move onto the next larger image and then finally the largest image. It can be quite daunting learning these techniques on larger images, so the staggered 1-2-3 sampler system is perfect!

But now we have taken those 1-2-3 plates and made them more petite; what we call bijou. And what can I say? These are so so so lovely and delicate!! Perfect for smaller cards and artwork!

Paul will be on Create & Craft tomorrow (Thursday at 1pm & 5pm) with this latest bijou version of a trio of Linda Williams 1-2-3 plates:

There are other 1-2-3 plates from Linda, in both larger A4sq and bijou A5sq – all beautiful, and super versatile.

Here is some inspiration from the design team

I do hope you can tune in to watch Paul tomorrow at 1pm and 5pm, as he puts this new Bijou trio of Linda’a plates through their paces.

Me? I’ve been busy getting ready for Friday’s TV shows! All boxes ticked. I’m on brand new stamps, dies and fabby papers. More will be revealed…

I even had time to finesse a few newly made tiles, and wrap/store them in such a way that they will be nice and flat. Well that’s the theory…here’s the raw start. Made with a diecut newsprint image of one of our Mel’s cool country scenes.

I want to make sets of tiles which tell a story. Or ten. Let me find the dies for you, so you get me. See how these little scenes are like views from the top of a double-decker bus? I’ve started with 6 of the cottage and the cows. Next I’ll move on to the scene with the car, I think. I can feel a story brewing. I LOVE THESE DESIGNS! The story depends entirely on which order you lay the tiles out in! In fact, you could even split the tiles in half down the centre bar, and really go to town on the story-telling! Maybe I’ll write a little book! Once I’ve made all the story-telling tiles.

CLICK HERE if you ’d like to take a closer look at the dies.

Love always

Barb x x x