craft class Archives - Felicia Thomas

In Craft

Summer Art Class

Despite the wind and rain in Kerry (cats and dogs I tell you!) it’s time for summer art class.

There was nothing else for it today, it lashed rain all day. Not what you expect for the first of August, but it was a perfect day for staying inside and getting the paints out.

This morning’s class was fun, Eva and Megan love art and are very sure of their colour choices. They were in the first kids class I taught four years ago, they still have the aprons we made!

We used 20 x 5″ stretched canvases, and introduced some new products such as heavy body acrylics, Mod Podge and Gelatos. If you’ve used these you know that the Mod Podge acts as a sealant .When you add Gelato on top you can move it with your fingers or a wet brush, so you can shade and blend colours.

Here are the paint layers.

Time for some detail.

The girls used Gelatos to shade the features of the faces and to add tone to the hair.

The finished pieces.

I love how they turned out! It was a pleasure as always to spend the morning with these two.

Thanks for coming girls.

Felicia xx

02/08/2016 By felicia

In Craft

The Most Amazing Class Ever!

The Most Amazing Class Ever!

Last Saturday the alarm went off at 4am.

There was a very good reason for this, I had to be on the first flight to Birmingham to take part in a class given by Mr. Tim Holtz. Who? well this post won’t be nearly as exciting as I had hoped if you just asked that question. If you are a paper crafter or mixed media artist I am pretty sure that amongst your stash there is something that he has designed (if it says ‘Distress’ on the label that’s a big clue).

So, I arrived nice and early, met up with Kate and Julie and waited for the class to begin. Kate and Julie had both met Tim and Mario several times, (I had met Tim once many years ago and as it was the last day of a trade show he was tired and understandably so over smiling at the crazy woman who stood grinning like a Cheshire cat in front of him) so I was ridiculously excited when he came out and said hello to us!

The were several new products that we were working with, Collage medium, Opaque texture paste, brushes, the wooden frame and most exciting, the new Distress Crayons.

Mario made sure that we had everything we needed, he is just so lovely! Tim gave us direction and information about the products and then just let us have fun – the three hour class seemed to pass in about thirty minutes!

(Excuse the fuzzy photo, I took it with my phone – this man is ridiculously patient when it comes to having his photo taken!)

Background layers

Embellishments ready – its so hard to think of a word, thank you Kate for giving me an extra ‘D’!

The finished project.

The Gang…

This is Julie and I pretending to be good!

with Tim and Mario

This is a terrible photo but its the only one that Kate got into!

Sadly, it was all over so quickly, we were back on the plane at 2.30pm. I had to catch a train from Dublin but missed it by about 5 minutes…… so I went to a nearby hotel, ordered a bowl of pasta and a glass of wine and thought about what a great day it had been.

p.s. The Distress Crayons are fab…. I don’t say that about a lot if products, but I will definitely be getting more of these. Think Gelatos crossed with lipstick, love them!!

I hope you enjoyed your weekend too,

F xx

25/02/2016 By felicia

In Felicia the Artist

My new paper love…..

I don’t say this often, but I think this is my favourite paper line ever!
I am very fussy about which new paper lines I actually like, I don’t like them too twee, I don’t like them too pastel or too bold, usually I prefer to buy individual 12×12’s because I only like half the designs in a stack (told you i’m fussy!)

But I love, love, love every paper in this, and i’m about to ring the shop to save me another pack because I think I need a “spare”!
This photo isn’t great, its a bit dark but look it up – its fab, fabby, fab!

I used it to make an altered diary, my aim this year is to be more organised so a pretty diary will help (I hope!) Here is a sneek peak…..

You are only getting a sneek peak because this is my project for next months Scrap ‘n’ Yap. I was delighted to be asked to teach it, it is on Sunday February 3rd at the Cork International Hotel (I think thats what its called, its the big one at the airport) I will put up more details when i’m sure of the time etc.

The day before Scrap ‘n’ yap, I will be in Dungarvan co. Waterford with the lovely ladies over there for the first Scrapzville craft class of the year.
There will be a couple of mini layouts, I’m liking these recently, quick and easy but all together they look great, and a couple (or three or four) cards. Lots of paper, embellishments and pretty bits.
If you’re anywhere near there and would like to go, let me know, its from 10-4 and the kit costs €32.

Again, not a great photo, but these papers we will be using for the class.

16/01/2013 By felicia

In Felicia the Artist

Christmas class…

Yes, I said it, and its only Rememberence Day! todays class had a Christmas theme, I wasn’t sure if we would fit another one in before the end of December so it had to be done. Plus, when I was looking for papers for this kit I found Kaiser Crafts Twig and Berry collection and went a bit nuts over it!
Those of you who know me know that i’m not huge on Christmas papers, but these aren’t red and green and covered with Santas, they are Autumnal colours with subtle festiveness.

I can’t believe that I forgot to take photos of the class!
We were in “Just Desserts” in Killarney, so the coffee break was delicious!!! Jacinta, Ann, Valerie, Robin, Kathrine, Noreen and Claire all helped make the class great fun, I hope they were pleased with the albums they made.

This was it, in the kit above you can just about see a bronze, antique looking heart, I hadn’t attached mine when I took the photo – but I will because some ladies in the class did and it looked fabulous!

Here are some inside views so that you can see the papers.

I want wallpaper or fabric like that !!

So, thats it – a big, huge thank you to all the ladies who came today and especially to Jessica and Mike in Just Desserts, they will be hoovering glitter off the stair carpet for a while!!

I hope all you ladies in Dungarvan like the album because this is what we’re making on December 1st!! I will make it an event on Facebook but you can message me if you’re interested.

Now, i’m going to unpack the car and relax!

11/11/2012 By felicia

In Felicia the Artist

Tuesday.

Good morning,

Last night I went to the Rural Business 2012 prize giving, there were 4 prizes for the South Kerry group and 24 shortlisted, there had been 89 entries so I suppose to be one of the shortlisted was quite good. I had no illusions that I might win with my quilt idea (which was entered for me by the way!) but when they were opening the envelope it was more tense then the XFactor final I can tell you!! Everyone was secretly practising their acceptance speeches……

When I heard that last years winner invented a contraption to put on the back of young horses when training them so that the rider wouldnt be thrown off and maybe paralysed, I realised the gig was up!! Sweet as my quilt is its not a life saving device.

But, the speakers were really interesting and it was nice to meet people and everyone had dressed up so it was very glam!

This morning i’m off to Kenmare to see if I can find a room for kids craft classes and then its back to the grindstone getting the kits ready for Sunday ( I know, its a hard life isn’t it?!) So far i’ve made two different designs and I can’t decide which one to go with….. but fear not, there will be a plan and it’ll be pretty!

The Knit n Stitch show was great this year, Kate and Mike from Create with Kate are lovely and there were lots of people I knew wandering round. There was fabric, fabric, more fabric, ribbon, buttons, paper, beads….. so much temptation!!

here is a little snippet of the papers for Sunday…. A bit Christmasy, but not really, I love them!!

06/11/2012 By felicia