Thank you very much - a giveaway.

In the corners of the blogosphere I frequent, I had heard whispers about this wonderful book. I bought it with my birthday book token (thanks Mum and Dad) and love it already.

On the back it says: 'This is a book for low budgets and high ambition'. Well. Christine Schmidt suggests you use any old thing to print on, and that working from your kitchen table is just fine, and she gently holds your hand as she takes you through some fairly sophisticated techniques. I am a Christine fan.

I decided to try some stencilling first. With the DIY spirit in mind I used some offcuts of tablecloth plastic from this project to cut the stencil.

The results were pretty blobby and fuzzy. Whilst I completely agree with her about loving the imperfections (as with all things handmade), I found these efforts a little too hard to love. The plastic curled up and did not lie flat enough.

So I bought some acetate which was a little bit of a shame, but I'll use them over and over again as they really did the business. No curling, nice and stiff and flat.

I used Rosewood font and did two stencils, one for the letters and one for the shading. Think it turned out well. 


I learned:

• Less is more (paint on the brush, that is)
• Acrylic paints and no water at all worked best.
• Using a stencil brush is not necessary.
• It's all in the wrist.
• Cats and stencilling do not mix.

One for Mother's Day too:

Next, I am going to try a lino cut and make some bespoke stationary. When I was a little girl that was my favourite birthday present to give. No self-respecting seventh birthday party was complete without a writing set. I'm starting the comeback.


With this in mind, I have three sets of three thank you cards to give away. Just leave a comment by next Thursday (April 14th) and I'll pick the names out from a hat. Thank you!