Paris in the spring time!

A little update since I haven’t posted in a while. I have been trying to organize my storage space. I did however take time out last weekend (4 whole days) to go to Paris. Despite the freezing cold weather the change of scenery was most welcome. I managed to tackle numerous metro changes entailing kilometers of walking and the most tiring for me the stairs.

I managed to pack in lunches and dinners with family, cinema  - The Place Beyond the Pines - in English - (excellent BTW), a trip to Shakespeare and Company, the iconic English bookshop, a photographic Exhibition, a visit to Les Ateliers de Paris for the arts and trades open day and, on Sunday morning, take in the Eileen Gray exhibition at Beaubourg (Centre Pompidou)

The main reason for going to Paris was to visit Version Scrap, which for those of you who don’t know, is a big 3 day Scrap event held every April in the Parc Floral of the Château de Vincennes.

Version Scrap Paris

Château de Vincennes

I’m not really a 12 x12 guy, prefering tags, inking, stamping, painting, journaling, card making and doing minis, so I was a bit apprehensive about going. Leandra from PaperArtsy send me invitations so I seized the opportunity to do a class, meet Leandra, try out the Fresco paints and see what else was on offering at the show.

It was predominantly scrapbooking but there was a fair amount of stands offering merchandise for mixed media, embellies and the usual paper and die cuts. Fiskars were there with their new machines AdvantEdge for edge punching and Fuse Creative System  for stamping & leterpress, impressive solid and versatile machines, just a pity that their designs are often not that appealing. 

For those of you looking for feet, drawer handles and closures for Cartonnage the Atilolou stand was a must but there were so many people cramming in that I only got close to the merchandise once at the preview evening, for the rest of the weekend it was impossible. Thankfully the sell on-line, so will be filling my basket there. 

Beautiful closures for my cardboard boxes

I bought loads of Fresco Paints and PaperArtsy Stamps, especially the Jofy collection, which we used in Class and in the Make and Take. I'll be trying out all the techniques I learned from Leandra and Lin Brown (if I can remember them).

Make & Take

This is made from a Tando Creative Arabian style Layered Arch Frame (using only one frame)

Painted with Fresco Acrylic Chalk finish paints

stamped with Jofy #11  from the Jofy collection by PaperArtsy Stamps,

 and finished with Treasure Gold

I didn't get time to finish the class project casue I had to leave in time to get the train home, but here is a picture of the midway stage, before "white washing"

More on this project as it comes along!

An all together fun weekend. special thanks to Leandra, Mr PaperArtsy, Lin Brown and Sally Cendral (traductrice hors pair)

Nearly forgot, My 5 seconds of fame (at 1:40)