Wednesday 29 June 2011

WOYWW108

Hi there
Yes, I know it's late but technically it is still Wednesday so I am not late even if I feel late!
I have spent a couple of days in my studio but ran out of time to tidy so it is up to it's usual chaos plus mess....
I have also had to put a disguise on the thing I am working on at the moment as I do not want to share it until it is finished (But it is looking pretty good so far so please be patient!)
 Because my desk is a state I thought I'd show you one of the shelves I store some of my paint and inks on.
Nice and handy for easy access.
And then lastly, I am still busy working on this little canvas but I am at a crossroads as to what to do next with it: any ideas?
That's me and my workdesk this week, what's on yours? Do pop over to Stamping Ground to share in the fun.
Bless you in your creative journey.

Tuesday 28 June 2011

Grungy Monday 13 - Alcohol inks

Hi there
Back again!
Over at Studio L3 it's Time to re-visit Alcohol inks with Tim. Check the video from Tim HERE and check out Linda's blog HERE for all the Grungy Monday details.

I pretty much followed the technique on the video to do my tag......
I used Juniper, Sandal, Purple Twilight and caramel ink and gold mixative to do the background onto gloss card. I overstamped with the harlequin stamp from the mini muse stamp set in dusty concord distress ink.
I cut two strips of copper finish sheet (Mine is actually plastic!), embossed one and used the same inks to colour.
Stamped the umbrella man in black on the copper and cut out, added the sentiment and a bit of chain and tag to finish.

Be blessed in your creative journey today.

Boxing week at Try it on Tuesday

Good morning everyone.
Glorious sunshine in my neck of the woods so I hope it's the same where you are.
Over at Try it on Tuesday it's altered box week, sponsored by The Craft Barn, so hope you can join us for it.
Here is my box in a bit more detail
 I painted a plain paper mache heart box pinky red and stamped in sepia over it. I coloured some lace ribbon with dusty concord distress ink and attached to the side of the lid and the base of the box with double sided tape. The flower was made following the tutorial HERE and sprayed with purple ink to darken.
I glued some book pages to card and die cut the butterflies before colouring with the dusty concord distress ink and some purple stickles.
Do pop on over to see my teamies brilliant boxes too. Have a brilliant day, I'm back to the studio to finish my grungy Monday entry so I'll see you later peeps........
Good Morning every one.
I can't believe I have just done my last post for The Artistic Stamper. Still, it was fun, I've done an altered frame so if you want to please do pop on over HERE to see it. Here's a peek.
Have a great day........ see you later.

Monday 27 June 2011

Katzelkraft blog

Hi there
It's my turn to share over at Katzelkraft so if you are interested to see a clean and simple scrapbook layout that I did do pop on over HERE.
Here's a sneaky peek
These stamps are available exclusively in the UK from The Craft Barn as well as direct from France.

Hope you have a lovely day.

Thursday 23 June 2011

Couple of challenges... Simon Says and Grungy Monday 12

Hi there
It's been quite a while since I got round to entering two of my favourite challenges so I decided that enough was enough and this week I'll make it happen......
Firstly, Studio L3 and Linda's wonderful weekly grungy Monday challenge using Tim Holtz techniques. All the details for the challenge are HERE and the Tim Holtz technique used is HERE
So here is my entry I used cosmo cricket paper for the tag, green paint instead of espresso. I did not have a suitable stamp design so I cut a freehand mask from paper and  used that.
Some of the details so you can see the patterned paper through. I also fed a strip of the paper through the Dymo to create the ribbon.

Then I Did this Tag for the Simon says show us your metal challenge

I used some of my hand done paper for the base tag, then a stamped and inked piece for the top section.
I used vintage tape and a pin for the top with a tiny rose (Nightmare to make!)

The frame is metal from a belt picked up at a boot fair , coloured with gold rub n buff to disguise the original silver finish.
Idea-ology sentiments to finish off.
Have a lovely rest of the day.....

Wednesday 22 June 2011

WOYWW107

Goodly day evverone
Desks of the world unite today over at Stamping Ground for your day is here; big and small, short and tall we do want to see them all!
I've had to shift some stuff out of the way so you only get to see the detritus of creativity! However there are a couple of things that may be of interest.......
Like this tin of matchboxes perhaps? Ready and waiting for the magic to happen. (Just a heads up for you, in July I thought I'd do an altered matchbox swap with the theme "My life in a box" so if anyone's interested in participating do keep an eye out for the details in a later post)
Over the weekend I came across this dinky little set of dominoes, you can get an idea of just how small they are by the matchbox in front..... aren't they great?
Then, last week you may remember this tag was in progress, well I got it finished too so thought you may like to see it
You can't see the acetate butterflies properly in the light but they give a lovely soft feel and the rose is a Katzelkraft stamp cut and made  into the rose, liberally covered in perfect pearls!
Then lastly here is my charm cupboard with the new addition..... good news is that there are more to come as I've signed up for another of Roni's charm swaps!
So that's my space this week.
Hope you all have a gloriously creative day and be Blessed in your art

Tuesday 21 June 2011

Grunge Paper at The Barn and TioT Sun

Good morning everyone.
I've been looking forward to sharing this for a while!


Over at The Craft Barn the Product of The Week is Grunge paper/board. I love this stuff for it's flexibility so had great fun doing this...... my medieval book. There is a step by step on The Craft Barn blog HERE so do pop over and take a look if you can. It's pretty simple to create but the effect is fab.
Hope you like it.

It's also time for a new challenge over at Try it on Tuesday. This week it's a freestyle week so you can create a card, box, altered item or like me, a tag..... as long as it has the sun on it somewhere! Which is pretty appropriate as today here in the UK it is the first day of summer......

I used lovely hot colours from Ranger's colourwash range. The stamps are Tim Holtz and to create the sun I used a rose moulded out of UTEE with some gilding flakes added. The team over at TioT have been busy with inspiring sample so hope to see you there and look forwards to seeing your take on the challenge.

Monday 20 June 2011

Birthday card

Hi there,
Hope you all had a fab weekend. We've had a busy but fun weekend. My youngest daughter celebrated her sweet sixteen yesterday so of course we had to do something.... We went down to the beach at Bexhill and wandered through the pavilion and sat in a sheltered place to have a picnic.... though the wind was up the sea looked fab; I do love it when there are proper crashing waves!
Still, I'm here to share a Katzelkraft project with you so here is the card I made for Shenay's 16th

 I Stamped the main image (KTZ70) onto white glossy card using black. Matted onto blue card.I used a piece of my hand made paper matted onto blue to create the background (This is the "reverse" side of the finished sheet)
To create the flowers I covered a piece of paper with a thin layer of decopatch modelling paste. Heated with a heat tool and lightly pressed the inked stamp into it and set aside to dry.
I cut and shaped a few and carefully placed them over the main image to hide the man! I lastly added some micobeadz to the centre. I like the way these flowers turned out and can see that I'll be having plenty of fun with the paste as this was the first time I've used it and the results were great.
If you have not checked out Katzelkraft yet, you really should as they have some fabulous and original stamps. In the UK they are sold exclusively through The Craft Barn.

Hope you all have a lovely day and are blessed in your creative expression.

Friday 17 June 2011

Butterflies and dragonflies at The Stamp Man

Hi there everyone,
I hope you are having a good time today. It's time for a new challenge at The Stamp Man where our newest member of the talented DT, Angela is hosting
We are looking for your projects incorporating butterflies and/or dragonflies.

Here is my offering
I started out by stamping a piece of white card with the Stone Relief border stamp in various distress inks, firstly from top to bottom then adding a different colour and going the opposite direction. This stamp makes a really great background. I cut a piece of clear acetate to size and stamped the dragonflies in brown Stazon onto it. I attached it to the background with some glossy accents (behind the place where the top piece was to be added)

To do the top I stamped the stone relief border in brown stazon and inked with distress inks
I made relief tiles using some old scrabble tiles, embossing with Moonglow embossing powders in teal obsidian, stamping the lace stamp from Tim Holtz purely random stamp set and edging with gold paint.
Hope you enjoy it and have a wonderful day.

Thursday 16 June 2011

Embossing pastes at The Craft Barn

Good morning everyone, just a quick little post...... Over at The Craft Barn The wishing well is all about Dreamweaver stencils and embossing pastes.
Yesterday Michelle did some stunning samples and step by step tutorials and this morning Isa and I have a couple more ideas for you.
This is my card but I hope you'll pop over to The Craft Barn and check out all the other inspiration there.
Be blessed in your creative journey today. I'll hopefully be able to get some time in my studio later today to play just for me.......

Wednesday 15 June 2011

Wednesday again.....

Only one thing is important on Wednesday and that all happens HERE at Julia's place...... WOYWW of course so here's my desk today.
Full of the usual suspects and in the middle so that I do not forget to photo it again the PIF I received from Kate.

Isn't it fabulous? Thanks a million. It's going into my cupboard of charms to inspire me.


In the middle top you can see some tags, finished and in progress, also some shrunk elephants! These were left over from some key rings I made for my daughter and some of her friends.

I've also been experimenting with some Tando Creative masks. Really enjoying these two as they are just the right size for tags!
Well, I unfortunately have to head off to a LOOOOONG day at work so I hope to get to see some of your spaces later tonight.
Until then, be blessed in your creative journey.

Tuesday 14 June 2011

Contributing at The Artistic Stamper - session 2

Today is my second project for The Artistic Stamper. I made a little album using some of their great stamps. I'd love to share it with you so hope that you will pop over to their place to take a look!

So, here's a little teaser for you......want to see more.....you know where to go!
Be blessed in your creative journey today.

Butterflies

Good morning everyone
This week over at Try it on Tuesday it's tag week and the theme is butterflies. There's loads of inspiring samples from my fellow team-mates so I hope you will pop over and take a look.
Here is my tag.
The colours are not too great, darn camera but still. I used two tags, the bottom one is partly embossed before adding some random paint with a pearl paint dabber. When it was dry some sanding before adding colours in blues and purples.
The second tag was just coloured and stamped in forest moss
I made the flower from a piece of paper I made using the tattered floral die and also a grunge rose for the middle.
The butterfly is chipboard and I triple embossed with normal embossing powders in purple and stamped with a Tim Holtz atc stamp.
Hope you enjoy your day, I'll be here a couple of times today as there's a lot going on!

Monday 13 June 2011

My Monday at Katzelkraft

Good morning everyone
It's my turn to share over at the Katzelkraft blog.
I've done this card and I hope you'll pop over to take a look and leave some love! I've also shared full step by steps on making the background and the flower
Here's a sneaky peek to whet your appetite
Be blessed and I hope to be back later......

Saturday 11 June 2011

Paper Transformation Tutorial as promised.

Hi there everyone
As I promised at the Extravaganza; here is the step by step paper transformation I demonstrated though be warned, there are tons of pictures.......... There are 3 stages to this process but the third one is optional.
To begin step one you need your non stick craft sheet, A4 copier paper, distress stains in the colours of your choice and water. I'm using Walnut Stain, Forest Moss and Fired Brick for this tutorial.
 Liberally scribble  the distress stains over the paper (Don't be shy!)
Spritz liberally with water until your paper looks something like this
 Fold and scrunch the paper into a ball until you have a soggy ball

         (Just a tip, I use another sheet of paper to mop up the distress stain that is on the mat to use later)
                 You need to VERY carefully begin to unfold the paper as it is pretty fragile at this stage.
Then you can either put it outside to dry or dry with a heat gun

 The paper needs to be totally dry for the next stage.


 For stage two you need a clear embossing pad, clear UTEE, tidy tray and heat gun

Swipe the pad over the paper in all directions (the harder you press the more you will cover)


 Sprinkle with Utee as shown and heat emboss as shown.What you will end up with after this is a piece of textured paper which looks and feels nothing like the original copier paper. As a bonus, BOTH sides look great
                                                                                   Front


                                                                          Back

You can stop there or continue to stage 3; for this you will need a distress blending tool, ink and rub n buff gilding wax


Using the tool begin to add colour from the pad over the paper; this emphasises more of the creases and adds some real depth to the paper.
When you have done that then take some rub n buff (I used Autumn Gold) You only need a tiny bit; rub it on your fingers and rub over the paper and highlighting the UTEE  which gives a wonderful shimmer.


So there you have it. All the steps you need to transform a basic paper into something amazing.......
This is great to cover journals, makes the MOST AMAZING flowers with the tattered floral die, great mats for cards etc. It adds great texture.
Hope you give it a go. A lot of the people who saw it at the show have tried it and have told me they're addicted!
I'll post pics of ideas later but til then, be blessed in your creative journey.