Creative Blog Hop

The amazing Monique nominated me (eek) she knows most of my secrets and still answers my posts even my 'thing' hasn't frightened her off. I 'met' Mo when I joined the Rick St. Dennis Elite Design Team. Is this a dream team or what? The images we get to work with are so amazing and Mo is there to make things clearer and has an amazing amount of patience.

The questions I have to answer

 1. What am I working on?
I am taking part in the Smeared and Smudged 31 days of Halloween hop. Yes, that's a different, new spooky project for every day through October. So... it's the beginning of September and I have completed 10 I think I am on track. I am also completing my Design Team Obligations. Who am I trying to kid? They are not really obligations if I have a blast completing them.
I feel so unbelievably lucky to be working with so many talented crafters on Rick St. Dennis's Elite Design Team with access to his wonderful artwork. I am also getting used to Craft Artist 2 I just cannot get my head round their help videos so I am spending ages sussing things out for myself and writing up step by step tutorials for beginners here on my blog and on the Craft Artist beginners facebook site.

2. How does my work differ from others of my genre?
Ummm.. tricky this... perhaps it differs in as much as I like to create a story around an image, especially if the image has so much going on/different dimensions... sometimes Rick's images have a hidden rat or mouse or snake and I see more everytime I colour an image. I sometimes have to haul myself back into the present and not wander off into the distance with a goblin or executioner... I told you I had a 'thing' 


3. Why do you write/create what you do?

Once upon a time I was quite happy cross stitching. I loved the really large intricate pieces found in the Stoney Creek magazine. I saw a couple of cross stitch magazines in the local store and at the back were some requests for penpals. So I wrote a letter to a lovely lady in America and she replied... with a letter in the most beautiful envelope I had ever seen! A lovely stamped image with flowers and everything, all embossed and coloured... I was an Avon lady at the time and one of my customers had a few stamps she no longer wanted and well.......
To begin with I loved the mandala stamps. Stamped and embossed and glittered to within an inch of their lives. Everything pretty pretty. All the cuddly images and new tiny pots of glitter and little flowers all went into my shopping basket. I made lanterns and treasure boxes

 and thought I was happy and contented. A friend told me about a tv program called Create and Craft (With Alan and Barry eek!) I watched it with the sound turned down as I couldn't get my head around 'ikkle poodinnn's' one Christmas and knew I had to look elsewhere.... I found my way to the Cuddly Buddly site and bought some images and from there I visited a few blogs where I found Rick's details on a sidebar. I was directed to his store and WOW!!!

4 How does my creation process work?
Generally I am working on several images at once. Sometimes I can picture where they should be standing or thinking and all that would be around them and colours... but this only works if I stick to all scary or all pretty at a time. Last Creepmas I got in an awful muddle with elves and presents and traps and bauble tripwires.

Now I would like to nominate