What could be better than...

...an all-day crop at a Toby Carvery?

I don't know about you, but working full time means that most of my crafting consists of snatched moments before or after work and crafting at the weekend tends to make me feel guilty if I'm at home because I can see the laundry, and the dust that needs dealing with.

As a result, I try to take myself away from the house for a bit of craft time whenever I can.

My friend Suzie (Weasel) belongs to the Eastwood Scrappers and they hold a few of their all-day crops at a Toby carvery. So not only is it a chance to get away from the phone and the housework but it is a chance to meet up with friends and have a lovely roast dinner too (one that I haven't had to cook!).

This week has been pretty hectic so I didn't really prepare for the crop. I have a selection of papercrafting stash in my tote so I just added a selection of printed images and my Spectrum Noir pens.

I didn't manage to make anything during the day but I had a fabulous time just colouring some of Ignacio's wonderful Nicecrane design digi images.

This image is adorable and made me think of how as a child I would curl up in a corner of the sofa with a book...

...I do love ginger hair; don't I...

...and of course green goes well with red hair...

...I wanted the background to stay fairly 'rough'...

...but couldn't resist a splash of aqua to finish it off.
Ignacio sent me some B/W "Milly Molly Mandy" images to 'play' with...

...although these are fairly simplified line drawings...

...it is still possible to use shading to create...

...more depth to the image...

...don't you just love these cuties...

...and this version of 'Milly' was given away as a freebie over on the Nicecrane blog...

...a bit of colouring and we have some more...

...Sun & Sea fun.
I really do love the more detailed B/W images that Ignacio has over on his site and this one is from the "About Fairies and Angels" set...

...and I just love being able to add my own colours...

...although, this image probably took the longest to complete of all the ones that I did at the crop because the lighting in the function room isn't that great.
Even though I took a work-light with me...

...it was still quite difficult to see all the elements of the image...

...but I adore the finished result...

...and the twinkle on the wings and the spider's web.
The image came from this set...

...and you can get your very own copy here. If you really don't want to colour it in yourself, don't worry because there is a pre-coloured version that you can obtain here.
This little miss is holding a Wind-flower...

...which I decided to colour in lavender shades...

...red hair again for this little miss. However, have you noticed how dark the 'grass' area is? This was down to the poor lighting and picking up the wrong shade of green.
The dress was coloured using more purply shades...

...which seemed to work well with the lavender of the flower...

...and by using the blender pen on the 'grass', the shading was taken back to a better colour.
This is the image that I started with...

...but there are other flowers available and these also come in either the B/W digi stamp format that you can find here or pre-coloured here.

It was a wonderful day both craft and weather-wise...a bit of sunshine really does do wonders for everyone. If you want to see what the DT have been up to, just hop over to the Nicecrane blog and see the lovely creations that they have been coming up with.......................................................